Scrollling around...September 12, 2012

Che-cago teachers strike riddled with radicals having a blast

Unprecedented civil union unites Brazilian trio
Brazilian public notary Claudia do Nascimento Domingues set off a firestorm by granting Brazil's first civil union to a trio, an act so unprecedented that there isn't a word for it in Portuguese.
Uniao poliafetiva is the label she created. "Polyfidelitous union" is her best guess in English.
The relationship involves three professionals in their 30s -- one man and two women -- who, she says, live together, love one another as equals and are like any other non-married cohabiting couple -- except they are three...

Franciscan U of Steubenville under investigation for teaching homosexuality as deviant
The national agency which grants accreditation to social work courses is questioning Franciscan University of Steubenville over a course which lists homosexuality as a deviant behavior. Attention was drawn to the course by a group of Franciscan University alumni, identifying themselves as “Franciscan Gay Alumni & Allies”, who are demanding publicly that the university “revise its course descriptions and to stop contributing the culture of hate and ignorance.”
The course is called ‘Deviant Behavior’ and the part of the course description in question states, “The behaviors that are primarily examined are murder, rape, robbery, prostitution, homosexuality, mental illness, and drug use.”...

Albert Mohler: Christian Values Cannot Save Anyone
...Parents who raise their children with nothing more than Christian values should not be surprised when their children abandon those values. If the child or young person does not have a firm commitment to Christ and to the truth of the Christian faith, values will have no binding authority, and we should not expect that they would. Most of our neighbors have some commitment to Christian values, but what they desperately need is salvation from their sins. This does not come by Christian values, no matter how fervently held. Salvation comes only by the gospel of Jesus Christ...

Closer than Ever to the Breath of God: Why Protestants are especially fascinated with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
When I visited the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit in Philadelphia in June, I started fidgeting almost immediately. The exhibit (at the Franklin Museum, running through October 14) begins by walking visitors through a display of archeological treasures (some 600, according to the publicity) from Israel's history, dating from 1200 B.C. to A.D. 68. I had come to look at the Scrolls, and here I was wading knee deep through the ancient archeology...

Philip Jenkins: Asian Tigers and Megachurches
...Over the past century, Christian numbers have boomed outside the faith's traditional heartlands in Europe and North America. The most spectacular change has occurred in black Africa, which now accounts for almost a quarter of believers worldwide. Far less noticed, though, has been the expansion in East and South-East Asia, where Christianity is associated not with dire poverty but with upward mobility, middle class aspirations, and technological sophistication. Christian populations have become crucially important to a region central to the global economy. The Pacific Rim is building a Christian Arc...

Ontario Christian minister forced to conduct same-sex ‘marriages’ or get sacked
A Church of Christ minister who has been responsible for civic marriage ceremonies at Cambridge city hall for the past 15 years is facing the axe if she doesn’t agree to perform same-sex “marriages...

U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack
The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three embassy staff were killed as they rushed away from a consulate building in Benghazi, stormed by al Qaeda-linked gunmen blaming America for a film that they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad...

Apparently President Obama can’t see Egypt and Libya from his house.
On the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated on America, our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in Benghazi were attacked by violent Islamic mobs. In Cairo, they scaled the walls of our embassy, destroyed our flag, and replaced it with a black Islamic banner. In Benghazi, the armed gunmen set fire to our consulate and killed an American staff member. The Islamic radicals claim that these attacks are in protest to some film criticizing Islam. In response to this, the U.S. embassy in Cairo issued a statement that was so outrageous many of us thought it must be a satire. The embassy actually apologized to the violent mob attacking us, and it even went so far as to chastise those who use free speech to “hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” (Funny, the current administration has no problem hurting the “religious feelings” of Catholics.)...

Pornography 'setting moral standard' for young people
Young people are growing to expect sex on demand and without consequences, a Wheaton professor has warned
William Struthers, Associate Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College, believes that pornography is reinforcing unrealistic and unhealthy views of sex among young people.
“Pornography is a violation of the childhood mind, creating expectations that anybody and everybody is willing to engage in sex on demand and that consent will always be freely given,” he said...