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2011 Norway attacks: Perfect opportunity for anti-Christian Politicians & Media to attack Bible believing Christians at the expense of all truth

2012-01-02T13:39:00.000-05:00

Norway's Killer, "Christian Fundamentalism,"
and the Media

LIFEWAY REASEARCH BLOG - By Ed Stetzer - July 23, 2011

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 The Atlantic. 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.

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.

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.

The Atlantic headline shouts, "The Christian Extremist Suspect in Norway's Massacre" and later gives the reason why ...

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 Frank Schaeffer, comparing "Christian fundamentalists" to the Taliban.

Some might say (and with some justification) that this is how Muslims feel (see Salon.com for more on that). 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?" ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.edstetzer.com/2011/07/christian-fundamentalist-and-t.html

See Also:

Anders Berhring Breivik (Norway Killer) - Christian Fundamentalist or Religious Tyrannist?

LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH PROJECT/FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE BLOG - The Blog of Lighthouse Trails Research - July 25, 2011

[...] 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.
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. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=6957

A Christian Response to a Deranged "Crusader"

DEFEND CHRISTIANS.org - July 25, 2011

[...] 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. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://defendchristians.org/commentary/a-christian-response-to-a-deranged-crusader/

Media wrong to label Breivik as a Christian

THE POST-STANDARD, Syracuse, New York [Advance/Newhouse] > The Readers' Page - August 2, 2011

Letter to the Editor: Breivik not a Christian
To the Editor:
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.
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.
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."
Wrong. It makes you someone who likes the perks that comes with union membership but does not want to join.
Breivik is a terrorist, nothing more, nothing less.
- Lance Hillyer
Fayetteville [NY]

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/08/tuesdays_letters_auburn_waste.html#incart_mrt

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Reprint of Frankie Schaeffer's "Christian Jihad"

2011-12-31T18:16:00.000-05:00

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.

Christian Jihad? Why We Should Worry About Right-Wing Terror Attacks Like Norway's in the US

There is a growing movement in America that equates godliness with hatred of our government -- in fact, hatred of our country.

ALTERNET - By Frank Schaeffer - July 23, 2011

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.

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.

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.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the killer wrote:

"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."

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.

Norway is just a first taste of what will happen here on a larger scale.

A HISTORY of VIOLENT ACTION

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.

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.

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.

THE "CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD"

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/151751/christian_jihad_why_we_should_worry_about_right-wing_terror_attacks_like_norway's_in_the_us_

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'Occupy' protests sending sharp anti-Jew message

2011-12-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

WND [WorldNetDaily] - By Bob Unruh - October 21, 2011

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.

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.

But there's also a current of targeting Jews.

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?

"I think that it [the movement] expresses the frustrations that the American people feel," he said.

And the ranking Democrat in the U.S. House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said "I support the message."

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. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=358449

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Pachamama Wants Your Children

2011-10-16T15:48:00.000-04:00

TRUTH X CHANGE - Dr. Peter Jones - May 5, 2011 :: InsideOut article IO 78

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 political force. In January 2011, Morales introduced legislation that grants legal rights to the Earth and provides an ombudsman to hear nature's complaints as voiced by the all-knowing high priests of deep ecology, who claim to be spiritually in touch with Nature!

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.

Bolivia is perhaps the first example of a Marxist state that is religiously, occultically pagan. Is Bolivia a picture of our global future-a spiritual, nature-worshiping collectivist state, where Caesar is Lord? Will ecology be the "power shift" (Van Jones's words to 10,000 young climate activists-to thunderous applause!) that joins pagan spirituality to coercive politics? 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.

You may think me overly sensational. Consider the fact that Bolivia just tabled a treaty at the United Nations, giving "Mother Earth" the same global rights as humans-complete with enforceable laws, by 2014. On April 22, 2011 the UN declared the second International Mother Earth Day, which the White House heralded on Easter weekend in an eight-paragraph statement-while making not one mention of Easter!

The international Pachamama Alliance'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 Pachamama Alliance, 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 Institute of Noetic Sciences, 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.

This agenda is more advanced than we might imagine, thanks to the very spiritual Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev. Their 2002 Earth Charter, 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 Preamble of The Earth Charter 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, "for the first time an international document expressed their [religiously pagan] worldview." For now, the Earth Charter is "soft law," but proponents are working to make it "hard law" for the entire planet.

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 gringo/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).

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.

About the author: Dr. Peter Jones 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.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://truthxchange.com/articles/2011/05/05/io-78-pachamama-wants-your-children/

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Iran's Christians urgently need the West's support

2011-10-15T16:19:00.000-04:00

LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH [Barclay] - By Fleur Brading - September 30, 2011
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. ...
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. ...
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. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8799149/Irans-Christians-urgently-need-the-Wests-support.html

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Algeria: Provincial Official Orders Churches to Close

2011-10-15T14:02:00.000-04:00

CDN / COMPASS DIRECT [Compass Direct News] - May 25, 2011
ISTANBUL - Seven Algerian churches face closure this week after the governor of their province sent them written notice that they were operating "illegally."
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.

"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.
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.
The controversial law was introduced in 2006 to regulate non-Muslim worship. ...

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. ...
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.

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/13314/article_113076.html

Analysis: Mideast Christians struggle during Arab Spring

2011-10-15T13:54:00.000-04:00

REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - June 23, 2011
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.
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.
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. ...

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.
"If there is a change of regime," he said, "it's the end of Christianity in Syria. I saw what happened in Iraq."
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.
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.
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.
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. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=226236

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Obama Should Condemn Anti-Christian Violence in Egypt

2011-10-15T12:56:00.000-04:00

WHITE HOUSE DOSSIER - By Keith Koffler - May 12, 2011

Even as he renews his outreach to Muslims, President Obama should seek to stem the growing tide of violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt by condemning last weekend’s attacks that left a dozen people dead and scores injured.

The attacks, about which Obama has been silent, also resulted in the burning of Coptic Orthodox churches and the destruction of Christian homes and businesses.

The president needs to say more to stem religious violence that creates opportunities for Islamic extremists who want to seize power in Egypt, our most important Arab ally.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Monday “strongly” condemned the violence, saying, “We stand behind the Coptic Christian community and their right to practice their faith in safety and security, free of persecution.”

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Obama is preparing to try to reengage Muslims with a speech, possibly next week, that will make the case that Muslims should “reject Islamic militancy in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death and embrace a new era of relations with the U.S.”

Whether Obama views condemning Muslim violence against Christians as inopportune during the lead up to a renewed outreach to Muslims is unclear. But it’s worth noting that after Obama seemed inexplicably slow off the mark supporting the masses of Iranian protestors two years ago, there was widespread belief that he was concerned about compromising his outreach to the Iranian government.

Obama, though a Christian, seems to view his background, which includes a Muslim grandfather and several years living as a child in Muslim Indonesia, as giving him a special conduit into the Muslim world. But I doubt this type of personal outreach by one man changes the way people view the United States. And it shouldn’t interfere with other aspects of U.S. policy.

Obama commendably condemned a New Year’s Eve church bombing in Alexandria, Egypt that killed 21. But he has said little - actually nothing that I could find - about the religious killings and tensions since then, which included the deaths of 12 people Jan. 30 during a raid of Christian homes in Upper Egypt.

Obama also should speak about about the growing violence against Christians in Iraq, a country where we have some real sway. Four were killed and 171 injured in attacks over the weekend, prompting a reaction from Pope Benedict XVI.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/05/12/obama-should-condemn-anti-christian-violence-egypt/

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.

Christians and Religious minorities fear Syrian Islamists

2011-10-15T10:38:00.000-04:00

THE WASHINGTON TIMES [News World Communications/Moon-Unification Church] - By Ben Birnbaum - September 25, 2011

Syrian Christians and other minorities are scared of potential government influence by Islamic hard-liners if President Bashar Assad falls, U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford says.

“A lot of Christians here are very frightened of it, frankly,” said Mr. Ford, speaking by phone with The Washington Times from the Syrian capital, Damascus.

He also said that many in the minority Allawite Muslim sect, business owners and reformers who advocate a separation between religion and state are also concerned about a rise of political Islam in Syria. ...

As many as 10 percent of Syria’s 21 million people are Christians and an additional 12 percent belong to Mr. Assad’s Allawite sect, a Shiite offshoot.

Mr. Ford said the opposition’s newly created National Council of Syria needs to assure both groups that they would not face persecution by the country’s Sunni majority in any new government. ...

It may be a hard sell for the Christians, many of whom are refugees from Iraq. An independent report, meanwhile, has revealed that nearly 93,000 Christians have fled Egypt since its February revolution. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/25/religious-minorities-fear-syria-islamists/

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.

Missouri student gets in trouble for wearing a religious shirt her school says is vulgar

2011-10-10T12:01:00.000-04:00

“JESUS... HE SCARES THE HELL OUT OF YOU”

KSHB-TV NBC 41/42 KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI-KANSAS [E. W. Scripps Co./Scripps TV Station Group] - By Josh Lucht - March 17, 2011

KIRKWOOD, Missouri - A Missouri student is pulled out of class for wearing a T-shirt she claimed was an expression of religious freedom, but her school says was inappropriate.

The T-shirt reads “JESUS... HE SCARES THE HELL OUT OF YOU”

The North Kirkwood Middle School says shirts with swear words, no matter the context, are not allowed in class. So when Michelle Ramirez wore the shirt to school, the principal told her she would have to change into a different t-shirt because it was a violation of the dress code.

When the school called Michelle's parents, Christina Ramirez, Michelle’s mother stood squarely behind her daughter.

"I got on the phone with Michelle, I told Michelle, 'if you feel convicted to wear the shirt, you go ahead and put it back on," says Christina.

Christina and Michelle both insist the T-shirt does not violate the school’s no-swearing policy for T-shirts because it refers to a place they actually believe in, rather than just using the word as slang.

“I don't think it's a slang word because it's all capitalized, and even though the "hell" is a different color, that it still means the same thing: that he (Jesus) does scare the hell out of you that you're not letting the devil in," insists Christina.

School officials say they don’t have an issue with the message on the shirt, just the questionable meaning of the language on it.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/national/a-missouri-student-gets-in-trouble-for-wearing-a-religious-shirt-her-school-says-is-vulgar1300372839229

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.

Countries With Worst Religious Freedom Grades Are Mostly Islamic

2011-10-10T11:26:00.000-04:00

CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE (CNSN.com) [Media Research Center] - By Patrick Goodenough - August 10, 2011

Muslim-majority countries score worst across a range of measures in a comprehensive new study tracking government restrictions on religion as well as social hostilities involving religion around the world.

The study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, released Tuesday, found that nearly one-third of the world’s population lives in countries where religion-related government restrictions or social hostilities rose significantly between mid-2006 and mid-2009.

Geographically, the Middle East/North Africa region boasted the largest proportion of countries – 30 percent – where official restrictions on religion increased over that three-year period.

Digging deeper, the 117-page report reveals that countries belonging to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) dominate many of the most serious measures tracked at the end of the survey period in mid-2009.

Seven of the ten countries with the highest – that is, worst – grades when it comes to government restrictions on religion were OIC countries – Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Maldives, Malaysia and Indonesia. The other three were China, Burma and Eritrea.

Of the 10 countries on that benchmark index, six are designated by the U.S. government as “countries of particular concern” for religious freedom violations – Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

A separate index in the Pew report graded countries according to levels of social hostility involving religion. Eight of the top ten countries in that index were Muslim-majority states – Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Egypt. The other two, India and Israel, have Hindu and Jewish majorities respectively, and large Muslim minorities.

In an index measuring official interference with religious practice, 18 out of 26 countries (69 percent) whose government “prohibits worship or religious practices of one or more religious groups as a general policy,” were OIC members – Brunei, Chad, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The other eight were Burma, China, Eritrea, Laos, Madagascar, Monaco, Tuvalu and Vietnam.

A grading of countries where conversion from one religion to another is restricted was also dominated by Islamic states, accounting for 25 out of 29 countries listed (86 percent). They were Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Comoros, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

The four non-Muslim countries were Eritrea, India, Israel and Vietnam.

Taking the conversion issue a step further, among 13 countries where there were incidents of physical violence over conversions from one religion to another, 10 (77 percent) were Muslim – Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Comoros, Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria. The other three were India, Mongolia and Nepal.

Sixteen out of 26 countries/territories where “religion-related terrorist groups” perpetrated violence that resulted in ten or more injuries or deaths” were OIC members – Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Palestinian territories, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan and Yemen

The 10 non-Muslim countries were Central African Republic, China, Congo, Ethiopia, India, Israel, Nepal, Philippines, Russia and Sri Lanka. (The report does not provide a breakdown of actual attacks, but in at least some of those countries – India, Israel, the Philippines and Russia – terror activity is largely attributed to Islamist groups.)

Blasphemy, ‘defamation’

The Pew report also examined the issue of “defamation” of religion, tracking countries where various penalties are enforced for apostasy, blasphemy or criticism of religions.

“While such laws are sometimes promoted as a way to protect religion, in practice they often serve to punish religious minorities whose beliefs are deemed unorthodox or heretical,” it said.

It found 21 Muslim countries in that category – Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Western Sahara and Yemen.

The study also found 23 non-Muslim countries where penalties are enforced for such criticism of religion – Austria, Brazil, Burma, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iceland, India, Italy, Malta, Mauritius, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

“Eight-in-ten countries in the Middle East-North Africa region have laws against blasphemy, apostasy or defamation of religion, the highest share of any region,” it said. “These penalties are enforced in 60 percent of the countries in the region. In Europe, nearly four-in-ten countries (38 per cent) have such laws and nearly a third (31 per cent) actively enforces them.”

The report did not, however, draw a distinction between the types of penalties enforced in Muslim and non-Muslim countries for breaching these laws.

A study by Human Rights First, released last March, documented more than 70 cases in 15 countries where the enforcement of blasphemy laws resulted in problems of various kinds since 2007.

Of the 70 cases, only four were not in Muslim countries. They were in Austria (where a woman was fined for “denigrating” Islam during a lecture); India (where nine people were charged over a magazine article said to have injured the sentiments of Hindus); Sri Lanka (where a convert from Buddhism to Islam was accused of offending Buddhism); and Poland (where a provocative rock star was accused of insulting religious sentiments in the predominantly Catholic country).

By contrast, the vast majority of the cases documented in the report took place in Islamic countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan – and included lengthy prison terms and the imposition of the death penalty, as well as extrajudicial retribution such as mob attacks and killings.

‘Repressive’

One country that did not feature in the Pew survey’s country scores was North Korea – not because it is not a problem, but because of difficulties obtaining accurate information in the reclusive Stalinist state.

“The sources clearly indicate that the government of North Korea is among the most repressive in the world with respect to religion as well as other civil liberties,” the report said. “But because North Korean society is effectively closed to outsiders, the sources are unable to provide the kind of specific and timely information that the Pew Forum coded in this quantitative study.”

The religious freedom advocacy group Open Doors has listed North Korea at No. 1 on its annual World Watch List of countries most hostile to Christians for the past nine consecutive years.

The rest of the top 10 on its 2011 list were Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Maldives, Yemen, Iraq, Uzbekistan and Laos. Apart from communist Laos, all are OIC member-states.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/countries-worst-religious-freedom-grades-are-mostly-islamic

Egypt: Christians asked to bow in submission to Allah :: Persecution During "Arab Spring"

2011-10-08T14:54:00.000-04:00

WORLDNETDAILY - By Aaron Klein - February 21, 2011
JERUSALEM - In what Egypt's Christians fear may be a sign of things to come, a senior Islamic cleric asked Christians to bow in Muslim prayer in an act of submission to Allah.
On Friday, famed Egyptian theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a spiritual leader to the Muslim Brotherhood who hosts a popular Islam-themed television show on Al Jazeera, led the Islamic prayer services in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt's uprising.
While he repeatedly offered nods to Egypt's Coptic Christians, unmentioned in most news media accounts of the ceremony was that Qaradawi asked all in attendance, specifically singling out Christians, to bow in Islamic prayer.
A Coptic Christian at the event told WND the request was intimidating.
"Whether he meant to or not, this was asking Christian to bow in an act of submission to Islam and Allah," said the Christian, who asked that he named be withheld.
"There were maybe 250,000 people at the rally. Almost all were Muslims. So when we (Christians) are asked to bow, and we are in the extreme minority in the crowd, it is intimidating."
The Christian witness said thousands of Christians in attendance at the rally did not bow.
A Coptic Christian leader told WND he believes Qaradawi's request may reflect a larger emerging Islamic role in Egypt.
Qaradawi's speech was, in part, focused on political Islam, replete with his quoting verses of the Quran.
While he asked the entire rally to bow in Islamic prayer, he also used his speech to reassure the Christian minority of their place in Egypt, telling the crowd that "in this square sectarianism died."
He discarded the customary Islamic clerical opening of "Oh Muslims," in favor of "Oh Muslims and Copts."
He praised Muslims and Christians for standing together in Egypt's revolution and even hailed what he called the Coptic Christian "martyrs" who once fought the Romans and Byzantines.
Then he asked the Christians to bow in Muslim prayer.
"I invite you to bow down in prayer together," he said. ...
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=266385

Primacy of Islam and Shari'a Law Expected to Remain in Egypt's Constitution

CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE (CNSN.com) [Media Research Center] - By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor - February 21, 2011
An article in Egypt's constitution that affirms Islam as the state religion likely will remain untouched despite hopes among the country's Christian minority that the recent uprising would usher in an era of greater tolerance for non-Muslims.
A committee considering amendments to the 1971 constitution said in a statement Sunday that article II would not be amended, the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported.
Article II reads, "Islam is the religion of the state and Arabic is its official language. Principles of Islamic law (Shari'a) are the principal source of legislation." ...
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/primacy-islam-and-shari-law-expected-rem

In Ethiopia, Muslims burn 69 churches

BAPTIST PRESS [Southern Baptist Convention] - By Melanie Clinton - March 17, 2011
ASENDABO, Ethiopia -- Muslims have killed at least one Christian and wounded several others in anti-Christian violence in western Ethiopia, according to International Christian Concern, an organization that helps persecuted Christians worldwide.
ICC also is reporting that Muslims have burned down 69 church buildings, 30 Christian homes, a Bible school, a Christian orphanage and a church office.
The anti-Christian attacks started March 2 after Muslims allegedly accused Christians of desecrating the Quran, the Islamic holy book. Violence continues to affect residents of the area. During the initial days of the attacks 3,000 Christians were displaced; ICC reports those numbers now have climbed to 10,000.
Although Ethiopian Orthodox churches are predominant throughout the country, at least the first 55 churches burned belong to evangelical denominations, according to Sam Parkman* [Name changed] , a Christian worker who served in Ethiopia from 2007-10. ...
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=34859

Pakistan's minister for religious minorities assassinated

ECUMENICAL NEWS INTERNATIONAL - March 2, 2011
Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistan's Minister for Religious Minorities and the only Christian cabinet member, Shahbaz Bhatti, was assassinated on 2 March outside his home in Islamabad. He was the second high-ranking Pakistan government official murdered this year after expressing opposition to the country's law that makes criticism of the Prophet Muhammad a capital crime. ...
Before escaping, the assassins dropped leaflets around the scene that stated Bhatti was murdered due to his opposition to the blasphemy law. The pamphlets said the Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda were responsible for the slaying. ...
http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-03/pakistans-minister-religious-minorities-assassinated

4 Americans on hijacked yacht dead off Somalia

... sailing around the world since 2004 handing out Bibles

CBS NEWS America [CBS Corporation]/ASSOCIATED PRESS - February 22, 2011
[...] The experienced yacht enthusiasts from California and Washington are the first Americans killed by Somali pirates since the start of attacks off East Africa several years ago. One of the American couples on board had been sailing around the world since 2004 handing out Bibles.
Their deaths appeared to underscore an increasingly brutal and aggressive shift by pirates in their treatment of hostages. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/22/501364/main20034691.shtml

Critics Slam U.S. Government, Media for 'Weak' Response to Anti-Christian Attacks

FOX NEWS [News Corporation/Murdoch] - February 15, 2011
At least 65 Christians have been killed in attacks across the Muslim world in recent months, sparking sharp criticism from human rights groups that charge the U.S. government and media aren't doing nearly enough to speak out against the violence.
Full Report Posted on the Be Alert! Blog
http://morielbealertblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/critics-slam-us-government-media-for.html

Ex-Lebanon Leader: Christians Target of Genocide

CBS NEWS America [CBS Corporation], ASSOCIATED PRESS - January 3, 2011
BEIRUT - Extremist groups are waging a "genocide" against Christians in the Middle East, a former Lebanese president said Monday, after a New Year's suicide bombing of a church in Egypt killed 21 people. ...
"Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It is only because they are Christians," said [Amin] Gemayel, who leads Lebanon's right-wing Christian Phalange party. "What is happening to Christians is a genocide," he said. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/03/world/main7208414.shtml

Christians Under Siege in the Muslim World

TIME [Time Warner] > Photos

Ed. Note: One headline says it all. TIME Magazine now has a running photo feature of the attacks on Christians in Muslim countries.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2040755_2223532,00.html

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.

WikiLeaks Revelations on Israel

2011-09-24T11:13:00.000-04:00

The latest round of cables released by WikiLeaks details the intimate security concerns of Israel's intelligence community; Israel-US ties.

ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Gavriel Queenann - April 8, 2011

The latest media-barnstorm by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange reveals the private concerns and assessments of Israel's intelligence services, the Guardian reports.

The documents on Israel and the Middle East come as Assange agreed to be interviewed by the Hebrew-language Yedidot Acharonot this week to defend his organization from charges of anti-Semitism.

According to the cables,

Israel Forecasted Mideast Upheaval in 2007

Classified documents from 2007 - long before unrest swept though the Mideast - revealed Director of Military Intelligence Major-General Amos Yadlin had told Americans that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime is unlikely to survive another war with Israel.

Mossad Chief Meir Dagan echoed the sentiment at the time, further expressing his concern over the instability of several Middle East regimes.

Dagan intimated the Israel's security community felt that the regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon were unstable - an assessment proved right in early 2011.

Tantawi Obdurate On Arms Smuggling

Mohammed Tantawi, the head of the interim junta ruling Egypt who has expressed solidarity with the Palestinian Authority, was an obstacle to efforts to stop arms smuggling within the Gaza strip, according to Israeli security forces in 2009. The cables also revealed praise for former Egyptian intelligence minister Omar Suleiman, who was described as "supportive".

Egypt is the primary route for weapons and munitions into the Gaza strip, and the US has been facilitating co-operation between Israel and Egypt to tackle this for several years. Israel routinely bombs smuggling tunnels transiting the southern Gaza boundary in retaliatory strikes.

Bahrain-Israel Cooperation

The King of Bahrain, whose Sunni-ruled Arab state has recently been shaken by Shiite protests, has had friendly links with Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. The US learned of the contacts during a private conversation between US ambassador, William Monroe, and King Hamad of Bahrain in the king's palace on 15 February 2005.

Monroe reported back to Washington: "He [the king] revealed that Bahrain already has contacts with Israel at the intelligence/security level (ie [sic] with Mossad) and indicated that Bahrain will be willing to move forward in other areas."

Such cooperation is not overly surprising in light of tenion between Sunni-Arab states and Shiite Iran in the Persian Gulf. The Mossad has had back-channel contact with Arab counterparts, most notably Morocco and Jordan (prior to the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty) in the past.

Hizbullah Ready To Slam Israel With 400-600 Rockets Per Day

Hizbullah's mounting capability to strike directly at Tel Aviv rests on an arsenal of more than 20,000 missiles.

Israeli intelligence chiefs briefed their US counterparts during a regular Joint Political Military Group (JPMG) session on November18, 2009 about the scale of potential Hizbullah attacks from Lebanon when hostilities next erupt between Iran's Shiite terror proxy and the Jewish State.

Washington was told, "Hizbullah possesses over 20,000 rockets ... Hizbullah was preparing for a long conflict with Israel in which it hopes to launch a massive number of rockets at Israel per day. A Mossad official estimated that Hizbullah will try to launch 400-600 rockets and missiles at Israel per day - 100 of which will be aimed at Tel Aviv. He noted that Hizbullah is looking to sustain such launches for at least two months."

Israeli Leaders Muddled On Gaza

Other cables detail secret talks between Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin and US diplomats over the role of Hamas in Gaza. On November 12, 2009 the embassy reported the views of Major General Yoav Galant, then head of Israel's Southern Command, that Hamas needed to be "strong enough to enforce a ceasefire."

Galant told the Americans: "Israel's political leadership has not yet made the necessary policy choices among competing priorities: a short-term priority of wanting Hamas to be strong enough to enforce the de facto ceasefire and prevent the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel; a medium priority of preventing Hamas from consolidating its hold on Gaza; and a longer-term priority of avoiding a return of Israeli control of Gaza and full responsibility for the well being of Gaza's civilian population."

Galant was to be made Israel's chief of defense staff earlier this year, but the appointment was canceled due to scandal.

Arab-Israeli Leaders Flirting With The Enemy

Diskin also offered the Americans the Shin Beth's stance on the of Israeli Arabs, of whom he said many "have taken their liberties too far."

Diskin said some Israeli-Arab leaders see themselves as Arabs and Muslims first, and Israeli citizens last. He also criticized Arab MKs, saying they were "flirting with the enemy."

He allegedly said "…these people don’t spread Israel's democratic values and principles, and abuse their diplomatic immunity." He also attributed the problem to Arab refugees who returned to Israel and "brought bad ideas" with them.

The Shin Bet Chief was quoted as having criticized the Israel Police in the documents, saying it was their "incompetence" that forced the Shin Bet to involve itself in former Balad Chairman Azmi Bishara's supposed espionage case, saying his organization "would welcome him back to Israel."

Bishara fled Israel in 2007, and is facing a lengthy prison sentence should he return.

The Zeitgeist of Gaga

2011-09-16T15:13:00.000-04:00

MORIEL MINISTRIES, Be Alert - By Scott Brisk - September 16, 2011

If anyone who is a Born Again Believer in Christ has seen Lady Gaga perform, I really do not see how one could not find it anything other than offensive. As a musician, trying to step back and make an analytical judgment I do suppose there is some talent, but these days it is more and more difficult to see because of the raw animalism being shoved in ones face. For me, performances by Lady Gaga (and others) have been viewed very few times and usually accidental, yet that is quite easy these days as there is virtually no barriers even on the major networks during the morning, evening news, or prime time, things are shown that once were taboo. That said, these lyrics were forwarded to me by a brother in Christ noting that this was a top 10 hit a blasphemous statement against the King of all Creation in high rotation (just think is this was said against Mohammed or Allah?). However, in looking at the words, I also couldn’t help but think how succinctly these poetically summed up Mystery Babylon and her view towards God – as if the woman riding the beast was signing the song.

It is very interesting that Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta chose a stage name (gaga) that means crazy or foolish. According to Webster, the opposite (antonym) of the word is sound, sensible and compos mentis (of sound mind, understanding), just what the Scriptures commands Christians to be.

BE/\LERT!

Judas

Lyrics by Lady GaGa

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Judas Juda-a-a,

Judas GaGa

Judas Juda-a-a,

Judas GaGa

When he comes to me, I am ready

I'll wash his feet with my hair if he needs

Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain

Even after three times, he betrays me

I'll bring him down,

bring him down, down

A king with no crown,

king with no crown

I'm just a Holy fool,

oh baby he's so cruel

But I'm still in love with Judas, baby

I'm just a Holy fool,

oh baby he's so cruel

But I'm still in love with Judas, baby

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Judas Juda-a-a,

Judas GaGa

I couldn't love a man so purely

Even darkness forgave his crooked way

I've learned love is like a brick, you can

Build a house or sink a dead body

I'll bring him down,

bring him down, down

A king with no crown,

king with no crown

I'm just a Holy fool,

oh baby he's so cruel

But I'm still in love with Judas, baby

I'm just a Holy fool,

oh baby he's so cruel

But I'm still in love with Judas, baby

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Iu!!

In the most Biblical sense,

I am beyond repentance

Fame hooker, prostitute wench,

vomits her mind

But in the cultural sense

I just speak in future tense

Judas kiss me if offensed,

Or wear ear condom next time

I wanna love you,

But something's pulling me away from you

Jesus is my virtue,

And Judas is the demon I cling to

I cling to!!

Just a Holy fool,

oh baby he's so cruel

But I'm still in love with Judas, baby

I'm just a Holy fool,

oh baby he's so cruel

But I'm still in love with Judas, baby

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo

I'm in love with Juda-as,

Juda-as

Judas Juda-a-a,

Judas GAGA

Conferencing in the Metaverse

2011-09-16T14:20:00.000-04:00

SC MAGAZINE [Haymarket Media, AU, UK] - By David Harley, ESET senior research fellow - August 19 2011

I must be one of the last people in the AV industry to have read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (I bought it at some airport or other in the U.S. last year), in which much of the action takes place in the Metaverse, a virtual reality version of (or successor to) the internet. I'm rather pleased not to be living in a world that so readily integrates violence into both the real and virtual universes, but there's no denying that virtual reality is a lot more real than it used to be.

At this year's EICAR conference, my friend Eddy Willems demonstrated a virtual version of the conference taking place in Second Life. It seemed a little sparse compared to the real event, and showed considerably less drama than Neal Stephenson's vision, but was nevertheless an interesting experiment in future directions. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here

http://www.scmagazineus.com/conferencing-in-the-metaverse/printarticle/209942/

Norway to Israel: Dialogue is no, Jonas

2011-08-20T16:18:00.000-04:00

AUF leader Eskil Pedersen believes it is time for stronger measures against Israel.

DAGBALDET - July 20, 2011

Ed. Note: The following is a literal translation using Google Translate from Norwegian to English from the website of Dagbaldet posted the day before the Norway terror attacks.

This week is about a thousand members of Labour Youth (AUF) collected Utøya to discuss politics. On Thursday comes Jonas Gahr Store to Utøya to debate the Middle East.

The foreign minister believes in dialogue in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but the leader of AUF Eskil Pedersen has a clear message to the Minister.

- We like to talk, but as we have seen so has Israel not been interested, and have not listened to any of the clashes that have been made. The peace process is the wrong way, and though the whole world screaming for Israel to comply, they do not. We in Labour Youth will have a unilateral economic embargo of Israel from the Norwegian side, says Pedersen.

Extreme

AUF leader says dialogue can no longer have anything to offer in the face of Israel, and believes it is high time that the new measures are adopted. Pedersen believes that the Israeli authorities have now moved so far right that it is impossible to have any conversations with them.

- Norway has little opportunity to influence in any way, and we are no closer to any peace in the conflict. Rather the contrary. Israel has moved very far to the right, which means that it will get the dialogue partners. I would dare say that even foreign politicians from the Progress Party will struggle to find conversation partners in Israel. There is no call web anymore. I mean is that we should talk to everyone, but we can not sacrifice our principles and our policies, just to talk, he said.

Rent

AUF has long been an international boycott of Israel, but the decision at the last congress, demanding that Norway imposes a unilateral economic embargo of the country, was sharper than before.

- I acknowledge that this is a drastic measure, but I think it gives a clear indication that we are tired of Israel's behavior. Large parts of the world react all the time, but Israel will not listen. I think the decision is a sign that we in the AUF is tired of Israel, quite simply, he says.

http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/07/20/nyheter/politikk/innenriks/auf/17367745/

Jewish bodies found in medieval well in Norwich

2011-08-18T14:03:00.000-04:00

BBC NEWS [PSB operated by BBC Trust] - June 22, 2011

The remains of 17 bodies found at the bottom of a medieval well in England could have been victims of persecution, new evidence has suggested.

The most likely explanation is that those down the well were Jewish and were probably murdered or forced to commit suicide, according to scientists who used a combination of DNA analysis, carbon dating and bone chemical studies in their investigation.

The skeletons date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries at a time when Jewish people were facing persecution throughout Europe.

They were discovered in 2004 during an excavation of a site in the centre of Norwich, ahead of construction of the Chapelfield Shopping Centre. The remains were put into storage and have only recently been the subject of investigation.

Seven skeletons were successfully tested and five of them had a DNA sequence suggesting they were likely to be members of a single Jewish family.

DNA expert Dr Ian Barnes, who carried out the tests, said: "This is a really unusual situation for us. This is a unique set of data that we have been able to get for these individuals.

"I am not aware that this has been done before - that we have been able to pin them down to this level of specificity of the ethnic group that they seem to come from."

'Ethnic cleansing'

The team has been led by forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, of the University of Dundee's Centre for Anthropology and Human Identification.

Professor Black, who went to the Balkans following the Kosovo war - where her job was to piece together the bodies of massacred Kosovan Albanians - said this discovery had changed the direction of the whole investigation.

Regarding the nature of the discovery, Professor Black said: "We are possibly talking about persecution. We are possibly talking about ethnic cleansing and this all brings to mind the scenario that we dealt with during the Balkan War crimes."

Eleven of the 17 skeletons were those of children aged between two and 15. The remaining six were adult men and women.

"In terms of the brutality of the ethnic cleansing, it was thought women and children quite frankly weren't worth wasting the bullets on," added Professor Black.

"Pregnant women were bayoneted because that way you got rid of a woman because that wasn't important and you got rid of the next generation because you didn't want them to survive. So I know what sort of pattern I am looking for."

Cushioned fall

Pictures taken at the time of excavation suggested the bodies were thrown down the well together, head first.

A close examination of the adult bones showed fractures caused by the impact of hitting the bottom of the well. But the same damage was not seen on the children's bones, suggesting they were thrown in after the adults who cushioned the fall of their bodies.

The team had earlier considered the possibility of death by disease but the bone examination also showed no evidence of diseases such as leprosy or tuberculosis.

Giles Emery, the archaeologist who led the original excavation, said at first he thought it might have been a plague burial, but carbon dating had shown that to be impossible as the plague came much later.

And historians pointed out that even during times of plague when mass graves were used, bodies were buried in an ordered way with respect and religious rites.

Norwich had been home to a thriving Jewish community since 1135 and many lived near the well site. But there are records of persecution of Jews in medieval England including in Norwich (see fact box).

Sophie Cabot, an archaeologist and expert on Norwich's Jewish history, said the Jewish people had been invited to England by the King to lend money because at the time, the Christian interpretation of the bible did not allow Christians to lend money and charge interest. It was regarded as a sin.

So cash finance for big projects came from the Jewish community and some became very wealthy - which in turn, caused friction.

"There is a resentment of the fact that Jews are making money... and they are doing it in a way that doesn't involve physical labour, things that are necessarily recognised as work... like people feel about bankers now," said Ms Cabot.

The findings of the investigation represented a sad day for Norwich.

Ms Cabot added: "It changes the story of what we know about the community. We don't know everything about the community but what we do know is changed by this."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13855238

Secret behind Norwich skeletons revealed

2011-08-18T13:41:00.001-04:00

GREAT YARMOUTH MERCURY, Great Yarmouth, England, UK [Archant] - By John Owens - June 22, 2011

They lay hidden for centuries, a gruesome 13th-century secret left untouched until chanced upon by workmen digging the foundations for a new Norwich consumer haven.

But this week, the mystery behind 17 skeletons discovered during excavations for the Chapelfield shopping centre in 2004 will be unravelled before an audience of millions - and with it, an unsettling tale of persecution.

Combining detective skills and 21st- century forensics, a team of experts pieced together evidence for a BBC2 History Cold Case programme to be broadcast on Thursday.

It will reveal that the bodies, found down a well, are believed to have been murdered or committed suicide.

The reason for those people’s deaths? They were Jewish.

Giles Emery was working for the Norfolk Archaeological Unit when the “one-off” remains were found and has followed their fate ever since.

“What happened is a tragedy, but now we can see these people as human beings again and they are able to tell their story,” said Mr Emery, who now runs Norvic Archaeology.

He and fellow researchers knew they were on to something special when the bones were found accidentally by a builder about five metres below ground. Of the skeletons, 11 were small children.

However, their funding and studies could only take them so far, and, when the BBC first contacted them two years ago, it proved an opportunity not to be missed.

Having visited the site earlier this year, the real breakthrough came through when analysis of some of the bones revealed they had DNA consistent with Jewish communities and belonged to family members who had lived in the area for many years.

It proved a key finding. The group had lived in a time rife with anti-Semitism as Europe became more Christian. Norwich was known too to have had a thriving Jewish community since 1135: it had lived just a few hundred yards from the well.

Miri Rubin is a professor and historian at Queen Mary, University of London and was part of the most recent studies. She said: “There was a real deepening of this sense of Jewish evil, so it is a picture of worsening and, ultimately, the age of expulsions.”

With natural death ruled out, and neither the Christian nor Jewish communities ever having been found to bury members of their communities in this way, the team was left with only the bleakest of conclusions.

Mr Emery was one of those present when the findings were first presented to a recent gathering of historians in Norwich Guildhall. He said: “It was astounding when we found out.

“Everyone recognised that it was quite an unusual thing to be able to find out something we couldn’t have done a few years ago, and now we’re just trying to spread awareness of it.” ...

john.owens@archant.co.uk

http://www.greatyarmouthmercury.co.uk/news/secret_behind_norwich_skeletons_revealed_1_929821

Could We Actually See A War Between Syria And Turkey?

2011-08-10T15:11:00.000-04:00

THE AMERICAN DREAM - By Michael - June 28, 2011

In recent days, there have been persistent rumors that we could potentially be on the verge of a military conflict between Syria and Turkey. As impossible as such a thing may have seemed just a few months ago, it is now a very real possibility. Over the past several months, we have seen the same kind of "pro-democracy" protests erupt in Syria that we have seen in many of the other countries in the Middle East. The Syrian government has no intention of being toppled by a bunch of protesters and has cracked down on these gatherings harshly. There are reports in the mainstream media that say that over 1,300 people have been killed and more than 10,000 people have been arrested since the protests began. Just like with Libya, the United States and the EU are strongly condemning the actions that the Syrian government has taken to break up these protests. The violence in Syria has been particularly heavy in the northern sections of the country, and thousands upon thousands of refugees have poured across the border into neighboring Turkey. Syria has sent large numbers of troops to the border area to keep more citizens from escaping. Turkey has responded by reinforcing its own troops along the border. Tension between Turkey and Syria is now at an all-time high. So could we actually see a war between Syria and Turkey? ...

Since the Syrian government began cracking down on the protests, approximately 12,000 Syrians have flooded into Turkey. The Turkish government is deeply concerned that Syria may try to strike these refugees while they are inside Turkish territory.

Troop levels are increasing on both sides of the border and tension is rising. One wrong move could set off a firestorm.

The government of Turkey is demanding that Syrian military forces retreat from the border area.

The government of Syria says that Turkey is just being used to promote the goals of the U.S. and the EU. Syria also seems to be concerned that Turkey may attempt to take control of a bit of territory over the border in order to provide a "buffer zone" for refugees coming from Syria.

What makes things even more controversial is that the area where many of the Syrian refugees are encamped actually used to belong to Syria. In fact, many of the maps currently in use inside Syria still show that the area belongs to Syria.

War between Syria and Turkey has almost happened before. Back in the 1990s, the fact that the government of Syria was strongly supporting the Kurds pushed the two nations dangerously close to a military conflict.

Today, the border between Syria and Turkey is approximately 850 kilometers long. The military forces of both nations are massing along that border. One wrong move could set off a war.

Right now, it almost sounds as though the U.S. government is preparing for a war to erupt in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently stated that the situation along the border with Turkey is "very worrisome" and that we could see "an escalation of conflict in the area".

Not only that, but when you study what Clinton and Obama have been saying about Syria it sounds very, very similar to what they were saying about Libya before the airstrikes began.

In a recent editorial entitled "There Is No Going Back in Syria", Clinton wrote the following....

Finally, the answer to the most important question of all -- what does this mean for Syria's future? -- is increasingly clear: There is no going back.

Syrians have recognized the violence as a sign of weakness from a regime that rules by coercion, not consent. They have overcome their fears and have shaken the foundations of this authoritarian system.

Syria is headed toward a new political order -- and the Syrian people should be the ones to shape it. They should insist on accountability, but resist any temptation to exact revenge or reprisals that might split the country, and instead join together to build a democratic, peaceful and tolerant Syria.

Considering the answers to all these questions, the United States chooses to stand with the Syrian people and their universal rights. We condemn the Assad regime's disregard for the will of its citizens and Iran's insidious interference.

"There is no going back"?

"Syria is headed toward a new political order"?

It almost sounds like they are already planning the transitional government.

The EU has been using some tough language as well.

A recent EU summit in Brussels issued a statement that declared that the EU "condemns in the strongest possible terms the ongoing repression and unacceptable and shocking violence the Syrian regime continues to apply against its own citizens. By choosing a path of repression instead of fulfilling its own promises on broad reforms, the regime is calling its legitimacy into question. Those responsible for crimes and violence against civilians shall be held accountable."

If you take the word "Syrian" out of that statement and replace it with the word "Libyan" it would sound exactly like what they were saying about Gadhafi just a few months ago.

The EU has hit Syria with new economic sanctions and it is also calling on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the crackdown by the Syrian government.

It seems clear that the U.S. and the EU want to see "regime change" happen in Syria.

The important thing to keep in mind in all of this is that Turkey is a member of NATO. If anyone attacks Turkey, NATO has a duty to protect them.

If Syria attacked Turkey or if it was made to appear that Syria had attacked Turkey, then NATO would have the justification it needs to go to war with Syria.

If NATO goes to war with Syria, it is very doubtful that Iran would just sit by and watch it happen. Syria is a very close ally to Iran and the Iranian government would likely consider an attack on their neighbor to be a fundamental threat to their nation.

In fact, there are already reports in the international media that Iran has warned Turkey that they better not allow NATO to use their airbases to attack Syria.

So if it was NATO taking on Syria and Iran, who else in the Middle East would jump in? ...

Would Russia and China sit by and do nothing while all of this was going on?

Could a conflict in the Middle East be the thing that sets off World War III?

Let's certainly hope not. ...

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/could-we-actually-see-a-war-between-syria-and-turkey

Women in the Cairo Street Scenes: a Troubling Photo Essay

2011-08-08T18:44:00.000-04:00

ARUTZ SHEVA (Israeli National News) - By Prof. Phyllis Chesler - February 7, 2011
For days now, the mainstream and leftstream media have been telling us that the Muslim Brotherhood is not dangerous, not radically Islamist-but that even if they are Islamist that they are popular amongst the people. Western leftists view the Brothers as engaged in a Hamas-like form of soup kitchen social work/theocratic totalitarianism, but who nevertheless have earned the right to be democratically voted into power by the people. They have been invited to join the negotiations with Mubarak's regime. ...

Such journalists also claim that the Egyptian people in the streets are not "political," that they are impoverished, broken, barefoot warriors who have heroically risen up for jobs, food, and an end to corruption and tyranny. Indeed, the people may not be "political"-but their heroism may end up benefiting those who, unlike themselves, are already organized militarily, economically, and ideologically-like the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the other hand, unorganized though they may be, the people may still have views and beliefs. According to a June, 2010 Pew opinion survey of Egyptians:

Fifty nine percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics....Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion...When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN's Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.

Is this Pew Center survey really true? What other indicators might we rely upon?

In the last week, we have seen massive coverage of the street uprising in Cairo on every major television channel and in print and Internet media of all political persuasions. No one has commented upon what the photos are showing us. Some say that a picture speaks a thousand words-and so it does. Follow along with me.

First, view these photos of Cairo University graduates in 1959, 1978, 1995, and 2004. Clearly, there is a progression-a regression really, in terms of women's rights. Former women's gains have, increasingly, been washed away.

As you can see, despite the size of the picture, the female graduates in 1959 and 1978 had bare arms, wore short sleeved blouses, dresses, or pants, and were both bare-faced and bare-headed. By 1995, we see a smattering of headscarves-and by 2004 we see a plurality of female university graduates in serious hijab: Tight, and draping the shoulders. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here & See All Pictures
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142158

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.

Erdogan’s Party Wins Third Term in Turkish Elections

2011-08-06T15:47:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Sebnem Arsu - June 12, 2011

ISTANBUL — The conservative party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a clear victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday with a strong showing that critics worry might be used to further consolidate its power after nearly a decade of rule and to circumscribe civil liberties and its political opposition.

With 99 percent of the returns counted, Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party won about 50 percent of the votes, according to the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency. The main opposition group, the Republican People’s Party, won nearly 26 percent, and another opposition party, the Nationalist Action Party, had 13 percent, the agency said.

The returns give the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., its third term in office since it first won a parliamentary majority in 2002. The results, however, failed to provide the absolute majority that the party wanted to push for major changes, including a shift to a presidential system and the drafting of a new constitution. The party will now have to work to forge consensus with its opposition. …

The current Constitution was prepared after a military coup in the 1980s, and many here believe that it elevates protections for the state above those of citizens, at the expense of individual rights and freedoms. Under Mr. Erdogan’s stewardship, the government restored political and economic stability after years of turmoil, though opponents say the gains have come at the price of an increasingly autocratic exercise of power.

Supporters credit Mr. Erdogan with elevating Turkey’s profile in the Middle East, turning the country into an increasingly assertive regional player at a time when several of its neighbors are locked in sometimes violent struggles for democracy. One of most violent, in Syria, Turkey’s neighbor to the southeast, has sent thousands of refugees spilling over the border.

Mr. Erdogan has moved the country further up the road, although sometimes a bumpy one, to European Union membership. His party has brought the country strong economic growth of 8.9 percent, though unemployment remains stubbornly high at nearly 12 percent and income distribution remains uneven.

But his party has moved from the reformist approach it took in the early years of its rule, leaving an opening for opponents like the Social Democratic Republican People’s Party, which had some success in the current balloting for 550 seats in Parliament in winning back centrist Turks wary of the conservative tack the ruling party has taken.

“I support some of the party’s politics for stability in the country,” Bahar Forta, 62, a dermatologist, said as she was leaving a polling station at a high school in Sisli, an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Istanbul. “However, I also see that the power they hold — almost like a single-party system — will ultimately pave the way for an autocratic regime.”

For many younger voters, their biggest concerns were violations of civilian liberties.

“There is a thin line between stability and democracy,” said Mustafa Guler, 27, a computer technology consultant, who was on his way to vote.

“Freedom for minorities is still an issue, alcohol use is controlled by a government agency,” he said, adding: “Even leave all that aside — what can be more absurd in this day and age than to close down YouTube? My vote is to break their majority.”

Many Web sites, including YouTube, have been blocked in recent years by the government Internet Monitoring Agency, often without explanation.

Critics point to the fact that Turkey currently has more than 60 journalists in jail, many charged with crimes related to their published work, according to the Turkish Press Association.

At least two — Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, both investigative journalists critical of the A.K.P. and supportive Islamic organizations — have not been notified of their charges since their arrests in March.

Despite these shortcomings, some liberal circles have praised government efforts in challenging the status quo of the powerful military, which has staged three coups and until recently maintained a virtually untouchable place in Turkish politics.

The government oversaw a controversial trial of a group accused of plotting a coup against the ruling party in 2003. The investigation included the arrests of hundreds of officers, retired as well as active duty, tarnishing the military’s image and effectively eliminating it from politics.

Edited :: See Original Report Here

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/world/europe/13turkey.html

The oracle concerning Egypt

2011-07-04T14:22:00.000-04:00

A collection of article briefs on the 18 Day Uprising: January 25 - February 11, 2011,
in Egypt

The LORD will strike Egypt, striking but healing; so they will return to the LORD, and He will respond to them and will heal them

- Isaiah 19:22

Separate whirlwinds demolish two Middle East figures in one day

DEBKAFILE - Exclusive Analysis - February 2, 2011

Close observation of the circumstances surrounding the seven-day popular uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year old presidency cannot avoid noticing the skillful choreography which brought it up to a well-judged climax Tuesday night, Feb. 2. In fact, the hands of the United States, Britain and the Egyptian army heads were plain to see at every stage. ...
The master choreographers chose well when they set up their main platform at Cairo's Tahrir Square. It provided the journalists housed in the luxury hotels overlooking the square a ringside seat over a perfect arena for their cameras. The crowd scenes played out under their hotel windows were graphically and dramatically presented in the world's living rooms as an anti-Mubarak movement springing up spontaneously across the country. ...

The identifies of the choreographers will no doubt surface in the months ahead as the reins of power slip out of Mubarak's hands and into those of the new leaders. A hint was provided by US President Barack Obama early Wednesday, Feb. 2, when he reported on his farewell phone conversation with Mubarak. Obama, who from the first made no secret of his sympathy for the protesters, told Mubarak bluntly his time was up. ...

Mubarak, along with Saudi Arabia's royal house and Israel, was for 30 years one of America's three staunchest allies. ...
http://www.debka.com/article/20621/

U.S. and Egyptian military chiefs meet in Washington

REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Phil Stewart - January 28, 2011
A high-level Egyptian military delegation was in Washington on Friday for pre-scheduled defense talks, even as Egypt's army took to the streets to face unrest sweeping the country.
Chief of staff of Egypt's armed forces, Lieutenant General Sami Enan, is leading his delegation in the week-long talks that started on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said. ...
Egypt receives about $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic assistance -- second only to Israel. ...
The country's armed forces -- the world's 10th biggest with more than 468,000 members -- have been at the heart of power since army officers staged an overthrow of the monarchy in 1952.
All four Egyptian presidents since then have come from the military, now led by

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, 75, who is defense minister and commander-in-chief.

Enan, in Washington, ranks below him but is one of the top military officers in Egypt.

A Middle East military expert in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Enan as someone who appeared to have the respect of the United States.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/28/us-egypt-usa-military-idUSTRE70R65720110128

Obama to Egyptian Army: Remove Mubarak now, start transition

DEBKAFILE - Exclusive Analysis - February 2, 2011
President Barack Obama delivered an ultimatum to Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman and the army and security chiefs: Mubarak must be removed in the coming hours or else US aid to Egypt will be cut off, Debkafile's Washington sources exclusively report. Pressure on the Egyptian armed forces to oust the president forthwith was further applied by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ...
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron were recruited earlier to lean hard on Egyptian army chiefs to bring Mubarak's presidency to an end in the coming hours. ...
http://www.debka.com/article/20623/

As Egypt Protest Swells, U.S. Sends Specific Demands

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By David D. Kirkpatrick - February 8, 2011
CAIRO - Pressure intensified on President Hosni Mubarak's government as the largest crowd of protesters in two weeks flooded Cairo's streets on Tuesday and the United States delivered its most specific demands yet, urging swift steps toward democracy. ...
Although broadly committed to a transition, the Obama administration was trying to influence many of the details. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/world/middleeast/09egypt.html

White House Pushed Mubarak

ABC NEWS [American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./The Walt Disney Company] - By Jake Tapper February 11, 2011
Sources tell ABC News that after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak spoke last night, handing over powers to his vice president but not stepping down, the White House and Obama administration in general conveyed to Egyptian government --at all levels - that his message was not enough for the demonstrators, whom they needed to satisfy or the crisis would continue and get worse. ...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/02/after-thursday-speech-white-house-pushed-mubarak-you-must-satisfy-the-demonstrators-in-the-street.html

Mubarak moves vast assets from Europe to Saudi Arabia

Full Report Posted on the Be Alert! Blog
http://morielbealertblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/mubarak-moves-vast-assets-from-europe.html

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.

Midrash in the News: Jewish Hiker Survives Desert Ordeal Thanks to 'Miracle' Rain

2011-07-03T08:39:00.000-04:00

Interesting little story here: Jewish man takes a hike into Joshua Tree National Park and gets lost in the desert and runs out of water on the first day. He prays for rain and rain falls immediately and sustains him during his time in desert. He found a small canyon to rest in and give him shade and was lost for six days. He was rescued on the 6th day. Pray he finds his Messiah Yeshua.

BE/\LERT!

From Arutz Sheva:

Sixty-four-year-old Ed Rosenthal of Los Angeles shocked rescuers last week when he was found alive after six days in the desert with little food or water. He spoke to the media this week after several days of recovery in the Hi-Desert Medical Center in Joshua Tree.

"There was definitely a miracle... My conclusion is that G-d is real. Really, I have to tell you. G-d is real," he said.

He also recalled reciting the Shema Yisrael prayers, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One" ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139958

Birth Pangs: 2 Lists of Events Since May of 2011

2011-07-03T08:20:00.000-04:00

In the Last Days the Scriptures Declare that there will be …

Wars and rumors of wars, famines and pestilence, earthquakes in diverse places, men fainting from fear for what is coming on the earth, and fearful events and great signs shall there be from heaven….

Below are two lists that, in my opinion, would indicate that we’re not in Kansas any more…

L. A. Marzulli

Thanks to Savannah Miller for compiling this list!

May 21: Volcano eruption in Iceland forces Barack Obama to cut his trip short.

May 21: Rising ocean temperatures in Florida
May 22: A tornado leaves a seven-mile path of destruction through Joplin, Missouri. It is reported as the single deadliest tornado since record keeping started 60 years ago. Over 120 have been reported dead; some sources put the report at over 140. The Christian Science Monitor reports that over the next three days, the same storm ripped through Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

May 24: Flood in Thailand killes 27. Cholera outbreak in Sudan kills at least 500
May 25: Thousands of dead snails wash ashore in Bangladesh.

May 26: Earthquake in Indonesia kills thousands
May 28: Mystery disease kills 300 sheep within an hour.

May 28: New strain of E. Coli discovered in Scotland
May 30: A tornado in Michigan knocked out the power for thousands. 115 volcanic earthquakes were reported on the Taal volcano in the Philippines.
May 31: Volcano in Central Java spews poisonous gas
June 1: 6.3 earthquake in Chile. A tornado in Massachusetts leaves a trail of destruction visible from space. Eight mysterious dog deaths have been reported in Yorkshire; they collapsed minutes after walking around a popular rural footpath. Russia’s Kamchatka volcano spits ash as high as 9 km..

June 1: Australia’s HIV infection rate rises.. Outbreak of deadly fish disease in England.
June 3: 6.2 earthquake reported off the coast of Japan. Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico shot ash 2 miles above the crater.
June 4: A volcano in Chile erupted for the first time in half a century; it could be seen all the way from space. The huge ash cloud disrupted airline travel, as volcano ash can damage plane engines, and dozens of flights were grounded.
June 5: A 6.3 earthquake was reported west of Macquarie Island. 800 tons of dead, rotting fish in Phillipine farms were reported.
June 7: 600 dead penguins washed up on the shores of Uruguay.

June 7: Bird flu outbreak in China

June 8: Second tornado was reported in Maine. 5.3 earthquake in China. Schools of dead fish floating in a lagoon in Morovo.. 5.5 earthquake in Russia. 6.0 earthquake in Southern Peru. In a freak of nature, a tornado hit Ireland.

June 8: Tornado hits boy scout camp, kills 4 and injures 40
June 9: A rare whale was beached in Fort Pierce, Florida.

June 9: Anthrax outbreak being monitored in Kruger National Park in South Africa
June 10: The temperature of the sea in the Arabian Gulf is reported to be above normal, killing fish. Difficile outbreak in Nova Scotia has 49 hospital-acquired cases. E. Coli has sickened thousands and killed dozens in Germany, Russia has blocked all imports from there. A rare fungal infection is attacking the tornado victims of Joplin Missouri. 39 people have been sickened with salmonella in 14 different states.

June 10: Polio outbreak in Namibia kills 7 adults and paralyzes 33 others
June 11: The river is boiling in Chile because of the volcano. It is reported that the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii might overflow.Thousands of dead fish have been found floating in the Atlantic–with their heads and other parts chopped off.
June 12: A long dormant volcano in Eritrea erupts after a series of earthquakes and sent ash 13.5 km into the air. Hillary Clinton cut her visit to Africa short due to the ash. There was a 5.0 earthquake in Honshu, Japan. A cholera outbreak in Nigeria has killed 30 and has 200 hospitalized.The E. Coli outbreak from Germany has spread to Thailand through imported cabbage. A 5.5earthquake hits Christchurch.

June 12: Chaotic weather in New Zealand, destructive gales and snow
June 13: A 6.2 earthquake happens in the Molucca sea. A 5.4 earthquake hit New Zealand. An aftershock of 5.5 shook Canterbury, New Zealand. An aquatic center closes because of a virus outbreak. Cattle are being tested for an STD that causes them to sporadically abort. A deadly amphibian disease has been discovered in Panama. A deadly disease has been killing trees in Indiana.A herpes outbreak has killed 12 horses. A 6.9 undersea earthquake hits Indonesia. 600 cases of lead poisoning have been reported in China. In South Korea, two cases of a mysterious lung disease have been reported; it is raising fears of a deadly, unknown virus which has already killed 3 pregnant women. A city in India has fallen prey to an unknown viral fever.

June 13: Mpraeso Secondary School in Ghana closes because of a mysterious disease that infected 60 students

Another list that I compiled without links:

1. Tornados in Missouri
2. Grimsvotn Volcano erupts
3. Mississippi flooding continues at record levels
4. Grimsvotn volcano closes airports
5. More Tornados hit the heartland death toll over 500 this year
6. Japanese Fukishma reactor includes holes in # 2 & 3 Reactors
7. GLobal stock market fell as Spain default fear grows
8. Snow pack melting in western states may cause flooding
9. Drought in Texas
10. Drought in France
11. Coffee prices soar
12. Economic losses in 2011 have tripled
13. North Texas has biggest storm in years
14. New leak feared at stricken Japan nuclear plant
15. Radioactive in sea life…
16. Severe storms to hit form Gullf coast to Northeast
17. Belarus Shoppers panic as ruble collapses – FOOD SHORTAGES
18. 500 flights canceled as ash could hits
19. Drought in Europe hits wheat crop
20. Philippines Bulsan VOlcano shaken by 31 quakes in 24 hours
21. Fukishima worse than Chernobyl
22. China Grapples with worse drought in 50 years
23. Russia – Ukraine may lift ban on wheat export as US & EU wither
24. Congressman Warns: “Those Who Can, Should Move Their Families Out Of the City”
25. Pump failure nearly brings No. 5 to a boil
26. 800 tons of fish die, rot on Philippine fish farms
27. Canada – Experts seek cause of sink holes.
28. Pakistan short range Nukes targeting India
29. Delicate moment for global economy as manufacturing slows…
30. Goldman Sachs – $5 gas coming
31. More Rain and snow…National guard to Montana
32. 35 million people affected by lingering drought along the Ynagste River
33. World wheat outlook cut on drought in Europe
34. 6.0 Earthquake in Turkey kills 3
35. Australia warns of shortages after 75% of banana crop wiped out
36. memorial day snow in Aspen deeper that New Years day!
37. Melon sized hail fell before OK tornadoes hit …
38. Chicago warns of high temps in City …
39. Severe storms wreak havoc from Vermont to Georgia…
40. UN warns of riots in developing countries as drought pushes up food prices.
41. Saudi Arabia – Unkown disease kills hundreds of sheep in one hour
42. France declares alert – battles hottest spring in 111 years
43. Fear mounts as ganders gas emissions increase at Indonesia Mt. Dieng Volcano
44. Double quakes hit Chile – major trembling at south pole
45. 6.2 Earthquake off of Chile 6-1-2011
46. Yemen street battles leave 41 dead. (6-1)
47. Syria: Troops fire into crowd kills 33…
48. Tornados kill 3 in Massachusettes
49. Record Nato Deaths in early Afghan fighting – (6-2)
50. Taal Volcanic horror – Another 200 tons of fish found dead Tuesday night
51. Solar Activity rages as world awaits rare midnight eclipse
52. Shanghai sees lowest levels of rainfall in 138 years
53. Virulent E.Coli strain puzzles health officials in Europe
54. Sudan Fighting displaces 35,000 children
55. UN warns cotton – wheat crop threatened by alien weed!
56. Fukishima Debacle warned risks Chernobyl Dead zone as radiation in soil soars.
57. Flooding and cyclones batter Australian economy
58. Mystery disease kills 300 sheep within an hour in Saudi Arabia
59. Central Mexico attacked by TORNADOS! First time ever!
60. Massive wildfire in Arizona forces evacuations
61. 5 soldiers killed in Iraq.
62. Iran can produce nuke within two months
63. CHILEAN Volcano erupts… threat of ash cloud looms
64. Summer snow in Hawaii
65. Arizona fires burn more than 350 sq. Miles!
66. Ash from Chilean Volcano grounds flights in Argentina
67. Sun unleashes spectacular and powerful eruption
68. record 102 in twin cities…
69. energy prices skyrocket in Britain
70. Why are honey bees dying?
71. East Africa on FAMINE alert!
72. ‘Unprecedented’ Summerlong Flood Threatens Missouri River Dams and Levees
73. Arizona fires causes evacuation of 2 cities.
74. Solar flare sparks biggest eruption ever seen on sun…
75. Germany fears full blown bankruptcy in Eurozone…
76. Nuclear fuel has melted through base at Fukishima… worst case scenario!
77. Libya war cost sky rocket.
78. US starts 4th war in YEMEN!
79. Iran talks nakedly of testing nuclear bomb.
80. DC temperatures spike at 102
81. ARizona Fire to become biggest in states History!
82. 102 in Kansas @ midnight….
83. Dozens killed during Syrian protests
84.japan may become uninhabitable due to radiation
85. 38,000 killed in Mexico drug-wars since 2008
86. Missouri river could be flood of biblical proportions
87. Flights Australia grounded by Chilean volcano!
88. Arizona Fire biggest in States History
89. Level 4 warning in Nebraska nuke plant because of flooding
90. Worst flooding in China since 1955: 2 million suffer in China
91. COuld a huge solar flare blow our electric gird?
92. Twin quakes strike of Panama Coast (6-20-2011)
93. Iowa woman attacked and killed by cow
94. Indonesia’s Mount Bautr’s volcanic lake changes color – thousands of fish die
95. UN: Number of displaced people around the world hits 15 year high
96. EU debt crises worsens…
97. America’s breadbasket under increased assaults from natural disasters.
98. More levees fail along Missouri river – Nuke plant offline until fall.
99. US in crsis – Record heat, dry winds create wildfire threat for 7 states
100. 5 million affected by flooding and landslides in CHINA
101. 6.3 Earthquake in Chile
102. Colorado snow on eve of Summer Solstice. (2-21-2011)
103. Oceans in shocking decline
104. Kamchatka’s Shiveluch volcano unleashes another massive ash cloud.
105. N. Dakota – Souris River Valley braces for record flooding event!
106. WIdespread land cracks in India
107. Nobro Volcano in Ethiopia causes environmental crises
108. Flood risks prompt evacuations in Minot – North Dakata (6-22-2011)
109. Wildfires burn 1.4 million acres across 12 states
110. Saskatchewan flooding prompts 159 km closure of Trans Canada Highway
111. Nerves frays as CHRISTHCURCH hit by another wave of violent tremors
112. Giant mouse plague hits Australia
113. 6.7 earthquake in Japan
114. 7.2 Earthquake off Aleutian Islands (6-24-2011)
115. Tropical Storm Meari forces evacuation of 50,000 people in the Phillippines
116. 6.3 quake rattles Santa Cruz Islands: Following Alaskan Temblor
117. North Dakota’s flooding worsens
118. Greek Debt crisis in grave danger of unraveling EU financial system
119. record Dakota floods
120. Pacific on the verge of major geological event – The Big One?
121. Giant Sink Hole in Queensland
122. Radioactivity found in urine of residents near Fukishima
123. Freak Hail storm in Sweeden
124. Protective flood barriers around Nebraska Nuke plant breached!

125. Floods submerge 200 villages in New Guinea.

126.

'The Church Today Needs an Apologetic Culture'

2011-06-27T15:47:00.001-04:00

THE CHRISTIAN POST - By Anugrah Kumar - June 7, 2011
Pastors should develop an apologetic culture in their churches as the need for Christians to defend their faith has increased significantly, Canadian author and apologist Stephen J. Bedard said.

In an interview featured on the Apologetics 315 website Monday, the author of Unmasking a Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to the Cosmic Christ Idea, talked about issues ranging from the need for articulation of the Gospel to the Jehovah’s Witness booklet and the evidence of Jesus’ existence.

Asked what his advice to pastors was, Bedard said they should make their congregations aware that there are answers available; “it’s not a blind faith.” “We don’t have to prove that Christianity is absolutely true, but we have to demonstrate that it is something rational,” said Bedard, pastor of Woodford Baptist Church and First Baptist Church in Meaford in Ontario.

Bedard, who got interested in apologetics after reading Christian authors and thinkers C.S. Lewis and Norman L. Geisler, said churches also needed to articulate what the Gospel is. Only when they know what the real thing is will they be able to respond to the counterfeit, he said.

Talking about Hope’s Reason: A Journal of Apologetics he edits, Bedard said the need for apologetics had “increased significantly.” People today are exposed to all kinds of doctrines, from Gnostic gospels to theories like “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” thanks to the media, he explained.

Gnostic gospels are based on texts that are not part of the standard biblical canon. “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” is a documentary made by a Canadian filmmaker on the Talpiot Tomb near the Old City in East Jerusalem and it seeks to misinterpret the events regarding Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, Christians believe.

Those who want to get involved in apologetics - the discipline of defending a Christian position by the systematic use of reason - must spend time with atheists, non-Christians, and those who are skeptical of the Christian faith, Bedard advised. “Just listen to what they believe” and do not hesitate to acknowledge the good points they raise, but also go to the Scriptures to see where the Bible says they are wrong.

A father of five, Bedard said he learned a lot from his children. “They ask everything and do not take anything for granted. They challenge me all the time,” he said, adding that children and others should always be encouraged to ask questions.

Bedard also announced that his upcoming book, a response to the Jehovah’s Witness booklet “What Does the Bible Really Teach,” was expected to hit the market “in the next couple of months.” He said he was impressed with the honesty of Jehovah’s Witnesses about what they believe. “We can also learn from the way they equip their people.”

Mainstream Christians accuse the Jehovah’s Witness denomination of doctrinal inconsistencies and biblical mistranslations.

Titled Jehovah’s Witness and What the Bible Really Teaches, to be published by Clements Publishing, the book is “a guide to having productive conversations with Jehovah’s Witness.”

Talking about his first book Unmasking a Pagan Christ, Bedard said it was to counter a theory by a Canadian author claiming Jesus never existed.

He said people ask if there is evidence of Jesus outside of the Bible and why there is little Jewish and Roman evidence, but “when I took a look at the actual evidence, I found that we actually have quite a bit, in fact, more than we’d expect.”

Those who ask for Jewish evidence totally ignore the fact that the Jewish society at the time was quite illiterate, he said. “So it was really unlikely that most of the people who heard Jesus preach would actually be writing it down. Even if it did get written down, it was unlikely that it would survive to this day.”

About Roman writings, he said there was little record of what was going on in the first century in terms of trials in the provinces such as Judea. So records of Jesus cannot be expected either, he reasoned.

But there is evidence in the writings of the first century Jewish historian, Josephus, he said. “It’s pretty firm evidence that Jesus existed. Outside of that we have the Bible and we have Paul.”

Josephus wrote of a Jewish sect led by James the Just, identifying him as the brother of Jesus. His writings also included sections on John the Baptist, the High Priest Annas, Pontius Pilate, and Jesus called the Messiah.

If critics were to use the same standards they use to verify writings on Jesus on other historical figures, “we would have to burn our history books,” Bedard said.

However, apologists must remember that 1 Peter 3:15 asks us to respond in gentleness and respect, he said, and cautioned that the purpose of apologetics is not to win argument, but to win people to Christ.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-church-today-needs-an-apologetic-culture-50922/

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Oprah's big hug of spirituality will outlive her show

2011-06-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

USA TODAY [Gannett] - By Cathy Lynn Grossman - May 25, 2011
Oprah, the prophetess of post-Judeo-Christian America who brought us big hug spirituality -- love yourself, save yourself -- leaves the daily stage today to run her media empire.
To whom will we turn? God?
Not likely. Many Americans no longer believe in a mighty judge who sets the rules for life now and forever. Instead, many of us sing Oprah's song of self-redemption.
She told over-his-head Piers Morgan on the CNN host's opening show:

I am the messenger to deliver the message of hope and redemption.

And to a vast extent, our culture has bought the message: We're all good, we should not judge each other and morality is relative.
When the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 Americans documented in detail the splintered spirituality of today's believers, Rice University sociologist Michael Lindsay pointed straight to Oprah to explain our salad bar-style spirituality.
Lindsay pointed out:

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the national memorial service was at Washington's National Cathedral, conducted by Episcopal clergy. After the 9/11 attack, Oprah organized the official memorial service at Yankee Stadium, and while clergy participated, she was the master of ceremonies.

Oprah, he said draws on multiple religious traditions to "create a hodgepodge personalized faith."
This is, of course, a message that horrifies traditional believers who decry it, like Josh McDowell and Dave Sterrett in their book, 'O' God: A Dialogue on Truth and Oprah's Spirituality,"

The danger is that while appearing to use Christian and inclusive language that at first seems similar to that of Christianity, Oprah teaches a message that is radically different and absolutely contrary to the true teaching of Scripture and historic Christianity.

But she has been right on the money on spirituality, bringing to the fore spiritual thinkers such as Eckhart Tolle of The Power of Now and A New Earth. She was so impressed by Tolle's let-go-and-breathe counseling on peace through silence and stillness, she co-hosted a 10-week set of Internet seminars on how to simply be.

Oprah described how she reconciled her Baptist upbringing with Tolle teachings, saying:

What I believe is that Jesus came to show us Christ consciousness. That Jesus came to show us the way of the heart and that what Jesus was saying that to show us the higher consciousness that we're all talking about here..."

Tolle writes in A New Earth that everyone carries ""The Truth" inside -- all the joy, creativity, energy, love they seek.

Was Jesus the son of God?" he asks rhetorically. "Yes. But so are you. You just haven't realized it yet." ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2011/05/oprah-spirituality-god-eckhart-tolle/1

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TBN and Jack Van Impe in a Rift

2011-06-26T13:27:00.000-04:00

APOSTASY ALERT [www.apostasyalert.org] - By Jackie Alnor - June 14, 2011
Bible Prophecy pundit, Jack Van Impe, has just announced that he will be canceling his TV program, “Jack Van Impe Presents’’ from the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) after a recent episode was replaced with a program promoting unity between Christianity and Islam.

According to a news release on Van Impe’s web site, “On Wednesday afternoon we received a call from Matt Crouch of TBN informing us that they would not run that program, despite having aired it Monday evening. The reason he gave was that we specifically mentioned Rick Warren and Robert Schuller and that it is TBN’s policy that broadcasters are not allowed to rebuke other ministries. This is a rather hypocritical statement in light of the fact that they have never said anything in the past when we have rebuked others such as Bishop Spong, Bishop Pike, and in the past few months Harold Camping and Rob Bell.”

Van Impe has recently veered from his own policy of not criticizing other ministries. He is infamous for ragging on anyone who dares to refute the false teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. He is receiving a taste of his own medicine.

It comes at no surprise that it was Matt Crouch, the younger son of TBN founders Paul and Jan Crouch, that flexed his muscles in Van Impe’s direction. Several years ago while was hosting the Praise the Lord program, Matt expressed his fury at Van Impe by name in response to Van Impe’s promotional tape on Y2K. Matt accused Van Impe of trying to raise money by planting fear in people’s minds, something TBN does on a regular basis during every Praise-a-Thon fund raiser.

To read the news release go to link: http://www.jvim.com/update/display.php?ITEM=11137

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://moriel.org/MorielArchive/index.php/discernment/church-issues/aberrational-theology/tbn-and-jack-van-impe-in-a-rift

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.

Another Southern Baptist Christian Leader Falls prey to the Doctrines of Demons

2011-06-26T12:55:00.000-04:00

SAINTS ALIVE IN JESUS - By Ed Decker - May 10, 2011
Pastor Steven G. Tiner, Senior Pastor of Levy Baptist Church http://www.levybaptist.com/ in North Little Rock, AR now boasts his calling as Most Excellent Grand High Priest Grand Chapter Royal Arch Masons Of Arkansas.
In his acceptance remarks following his Masonic ordination, Pastor Tiner proclaimed I want to thank the Grand Chapter of Arkansas for the incredible privilege of serving as your Grand High Priest. I love Royal Arch Masonry with all of my heart. Therefore, to be honored to serve as your Grand High Priest is a joy beyond what I can ever express with words. I pray that the Great Architect of the Universe will bless this year as we work together for the advancement of the Craft. http://www.yorkrite.org/ar/ARRAinsert.pdf

Levy Baptist Church is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, The Arkansas Baptist State Convention and The North Pulaski Baptist Association, where Pastor Tiner is sits as Moderator, heading up its associational leadership. http://www.northpulaskibaptist.com/
Pastor Tiner has also bowed his knee at the altar of a false god and has given himself over to the doctrines of demons. These are the doctrines he pledges to advance for the cause of the craft.

Let me tell you about a few things he brags about above.
First, there is only one high priest. That is Jesus Christ. Pastor Tiner and his Masonic friends have usurped the holy priesthood of our Lord.
Second, He speaks of Prayers to and for The Grand Architect of the Universe. In this Royal Arch Degree, the true nature of this Grand architect is revealed, so this demonic deity of theirs can be fully worshipped. As their Most Excellent High Priest, Pastor Tiner presides over such worship.

Masonic ritual is concerned with the recovery of the “Lost Word,” presumed to be the name of God- supposedly lost through the murder of the architect,
Hiram Abiff, during the building of Solomon’s Temple.This quest is attained during the ritual of the ROYALARCH DEGREE. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://saintsalive.com/eds-blog/another-sb-leader-falls-prey-to-doctrines-of-demons

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Christians, Jews, Muslims plan shared worship - Churches Agree to Hold Koran Readings!!

2011-06-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

Pulpit pals: Christians, Jews, Muslims plan shared worship

RELIGION NEWS SERVICE [Advance/Newhouse] - By Adelle M. Banks - May 17, 2011
Religious and human rights activists are asking U.S. churches to invite Jewish and Muslim clergy to their sanctuaries to read from sacred texts next month in an initiative designed to counter anti-Muslim bigotry.
The June 26 initiative, called “Faith Shared: Uniting in Prayer and Understanding,” is co-sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance and Human Rights First. Leaders of the two Washington-based groups said the event hopes to demonstrate respect for Islam in the wake of Quran burnings in recent months.
“As a Christian minister who is a pastor in a local congregation, it is important to me for our nation and our world to know that not all Christians promote hate, attack religions different from their own and seek to desecrate the scripture of others,” the Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said Tuesday.
More than 50 churches in 26 states already have committed to the initiative, including the Washington National Cathedral.
Tad Stahnke, director of policy and programs for Human Rights First, said he hopes the initiative will draw attention to religious freedom and counter negative stereotypes of Christian leaders making anti-Muslim statements.
“We want to send a message to the world,” he said, “that Americans do respect religious differences and reject religious bigotry and the demonization of Islam or any other religion.”

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/51832311-80/initiative-religious-christians-human.html.csp

More Than 50 U.S. Churches Agree to Hold Koran Readings!!

LOGAN'S WARNING - By Admin - May 17, 2011
In the past I have stated I am not religious, but my goal is to help educate and unite Atheists and members of non-Islamic religions against a common enemy. That enemy is Islam. The good news is that our voice against Islam is clearly getting louder, the bad news is that far too many Americans who identify themselves as “Christians” are taking the easy way out and bowing down to Islam, in an effort to avoid a conflict that has been raging for 1400 years.

Muslim Hadith Book 019, Number 4366:

It has been narrated by ‘Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.

A conflict in which Christians are clearly losing! ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://loganswarning.com/2011/05/17/more-than-50-u-s-churches-agree-to-hold-koran-readings/

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.

Evangelicals, Mormon Search for Common Ground in Utah

2011-06-25T20:35:00.000-04:00

THE CHRISTIAN POST - By Michelle A. Vu - March 10, 2011
A group of prominent evangelicals will meet with a Mormon leader Thursday in Salt Lake City, Utah, for dialogue to better understand each other's faith.
Some of the evangelical leaders involved in the dialogue are: Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary; Craig Williford, president of Trinity International University; and David Neff, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today; among others.
"We hope this time of dialogue with LDS leaders will deepen our understanding of the Mormon faith and contribute to the ongoing work of evangelicals in Utah," said Leith Anderson, NAE President. "For the sake of Christ and his kingdom, we seek to represent biblical evangelicalism to those who wouldn't hear or know. We also look for common ground on issues where we can work together." ...

This is the first time a NAE board meeting is held in Utah, where about 60 percent of the population are members of the LDS church.
But this is not the first time for at least one of the NAE board members to dialogue with Mormons. Fuller President Richard Mouw had address a Mormon crowd at the flagship Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City in 2004.
Mouw was quoted as saying during that address that evangelicals have often "seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of members of the LDS faith." ...

Many evangelical Christians do not consider Mormons to be Christians. In 2007, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote that Mormons believe in a false gospel and therefore cannot be considered Christians.
"Here is the bottom line. As an Evangelical Christian - a Christian who holds to the 'traditional Christian orthodoxy' of the Church - I do not believe that Mormonism leads to salvation," the influential theologian wrote in a blog debate hosted by Beliefnet.com. ...

In the debate with Mormon science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card, Mohler had said that whether Mormons share many of the same values as evangelical Christians is beside the point in considering if they are Christians. To be considered a Christian, the theologian stated, is based on whether somoene accepts traditional Christian orthodox beliefs.
Mohler pointed out that Mormonism from its beginning rejected traditional Christian orthodoxy. The subtitle of The Book of Mormon is "Another Testament of Jesus Christ." Mormons also reject one of Christianity's central tenets - the Trinity. Instead of believing in one God in three Persons, Mormons believe in many gods.
Moreover, followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believe Joseph Smith Jr. is the first latter-day prophet who restored the original Christian church in the 19th century in America. They believe the entire structure of Christian orthodoxy affirmed by the post-apostolic church is corrupt and false.
Therefore, Mormons reject the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed - which are based on the Bible and were agreed upon by the ancient Christian churches as statements that true believers should affirm.
"Without doubt, Mormonism borrows Christian themes, personalities, and narratives," the evangelical theologian said.
"Nevertheless, it rejects what orthodox Christianity affirms and it affirms what orthodox Christianity rejects. It is not Christianity in a new form or another branch of the Christian tradition. By its own teachings and claims, it rejects that very tradition."

Standing Together, an evangelical organization that seeks to unite Utah Christians through prayer, worship and outreach, is organizing the talk between evangelical and the LDS leaders. The ministry, which is also the host of the NAE board events, is known for building a relationship of understanding between evangelicals and Mormons and promoting positive theological dialogue between the two faiths. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelicals-mormon-search-for-common-ground-in-utah-49351/

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Christian author: Glenn Beck a "false teacher" ... "proclaiming another Jesus and another gospel"

2011-06-24T17:48:00.000-04:00

But defenders says Fox host clearly championing Gospel

WORLDNETDAILY - By Joe Kovacs - March 9, 2011

A Christian author and national speaker has just released a video in which he flays radio and TV commentator Glenn Beck as a pagan, New Age "anti-Christ" who is deluding many believers away from the Bible's teachings and leading them toward Eastern mysticism.

Brannon Howse of Worldview Weekend in Collierville, Tenn., who was once a defender of Beck, is now blasting the popular Fox News host based on content of Beck's new book, "Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life," co-authored by psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow [also see here] .

"Back in August of 2010, I tried warning folks that Glenn Beck was a pagan, New Age, universalistic Mormon, and indeed, he now has revealed his hand," Howse says in the

video, which is based on a column he wrote earlier this year. "Beck's book is nothing less than a promotion of universalism, postmodernism and pagan spirituality, also known as the New Age movement."

He continued: "I hate to say it, but through testing Glenn's doctrinal fruit, he is not a Christian. In fact indeed, he is a false teacher. He is proclaiming another Jesus and another gospel. ... Nowhere in Beck's new book does he mention the biblical Gospel. In fact, what he mentions is anti-Christ. He's denying the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. What Glenn is promoting is the same lie promoted by Satan in Genesis 3, verses 1-5. And I'm fearful that the spiritual poison Beck is promoting is not seven wonders that will change your life, but in fact lies that will condemn the souls of millions for eternity."

He says Beck is a very committed and knowledgeable Mormon, which is the common term for a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Beck himself writes in his book, "I questioned everything I could think to question about the faith. I went over my doubts again and again with the church bishop. I read everything there was to read on their website and every word of Mormon Doctrine ... I went to anti-Mormon literature for hints, but I found most of it to be unfair or just plain wrong. I tried every trick I could think of to find a contradiction. The problem was that I couldn't. Mormonism seemed to explain the world and my place in it better than any other faith I had looked at." (page 149-150)

In his new video, Howse, who has authored nine books, most of which deal with a Christian worldview, methodically goes through a series of pages from Beck's book, quoting the media giant on points he thinks don't agree with the Bible.

According to Howse, "Beck does not believe in hell, original sin or that Jesus is the only way [to salvation]:

Latter-day Saints do not believe that your chances ever cease, even with death. They end only with the full understanding and denial of truth by your own exercise of real free will. And even then there is no 'lake of fire.' (page 149)
As Keith likes to say, 'There's no original sin left in the world. Everyone's just recycling pain now.' (page 154)
There is no infant delivered evil, out of the womb. There never has been. Not even one ... Charles Manson was not born evil. Ted Bundy wasn't. The BTK killer wasn't. Hitler wasn't. (page 162)

Howse continued: "The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. (Romans 3:23) The Bible says that even babies are born with a sin nature and that we are all conceived in sin. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5) ... ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=272953

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.

Rick Warren hosts 'cult' celebrity docs

2011-06-24T02:55:00.000-04:00

Features promoters of Eastern mysticism, universalism
WORLDNETDAILY - January 15, 2011
When megachurch pastor Rick Warren decided he needed to take his health seriously, he responded in typically ambitious fashion, launching a year-long health program for his church, "The Daniel Plan," written with the help of three celebrity doctors who will appear at a kickoff seminar today.

But critics point out the physicians who crafted the program apparently don't share the church's professed evangelical beliefs, espousing instead various forms of Eastern mysticism and the tenets of a Christian cult, Swedenborgism.

Vowing to lose 90 pounds, Warren said he placed himself under the care of Drs. Mehmet Oz, Daniel Amen and Mark Hyman last fall and worked with each to develop "The Daniel Plan."

Oz, host of the Emmy-winning "Dr. Oz Show" and professor of surgery at Columbia University, says he is inspired by Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th century cult founder who taught that all religions lead to God and denied orthodox Christian beliefs such at the atonement of Christ for sin, the trinity and the deity of the Holy Spirit.

Best-selling author Amen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine, teaches Eastern religious meditation and the New Age energy-based practice of Reiki.

Hyman, a four-time New York Times best-selling author, promotes mystical meditation based on Buddhist principles.

Steve McConkey, who directs a website called Christian Investigator, called it "troubling for a top pastor in the United States to promote false teachers."

"We are living at an all-time low spiritually in the United States with weak leaders," he said.

Saddleback's staff did not respond to a WND request for comment.

McConkey pointed out the followers of what is called Swedenborgianism believe all religions lead to God and that Christianity must go through a rebirth. The group also denies the existence of a personal devil and believes the Bible is not inspired. When people die, the followers believe, they become an angel or an evil spirit.

Emanuel Swedenborg said he had a vision in 1745 in which he saw creatures crawling on walls. He asserted God then appeared to him as a man and told him to promote the new teachings to the world.

Warren plans to have one-on-one discussions with Amen and Hymen at the summit today, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Oz will appear via a video message.

The summit also will be live-streamed on Saddleback's website.

The church says all of its more than 5,000 small groups will go through "The Daniel Plan," which is part of Saddleback's "Decade of Destiny," a 10-year plan launching this month "to help individuals succeed and be who God designed them to be in every aspect in life."

Warren, author of the best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life," said he is "honored to be partnering with these internationally distinguished health experts."

"God says that health is important, and that is what we want to explore," Warren said.

He said that the many Americans who resolve each year to lose weight and get fit need to have the right motivation if they want to succeed.

"We hope to provide encouragement, based on biblical principles, to help people make a real lifestyle change toward better health," Warren said.

The 52-week "Daniel Plan," according to Saddleback, is based upon the biblical account of Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refused to take part in the Babylonian king's rich foods and wine and challenged the king's chief-of-staff to a test of meal plans.

Daniel and his three colleagues ate a 10-day diet of vegetables and water that made them healthier and better nourished than the others.

"I grew up in a home where the dinner table was the centerpiece of our existence," Warren said. "I have never paid much attention to my health, as it was just never important to me. But earlier this year I had a moment of clarity and realized we all need to make a change, and that I can't help anyone if I don't first start with me."

Warren cited statistics indicating 7 out of 10 Americans are overweight and that diabetes and heart disease is on the rise.

"America is getting fatter and fatter, and we must do something about it," he said.

Following the health seminar, medical professionals and volunteers will be available on the Saddleback campus to record health numbers so individuals can begin "The Daniel Plan," Saddleback said. Participants will be able to set up their own interactive online profile via the church's website to guide them through the plan and keep a record of health improvements and accomplishments.

Warren founded Saddleback in 1980 with his wife, Kay. The church has a total average weekly attendance of 22,000 at its main Lake Forest campus and nine other locations in the cities of Anaheim, Corona, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Laguna Woods, Orange, San Clemente and Rancho Capistrano. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=251133

Self-Realization Fellowship elects Sri Mrinalini Mata as new leader

2011-06-24T01:46:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES TIMES [Tribune Company] - By Mitchell Landsberg - January 12, 2011
The Self-Realization Fellowship, a Los Angeles-based organization that follows a spiritual path rooted in both Hinduism and Christianity, has elected a new leader, the fourth since it was established in 1920.
The fellowship announced Tuesday that Sri Mrinalini Mata, who became a Self-Realization nun at the age of 15, was elected president last week by its eight-member board of directors. She succeeds Sri Daya Mata, the group's longtime leader, who died in November.
The selection of Mrinalini Mata, 79, means that the fellowship will continue to be led by a woman, and by a direct disciple of its founder, Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian yogi who is credited with helping to popularize yoga and meditation in the West. Mrinalini Mata has been vice president of the organization since 1966.

"It shows that they're very traditional - that they're holding on to a tradition," said Lola Williamson, a professor of religion at Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., and the author of "Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion," which examines the Self-Realization Fellowship and two other movements.
The fellowship is perhaps best known in Los Angeles for the tranquility of its temple gardens at sites that include Hollywood and Pacific Palisades. They are among more than 600 temples, meditation centers and retreat sites operated by the organization around the world.
Born Merna Brown in Wichita, Kan., Mrinalini Mata moved to Southern California as a child. In 1945, when she was a teenager, her mother took her to see Yogananda. The girl, who was clutching a Bible, according to Williamson, was initially reluctant to meet the religious leader but found herself electrified by his presence and almost immediately dedicated her life to his cause. ...
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-self-realization-20110112,0,5416573.story

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.

Greater Abominations: Critics Slam ABC Pilot 'Good Christian B**ches' for 'Inappropriate,' 'Damaging' Title

2011-06-22T17:05:00.000-04:00

Prince of the Power of the Air [Waves]

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. - Ephesians 2:1-7

“The strongest appeal you can make is emotionally. If you can get their emotions going, make them forget their logic, you’ve got ‘em”.
- Bob Pitman, founder and former president of MTV.

“At MTV we don’t shoot for the 14-year-olds. We own them.”
- Bob Pitman, founder and former president of MTV.

“They digest it on a lot of levels. Some people will see it and be disgusted by it, but maybe they’ll be unconsciously aroused by it. If people keep seeing it, and seeing it, and seeing it, eventually it’s not going to be such a strange thing.”
- Entertainer, Madonna, to a Homosexual Magazine concerning Homosexual “acts” during her performances. (She also mentioned to the LA Times that she is “Very tormented” and “possessed by many demons”)

"ABC's core viewership is Christian, so the goal of the show won't be to attack Christianity. Just like the book, this is a show by Christians, for (mostly) Christians, to enjoy a little prime-time self-deprecation,"
- Los Angeles-based entertainment expert, Jenn Hoffman regarding ABC Network pilot called "Good Christian B**ches."

FOX NEWS [News Corporation/Murdoch] - By Hollie McKay - March 4, 2011
An ABC pilot called "Good Christian B**ches" has religious and women's groups up in arms over what they describe as an extremely offensive and distasteful show title.
The dramedy, based on Kim Gatlin's novel of the same name, will be brought to life by famed "Sex and the City" and "90210" executive producer Darren Star. The plot centers on the life of reformed "mean girl" Amanda, played by "Talladega Nights" actress Leslie Bibb, who returns to her hometown of Dallas to find herself fodder for malicious gossip from the women in the Christian community.
Still in the early stages, the pilot has not been guaranteed a spot on ABC's lineup. And though the show's title may change before it goes to broadcast, "Good Christian B**ches" is already causing uproar.

Christian publisher Tessie DeVore told FOX411's Pop Tarts column that the show, which features the tagline "For Heaven's sake, don't let God get in the way of a good story!" could put Christians in an unfairly bad light.
"I find the title offensive. I don't think those two words should be combined," she said. "A show like this can damage perceptions [of Christians in this country]."
It also could be a slippery slope for future shows, said Melissa Henson, director of communications and public education for the Parents' Television Council tells Tarts.
"In the past, we've raised concerns about changing language standards for television," Henson said. "Once a particular profanity or obscenity has been embraced by a particular show, it quickly becomes mainstream."
And Yana Walton from the Women's Media Center said Christians aren't the only ones who should be upset.
"It is not an appropriate term to use to describe any woman, regardless of their faith," Walton said. "Entertainment media, especially music and films, have been normalizing misogynistic language for years."

But despite the seemingly outrageous title, Dan Gainor, head of the Culture and Media Institute, is not surprised that the pilot has gone this far already.
"ABC is doubling down on the offensive by also approving 'Don't Trust the B***ch in Apartment 23,' following up on the CBS show '$#*! My Dad Says.' And this continued decline is unsurprising," he said.
"The media keeps trying to redefine words and morality to mean what they say, not what they really do mean," Gainor added. "One wonders which network will be the first to drop the F-bomb in a TV title and whether the FCC will even intervene."

Even if the title holds up, some are looking forward to the show.
"ABC's core viewership is Christian, so the goal of the show won't be to attack Christianity. Just like the book, this is a show by Christians, for (mostly) Christians, to enjoy a little prime-time self-deprecation," Los Angeles-based entertainment expert, Jenn Hoffman said.
A representative for ABC declined to comment on the story.

Deidre Behar contributed to this report

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/03/04/critics-slam-abc-pilot-good-christian-bitches-inappropriate-damaging-title/print#

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.

Greater Abominations: Pole-dancers for Jesus

2011-06-22T16:37:00.000-04:00

WORLD MAGAZINE - By Tony Woodlief - March 25, 2011
This is the kind of story you have to double-check to be sure it isn't parody: pole-dancers for Jesus. The owner of a dance studio outside Houston has started classes for women based on increasingly popular pole-dancing classes, only these classes use modern Christian music, and incorporate presumably less provocative moves.

The logic, as I understand it, runs like this: The body is a temple, you're supposed to keep your temple in shape, poles are good for keeping said temples in tippy-top fitness, it's not sin if you add some Christian music and don't look too strippery, and anyone who wants to judge isn't being very Christian about the whole thing. ...

And perhaps that's a good rule for all of us to follow, to cultivate the habit of asking what is motivating our desire to do this, that, or the other. When it comes to pole-dancing, it seems the whole thing is motivated more by a desire to emulate a particularly unsavory part of popular culture than the desire to stay fit. Which is all well and good, this being a free society and all.

But how about we not call it "Pole Fitness for Jesus"? Because it's not really for Jesus, I don't think.

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://online.worldmag.com/2011/03/25/pole-dancers-for-jesus/

Hallelujah! Christians Pole Dance for Jesus in Texas
Student Says Pole Dancing Class Brings Her Closer to God
ABC NEWS [American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./The Walt Disney Company] - BY Sherisse Pham - March 22, 2011
A new exercise class, Pole Fitness for Jesus, is inviting Christian women in a small Texas town to spin without sin for the Lord.
"God gives us these bodies, and they are supposed to be our temples and we are supposed to take care of them," instructor Crystal Dean told ABC affiliate KTRK-TV. "And that's what we are doing."
For one Sunday each month, Dean teaches free classes to Christian women who bring in their church programs.
There is biblical approval of mixing religion with song and dance, namely, Psalm 149:3: "Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre."

For critics and skeptics who find it difficult to merge churchgoing Christians with limber pole dancers, religious scholars point out that Christians have been adjusting their moral obligations to the modern world for the last half century. There are Christian tattoo parlors, books about Christian dieting (Thin for Him, Fit for My King), and even Christian sex manuals. On the scale of shocking modern activities for Christians, Thomas Tweed, a professor with the University of Texas, rates the pole dancing classes as "mildly surprising."
"This is just another attempt to think through how to live a full Christian life," said Tweed. ...
Student Says Pole Dancing Class Brings Her Closer to God ...

Churches throughout the United States already host contemporary, even sexy workout classes. You can take jazzercise classes at the First Church of Lombard in Indianapolis, Zumba at Amazing Grace Church in Memphis, or belly dancing lessons at Trinity Presbyterian in Richmond, Va.
Pole dancing, however, maintains a stronger relationship to vices frowned upon by the Christian community.
"It does have a history of being used for unhealthy practices, for things that are not good for portrayal of women," said Rev. Ron Krueger, pastor of the Immanuel United Church of Christ, located less than 400 feet from Dean's class. ...
If the class reaches people who would otherwise be turned away from Christianity, Krueger said, that would be a positive outcome.
But as to Dean's claim that it helps Christian women maintain healthy bodies, the pastor had a list of alternative exercises with less salacious histories: yoga, aerobics, running and walking.

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=13194891

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.

Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga’s Soul

2011-06-18T18:22:00.000-04:00

Who Owns Yoga? It surely is not just a physical exercise although many Americans and Christians would like to believe that.

For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with influences from the east,
-Isaiah 2:6a

Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law. - Proverbs 29:18 (ESV) [Prophetic vision comes from the Word of God, i.e. the Scriptures]

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge...
- Hosea 4:6a

"At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. "Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. "But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.`
-Matthew 24:10-13

NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Paul Vitello - November 27, 2010
Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous - from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it.
But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism.
The campaign, labeled “Take Back Yoga,” does not ask yoga devotees to become Hindu, or instructors to teach more about Hinduism. The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions.
That suggestion, modest though it may seem, has drawn a flurry of strong reactions from figures far apart on the religious spectrum. Dr. Deepak Chopra, the New Age writer, has dismissed the campaign as a jumble of faulty history and Hindu nationalism. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has said he agrees that yoga is Hindu - and cited that as evidence that the practice imperiled the souls of Christians who engage in it.
The question at the core of the debate - who owns yoga? - has become an enduring topic of chatter in yoga Web forums, Hindu American newspapers and journals catering to the many consumers of what is now a multibillion-dollar yoga industry.
In June, it even prompted the Indian government to begin making digital copies of ancient drawings showing the provenance of more than 4,000 yoga poses, to discourage further claims by entrepreneurs like Bikram Choudhury, an Indian-born yoga instructor to the stars who is based in Los Angeles. Mr. Choudhury nettled Indian officials in 2007 when he copyrighted his personal style of 26 yoga poses as “Bikram Yoga.”
Organizers of the Take Back Yoga effort point out that the philosophy of yoga was first described in Hinduism’s seminal texts and remains at the core of Hindu teaching. Yet, because the religion has been stereotyped in the West as a polytheistic faith of “castes, cows and curry,” they say, most Americans prefer to see yoga as the legacy of a more timeless, spiritual “Indian wisdom.”
“In a way,” said Dr. Aseem Shukla, the foundation’s co-founder, “our issue is that yoga has thrived, but Hinduism has lost control of the brand.” ...
Like Dr. Chopra and some religious historians, Ms. Desmond believes that yoga originated in the Vedic culture of Indo-Europeans who settled in India in the third millennium B.C., long before the tradition now called Hinduism emerged. Other historians trace the first written description of yoga to the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred Hindu scripture believed to have been written between the fifth and second centuries B.C. ...
Loriliai Biernacki, a professor of Indian religions at the University of Colorado, said the debate had raised important issues about a spectrum of Hindu concepts permeating American culture, including meditation, belief in karma and reincarnation, and even cremation.
“All these ideas are Hindu in origin, and they are spreading,” she said. “But they are doing it in a way that leaves behind the proper name, the box that classifies them as ‘Hinduism.’ ”
The debate has also secured the standing of the Hindu American Foundation as the pre-eminent voice for the country’s two million Hindus, said Diana L. Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard. Other groups represent Indian-Americans’ interests in business and politics, but the foundation has emerged as “the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity,” she said.
Dr. Shukla said reaction to the yoga campaign had far exceeded his expectations.
“We started this, really, for our kids,” said Dr. Shukla, a urologist and a second-generation Indian-American. “When our kids go to school and say they are Hindu, nobody says, ‘Oh, yeah, Hindus gave the world yoga.’ They say, ‘What caste are you?’ Or ‘Do you pray to a monkey god?’ Because that’s all Americans know about Hinduism.” ...
Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/nyregion/28yoga.html

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.

As in the Days of Lot: The growing acceptance of Homosexuality in the Church

2011-06-18T17:57:00.000-04:00

Church of Scotland moves closer to accepting more gay clergy
ECUMENICAL NEWS INTERNATIONAL - By Martin Revis - May 24, 2011
London -- The church of Scotland, which has been threatened with schism since it confirmed the appointment of an openly homosexual minister two years ago, voted at its general assembly yesterday to move toward the acceptance of gay and lesbian candidates for ordination.
Members of the general assembly, meeting in Edinburgh, voted by 351 to 294 to "consider further the lifting of the moratorium on acceptance for training and ordination of persons in a same sex relationship."
The ban was put in place in 2009 in the wake of the controversy which followed the church's appointment of Scott Rennie, who was living with a male partner in Aberdeen. A special commission was established to explore the issue, and the recommendation for further examination of the matter was contained in the commission's report to assembly yesterday.
The assembly also voted to allow ministers and deacons in same-sex relationships ordained before 2009 to remain in the church and move parishes if they wished.
A statement issued by the church after a lengthy debate on the interpretation of scripture relating to same-sex relationships and the moral implications said: "A theological commission will be set up to bring recommendations to the 2013 general assembly, as well as considering whether ministers should have freedom of conscience to bless civil partnerships and the possible liturgy for such occasions." ...
As seen in live Web coverage of the assembly, The Moderator called for unity despite the contentious issue they faced. "We very much hope that people who disagree with what has been decided will nevertheless remain in the church and work with us as we seek a way forward."
In a spirited debate yesterday, the Rev. Andrew Coghill, said presbyteries would be forced to accept gay ministers and homosexual inductions would multiply the length and breadth of the country. The Rev. Lesley Stewart described such talk as scaremongering, saying she did not expect a rush of openly gay ministers to come forward. Such people had been gracious in maintaining their silence during the two year moratorium.
Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=4918

Given Over: Anti Israel Presbyterian Church Now Officially Pro Homosexuality
Presbyterians vote to clear way for 'gay' clergy
ONE NEWS NOW [American Family News Network] - By Jody Brown - May 11, 2011
Prominent pro-homosexual groups are applauding a decision by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that opens the door for churches in that denomination to ordain individuals who identify as lesbian, "gay," bisexual, or transgender.
PC(USA) has struck down a requirement that unmarried clergy remain celibate, removing a key barrier for homosexuals who want to be ordained. Ordination standards under the new policy remove the constitutional requirement that all ministers, elders, and deacons live in "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness" -- and replace it with "joyful submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life."
Delegates to the PC(USA)'s general assembly endorsed the new policy last year, but the change still required ratification from the majority of its 173 regional districts, known as "presbyteries." The Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area in Minneapolis provided the deciding vote Tuesday night.
Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=1345032

Tenn. Baptist exec: Belmont abandons Christian roots
BAPTIST PRESS [Southern Baptist Convention] - By Michael Foust - January 27, 2011
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Less than two months after facing a controversy over the departure of a lesbian soccer coach, Belmont University's trustees Jan. 26 added "sexual orientation" to the school's nondiscrimination policy, a landmark move that is being criticized as a major departure from its Christian founding.
Located in Nashville, Belmont had ties to the Tennessee Baptist Convention (TBC) for more than 50 years until the university's board, in 2005, voted to move away from a TBC-elected board to a self-perpetuating board. Two years later, the two sides reached a settlement in which Belmont would pay the TBC $11 million over 40 years.
"For decades Tennessee Baptists poured themselves into making Belmont what it is," Randy Davis, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, told Baptist Press. "We did sever ties in 2007, but many of us never dreamed that the school would walk away so rapidly from their Christian heritage and roots. ...
Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=34527

Gay man leads N.C. church association
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, Charlotte, North Carolina [McClatchy] - By Yonat Shimron - December 27, 2010
RALEIGH As the newly elected president of the N.C. Council of Churches, Stan Kimer is typical of those who served before him: a retired business executive, longtime churchgoer and member of several nonprofit organization boards.
He's also openly gay. And that sets him apart.
Only one other of the country's 33 similar church councils has elected an openly gay leader. In California, a lesbian was elected president in the late 1990s. That makes Kimer's presidency of the N.C. Council - a coalition of 17 Christian denominations and eight individual churches that work on social issues - historic in the South.
It also signals an acceptance among member denominations - Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics - that even if they have theological differences about homosexuality, they are OK with a gay man at the helm. Or at least, they don't see it as an issue worth fighting.
"A lot of our member denominations have internal battles about this," said the Rev. George Reed, the council's executive director. "But the governing board felt the fact that he is a gay man was not a disqualifying factor."
As president, Kimer leads a 35-member governing board that sets the council's direction on a host of social issues, including racial equality, health care, immigrant rights and environmental conservation. He was elected to a one-year term and could run for a second one-year term. ...
"I have a strong belief that as a Christian I'm called to make the world a better place," he said. "I like to spend my time with groups where I can see an impact."
He cited the council's efforts to educate churches about immigration, obesity and disease, as well as about the need for diversity in public schools. ...
Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/12/27/1936344/gay-man-leads-nc-church-association.html

Open doors await them
HOUSTON CHRONICLE [Hearst Corporation] - By Jeannie Kever - February 19, 2011
Ebie Hussey's first reaction when her son announced that he is gay was to offer unconditional love.
Finding a new church was a close second.
"His first question was, 'Am I going to hell?'" Hussey said of that conversation with her son, Jaxn. "Mainstream Christianity and fundamental Christianity really pushes that homosexuality is a sin, and he had caught on to that."
Jaxn, now 15, knew his parents didn't think that. "But I had always heard people saying that kind of thing," he said.
In an effort to counter the message, almost two dozen Houston-area churches have designated Sunday as Bring Your Gay Teen to Church Day.
"We think it's important for families to know there's a safe place to go to worship," said Jim Bankston, senior minister at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. "Families who have gay members want to make sure they feel welcome in church and aren't bashed in any way." ...
Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7435364.html

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.

A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 5

2011-04-25T20:02:00.000-04:00

Pope Put Off Punishing Abusive Priest
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein and Michael Luo - April 9, 2010
The priest, convicted of tying up and abusing two young boys in a California church rectory, wanted to leave the ministry.
But in 1985, four years after the priest and his bishop first asked that he be defrocked, the future Pope Benedict XVI, then a top Vatican official, signed a letter saying that the case needed more time and that “the good of the Universal Church” had to be considered in the final decision, according to church documents released through lawsuits.
That decision did not come for two more years, the sort of delay that is fueling a renewed sexual abuse scandal in the church that has focused on whether the future pope moved quickly enough to remove known pedophiles from the priesthood, despite pleas from American bishops.
As the scandal has deepened, the pope’s defenders have said that, well before he was elected pope in 2005, he grew ever more concerned about sexual abuse and weeding out pedophile priests. But the case of the California priest, the Rev. Stephen Kiesle, and the trail of documents first reported on Friday by The Associated Press, shows, in this period at least, little urgency.
The letter that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later pope, wrote in Latin in 1985, mentions Father Kiesle’s young age - 38 at the time - as one consideration in whether he should be forced from the priesthood. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it was wrong to draw conclusions based on one letter, without carefully understanding the context in which it was written.
“It’s evident that it’s not an in-depth and serious use of documents,” he said. Earlier Friday, Father Lombardi suggested that the pope would be willing to meet with sexual abuse victims.
But John S. Cummins, the former bishop of Oakland who repeatedly wrote his superiors in Rome urging that the priest be defrocked, said the Vatican in that era, after the Second Vatican Council, was especially reluctant to dismiss priests because so many were abandoning the priesthood. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/world/europe/10pope.html

John Paul backed praise for hiding abuse: Cardinal
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor - April 17, 2010
A former Vatican cardinal who congratulated a French bishop for hiding a sexually abusive priest has said he acted with the approval of the late Pope John Paul, a Spanish newspaper reported on Saturday.
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the Vatican official in charge of priests around the world when he praised the French bishop in 2001, dragged the Polish pope into the controversy during a conference in the Spanish city of Murcia.
His comment came after a Vatican spokesman indirectly confirmed that a 2001 letter to the bishop posted on a French website on Thursday was authentic and was proof the Vatican was right to tighten up its procedures on sex abuse cases that year.
By invoking John Paul, Castrillon Hoyos appeared to up the ante in a subtle Vatican power struggle over who was to blame for past failures to deal effectively with the abuse cases whose revelations in recent months have shaken the Church.
"After consulting the pope ... I wrote a letter to the bishop congratulating him as a model of a father who does not hand over his sons," the daily La Verdad quoted Castrillon Hoyos as telling the conference on Friday, to a round of applause from the assembled prelates, priests and lay people.
"The Holy Father authorized me to send this letter to all bishops in the world and publish it on the internet." ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63G1SH20100417

Bishop, 73, in Belgium Steps Down Over Abuse
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Elisabetta Povoledo - April 23, 2010
ROME - The longest-serving bishop in Belgium resigned Friday after admitting to sexually abusing “a boy in my close entourage” many years ago, becoming the latest cleric to quit in a spreading abuse scandal. …
In a statement issued by the Vatican on Friday, Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the bishop of Bruges since 1985, said that the abuse had occurred “when I was still a simple priest and for a while when I began as a bishop.”
“This has marked the victim forever,” he said.
The bishop said that he had asked the victim and his family several times to forgive him, but that the wound had not healed, “neither in me nor the victim.” A recent media storm merely deepened the trauma, he said. “I am profoundly sorry,” he said.
This week, in a rare public comment directly addressing the issue of abuse, Pope Benedict XVI promised that the church would take action to deal with the crisis. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/europe/24vatican.html

Future Pope’s Role in Abuse Case Was Complex
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Katrin Bennhold - April 26, 2010
VIENNA - As Pope Benedict XVI has come under scrutiny for his handling of sexual abuse cases, both his supporters and his critics have paid fresh attention to the way he responded to a sexual abuse scandal in Austria in the 1990s, one of the most damaging to confront the church in Europe.
Defenders of Benedict cite his role in dealing with Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna as evidence that he moved assertively, if quietly, against abusers. They point to the fact that Cardinal Groër left office six months after accusations against him of molesting boys first appeared in the Austrian news media in 1995. The future pope, they say, favored a full canonical investigation, only to be blocked by other ranking officials in the Vatican.
A detailed look at the rise and fall of the clergyman, who died in 2003, and the involvement of Benedict, a Bavarian theologian with many connections to German-speaking Austria, paints a more complex picture. …
There are indications that Benedict had a lower tolerance for sexual misconduct by elite clergy members than other top Vatican officials.
Unlike John Paul, his predecessor, Benedict has as pope apologized and met with sexual abuse victims. But while he often, as a cardinal, used his clout to enforce doctrine and sideline clergy members whose views diverged from his own, he seemed less willing at that time to aggressively pursue sexual abusers. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/europe/27vienna.html

Belgian Catholics Remain Anguished by Abuse
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Steven Erlanger - September 19, 2010
BRUSSELS - There were 32 worshipers at noontime Mass in a side chapel of the soaring Cathedral of SS. Michael and Gudula, which dates from the 11th century. A third of the faithful were African; there were two nuns and a police officer. ...
[The] sermon before a thin crowd seemed an obvious demonstration of the anguish of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, staggered by a sexual-abuse scandal that has already affected 475 victims. There have been 19 suicide attempts, 13 of them successful, by Belgians abused by clergy members.
The country’s longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in disgrace when the nephew he abused for 13 years finally moved to expose him, and the reputation of a former archbishop, the liberal Cardinal Godfried Danneels, has been badly damaged by his effort, caught on tape, to allow the bishop to retire quietly.
The new archbishop, the conservative André-Joseph Léonard, chosen by Pope Benedict XVI over the objections of Belgium’s bishops, released a graphic 200-page report into the abuse scandal prepared by a child psychiatrist, Peter Adriaenssens, who worked with the hundreds who came forward after the bishop resigned.
Last week, the archbishop promised to open a center for victims and vowed that new cases will go to the secular law enforcement authorities. But he made no apology and asked for more time to fashion a comprehensive response, disappointing many. The vivid suffering of the victims, he said, “makes us shiver.”
But the “shiver” has been more like an earthquake for the Belgian church, affected by decades of abuse from those meant to uphold the highest moral standards. It is another blow to the “universal church” in its European heartland. Charges of priestly pedophilia and church cover-ups have recently spread to continental European countries like the Netherlands, Austria and the pope’s own Germany, after some in the church once argued that such abuses were mainly confined to countries like the United States and Ireland.
Hundreds of Belgian Catholics have already sent letters asking to be debaptized, said Jürgen Mettepenningen, the spokesman for Archbishop Léonard. “This is one of the most difficult crises for the church in its history,” he said. “This is a crisis of moral authority, of moral credibility” for a church that preaches morality to others. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/world/europe/20belgium.html

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A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 4

2011-04-25T18:13:00.000-04:00

UN Judge: Pope Should be Prosecuted at International Criminal Court for "Crimes against Humanity"
CATHOLIC FAMILY AND HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTE - By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. - April 8, 2010
In London last Friday, a high ranking United Nations (UN) jurist called on the British government to detain Pope Benedict XVI during his upcoming visit to Britain, and send him to trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “crimes against humanity.”

Geoffrey Robertson touted his status as a UN judge in an article he published last week, in which he argued that jurists should invoke the same procedures that have been used to indict war criminals such as Slobodan Milosevic, to try the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church, who he said is ultimately responsible for sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

Robertson is one of five select jurists in the UN’s internal justice system responsible for holding UN officials accountable for corruption and mismanagement. His article was published in both the United States and Britain and reported on by the Associated Press.

Professor Hurst Hannum of the Fletcher School at Tufts University told C-Fam's Friday Fax that it would be a “real stretch” to use the ICC, since that court’s jurisdiction is mainly reserved for crimes during war. More likely, Hannum said, is that Robertson and likeminded experts would invoke the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” so that national courts all over the world could detain the pope whenever he stepped foot on their soil. Critics say the principle, already used in practice, is a violation of sovereignty as it is enshrined in the UN Charter.

Yet Robertson insisted that the ICC could be used as long as the Pope’s sovereign immunity was waived and as long as jurists can show that the sex abuse scandal was carried out on a “widespread or systematic scale,” in a similar way that child soldiers were used in the wars in Sierra Leone and the way that sex slaves are traded internationally. …

Robertson, a tort lawyer, argued that prosecution at a higher level of the Church is necessary to get more money for victims of clergy sexual abuse in cases where dioceses have gone into bankruptcy. He specifically pointed out the fact that the diocese of Los Angeles has already paid $660M in damages and Boston has paid $100M.

One prominent law professor told the Friday Fax, “Without in any way minimizing the seriousness of the alleged offenses of Catholic priests, it would be a grave mistake to the laws of human rights to permit a trivializing of the responsibility to protect, and to play into the hands of American contingency-fee lawyers.”

Another human rights lawyer told the Friday Fax that the article could be part of a broader campaign. Robertson has long campaigned to strip the Holy See of its permanent observer status at the UN, and has publicly referred to the Holy See “the world’s largest NGO.”

When a campaign was launched to oust the Holy See from its status in 1999, UN Member States rallied around the Vatican, and in 2004 the General Assembly voted unanimously to expand that status. It is unclear whether UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon knew about Robertson’s leanings before appointing him to his current position.

This article reprinted with permission from www.c-fam.org

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10040810.html

Pope hesitated to defrock priest

LOS ANGELES TIMES [Tribune Company] - By Mitchell Landsberg and Victoria Kim - April 9, 2010

When he was the church's chief enforcer of doctrine 25 years ago, Pope Benedict XVI declined to immediately defrock a California priest who admitted to child sexual abuse, saying he needed more time to consider the impact of the case on "the good of the Universal Church," according to a letter released Friday.

The 1985 letter to Bishop John Cummins of Oakland is the latest document to shed light on Benedict's handling of the sexual abuse crisis in his earlier career, when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and headed the Vatican office that ultimately assumed full responsibility for such cases. In it, he acknowledges the "grave significance" of the charges against the priest, Stephen Kiesle, who had pleaded no contest to charges of molesting two boys in 1978. But Ratzinger said he needed more time and information, in part because of the "detriment that [defrocking] can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful."

It would be another two years before the Vatican relented to the request, which apparently came on Kiesle's initiative. …

By itself, the Vatican letter suggests that Ratzinger was reluctant to act hastily in such a grave matter as defrocking a priest, something that is rarely done.

Church critics said it was part of a pattern by the Vatican of seeming more concerned about the church's reputation than about the trauma of sexual abuse victims, about whom Ratzinger says nothing in the document. ...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pope-letter10-2010apr10,0,1421147.story

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.

A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 3

2011-04-25T17:53:00.002-04:00

Papal preacher apologizes for Jewish remarks
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - Editing by Jon Hemming - April 4, 2010
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict's personal preacher apologized to Jews on Sunday after he compared attacks on the Church and the pope over a sexual abuse scandal to "collective violence" against Jews throughout history.
"If -- and it was not my intention to do so -- I hurt the sensitivities of Jews and victims of pedophilia, I am truly sorry and I ask for forgiveness," Father Raniero Cantalamessa said in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.
He also said the pope was not aware of his remarks and that the pontiff heard them for the first time along with everyone else in St. Peter's Basilica on Good Friday.
"Not only did the pope not inspire me but, like everyone else, heard my words for the first time like everyone else during the liturgy in the basilica," he said.
Cantalamessa, speaking with the pope sitting nearby, said Jews throughout history had been the victims of "collective violence" and drew comparisons between Jewish suffering and attacks on the Church. …

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/04/us-pope-abuse-preacher-idUSTRE6330BY20100404

Vatican deputy led cover-up in US abuse case: report
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - April 5, 2010
The current Vatican number two, and not Pope Benedict XVI, bore the main responsibility for inaction in the scandal of a US priest accused of molesting deaf children, a German magazine said Monday.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone -- who was the deputy chief of the Church's moral watchdog when it was headed by the current pope -- played the role of a "brake" in the affair, the Die Zeit weekly said.
Benedict has faced criticism over claims that, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he failed to take action despite being alerted twice by the archbishop of Wisconsin to claims that Reverend Lawrence Murphy had abused 200 children.
But Die Zeit, citing a copy of Vatican documents, said that at a crisis meeting arranged by the Vatican in 1998, it was Bertone who raised numerous obstacles against internal disciplinary proceedings against the US priest.
It said Bertone warned it would be difficult to deal with Lawrence's case when it would have to be "treated in absolute secrecy", while there would also be trouble gathering evidence "without enlarging the scandal".
He also wanted to "avoid a scandal for his boss", the weekly said, citing a summary of the meeting. ...
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.8ffe222a5e285c85451afd276cb9fe1c.311&show_article=1

Priest Charged in U.S. Is Still Serving in India
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein - April 5, 2010
A Catholic priest who has been criminally charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota six years ago is still working in his home diocese in India despite warnings to the Vatican from an American bishop that the priest continued to pose a risk to children, according to church documents made public on Monday.
The documents show that the American bishop warned the Vatican that the priest was accused of molesting two teenage girls whose trust he gained by promising to discuss their interest in becoming nuns.
A county attorney in Minnesota is seeking to extradite the priest from India in a criminal case that involves one of the girls, who said the priest had forced her to perform oral sex and had threatened her and her family.
The case took place during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, who has recently come under fire for his role in cases of sexually abusive priests in Germany and Wisconsin. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/europe/06church.html

Catholic bishop in Norway dismissed due to sex abuse
ECUMENICAL NEWS INTERNATIONAL - April 7, 2010
Oslo -- Former Roman Catholic bishop Georg Müller, who abruptly left his post as Bishop of Trondheim in Norway on 8 June 2009, was dismissed due to his sexual abuse of an altar boy 20 years ago, the Vatican has said. Müller's dismissal was confirmed to journalists on 7 April by Vatican spokesperson the Rev. Federico Lombardi. The Catholic bishop of Oslo, Bernt Eidsvig, had earlier announced the dismissal in a press release. Eidsvig has been acting bishop of Trondheim since German-born Müller, aged 58, left. Eidsvig said the matter had not been publicised earlier because the person abused had not wanted it made public, and had requested anonymity. [642 words, ENI-10-0233] ...
http://www.eni.ch/news/item.php?id=3968

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.

A Doctrine of Demons: The Pope, The Vatican and The Sex Abuse Scandals - Part 2

2011-04-25T15:38:00.000-04:00

Abuse Scandal’s Ripples Spread Across Europe
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Katrin Bennhold, Nicholas Kulish and Rachel Donadio - March 24, 2010
MUNICH - The fallout from the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church settled across Europe on Wednesday, as prosecutors said they were weighing criminal charges against a priest suspected of molesting children in Germany, and Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of a bishop accused of mishandling allegations of abuse in Ireland.

The possibility of criminal charges emerged from new accusations against a priest at the center of the child-molesting scandal rocking the church in Germany. On Wednesday, church officials in Munich said the priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann - whose transfer in 1980 to an archdiocese led at the time by Benedict, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, has drawn the pope himself into the nation’s child abuse controversy - had been accused of molesting a minor as recently as 1998.

The latest revelation comes as church officials in northern Germany say they have “credible evidence” of at least two other cases of sexual abuse committed by Father Hullermann in the 1970s, adding to a trail of accusations that suggest a pattern of abuse over two decades.

During that time, church officials repeatedly transferred Father Hullermann to new parishes and allowed him to work with children, even after a 1986 conviction for sexually abusing boys.
Father Hullermann has not returned repeated calls and hung up without comment when reached briefly on Wednesday. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25church.html

Pope May Be at Crossroads on Abuse, Forced to Reconcile Policy and Words
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Rachel Donadio - March 25, 2010
ROME - Even as Pope Benedict XVI, faced with a sexual abuse scandal spreading across Europe, has called on victims to come forward and urged clerics to cooperate with civil justice, those strong words are running up against the complexities of his past.

“He is at a crossroads,” said Marco Politi, a veteran Italian Vatican journalist. “What’s extraordinary is that the scandal has reached the heart of the center of the church. Up to now it was far away - in the States, in Canada, in Brazil, in Australia. Then it came to Europe, to Ireland.

“Then it came to his motherland,” Mr. Politi added of Benedict’s native Germany. “Then it came to his diocese, and now it’s coming to the heart of the government of the church - and he has to give an answer.”

Last weekend, in a heartfelt letter to Irish Catholics reeling from reports of decades of systemic sexual abuse, Benedict apologized but did not discipline any church leaders who had covered up abuses, fueling growing anger in Ireland. …

As archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, the future pope approved the transfer to Munich for psychiatric treatment of a priest who had sexually abused boys. The priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, was quickly returned to pastoral work with children. This month, a subordinate took responsibility for the decision, although internal church documents show that Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was copied on a memorandum informing him of the transfer. Benedict has not addressed the issue. …
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26vatican.html

Memo to Pope Described Transfer of Pedophile Priest
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Nicholas Kulish and Katrin Bennhold - March 26, 2010
MUNICH - The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church’s hierarchy.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope and archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.

An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber. But the memo, whose existence was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest’s reassignment.

What part he played in the decision making, and how much interest he showed in the case of the troubled priest, who had molested multiple boys in his previous job, remains unclear. But the personnel chief who handled the matter from the beginning, the Rev. Friedrich Fahr, “always remained personally, exceptionally connected” to Cardinal Ratzinger, the church said.

The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children. The German Archdiocese has acknowledged that “bad mistakes” were made in the handling of Father Hullermann, though it attributed those mistakes to people reporting to Cardinal Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself. …

The future pope’s time in Munich, in the broader sweep of his life story, has until now been viewed mostly as a steppingstone on the road to the Vatican. But this period in his career has recently come under scrutiny - particularly six decisive weeks from December 1979 to February 1980. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26church.html

For Years, Deaf Boys Tried to Tell of Priest’s Abuse
NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Laurie Goodstein and David Callender - March 26, 2010
They were deaf, but they were not silent. For decades, a group of men who were sexually abused as children by the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin reported to every type of official they could think of that he was a danger, according to the victims and church documents.

They told other priests. They told three archbishops of Milwaukee. They told two police departments and the district attorney. They used sign language, written affidavits and graphic gestures to show what exactly Father Murphy had done to them. But their reports fell on the deaf ears of hearing people.

This week, they learned that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, received letters about Father Murphy in 1996 from Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, who said that the deaf community needed “a healing response from the Church.” The Vatican sat on the case, then equivocated, and when Father Murphy died in 1998, he died a priest.

“That man should have been in prison for a very long time, but he was lucky,” Steven Geier, one of Father Murphy’s victims, said Thursday. “What about me? I wasn’t supposed to touch girls. What gave him the right to be able to do that? Father Murphy constantly thought about sex with children, and he got away with it.” …

“First thing in the morning,” Mr. Geier said, “we took communion, and as he passed out the communion wafers, I thought about how many boys did he touch with those hands and all of the germs, all of the filth of his hands.” ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/us/27wisconsin.html

Only God Can Fire Pope Benedict After Scandals
Irish Singer Sinead O'Connor and Journalist Christopher Hitchens Call for Investigation
ABC NEWS [American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./The Walt Disney Company] - By Susan Donaldson James - March 26, 2010
As outrage mounted over the latest Catholic Church sex scandal, writer Christopher Hitchens called for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI, and singer Sinead O'Connor said the pope should face a criminal investigation.

Protesters rallied outside the Vatican, angry that an office under his command had stopped the prosecution in 1996 of Wisconsin priest Lawrence Murphy, who admitted molesting 200 boys at a school for the deaf where he worked for 20 years. ...

The Vatican continued to be rocked almost daily about new revelations. The New York Times reported today that the pope when he was archbishop of Munich was included on a memo about a priest he had sent to therapy for pedophilia was returning to pastoral work. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys.

French bishops have sent the pope a letter saying they are ashamed of priests who committed "abominable acts" by molesting and raping children.

And the conservative group Legionaries of Christ issued a statement today apologizing for the behavior of the group's founder, Marcial Maciel, who was determined by a church investigation to have molested seminarians and fathered a child by a woman with whom he had a long affair.
Those would be devastating scenarios for most world leaders, but not for the pope.

Experts in canon law say only a heavenly bolt of lightning can take the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from power as the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

"He is really accountable to no one, and that is the history," said former priest Richard Sipe, author of the 1990 book, "A Secret World" about the priesthood. "There have been a pope or two who have resigned, several hundred have been murdered, but it's a very stable organization from the top down. What other monarchy do you know that's lasted for 2,000 years?"

"He is untouchable, there is no question about that," Sipe said. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/pope-benedict-fired-growing-sex-abuse-cover-ups/story?id=10200682

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.