God's love is big enough to touch any life...

God's love is big enough to touch any life, to make light out of any darkness. Jesus came that we might have life, so that no more would we have to die in depression, anger or pain. He loved people back to life. He would go anywhere, talk to anyone. And wherever He went, He would stop for the one-- the forgotten one, the one who was rejected, outcast, sick, even stone dead. Even a thief who was dying for his crimes on the cross next to Him. In the Kingdom of God's love there is no sinner who cannot come home. ...Heidi Baker image

The Vicar of Baghdad: 'I've looked through the Quran trying to find forgiveness... there isn’t any.'

Isis bombs have exiled Canon Andrew White to Hampshire, but he's itching to get back to the Middle East
Mary Wakefield
21 November 2015

Canon Andrew White, the vicar of Baghdad, is not, in person, at all as I’d imagined him. His memoir, about life as first a medic, then a cleric, is chock-a-block with famous friends. Pope John Paul II was a pal, the Grand Ayatollah of Baghdad, General David Petraeus. ‘Oh, Andrew knows everyone,’ I was told when I asked anyone about him, and I’m afraid my heart hardened. I arrived in the rain at his house in Liphook, Hampshire, preparing myself for a vain man, full of his own derring-do.

More fool me. Canon White is instantly, unusually lovable. He greets me wearing a sweatshirt with the caption ‘Real men become vicars’. ‘Look!’ he says delightedly. ‘Look at my hoodie!’ We talk for close to two hours about Islam, Isis and evil, and his work as a mediator between the various hate-filled factions of the Middle East. By the time I leave it occurs to me that Canon Andrew White is something of a saint.

It’s not that he’s perfect, but that he’s guileless. He’s pure of heart in the way few people over five ever are. It makes sense that he’s spent two decades as a peace-maker, negotiating with tyrants and psychopaths, because he’s utterly disarming.

We sit in his study, which is arranged like a front room in the Middle East: seats around the walls. And on most of the seats, perched or lounging, is a young person, all employed by White’s foundation (for relief and reconciliation in the Middle East). Throughout our interview they fuss over White, organise him, join in the conversation, which is interrupted from time to time by phone calls from a man called Des who has been given the job of finding for the Canon the perfect red suit-lining...

the rest of the interview-excellent!

Cinemas ban Church of England Lord's Prayer ad; Obamacare Endures the Death of a Thousand Facts...more

Cinemas ban Church of England Lord's Prayer ad
Three of the UK's leading cinema chains are refusing to screen a Church of England advert which features the Lord’s Prayer.

The Digital Cinema Media agency, which handles adverts for Odeon, Cineworld and Vue cinemas, has decided that the ad could offend people.

Hollywood star Liam Neeson provides the “voice of God” in the minute-long ad, which received clearance from the British Board of Film Classification and the Cinema Advertising Authority...

Seven reasons to ban the Lord's Prayer  ...There are only 63 words in the Lord’s Prayer.

 It takes less than a minute to say them. Yet these words shape our identity, give purpose to our lives, check our greed, remind us of our imperfections, offer a way of reconciliation, build resilience in our spirits and call us to live to the glory of our creator.

No wonder they have been banned in the boardrooms of consumer culture.

Anne Kennedy: Line by Line the Preacher Preaches

Obamacare Endures the Death of a Thousand Facts ... problem is that “reform” distorts the market by burying both insurers and the insured beneath a mountain of mandates. Probably the worst is Obamacare’s benefit mandate. Most health plans must now include 10 “minimum essential” benefits—whether customers want them or not. This mandate has inevitably caused the cost of providing coverage to skyrocket. The only way a company like UnitedHealth can keep premiums under some modicum of control is to offer plans with very high deductibles. Meanwhile, the law’s individual mandate has utterly failed as an incentive for healthy individuals to purchase insurance.

This has led to a “lose-lose” situation for insurers and for patients. In an article titled, “Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless,” the New York Times reports, “In many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more.” In 2016, the penalty for failing to buy insurance is $695 or 2.5 percent of one’s household income. This means that for most individuals, particularly the young and healthy, the penalty will be considerably less than the out-of-pocket cost required by most health insurance plans...

 ObamaCare's imploding even without repeal “We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself.”

Half Of People Who Went To College In The Recession Haven’t Graduated  ...The low graduation rate shouldn’t come as a big surprise. The recession drove people to attend college who wouldn’t have gone otherwise and who were likely less prepared than other students. Many of them ended up in worse shape than if they hadn’t gone to college in the first place: burdened with thousands of dollars in student debt, but without a degree to show for it...

Australian Bishops Face Lawsuit for Distributing Traditional Marriage Booklet ...This is what “Don’t Mess with Marriage” said about traditional marriages: “Their physical, spiritual, psychological and sexual differences show they are meant for each other, their union makes them whole, and through their union ‘in one flesh,’ they together beget children who are ‘flesh of their flesh.’”

 

The distribution of “Don’t Mess with Marriage” outraged Rodney Croome, the leader of Australia’s gay marriage political movement. Croome claimed that the bishops had turned the children into “couriers of prejudice” by giving them copies of the booklet...

Why Fractals Are So Beautiful

The world is full of beautiful geometry.

 

It’s something we start teaching our youngest children. This daisy is a circle. This dandelion is a sphere. And we repeat it all the way through high school: Honeybees build their hives in hexagons. Solutions to quadratic equations can be graphed as parabolas. Rates of change are found in the slope of lines tangent to a curve.

 

“God has established nothing without geometrical beauty,” astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote. Before him, planetary orbits were thought to be perfect circles. He discovered that they weren’t—but that they were in fact ellipses, still part of the same wonderful family known as Euclidean geometry, named for the Greek mathematician who wrote Elements around the year 300 B.C.

 

Kepler, Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, and others looked at the world and found time and time again that the Euclidean model accurately describes all kinds of shapes and events in nature...
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Bishop Nazir-Ali: Only Christian faith will save Europe

by Gregory Tomlin
19 November, 2015

A retired Anglican bishop who now works on behalf of persecuted Christians worldwide has a message for those who believe the answer to preventing more Islamic terrorism is promoting secular values:

Only Christianity can save Europe from the radical Islamists threatening it.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who is originally from Pakistan, writes at The Catholic Herald that there are points of similarity between the secular states of Europe today and the fractured Roman Empire when it was sacked by barbarians in the fifth century.

Though many historians have blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome because it challenged its secularism (which the historians say was a unifying force), Nazir-Ali contends Rome was never secular – it had "religions of the family, tribe, city or empire." All of these systems had different ideals and values.

The invasions, however, occurred at a time where Christianity was beginning to unify the empire around shared ideals about life and faith and so, he writes, it was Christianity that saved western civilization in the Dark Ages following the destruction.

"We have the same decadent and dilettante popular culture, where anything goes and 'bread and circuses' keep the population quiescent with a never-ending round of sports, entertainment and games of chance," Nazir-Ali writes. These things naturally lead to a cynical view of faith.

The answer, however, is faith – the Christian faith, he writes... the rest

A.S. Haley: Has America Sold Her Christian Soul?

November 20, 2015

The ISIS/ISIL/IS (could we please agree on a convention, folks?—see below) terrorists in Paris have finally pushed America over the top, it would seem.

Well, let the reader decide. Here are just the straight facts:

1. The President proposes to increase the number of refugees authorized to immigrate here by up to 100,000 per year by 2017. This year alone, at least 10,000 will come from Syria.

2. More than 96% of the Syrian refugees the President and the State Department are bringing in identify themselves as Muslim.

3. Since over 70% of the civilian mass murders in recent times have been carried out by Muslims; since ISIS/ISIL/IS proclaims itself to be the re-establishment of the ancient Islamic caliphate; and since ISISILIS (let’s just call it that: pronounced I-SIS’-I-LIS, to rhyme with syphilis) has announced its intention to bring Paris-style terrorism to these shores, many Americans think that to bring tens of thousands of Muslims into America from a country where ISISILIS operates is a particularly bad idea.

4. The Republicans in the House, led by their new Speaker Paul Ryan, have introduced a bill that supposedly requires the Government to check all new Syrian emigrants before approving them for travel to the US and resettlement there. The bill is a sham, because its vetting requirements are mostly meaningless, impractical to carry out, and may be evaded with a simple certification... the rest

(In the comment section, there is a link to this Syracuse story about the Catholic church selling one of its buildings to a mosque: Syracuse church conversion.)

Secret Planned Parenthood conference: CNN Reporter Turns On Obama After G20 Speech...more

CNN Reporter Turns On Obama After G20 Speech  ...As supportive as CNN’s Christiane Amanpour usually is of Obama and his policies, even she simply couldn’t stand by while he twisted the truth and tried to defend his obvious failure of a strategy to confront the Islamic State group...

Planned Parenthood Docs Caught Selling Aborted Baby Parts Headline Secret Conference ...
But at least two of those doctors, Dr. Deborah Nucatola and Dr. Deborah VanDerhei, are still playing a key role in the abortion business’s dealings. Documents obtained by LifeNews today show Nucatola and VanDerhei were presenters at a secret Planned Parenthood conference in Chicago last week.

According to an agenda from the November meeting, Nucatola was a presenter who led a “hot topics” discussion on Saturday, Nov. 14. VanDerhei led a session on the same day called “Abortion by the numbers.”...

Obamacare in Death Spiral as UnitedHealth may terminate its Obamacare business by 2017 ...Across the board, Obamacare premium prices are increasing 20.3% for 2016, but apparently that is not enough. Hemsley wanted to emphasize that the recent change in market data was across the industry, not just for UnitedHealth, suggesting that other insurance companies may wish to follow suit.

Obamacare appears to have entered an insurance industry “death spiral.” Basically, too many sick people are signing up, and too few healthy people are doing so. This causes prices to surge, and that causes fewer healthy people to sign up. The death spiral continues until the insurance program collapse completely. The 20.3% price increase for 2016 is probably the cause of the current round of the Obamacare death spiral.

Obamacare’s fate may now depend on whether other insurance companies follow UnitedHealth. According to analysts, insurers lost about $2.5 billion through Obamacare exchanges in 2014. But the other two large insurers, Aetna and Anthem, have made no comment on today’s announcements, but in the past they have said they are willing to continue losing money on Obamacare for a few years...


Failure of Intelligence: How Liberals Cause ISIS Terror Attacks

The Atlantic: How Syracuse became home to the highest concentration of poverty in the US

How to Decimate a City
Alana Semuels
Nov 20, 2015

SYRACUSE—The neighborhood with the most concentrated poverty in America has Victorian-style homes with big porches, immaculate public parks, and tree-lined streets where children play. But some of the homes are crumbling or abandoned, and the parks are empty because a recent spate of shootings in this city has made parents fear for their children’s safety.

 

The poverty is more evident a few blocks away, where families are crowded into public housing near the overpass of I-81, an elevated highway that cuts through the heart of the city. There are no supermarkets here, just small convenience stores that advertise that they sell cigarettes and accept food stamps. Across the street from one store, men and women sit in an empty lot, some in rolling office chairs, others leaning on cars or rickety shopping carts.

 

Poverty under most circumstances causes hardship and suffering. But being poor and surrounded by other poor people has particularly rough consequences: Those raised in such neighborhoods (what academics tend to call areas of concentrated poverty and everybody else calls slums or ghettos) are far less likely to graduate from high school, attend college, and put off having children. They’re also much less likely to reach a different income level from the one in which they were raised.

 

Additionally, the neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of poor people tend to have worse schools, fewer businesses (there not being enough consumers with disposable income to sustain them), and more violence...  the rest (Picture by Raymond Dague-click to enlarge)

 

C-SPAN’s 'Cities Tour' Features Syracuse this Weekend

Syracuse will be featured in C-SPAN’s "Cities Tour" this weekend. C-SPAN Cities Tour staff visited numerous locations in the area to explore the unique history and literary culture of the area, including some at the University.

Anglican Unscripted Episode 206

Nov 19, 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://anglicanink.com/donate

Jihadist boasts of freely crossing Europe's borders; Freedom from speech...more

On American campuses, freedom from speech   ...What kind of parenting produces children who, living in the lap of Ivy League luxury, revel in their emotional fragility? One answer is: Parents who themselves are arrested-development adolescents, with all the anxieties and insecurities of that developmental stage. They see themselves in their darlings...

Jihadist boasts of freely crossing Europe's borders ...Despite being on wanted lists, Abdelhamid Abaaoud has shuttled between Syria and Europe, exploiting the migrant crisis on EU borders.

The 27-year-old has been able to plan two atrocities and brainwash hundreds of young men to join Islamic State, including his 13-year-old brother...

So Far: Syrian Refugees in U.S. Include 2,098 Muslims, 53 Christians ...Of 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, only 53 (2.4 percent) have been Christians while 2098 (or 96 percent) have been Muslims, according to State Department statistics updated on Monday.

The remaining 33 include 1 Yazidi, 8 Jehovah Witnesses, 2 Baha’i, 6 Zoroastrians, 6 of "other religion," 7 of "no religion," and 3 atheists...

Russia Says Bomb Downed Plane in Egypt and Intensifies Attacks on ISIS Hours after confirming for the first time on Tuesday that a bomb brought down a Russian charter jet over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt more than two weeks ago, killing all 224 people aboard, Russia joined France in bombing Islamic State targets in Syria....

Obama speech in Turkey: We’re not changing our strategy on ISIS because it’s working, you know  If you want to try to make sense of this, knock yourself out...

Huma email revealed: Hillary 'often confused'    An email released yesterday by Judicial Watch reveals that Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s closest aide at the State Department, warned that Hillary was “often confused.” Dated January 26, 2013, the email came two months after the fall the former first lady suffered at her Chappaqua mansion. That incident resulted in a brain injury so serious that she had to wear special glasses to correct double vision. A month after her fall, the State Department officially claimed: "Judging by the woman we saw this morning and the workload that she´s got she seems to be fully recovered," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters...

Downton Abbey ‘banned God for fear of alienating viewers’ 
Downton Abbey’s historical advisor has revealed that religious references were deliberately left out of the show for fear they would alienate increasingly secular audiences.

Alistair Bruce, whose role is to ensure historical accuracy in the drama, said that the beginning of a meal is never shown because “no one was ever allowed to see a grace being said”.
“I think that the view was that we’d leave religion out of it”, he explained...

While Paris was under attack, Obama released five more Guantanamo detainees...more

While Paris was under attack, Obama released five more Guantanamo detainees   ...The transfer was conducted on Friday night while Paris was under attack, according to the Miami Herald. However, it was not disclosed until Sunday afternoon. Cmdr. Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman, stated Sunday night that the five men left the base after the terrorists attacks in Paris.

The transfer comes as Congress has sent back to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature the National Defense Authorization Act. The defense policy bill includes tougher restrictions on Guantánamo releases. The White House argues that such limits encroaches on Obama’s commander-in-chief authority. The bill also comes as the administration is crafting a plan that would move at least some of the remaining captives to the United States in order to close the controversial detention center. This is an idea that many in Congress oppose, particularly those from Colorado, Kansas and South Carolina, which have military lockups under consideration as potential war-prison detention sites...

Governors of Michigan, Alabama reject resettlement of Syrian refugees in their states 
The terrorist attacks in Paris have prompted two governors to announce that Syrian refugees will not be allowed to resettle in their states.

Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan and Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama, both Republicans, issued individual statements Sunday declaring that their states would not be open to refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria...

The Crisis Is Islam-If we're not talking about theology we're not really talking about the problem. ...None of this is to say Muslims can never assimilate in the West. The U.S., for the most part, proves the opposite. But there is nothing bigoted about being vigilant when embracing millions of new people who bring all kinds of illiberal baggage with them. If, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali says, we keep pretending this has nothing to do with Islam, we will never actually talk about the problem. There are many good Muslims, but if that’s the only criteria, no one will be able to be critical of any theology or ideology ever again.

Paris Attacks Reveal U.S. Campus Protesters’ Utter Delusion ...College students willing to shut down their schools and demand resignations over Halloween costumes and rumors of racial insensitivity are unable to recognize the face of true bigotry. They can’t even distinguish between microaggressions and terrorism. A surprisingly large number of Black Lives Matter activists took to social media over the weekend to complain either that the carnage on Paris would steal their media spotlight or that Mizzou and Paris were equivalent. Said one typical post: “Look at all the racists on Twitter using the Paris tragedy to discredit the Black Lives Matter movement at home.”

It’s no surprise, then, that many college students can’t even bring themselves to honor the victims of terrorism. Three days before the Paris attacks, the undergraduate student government at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities rejected a resolution calling for a campus-wide moment of recognition on future anniversaries of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks...

Paris attacks put dagger through heart of liberal Europe The Paris attacks that killed at least 128 people on Saturday night will put renewed pressure on Europe Schengen agreement and threaten the “very essence” of the European way of life, as far-right parties seek to capitalise on the attacks, analysts have warned.

With Paris now enduring this second major terror bloodbath in under a year, questions are now being asked about how much longer both Europe’s open border system and vision of a tolerant, multi-cultural society can survive...

Wanted: Grownups ...The Republican Party rarely wins domestic policy elections. But when it comes to foreign policy, it turns out the American people want someone in the White House who is willing to kill bad guys while suffering no delusions. The Democrats are infantile and delusional. They have reached a point where no evidence contrary to their world view will ever be allowed to pierce their bubble and get them to change their ways.

Barack Obama and the Democrats have no intention of protecting us or killing ISIS. They instead want to wreck our economy with global warming regulations. They think if we wind up having to become powerless tent dwellers like ISIS, maybe then they’ll leave us alone.

The United States needs adults leading it right now.

Mohler: "We cannot abandon the faith just because we are told that we are now on the wrong side of history." We must speak the truth in love and seek to be good neighbors to all, but we cannot abandon the faith just because we are told that we are now on the wrong side of history...

The Rise of the College Crybullies The status of victim has been weaponized at campuses across the nation, but there is at least one encouraging sign....

Most Sickeningly Ironic Tweet from Planned Parenthood...Ever Ugh. This is so absurd that I have to think that they're just trolling pro-lifers. But I actually don't. I think they have zero self insight so don't see how tearing children apart for money might be a little weird...

Anglican Unscripted Episode 205

Nov 13, 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://anglicanink.com/donate

Immigration policy is being used to pink-slip American workers; Migrants are going through the Arctic to get into Europe...more

The Taqiyya Factor
Taqiyya is an Islamic doctrine that allows Muslims to deceive non-Muslims. As in lie to them. Dr. Sami Mukaram, author of Taqiyya in Islam, writes: “Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it… Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.” (Specific references to taqiyya in the Quran, the Hadith, and in Islamic law, can be found here.)...

Immigration policy is being used to pink-slip American workers ...But some are starting to take notice about the impact of our nation's immigration policy on high-skilled Americans who work in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. The New York Times recently ran an interesting expose titled "Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements," detailing how American tech workers were replaced by foreign laborers through the H-1B program. It was a follow-up to Computerworld's piece, "Fury rises at Disney over use of foreign workers." The American workers — one of whom noted that he had received a pay raise and the highest possible performance review — were told they had to train their foreign replacements or face repercussions. "Some of these folks were literally flown in the day before to take over the exact same job I was doing," explained one worker.

This troubling trend is not limited to Disney. Similar replacements were reported at Toys "R" Us, Southern California Edison, Cengage Learning, Pfizer and other companies. Professor Ron Hira of Howard University says that the H-1B program "has created a highly lucrative business model of bringing in cheaper H-1B workers to substitute for Americans."

If journalists and politicians can understand the impact H-1B visas have on high-skilled Americans, there is reason to be optimistic that they will eventually come around to understanding the negative impact mass, low-skilled immigration has on other American workers....

Mizzou and Yale PC Hysteria Spreads to Other Campuses
Like a virus, PC hysteria is spreading from campus to campus in America, threatening to kill its hosts.

First came an embarrassing imbroglio at Yale over politically incorrect comments made by professors Nicholas and Erika Christakis regarding Halloween costumes. In an email, Nicholas criticized the school’s efforts to censor Halloween costumes, daring to point out that college campuses have become “places of censure and prohibition.” The snowflakes screamed, cried, and hurled profanities at Nicholas Christakis before stomping off to their safe spaces; a confrontation between one well-heeled social justice warrior and the professor was captured on video...

 

Mizzou Protesters Now Segregating Their Members By Race  In an ironic development, to say the least, protesters at the University of Missouri (MU) segregated themselves by race Wednesday night, having white students leave a gathering in order to create a “black-only healing space.”...

Migrants are going through the Arctic to get into Europe — and it's about to become dangerously cold As winter sets in, Norway's Arctic frontier with Russia is becoming one of the fastest-growing routes for asylum seekers to enter Western Europe, despite being inhospitable, cold and -- soon -- permanently dark.

The imminent arrival of the polar night -- when the sun does not rise from roughly late November to late January -- has not dissuaded an increasing number of Syrians, Afghans and others from taking this remote and icy route in search of security...

New Muslim Majority City Council Member: "Today we show the Polish and everybody else…” ...A cell phone video, taken moments after Muslims received the word that they took over the city council, has surfaced of one of the organizers of the Muslim city council effort saying, “Today we show the Polish and everybody else…” The town has a large but shrinking Polish community...

Daycare Manager Fired for Refusing to Call Girl a Boy; America's Exurbs Are Booming...more

A.S. Haley: Credit Where Credit Is Due  
It becomes progressively more and more difficult to find worthwhile stuff about which to blog or comment these days. My erstwhile denomination, the Episcopal Church (USA), has sunk into the mire of blasphemy and irrelevance, and is not even worthy any more of notice. My country is headed by an utterly self-absorbed, pusillanimous and law-breaking President, whom neither his friends nor his enemies will rein in. It has a Congress consisting largely of people so absorbed by their need to get re-elected that they are afraid to have any principles, and consequently are beneath contempt. And it has five Supreme Court justices who simply mock the law and their function as the tribunal of last resort in a putative democracy, and see nothing wrong with making up the law as they go, while openly flouting their contempt for the rule of law.

There remain, I am glad to report, a few voices of sanity in this chaos of lawlessness and cowardice. These voices have the courage to say what they know to be right, to be heedless of the consequences of their standing up for the right, and to press their case for unvarnished truth without ceasing, all in the teeth of implacable hatred and opposition...

Daycare Manager Fired for Refusing to Call Girl a Boy   A manager of a daycare in Texas has been fired because she refused to refer to a girl as a boy as the child’s parents requested.

The parents of the six-year-old child requested that Children’s Lighthouse Learning Center refer to their child as a boy and use the new name they provided. The parents also cut the girl’s hair to make her look like a boy.

Madeline Kirksey, a Christian who is the manager of the Center, did not feel comfortable referring to a child she had known as a girl, as a boy.

Kirksey said the child had been having issues with her gender identity...

Parents, keep paying $50,000 per year so your kids can become intolerance thugs ...This is our future, folks. And it's scary...

J.I. Packer: An Evangelical Life  ...The publisher’s description does a good job of describing what you’ll encounter in the book’s pages: “Over the last sixty years, J. I. Packer has exerted a steady and remarkable influence on evangelicalism. In this biography, well-known scholar Leland Ryken acquaints us with Packer’s life, heart, and mind, tracing the outworking of God’s sovereign plan through his childhood, intellectual pursuits, and professional life. Filled with personal anecdotes and little-known facts, this appreciative volume sheds light on the key themes that have given shape to Packer’s life and thought, highlighting his enduring significance for Christians today.”

This is, as the description says, an appreciative biography, written by someone who knows Packer and who has long been an admirer. In that way it is quite typical of other biographies of still-living individuals—it describes the subject’s life and influence, but without much emphasis on his weaknesses....book review by Tim Challies

So Much For The Death Of Sprawl: America's Exurbs Are Booming  It’s time to put an end to the urban legend of the impending death of America’s suburbs. With the aging of the millennial generation, and growing interest from minorities and immigrants, these communities are getting a fresh infusion of residents looking for child-friendly, affordable, lower-density living.

We first noticed a takeoff in suburban growth in 2013, following a stall-out in the Great Recession. This year research from Brookings confirms that peripheral communities — the newly minted suburbs of the 1990s and early 2000s — are growing more rapidly than denser, inner ring areas.

Peripheral, recent suburbs accounted for roughly 43% of all U.S. residences in 2010. Between July 2013 and July 2014, core urban communities lost a net 363,000 people overall, Brookings demographer Bill Frey reports, as migration increased to suburban and exurban counties. The biggest growth was in exurban areas, or the “suburbiest” places on the periphery....

Interview: Archbishop Foley Beach at Asbury Seminary.

Celebrating Formation & Mission in the Anglican Tradition

Christianity facing Middle East purge within decade; Yale’s Little Robespierres...more

On the brink: Christianity facing Middle East purge within decade, says group The dwindling Christian population of the Middle East could vanish completely within a decade unless the global community intervenes, say alarmed aid groups who say followers of the Bible are being killed, driven from their land or forced to renounce their faith at an unprecedented pace.

The world has largely stood by as a dangerous tide of intolerance has washed over the region, according to a new study by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The study includes disturbing data about the plunging numbers of Christians in the part of the world that gave birth to the faith, and makes a dire prediction of what could happen...

Yale’s Little Robespierres-Yale Students berate faculty who try to defend free speech Someone at Yale University should have dressed up as Robespierre for Halloween, as its students seem to have lost their minds over what constitutes a culturally appropriate costume. Identity and grievance politics keeps hitting new lows on campus, and now even liberal professors are being consumed by the revolution...

Anne Kennedy-Taking the Merry out of Christmas: The Offense of the Gospel ...I am always interested in the timely intersection of the day’s cultural news items. I am sure that various unrelated events must somehow be talking to each other. I, therefore, watched, in horror, over the weekend, a clip of a young Yale student screaming at a professor. The professor had not done what she believed he should have done. She was offended beyond the point of coherence. She was screaming with anger. The professor stood on his heels with a baffled look on his face as the mob formed and she raged away. And then the clip ended.

Also, over the weekend, it was determined that Christians have been offended by the absence of the words ‘Merry Christmas’ on their Starbucks holiday coffees. I watched the clip of the guy who said we should all go in and say our names are Merry Christmas so that Starbucks will be forced to write those words on the cup and we will then have scored some tiny point. He smiled merrily and encouraged people to leave comments below the clip. His chief offense, as I can tell from reading this article in Huffpo, is, and it should be predicated with ‘shut up stupid Christians’, is that he is an ordinary beefy American who is ruining the gospel, which Huffpo knows all about, shut up shut up shut up...

It's not Starbucks' job to share the love of Jesus. It's your job. When We Love Outrage More Than People: Starbucks Cups and You...

Appeals court deals Obama immigration executive orders a huge blow Using strong legal language, an appeals court upheld a lower court ruling preventing the administration from implementing the president's executive orders that would have allowed the government to hand out work permits to millions of illegal aliens.

The president's executive orders would have granted at least 5 million illegals and their families 3 year green cards and allowed them to be eligible for government health and other benefits. A federal judge in Texas issued an injunction against the orders, which has now been upheld by the appeals court...

Underprogram Your Church
...The simple church follows the direction not of the shifting winds of the culture but of the surprising currents of the Spirit. Its attention is not first to the newspaper but to the gospel. Therefore, it is able to cast off that which entangles it, even the religious nets of its own devising for the fishing for men, and follow Christ wherever he may go. The simple church is missionally much more nimble than the attractional church...

The Climate Change Inquisition Begins; Keep Your iPhone from Destroying Your Relationships ...more

The Climate Change Inquisition Begins
 New York's Attorney general is sending out the message that corporations who fund climate change

Egypt investigators '90 percent sure' bomb brought down Russian aircraft, report says  A member of the Egyptian team investigating the deadly crash of a Russian passenger jet in the Sinai Peninsula has been quoted as saying that he and his colleagues are "90 percent sure" the plane was brought down by a bomb.

Reuters, which reported the unnamed team member's comments, said he had asked not to be named due to "sensitivities."

"The indications and analysis so far of the sound on the black box indicate it was a bomb," the investigator added. His comments are the first reported acknowledgement from anyone connected with the investigation that the Airbus A321-200 was the target of an attack...

How to Keep Your iPhone from Destroying Your Relationships If you’ve ever watched a group of people glued to their smartphones and wondered how these devices are shaping our relationships, Sherry Turkle’s research is for you.

The MIT professor, known for her insightful books and TED talks, studies Americans' relationship with technology and how it spills over into our interactions with our partners, kids, and friends.

A recent Pew Internet survey  survey found that 9 in 10 Americans had used their cell phones during the most recent social gathering they attended, even though the vast majority of us (82%) consider it annoying or distracting for others to do so in conversation...

SCOTUS Takes Up Little Sisters of Poor Case Against Obama Administration The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to take up the case that the Little Sisters of the Poor--an order of Catholic nuns--has brought against the Obama administration for violating the sisters' right to the free exercise of religion.

"All we ask is that our rights not be taken away," said Sister Loraine Mari Maguire, the Mother Provincial of the order, in a statement released by the Becket Fund, the nonprofit law firm that represents the sisters.

At issue is whether the federal government can force these Catholic nuns to cooperate with the government in making sure that the health care plan they provide to their employees covers sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs and devices...

Wabukala to step down as Archbishop of Kenya

07 Nov 2015
by George Conger

The Primate of the Anglican Church of Kenya, the Most Rev. Eliud Wabukala, has informed the members of the Kenyan House of Bishops that he will step down in June 2016, upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. An aide to the archbishop tells Anglican Ink no date has yet been set for the archbishop's last day in office. It is not known if the archbishop will continue in office as chairman of GAFCON. Two retired archbishops, John Chew of Singapore and Peter Jensen of Sydney, have remained active in the GAFCON and Global South movements following their retirement from ecclesial office.

Anglican Ink

The return of scarlet fever; War on culture...more

The return of scarlet fever: Is it too tough to treat?  The bacterial infection known as scarlet fever has been on the rise in Britain, with cases also increasing in parts of Asia. Now new research suggests that the easily treatable infection might not always be so benign: It shows signs of antibiotic resistance.

Scarlet fever (or scarletina) is caused by group A Streptococcus bacteria, and it most commonly affects children between the ages of 5 and 12. Only a small number of people who have strep throat caused by group A strep will develop scarlet fever, which is named for the red, sandpaper-like rash it causes. The disease is unpleasant -- and before the invention of antibiotics, it was quite deadly -- but these days, though there is no vaccine, it's easily treated with antibiotics.

In a study published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the University of Queensland caution that the surge in scarlet fever cases may pose an unexpected threat....

This Isn’t A Culture War. It’s A War On Culture ...Even if we concede that liberals tend to lose elections that focus solely on social issues (the same probably goes for the GOP), and that Republicans are more philosophically flexible, the worst you can say about Tuesday’s development it that it points to a cultural stalemate — a state of affairs that is probably favored by more Americans than we might think.

The problem is that won’t do for the progressive Left. And with a bottomless well of grievances and yet-to-be-discovered civil rights, there’s no end in the fight for imaginary justice.
 

All of this is predicated on the idea that every person the Left approves of, no matter what kind of lifestyle they engage in, should feel entirely comfortable, loved, and accepted by everyone; everywhere they go, no matter what they do, never to hear an unflattering word from anyone. You can only try to achieve this utopia is by attacking, cajoling, and subduing other cultures to create philosophical uniformity.

Freedom of conscience clause eliminated by Church of Iceland The Church of Iceland has scrapped its freedom of conscience clause, ending the right of clergy to refuse to solemnize same-sex marriages. The resolution introduced by the Rev. Guðrún Karls Helgudóttir overturned a 2007 statement by the annual Church Council, the Kirkjuþing, that held the “freedom of clergy in these matters must be respected”. However Ms. Helgudóttir argued that it was now time“take things the whole way and place no limits on human rights.” The conflict between religious freedom and human rights must always be decided in favor of human rights, she argued. As state employees Church of Iceland clergy should not be allowed to place their conscience above the law. On 28 Oct 2015 the 29-member Kirkjuþing endorsed the resolution. It came after the Bishop of Iceland, the Rt. Rev. Agnes Sigurðardóttir (pictured) read a letter to the assembly she had written to the Minister for Home Affairs Ólöf Nordal, saying that she said their was no basis in Icelandic law for a minister to refuse to solemnize a same-sex wedding. In 2010 Iceland amended its marriage laws, making them gender neutral...

Ever opened a seemingly full bag of crisps to find it mostly empty space? Bag of Doritos 87% air!

Syracuse: Here’s a solution for lonely millennials: How about dorms for grown-ups?  In a new model of living, residents will have their own “microunits” built around a shared living space for cooking, eating and hanging out...

November rose

Raymond took this lovely photo of one of the last roses to bloom in the garden this season. Next spring seems so far away!  -PD

Train up a child...

Oct 14, 2007
2 year-old girl singing the Lord's Prayer.


Here she is in 2014

The Transgender Movement and Government Overreach: Why it Matters...more

The Transgender Movement and Government Overreach: Why it Matters This week, disturbing news out of Palatine, IL, hit national headlines. According to a report from The New York Times, this Chicago suburb’s school district is facing scrutiny by the federal government’s Department of Education for not allowing a self-identified transgender female to have free use of female locker rooms. For those not familiar with this terminology, here’s what’s happening: a biological male, who subjectively identifies as a female, desires unrestricted access to female locker rooms.

While the high school in question offered many accommodations to the student, the government insists that the school is still in violation of federal policy. The school asked that the male student change behind a privacy curtain while in a female locker room in order to safeguard female students who were uncomfortable changing around a biological male, or seeing the male student nude. This very accommodating proposal was not sufficient by government standards. By not allowing the student unrestricted access to the female locker room, the federal government alleges that the school is in violation of federal non-discrimination laws pertaining to sex discrimination. In response, the government is threatening to legally sanction the school district, which could result in the loss of millions of dollars of federal funding.

The events out of Palatine are deeply, deeply troubling from a Christian worldview. There is great cause for concern and vigilance...

Obama Administration Threatens School Funding in War on Gender   We have been told that anti-transgender nutjobs won the day in Houston by running a fear mongering campaign that distorted the truth. We were told that a commercial showing a man in a girl's bathroom was a misleading scare tactic. These accusations have been promoted as truth in much of the mainstream media coverage. However, receiving significantly less coverage is the fact that the Obama administration is pushing for a high school boy (who says he's a girl but still reportedly has all the boy parts) to shower and change in the same locker room as the girls. In fact, the Obama administration is so vehement that this must happen that they are actually threatening pulling federal funding from a school district in Illinois for refusing...


Nov 5, 2015

Taurid Meteor Shower - Nov 5 to Nov 12

Larry Schwimmer
Updated: 11/05/2015

November brings an amazing astronomic spectacle: Halloween Fireballs blazing through the skies!

Throughout much of November, the Earth will be covered by a swarm of unusually large space particles that will generate some amazingly, eye-catching fireball meteors. According to Joe Rao, space watcher, the Taurid meteors, sometimes called "Halloween fireballs," (fireballs are extremely bright meteors) will be radiating from the direction of the constellation Taurus.

This astronomic event will create one of this year's longest meteor showers, with at least a couple of shooting stars per hour from now until November 30. The Taurids will be most active during the one-week time frame starting November 5 through November 12.

Rao explains more about this amazing event: "During peak times, about a dozen or so meteors may be seen per hour by an observer with clear, dark skies. These meteors are often yellowish-orange and, as meteors go, appear to move rather slowly." the rest

The sexual revolution and society's descent into darkness; Potty Mouthed Kids Trash Trump...more

Obama Administration Paid for Research Using Intact Human Brains From Aborted Babies Thousands of tax dollars were used to pay for intact aborted babies’ brains used in research at the University of Connecticut, the Washington Free Beacon reported today.

Under the Obama Administration, researchers bought up to two fetal brains per month using taxpayer dollars through the National Institutes of Health, according to documents the news website obtained through a public records request...

The Long Shadow: The sexual revolution and society's descent into darkness less than a generation the Christian moral vision - that human beings flourish when sexual interests are boundaried in life-long covenant between a man and a woman – has seen a profound loss of cultural power. Across Western Europe, those who hold to traditional Christian sexual ethics not only find themselves on the wrong side of popular opinion, but allegedly on the “wrong side of history” too. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Christians with conservative views on sexual ethics to navigate the relationship between private and public spheres of faith.

It is not my purpose, however, to address pressing issues of rights legislation, reasonable accommodation and freedom of religion here. Instead, I want to take a step back to address the impact of the sexual revolution on evangelicalism itself. The reality is that traditional biblical ethics have not only lost cultural power in wider society, but are now seriously weakened within evangelical communities too.

The sociologist Peter Berger argued that unless “cognitive minorities” (those who hold views dissonant with wider society) take active steps to sustain their internal plausibility structures (the ideas and hidden social interactions that support their particular way of life), they are destined to implode. This, I believe, is what is happening in many areas of modern evangelicalism.

Evangelical leaders seem poorly equipped to deal with the complex ethical, biological and social questions inherent in conversations about marriage and human sexuality. Despite their tradition of “Christian mind”, with some notable exceptions, they have displayed little serious academic engagement with these areas...

Enthusiastic Episcopalians Install Their New Leader ...Concerns about syncretism in the U.S.-based church (showcased in a 2006 Time magazine interview in which Jefferts Schori claimed that saying Jesus Christ was the only way to salvation was “to put God in an awfully small box”) also remain fresh. Those concerns won’t be disappearing anytime soon: Sunday’s ceremony included an interfaith prayer led by an official from the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Mohamed Elsanousi, who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Shariah from the International Islamic University in Pakistan, prayed, “Help us to understand what You have told us in Your Holy Quran” at the ceremony, with the congregation affirming “amen” at the conclusion of the prayer. Nevermind that Christians do not regard the Quran as Holy Scripture, or that Muslims do not consider Jesus Christ the son of God, or even acknowledge his death on the cross. These were all deemed as trivialities to sweep aside in favor of interfaith hand-holding...

Houston Rejects Special LGBT Privileges By Huge Margin  
One local Houston election item from yesterday received national attention, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO to its supporters. Early results with more than two-thirds of precincts in showed it losing, 62 to 38 percent, despite having passed the City Council 11-6.

HERO did not grant any rights. It added an avenue of recourse for discrimination. Anyone in a protected class who thinks they are being discriminated against can sue in federal court. HERO added an option to complain to the City of Houston. File a complaint and someone would investigate, like calling about pot holes. This was supposed to be more effective than a suit, though goodness knows Houston officials haven’t done a great job responding to pothole complaints.

When HERO passed City Council in May 2014, many Houstonians worried it would be another selectively enforced regulation. Again, using the pothole comparison, neighborhoods in preferred parts of town get street repair, while streets in other areas drive like you are on the moon. (This is Houston. We like lunar analogies.) Similarly, we worried that if you ran a not-preferred business, HERO might cause you to find your business subject to discrimination investigations and fines. Particularly easy would be sting operations, such as transgender males claiming discrimination if an establishment did not allow them to use women’s restrooms.

The ordinance originally contained specific language about this scenario, but that was dropped to assure the City Council would pass it. Still, the bathroom example was particularly vivid and believable with all the national news and sensational stories concerning gender issues...

Feds Give School One Month to Open Girls' Locker Room to Transgender Student

Islamic State behind Russia plane crash: Britain  British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday it was increasingly likely that a bomb brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt with the loss of 224 lives, setting him at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands have suspended flights to and from Sharm al-Sheikh, leaving thousands of European tourists stranded in the Red Sea resort where the doomed airliner originated.

Egypt, which depends on tourism as a crucial source of revenue, said the decision to suspend flights was unjustified and should be reversed at once. It said there was no evidence a bomb was to blame...

Video: Potty Mouthed Kids Trash Trump
(I listened to the first 10 seconds with disgust. Read the comments and you'll see how well this is (not) working. -PD)

J. I. Packer: In His Own Words

J. I. Packer: In His Own Words from Crossway on Vimeo.

Anglican Unscripted Episode 204

Nov 3, 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://anglicanink.com/donate

U.S. State Department Turns Its Back on Syrian Christians; Leaving children to their own [mobile] devices...more

The State Department Turns Its Back on Syrian Christians and Other Non-Muslim Refugees   Over the past five years of Syria’s civil war, the United States has admitted a grand total of 53 Syrian Christian refugees, a lone Yazidi, and fewer than ten Druze, Bahá’ís, and Zoroastrians combined. That so few of the Syrian refugees coming here are non-Muslim minorities is due to American reliance on a United Nations refugee-resettlement program that disproportionately excludes them. Past absolute totals of Syrian refugees to the U.S. under this program were small, but as the Obama administration now ramps up refugee quotas by tens of thousands, it would be unconscionable to continue with a process that has consistently forsaken some of the most defenseless and egregiously persecuted of those fleeing Syria.

The gross underrepresentation of the non-Muslim communities in the numbers of Syrian refugees into the U.S. is reflected year after year in the State Department’s public records. They show, for example, that while Syria’s largest non-Muslim group — Christians of the various Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions — constituted 10 percent of Syria’s population before the war, they are only 2.6 percent of the 2,003 Syrian refugees that the United States has accepted since then...

 

Spain's Christians Brace for Syrian Refugees  As a first step in addressing Europe's refugee crisis, European Union (EU) leaders on Sept. 22 assigned 15,000 mainly Syrian refugees to Spain, with still greater batches to follow in subsequent years. Some in Spain fear the wave of Syrian refugees will bring more Muslim influence to a country where radical Islam has made inroads, but one Spanish ministry is eagerly welcoming them.

 

The refugees are Spain's share of an initial distribution of 120,000 refugees across Europe. Having established churches in the southern province of Andalusia and in Morocco, which lies nearly nine miles from Spain's southernmost point across the Strait of Gibraltar, the ministry director sees the EU plan as an unprecedented opportunity. In Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Morocco's northern tip, he already has substantial experience with Syrian refugees; he's been proclaiming Christ to them for three years. 

 

"Our experience is that they come to the Lord fast," said the director, identified only as Antonio for security reasons. "They say, 'We are here because Islam [jihadists such as the Islamic State] put us here and broke our family and broke our country,' and they open very fast. There are house churches among Syrians." ...

Michael Nazir-Ali: Compassion To Refugees, Not Capitulation To Islamic State The human tide of refugees, economic migrants, young men fleeing conscription and others who have arrived on Europe’s shores shows no sign of receding. As always, there are heart-rending stories of why people have undertaken hazardous journeys by land and sea. The human toll in terms of suffering and loss of life is enormous. There is also the seamier side of this huge migration, with traffickers making fortunes out of human misery.

How then should we respond to this new reality on our doorsteps? The first and immediate thing is to say is that we must not fail in compassion. The Bible tells us not only to love our neighbours as ourselves but also strangers because the people of Israel were once strangers in Egypt until they were liberated by God (Lev 19:33-34). Jesus himself reaffirms this teaching and makes it his own (Mark 12:29-31 and parallels). The rest of the New Testament also teaches that this is a fundamental Christian duty (e.g. Rom 13:8-10).

These values lie behind the warm reception which the refugees and migrants have received in some European countries. It is what has motivated the churches and Christian volunteers to help with food, shelter, clothing and medical provision for those arriving on their borders. Such warm humanitarianism cannot and should not be belittled. Nor should a determination to see that history is not repeated in turning people away who may be in real danger in their own or in neighbouring countries...

Spiritual Suicide: When European Churches Sell Their Souls to Islam  At a time when Christians in the Middle East are being tortured, beheaded, and crucified rather than denying Jesus, Christians in Europe – I should say so-called Christians – are renouncing the Great Commission and removing the cross (literally) to make peace with Muslims.

What kind of madness is this?

Last month, in Sweden, the Bishop of Stockholm “proposed a church in her diocese remove all signs of the cross and put down markings showing the direction to Mecca for the benefit of Muslim worshippers.”

As reported on Breitbart.com, “Calling Muslim guests to the church ‘angels’, the Bishop later took to her official blog to explain that removing Christian symbols from the church and preparing the building for Muslim prayer doesn’t make a priest any less a defender of the faith. Rather, to do any less would make one ‘stingy towards people of other faiths’.”...

 

Syria: ISIS Advances to Capture Christian Town

DHS Memo: Obama Admin Scheming to Defy Judge’s Executive Amnesty Injunction   ...A newly leaked internal DHS memorandum produced for an off-the-record agency conclave reveals that the Obama administration is actively planning to circumvent a federal court injunction that suspended part of last November’s deferral-based amnesty initiative. The document, apparently prepared as follow-up from a DHS “Regulations Retreat” last summer, appears sure to re-ignite concerns in Congress as well as federal judges in the Fifth Circuit...

Officials Won't Rule Out ISIS Involvement in Russian Plane Crash U.S. officials refused to rule out that ISIS was responsible for bringing down the Metrojet flight in Egypt this weekend, citing a tweet from the terror group that claimed responsibility for the deadly crash.

"It’s unlikely, but I wouldn’t rule it out," U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper said when asked whether ISIS had the ability to shoot down an airliner. "We don’t have any direct evidence of any terrorist involvement, yet," Clapper said at the Defense One Summit in Washington, D.C."...

 Heart risk in sweet drinks: How just TWO glasses a day can be DEADLY  ...Experts say that a couple of 200ml servings – roughly the equivalent to a standard bottle of pop – raises the risk by 23 per cent.

Sweetened soft drinks are already linked to killer conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

But for the first time scientists have made an association between the beverages and heart failure...

Many Children Under 5 Are Left to Their Mobile Devices, Survey Finds  ...According to the parents, nearly half of the children younger than 1 used a mobile device daily to play games, watch videos or use apps. Most 2-year-olds used a tablet or smartphone daily.

The American Academy of Pediatrics had recommended total screen abstinence for children younger than 2, but lately has softened its stance. It now advises setting time limits, prioritizing what it calls unplugged play and not using devices as pacifiers to calm toddlers.

A lack of parental supervision is more worrisome than the use of mobile devices by the very young, experts said.

In this sample, “a lot of media time is reportedly alone,” said Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. “It can’t be overstated: Children need laps more than apps.”...

Hillary Supporters Endorse SHARIA LAW in AMERICA

Nov 2, 2015

Hillary Clinton supporters in California mindlessly agree with anything and everything Hillary supposedly says. In an experiment, media analyst Mark Dice tells Hillary fans that one of her primary campaign promises is to implement Sharia Law in America.

Canon Andrew White: 'Vicar of Baghdad' on leading a church in Iraq and being in the crosshairs of Isis

Canon Andrew White has a remarkable faith in human nature, but in the face of so much cruelty, even he believes a line has been crossed

by Cole Moreton

Posted Nov. 2, 2015

They were coming for him and his people. Friends were being killed or fleeing for their lives. So Andrew White did what he always does when faced with an enemy. “I invited the leaders of Isis [Islamic State] for dinner. I am a great believer in that. I have asked some of the worst people ever to eat with me.”

This extraordinarily self-confident priest is best known as the vicar of Baghdad, leader of a church in the chaos outside the protected Green Zone. He made his offer last year as the terrorist forces threatened to take the city. Did he get a reply?

“Isis said, ‘You can invite us to dinner, but we’ll chop your head off.’ So I didn’t invite them again!”
And he roars with laughter, despite believing that Islamic State has put a huge price on his head, apparently willing to pay $157m (£100m) to anyone who can kill this harmless-looking eccentric.

Canon White was a doctor before he became a priest and could be one still, in his colourful bow-tie and double-breasted blazer with a pocket square spilling silk. But appearances are deceptive.

For the last two decades, he has worked as a mediator in some of the deadliest disputes on Earth, in Israel and Palestine, Iraq and Nigeria. He has sat down to eat with terrorists, extremists, warlords and the sons of Saddam Hussein, with presidents and prime ministers.  the rest image

Russian plane that crashed in Egypt 'broke up in the air'; National debt nearly doubles during Obama presidency...more

Russian plane that crashed in Egypt 'broke up in the air'  A Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula broke up in mid-air, an official of a Moscow-based aviation agency said on Sunday after visiting the disaster site, but stressed it was too early to draw conclusions from this.

Russian authorities also ordered Kogalymavia airline, operator of the Airbus A321 which came down on Saturday killing all 224 people on board, not to fly its jets of the same model until the causes of the crash are known...

$20 trillion man: National debt nearly doubles during Obama presidency ...“We will be raising the debt ceiling in an unlimited fashion,” said Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who tried to filibuster the budget deal before the Senate approved it in the wee hours of Friday. “We will be giving President Obama a free pass to borrow as much money as he can borrow in the last year of his office. No limit, no dollar limit. Here you go, President Obama. Spend what you want.”...

Leaked Photos Spell Bad News for Michelle Obama school lunch plan

Sweden: Sex Change for Children
...Young Swedes are not allowed to vote until they are 18, and they cannot buy alcohol until they are 20, but plans are now being made to allow children as young as 12 years old to apply to change their legal gender. The surgery would allow children to be identified on all legal documents, ID cards and passports as belonging to a gender different from the one they were born with. In addition, according to an official reports by the Swedish government, the process of obtaining permission to have the operation should be swift...

Feminism’s Harmful Impact on Millennial Families ...It is always challenging to host a discussion on feminism, because the term itself has become so muddled few can agree on the word’s definition. Some pro-family women are even making efforts to reclaim the term, a movement about which I hold some concerns. But that is a discussion for another time. Still, I must acknowledge groups like Feminists for Life and Big Ocean, a group of self-proclaimed feminist working to dismantle the stigma around family. So let me be very clear, that for purposes of my discussion, when I mention feminism I am specifically referring to either second-wave radical feminism birthed out of the 1960s or its protégé third-wave feminism.

According to Phyllis Schlafly, longtime pro-life activist, lawyer and mother of six, author of 20 books, and a woman obviously not limited by marriage or motherhood – noted in her book, The Flipside of Feminism, quote, “While people associate feminism within the 1960s revolution, since that is when feminism began, feminism and feminists didn’t disappear just because they’re no longer marching in the streets.” Schlafly explained, “They simply chucked the loud protests and morphed into the fabric of society.”...

God as She is yet another feminist assault on masculinity ...It’s remarkable how long it took the church to realise that all those masculine pronouns used in the Scriptures to refer to God – He and Him – are merely arbitrary, and really the biblical writers could have gone either way with the Hes and Shes, Hims and Hers. What is all the more staggering is that you would have thought that some of the giants of church history – Ignatius, Polycarp, Origen, Athanasius, Tertullian, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, for instance – at least one of them would have picked up on it. But oddly enough we had to wait for centuries to pass, until the after the feminist revolution in fact, before the church actually came to see what had been staring it in the face all along.
As for all that “Our Father” business and those funny notions that Jesus seemed to have that “I and my Father” not “I and my Mother” are one, well once again we have the feminist giants of the faith in the late 20^th / early 21^st century to thank for correcting His false notions and setting Him straight. I mean He was only the eternal Son of God. What would He know about it.

Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester and newly seated in the House of Lords, is one of the latest to come along and correct the errors of 2,000 years of church history, not to mention the teachings of the entire Old and New Testaments (By the way, House of Lords? Do I hear the beginnings of a campaign to correct this glaring anachronism? House of Gender-Neutral Peers anyone?). In an interview with the Observer last weekend she (I assume I’m allowed to assign a feminine pronoun for her) made the following observations:

While acknowledging that many Anglicans would profoundly disagree, Treweek said the Church of England should use both male and female pronouns when referring to God. She personally prefers to say neither “he” nor “she”, but “God”. “Sometimes I lapse, but I try not to,” the bishop told the Observer. “God is not to be seen as male. God is God.”

Let me begin by saying that she is partially correct, but at the same time very, very wrong. When she says that “God is not to be seen as male,” she is absolutely right. God is a Spirit and therefore He is no more “male” than he is “female”. However, when she infers from this that the Church of England should use both masculine and feminine pronouns when referring to God, she moves deftly from truth to patent falsehood. The problem is that the Scriptures always use masculine pronouns when referring to God, and they always use the masculine form when referring to the titles of God. Always and without exception. Period...

The Parenting Problems of Age Segregation
  It has been more than a half-century since James Coleman and his team surveyed students in ten high schools to determine their values and interests and attitudes toward learning. The conclusion was that a new social formation was upon us: the adolescent society. That was the title of the book summarizing the findings, with the subtitle “The Social Life of the Teenager and Its Impact on Education.”

When questioned about what they like to do and what they care about, the kids made it quite clear that their minds and desires were absorbed in a world all their own. They had their own music and movies, speech and dress, heroes and role models, hangouts and activities, the whole amounting to an adolescent subculture forbidden to grownups. The ambitions were similarly social. Being good-looking, well-liked, active, and athletic counted more than being smart and hard-working. That’s what their peers valued, and that’s what they answered to.

Where and how did this trend originate? Curiously, though their attitudes weren’t oriented toward school, school was, in fact, the cause of the adolescent society. Over the course of the twentieth century, adolescents were staying in school longer and longer. Early in the 1900s, only one out of ten American teens finished high school. Most of them left the classroom in fourth to eighth grade and went to work, passing their teen years under the supervision of adults and spending limited time with peers. For the average 15 year old, there was no such thing as a “social life.”

By 1950, though, most of them stayed through twelfth grade. High school attendance exploded. For seven hours a day (not including after-school activities), five days a week, 185 days a year, teenagers were packed into tight quarters by the hundreds, moving from room to room, eating lunch together, hanging out in locker rooms...