Session Notes

Dutch News, Expatica

If you find this bookkeeping mentality hard to accept in the face of the threats she faces, you’re in good company. Salman Rushdie has warned the Dutch prime Minister that this could turn into an international scandal for The Netherlands. TIME Magazine has nominated Ayaan as one of the world’s most influential people. She has become an international icon in the fight to liberate women, whether you like her or not.

Yes, she is very outspoken and critical of her former religion. I am sure that some Muslims found her film ‘Submission’ extremely upsetting. But many Christians found ‘Life of Brian’ or the ‘Last Temptation of Christ’ deeply insulting. They did not however murder the producer or try to assassinate the writer. Violence, or the threat of it, undermines everything we hold dear. When we allow terrorists to dictate what a person can say, they win.

One of the most striking things about this article is not what is said but what is not said. Here you have a government (ostensibly a democratic one that claims to stand for freedom of speech and the rights of women) which is home to a woman who has vocally supported such against incredible odds and at the potential cost of her life. It’s also a government that is busy debating the limits of it’s responsibilities to defend those who actually exercise that responsibility from those who would assassinate her for doing so.

What exactly does a government exist for to begin with? Yes, it may do wonderful social services but a government fundamentally exists to define and defend a free society based on the rule of law wherein there is the potential for virtue to be grown by the unifying forces of that society — usually religion or education/philosophy. This government is busy debating if the cost of defending a free person from an islamofascist tyrant takes away from other programs it would rather spend the money on.

What is striking about this story is that the one question which is never asked is if a government that would seriously debate whether there are time limits on the protection of freedom against tyranny isn’t, in and of itself, proof positive that post-modern stupidity has already ensured that the fundamentalist psychos will win in that country?

MapsOfWar.com

Ok, this is brilliant. From a technical point of view, this is the best use of multimedia technologies to teach history I’ve seen in a long time. Learn more in a few min then you have ever understood about world religions.

From a religious/geo-political point of view, this is one of the fastest ways to gain understanding of the entire Middle East and European situation (with respect to Islam) ever produced. Once you understand the development patterns, all that is further needed to grasp the tension is a minimalist awareness of a religion that teaches that those who fail to convert must be killed and the entire mess makes sense.

Note: Will require Flash plug-in.

BTW: anyone who is going to email to tell me that Islam is a religion of peace should take note of the following:

“Islam spread by means of proof and evidence to those who listened to the message and responded to it, and it spread by means of force and the sword to those who were stubborn and arrogant, until they were overwhelmed and became no longer stubborn, and submitted to that reality.” Sayed Qutb: Fiqh Al-Da’wa, 217-220 – Fatawa Al-Lajnah Al-Daaimah 12/14

“Know that paradise is under the shades of swords.,” Narrated by Bukhari, Vol.4, book 52, 73

“I have been ordered to fight people till they say, “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah”, and whoever says, “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah”, his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his reckoning will be with Allah, (either to punish him or forgive him). Narrated by Abu Huraira, Buchari, Vol.4, book 52, 196

wikiHow

How to Live a Good Christian Life This article will guide you in living a good Christian life. You will read about ways you can grow closer to God, ways to spread the faith, and some basic morals and ethics that God wants us to live by.

If you read over the comments and other sections you would find that this page is the result of a significant number of people working together to create what they all finally agree is the definitive statement on what it means to live a good Christian life.

It’s just annoying enough to be worth the time. Let’s take it apart:

1. Follow Jesus’ greatest commandment: Love God, love your neighbor and love yourself.

Jesus was restating the entirety of the law in one sentence — and demonstrating that no one gets there. Under the new covenant, this is what Jesus does in you — not something you attain via your own effort.

2. Acknowledge you’re a sinner and then repent. Realize that conversion is not simply one act but the beginning of a life-long struggle. Don’t be hard on yourself if and when you fail, pick yourself up and trust in God.

Little problem here, the Greek word for Repent means to experience a change of mind — it’s not about your behavior.

3. Read your Bible. You can really learn a lot from this.

Like the apostles read their Bibles — which were not yet written… When they talked about the, “Word of God,” they were talking about God talking, and them listening.

4. Spend time in prayer.

Nope — Jesus doesn’t want you on your knees — He wants to walk and talk with you all day every day — as a friend, not as a religious experience.

5. Try to see the perspectives of others, even if you personally disagree with them.

Now it’s starting to sound like a cross between a Miss Manners guide and Post-modernist ramblings — where is this in the Bible?

6. Be patient with people who anger you; work on trying to forgive those who may have hurt you. You must learn to love your enemies. God loves everyone, and we need to, also. Say farewell to selective loving. If you have a hard time loving your enemies, pray to God for help.

[Sarcasm]Yep, ’cause it’s all about my effort — rather then about what Christ does in me…[/Sarcasm]

7. Work and pray to the best of your abilities to help others.

That sentence doesn’t even make sense.

8. Treat others kindly as you would like to be treated. Even simple acts of kindness like holding a door open for someone are good deeds.

Nothing more then a restatement of #1 — and under the same heading.

9. Volunteer to help people. For example, you could take a shift at a soup kitchen near you, help with a Christmas effort to give gifts to the poor on Christmas, or visit a people staying in a nursing home.

Why oh why do we consider Mormons, J.W.’s and the like cults — we teach the same performance based religion… If Jesus doesn’t do it in me — then forget it. It ain’t happening…

10. Remain modest and remember that pride can be dangerous. Pride is said to be the mother of all sins, because pride resides in each one of us and the source of all of our sin is ourselves.

Oh, except, it seems there is a little problem of being given a new heart in place of the old one (which, yes, was desperately wicked) — and Paul was rather fond of calling us saints — not sinners…

11. Share your beliefs and spread the good news. Remember, living the Christian life through your actions will make others want to follow God. Always stick up for your beliefs.

So, let me get this straight: Being good — however I define that — and arguing with others (Who presumably don’t meet my expectations) is going to make people want to hang out with Jesus? (This is too easy — it’s like shooting fish in a barrel…)

12. Understand that Christians believe God said they would be persecuted for their beliefs, so do not allow others’ attacks to weaken your faith.

Truer words have never been spoken — freedom is always under persecution — from religion.

I think Steve McVey said it best in his book Grace Land when he said:

“The underlying foundation of all religion is performance – whether it’s a tribal dance around a campfire to satisfy the fire god, or a dead religious activity performed week after week by an evangelical Christian with the intent of impressing his God. It’s all religious performance, and God isn’t impressed by our performance. What impresses Him is faith.”

Blog-o-Fascists

Here’s something American media are virtually guaranteed to not report: a British court has determined that Al Gore’s schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth” contains at least eleven material falsehoods.

After all the years of any detractor to his Majesty Al Gore being burned at the stake of, “How dare you refuse to believe real scientists,” it seems that it has finally taken a court of law in England to force said scientific experts to hand over the real evidence. Considering DDT, the ozone hole (Based on a software glitch), global cooling, spotted owls, lizard protection (simply because of the 49th parallel makes them rare on one side) and other raw idiocy that defines environmental activism’s track record, it’s not surprising that Gore’s indisputable science also, inconveniently, turns out to be mostly fiction. The court has now forced English schools that wish to show this work of speculative fiction to their students to define it as such before and after showing it.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from being given a Nobel peace prize. It’s beginning to look a lot like none of these scientists really care at all about science — though they wrap themselves in it by the hour. They now have a champion and, not even proving him a liar can cancel his personality cult.

(Just remember this the next time someone tells you that, “Science says…”)

But, on to bigger things. We’re facing a crisis — if we do nothing, Al may continue torturing us with junk science movies for years to come — something must be done — the sanity of the free world rests on it. Any ideas?

Wait, I’ve got it — let’s make him president!

Q&A: Did Paul write this letter to unbelievers, too?:

“But he made no mistake about those who were born of the Spirit and had the mind of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, where Paul could have slammed the believers for their sinning (because they were indeed manifesting many of the things he mentioned) he instead says this incredible thing, ”And such WERE some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.“ Remember what Paul had said near the beginning of the letter? ”For I determined to know NOTHING AMONG YOU EXCEPT CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED.“ (1 Cor 2:2). He brought up examples of their day-to-day existence to tie it in with the mindset of the world so that they would be shaken from their stupor! These believers were having an identity crisis!! (Our brother) is correct in saying that, ”ALL Believers by birthright, love the Lord“.”

This is an incredible article on not letting the wisdom of the world/religion DULL THE REALITY OF THE NEW MIRACULOUS WORK OF JESUS/LOVE IN THEM FOR BELIEVERS . WE ARE JUST TO FOCUS ON HIM AND NOT SIN. This is my prayer. Amen.

womensenews.org

Now, Davis and other local sex workers have banded together to establish Canada’s first cooperative brothel in an attempt to offer women a safe place to work.

The group, formed by a sex workers’ alliance based here, called the British Columbia Coalition of Experiential Women, will incorporate next month and is already setting the groundwork to open the co-op brothel.

Members have begun scouting for a location and are enlisting the backing of local businesses, police and labor organizations.

Faced with the task of cleaning up the city to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver authorities said they are open to the idea.

“We would be willing to explore anything that . . . would be helping the situation of sex trade workers, and make it safer for them and make it better for the community,” said Vancouver police spokesperson Howard Chow. He noted one requirement: “It has to be something that is lawful.”

So, let’s see: we’ll take an abuse of women that clearly is also a social blight, mix in the idea of creating a central edifice for it and then ice it with a thin veneer of socialist yammering about cooperative business being a wonderful thing. Take this lovely cake and get an idiot police spokesman to endorse it — now there, don’t we have a warm fuzzy story to tell our children about social progress?

Or, we could endorse the idea, get all the sex trade workers in there and arrest them. Then put in a whole raft of plain cloths officers posing as hookers and arrest all the Johns too. Get a judge to sentence the lot of them to treatment. Find two deserted patches of forest somewhere, set up a bunch of oilfield camp trailers, bring in the therapists and get to work on actually fixing the problem.

Naw, the warm fuzzy stories are more fun…

Q&A: How do I know my questions aren’t from having “itchy ears”?:

“ Most who hang with me STILL have a lot of personal differences, but we have discovered that those things are not the reason why we are one in Christ and so it is ok to not have to resolve everything. Heck, most of it just kinda fades away in view of the life that we have our eyes open to. Those who turn away do so because of a desire for something OTHER THAN CHRIST. It is so sad to see this happen, but it happens often. Your desires are obvious. You got beat up by man’s religion and finally realized that you couldn’t do or be what they preached. I’ll bet you also realized that those who were doing the preaching weren’t meeting up to the standards they preached! So, if it doesn’t work for the preacher why would you think it’ll work for you? This is how the law operates. It’ll tear you up and spit you out and you’ll go back for more until you finally break. Then the good news sounds FANTASTIC! As it should.

”

This is an encouraging article on only focusing on Jesus and His sufficiency. It is not about being stimulated intellectually enough or being recognized for doing good enough, especially in churches. This is true love and acceptance. It enables us to stay in relationships even though we are different.

Canada.com

CALGARY – Officials at a Calgary church have admitted they were aware of an allegation of wrongdoing against an adult volunteer at his previous church but allowed him to continue working in youth programs under increased supervision for two years.

Police have charged the volunteer with sexually abusing three girls under the age of 14 at Centre Street Church.

According to a statement made by Brian Spiers of Westview Baptist Church during Sunday morning services, church staff investigated the allegations against the volunteer but found no corroborating evidence. As a result, the man was permitted to continue working in church programs.

“Unproven allegations are very difficult for a church to deal with,” said Dayle Medgett, senior pastor of Westview church, after the service.

Although officials declined to comment on the nature of the allegation or how they learned about it, they said the man worked for three years as a missions co-ordinator and parent volunteer in the youth program – but was never alone with children.

Medgett said upon learning of the allegation the church placed the volunteer under “increased accountability conditions.”

This happens to be going on in Calgary — but it could be anywhere. If it’s happened once, it’s happened a thousand times:

Person is in, “Ministry,” in a church, so many are creeped out by his actions, church does some sort of due dilligence via. police checks, nothing is found, person continues ministry/abusing until there is a huge blast radius, everyone pleads innocent claiming there was no proof and the lawyers pick over the remains.

Of course, for years I’ve spoken in one church after another addressing so many different areas of brokenness — and so many of them have responded with the same assumption, “It’s so good someone is helping the sexually broken — but we don’t have that problem here.” (Many times I’ve actually had a couple of their members in one program or another at that very instant…)

Problem is, few of those broken ones stayed in their churches. It’s not that they abandoned their faiths — but it is a departure from church. Not just that church — the institutional church in general. They have become part of the emerging or emergent church and their church is now a home group somewhere. And, the pollsters are very clear on this one: They are NOT coming back.

With their departure, the institutional church lost their first and last line of defense — a broken-and-now-healed-one who can move in on a clear and present danger like the above mentioned individual and bust them — hard. The old saying that it, “Takes one to know one,” has never been more accurate.

It’s kinda like the gun argument in the USA. (When you finally outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.) When we finally get the last broken-and-seeking-to-be-healed person out of your church, you will only have the predators remaining.

“But wait,” you say, “We never ran the broken out of our church.” Yes, you did.

When the Gospel of grace and freedom was exchanged for a gospel of rules, when ethics became the standard and control became the means, when you embraced some 12 step model of performance in place of the healing Christ has to offer, when fear and shame was allowed to sneak back into the one place on Earth Christ created to be free from it, when you allowed your 50yr veteran little-old-lady-babes-of-legalism-in-Christ to stand in condemnation of one broken heart (thus letting it stand as a warning to others), when you allowed some paranoid lawyer on your church board to tie the entire group up in a knot over the liability issues surrounding having a program of healing in your church, when you had the stunning arrogance to forget that your job was to introduce people to Jesus and then teach them to listen to His voice alone, you ran the broken out.

To Center Street’s rather significant credit, they seem to have had at least enough wounded healers remaining to eventually make it hot enough for the abuser in question — so he left. That’s remarkable for a church these days. Perhaps it was soon enough to keep the wolves from gathering.

In most other cases, the only hope is that lawyer…

Frederica.com

The idea of returning to an era of young marriage still seems daunting, for good reason. It is not just a matter of tying the knot between dreamy-eyed 18-year-olds and tossing them out into world. Our ancestors were able to marry young because they were surrounded by a network of support enabling that step.

Young people are not intrinsically incompetent, but they do still have lots of learning to do, just like newly-weds of any age. In generations past a young couple would be surrounded by family and friends who could guide and support them, not just in navigating the shoals of new marriage, but also in the practical skills of making a family work, keeping a budget, repairing a leaky roof, changing a leaky diaper.It is not good for man to be alone; it’s not good for a young couple to be isolated, either.

In this era of extended education, couples who marry young will likely do so before finishing college, and that will require some sacrifices. They can’t expect to “have it all.” Of the three factors—living on their own, having babies, and both partners going to school full-time—something is going to have to give. But young marriage can succeed, as it always has, with the support of family and friends.

A rather refreshing example of rational thought in the rather polarized abstinence vs. contraception debate. Perhaps it’s finally time to admit that they both have failed, that (Barring forcible physical segregation) sex is going to happen and that our options are either young marriage or abortion?

I was 25 when we married and neither I nor Ros had yet finished Graduate school. It wasn’t easy — in fact it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I discovered just how fun it was to experience panic attacks and stress induced skin rashes — and, I’d do it again. I had to grow up in one all-fired hurry — but it eventually had to happen. It could have been a lot easier if our society didn’t think I was 5-7 years too young and actually had some supports in place.

My kids will likely be out of the house and in college before I’m 50 and, with the current progress of modern medicine, I might actually still be around by the time their kids have children. Show me the down side of that…

AOL News

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors’ expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter’s senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as “underage males.”

First we have Daddy telling them that God told him that he needs $8 million for Roberts’ university, or else he would be, “Called home.” Now we have his son and his son’s wife spending it — and they apparently are catching up… The apple truly has landed in a nice shady spot — right under the tree.

What is most striking to me is that this insane show should have been shut down twenty years ago when the first 8 million dollar lie was told. All the believers of North America would have had to do is stop giving. Roberts would have lived — and his little corner of a false gospel would have died.

Instead believers continued to flood this charlatan with money. Now they point in horror at the fruit of their refusal to think for themselves — aghast at the possibility that a man who so obviously serves a false god could violate their hearts and pocketbooks.

News flash Church: If the god you serve is leading you through fear, shame, judgment, condemnation, guilt, rejection or the iron fisted control of the law the real God died to free you from, then you are serving a false god and living under what Paul called, “Another gospel.” Not even the prophecies of the Old Testament (Jer 31:31 –> for example) would have endorsed this.

Bonno put it well when he stated, “The God I believe in is not short on cash…”

P.S.: Dr. Roberts, it’s time for you to meet again (For the very first time) the fruit of your loins and the fruit of an evil that would dare to defraud God — they’re now a package deal…