A Prescription for Today’s Church

I found this at Town Hall, and had to share.

1. Get men who dig being rowdy back in the pulpit.

2. Could we have some sound doctrine, por favor?

3. Preach scary sermons (at least every fourth one).

4. Get rid of 99.9% of “Christian” TV.

5. Quit trying to be relevant and instead become prophetic contrarians, I’m talking contra mundus, mama!

6. Put a 10-year moratorium on “God wants you rich” sermons (yeah, that’s what we need to hear nowadays, you morons, more sermons about money, money, money!).

7. Embrace apologetics and shun shallow faith.

8. Evangelize like it’s 1999.

9. Push lazy Christians to get a life or join a Satanic Church.

10. Demand that if a Christian gets involved in the arts that their “craft” must scream excellence and not excrement.

Expansion here.

Flight 93 blogburst: call for churches to be witnesses for the truth about the Flight 93 memorial

A call for America ’s churches to step up as witnesses for the truth about the Flight 93 memorial

Three segments of American society get paid to investigate and report facts: academia [unless you're Nadia Abu El Haj], the press, and government [uh...]. For two and a half years, all three have been spinning desperately to avoid and suppress the facts about Islamic and terrorist memorializing symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial.

Luckily there is a fourth segment of society that is also charged to witness truth, not for pay, but on religious principle. Asked by Pilate to account for himself, Jesus answered:

To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. [Jn. 18:37.]

Those who follow Jesus are supposed to do the same, which means first of all checking and reporting the facts when the importance of an issue warrants it.

The importance of the Flight 93 memorial to our churches could not be clearer. The Islam of the al Qaeda terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 is a religion of murder and deceit. Their self-professed strategy is to hide amongst us, pretending to be trustworthy friends, while plotting mass-murder against Christians, Jews, and all non-Muslims.

Whether this religion of deceit is the “true” Islam, as the bin Ladenists assert, or a bastardization of it, a deceptive memorial to the 9/11 terrorists is a direct challenge to the truth witnessing capacity of our society, and to the truth witnessing character of our Christian churches.

In a contest between deceit and honesty, there is no doubt which is stronger. Witness exposes and destroys deceit. If our churches enter this contest, they win. But will they enter? THAT is the test. If our churches stand by, and fail to witness truth, then the al Qaeda religion of murder and deceit may well succeed in stabbing its terrorist memorial mosque into the heartland of America .

The father of one of our Flight 93 heroes is asking America ’s churches for help

In consultation with Tom Burnett Sr., Alec Rawls has put together a flyer that all of us can take to our local churches to try to organize sanctioned fact-checking efforts that our churches can stand behind publicly two months from now.

August 2nd is the next public meeting of the Memorial Project. Tom and Alec will both be traveling to Somerset PA to rally opposition. Mancow Muller is urging his national radio audience to attend, and groups like Rolling Thunder are also being contacted.

With Mr. Burnett in attendance, even a modest turnout will bring substantial news coverage, but coverage alone is not enough. We are facing a fact-checking blockade by the mainstream media, and can only break it by enlisting churches or other independent groups to sponsor their own fact checking efforts.

Are you a member of any kind of group where interested members could set up an ad hoc committee to check a few basic facts about the planned memorial? The full group or chapter could then make an official decision whether to stand behind this fact checking publicly in a press release that Tom and Alec can announce at the August meeting.

Christian churches may be our best bet, being charged by Jesus to be witnesses for truth, and having “chapters” all over America . Thus this initial effort is addressed in particular to our churches, but any group that wants to expose important truths can perform the same service.

The flyer prints out front and back on a single sheet of paper. It has a couple of color graphics, but prints fine in black and white for inexpensive copying. If you want to participate, just add your contact info at the bottom (the file is MS Word and can be altered), then go see if you can raise some interest!

I’m going to do my part. Are you?

To join our blogbursts, just send your blog’s url.

Current advocates below the fold.

Say Goodbye to England

From The Brussels Journal

A quote from the editorial of The Church of England Newspaper, 28 May 2008

If recent reports of trends in religious observance prove to be correct, then in some 30 years the mosque will be able to claim that, religiously speaking, the UK is an Islamic nation, and therefore needs a share in any religious establishment to reflect this….]

[...]

Charles Taylor’s new and classic work on the Secular Age charts the rise of the secular mindset and what he calls the ‘excarnation’ of Christianity as it is levered out of state policy and structures. Christianity is now regarded as bad news, the liberal elite’s attack developed in the 1960s took root in the educationalist empire, and to some extent even in areas of the church.

Today the Christian story is fading from public imagination, while Islam grows apace.

Somewhere, St. George is weeping.

But there’s hope elsewhere in Europe (though small hope) also from Brussels Journal.

A quote from Der Spiegel, 28 May 2008

On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party said it would like to see Germany do its part to help out. At a press conference in Berlin, parliamentarian Erika Steinbach, the CDU’s human rights spokeswoman, said her party wanted to see Germany accept thousands of Iraqi refugees. In particular, she said, the CDU wants to extend its welcoming hand to Iraqis who have suffered religious persecution in Iraq. In particular, that means the Christians. […]

I’m not holding my breath on the success of this one, however.

Prayers and Praise

(this occurred within my faith community - it’s not from a spam email or any other such nonsense)

 

The situation:

There’s an 11 year old young lady who is checking into a hospital in this morning for some very extensive surgery on her face. She has a mass that is growing under her left eye that is putting pressure on her eye socket. The doctor doesn’t think it is malignant, but it will require extensive surgery to remove it, (they are going in under her top lip, and up through her sinuses) and there is a great risk of excessive blood loss with the surgery, requiring transfusion.

The request:

She is carrying a “prayer pager”.  If you choose, when you pray for her and her family, you may call the pager at xxx-xxxx, press any number key, and hang up. She will be notified by the buzz that someone is praying for her, though she will not know who.

 

Her mother wrote this morning: “Keep the prayers coming - she is wearing the pager right now as we’re on the road. The kids were in awe how late the prayers came in last night and how early this morning. What a great tool to really represent your thoughts and prayers for us”.

 

I am asking you to join in keeping her and her family lifted up in prayer, and keep that little pager buzzing today!

The Result:

It’s A Miracle!! That’s what Dr. Green just told Shelley. He has never seen anything like it, there was no bleeding, her eye is back where it belongs! Our God is So Good!!!

The Lesson:

Thanks so much for praying. God has heard and answered in a powerful way!

The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working] (James 5:16b)

 

Persecution of the Day

From Globe and Mail.

DOHA, QATAR — Qatar’s first Christian church has no cross, no bell and no steeple.

And when thousands of worshippers gather at Our Lady of the Rosary to mark Easter, they pray no one will notice.

Of course, this is in order to be Sharia-compliant (and thereby safeguard their lives)…”If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet—there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions are…that they do not renovate a church or a monastery, do not rebuild ones that were destroyed, that they feed for three days any Muslim who passes by their homes…that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit, that they do not imitate Muslims in dress and speech, nor ride horses, nor own swords, nor arm themselves with any kind of weapon: that they do not sell wine, do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer [...] If they violate these conditions they have no protection.”

“The idea is to be discreet because we don’t want to inflame any sensitivities. There isn’t even a signboard outside the church. No signs at all,” said Rev. Tom Veneracion.

No…we surely don’t want to inflame sensitivities, do we.

More “No-bama” Reasons

From American Thinker. 

The ascent of Barack Obama from state senator in Illinois to a leading contender for the Presidential nomination in the span of just a few years is remarkable. Especially in light of a noticeably unremarkable record — a near-blank slate of few accomplishments and numerous missed votes.

However, in one area of foreign policy that concerns millions of Americans, he does have a record and it is a particularly troubling one…

One seemingly consistent them running throughout Barack Obama’s career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates. This ease around Israel animus has taken various forms…

Early on in his career he chose a church headed by a former Black Muslim who is a harsh anti-Israel advocate and who may be seen as tinged with anti-Semitism. This church is a member of a denomination whose governing body has taken a series of anti-Israel actions…

As his political fortunes and ambition climbed, he found support from George Soros, multibillionaire promoter of groups that have been consistently harsh and biased critics of the American-Israel relationship…

Now that Obama has become a leading Presidential candidate, he has assembled a body of foreign policy advisers who signal that a President Obama would likely have an approach towards Israel radically at odds with those of previous Presidents (both Republican and Democrat). A group of experts collected by the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz deemed him to be the candidate likely to be least supportive of Israel. He is the candidate most favored by the Arab-American community.

The anti-Israel rants of this minister [of Trinity United Community Church which Obama has attended for 20 years - GdB] have been well chronicled. Among the gems: 

The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. [This is an outright lie - GdB] It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism. [of course no mention here of the injustice and racism suffered by dhimmi Jews at the hands of the Arab Muslims for a millenium and a half- GdB]

Nevertheless, an Obama spokesman told the New York Times he is proud of his pastor and his church…

As I’ve mentioned before, what is the likelihood that he would attend a church for 20 years yet not agree with it’s outlook?

Obama has shown continued allegiance to a man who preaches racial exclusiveness, the superiority of black values over white middle-class values, and whose teaching contains anti-Israel diatribes. All these are sharply at variance with what Obama himself preaches on the campaign trail.

Read…It…All.
 

Racism as Religion?

An interesting look at Barack Hussein Obama’s church of record at Pajamas Media.

For over 20 years, Sen, Obama has been a faithful member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. The other day, I paid a visit to Trinity’s website. There I read that the vision statement of the TUCC is based upon something called the systematized liberation theology that began in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, “Black Power and Black Theology.” Dr. Cone believes that black Christians should not follow the “White Church,” as it had failed to support them in their struggle for equal rights in America. I suspect that most white Christians would disagree.

Trinity United boasts that it is a congregation “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.” What’s more, “it is a congregation with a non-negotiable commitment to Africa. We are an African people, and remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.”

Its pastor, Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., has referred to “white arrogance” and “the United States of Whiter America.” To my ears, that sounds unashamedly black, but I’m not so sure about the unapologetically Christian.

Furthermore, Rev. Wright’s church publishes a magazine, The Trumpet. Not too surprisingly, all things considered, the recipient of the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Trumpeter Award for Social Justice was none other than Louis Farrakhan, the fellow who plays the race card even better than he plays his violin. 

[...]

I have no idea how a member of a black church that apparently feels it owes greater allegiance to Africa than to America and that pays homage to a bigot like Farrakhan, has the gall to present himself as the one candidate who can bring us all together.

Neither do I.

More Love in Iraq

Updating this story, the Catholic News Agency reports:

More bomb attacks on Iraqi churches, severe material damage caused

Kirkuk, Jan 9, 2008 / 10:06 pm (CNA).- Continuing a trend of attacks on Christian buildings, two car bombs exploded outside churches on Wednesday in the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk.The attacks, which took place within two minutes of each other, damaged buildings, cars and surrounding houses but caused no injuries, Agence France Presse reports.


Similar attacks on churches have also taken place recently. On Sunday a car bomb attack on a monastery in the northern Iraq city of Mosul wounded four people, while six other attacks on Christian buildings also took place elsewhere in Mosul and Baghdad.

Meanwhile, in what can only be described as the height of denial (or, actually, it’s probably an appeasement gesture):

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The spiritual leader of Iraq’s Catholics said on Tuesday that a recent wave of bomb attacks on churches in Baghdad and Mosul was aimed at showing Iraq was not at peace rather than singling out Christians for persecution.


“This act was not specifically against Christians. The aim was to convince the world that so far there is no peace and security in Iraq,” said Emmanuel III Delly, the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad, adding that he forgave the perpetrators.

So it’s Christian buildings that are being attacked, but it’s not aggression against Christians? Right. That’s why the Christian population in Iraq is only 50% of what it was a few years ago, and there are mounting fears of “religious cleansing” among the REST of the remaining Christians in Iraq.

The Church and Israel

I don’t agree with EVERYTHING this gentleman has to say, but on the subject of the insidious pervasiveness of anti-Jew bias in too much of the organized Church he’s spot-on.

Do read the whole thing…he has much, much more to peruse and ponder at his site.

Nod: Solomonia

 

How is it that Christians in many denominations are OK with an anti-Jewish animus being expressed by their own churches?

[…]

Churches … have access to mainstream United States society. (The National Council of Churches, for example, often claims that it ‘represents’ fifty million Christians.) It is true that the public political statements of many churches are devoutly ignored, but they are capable of a slow, consistent, unceasing campaign that eventually filters into the common dialogue and poisons the well for any meaningful conversation or change. These create curricula for their members, presenting information from a trusted source, transforming attitudes. These indulge in publicity stunts, disgraceful worship services (that are more about political theater than anything whatsoever to do with God), and highly visible actions that gradually legitimate their peculiar agendas. Over time, when they have repeated the same statements often enough, these acquire the status of fact – no matter how incorrect or even offensive they might be, and no matter how they were originally perceived.

…The unfortunate fact is that in many cases church organizations do not confine themselves to those activist endeavors that are morally good, or even morally neutral. It is true that these organizations often do participate in what can be rightly termed good, what is probably well-intentioned, and what is potentially helpful; but so far, they have not confined themselves to those things. Instead they have supplemented the positive with the morally problematic anti-Israel / anti-Zionist approach, and with the utterly reprehensible anti-Jewish approach. The corpus of public statements, actions, and information disseminated by these church organizations is far too large to treat systematically here, but for representative instances of this activism please see “Example One: Email List Endorsed by a Mainline Denomination”, “Example Two: Study Guide”, “Example Three: Sabeel Event”. For more detailed (but far from exhaustive) examples from one denomination, see “With an Everlasting Hatred: The Case of Israel and Corruption in the PC(USA)”.

[…]

Supporting the Destruction of the Current State of Israel. …. That activist church groups support this assertion, but support the destruction of no other state in existence evidences an extraordinary anti-Israel animus.

[…]

…So far, there has been a conspicuous silence among (most of) the members of many Christian denominations. Some continue to vocally attempt to defend the indefensible. Large majorities simply continue to attend worship services, participate in their communities, observe the holidays, financially and morally provide uncritical support to factions that misuse their religion as a weapon to advance alien agendas; all the while, what can only be described as a gross evil grows up among them. This curious silence in the face of the most rank anti-Jewish statements and actions is odious across the board, but it is particularly striking as a moral failure among Christians. I say this not because that specific moral failure is unusual in history – in fact, over the last two millennia church organizations have often (though not always) led the way in terms anti-Jewish hatred. What makes it striking is the fact that it violates everything Christianity claims to be about. To the partisans: please take care how you conduct yourselves because there is a very great danger here. If the anti-Israel bias and anti-Jewish statements and actions are unintentional, move to correct them. To the unaligned members: if the leading partisan factions of various denominations insist on maintaining this, so far unrelenting, campaign of anti-Israel bias, anti-Jewish provocation, and the provision of false information others, please do not become complicit in this evil: privately correct this if possible, or publicly oppose your own leaders if you must. Christians cannot evade responsibility just because we are not in positions of power in so-called Christian organizations. When we attend, fund, affiliate with, support in any way organizations that engage in loathsome behaviors, we become guilty. Instances of official anti-Jewish animus have happened many times in the Church; and many times the members have participated or at best remained silent. It is still early in US churches – this direction can still be stopped – before it achieves the horrendous results it has so often done in the past. But if we do not stand up this now – if we do not reject the message sent from leading factions in many “Christian” denominations while it is still a minority opinion and has not yet fully developed – we will forfeit (once again) any claim to decency, morality, or Christian witness. It seems to me the time to ask: how will the future view our actions now? Will this become yet another chapter in Church history where the gulf fixed between Christian theory and Christian practice is insurmountable? Will this become yet another thing for which future Christians will have to apologize or try to make excuses? The old line that the actions of church organizations and the inactions of majorities of Christians don’t really reflect true Christianity is growing very thin. So far the silence speaks volumes.

Will Spotts

 

 

Open Letter Deconstruction

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

And may Peace and Blessings be upon the Prophet Muhammad

 

In this opening of the letter, the signatories have already shown their hand. They use the term “God”, instead of Allah, in order to show the commonality they’re proclaiming…this may be honest, or it may be an attempt at disarming the reader. In any case, the subsequent sentence about Muhammad shows that their contention remains that Islam is superior to other beliefs.

 

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,

Do not contend with people of the Book except in the fairest way (The Holy Qur’an, al-Ankabut, 29:46)

 

The whole verse is (Arberry): Dispute not with the People of the Book save in the fairer manner, except for those of them that do wrong; and say, ‘We believe in what has been sent down to us, and what has been sent down to you; our God and your God is One, and to Him we have surrendered.’

 

Notice that the authors of the letter left out the rest of the verse. Who’s cherry-picking? By definition, since we are Christians rather than Muslims, we are doing wrong. And of course, this verse was abrogated by the infamous sura 9:29 (Yusuf Ali): Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

 

There is no compulsion in Religion (sura 2:256)

You mention that “according to the experts” the verse which begins, There is no compulsion in religion (al-Baqarah 2:256) is from the early period when the Prophet “was still powerless and under threat,” but this is incorrect. In factthis verse is acknowledged to belong to the period of Quranic revelation corresponding to the political and military ascendance of the young Muslim community

 

This is true, except that this is in the first of the Medinan suras, when Muhammad was still trying to ingratiate himself with the Jewish tribes. This, again, was overridden by 9:29, which is in the last (or possibly second-to-last) of the suras written.

Dhimmitude in the Church

This is an older story that I recently happened upon while checking out the website of the National Council of Churches. On their Interfaith Relations blog is this tidbit.

The 44th Annual Convocation of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) meeting at Chicago over the Labor Day weekend, honored me [Shanta Premawardhana, Associate General Secretary for Interfaith Relations, National Council of Churches USA] with the Interfaith Unity Award at the Interfaith Unity reception on Sunday, September 2. As she presented the award, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of ISNA [that's the Islamic Society of North America, for the uninitiated] spoke of NCC’s commitment to stand in partnership and solidarity with the Muslim community through some of the most difficult times of discrimination and prejudice they’ve faced, particularly since 9/11.

I wonder if that same Muslim community will “stand in partnership and solidarity” with the Christian churches that are suffering REAL persecution in the Islamic world?

The citation on the glass plaque reads:

“Islamic Society of North America presents Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana, a fellow activist for peace, justice and reconciliation, a “Christian believer” as described in Qur’an (3:113) in recognition of his tireless contribution to advancing inter-religious dialogue and partnership, with our prayers for a continued demonstration of energy, understanding and commitment.”

Here’s Qur’an 3:113: They are not all alike. Of the People of the Scripture [Jews and Christians] there is a staunch community who recite the revelations of Allah in the night season, falling prostrate (before Him). The revelations of Allah - ayati Allahi - is literally the Qur’an. So, in the interest of making the American Muslim community feel good about the Christian Church, the intrepid Reverend Premawardhana has accepted an award that says that he recites the Qur’an. The Christian is reciting the words of the “god” who explicitly denies what is ultimately the only non-negotiable for Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus.

He says in his acceptance speech:

Indeed there is much that Christians and Muslims don’t know about each other. Fact is, we have a great deal more in common in our religious traditions than our differences. No, we don’t need to hide our differences. They are real and we must honestly deal with them. But we have more in common.

Looking closely at the traditions of Islam, that is the Sunnah, there is VERY LITTLE in common with the traditions of Christianity as found in the early church. One commonality in the millenia of history is the violence perpetrated in the name of each calling, the difference being that Christ promoted peace while Muhammad promoted warfare.

When I greet you as sisters and brothers of faith, I must tell you, there are some Christians who object. How can I speak of non-Christians as sisters and brothers, they ask. For one very simple reason, I say. Jesus called them sisters and brothers. Its in the book!

Really? Where?

See, Jesus was out teaching and preaching, forgiving and healing, restoring people to God and to relationships with each other. His mother and brothers got so worried about him that they came looking for him. Some of his people came to Jesus and said, Rabbi (he was a rabbi, you know!) your mother and brothers are looking for you. And Jesus said something very incredulous. Pointing the people around him, he said, “Here are my mother and brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother.” [Jesus was referring to those who were following HIM!]

Whoever does the will of God? My reading of the Bible makes it clear that the will of God that he is talking about is the restoring of creation into right relationship. This what the early Jewish tradition established as the Jubilee, which Jesus said he came to proclaim. Everywhere you look in the Bible, its talking about restoring relationships: of human beings with God, human beings with each other and human beings with the world. You in this room, whatever your religious tradition, are working very hard to restore these relationships. You are doing the will of God. You are the ones upholding faith and serving humanity. You are my sisters and brothers.

[...]

Those who promote fear mongering ideologies that strengthen divisions in human relationships, I am convinced, are not doing the will of God. [Apparently Jesus, then, was not doing the will of God, since he knew his message would cause division, and said so specifically] Some of them bear the name Christian. But I must tell you, I have a hard time even thinking them as sisters and brothers. But you, who are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and others who work so hard to create and restore human relationships, are doing the will of God. You are my sisters and brothers.

Interesting. MY Bible says that God’s will is that we follow Jesus and receive eternal life. It says that Jesus is the restoration of relationship between Creator and created. It says that Jesus is THE way, truth, and life, and that no one gets to the Father except through the Son. While we are all brethren in the plight of humanity, we are not Brothers and Sisters (as in children of God) with those who reject Jesus.

While it is laudable that the NCC is pursuing peace with Islam, et al, it is at the same time disheartening that it is apparently doing so at the expense of the offense of the Gospel.