Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Anglican Unscripted Episode 76 (2nd Anniversary)
Jul 16, 2013
BELOW is the Show Time Index
This Week's Anglican Unscripted talks about itself? Well, it is the second anniversary of AU and George and Kevin are still bewildered by the shows success. Your Hosts also talk about the Summer of Egypt and the plight of Christian Brothers and Sisters in the Middle East. There has also been a shakeup at Lambeth Palace (per Kevin and George's request? ) and this week's AU talks about PR and bad PR.
Allan Haley discusses the Legal wranglings of the Opera and Peter talks about the problem with Sex, Decisions, and Timing in the Church of England.
Kevin and George close out the program talking about the Trayvon Martin and the George Zimmerman court decision. And, your hosts are still fundraising for a trip to GAFCON!
00:00 AU 2nd Anniversary
10:49 Egypts Sizzling Summer
16:37 Lambeth Press Relations
21:08 A Night at the Opera
29:00 Same Sex Sex
41:26 Gafcon in the News
48:29 Trayvon
52:15 George Health Update / Gafcon News
The Rise of the “Nones” (and How Anglicans Can Respond)
July 16, 2013
American churches are losing their young people. This trend was evidenced most recently in a 2012 Pew Forum study titled “‘Nones’ on the Rise: One-in-Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation.” The summary of the 80-page report posits, “The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public—and a third of adults under 30—are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.”
Researchers use the label of “nones,” or “religiously unaffiliated,” to clarify that these young people are not falling into hardened agnosticism or atheism. Instead, they often describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious,” perhaps echoing the common mantra that “Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship.” As Ross Douthat argues in his latest book Bad Religion, America suffers not from a lack of spirituality but rather an influx of self-determined, self- actualizing heresies. Mainline Protestantism, once a bastion of orthodoxy and counterweight to spiritual outliers on the American religious landscape, has compromised on its Christian convictions and has suffered an exodus in membership. Post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism likewise hemorrhages baptized members, even though the statistics are buoyed by the influx of Latin American immigrants. This is not simply a crisis in denominational loyalty. Non- denominational evangelicalism, once the refuge for dissident revivalist Protestant voices, is also starting to suffer membership loss. Youth raised in the mega- church culture seem almost as likely to leave the faith as any other kind of Christian. Even America’s largest religious group, the Southern Baptist Convention, is starting to see its membership numbers plateau.
The Pew Forum cites four hypotheses for the rise of the nones: political backlash (especially against the “Religious Right”), delayed marriage, broad social disengagement (or the “bowling alone problem”), and secularization. The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) has engaged this question with more depth and promises fruitful answers to concerned church leaders. The NSYR, encapsulated in Christian Smith’s 2005 tome Soul Searching and Kenda Creasy Dean’s 2010 book Almost Christian, offers helpful insights to the problematic world of youth ministry. the rest image image
Scrolling around...July 16, 2013
D.C. Government Doesn't Pay a "Living Wage"
...Last week, the Council approved a measure that would require Walmart and other large retailers doing business in the District to pay a “living wage” of $12.50 per hour.
But… uh oh. Hypocrisy alert.
District government pays less than $12.50 per hour...
DOMA and the Rock
...So, here is what I have learned from being on the losing team of both historic, public, and political renderings of homosexuality.
Homosexuality is a sin, but so is homophobia. Homophobia is irrational fear of a whole people group, failing to see in that group God’s image diminished but not extinguished by sin, and that God’s elect people linger there, snared by their own design and awaiting gospel grace. Biding time. Think about that. Waiting like the caterpillar that spawned today’s butterfly. God has set apart a people from before the foundation of the world to receive his grace, and they are waiting for you in every nation and people group. It is an act of homophobia to believe that people in the LGBT community are either too sinful to respond to God’s call on their life, or to believe that people in the LGBT community have a fixed nature that will never, by the blustering, unfounded, and uncharitable declarations of secular psychology, change by the power of the gospel.
The only fixed feature of the human constitution or badge of personal identity is the soul; imprint of God to us, it will journey from life to death to life and will last forever, permanently, for eternity in heaven or hell...
Well, They Beat Lawyers, Anyway
...Pew’s Forum on Religion and Public Life has released the latest version of its periodic survey of public attitudes toward various professions in America. The survey asks whether a given occupation contributes to society’s well-being. The results? The military tops the list, with almost 80% responding that the military contributes “a lot” to society. Teachers come in second, with 72%. The percentages then drop through various professions, until the list reaches the bottom with–lawyers. Only 18% of respondents said that lawyers contribute a lot to society. (The survey didn’t ask what people thought of “law teachers,” like me. Perhaps it’s better only guessing)...
Teens chase kidnapping suspect on bikes, save 5-year-old girl
Albert Mohler: The Central Tragedy of this Case Remains—Trayvon Martin Belongs to Us All
...The trial in a Florida criminal court was laden with moral meaning, outrage, and controversy. These are elements that criminal trials are incapable of resolving. The jurors in the Zimmerman trial were asked to determine very limited questions of fact. Even without the complications of race and political scrutiny, this was going to be a difficult prosecution. The fact is that George Zimmerman was the only witness to what happened on February 26, 2012. Trayvon Martin was dead, and there were no other witnesses to the event. Given the fact that the initial investigation found George Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense to be plausible and the fact that the prosecution’s key witnesses faltered on the stand, the jurors were left with the question of finding Zimmerman guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. They did not find him guilty.
The New York Times editorial board rightly lamented the fact that the prosecutors faced a case “weak on evidence and long on outrage.” But the editors of The Washington Post got it exactly right when they declared that “the central tragedy of this case—the death of a 17-year-old boy who had been on a simple errand to get snacks—remains.”...
The Slippery Slope to Polygamy and Incest
Opponents of same-sex marriage have long argued that allowing such unions will lead to marriages among more than two people and between adults who are related. They're right...
...Last week, the Council approved a measure that would require Walmart and other large retailers doing business in the District to pay a “living wage” of $12.50 per hour.
But… uh oh. Hypocrisy alert.
District government pays less than $12.50 per hour...
DOMA and the Rock
...So, here is what I have learned from being on the losing team of both historic, public, and political renderings of homosexuality.
Homosexuality is a sin, but so is homophobia. Homophobia is irrational fear of a whole people group, failing to see in that group God’s image diminished but not extinguished by sin, and that God’s elect people linger there, snared by their own design and awaiting gospel grace. Biding time. Think about that. Waiting like the caterpillar that spawned today’s butterfly. God has set apart a people from before the foundation of the world to receive his grace, and they are waiting for you in every nation and people group. It is an act of homophobia to believe that people in the LGBT community are either too sinful to respond to God’s call on their life, or to believe that people in the LGBT community have a fixed nature that will never, by the blustering, unfounded, and uncharitable declarations of secular psychology, change by the power of the gospel.
The only fixed feature of the human constitution or badge of personal identity is the soul; imprint of God to us, it will journey from life to death to life and will last forever, permanently, for eternity in heaven or hell...
Well, They Beat Lawyers, Anyway
...Pew’s Forum on Religion and Public Life has released the latest version of its periodic survey of public attitudes toward various professions in America. The survey asks whether a given occupation contributes to society’s well-being. The results? The military tops the list, with almost 80% responding that the military contributes “a lot” to society. Teachers come in second, with 72%. The percentages then drop through various professions, until the list reaches the bottom with–lawyers. Only 18% of respondents said that lawyers contribute a lot to society. (The survey didn’t ask what people thought of “law teachers,” like me. Perhaps it’s better only guessing)...
Teens chase kidnapping suspect on bikes, save 5-year-old girl
Albert Mohler: The Central Tragedy of this Case Remains—Trayvon Martin Belongs to Us All
...The trial in a Florida criminal court was laden with moral meaning, outrage, and controversy. These are elements that criminal trials are incapable of resolving. The jurors in the Zimmerman trial were asked to determine very limited questions of fact. Even without the complications of race and political scrutiny, this was going to be a difficult prosecution. The fact is that George Zimmerman was the only witness to what happened on February 26, 2012. Trayvon Martin was dead, and there were no other witnesses to the event. Given the fact that the initial investigation found George Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense to be plausible and the fact that the prosecution’s key witnesses faltered on the stand, the jurors were left with the question of finding Zimmerman guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. They did not find him guilty.
The New York Times editorial board rightly lamented the fact that the prosecutors faced a case “weak on evidence and long on outrage.” But the editors of The Washington Post got it exactly right when they declared that “the central tragedy of this case—the death of a 17-year-old boy who had been on a simple errand to get snacks—remains.”...
The Slippery Slope to Polygamy and Incest
Opponents of same-sex marriage have long argued that allowing such unions will lead to marriages among more than two people and between adults who are related. They're right...
Monday, July 15, 2013
Oh, just as a mother’s love covers her children...
Scrolling around...July 15, 2013
A Human-Powered Helicopter Wins the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize
Would the Supreme Court silence pro-lifers?: Screening speech is a way to restrict it
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court decided to hear a major free-speech case during its next term.
The case, McCullen v. Coakley, concerns a 2007 Massachusetts law that prohibits some speakers from coming within 35 feet of free-standing abortion clinics. In effect, the law bans pro-life advocates from trying to peacefully persuade those entering the clinic to consider alternatives to abortion.
The Supreme Court has dealt with cases at the crossroads of free speech and abortion before. In 2000, the court let stand a Colorado law banning speech within eight feet of anyone near a health care facility. However, in the 13 years since Hill v. Colorado was decided, the membership of the court has changed substantially...
Researchers hack Verizon device, turn it into mobile spy station
Two security experts said they have figured out how to spy on Verizon Wireless mobile phone customers by hacking into devices the U.S. carrier sells to boost wireless signals indoors.
The finding, which the experts demonstrated to Reuters and will further detail at two hacking conferences this summer, comes at a time of intense global debate about electronic privacy, after top-secret U.S. surveillance programs were leaked by a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, last month.
"This is not about how the NSA would attack ordinary people. This is about how ordinary people would attack ordinary people," said Tom Ritter, a senior consultant with the security firm iSEC Partners...
Robert P. George: What ‘Conscience’ Really Means: Toward a reintroduction.
...Authentic conscience is not a writer of permission slips to act on feelings or desires. Rather, in the words of the brilliant 19th-century English intellectual John Henry Newman, “Conscience is a stern monitor.” It is one’s last best judgment — an unsentimentally self-critical judgment — informed by critical reason and reflective faith of one’s strict duties, one’s feelings or desires to the contrary notwithstanding. Authentic conscience governs — passes judgment on — feelings and desires; it is not reducible to them, and it is not in the business of licensing us to act on them. And, as Newman observed, “Conscience has rights because it has duties.” Those moral duties reflect our reasoned judgments of what respect for human dignity and integral human well-being requires...
Three Christian women paraded naked in Pakistan, court orders probe
Over a month after a Muslim landlord allegedly paraded three Christian women naked in Pakistan's Punjab province, a court in Lahore has finally taken notice of the matter and directed a judge to investigate the incident.
The Lahore High Court on Friday ordered the district and sessions judge, Kasur, to probe the matter and submit a report within two weeks.
The three Christian women were allegedly brutally beaten and then paraded naked by armed men of Muhammad Munir, a local landlord said to be having the backing of the ruling PML-N party, in Pattoki area of Kasur district, some 50 kilometres from Lahore...
UK: Islamic extremists threaten to stab inmates who eat pork in front of them at one of Britain's toughest prisons
...The inmate wrote: 'The kitchen is usually occupied by 90 per cent Muslims and we have been told if we cook pork we will be stabbed. There have been incidents here where people have been targeted and pressured and bullied into converting to Islam.
'Young Muslim men are being radicalised in here and one day they may commit acts of terrorism in this country.
'There seems to be nothing being done here to stop it and people are scared to speak out.'...
Rabbinic Outrage Over Muslim Vandalism at Cave of Patriarchs
A leading rabbi in the government has expressed outrage over destruction of Jewish holy articles at the Cave of the Patriarchs by Muslims following their worship at the site on Friday.
Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan, who serves as Deputy Religious Affairs Minister and Supervisor of Holy Sites, visited the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron after receiving reports of the vandalism.’‘
Jewish worshipers who arrived at the site after Muslim prayers on Friday were horrified to find widespread desecration of the holy tomb...
'Modern-Day Mother Teresa' Heads Homeless Church
North Carolina has one of the country’s fastest-growing homeless populations. In Charlotte, one of the largest cities in the state, the most vulnerable people are in desperate need of help.
One grandmother is answering the call seven days a week. Her name is Freddie Power, and her work has led some to call her a modern-day Mother Teresa...
Latest Obamacare Foul-Up Favors Smokers
...Last week the Associated Press reported, “In yet another health care overhaul delay, the administration has quietly notified insurers that a computer system problem will limit penalties that the law says the companies may charge smokers. A fix will take at least a year.” How will this force non-smokers to subsidize smokers? Well, from the perspective of insurance carriers, smokers are high-risk customers. They get sick more often than non-smokers and their maladies are typically serious and expensive. So, if insurance companies want to remain solvent and they can’t charge smokers higher rates, they will have to increase premiums for everyone...
Remark by Obama Complicates Military Sexual Assault Trials
When President Obama proclaimed that those who commit sexual assault in the military should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged,” it had an effect he did not intend: muddying legal cases across the country.
In at least a dozen sexual assault cases since the president’s remarks at the White House in May, judges and defense lawyers have said that Mr. Obama’s words as commander in chief amounted to “unlawful command influence,” tainting trials as a result. Military law experts said that those cases were only the beginning and that the president’s remarks were certain to complicate almost all prosecutions for sexual assault.
“Unlawful command influence” refers to actions of commanders that could be interpreted by jurors as an attempt to influence a court-martial, in effect ordering a specific outcome. Mr. Obama, as commander in chief of the armed forces, is considered the most powerful person to wield such influence.
The president’s remarks might have seemed innocuous to civilians, but military law experts say defense lawyers will seize on the president’s call for an automatic dishonorable discharge, the most severe discharge available in a court-martial, arguing that his words will affect their cases...
A.S. Haley: Our Lawless President Fosters More Lawlessness
Sunday, July 14, 2013
For six years now, Barack Obama has set a record for lawlessness in the office of the Presidency.
And now we see the price of our having tolerated that lawlessness for so long. Yet the host sites do nothing to shut the hate-mongers down.
The mainstream media continue to aid and abet the President's lawlessness, and now are fanning the flames of racism following the Zimmerman verdict. The two reinforce each other from their respective bully-pulpits. The usual racist hangers-on are right there, too, doing their best to add fuel to the fire.
The prosecutor in the Zimmerman case continues to lash out at everyone within reach, while ignoring her own lawlessness.
And Barack Obama remains silent.
Pray this day for your country. Here
Yet One More Personal Take in the Aftermath of Trayvon Martin and the Zimmerman Verdict
Excellent!
Liberal Law Prof: Zimmerman Case 'Should Never Have Been Brought in the First Place'
...Dershowitz said George Zimmerman was put on trial because "there was political pressure on the governor, and he appointed somebody (special prosecutor Angela Corey) who had the worst reputation in Florida for overcharging. And she did exactly what she was supposed to do; she overcharged. She charged second-degree murder in a case where there was reasonable doubt written all over it."...
As Justice pursues civil rights probe against Zimmerman, FBI documents show no evidence of bias The Justice Department has responded to appeals to probe whether George Zimmerman committed any civil rights violations in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin -- but previously filed FBI documents are already challenging the narrative that the shooting was racially motivated.
Sanford police detective Chris Serino told FBI agents last year that after examining the case, it appeared Zimmerman was suspicious of Martin because of his "attire, the total circumstances of the encounter and the previous burglary suspects in the community."
According to the document, Serino considered Zimmerman as having "a little hero complex, but not as a racist."...
Obama: Honor Trayvon Martin by battling gun violence
His comments contrasted with bold statements from others that followed the verdict.
Mr. President, Can We Please Move On?
Hoodie Sunday honors Trayvon Martin
For six years now, Barack Obama has set a record for lawlessness in the office of the Presidency.
And now we see the price of our having tolerated that lawlessness for so long. Yet the host sites do nothing to shut the hate-mongers down.
The mainstream media continue to aid and abet the President's lawlessness, and now are fanning the flames of racism following the Zimmerman verdict. The two reinforce each other from their respective bully-pulpits. The usual racist hangers-on are right there, too, doing their best to add fuel to the fire.
The prosecutor in the Zimmerman case continues to lash out at everyone within reach, while ignoring her own lawlessness.
And Barack Obama remains silent.
Pray this day for your country. Here
Yet One More Personal Take in the Aftermath of Trayvon Martin and the Zimmerman Verdict
Excellent!
Liberal Law Prof: Zimmerman Case 'Should Never Have Been Brought in the First Place'
...Dershowitz said George Zimmerman was put on trial because "there was political pressure on the governor, and he appointed somebody (special prosecutor Angela Corey) who had the worst reputation in Florida for overcharging. And she did exactly what she was supposed to do; she overcharged. She charged second-degree murder in a case where there was reasonable doubt written all over it."...
As Justice pursues civil rights probe against Zimmerman, FBI documents show no evidence of bias The Justice Department has responded to appeals to probe whether George Zimmerman committed any civil rights violations in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin -- but previously filed FBI documents are already challenging the narrative that the shooting was racially motivated.
Sanford police detective Chris Serino told FBI agents last year that after examining the case, it appeared Zimmerman was suspicious of Martin because of his "attire, the total circumstances of the encounter and the previous burglary suspects in the community."
According to the document, Serino considered Zimmerman as having "a little hero complex, but not as a racist."...
Obama: Honor Trayvon Martin by battling gun violence
His comments contrasted with bold statements from others that followed the verdict.
Mr. President, Can We Please Move On?
Hoodie Sunday honors Trayvon Martin
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