Tuesday, December 3, 2013

You who bring good news to Zion...

You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.
-Isaiah 40:9-11 image

What Makes a Marriage; Only Gays Can Get Angry?; CDC report on HIV risk.....more

Argentina: Violent Pro-Abortion Mob Attacks Pro-Life People Praying at Catholic Church
...The video shows topless women spray painting the people praying — in their faces and putting Nazi swastikas on their clothing. The police indicated they would not help the pro-life Catholics in front of the church because the protestors were women...

What Makes a Marriage? Love, Sex, or Comprehensive Union
Prof. Charles Reid thinks love makes a marriage. He claims we think sex makes a marriage. In truth, comprehensive union makes a marriage. And getting marriage right matters for everyone.

CDC: 62 Percent Of HIV-Positive Men Have Unprotected Sex
...However, only 67 percent of sexually active MSM reported getting an HIV test in the past year.

The researchers found that some men attempt to decrease their HIV risk by only engaging in unprotected sex with those “perceived” as having HIV or not. However, this practice is risky because some may not disclose or may not know they are infected with the virus.

Unprotected anal sex among MSM increased from 2005 to 2011, and in 2011 one-third of HIV-positive MSM who did not know if they were infected reported unprotected sex with a partner who said they were HIV-negative or did not know either....

“Only Gays Can Get Angry?”
"It’s a Catholic priest speaking at a Catholic school. It’s touchy,” said Tym Moss of the Bronx LGBTQ Center.

Linger over that. A Catholic priest speaking at a Catholic school is touchy? You’d think that priests speak at Catholic schools every day and it would be completely unremarkable. But you don’t live in gay world.

Well, actually you do. You just don’t know it yet...

A Fabulous Resource for Same-Sex-Attracted Christians and Their Friends and Allies
...At any rate, for decades now, we’ve been treated to the moans and bleats of hapless gay activists who have claimed that their particular minority sexual attraction is special and needs to be accommodated in the form of the church providing acknowledgement, special favor, approval, and blessings for their behavior.  They have largely traded on the “lo, the helpless minority victim” mystique, and it’s been fairly successful in the dreadful exhibitionist displays that masquerade as our TEC General Conventions.

For the above two reasons, and for one more, I was thrilled to see a project that Peter Ould [friend of this blog, even though a redcoat] has been involved in launching this past week—Living Out, a project spearheaded and organized by Sean Doherty, Sam Allberry and Ed West.  Wow—it is a stunning resource for Christians who experience same-sex-attraction—a big strength is the direct, 5-6 minute video-testimonies from people who experience same-sex-attraction and who are committed Christians, following Jesus.

It completely pulverizes the notion that once somebody recognizes their SSA they must therefore drape the identity of “gay” on their lives and relationships and activities....

Pakistani Christian, once sentenced to death for blasphemy, released from prison

On Embryo-Killing “Contraceptives”
...The PRH brief confusedly interweaves two distinct arguments. One argument (which is not the focus of this post) is that drugs that, in addition to preventing contraception, also sometime operate to prevent implantation in the uterus of a fertilized egg should not properly be referred to as abortifacients. The basic argument is that the term abortifacients should be reserved for drugs that operate after pregnancy (i.e., implantation). The PRH brief even contends that the word contraceptive should cover the effect of preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. But as I’ve explained before (in the footnote to this post), I don’t see how an effect that operates after conception can fairly be described as contraceptive. As between abortifacient and contraceptive, the former term better captures the fact that this second means of operation destroys the life of an already existing human embryo. (But perhaps we could all just agree on the term embryo-killing?)...

Monday, December 2, 2013

Lord Jesus, Master of both the light and the darkness...

Lord Jesus,
Master of both the light and the darkness,
Send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.
We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces
to hear your voice each day.
We who are anxious over many things look forward
to your coming among us.
We who are blessed in so many ways long
 for the complete joy of your kingdom.
We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence.
We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light.
To you we say, "Come Lord Jesus!" Amen.
 ...Henri Nouwen image

A liberal's journey to Evangelical Christianity


Dec 1, 2013
Kirsten Powers on her religious awakening


Christianity Today: Fox News' Highly Reluctant Jesus Follower

Little Drummer Boy - Pentatonix


Nov 25, 2013

Mohler on Christian Rap; Male Friendship; American Prosperity Gospel...and more


"...To all you workers out there preaching morality about those of us who live on welfare... can you really blame us? I get to sit around all day, visit my friends, smoke weed.. and we are still gonna get paid, on time every month..."

Report: More than 1,000 NHS patients have died of dehydration since 2003

‘Game changer’: study finds increased risk of breast cancer after abortion in Chinese women
Pro-abortion advocates have relentlessly denied a link between abortion and breast cancer, but a new study has emerged from China that seems to show that such a link not only exists, but that the risk rises with each abortion a woman has.

Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a director at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, called the findings a “real game changer” for deniers of the so-called ABC link.

The study, titled “A meta-analysis of the association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk among Chinese females” was published this week in Cancer Causes and Control, a peer-reviewed international cancer journal.
The researchers say they were initially puzzled by their findings, stating that Chinese women “historically” have had lower rates of breast cancer compared to women from western countries such as the US.
They found, however, that incidences of breast cancer in China increased at an “alarming rate” over the past two decades, corresponding with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party’s one-child policy...
Book review: BLESSED: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel
They are as ubiquitous on the American landscape as the split-level home or McDonalds drive-through. Churches with epic names like World Overcomers, Victory International, and Word of Faith International Christian Center are visible from highways throughout the country. Christian television networks Daystar, TBN, and CBN air preachers such as Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and T. D. Jakes, who promise the spiritual and material rewards of faith. Their books—with titles like Become a Better You and Can You Stand to Be Blessed?—are sold in Walmart stores. Their congregations claim 20,000 members or more. To paraphrase H. L. Mencken: Heave an egg out of your Ford Focus window and you might hit a prosperity gospeler, wearing a snazzy three-piece suit and diamond cufflinks...

Whatever Happened to Male Friendship?
A recent short film advertisement for Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey is the toast of the advertising world.  The spot follows four young men across the rainy, verdant Irish countryside singing the old farewell song “The Parting Glass.”  By the time they sit down and raise a glass, we’re sure that one of their number has recently passed.  But as the church bells ring, a beautiful bride is revealed: it’s the wedding day of Jerry, one of the four friends....

Albert Mohler: Thinking about Thinking about Rap — Unexpected Thoughts over Thanksgiving
...Rap music is not my music. I do not come from a culture in which rap music is the medium of communication and I do not have the ear for it that I have for other forms of music. But I do admire its virtuosity and the hold that is has on so many, for whom it is a first and dominant musical language. I want that language taken for the cause of the Gospel and I pray to see a generation of young Gospel-driven rappers take dominion of that music for the glory of God. I see that happening now, and I rejoice in it. I want to see them grow even more in influence, reaching people I cannot reach with music that will reach millions who desperately need the Gospel. The same way that folks who first heard Bach desperately needed to hear the Gospel.

The good, the beautiful, and the true are to be combined to the greatest extent possible in every Christian endeavor, rap included. I have no idea how to evaluate any given rap musical expression, but rappers know. I do know how to evaluate the words, and when the words are saturated with the Gospel and biblical truth that is a wonderful thing. Our rapping Gospel friends will encourage one another to the greatest artistic expression. I want to encourage them in the Gospel. Let Bach’s maxim drive them all — to make (their) music the “handmaid of theology.”...

The Long, Slow Death of the Senate
...And the single most important senatorial institution cementing this sensibility was the filibuster, the requirement that a supermajority was needed to clear procedural hurdles to consideration of matters such as legislation or confirmation of executive nominees. This has been the keystone of the Senate as institutional bulwark against governmental encroachment. The Senate was never designed to run on pure power, and the filibuster ensured that it would not succumb to such a dangerous approach.

Now the Senate majority leader, Nevada’s Democratic senator Harry Reid, has dealt a serious blow to the filibuster—and to the Senate’s traditional institutional ethos. Employing a simple majority, he has eliminated the filibuster for the confirmation of judges and executive nominees (though not, the majority leader insists, for Supreme Court nominees).

The institutional consequences are going to be immense. The Senate likely won’t survive in its crucial institutional role, which is to ensure that actions taken by our increasingly powerful and intrusive federal government must get serious and extended deliberation before they can become law. Already the House of Representatives has been destroyed as the institution it was designed to be—the "first alert" system for Washington lawmakers who need to know what new political sentiments are welling up within the polity, out in the country. It served this valuable function through the two-year term and the need for House members, for the sake of political security, to keep their ears to the ground to detect political rumblings emanating from their districts...

Dilbert Cartoon Creator Wishes Pro-Lifers “Would Die a Long, Horrible Death”
...You see his father was extremely ill, and Adams wanted to kill him–but can’t under the law. So, he hates us or “torturing” his father. From his blog, “I Hope My Father Dies Soon:”
Let me say this next part as clearly as I can. If you’re a politician who has ever voted against doctor-assisted suicide, or you would vote against it in the future, I hate your [f-word] guts and I would like you to die a long, horrible death. I would be happy to kill you personally and watch you bleed out. I won’t do that, because I fear the consequences. But I’d enjoy it, because you mother[f-word] are responsible for torturing my father…
I’m okay with any citizen who opposes doctor-assisted suicide on moral or practical grounds. But if you have acted on that thought, such as basing a vote on it, I would like you to die a slow, horrible death too. You and the government are accomplices in the torturing of my father, and there’s a good chance you’ll someday be accomplices in torturing me to death too...
Obama spends $600 million on rail projects that benefit private companies
...The nation’s freight rail network has been the quiet recipient of more than $600 million in federal investment during the Obama administration.

According to Federal Railroad Administration numbers, at least half that amount has gone to projects that benefit the nation’s four largest railroads, the same companies at the heart of the industry’s ubiquitous “Freight Rail Works” campaign.

That doesn’t even include tens of millions more that states have contributed for additional investment in ports and high-speed passenger trains that’s boosted the nation’s freight railroads...

Another Obama Victory: Family Discovers Their Infant Isn’t Covered Under Obamacare
...When Kelly called a representative, he was told his daughter had to be 2 before she could be covered under a family plan. He would have to buy a separate plan for her, at monthly premiums that ranged between $117.21 and $369.31. The cost would be on top of a family plan with premiums ranging from $810.84 to $2,554.71 a month...

Cancer patient critical of ObamaCare now facing IRS audit
...Appearing on “The Kelly File” in early November, Elliot explained to host Megyn Kelly that he could not afford the new premiums in the federal exchange and did not want to “burden” his family with the cost, saying he’ll pay the fine for not having health insurance and “just let nature take its course.”

Kelly was unable to mask the devastation of that comment on her face.

Initially, Elliot’s story took a turn for the better when a health insurance broker helped him keep his existing insurance plan, at least until he learned that he’s being audited by the IRS.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

The glory of the star...

The glory of the star, the glory of the sun - we must not lose either in the other. We must not be so full of the hope of heaven that we cannot do our work on the earth; we must not be so lost in the work of the earth that we shall not be inspired by the hope of heaven. ...Phillips Brooks image