Barack Obama and Islam: As the Twig is Bent, So Grows the Tree

NEWS REAL BLOG - By John C. Drew, Ph.D. - August 21 2010
As a political scientist, I’ve always thought of Obama as a Muslim if only because I tend to categorize people by the cultural influences which impact them as children. Early influences, for example, help us predict later political party affiliations.

Surprisingly, Pew reports that the number of Americans who believe Barack Obama is a Muslim has jumped from 12% in early 2009 to 18% in 2010. Similarly, Pew reports a decline in the number of respondents who identify Obama as a Christian – 34% today compared to 48% in March 2009 and 51% during the Presidential campaign in October 2008. As usual, there is a less decisive group floating out there – adding up to a plurality of 43% – who respond that they do not know what is Obama’s religion. These undecided respondents are up from 34% in 2009.

I’m certain that if Pew telephoned me, I would have been one of the folks who said Obama was a Muslim and who would not have been given the time to fully explain what I mean.

First, I know that Obama’s step-father, Lolo Soetoro, was a practicing Muslim. According to freely available press accounts, Soetoro took little Obama with him to the mosque to pray and enrolled little Obama in school as a Muslim. Second, I know that Obama grew up in a predominantly Muslim country, Indonesia. Third, when I met the young Obama – while he was a sophomore at Occidental College – I can report that his closest friends were the Muslim Pakistani students on campus, in particular, an older Pakistani student named Mohammed Hasan Chandoo. Hasan visited Obama while he was a student at Columbia and attended Obama’s wedding to Michelle in 1992, unlike the African-Americans at Occidental who now claim they were close friends with the young Obama,.

As for Obama’s more contemporary connections to Islam, I pay the most attention to his words in his book, Audacity of Hope, where Obama calls into question the divinity of Christ. This is, in my view, a bright dividing line between being a Christian believer and being a Muslim adherent. I also know that Rev. Wright is a former Muslim and maintains close ties to the Muslim community. All of this information gives me confidence that Obama’s world view, his basic mental architecture, has more links to Islam than Christianity.

Nevertheless, I’m sure the media will spin the results of Pew’s poll as evidence of racism or religious intolerance or an effort to portray Obama as the “other.” My perspective, however, gives me an advantage over mainstream journalists who are puzzled about how Obama could be so completely foolish as to endorse the Ground Zero Mosque. In my view, he is simply defending his base, a base of Muslim adherents to whom Obama has shown considerable loyalty ever since he was a little child.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist who has taught American government and public policy at a few of our nation's formerly prestigious institutions.

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/08/21/barack-obama-and-islam-as-the-twig-is-bent-so-grows-the-tree/

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It Takes a Court to Define Sin?

1 Corinthians 6:1-6
Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?

ALBERT MOHLER.com - By Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. - September 27, 2010
When a scandal breaks in the media, attention to previous scandals comes almost as a reflex. With accusations swirling around Atlanta’s Bishop Eddie Long, the media have turned back to Ted Haggard, who, at the time of his own scandal, was pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, a large independent mega-church, and president of the National Association of Evangelicals.


Haggard resigned in 2006 after a male prostitute accused him of paying for sex and buying drugs. Confronted by the media, Haggard admitted to “sexual immorality” with the prostitute. Just last year, he admitted also to having engaged in “sexual immorality” with a male volunteer at New Life Church when the man was twenty-two, echoing the accusations against Bishop Long. In recent months, Ted Haggard has started a new church in Colorado Springs.


What makes all of this so instructive are comments made in the press by both Ted Haggard and his wife, Gayle. In light of the accusations against Long, Haggard told AOL News: “Nobody’s guilty until the court says he’s guilty.”


Nobody’s guilty until the court says he’s guilty?


In a legal context, that might have some cogency, but a church cannot possibly settle for this as a principle of how to deal with accusations of sin. The church does not need the courts to define either sin or its remedy. Haggard’s statement is particularly troubling given his own story.


On TV’s “Inside Edition,” Gayle Haggard said that Bishop Long “has been a great man. … He has done wonderful things. I hope they hold onto that knowledge as they try to understand what these allegations are about, if they are indeed true.”


The bizarre part of that statement is her encouragement to the church that it remember Bishop Long as a great man and “hold onto that knowledge as they try to understand what these allegations are about, if indeed they are true.”


Well, if true, I think we all know “what these allegations are about.”

Unedited :: Link to Original Postinghttp://www.albertmohler.com/2010/09/27/it-takes-a-court-to-define-sin/



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.

There's No Business Like the Religion Business

Minyanville Media Inc - By Justin Rohrlich - November 11, 2010
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:
"In metro Atlanta and elsewhere, the number of megachurches, which have long been defined as having a weekly attendance of 2,000 or more, are still drawing huge numbers of worshippers and receiving millions of dollars in the collection plate."


Amazingly, the North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA, has an annual budget of $40 million -- only $10.3 million less than the city of Alpharetta.


While some megachurches have hit hard times (the Rev. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral recently filed for bankruptcy), their leaders have, historically, lived quite well.


Creflo A. Dollar, pastor of Atlanta's World Changers Church, preaches the "prosperity gospel," which may or may not bring prosperity to his flock. But it definitely brings prosperity to him.


Dollar and his wife Taffi live in a $3 million Atlanta mansion, as well as a $2.44 million Manhattan condo.


They get around in a private jet, two Rolls-Royces (although Creflo insists they only have one), and a Hummer.


It was this sort of profligate spending that piqued the interest of Senator Charles Grassley in 2007, when he requested detailed financial documents from Dollar and five other megachurch leaders to ensure they were not in violation of their tax-exempt status.


Dollar refused, citing some sort of bizarre legal issue, which he valiantly attempted to explain to Larry King: [see inbedded video here]


Three years later, Dollar apparently still has not complied with the Senator's request.
"If he sticks to his guns," Grassley said, "this will be the first nonprofit that I know of that hasn't cooperated with us over the last five or six years."
If nothing else, it certainly raises an eyebrow or two when the head of a "nonprofit" entity finds enough profit lying around to afford a home like this: ...


Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.minyanville.com/dailyfeed/theres-no-business-like-the/


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The Progressive Church Commercial

This video spoof sadly sums up much of the Purpose Driven, Seeker Creeker mentality that has filled the last day church.
BE/\LERT!


Progressive Church Commercial



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MDnjN3CP4E



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.