Another Surge Needed

Support the Christians in Iraq.By Robin Harris from NRO:
In Iraq the “surge” is working, but at the same time the Iraqi Christian community is dying. Hardly anyone seems to know, and those who know don’t seem to care. In former times, the violent persecution of Christians in a country effectively under the rule of a Western, Christian power would have been unthinkable. But not, it seems, in the enlightened 21st century. The names may be complicated. The facts are not. The Chaldo-Assyrians constitute what remains of the original, non-Arab, population of the area. Iraq’s principal Christian communities today belong to the Chaldean (Catholic) Church, Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East. All use Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ. Despite successive persecutions and constant pressures, Christianity has continued in Iraq since, according to tradition, it was brought there by St. Thomas the Apostle. (more)

Experience Shows Anti-Spanking Laws do More Harm than Good

By Tim Waggoner WELLINGTON, NZ, June 23, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A police review shows that New Zealand’s new anti-spanking law has not reduced the number of physical abuse cases against children, but it has deterred good parents from properly disciplining their children. (more)

Promoting the ‘trendy’ sin of homosexuality

From OneNews Now:
WTTW in Chicago is at least partially funded by taxpayer dollars. The PBS affiliate has broadcast the documentary The Power of Harmony at least twice as a fundraiser. Peter LaBarbera, president of Illinois-based Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, describes the program. “This was a show about a ‘gay’ choir,” says LaBarbera. “And one of the songs they were singing was called, ‘I Ain’t Afraid.’ And here’s [some] of the lyrics: ‘I ain’t afraid of your Jesus. I’m afraid of what you do in the name of your God.’” The documentary, which features the Dallas-based singing group The Turtle Creek Chorale, takes “an intimate look” at issues such as “coming out,” same-sex “marriage,” religious views on homosexuality, and homosexual adoption, says the program’s website. In addition, according to LaBarbera, the documentary portrays as “ignorant, hateful, and prejudiced” Christians who hold to the biblical edict that all sex outside of marriage, including all homosexual activity, is immoral. “They had no Christians representing a biblical framework [or] the idea that you can love ‘gay’ people, but they need to change and leave the lifestyle,” the pro-family activist explains. “There was nothing presented of the ex-gay view, [from] people who’ve come to Christ and left homosexuality.”

Why NATO Must Win in Afghanistan: A Central Front in the War on Terrorism

From Heritage.org:
Jonathan Evans, director general of Britain’s secu­rity service MI5 describes al-Qaeda and its associated groups as, “the main national security threat that we face today.”[1] Through a series of attacks and attempted attacks, Islamist extremists have declared war on the values that underpin the liberal democracies of Brit­ain, Europe, and the entire West. In an extraordinary public speech, Mr. Evans detailed a growing and evolving al-Qaeda threat to the United Kingdom, where at least2,000 individuals have been identified as a threat to national security because of their support for terrorism. He went on to identify the increased threats posed by the “extension of the al-Qaeda brand” in both the Middle East and Europe.[2] …(More)

Doormat Theology

From A Slice of Infinity:
The life of a Christ-follower is to be marked by putting the interests of others on par with our own interests. Moreover, our lives are to be marked by viewing others as more important than ourselves. More important than ourselves. If we seek to follow Jesus in this way, we can expect for others to take advantage of our willingness to serve. Indeed, in calling us to offer our lives for others, we are called to practice “doormat theology”–the willing practice of laying down our lives on behalf of others–even when that service is abused or misused. (more)
Indeed, this type of selfless giving can reflect the very nature of the Godhead…

Yellow Science

Great article over at First Things:
…Nevertheless, over the last several decades an increasing number of scientists have shed the restraints imposed by the scientific method and begun to proclaim the truth of man-made global warming. This is a hypothesis that remains untested, makes no predictions that can be tested in the near future, and cannot offer a numerical explanation for the limited evidence to which it clings. No equations have been shown to explain the relationship between fossil-fuel emission and global temperature. The only predictions that have been made are apocalyptic, so the hypothesis has to be accepted before it can be tested.
The only evidence that can be said to support this so-called scientific consensus is the supposed correlation of historical global temperatures with historical carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere. Even if we do not question the accuracy of our estimates of global temperatures into previous centuries, and even if we ignore the falling global temperatures over the past decade as fossil-fuel emissions have continued to increase, an honest scientist would still have to admit that the hypothesis of man-made global warming hardly rises to the level of “an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure.” Global warming may or may not be “the greatest scam in history,” as it was recently called by John Coleman, a prominent meteorologist and the founder of the Weather Channel. Certainly, however, under the scientific method it does not rise to the level of an “item of physical knowledge.” (more)

Alley Cats of the Left

What fascism looks like from the Spectator:
Huffington continues:
There are not two valid sides to issues like global warming or health care. We can argue about what to do, but unless you are crazy or a liar, you can’t honestly claim that the drug and insurance companies aren’t an obstacle to public health…or that global warming is a fraud and then demand equal time to spout some nonsense that gains an aura of legitimacy from the “let’s hear from both sides” approach of the news media.See the thuggish brown shirt tactics here? They want to shower conservatives with name calling, then smear them with allegations that their arguments are made in bad faith, and then demand that they even be excluded from public debate. This is not a discussion of ideas, it is all a purely ad hominem attack. Huffington’s book should have been entitled Winning Through Intimidation.(more)
And they’ll be coming after you and I too…

Sen. Obama’s beliefs about the relationship between politics and religion…

From InsightScoop:
…are of interest to more than a few people and have been under a lot of scrutiny lately. They are also rather inconsistent and heavily biased against religion, writes Dr. Francis Beckwith over on the “What’s Wrong With the World” blog, who analyzes a 2006 address given by Sen. Obama and concludes:
He seems to be telling us that in order for religious citizens to fully participate in our democratic regime they must use the language of those who are hostile or indifferent to their faith. Notice that the senator does not say that democracy demands that the secularist translate his policy proposals into the language of theology so that his religious neighbors could be appropriately convinced and thus not be marginalized from the public conversation. For Senator Obama it is a one-way street: the religious citizen must acquiesce at every turn to the rules provided to him by the secularist. And if he objects to this arrangement, he must offer arguments in the language and grammar of the secularist. For Senator Obama, we should, in the words of Jesus, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and given unto God what is God’s,” but with one small caveat: the authority who has absolute discretion over the two spheres is Caesar, who may only be spoken to in the language of Caesar.(more)

Teacher Fired for Refusing to Remove Bible from Desk, Allegedly Teaching Religion in Class

MOUNT VERNON, OH, June 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Yesterday, the Mount Vernon Board of Education voted unanimously to terminate the contract of a Mount Vernon Middle School science teacher. John Freshwater has been a teacher at the school for 21 years. Among several questionable allegations, including that of “burning” a cross on a student’s arm, the only significant allegation Freshwater admits to, is failing to remove his personal Bible from his classroom desk.
According to Mount Vernon News, the Mount Vernon School Board relied on the report of an independent investigator, H.R. On Call Inc., to pass their resolution to consider the termination of Freshwater’s contract. The investigator reported that Freshwater “burnt” what they determined to be a cross, and not an “x” as Freshwater claimed, on a student’s arm during a routine science experiment, taught religion in the classroom, refused to remove religious articles from the classroom, and prayed at a Federation of Christian Athlete’s (FCA) meeting, which is a Christian student-led group Freshwater advises….(more)

Prelate: Bible Key for More Than Christianity

LISBON, Portugal, JUNE 24, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The Bible is a cornerstone, not just of Christianity, but of Western civilization, proposed Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi.
The president of the Pontifical Council for Culture affirmed this in Portugal last Friday, when he gave a talk on “The Bible: The ‘Great Code’ of Western Culture” at the Portuguese Catholic University.
According to the archbishop, the Bible is present in Western culture “as structural component of the artistic, ethical and social fields.”Citing literary critic Northrop Frye, Archbishop Ravasi said that “Scripture is the universe in which Western literature and art acted until the 18th century and, to a great extent, still act.”
The prelate suggested three models that represent “this immense influence” of the Bible….(more)