Praying in the Middle of a Storm; The Nashville Statement...more

With Death Toll at 30, Storm Makes 2nd Landfall ...Emergency workers rescued many more soaked and frightened people in southeast Texas on Tuesday as floodwaters continued to rise and officials counseled patience, warning that conditions would not improve soon.

The slow-moving, record-shattering tropical storm Harvey battered the region for a sixth straight day and began to move into southwest Louisiana, where it made its second landfall early Wednesday morning. With hundreds of thousands of people under evacuation orders, shelters in Houston filled to bursting with people who craved some news about the safety of their loved ones and the state of their homes.

For now, the city’s focus “will continue to be on rescue,” and not on damage assessment — much less recovery — Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, said at a news conference...

Houston floods: Night curfew bid to stop robbery and looting
...Mr Turner said the curfew would help prevent "property crimes" against evacuated homes, and was in force "only to prevent potential criminal acts"...

Hurricane Harvey Likely To Destroy More Cars Than Katrina: “This Is Bad; Real Bad”

Praying in the Middle of a Storm
We are experiencing unprecedented crisis and chaos in our beloved city. Right now, all over social media you will find people telling others that they are praying and asking the nation to pray for the people of Houston. How are we to pray? The Scripture is clear on ways to pray in times of distress. As I’m praying, below are my requests to the Father and I thought I’d pass them along to you.

We should pray all three of these petitions below -- not just one. This is important. Praying all three allows us to seek the activity of God in all this and yet to display deep trust in God to work as He chooses for His glory...

Albert Mohler: The Urgency of Preaching
...Has preaching fallen on hard times? An open debate is now being waged over the character and centrality of preaching in the church. At stake is nothing less than the integrity of Christian worship and proclamation.

How did this happen? Given the central place of preaching in the New Testament church, it would seem that the priority of biblical preaching should be uncontested. After all, as John A. Broadus–one of Southern Seminary’s founding faculty–famously remarked, “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity. No other religion has made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious instruction and exhortation, an integral part of Christian worship.”...

Top Evangelical Leaders Back New Nashville Statement on Sexuality  More than 150 Evangelical leaders representing churches, seminaries, and ministries have signed a statement affirming Biblical themes of marriage, gender, and sexual morality. The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) released the coalition statement, called the Nashville Statement, on Tuesday after gathering key Evangelical leaders for a meeting hosted by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission last week in Nashville, Tennessee.

“The Nashville Statement is an urgently needed moment of gospel clarity,” stated CBMW President Denny Burk. “In a culture nearly defined by sexual confusion and brokenness, the church of Jesus Christ has to proclaim with one voice that God’s good design for gender, marriage, and sexuality.”...

The Nashville Statement can be read here.
List of endorsements for the statement found here.

Rod Dreher: Why The Nashville Statement Is Needed   ...What these pastors, theologians, and Evangelical leaders have done is hugely important. So much is at stake! But it is only a start — and the laity cannot leave these leaders standing alone. The challenge Christians face to Biblical orthodoxy is overwhelming — and heterodox Evangelicals have a hurricane-force wind at their backs. For example, when our children are going to schools — public, private, and yes, even religious — in which their peers enthusiastically endorse homosexuality and gender ideology, we cannot realistically expect them to embrace fidelity?...

Calfornia closer to allowing third gender on state IDs  ...The bill allowing people to identify as “nonbinary” will be considered in the California Assembly. It would also make it easier for transgender people to make sure legal state documents appropriately reflect their gender...

80% of Teens in Obama-Funded Sex-Ed Programs Fared Worse Than Their Peers   ...Trump’s administration announced $200 million in cuts to the program earlier this summer, angering abortion activists and others. At the time, Health and Human Services Department spokesman Mark Vafiades told the New York Times that there is very little evidence that the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program is working.

Huber verified this. She said there is no proof that the program reduced teen pregnancy rates, and research actually shows that 70 percent to 80 percent of teens were not positively impacted. She said teen pregnancy rates did drop during the program, but the decline began before the program started...

Total Eclipse 2017-videos and photos

Total Eclipse 2017 - PBS/NASA from Nebraska


Total solar eclipse emerges from behind clouds in Nebraska


Watch the Moon's Shadow Move from Coast to Coast

Photos-Eclipse 2017

A Total Solar Eclipse Leaves a Nation in Awe NYT

Raymond's photo at totality from SC

Google Burns a Heretic; Iran: Christian convert released from prison...more

Beyond Bathrooms: Why Transgender Battles Could Soon Impact Every Family   As it becomes clearer every day, Americans are sharply divided on how best to handle questions of children and gender identity. For better or worse, however, American parents are currently allowed (and even encouraged) to raise their kids as the opposite gender, and reports suggest many are doing so. But should these parents have the right to force other parents in their community to raise their own kids to question their biological sex? Should they have the right to impose their own transgender ideology on other families?

This is the question at stake in a lawsuit filed last week by the parents of 8-year-old Nicole (Nikki) Brar against Heritage Oak Private School in Orange County, Calif., alleging that the school engaged in discriminatory action by refusing to adopt a transgender-affirming school policy, recognizing their son’s new female name, pronouns, school uniform, and use of the girls’ bathroom and locker room...

Iran: Christian convert released from prison after over four years of captivity  At the beginning of the month, Maryam Nagash Zargaran, a Christian convert from Islam, was released from prison after over four years of captivity. She had been charged by the Iranian State of taking actions against national security...

A Theology of Vacationing
This summer has been no different than those which proceded it. At this time of year, you are possibly continuing to see references to the usual litany of 'Summer Reading recommendations for Pastors.' As end-of-summer vacations loom, men in the ministry feel the need to catch up on those weighty tomes of theology that have been gathering dust somewhere but which a guilty conscience tells them ought to be read. (Though their wife and children may have other ideas!)

Despite the title, these paragraphs are not intended to add to this ministerial guilt trip; but, rather, they are intended to relieve it! Instead of offering yet more theology to take on vacation, I wish to offer a theological justification for viewing a vacation as being a good thing - and this, not just at 'vacation times' when they happen to occur...

Google Burns a Heretic
...So what did he say that was so intolerable? Did he say women aren’t smart? Did he say that women should not be recruited to work at Google? Hardly. He offered that perhaps biological differences between the sexes may partially account for the fact that women are not 50 percent of the engineers at Google (though they are about 48 percent of Google’s non-tech employees). He observed that, on average, men tend to be more interested in things and women more interested in people. What a scandal! Except, in 2015, women accounted for 20.03 percent of all engineering graduates, but 84.43 percent of health professionals. As Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute noted, the share of women holding tech positions at Google (20 percent) is close to the percentage of women computer science graduates (18 percent).

Damore said that men are more competitive and women more cooperative. Studies of the effects of testosterone and other hormones confirm that there is a biological foundation for these differing traits. Damore noted that women prefer more workplace flexibility than men and that accordingly, Google might want to permit more part-time work to accommodate women’s preferences. He pleaded, above all, that Google treat every person as an individual...

Dreher: James Damore and ‘Ritual Defamation’ ...Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

Ritual Defamation is not ritualistic because it follows any prescribed religious or mystical doctrine, nor is it embraced in any particular document or scripture. Rather, it is ritualistic because it follows a predictable, stereotyped pattern which embraces a number of elements, as in a ritual...

Wyoming judge punished for marriage beliefs takes her case to US Supreme Court   A Wyoming judge whom the Wyoming Supreme Court punished for her religious beliefs about marriage asked the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to take up her case. In Wyoming, magistrates may decline wedding requests for nearly any secular reason, but the court punished Judge Ruth Neely for saying that she would need to refer some marriage requests for a religious reason.

In March, the Wyoming Supreme Court publicly censured Neely, forced her to stop solemnizing marriages, and drove her from her magistrate judge position for stating, in response to a reporter’s questions, that her religious beliefs about marriage do not permit her to officiate same-sex weddings. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Neely are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Wyoming Supreme Court’s decision and declare that a judge cannot be punished for expressing her beliefs about marriage...

SC diocese to seek rehearing before state Supreme Court

08 Aug 2017
by George Conger

The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina will challenge last week’s decision by the state’s Supreme Court awarding over two dozen of its congregations to the national Episcopal Church. In a statement released on 7 Aug 2017, the diocesan standing committee said they would seek a rehearing before the court, and were pursuing other legal remedies.

On 2 Aug 2017 the South Carolina Supreme Court in a 3-2 ruling partly overturned and partly upheld an earlier District Court ruling that had favored the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina over the national church. The majority reversed the 3 Feb 2015 lower court ruling on the trusteeship of 29 of 36 disputed parish properties. A final ruling would affect more than $500 million in diocesan and parish properties.

The ruling has come under sharp legal and ethical criticism, with Anglican Ink’s legal Allan Haley writing the decision was tainted by a “massive conflict of interest” by one of the justices. the rest

A Message from the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina

Christians watching Game Of Thrones: China censors Winnie the Pooh...more

Canada: Muslim stabs pregnant wife's belly with BBQ fork killing baby  ...A man accused of stabbing his eight-month pregnant wife multiple times with a BBQ fork in the belly resulting in the death of the fetus will face first-degree murder charges...

Twelve Questions to Ask Before You Watch ‘Game of Thrones’    “Pastor John, do you believe there is a difference between film nudity versus pornography? I know many Christians who are against porn, but they have no issue watching movies or TV shows that show graphic nudity.” A young woman named Emily emailed this question to the Ask Pastor John inbox.

A day later, Adam emailed to ask, “Pastor John, what would you say to a Christian who watches the cable TV show Game of Thrones?” This is a television series rated TV-MA, and has become rather infamous for its explicit nudity and sex scenes, and for graphic scenes of rape and sexual violence against women. Game of Thrones is now the most popular series in HBO history, with an average audience of more than 23 million viewers.

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of John Piper’s response...

and

I Don’t Understand Christians Watching Game of Thrones ...I know some people will say it doesn’t bother their conscience or that it’s art or they can view sinful sex without participating in it themselves. But that doesn’t change what the Bible says about the importance of purity and the power of the eye. The fact is our consciences should be smitten; steamy sex scenes are not the kind of art for which we can give thanks; and it’s hard to imagine Paul would have been cool with the believers in Ephesus watching simulated sex for a fee each month, so long as they don’t hook up in real life...

Disney cartoon features lesbian ‘moms,’ promotes gay ‘marriage’ to preschoolers   An August 5 episode of the Disney Junior show Doc McStuffins, which is aimed at preschoolers, featured two lesbian "moms" as the heads of a family...The LGBT advocacy group GLAAD launched a petition asking people to "thank Disney for elevating LGBTQ voices." ...The episode promotes same-sex "marriage" in a "beautiful and positive way," wrote Sarah Kate Ellis, the President and CEO of GLAAD. "Shows like this reflect our real world, and today that includes the many children being raised by gay and lesbian parents who are all going to celebrate this story."...

Why China censors banned Winnie the Pooh
...Winnie the Pooh has joined a line of crazy, funny internet references to China's top leaders.

The Chinese name for and images of the plump, cute cartoon character are being blocked on social media sites here because bloggers have been comparing him to China's president.

When Xi Jinping and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe endured one of the more awkward handshakes in history netizens responded with Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore shaking hands...

Prof lets students choose own grades for 'stress reduction'   ..According to online course syllabi for two of Dr. Richard Watson’s fall business courses, he has introduced the policy because “emotional reactions to stressful situations can have profound consequences for all involved.”...

Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome on the Rise
The incidence of cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome has increased with the loosening of marijuana laws in the United States, according to a new study presented at the 2017 Digestive Disease Week (abstract Tu1688).

Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome and cyclic vomiting syndrome are barely known to physicians and characterized by recurrent episodes of heavy nausea, vomiting and frequent abdominal pain. Complete and persistent resolution of all symptoms of the disease following cannabis cessation is the only reliable criterion applicable to distinguish cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome from cyclic vomiting syndrome (Ger Med Sci 2017;15:Doc06).

Researchers said raising awareness of some of the medical problems that can occur with the use of cannabis is critical...

Canon Phil Ashey: On lawsuits and losses: a Meditation from Psalm 37

August 4, 2017

In his book The Contemporary Christian, John Stott writes that a follower of Christ should have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Without both, he or she is unarmed. With the newspaper only, you have the calamity and depravity in the world with no hope to offer. With only the Scripture, you have hope but no sense of where to apply it.

So, on this day of prayer and fasting for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) Diocese of South Carolina, for the decisions that lie before them in the face of the South Carolina Supreme Court’s decision to award 29 of their churches to The Episcopal Church (TEC), it seems appropriate to take the decision in one hand, and the Bible in the other, and seek God’s mind in this situation to direct our prayers.  As I prayerfully and carefully reviewed the decision, the facts around it, and all the reports and reviews published so far, I believe the LORD directed me to Psalm 37:

“Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon wither away.” (Ps. 37:1-2 NIV)

Psalm 37 addresses the question “How should God’s people react when ‘evil men’ and ‘those who do wrong’ succeed in their ways?”

The decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court in the matter of the ACNA Diocese of South Carolina vs. the TEC Diocese of South Carolina (Heard September 23, 2015 and filed August 2, 2017) appears to be such a case.  The net effect of this case seems to be the transfer of the property of 29 congregations from the ACNA Diocese of South Carolina to TEC.  Ultimately this could mean the displacement of thousands of families from the place where they have worshiped for generations.  It could mean the loss of all the ACNA Diocese of South Carolina offices, the bishops residence and more... the rest

Oregon’s Radical, Grisly Abortion Law; France: Churches Vanish, Mosques Spring Up...more

Oregon’s Radical, Grisly Abortion Law ...Both California and New York mandate a certain degree of abortion coverage, but Oregon’s is especially aggressive. The legislative language is almost entirely unqualified. It does not exclude grisly late-term abortions (which take place long after the fetus can survive outside the womb), nor does it prohibit sex-selective abortions. If a woman wants to kill her unborn daughter because she wanted a son, her insurer has no choice but to cover that.

Oregon may have one of the most liberal abortion regimes in the country — the state has no informed-consent laws, no waiting periods, and no parental-notification requirements for minors, and conducts virtually no supervision of abortion clinics — but even so, the new bill is radical...

North Korea vows harsh retaliation against new UN sanctions    North Korea vowed Monday to bolster its nuclear arsenal and launch “thousands-fold” revenge against the United States in response to tough U.N. sanctions imposed after its recent intercontinental ballistic missile launches... 

Japanese people practising nuclear attack drills

France: Churches Vanish, Mosques Spring Up
◾In the last 30 years, more mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been built in France than all the Catholic churches built in the last century.
◾The Church of Santa Rita used to stand in the fifteenth arrondissement of Paris. A few weeks after Father Hamel was murdered by Islamic terrorists, the French police cleared the church. It is now a parking lot. Police dragged the priests out by their legs as a Mass was being celebrated.
◾In France there are laws protecting old trees. But the state is free to flatten old Christian churches. The vacuums created in the French landscape are already being filled by the booming mosques. Cowardly French authorities would never treat Islam as they are now treating Christianity...

New York’s Chautauqua Institution Opens Door to Muslim Brotherhood Infiltration   ...Reverend Campbell brought Karen Armstrong to Chautauqua Institution, which opened the doors of Chautauqua wide to Saudi Arabia, the Muslim Brotherhood, and jihadis from all over the planet. Armstrong is a former Catholic nun who defends jihadi martyrdom operations (“suicide bomber), advocates for jihadis, and blames 9/11 on United States and the West in general. She works closely with numerous MB leaders around the globe....Since 2002, thanks to Karen Armstrong with support from Reverend Campbell, Chautauqua has hosted senior Muslim Brotherhood jurist Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf each summer. Rauf is the man behind the drive to build a mosque/Islamic Center at the site of the 9/11 attack in New York City through his Park 51 and Cordoba Initiative projects. He is also a sharia scholar whose book, Islam: A Sacred Law, reads like an ISIS publication, stating the purpose of Islam is to establish an Islamic State under sharia....

Archaeologists find more evidence of Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem    Israeli archaeologists recently discovered 2,600-year-old artifacts they say offer further concrete evidence of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem around 586 B.C.

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery just days before Tisha B’Av, a Jewish fast day commemorating the anniversary of the destruction of both the First Temple by the Babylonians and the Second Temple by the Romans in the year 70...

Christian Photographer Cannot be Forced to Work Same-Sex Weddings, Court Rules A Wisconsin court has ruled that a Christian photographer should not be forced to provide her services to same-sex weddings.

According to The Christian Post, 25-year-old Amy Lawson, who is an independent photographer, posted a statement on her website last year explaining her stance on same-sex marriage and clarifying that she would not be providing services to same-sex weddings...

Hackers now target more than one bank every week ...Cyber-crime is seen by many senior bankers as the single biggest danger faced by their industry. Attacks on lenders cost consumers an estimated £8billion last year, up 122 per cent on 2015, according to the security firm ThreatMetrix.

But when the Mail asked the six largest banks and building societies how many threats they have thwarted since the start of this year, they all declined to comment.

Campaigners said customers were being left in the dark, making it impossible to tell how safe online banking is...


Supreme Court Round-up

When on the mount the Lord appeared...

When on the mount the Lord appeared

Transfigured to the sight,

His countenance was like the sun,

His raiment glistened white.

But dull the minds, and dark the eyes,

On whom such glory shone;

They saw not God upon the mount,

They saw but man alone.

And when the dark and cloudy days

Of death and sorrow came,

What were their thoughts of Him who hung

Upon the cross of shame?

They knew not that the God of Life

An offering yielded there,

And of His will endured for all

The load of sin He bare.

Lord, to the mount where Thou art seen

In all Thy glory bright,

Thy servants now would wend their way

To gaze upon the Light,

And there behold, in glory clad,

The Light to mortals given,

That in the night that hid the cross,

Shone with the light of heaven.”

-Hymns from the Morningland: tr. John Brownlie
image

Anglican Unscripted Episode 313

Published on Aug 4, 2017

A.S. Haley: Massive Conflict of Interest Taints South Carolina Ruling

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Yesterday, almost two years after hearing arguments, the Supreme Court of South Carolina finally issued its decision in the case of The Protestant Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, et al. v. The Episcopal Church, et al., as I wrote in this post. Because the Court's collective opinions were some 77 pages long, I was able in the short time after their issuance to present only the broadest overview of the differences that divided the five Justices on the Court.

Today, I plan to examine in depth what I consider to be the overarching problem with the decision: the fact that it glosses over a massive conflict of interest on the part of Justice Kaye Hearn. While she was definitely biased when the case was first appealed to the Court, as I explain in more detail below, that blight on her impartiality pales into insignificance before the blatant, result-oriented bias she has exposed in her opinion concurring in a 3-2 decision that would result in the transfer of multiple millions of dollars' worth of real property from the plaintiff Diocese to the ECUSA-controlled defendant, called the Episcopal Church in South Carolina ("ECSC").

For the basic problem with Justice Hearn's role in this case is as follows. When the case was first appealed in 2015 by the Episcopal Church and the ECSC, Justice Hearn (the newest justice elected to the Court at the time) had been, since at least March 2007, a member of the Episcopal Forum of South Carolina. That was the very organization which, through 14 of its members, brought disciplinary charges in 2012 against Bishop Mark Lawrence, while he and his Diocese were still members of ECUSA, in an effort to have him deposed by the Disciplinary Board for Bishops. The Disciplinary Board's acceptance of those charges, and its issuance of a "Certification of Abandonment" against Bishop Lawrence, precipitated the withdrawal of his Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina from ECUSA...  the rest

In her concurring opinion, Justice Hearn went out of her way to castigate Bishop Lawrence and the role he played as chief pastor of his Diocese -- ecclesiastical matters which, as her colleagues pointed out, had no business being addressed in a secular judicial opinion. In doing so, she only advanced, and acted as a spokesperson in black robes for, the sectarian interests of the Episcopal Forum to which she still (presumably -- the organization no longer publishes the names of its members) belongs. At the same time, she contradicted her own precept that South Carolina courts should stay out of Episcopal Church matters and defer to its "ecclesiastical determinations."

Canon Phil Ashey: On Lawsuits and Losses
...This is a bad situation. Those who do wrong, and who have a history of doing wrong, appear to have succeeded. What can God’s people do?...

Peter Jensen: The Mythical Middle

3rd August 2017

It has not worked. It cannot work. It will not work.

I mean the idea that we will be able to find a middle ground, where we will be able to be quietly or relatively conservative, while allowing for a denominational variety which blesses sexual relations outside the bonds of traditional marriage.

The present tactic of those looking for a change is to say that there is a middle way, in which you can reject the development but still remain ‘under the radar’ within the church, holding your point of view but not making a fuss.

Or, perhaps, it is possible to be ‘balanced’ or ‘moderate’ by rejecting same sex marriage, but at the same time to endorsing sexual relationships outside of marriage, commenting on how rich and how pleasing to God they are.

In this way, you can avoid being ‘an extremist’. Of course, ‘extremist’ is such an ugly word that no one wishes to accept the label. We much prefer to have the good judgement that enables us to be in the middle of any dispute, seeing the good on both sides but not turning the argument into a matter of mutually exclusive choice between two options.... the rest

Anglican Unscripted Episode 312

Aug 2, 2017

Split decision from South Carolina Supreme Court in Episcopal Church cases

South Carolina responds to the state supreme court decision

A.S. Haley: South Carolina Decision Is Out
In a divided decision, the trial court's order is reversed as to twenty-nine parishes and affirmed as to the remaining parishes. The trial court's intellectual property ruling is affirmed by a vote of 2-2, with one justice declining to reach the issue.

Here are the seven parishes (and one land trust) which, by a 3-2 vote, were not subject to the Dennis Canon: Christ the King, Waccamaw; St. Matthews Church, Darlington; St. Andrews Church-Mt. Pleasant Land Trust; St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Conway; The Episcopal Church of the Parish of Prince George Winyah, Georgetown; the Parish of St. Andrew, Mt. Pleasant; St. John's Episcopal Church of Florence; and St. Matthias Episcopal Church, Summerton.

Note that the opinions are confusing as to how many "congregations" -- seven or eight -- managed to escape the Dennis Canon, by never acceding in their articles or bylaws to the Constitution and Canons of ECUSA. The reason is that one of the eight is not a congregation, but apparently a trust that holds title to church property...