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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.

A slippery slope argument is an argument that states that, “Though _____ is not that bad, it will result in damage to society based on what it will allow to be legitimized in the long run.”

Every time someone has the nerve to speak out against a society giving public blessing to a disordered behavior using a so-called, “Slippery slope,” argument, that person is usually subjected to public mockery and a series of case studies which claim to show that the slope doesn’t exist.

Ironically, the usual case study cited is Holland which, in the proponent’s mind, proves you can legitimize all sorts of things and see no further disintegration of society or abuse of children.

Where are all those stridently confident voices now that a recognized political party in Holland would like you to be able to have a threesome with your neighbor’s 12yr old kid

— and her pet dog?

U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

A small group of members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., who have been demonstrating around the country at military funerals, sang “God hates America” to the tune of “God Bless America” and held signs that read “God is America’s terror”, “Thank God for dead soldiers”, “You’re going to hell”, and “Bush killed them.”

…Margie Phelps, spokeswoman for the Westboro church group, said the group was protesting because “Congress doesn’t have the power and can’t pass enough laws to stop the wrath of God” against homosexuals.

“America is doomed because she has institutionalized sin and exalted homosexuality,” she said.

Ahh, the love of Christ and a warm call to the healing He offers — delivered in the most gentle of terms by the most loving of people — rings out across a cemetery. (It’s too bad HTML doesn’t have a sarcasm tag…)

Of course, at least the context is correct: A bunch of dead people preaching to, well, a bunch of dead people. If only they were the only ones around…

It’s rather ironic to me that Bush (Who at least claims to be a Christian) has been forced to specially pass a bill to make protesting at funerals a crime — just to keep these passionate lovers of Jesus and their fellow man from destroying the hearts of grieving mothers in their insane crusade.

Isn’t it amazing how those who claim to know the love of Christ can fall so blissfully in love with the idea of savaging the broken — instead of running the field hospital they were called to operate???

The Art of Miscommunication - TrueU.org : Men’s Hall:

“If this is you, please let me remind you that you’re toying with someone else’s life. We were never meant to be puppeteers, but to be servants. Now, you may have led someone on before without being aware of it. To this, I’d just say be careful what you communicate. When we appear inconsistent, our mixed signals can cause a great deal of heartache and confusion. Don’t be afraid to qualify things. Many times, the resulting awkwardness is less painful than the resulting relational hernias.”

This is a great article in giving guidelines to care for another heart. One needs to look at it through the filter of the Finished Work of Christ. It is fine to desire to be liked by others but one needs to balance it with ressonsiblity to serve other’s emotions.

How to Have Great Sex Every Time

Sexual response was measured in couples involved in committed relationships — before and after receiving CAT training. Prior to learning CAT, only 23% of the women reported achieving orgasm during intercourse on a regular basis. After CAT, that figure jumped to 77%. Before CAT, no women reported having regular simultaneous orgasms with their partners. Afterward, one-third of the women reported doing so.

Almost all participants reported at least some improvement in their sex lives following CAT training. In fact, the only participants who failed to benefit were those whose relationships were already jeopardized by nonsexual factors.

We in the church should be having the best sex on earth — sadly, it is more often then not a guilt ridden and bumbling affair.

The vast majority of women never experience orgasm through penetrative sex. For most, it is not the result of an inconsiderate husband such as is so often parodied on television. It is usually the result of ignorance (on the part of both husband and wife) of sexual techniques and skills.

This article is a solid explanation of one such skill set called the Coital Alignment Technique. (CAT) CAT is a clinically researched sexual position that allows clitoral stimulation during penetrative intercourse.

Someone you love will thank you tonight — once you get it figured out.

Office Hours: New, Improved, and Lowered Standards :

” I’ve been wasting time on guys who aren’t serious, or who I shouldn’t be serious about.’ She hesitated. ‘Um, I wonder if I could ask you something about that. You don’t have to answer.’ ‘Ask and you shall be answered.’ ‘Thanks. It’s not a question exactly. But I’ve been trying to take one of the bits of advice you gave during your talk, and it’s turning out harder than I expected.’ ‘What bit?’ ‘In the ‘relationships’ part of your talk. You know, how we should lower our standards.’ ‘Lower your standards?’ ‘Isn’t that what you said?’ ‘If anything, I urged higher standards.’”

This is a good article on discovering the kind of real strength a man has in relationship.

Virginity or Death!

…all we need to do is vaccinate girls (and boys too for good measure) before they become sexually active, around puberty… in thirty or forty years, seven in ten cases of cervical cancer — goes poof.

Not so fast: We’re living in God’s country now. The Christian right doesn’t like the sound of this vaccine at all. “Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful,” Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council told the British magazine New Scientist, “because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”

As usual, the Christian Right comes out in favor of — well — not much of anything. Completely ignoring the reality that sex is not the only way to get HPV, they apparently don’t want to vaccinate the population in fear that — yes, you guessed it — people might have more sex…

I wonder what Jesus would have to say about those who fail to heal the sick because it violates their sense of ethics? Oh wait: seems he already registered His opinion on such when He healed on the Sabbath…

Well, obviously we can ignore that — because it wasn’t about {GASP}

SEX!!!!

Focus on your child:

” The good news is that your children have this ability. It’s a gift from their Creator. The bad news is that like any skill, it can get rusty with neglect. Studies have shown that the average adult is far less intuitively creative than the average child. “

This skill is important because a lot of conflicts seem to be because people believe their is only one right answer.

SBCPRAY.NET

Personal

Before we pray for others, we should pray for ourselves, that we would be right with God and in fellowship with Him.

* Ask God to bring to mind any sins in your life and heart.
* Confess those sins God has brought to your mind and receive His forgiveness and cleansing.
* To confess is to agree together with God’s verdict upon sin (Greek-homologeo-to say the same thing as another.) To agree with God about sin is specific, not general.
* When we confess our sin to God, we have assurance He will cleanse us of it. It is His promise; He will not break His Word. See I John 1:9 above.

Once again, the Church launches it’s pathetic crusade against sin in Her members — this time in the guise of a call to pray for America. The formula is simple: First purge all of the sin out of your heart — then God will listen to you. Insert the right number of quarters into the cosmic vending machine and God will give you what you want.

(It’s the perfect fall back plan really: “Since I have a direct line to God and He always does what I say, if God doesn’t give me what I want, I obviously have failed to purge sin out of my life.” I guess my sin is such an awful shock to God He turns away in nausea and obviously can’t hear my prayer…)

Scripture is emphatically clear in so many places that absolutely NOTHING can ever separate us from God. Yet, it is this whole serial repentance teaching/system that causes so many people to be so concerned about sin. It builds theologies that produce the illusion of holiness because they rank violations of the law from mostly OK to downright nasty and then try to avoid/confess the nasty ones believing that, once they have done so, God is again their buddy. It’s a pity the list is ever shifting…

This is so common in our churches today. It’s like the pastor stands up at the front and there is a dividing line down the center of the stage. On the one side are sins like gossip, judgment, eating bacon double cheeseburgers (And other dietary laws) and all of them are under the blood of Christ. On the other side are real sins like homosexuality, adultery, abortion etc. and each seems to come with the demand that the practitioners of such be railed against and condemned. The pastor stands on one side with the pardoned sins and rails against the rest demanding that they stop and RIGHT NOW!!! It’s idiocy and it cheapens what Christ did for us. Without a grasp of how terribly and totally broken we are as a flawed species, we can never experience a holy excitement about how loved we really are.

You will somehow manage to violate the law of God in the next thirty seconds. Want me to prove it? OK. You either just committed the sin of arrogance because you are questioning how that could be true of you or you just committed the sin of self centered contempt after you dug up your secret thought crime — either that or you have treated me with contempt because you are currently asleep while reading my writings — HOW DARE YOU!!! (See I’m a damn fine counselor — I just made you a law breaker… ) Uh oh, you just judged me for swearing — see I’m on a roll…

Unless we come to an understanding of how shattered we were, we are still, at some level, going to reject ourselves for His love will never settle into the deep places of our hearts. Attempts to make sure I have confessed sin (Remember, all of them are equal in God’s eyes) to be eligible to pray to God are an absurdest exercise in self deception because I violate the old code of law (Which I am never to be under again) so often I would never have enough time in any day to confess it all. This is a Joy filled pessimism: I will never come to the end of my brokenness because it is who I am — and that’s absolutely amazing!!!!!

It’s amazing because, In that state, God in his love gave me a new heart — a new identity. In Romans 8:15 Paul makes it so clear that I may once have been a sinner, a homosexual, an adulterer or a gossip but that is no longer who I am. Because of such, I am freed to climb out of the mud puddle I have been rolling in, to run right into the presence of a Holy God, climb up on His lap, wrap my arms around His neck and squeal Dada and receive love from Him for I have been made holy, I am now called a saint and a beloved and forever adopted child of the Most High King. The impact of the Gospel is first and foremost relationship — whatever happens after that is just a bonus — not the goal.

In other words, my response to that love IS the transformation of the Gospel in me. (It may have an ethical look to it but the improvement to ethics is irrelevant — ethics are only one evidence of transformation — not the transformation itself.)

When we make our behaviors the issue and stopping (Or at least confessing) the focus, we commit a cardinal error. Gal 2:16-21 addresses that problem: “But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! “For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

Paul is saying something critical there that I’m going to try paraphrase:

“If you, in your desire to be holy, have again adopted a performance and rule based system of evaluating whether you are acceptable and have used the Gospel to justify such, then you are making Christ Lord over a system of death again for having to perform killed me in that it made me want to be bad. That can’t happen. If you again put together a system of rules (Written on new tablets of stone) to follow in place of the new law (written on tablets of flesh), all you manage to do is to again make yourself into a person under the condemnation of your new system of rules which Christ came to abolish.” (Stone/flesh metaphor taken from Ez. 36:26-27)

If we have to create a pure heart by going through a religious exercise in confessing every transgression before we believe God will listen to us, we have first of all climbed back under the law to which we died. We have then taken that law and used it to judge ourselves — which God Himself will not do now that we are in Christ. We add insult to injury through creating a new system of sacrifices whereby we figure we can pay for our sins by just reciting a prayer — which insults a God who had to die for that problem. We finally stand before our cosmic vending machine with just the right number of quarters and believe that we can now buy God’s performance. How dare we?

It’s either about relationship with Jesus wherein we address lies that keep us from total freedom to be in His presence (holding His hand where our new hearts want to be) or it’s about cleaning up our act and fighting a war we can only even remotely look like we are winning if we delude ourselves. (And evil wins anyway because we have taken our eyes off our focus — Jesus.)

Shaulah.com

To claim we believe is simply not enough. The call of Jesus is one that demands action. (Erwin McManus in The Barbarian Way)

In nearly every church in North America, we are repeatedly told that salvation is a free gift. That God came, looked down upon us and realized that we would never be able to get to heaven on our own so he came and made a way for us through dying for our sins on the cross. We are simply called to accept His free gift. And, it’s all good as we are welcomed into the kingdom and the door swings shut behind us.

But then, as the latch clicks home, the story changes. We are then told that this free gift really wasn’t a free gift after all. It was more of a lease arrangement. That God looked down upon us and realized that we needed a car to drive to heaven but couldn’t make the down-payment. So, He made it for us — but now we have to keep up the payments by being really really good or… What? Well, something will happen… The best explanation that they can offer is the suggestion that, “Maybe you were never one of His…” Welcome to prison.

Somehow, we are to believe that there is a magical power we are given that allows us, for the very first time, to pull off being good. Christ in you provides the energy to be good — and being good proves that Christ is in you. Trouble is, that’s none of us…

So, we struggle, we fight, we lie to others and, mostly, we lie to ourselves trying to convince ourselves that we have somehow managed to stop violating the law for, oh, say, 30 seconds this time?

We tell ourselves that we have to be good for God can not look upon sin. In other words, God is basically as highly developed as your house cat. If you are nice to Him and do what He wants, He likes you. If not, He sticks His head in a corner and sulks. All because you didn’t perform — and not even God could find a way to fix it — not even with the cross??? Friedrich Nietzsche made the comment that, “God created man in His own image, and man returned the favor.” He was so on the money there.

RIGHT… Sign me up for that sort of holiness…

When Martin Luther concluded that Salvation had to be, “By faith alone,” he was simultaneously recognizing his own inability to be good, the need for God to place His righteousness upon him and that the only action He could take was to stop trying to create His own Righteousness. Christ in you has to do the rest — not our own efforts — as our heart responds to His transforming love.

Anything else is a false gospel. It’s a demand we perform and that’s salvation by works.

TBO.com: AP Entertainment

A student at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College was charged in the theft of his roommate’s debit card, which was used to pay for more than $2,300 worth of calls to phone sex lines, prosecutors allege in court papers.

So, why is it that the most fundamentalist of establishments with the highest codes of morals and the most determined adherents to said code of law don’t even seem to be able to corral the behaviors on their naughty list — to say nothing about the rest of the behaviors they believe God winks at?

If we could manage to stop the behaviors we considered really bad, there maybe would be a case for legalism — we could worry about the rest later. But, we can’t — in fact, we usually manage a few of those behaviors at once. Holiness is a myth supported only by dividing our crimes and misdemeanors up into, “Really bad,” and, “Not so bad,” categories and then deluding ourselves into believing that we don’t actually commit the bad ones.

If we are going to have any holiness, it’s gonna have to be a gift straight from God. Of course, that gift was already given — freely, without strings attached and without threat of having it rescinded for our bad behaviors because the law that defined bad behaviors — well, it doesn’t apply to dead people: people who have already died with Christ.

That would be you — if you are His…

But then, if you are His, that means you can never again estimate yourself in degrees of righteousness or perversion. You can never again stand in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and erect fences of law to keep you from facing your fears. You will have to go out there, stand so naked, unrestrictedly free and exposed in such a dangerously wide open world that you would die without a hand so much greater then your own to hold.

Of course, while holding that hand, you are a lot less likely to walk into those places where you hung out before — those places where your anthropology was so brutally eroded while you thought you were having fun — but the improvement in your ethics really isn’t especially relevant. It isn’t about that anymore. It’s about being His.

The Rewards of Spending More Time with Your Children: Living on One Income - Is It Possible?:

“Barron’s estimates that 80 percent of a woman’s salary goes for taxes, child care and other work-related expenses. Barron’s concludes: “By the time she pays for everything from pantyhose to transportation - sometimes in the form of a second car - working could become an expensive hobby.”

Nearly 50 percent of school-aged children in America don’t come home to Mom or Dad. They’re either on their own or in the care of a third party.”

CANOE — CNEWS - Canada

Club Eden, which opened just last weekend, is a so-called “on-premises” club, which means private and shared rooms are available for members. Other clubs typically meet in hotel rooms or private homes.

The Supreme Court decision allowed Club Eden and others like it to stop being so discreet about what’s been going on behind their closed doors - and to try to open people’s minds at the same time, Fox said.

“There’s a lot of perceptions about (the swinging community). One of the things we’re trying hard to do is to eliminate the negative perspective that does surround it and really bring forward the positive.”

Well, we all knew it was exploding — now someone finally confirms it. What is really striking to me is that one of the key motivations — latent same sex attractions — is largely being ignored in favor of simplistic assessments of repressive society keeping people in the closet. (Exactly the same logic used in the late 70’s and early 80’s with homosexuality/lesbianism proper.)

Focus on Your Child: Who Will Carry the Mommy?:

“I finally laid eyes on him after he was all bundled and clean, the most beautiful, swollen little face I’d ever seen. I strained against the contraptions attached to my arm, trying to feel my son’s skin as my husband held him close to my hand. The anesthesiologist - taking pity on me - finally lowered my precious blue bundle over my head so I could feel his breath and kiss his nose for just a moment before he was whisked away for the remainder of my surgery. Not quite the glorious and earthy transition into motherhood I had imagined after logging no less than 20 episodes of the Learning Channel’s A Baby Story but it was good enough. And I soon discovered the emergency c-section is quite a trump card when swapping delivery stories with other moms! (My wise mother once said ‘nobody gets a badge’ for who has the most labor pain and agony.) Yes, the best and only reward anyone can hope for is to go home with a healthy baby, and by the grace of God I did just that.”

This is a great heart article, except the part about sin. It shows why mum need to be carried as well. It seemed like she was writing a lot of my story, except the grace of the wonder of the girls/discoveries. Mother’s need God to tell them IT IS FINISHED in terms of sin. The guilt is crippling when it comes to raising children.

Enjoying Nature With Kids: Faith Lesson from the Butterfly:

” Martin Luther once said, ‘The promise of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was not written in books alone, but in every bud at springtime.’ [paraphrase] One example of nature that can help your child understand rebirth and the resurrection is simply the metamorphosis that numerous insects go through in particular, the butterfly (a transformation that mankind can still not explain). Here we have a creature that starts its life as an egg, hatches into a sort of wormlike sluggish caterpillar, hangs itself upside down, splits its skin and then goes into a hard shell. Inside the shell all its organs and muscles break down into liquid. If you break one open, you will see nothing but a colorful liquid. Eventually everything reassembles itself and a beautiful, winged creature breaks out. Consider collecting a caterpillar with your child in your own backyard and help him rear the caterpillar into a butterfly. Take this opportunity to share with your child about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and how He makes us a “new creature” when we are reborn. “

In the Meantime: What to Do While Waiting on God:

“Be reasonable. My friend Danny didn’t date much. Plenty of girls were interested, but he could never find what he was looking for. You know, a rich supermodel whose only dream in life was to serve him? There was no room for distinctiveness; everyone who didn’t fit his mental picture was flawed. It behooves us to ask ourselves, Am I looking for someone perfect, or for someone who eccentricities and all is good for me? But don’t compromise. Funny what loneliness can do. People with whom we have nothing in common - and sometimes hardly like - are suddenly attractive. We can even convince ourselves it’s unreasonable for God to make us wait for physical pleasure. But anytime we push ahead of Him, either by trying to force a dubious relationship or misplacing our moral compass, we’re like the Prodigal, sifting through slop when we could revel in riches down the road.”

This is an amazing article on the voices singles hear as I heard them. It offers suggestions of choosing LIFE during this season.

Focus on the Family Magazine: Talking Your Way Out of Trouble:

“Prayer is one of the most useful tools to save and strengthen your marriage.’ After the session, Meagan asked what I meant. I explained that when a husband and wife are at the end of their rope, one of the best things they can do is pray together. It can restore intimacy and bring healing in ways that nothing else can. Praying together allows a spouse to see inside the heart. We discussed the practical aspects of how prayer could be applied to their marriage. The next morning, Meagan and Jeff walked into the seminar together. Something was different. The couple who seemed hopeless the day before were holding hands and interacting pleasantly.”

Praying together helps restore/foster harmony.

Los Angeles Times

Rosenbaum found that 52% of those who said they had signed virginity pledges had had sex within a year. And of those who had sex after telling the first interviewers they had taken the pledge, 73% denied in the second interview having made the pledge.

Ok, this is too much fun to pass up: Not only is this just one more evidence that the law never made anyone holy, it’s also proof that it isn’t even very memorable…

Husbands and Wives: He’s Driving Me Crazy!:

“What’s your husband’s most annoying habit? Is it the way he slurps his cereal or cracks his knuckles? Is it the way he breathes, as one woman actually complained?

The longer you’ve been married, the longer your list of pet peeves is bound to be. It’s not so much that your spouse has added more bad habits over the years, but simply that the ones that were easy to put up with in the early days of your marriage have gradually eaten away at your nerves. Now they’ve reached that really tender spot that makes you yell ‘Ouch!’ - and the honeymoon Novocain has worn off.”

This article is good as it discusses the seasons of most marriages to give compassion. However if one sees the annoying habits of the spouse as an opportunity to be thankful for the chance to give grace, our love may be built up with one another.

Husbands and Wives: What I Didn’t Know About Men:

“Surface Understanding #3: Men are providers. What that means in practice: Even if you personally made enough income to support the family’s lifestyle, it would make no difference to the mental burden he feels to provide.

Surface Understanding #4: Men want more sex. What That Means in Practice: Your sexual desire for your husband profoundly affects his sense of well-being and confidence in all areas of life.

Surface Understanding #5: Men are visual. What that means in practice: Even happily married men struggle with being pulled toward live and recollected images of other women.

Surface Understanding #6: Men are unromantic clods. What that means in practice: Actually, most men enjoy romance (sometimes in different ways) and want to be romantic - but hesitate because they doubt they can succeed.

Surface Understanding #7: Men care about appearance. What that means in practice: You don’t need to be a size 3, but your man does need to see you making the effort to take care of yourself - and he will take on significant cost or inconvenience in order to support you.

The more we understand the men in our lives, the better we can support and love them in the way they need to be loved.”

This article is good if one sees it as a way to choose life rather than change ourselves. God has already do that work. We just need to live it.