Scrolling around...September 20, 2013

Super Typhoon Usagi Heads for Philippines, Taiwan, S. China
The Philippines, Taiwan and southern China are preparing for the arrival of rapidly intensifying super typhoon Usagi.

Typhoon Usagi is the Pacific's strongest storm on record this year, with wind gusts measured of up to 240 kilometers per hour.

It is expected to strengthen further as it moves toward the northern Philippines and then Taiwan before weakening and hitting China's southern coast.

The Philippines evacuated some northern coastal villages and called in fishing boats ahead of the storm's expected arrival late Friday...

Urgent prayer need for Henry Blackaby
 The Blackaby family requests your prayers for Dr. Henry Blackaby in the midst of difficult circumstances at this moment. Henry has been missing since 4:00pm yesterday (Thursday) in the South Atlanta area. He was driving a black Lincoln sedan. Please pray for him to be found and if you are in the Atlanta area, please be on the lookout for Henry or his car along the roadside. Please check the BMI Home page for updates. Thank you for your partnership in prayer!

The Economist: The weakened West: The deal over Syria’s chemical weapons marks a low for those who cherish freedom 
Yet the deal looks good only because the mess Mr Obama had got himself into was so bad. Step back, and the outcome looks rotten.

Os Guinness: Liberals and Conservatives Are Getting Religious Freedom Wrong
...Americans employ the term "religious freedom," while Europeans prefer the roughly synonymous term "freedom of religion and belief." In the book, you suggest something deeper and broader with the term "soul freedom." What is "soul freedom"?...

The typical American family makes less than it did in 1989  ...Headlines about these numbers tend to focus on how we have now experienced a lost decade for the middle-class American family, with incomes back to their late 1990s level. But as the chart shows it's really worse than that.

In 1989, the median American household made $51,681 in current dollars (the 2012 number, again, was $51,017). That means that 24 years ago, a middle class American family was making more than the a middle class family was making one year ago.

This isn't a lost decade for economic gains for Americans. It is a lost generation.

Living as a Prophetic Minority
...Looking to the future, Moore proposed that orthodox Christians be diverse in outreach but not in message. The mission of the church is to enable people “to hear the voice of Jesus Christ.” Because of his death and resurrection, “Jesus welcomes the world to reconciliation through him.” While kindness in Scripture is not weakness, we are not to regard people who disagree with us as our enemies, rather they may be future Christians. “The power of the gospel is found in the freakishness of the gospel,” Moore said. “As the Moral Majority goes away, we have the power to be a prophetic minority.”

As a prophetic minority, do not need a gospel which essentially accepts the prevailing American values of self-fulfillment. “Your Best Life Now” has not been translated into Sudanese, Moore said. Offering instead an uncompromising message of Biblical faith and morals will make Christians a prophetic minority with a real reason for being, Moore suggested, but it will entail penalties because religious liberty, while good for the country, is rapidly disappearing. Natural marriage, to which even President Obama maintained a favorable position until one and a half years ago, is now regarded as an unacceptable standard by the new morality of inclusion. Christians, however, need to move from the fear-based model of the past. We should not be “trying to raise money from paranoid senior adults.” We should be trying to engage the culture as a “remnant in time, but with a transcendent connection.” In general, Moore staked out a hard, discernibly orthodox, but optimistic road into the future for the heirs of the Moral Majority, the new “prophetic minority.”