"Let us make man"

"It was the whole Trinity, which at the beginning of creation said, "Let us make man". It was the whole Trinity again, which at the beginning of the Gospel seemed to say, "Let us save man"." ...JC Ryle image

Kids Summoning Demon in New Social Media Craze

Thursday, May 28, 2015
CBN

A new occultic social media trend has gone viral, challenging kids to attempt to summon a demon.

The homemade game is similar to using a Oujia board, and it's called the "Charlie Charlie Challenge."

 

It involves putting two pencils on a piece of paper in the shape of a cross, and writing the words "yes" and "no" in the boxes outlined by the pencils.

 

The participants then summon what they say is a Mexican demon called Charlie, attempting to ask him questions for guidance for their lives... the rest


God Forbids You to Summon 'Satan's Demons,' Play 'Charlie Charlie Challenge,' Pastor Robert Jeffress Says  The "Charlie Charlie Challenge," the newest game sensation being played by children and adults throughout the world, should have Christian parents concerned that their children are committing an act "detestable" to God by summoning a forbidden demon, Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress said Friday.

More and more people are posting videos to social media featuring them trying out the Charlie Charlie Challenge, which requires setting up a child-like apparatus with two pencils — that many believe mysteriously move — to indicate the presence of a "Mexican demon" known as Charlie.

Participants set up two pencils in the shape of a cross on top of a piece of paper that is divided into four sections— two yes sections and two no sections. With one pencil balanced on top of the other pencil, contestants asks questions like "Charlie, can we play?" and "Charlie, are you here?"...

Osama bin Laden had profiles of Church of England bishops...

Osama bin Laden had profiles of Church of England bishops at Pakistan compound  Osama bin Laden kept profiles of Church of England bishops at his Pakistan compound before he was killed by US commandos in May 2011.

US Navy Seals found a document entitled "Profiles of the bishops in the Church of England" among dozens of English-language files amassed by the al-Qaeda leader...

Church of England May Rebaptize Transgenders According to New Identity  The Church of England is considering a proposal to rebaptize transgenders in ceremonies celebrating their new identities and to "introduce" them to God with their new names.

Rev. Chris Newlands, vicar of Lancaster Priory, has introduced a motion for the church's General Synod to debate the issue. Newlands, who is in a civil union with another man, has stirred controversy before over the church's stance on sexual issues, claiming in 2012 that there was a glass ceiling for openly gay clergy.

"That this Synod, recognising the need for transgender people to be welcomed and affirmed in their parish church, call on the House of Bishops to consider whether some nationally commended liturgical materials might be prepared to mark a person's gender transition," the proposal reads...

Former archbishop of Canterbury weighs in on fundamentalist threat ...He said that “our biggest enemy now is [ISIS] and Islamic fundamentalism, which now exists in America in all those Muslim families that you have graciously invited and said, following the Statue of Liberty, ‘Come and make your home here.’

“In Britain, too, we’ve got so many Muslims, and out of these people who we’ve educated are going to be the people who are going to be blowing up our trains and planes in the days ahead.”..

The Age Of Disinformation I have been a professional meteorologist for 36 years. Since my debut on television in 1979, I have been an eyewitness to the many changes in technology, society, and how we communicate. I am one who embraces change, and celebrates the higher quality of life we enjoy now thanks to this progress.

But, at the same time, I realize the instant communication platforms we enjoy now do have some negatives that are troubling. Just a few examples in recent days…

A.S. Haley: What Is ECUSA Spending on Lawsuits?

(Updated for General Convention 2015)
May 29, 2015

[WARNING: the following post may be dangerous to one’s mental health. The panoply of unbelievably large figures in it may also cause one’s eyes to glaze over. For those who cannot wade through it all, here is the bottom line:

The Episcopal Church (USA) has spent, and further committed (in its adopted budgets) to spend, a total of $42,675,466 on suing fellow Christians in the civil and ecclesiastical courts over the first eighteen years of this century. When one adds in the estimated additional amounts spent by individual dioceses on such litigation, the total amount exceeds Sixty Million Dollars.
Can’t believe it? Well, then, read on—you have been warned.]

Since September 2010, when I put up an analysis, based on ECUSA’s monthly statements and their annual audited statements through 2009, I have kept track of how much ECUSA and its major dioceses has spent on attorneys’ fees and other costs associated with all of the 90 or so lawsuits against former Episcopalians to which it (or one of its dioceses) has been a party. In 2010, it was only 60+ lawsuits, as catalogued here (see pgs. 23-26), but the Church continues to sue everyone who leaves it, whether the law is against it or not. In order to give as complete a picture as possible back then, I also included the latest ECUSA budget projection of legal expenses through the triennium 2010-2012.

One has to realize that ECUSA does not make it easy to discover the amounts it spends on litigation—the leadership at 815 Second Avenue would obviously prefer that those who sit in the pews every Sunday and contribute their pledges not be aware of just how many millions have been squandered on ECUSA’s scorched-earth litigation policy.

 Full story

TOTAL LEGAL EXPENSES (ECUSA ALONE; ESTIMATED) FOR 2000-2018: $42,675,466.

Marijuana Flavored Abortion Pills; Transgender Troubles in the Church; No Tolerance For Christians...more

On-Line Pharmacy Selling Strawberry, Chocolate, and Marijuana Flavored Abortion Pills ...Cipla, a major pharmaceutical maker and exporter from India, thinks they’ve found a way to distinguish their MTP single pack kits – add popular flavors like strawberry, chocolate… and cannabis.

The “MTP” stands for “medical termination of pregnancy.” Unbelievable at it sounds, Cipla is selling flavored abortion pills.

It is unclear if the motivation is to appeal to a younger crowd, to deal with the bitter, chalky taste of the misoprostol, or just to draw attention to their “product.”...

Transgender Troubles in the Church When the LGBT agenda infects church authorities something has to give: the Gospel or sexual libertarianism. In the case of Dr. Giles Fraser, the priest-in-charge of South London’s St. Mary’s Newington and former canon chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the gospel gave...

Franklin Graham Says There Is No Tolerance for Christians in Culture After Marine Court-Martialed for Keeping Bible Verse on Her Computer   ..."Unbelievably, she was criminally prosecuted by the U.S. government for displaying this encouraging scripture on her computer in her workspace. Give me a break, really? Can our society be at a point where a supervisor can order a young Marine to remove a Bible verse from her computer? Others are able to display secular messages without any opposition, but Sterling was targeted by her supervisor," Graham wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

"Today there's a tolerance in our culture for everything — except the things of God and His Word. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces has been asked to review Lance Cpl. Sterling's case — let's pray that this kind of targeting and persecution of Christians by our government will be stopped."...

Feds blackmail Virginia’s largest school district into transgender policy ...Which brings us to May 7, and the Fairfax County, Virginia school board meeting where board members bowed to U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) bullying: Unless the board approved special treatment for transgendered students and teachers, the state’s largest school district would lose $42 million in federal funding.

 This pressure, to which the board members acquiesced, reveals how federal funding is a bit in every school’s mouth, which allows unelected bureaucrats to decide essentially anything they want about what happens to your child in school...

FBI Says It's Investigating Identity Theft At IRS

The FBI says it's begun an investigation into the theft of personal tax information of more than 100,000 taxpayers from an Internal Revenue Service website.

The FBI said Thursday that agents were "working to determine the nature and scope of this matter." The agency is advising individuals it's contacted to take steps to safeguard their personal information...

Women Priests and Witches

May 27, 2015
by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Church of England women priests have joined Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori at a conference with a witch and a man married to a Muslim man.

Ruth Gledhill reports here

A leading witch and herbalist shared a Church of England platform last night with other women religious leaders including the Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church and Gogglebox tv vicar Rev Kate Bottley.

Helene Mobius, who heads the prison chaplain ministry of the Pagan Federation, challenged stereotypes of women at the event, the latest in the Westminster Faith Debates series at London’s liberal flagship church, St James’s Piccadilly.

One of the Church of England’s leading women priests, Rev. Lucy Winkett was there.

Rev Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James’s, said she hoped that women bishops would open up space for issues such as domestic violence to be addressed more effectively. It mattered not so much that women were bishops and priests, as “how” they were bishops and priests. The authority held by a woman will be held “differently” from that held by a man. “It won’t necessarily be held more nicely,” she warned.

the rest

Church revitalization; Selfies Say 'Lonely'; Court bans pro-life plates in NY...more

Rainer: 8 Common Characteristics of Successful Church Revitalizations
...As I gathered the information for successful revitalizations, I noted eight common characteristics that took place in most of the congregations. Unfortunately, many leaders are not willing to make all the sacrifices these characteristics suggest. Those who will make the sacrifices, however, are often seeing blessings beyond what they anticipated...

$52,293 NIH Study Aims to Reduce Discrimination of LGBT Schizophrenics by Convenience Store Clerks   ...“Complementing a study of community participation amongst an ethnoracially diverse group of individuals with schizophrenia in Toronto, Ontario, this project will involve the development of a new arm of the study that would focus specifically on lesbian, gay, and transgender (LGT) people with schizophrenia and those with whom they interact,” it stated...

Marine Court-Martialed for Refusing to Remove Bible Verse from Work Computer   ...A U.S. Marine was court-martialed and discharged from the military for displaying a piece of paper with scripture on it at her work computer.

Fox News reports Monifa Sterling had posted the Old Testament quote, “No weapon formed against me shall prosper,” on her computer. When a superior asked her to remove it, the lance corporal refused. The next day, Sterling found the paper in the trash...

Court Rules Pro-Life Views Are "Patently Offensive," Bans Choose Life License Plates in New York



Suspected Boko Haram Militants Kill 29 in Brutal Nigeria Attack ...Suspected Boko Haram members on Friday (May 22) slaughtered 10 Christians with machetes in Pambula-Kwamda, a Christian community in Adamawa’s Madagali Local government Area (LGA). Area residents told Morning Star News members of the Islamic extremist rebel group attacked at 4 a.m.

“They destroyed the telephone mast first before invading our community – this was to prevent us from telephoning and requesting help,” said an area pastor who requested anonymity for fear of being hunted down by the terrorists. “They killed 10 members of our church [Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, or EYN] using machetes and then slaughtering them.”

Here’s how badly we’re getting ripped off by our mobile phone providers   ...UK's Three offers unlimited data and texts (even roaming to US) all for £20 ($31)...

Selfies Say ‘Lonely’
...But I have yet to see a selfie — even a humorous one — where the subject didn’t appear attractive. They can exist (see deleted photos from iPhones), but no one’s sharing them. We’re not trying to present who we really are, warts and all, with selfies. We’re presenting who we want to be seen as. Like pop stars and presidents, we’re salesmen — of ourselves.

There’s something sad and lonely about that. Sure, we can project some feelings onto an image (there aren’t exact figures on how many of us are under the delusion that we’d be best friends forever with, say, Beyoncé or Kate Middleton, if we got to meet, though I’m betting the figure’s high, given our collective cultural obsession), but we can’t have a genuine friendship or bond with an image. Real relationships aren’t based on illusion. They’re based on knowing a person, both his flaws and his strengths, his weaknesses and his traits that suggest the promise of a better someone developing in the future...

Albert Mohler: A Requiem for the Boy Scouts

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Except:
Back in 2013, those who demanded the full inclusion of gay scouts and leaders registered their dissatisfaction with the new policy. The editorial board of The New York Times called the new policy “an unprincipled position” — and they were right. As the editors pushed onward, they warned that the move “should hardly satisfy” the demand for full inclusion. Once again, they were clearly right. Both sides could see the the compromise of 2013 was unprincipled and unsustainable.

Now, Secretary Gates proposes that the compromise be abandoned, accepting the inclusion of openly-gay leaders. His argument is entirely based on the self-preservation of the B.S.A. as a national organization. He made no moral argument at all. He did not celebrate the new policy he proposed on moral grounds, not did he lament the loss of the older policy on moral grounds. There were no moral elements in his argument.

Tellingly, Gates referred to internal pressures from scouting organizations in several states that were openly defying the national ban on gay adult leaders, and he also made reference to the threat of lawsuits that, in his words, would threaten to “forbid any kind of membership standard, including our foundational belief in duty to God and our focus on serving the specific needs of boys.”
What Gates did not mention was the fact that the inclusion of openly gay leaders and scouts, along with the challenge that already comes from the feminism and and transgender advocates, makes the very existence of the Boy Scouts ever more vulnerable.

The inescapable fact is that America is becoming a society in which the very idea of the Boy Scouts is increasingly implausible. The current leadership of the B.S.A. would supposedly save the Boy Scouts as an organization, but leave scouting in yet another unsustainable compromise. the rest image

The Boy Scouts Continue To Devolve Into A Garden Club  ...To be honest, the BSA hasn’t been doing well for a while. Membership has been steadily declining for decades, and recent decisions to go full Episcopalian—and you never go full Episcopalian—haven’t helped. But with this decision, and the resulting onslaught of righteous indignation, we see just how far a once-proud paramilitary organization has fallen...

Robert Gates' surrender of the Boy Scouts ...Is this how you see “the world as it is”? Has the United States of America become so weak, so lost, so unable to defend our very moral underpinnings, our national DNA, our constitutional defenses and rights, that we must cave in to relentless pressure on Scouting to embrace homosexuality, not just in boys and girls enrolled in Scouting but in the leaders who will be lasting influences on their young, trusting lives?...

Movie "Risen"; Seeking the complete financial ruin of a Christian family; Martin Luther's 16th Century notes found...more

'Risen,' New Movie About Jesus' Resurrection
..."Risen" takes an imaginative approach to the New Testament accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, who the Bible describes as being resurrected from the dead three days later. The new film is told from the perspective of a fictional top Roman military official who oversees Jesus' death on a cross...

United Methodists: Practicing Homosexuality Doesn't Contradict Christian Doctrine The United Methodist Church leadership has voted to submit a proposal to the 2016 General Conference that would remove “prohibitive” language about homosexuality from the United Methodist Book of Discipline.

 

The proposal removes homosexuality and the performance of same-sex weddings from the church’s list of chargeable offenses. Under the proposal, United Methodist pastors would be able to perform same-sex marriages in churches...

 

Seeking the complete financial ruin of a Christian family ...Why did all of this happen? It was NOT because the Klein’s refused to serve gay people in their bakery. In fact, the Klein’s had done business with this particular lesbian couple on numerous occasions before that fateful day. The Klein’s simply felt that they couldn’t lend their creative expression to help someone celebrate what their Christian faith forbids. In short, the Klein’s were following Jesus, and now they are being punished for it.
I just found out today that someone has set up another fundraising page for them at ContinueToGive.com. We’ll see whether the activists can shut that site down too. If past is prologue, I guess we know what to expect...

  

Federal Court Forces University of Notre Dame to Obey Pro-Abortion HHS Mandate  ...Notre Dame won a victory at the Supreme Court earlier this year. After a lower court dismissed the lawsuit, in March the Supreme Court ordered the lower court to reconsider its ruling that denied a Catholic university the freedom to follow its faith. But, today, a panel of a federal appeals court ruled that Notre Dame must comply with the mandate...

Protestant reformer Martin Luther's 16th Century notes found
...It includes around 50 notes written in red by Luther himself, indicating changes he wanted for a second edition.

The American who made the discovery, James Hirsten, said it gave an important insight into Luther's thinking at the time.

The annotated edition was found in The Humanist Library in Selestat, in the north-east of France...

Bobby Jindal Has A Bold Message For Those Trying To Bully Him On Religious Freedom   After a Louisiana state house legislative committee refused to act on a measure to protect business owners who have religious objections to same-sex marriage, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) stepped in and issued an executive order on Tuesday to accomplish the same purpose.

Louisiana H.B. 707, which has now been taken off the legislative calendar, is designed to block the government from revoking licenses or tax or other state benefits from businesses because of the owners’ religious views concerning same-sex marriage...

British Novelist to American Grads: There’s Nothing Virtuous about Being Offended  A rather uneventful college commencement season full of the usual platitudes and bromides was shaken up by British novelist Ian McEwan’s refreshingly challenging the zeitgeist of trigger warnings, free-speech zones, and campus censorship at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania this week.

McEwan did not shy away from addressing the current temper on campus, choosing to focus on the creeping group-think in faculty lounges and discussion sections instead of the all too easy targets of Russian crackdowns on free speech or the “industrial scale” state-sponsored censorship in China. McEwan directly confronted the problem of a country rooted in the tradition of free expression under the First Amendment meekly submitting to what he called “bi-polar thinking” — the eagerness of some to “not side with Charlie Hebdo because it might seem as if we’re endorsing George Bush’s War on Terror.”...

Inside the bizarre life of an Upper East Side housewife 
...Martin’s child was accepted to their school of choice, but her relief was short-lived. She soon learned much else was expected of the Upper East Side mommy.

“Intensive mothering says that if you have all these resources and all this money, you can’t just say to your kid, ‘Go play in the back yard,’ ” Martin explains. “You have to find the best occupational therapist” — whether or not your child has disabilities.

“Especially if he’s a boy,” Martin says. “It’s to give him a leg up on his grapple motor skills and help him with his ‘sillies’ so he can sit still in school and do better on tests. Some people really need the occupational therapists. I’m not putting anybody down.”

Martin says she knows of mommies who hire food coaches for picky little eaters. “You need to hire somebody to teach your kid to ride a bike the safe, right way. Taking your kid to school is not enough. Helping with homework is not enough. There are homework tutorials for parents — we’re supposed to literally go to classes so you can learn how your child is learning math, so that you can be in a better mind-meld with your child.”...Bizarre indeed!

Nala visiting friends

Apr 13, 2015

This black teacup poodle named Nala is making everyone smile at a nursing home in Minnesota. She scurries from room to room, even riding the elevator by herself, to see her friends.

Syracuse Memorial Day Watchfire 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memorial Day Watchfire 2015 draws thousands to NYS fairgrounds 

Thousands of people gathered at dusk Sunday at the New York State Fairgrounds in Geddes for an annual watchfire in honor of U.S. soldiers and veterans.

 

"The Watchfire stems from the military tradition that following a battle or long march, a large fire would be started so those missing or lost could locate and rejoin their comrades," the Central New York Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 103 website said.

"Using that time honored model symbolically," the local chapter wrote on its website, "we use the warmth and light of our Watchfire to guide everyone to join us in reflection of those comrades who have gone before us and made our nation strong through their service and sacrifice."...

Pictures by Raymond Dague  



Bp. Julian Dobbs: The Sacraments of the Gospel

May 24, 2015

Found here

Anglican Unscripted Episodes 179, 180, 181

Episode 179
May 11, 2015


Episode 180
May 13, 2015


Episode 181
May 22, 2015

(I have been gardening these past few weeks and so got behind on blogging-feel no remorse. :)

Bishop Dobbs: U.S. State Department Denies Visa for Assyrian Christians facing Imminent Threats from ISIS

By Isaiah Narciso
May 20, 2015

The U.S. State Department may have sent a signal to an Anglican bishop in Iraq that despite persecution and harassment from the terror group known as ISIS, Christians in that country will not find any support from the United States government. According to Faith J.H. McDonnell of Philos Project, the Rt. Rev. Julian M. Dobbs, bishop of the Diocese of CANA East (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), revealed that part of U.S. foreign policy during an interaction with the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

Dobbs made his case to the State Department on behalf of a group of Assyrian Christians who are desperate to leave northern Iraq. "There is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation," the State Department said the rest

"Donors in the private sector have offered complete funding for the airfare and the resettlement in the United States of these Iraqi Christians that are sleeping in public buildings, on school floors, or worse," McDonnell wrote. "But the State Department - while admitting 4,425 Somalis to the United States in just the first six months of FY2015, and possibly even accepting members of ISIS through the Syrian and Iraqi refugee program, all paid for by tax dollars, told Dobbs that they 'would not support a special category to bring Assyrian Christians into the United States.'"

McDonnell contended that the United States government made it clear religious affiliation does not mean support for Christians in the region in the form of asylum.

The 11-year-old taking jazz world by storm

Apr 30, 2015

The 11-year-old taking jazz world by storm
An 11-year-old piano prodigy from Indonesia will appear at the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival after taking the American jazz scene by storm.

Joey Alexander, who releases his debut album My Favorite Things this week, has attracted high praise from trumpeter and director of Jazz at Lincoln Centre Wynton Marsalis, who has said: "There has never been anyone that you can think of who could play like that at his age. I loved everything about his playing – his rhythm, his confidence, his understanding of the music."

Marsalis said he found out about Bali-born Alexander after a friend suggested he watched a YouTube clip of the then 10-year-old performing tunes by John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Chick Corea...


Age 10

Homosexual Sexual Assault Epidemic Grows in U.S. Military; Giving passing grades to failing students...more

Homosexual Sexual Assault Epidemic Grows in U.S. Military  ...Well, it is now a few years later, and as we could expect with open homosexuality in the military, the number of sexual assaults has grown significantly. How bad is it? Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who inherited this mess after years of Mr. Obama’s social engineering, admitted in a recent speech that the Defense Department is trying to “lead boldly on sexual assault.” Despite hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on sexual assault prevention programs, including “May I Kiss You?” training, the number of sexual assaults continue to increase. (You can read more about “May I Kiss You?” training here) Last year, Mr. Carter said, thousands more men (10,400) were sexually assault than women (8,500). Although Mr. Carter said, “No man or woman who serves in the United States military should ever be sexually assaulted,” Mr. Obama’s homosexualist policies prove how utterly misguided efforts to promote open homosexuality in the military during a dangerous time are for morale and unit cohesion.

Further, it is not only dangerous for those serving in the armed forces. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the liberal Democrat from New York, recently observed that the spouses of service members and civilian women who live or work near military facilities are also vulnerable to sexual assault by military personnel. However, Senator Gillibrand said that these victims “remain in the shadows” because neither military spouses nor civilian women are counted in sexual assault surveys conducted by the Defense Department. “I don’t think the military is being honest about the problem,” Senator Gillibrand said in an interview. The senator said that her analysis of 107 sexual assault cases found punishments that were too lenient, and that the word of the alleged assailant was more likely to be believed than the victim...

At the mercy of the climate jihadists
Most nations and states would be hard-pressed to surrender affordable housing and blue-collar employment for the privilege of being climate-policy warriors. And none has the concentration of industries – such as entertainment and software – that allow California’s leaders to think they can do away with carbon-based energy without negative effects.

But who cares about reality when you have idealism, the courage of conviction and little regard for the average citizen? So Jerry Brown will be feted at the upcoming Paris climate conference as a farsighted leader moving his state toward a better world. And, as long as the current property-value and tax-revenue bubbles continue, he can certainly persuade a gullible media that you can wage climate jihad without turning the entire economy into collateral damage. Californians struggling to find decent work, or an affordable house, those suffering the consequence of the state’s religious crusade, can only stand by as the governor and his friends gaze into the mirror with obvious collective delight.

Teacher assails practice of giving passing grades to failing students  Caleb Stewart Rossiter, a college professor and policy analyst, decided to try teaching math in the D.C. schools. He was given a pre-calculus class with 38 seniors at H.D. Woodson High School. When he discovered that half of them could not handle even second-grade problems, he sought out the teachers who had awarded the passing grades of D in Algebra II, a course that they needed to take his high-level class.

There are many bewildering stories like this in Rossiter’s new book, “Ain’t Nobody Be Learnin’ Nothin’: The Fraud and the Fix for High-Poverty Schools,” the best account of public education in the nation’s capital I have ever read. It will take me three columns to do justice to his revelations about what is being done to the District’s most distracted and least productive students...

A Child’s Memory Of White Flight From Baltimore Fear often turns into anger and hatred. There was plenty of that being stoked in the 1960s, but much more than racism caused white flight from Baltimore...

The Himalayas Dropped 3 Feet After the Nepal Earthquake

The earthquake in Nepal was so violent it moved mountains. Satellite imagery shows that the parts of the Himalayas sank three feet—and the area around it as much as five feet—as tectonic plates snapped under extreme pressure. But the mountains will regain their height, slowly but surely, thanks to the geologic forces at work. 

 

The European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1A radar satellite captured before and after images of the area hit by the earthquake. The image below show how the Eurasian plate bent, the land falling in some places (yellow) and rising in others (blue). The area of the Himalaya’s Langtang range sank by three feet. Everest, which was further away from the earthquake, sank about an inch...

Two back garden pictures-Spring 2015

Periwinkle

 

Fiddlehead in the fern patch

 

Pictures by Raymond Dague



Albert Mohler: Children of the Day

May 14, 2015

Excerpt:
The great dividing line in humanity is not merely between the children of light and the children of darkness, but between those destined for wrath and those destined for salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever believes in Christ will be saved, and this salvation is not our work, but the gift of God. The entire plan of salvation is the outworking of the eternal purposes of God, as Paul described in Romans 8:28-30: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

We are told in no uncertain terms that the only alternative to our destiny of salvation through Christ is to be destined for wrath. This should lead to the unceasing gratitude of the church throughout eternity, but it must also lead to the most eager preaching, teaching, and taking of the gospel to the nations and to all people everywhere.

Ministers of Christ’s church serve in the knowledge that we are serving those who are destined for salvation in Christ and that Christ’s church is not, thanks be to God, destined for wrath. We minister, knowing that our destiny, and the destiny of all those who are in Christ, is secured by God, and not by ourselves. Thus, nothing the world can do can thwart our ministry in an eternal perspective. The church is safe in the purposes of God, destined for salvation, and thus we preach. 
the rest image

A.S. Haley: The Episcopal Church: Undermining the USA from Within

May 14, 2015

In my previous post, I detailed the sordid story by which the Episcopal Church (USA) has gotten into the debt collection business. Refugees designated to migrate to the United States are advanced travel money by an arm of the U.S. State Department. They land here, and are placed in the hands of (among other agencies) Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), which helps them relocate into specific communities, find jobs, and settle in. Then EMM sees that they repay their travel advances to the Government, and pockets one-quarter of its debt collection proceeds for its trouble.

It's a nifty racket, and ensures that annually over $300,000 comes into the Episcopal Church's coffers, to help with its bottom line.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Government reimburses EMM for all of its other refugee relocation expenses, to the tune of some $14 million annually.

Now thanks to our good friend and frequent commenter El Gringo Viejo, your Curmudgeon has been pointed to this illuminating video message, which tells "the rest of the story," so to speak. It turns out that a good portion of the refugees EMM is assisting are not just any refugees, but are Muslims from some of the countries to which America has sent troops, bombs or both: Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and (soon) Syria. Listen to Ann Corcoran as she explains what she discovered: the rest



But... State Department Says No to Iraqi Christians

State Department Says No to Iraqi Christians; B.B. King dies at age 89...more

BB King, Defining Bluesman for Generations, Dies at 89
B. B. King, whose world-weary voice and wailing guitar lifted him from the cotton fields of Mississippi to a global stage and the apex of American blues, died Thursday in Las Vegas. He was 89...

State Department Says No to Iraqi Christians Writing in April in USA Today about the murder of 12 Christian migrants thrown into the sea by Muslims for praying to Jesus instead of Allah, columnist Kirsten Powers stated that President Barack Obama “just can’t seem to find any passion for the mass persecution of Middle Eastern Christians or the eradication of Christianity from its birthplace.”

The president’s response appears to be United States policy. Evidence suggests that within the administration not only is there no passion for persecuted Christians under threat of genocide from the Islamic State, there is no room for them, period. In fact, despite ISIS’ targeting of Iraqi Christians specifically because they are Christians, and, as such, stand in the way of a pure, Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East (and beyond), the U.S. State Department has made it clear that “there is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation.”...

Irish archbishops back gay marriage
A war of letters has broken out between Church of Ireland clergy over the introduction of gay marriage in the Republic of Ireland.

On 22 May 2015 Ireland will go to the polls to vote on a constitutional amendment put forward by the Fine Gael-Labour government that would mandate the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland have urged the defeat of the bill, but two former Archbishops of Dublin and two current Church of Ireland bishops have said they will vote “yes”.

The Most Rev. John Neill, the archbishop of Dublin from 2002 to 2011, told The Irish Times “we now recognise that there are many different types of unions and I don’t see why they cannot have the protection and status of marriage”. "The understanding of marriage in the church has evolved, putting partnership first before procreation”, in which context “there is less of a problem about same-sex marriage”. The Most Rev. Walton Empey, archbishop from 1996 to 2002 said "I certainly have no hesitation in calling for a Yes vote."...

American College of Physicians endorses gay ‘marriage,’ opposes reparative therapy  
The nation’s largest association for internal medicine doctors this week officially endorsed homosexual “marriage” and blamed marriage protection laws for damaging the physical and mental health of people who identify as LGBT.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) also officially opposed reparative therapy for individuals suffering from unwanted same-sex tendencies, and called for all-inclusive “transgender healthcare services” in its policy paper published May 12 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

"It’s based upon our longstanding policy in regard to eliminating healthcare disparities," said Dr. Wayne Riley, president of the ACP and a clinical professor of medicine at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University School of Medicine...

Pew: Evangelicals Stay Strong as Christianity Crumbles in America
The main methods for measuring American faith are flawed.

So thinks the Pew Research Center, which today released the second wave of a massive study designed to “fill the gap” left by the United States census (no questions on religion), the self-reporting of denominations (“widely differing criteria”), and smaller surveys (too few questions or people).

 

Scrutinizing the past seven years, Pew finds that, amid the rise of the “nones” and other popular talking points, the fate of evangelicals is proving much brighter than Christianity at large.

Here are highlights from the US Religious Landscape Study, conducted among more than 35,000 adults in English and Spanish...

Art Has Ceased to Be Beautiful or Interesting
...So what defines an artist today? The influential sociologist Howard Becker explained that artists are people who possess rare powers which they trade with the world in exchange for its tolerance of their quirky behaviour. He added: ‘Work and makers stand in reciprocal relation to one another. If you do it, you must be an artist, so what you do must be art.’ So that’s self-fulfilling and not susceptible to any testing. Additionally, on the evidence offered here, artists are characterised by self-absorption, vanity and a casual, but colossal, disregard for the public. Mental health specialists know this as narcissistic personality disorder...

The Real O'Neals (ABC) Official Trailer [HD]
Be prepared-this is disgusting-courtesy of Dan Savage, so what else would you expect.

Holiness...

No amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God. Holiness energizing the soul, the whole man aflame with love, with desire for more faith, more prayer, more zeal, more consecration-this is the secret of power. These we need and must have, and men must be the incarnation of this God-inflamed devotedness. God's advance has been stayed, his cause crippled: his name dishonored for their lack. Genius (though the loftiest and most gifted), education (though the most learned and refined), position, dignity, place, honored names, high ecclesiastics cannot move this chariot of our God. It is a fiery one, and fiery forces only can move it. The genius of a Milton fails. The imperial strength of a Leo fails. Brainerd's spirit can move it. Brainerd's spirit was on fire for God, on fire for souls. Nothing earthly, worldly, selfish came in to abate in the least the intensity of this all-impelling and all-consuming force and flame." ...EM Bounds image

Canada: Same-Sex Marriage Erodes Fundamental Rights; Pregnant Satanist Sues Over Abortion Restrictions...more

In Chilling Lawsuit, Pregnant Satanist Sues Over Abortion Restrictions A 22 year old pregnant Satanist going by the name "Mary" is claiming in a new lawsuit that the state’s waiting period for abortion stands against her religion.

She's appealing to the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the legal means to procure an abortion quickly. The Satanic temple to which she belongs is doing its best to raise funds for the legal battle.

The lawsuit itself is chilling as it states that "For purposes of this petition, an ”unborn child” that is not ”viable” is referred to as “Tissue.” It states that her "deeply held religious beliefs" should pertain to the inviolability of her body...

A Warning from Canada: Same-Sex Marriage Erodes Fundamental Rights ...In Canada, freedoms of speech, press, religion, and association have suffered greatly due to government pressure. The debate over same-sex marriage that is taking place in the United States could not legally exist in Canada today. Because of legal restrictions on speech, if you say or write anything considered “homophobic” (including, by definition, anything questioning same-sex marriage), you could face discipline, termination of employment, or prosecution by the government.

Why do police prosecute speech under the guise of eliminating “hate speech” when there are existing legal remedies and criminal protections against slander, defamation, threats, and assault that equally apply to all Americans? Hate-crime-like policies using the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” create unequal protections in law, whereby protected groups receive more legal protection than other groups.

Having witnessed how mob hysteria in Indiana caused the legislature to back-track on a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, many Americans are beginning to understand that some activists on the Left want to usher in state control over every institution and freedom. In this scheme, personal autonomy and freedom of expression become nothing more than pipe dreams, and children become commodified...

Losing faith in America: Study shows decline in religion, rise in atheism  Christianity in America is declining and the country is becoming more secular, according to a new report from the respected Pew Research Center.

While seven out of 10 Americans still identify with a religion, the number professing 'no religion' has grown to 56 million, making the 'nones' group the second largest behind evangelicals. Protestant Christians now comprise only 46.5 per cent of what was once a predominantly Protestant country...

AU Anglican church angry over Department of Education banning of “one-partner” material
Anglican church leaders have slammed an “unprecedented” interference by the Department of Education after it banned three books used by the church’s scripture teachers on the basis they promoted only monogamous heterosexual relationships. 

Scripture teachers were told this week they were not allowed to use books called Teen Sex By The Book by Patricia Weerakoon, You: An Introduction by Michael Jensen, and A Sneaking Suspicion by John Dickson because the texts violated departmental policy.

The texts were used in Special Religious Education (SRE) classes at state schools — classes parents choose to send their children to...

Methodist Lobby: Divest from Israel, Invest in North Korea, Legalize Prostitution  The world’s lone Jewish state must be singled out for punitive divestment campaigns, while we should at the same time promote economic investment in North Korea, whose government has done absolutely nothing in the area of human rights worthy of specific criticism. And we should take our broad support for sex outside of marriage one step further by advocating to legalize prostitution.

This was the moral vision offered by our United Methodist Church’s apportionment-funded D.C.
lobby office, the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) at its Spring 2015 board of directors meeting.

The main business of this semi-annual meeting was adopting, rather hastily, dozens of petitions and resolutions that will be submitted for consideration at our denomination’s 2016 General Conference. The GBCS’s head staffer, since early 2014, is the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, while its board president is Bishop Robert Hoshibata of the Desert-Southwest Conference...

What’s the Point of a Professor?   ...When college is more about career than ideas, when paycheck matters more than wisdom, the role of professors changes. We may be 50-year-olds at the front of the room with decades of reading, writing, travel, archives or labs under our belts, with 80 courses taught, but students don’t lie in bed mulling over what we said. They have no urge to become disciples.

Sadly, professors pressed for research time don’t want them, either. As a result, most undergraduates never know that stage of development when a learned mind enthralled them and they progressed toward a fuller identity through admiration of and struggle with a role model...

Do Mothers Matter?

It may sound crazy, but explaining why mothers matter is apparently necessary.
By Rachel Lu
May 8, 2015

Excerpt:
It’s hard sometimes to celebrate the wonderfully ordinary. In childhood, I remember my mother getting irritated each year by the local paper’s coverage of Mother’s Day. They always felt a need to find a “non-traditional” maternal figure to celebrate. Each May we got bright, happy features on unwed Murphy-Brown-type professionals who were doing it on their own, or on the heroic, childless woman who had volunteered hundreds of hours to the Girl Scouts, the “daughters she never had.” We apparently weren’t permitted to celebrate women who just got married, conceived and bore tiny new humans, and then raised them to adulthood. How boring and plebeian was that?

I fully understood my mom’s irritation. But I also sympathized with the local features editor. How many stories can you run on lullabies and apple pie? Motherhood is a minefield of clichés precisely because its importance is simply too obvious. For most of us, the goodness of mom is one of the first truths we ever grasp. We take our mothers for granted, just like sunshine and smiles and warm, cozy beds. As with those things, it’s hard to articulate their importance without sounding like a grinning, sentimental idiot.

Funny thing, though. In today’s world, it’s becoming audacious (even offensive!) to suggest that a child should have a mother. Another Mother’s Day is upon us, and the brunches will go on as usual, but a glance through your news feed will tell a different story: motherhood is besieged on a broader cultural level.
 

Consider, for example, this recent piece by Joy Pullmann on “full-service schools,” a fresh, new growing-up alternative to families. “Marriage equality” is poised to steamroll its way into every corner of the nation, carrying with it the new orthodoxy that kids don’t really need their natural parents. Meanwhile, surrogacy (fueled to a great extent by the desire of gay couples to procure children to raise) continues its advance into the Western world. the rest image

Anglican Unscripted Episode 178

May 8, 2015

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglican.tv/donate

Anglican Unscripted Episode 177

May 6, 2015

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglican.tv/donate

Bishop to meet with gay parents over baptism of their son
Episcopal Bishop Greg Brewer is scheduled to meet Thursday evening with two gay parishioners whose son was denied baptism at a downtown church..

"I want to get to know them as people and for them to get to know me," said Brewer, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida. "My focus has to do with them. Why is this important to them? That is what I want to know."...

How to Radicalize an Entire London Borough; Professor fails student for refusing to condemn her Christian faith...more

How to Radicalize an Entire London Borough
◾Schoolchildren in Tower Hamlets grow up under the shadow of non-violent but extremist ideology, funded by the British government. Meanwhile, the British media and politicians are busy debating the causes of radicalization.
◾"Non-violent" but extremist Islamic movements seek to offer their own networks as alternatives to the jihadists.

Professor fails student for refusing to condemn her Christian faith  A professor at Polk State College has allegedly failed a humanities student after she refused to concede that Jesus is a “myth” or that Christianity oppresses women during a series of mandatory assignments at the Florida college.

According to a press release from the Liberty Counsel, a non-profit public interest law firm, Humanities Professor Lance "Lj" Russum gave a student a “zero” on four separate papers because the 16-year-old did not “conform to his personal worldviews of Marxism, Atheism, Feminism, and homosexuality.” The law firm has called for a full, private investigation of the professor and the course curriculum...

Gagnon: Gordon College wins – and loses ...Yes, the Board “unanimously reaffirmed the College’s historic, theological conviction regarding biblical teaching around human sexuality and behavior, and is not making any change at this time to the College’s Life and Conduct Statement” (my emphasis). Yet why add “at this time”? The qualifier sounds ominous. Better to hear that Gordon College has no intention of ever changing the core scriptural teaching that God designed sex solely between a man and a woman...

Surveys on sexuality, suicide, drug use, criminal activity, etc. given to children in Massachusetts -- and schools across America Across Massachusetts – and across America – thousands of schoolchildren are given sexually graphic, psychologically intrusive surveys by the public schools without parents’ knowledge. These surveys also ask youth to reveal their criminal activity, personal family matters, and other intimate issues...

Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee ...The professors believe government must prevent the wealthy from having equal political rights. Our capitalist system produces rich people so, to be fair, rich people should enjoy less political freedom...

Praying Psalms for the Persecuted Church
Wouldn’t it be great if Christians in the West all committed daily to praying Psalms on behalf of our persecuted brothers and sisters?

Anglican Unscripted Episode 176

May 5, 2015

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglican.tv/donate

The Heresy of Indifference; Nepal Christians suffer great losses: Persecution in Egypt...more

Islamic State claims responsibility for Texas attack outside Muhammad cartoon show ...The authenticity of the claim — announced on a Syria-based radio station operated by the militant group — could not be immediately verified. It represents the first time the Islamic State has announced links to a high-profile attack in the United States...

Nepal Christians Return to Worship after Quake Turns Churches into Tombs ...“The evangelical churches have suffered terrible tragedies,” Kala Bahadur Rokaya, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Nepal, told CT. “It will take time to count the deaths among Christians across Nepal. Many areas are still cut off.” He feared more bad news was yet to come from mountainous and remote districts such as Gorkha, Sindhupalchok, and Nuwakot, which have many evangelical churches...

Sowell: The Inconvenient Truth about Ghetto Communities’ Social Breakdown Among the many painful ironies in the current racial turmoil is that communities scattered across the country were disrupted by riots and looting because of the demonstrable lie that Michael Brown was shot in the back by a white policeman in Missouri — but there was not nearly as much turmoil created by the demonstrable fact that a fleeing black man was shot dead by a white policeman in South Carolina.

Totally ignored was the fact that a black policeman in Alabama fatally shot an unarmed white teenager, and was cleared of any charges, at about the same time that a white policeman was cleared of charges in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. In a world where the truth means so little, and headstrong preconceptions seem to be all that matter, what hope is there for rational words or rational words or rational behavior, much less mutual understanding across racial lines?...

Urban school closures help students academically
Shutting down poorly-performing urban charter and traditional schools in Ohio helped students, according to a new study published by the Fordham Institute.

School closures are often denounced as hurting public education. The results from Ohio give reason to question this conventional wisdom. The disproportionately black, economically disadvantaged, or low-achieving students affected may actually be fortunate their low-performing schools closed...

The Heresy of Indifference
Doctrine matters—it matters in life and in death. Our doctrine determines our destiny. It not only affects our view about God but our view about everything. We are doctrinal beings by nature. Everyone holds to some sort of doctrine; the question is whether or not our doctrine is biblical. Consequently, we dare not be indifferent about doctrine. Indeed, there is a reason we’ve never heard of a Christian martyr who was indifferent about doctrine. Indifference about doctrine is the mother of every heresy in all of history, and in our day indifference about doctrine is spreading like wildfire in the pulpits and pews of our churches. Ironically, the assertion that doctrine doesn’t matter is in fact a doctrine in itself.

When people tell me they are into Jesus but not into doctrine, I tell them that if they are not into doctrine, they are, in fact, not into Jesus. We cannot know Jesus without knowing doctrine, and we cannot love God without knowing God, and the way we know God is by studying His Word. Doctrine comes from God, it teaches us about God, and by faith it leads us back to God in worship, service, and love...

State Department Doesn't Want to Hear from Nun About Christian Persecution   ...Why is the United States barring a persecuted Iraqi Catholic nun — an internationally respected and leading representative of the Nineveh Christians who have been killed and deported by ISIS — from coming to Washington to testify about this catastrophe?

Earlier this week, we learned that every member of an Iraqi delegation of minority groups, including representatives of the Yazidi and Turkmen Shia religious communities, has been granted visas to come for official meetings in Washington — save one. The single delegate whose visitor visa was denied happens to be the group’s only Christian from Iraq...

Coptic bishop claims Egyptian authorities are behind Christian persecution ...In an interview for Arabic satellite TV station AlKarma TV by Dr Mona Roman, reported by Coptic Solidarity, Bishop Agathon instanced a meeting between Copts and government officials about the possibility of building a church, during which one of the officials contacted the Muslim leaders of the village instructing them to send people to protest against the plans.

He also said that state security forces were complicit in attacks on Christians. There are currently 21 Christian boys and girls from Minya alone who have been abducted, the youngest of whom had just started elementary school. Bishop Agathon said that whenever these attacks occur, Copts prepare documents, including photos and other verification, pointing to the culprits. These then are placed into the hands of top officials to ensure they are not "lost" or "misplaced" by underlings. The bishop said he had put documentation into the hands of the Director of Intelligence himself. "Absolutely nothing was done," he said...

After fresh tragedy, Syrian Christian leader warns: ‘We could disappear’
Crux: How many Christians are left in Aleppo?

Jeanbart: Before the war we were around 170,000. We don’t have reliable statistics today, but we may be around 100,000, maybe less. Most [who have left] aren’t very far away, in the southern part of the country or in Lebanon. On the other hand, some have gone to Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, Sweden, and so on. We worry about these people, because we’re not sure they’ll ever come back.

After what happened on Easter, people don’t know what to do. They’re afraid we’ll have the same scenario as Mosul. (Mosul is an Iraqi city under ISIS domination where virtually all Christians have been driven out, and where militants destroyed Christian gravesites over Easter in an effort to eradicate remaining symbols of the faith.)...