Boy Scouts end ban on gay Scout leaders; Iran deal has no provision for US captives...more

The US may have just lost its best leverage to secure the release of four citizens held in Iran ...Monday’s nuclear agreement with Iran includes no provisions for the release of three Americans known to be detained in Iran and a fourth thought to be held captive by the Islamic Republic.

“What happened today makes a bad deal even worse,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. “We will now focus our attention on convincing Congress to reject this deal.”...

Obama Not Waiting for Congress to Review Iran Deal Before Going to UN Despite a legal obligation to allow Congress to review the Iran nuclear agreement for 60 days, the Obama administration will press ahead with a U.N. Security Council resolution enshrining the deal, likely within days.

“We will be introducing a U.N. Security Council resolution perhaps as early as next week,” a senior administration official told reporters in a background conference call from Vienna, hours after the final agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was announced.

The official said the resolution wording had already been drafted in Vienna, with the U.S. in the lead... lawless

Hindu extremists attack two churches in India and leave explosive in Christian school playground

Boy Scouts committee votes to end ban on gay Scout leaders
But the resolution allows religious chartering partners to continue to discriminate against gay adults, in a bid to avoid 'placing Scouting between a boy and his church.'...

Here's the Company That Buys Aborted Body Parts from Planned Parenthood  ...In the context of selling aborted fetal tissue, Dr. Deborah Nucatola is seen and heard discussing her ongoing relationship with a company called StemExpress that works as the middleman between Planned Parenthood affiliates and research institutes that use the body parts in scientific experimentatio

Book review: Praying the Bible
Tim Challies: The heart of Praying the Bible is Whitney’s instruction on a particular method that is meant to address the lack of variety in our prayers: “When you pray, pray through a passage of Scripture, particularly a psalm.” That’s it. “Simply go through the passage line by line, talking to God about whatever comes to mind as you read the text. See how easy that is? Anyone can do that.”

He describes this method and then teaches it with very practical instructions. The book’s tone is of a wise, older Christian coming alongside a young one and saying, “Let me teach you what I have learned. Let me teach you how to pray.” It is warm, conversational, and very encouraging. Whitney’s long experience with this method, coupled with his enthusiasm for it, makes it seem both good and do-able. If you read the book, you will walk away knowing and being able to practice his method. I think I can just about guarantee that much. I also think you will walk away excited to try it out and confident that it will bring new life to your prayers...

“Defactualization” Is Causing American Schools to Become Bastions of Anti-Intellectualism ...According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation’s chief test of student achievement, American students score lower in history than any other subject, and their test scores have been declining. On the history test for fourth graders, only 9 percent of students could identify a picture of Abraham Lincoln and give two reasons why he was an important figure. Most twelfth grade students did not know the main ideas and purposes of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Meanwhile, recent data indicate that SAT verbal scores have reached an all-time low.

Most high school students do not realize China’s role in the Cold War and most have little overall knowledge of the Cold War. This is especially disturbing because many historians are asserting that the Ukrainian crisis has led us into Cold War II. Moreover, former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev declared to Time Magazine that the United States and Russia have already entered into a second Cold War over the past few months...

How Should Christians Comment Online?
Reading people’s comments online is an interesting and sometimes troubling study in human nature. And reading comments by professing Christians on Christian sites (as well as other sites) can be a discouraging study in applied theology.

The immediate, shoot-from-the-hip nature of comments on websites and social media is what can often make them minimally helpful or even destructive. Comments can easily be careless. That’s why we must heed Jesus’s warning: “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36). This caution makes commenting serious business to God.

How Should We Comment?... Great guidelines