The article in Relevant magazine, entitled “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It,” cited several studies examining the sexual activity of single Christians. One of the biggest surprises was a December 2009 study, conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which included information on sexual activity.

While the study’s primary report did not explore religion, some additional analysis focusing on sexual activity and religious identification yielded this result: 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults (18 to 29) said that they have had sex – slightly less than 88 percent of unmarried adults, according to the teen pregnancy prevention organization.

Ok, contrary to the wide eyed wonder all over this one, none of this is exactly news. Actually it’s so well known as to be banal — and the stats are even worse in the more fundamentalist Evangelical states. But, few of said Evangelicals have the guts to ask the following question — much less two of them in one article:

Yet the article also asks a question that rarely comes up in discussions about abstinence movement. Relevant notes that in biblical times, people married earlier. The average age for marriage has been increasing in the U.S for the last 40 years.

Today, it’s not unusual to meet a Christian who is single at 30 – or 40 or 50, for that matter. So what do you tell them? Keep waiting?

Too bad none of them had the guts to answer it though…

Barna blames pastors for those oddly contradictory findings. Everyone hears, “Jesus is the answer. Embrace him. Say this little Sinner’s Prayer and keep coming back. It doesn’t work. People end up bored, burned out and empty,” he said. “They look at church and wonder, ‘Jesus died for this?”‘



The consequence, Barna said, is that, for every subgroup of religion, race, gender, age and region of the country, the important markers of religious connection are fracturing.

It’s so about time Barna returned to this subject!

What he’s really saying is that the whole,”Get saved. Get holy. Get busy.” story we’ve been fed for years isn’t selling anymore then the, “New calling God has for you to work in nursery – what was your name anyway?” routine worked. That people are tired of becoming an institutional support crew as a substitute for real community and have completely had it with formulaic religion and doctrine.

That’s the amazing and oh-so-welcome piece of this.

Unfortunately, there’s also a darker underbelly… The sad reality is that more and more are just giving up the search for it (or the longing to create it) and are settling for what the author is calling, “Designer,” but what is actually a complete freak-show of much greater levels of control and use/abuse.

That too is my view: that the GOP, deep down, is behaving as a religious movement, not as a political party, and a radical religious movement at that. Lofgren sees the “Prosperity Gospel” as a divine blessing for personal enrichment and minimal taxation (yes, that kind of Gospel is compatible with Rand, just not compatible with the actual Gospels); for military power (with a major emphasis on the punitive, interventionist God of the Old Testament); and for radical change and contempt for existing institutions (as a product of End-Times thinking, intensified after 9/11).

That’s how I explain the current GOP. It can only think in doctrines, because the alternative is living in a complicated, global, modern world they both do not understand and also despise. Taxes are therefore always bad. Government is never good. Foreign enemies must be pre-emptively attacked. Islam is not a religion. Climate change is an elite conspiracy to impoverish America. Terror suspects are terrorists. When Americans torture, it is not torture. When Christians murder, they are not Christians. And if you change your mind on any of these issues, you are a liberal, an apostate, and will be attacked.

Religion has replaced all of this, reordered it, and imbued the entire political-economic-religious package with zeal. And the zealous never compromise. They don’t even listen. Think of Michele Bachmann’s wide-eyed, Stepford stare as she waits for a questioner to finish before providing another pre-cooked doctrinal nugget. My fear – and it has building for a decade and a half, because I’ve seen this movement up-close from within and also on the front lines of the marriage wars – is that once one party becomes a church with unchangeable doctrines, and once it has supplanted respect for institutions and civility with the radical pursuit of timeless doctrines and hatred of governing institutions, then our democracy is in grave danger.

Ok, just for a min, ignore that Richard Dawkins is all over this like ugly on an ape. Ignore Sullivan himself and his attitudes as well. Just think about the message…

He’s right.

I spent my early childhood years mostly on the dark continent watching every imaginable form of political chaos and genocide take place. And I learned something: Democracy will not work everywhere. Democracy will only work where a population places greater allegiance in concepts like the rule of law, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, humanist care for the common good, reason, logic and all of the above are elevated over concepts like family and religion or ideology.

When a political party cheers for the death of a sick or foolish person who is ill because it fits their ideology, we’re already there.

Even if the death penalty were morally legitimate (and I think it isn’t), and even if we could be justifiably confident that every one of those 234 executed prisoners was actually guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced (and I think we can’t), it would still be grotesque to react to those executions with cheers and applause, as the audience did at this week’s Republican debate. Surely a mood of solemnity and regret would be more appropriate. These Republicans howling and hooting over executions are the kind who formerly reveled in seeing Christians thrown to the lions. The fact that they now have the effrontery to call themselves Christians only adds insult to injury (literally).

There are some videos that are so stark, some messages so telling and some heart attitudes so chillingly cold they tell their own story to any who has eyes to see such that no other comment is necessary.

Laws are not made because they are righteous. Laws are made because they advance somebody’s political career.

(It should be noted that these are words that don’t come from a rock-throwing masked guy, but from a professional politician in suit and tie.)

And this one:

I sometimes hear people claim that laws exist to be followed. These people are the most dangerous people who exist in a society. Tyranny is never upheld through law; it is upheld through thousands of bureaucrats that follow the letter of the law just because they believe in rules and law.

And then this one as well:

A society where people regard rules as general guidelines is a lot healthier for its neighbors and citizens alike than a society where laws and rules are enforced blindly and swiftly.

A little embarrassing that the Pirate Party seems to have a greater grasp of the – yes, pre-cross no less – teachings of Jesus then the church and the two North American nations that purportedly follow such…

Compliments of the inestimable wisdom of Bill Maher… Yes, he’s his usual profane self, he completely fails to grasp what Jesus was up to with The Sermon on the Mount and, he is still so very worth listening to.

Rather interesting that you can get a better grasp of the heart of Jesus out of an avowed pothead and atheist then you can out of your average pulpit on Sunday morning…

Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give ones money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nations poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.

While I can’t completely buy some of this (Jesus never condemned the rich simply for riches for example), the point is very well taken. Christianity has not been about the teachings of Jesus for a VERY long time. The trouble is, it has become about Conservative/Republican ideology to such a thorough degree the adherents of such actually think it is the teachings of Jesus. And, then it jaded the rest to such a degree that they have swung to such opposite and polarized positions that pretty much everyone hates Him. What used to be the territory of a few radicals:

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”
— Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian

well, now, it’s half of the internet. The result? No one is listening to the complexity of a message of freedom and socialism, personal productivity and group accountability and unconditional love that never compromises truth. And, no one is noticing that Jesus considered every society to be fundamentally screwed up and was unquestionably at war with ALL of the systems of this world.

"Father, thank you for this time we can share on Sunday morning with new friends," prayed Chris Fletcher, an emergency medical technician, part-time bartender and seminary student who has led this service every Sunday morning at Dunnigan’s Pub & Grub since last summer. "We’re getting to know you, and getting to know each other better."

Spending Sunday mornings in a bar sounds like an activity for those running from God. For this small group in a watering hole in Twin Harbors, about 160 miles northeast of Minneapolis, it’s about chasing God. It’s one unconventional place of worship around the country fostered by an evangelical movement known as "the emerging church."

"I feel closer to God here than I do at a conventional church," said Nelson, 56, a lifelong churchgoer who until recently could be found every Sunday morning in the pews at First Baptist Church nearby. "Jesus said we’re supposed to be a light to the world. What better place to do that than at a bar?"

Someone else to add to my list of heros!!!

Novelist Anne Rice, famous for her darkly seductive works such as Interview with the Vampire and The Witching Hour, announced this week via her Facebook page that she has decided to “quit” Christianity because of how the religion is increasingly being used to push anti-gay, anti-feminist and anti-science views.

Her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, has confirmed that this posting and subsequent comments were indeed written by Rice and not an impostor.

Novelist Rejects Christianity, Remains “Committed to Christ”
On Wednesday, Rice wrote the following on her Facebook page:

“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

She followed this with:

“As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Explaining herself further, Rice’s latest offering on her Facebook page emphasizes that her faith remains as strong as ever, but that it is the affiliation with some of the religion’s followers that has prompted her to redefine herself:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”

All I can say is, Man, have I ever thought that myself!!!!!!!

Isn’t it strange how secular society seems to get the Gospel so much better then the Church does??? We seem to only get this:

So much that the rest of society seems to be down on their knees screaming:

The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in the US and abroad was a matter of homosexuals preying on adolescent boys, not one of pedophilia, said the Vatican’s representative at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. It is “more correct” said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males, than pedophilia, in relation to the scandals.

“Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90 per cent belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17,” said Tomasi. His statement is backed up by a report commissioned by the US bishops that found that in the overwhelming majority of cases the clergy involved were homosexuals, with 81 percent of victims being adolescent males.

Ok, I’ve been waiting weeks for someone to finally go public with this reality: it’s not often I find myself supporting much that comes out of the Vatican — but this is brilliant — and, perhaps, hope for change…

(Yes, I fully recognize this guy is gonna get roasted alive for sheer political stupidity — but it’s not like I can’t relate to being such a driven truth-teller that I end up looking like a bull in a china shop myself. Yes, I realize that the latter part of the article is a whiny and pathetic attempt at deflection — but HE’S STILL TELLING THE TRUTH in the first part.)

Here’s what he is saying:

Accusing the Roman Catholic clergy of Pedophilia is actually letting them off the hook. The majority of the offenders are really gay and, in addition, they seem to lack the ability to relate even to other adult gay males.

Let me translate that for you:

The RC Church has, through celibacy, created a situation where men who struggle with sexual orientation seem to be inordinately selected for the clergy. It selects them simply by creating a place where they easily find that their lack of desire for members of the opposite sex will not come under scrutiny and will even be applauded.

But, it’s beyond even that…

The RC Church, through a system of alienation from normal society, has also created a situation which attracts those who are unable to properly relate to adult sexuality.

Ephebophilia is an attraction to adolescents or people in puberty. By itself, it has NOTHING to do with gays, or even men. Thus, what is really happening is that the RC Church has created a system which not only selects for Homosexuality, it also further down-selects for those who, largely, could only see themselves as exercising such towards 11-16yr old boys (and, thus, do not simply ignore the rules of the RC Church and have sex with other men.) In other words, a very rare breed indeed.

Ok, first, let’s get a few things on the table:

(1). His popeliness is in this — and in it up to his eyeballs:

The future Pope Benedict XVI took over the abuse case of an Arizona priest, then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood, according to church correspondence.

Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that in the 1990s, a church tribunal found that the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., had molested children as far back as the late 1970s. The panel deemed his behavior — including allegations that he abused boys in a confessional — almost “satanic.” The tribunal referred his case to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005.

But it took 12 years from the time Ratzinger assumed control of the case in a signed letter until Teta was formally removed from ministry, a step only the Vatican can take.

As abuse cases with the pontiff’s fingerprints mushroom, Teta’s case and that of another Arizona priest cast further doubt on the church’s insistence that the future pope played no role in shielding pedophiles.

An abuse hotline set up by the Catholic Church in Germany melted down on its first day of operation as more than 4,000 alleged victims of paedophile and violent priests called in to seek counselling and advice.

The numbers were far more than the handful of therapists assigned to deal with them could cope with.

In the end only 162 out of 4,459 callers were given advice before the system was shut down.

Andreas Zimmer, head of the project in the Bishopric of Trier, admitted that he wasn’t prepared for “that kind of an onslaught’.

(3). In the first article, the following statistics were published:

The vast plurality of Protestant churches in the US, numbering more than 224,000, including thousands of independent non-denominational groups, make the kind of organized tracking and recording of individual abuse cases as was done in the Catholic Church all but impossible. Nevertheless, some of the sex abuse cases in other religious communities have been documented piecemeal.

In June 2007, the Associated Press revealed that three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in the US said they receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members. Church Mutual Insurance Co., GuideOne Insurance Co. and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co., which insure 165,495 churches for liability against child sex abuse, emphasized that their figures did not always specify which cases were against minors and added that not all allegations were followed by convictions or even investigations.

National surveys by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR), a tax and legal-advice publisher serving more than 75,000 congregations and 1,000 denominational agencies, has also issued a report that found that child-abuse allegations against American Protestant churches averaged 70 per week since 1993, with a slight downward trend starting in 1997. The same report also found that among Protestant churches, volunteers are more likely than clergy or paid staff to be abusers.

Basically, the 70 per week number is meaningless headline mongering as no insurance company in the world would touch that sort of risk and 3 of them obviously have. But, we can trust the 260/yr figure — the insurance companies in question have a vested interest in maintaining the accuracy of those statements.

Of the approximately 350,000 churches in the US, only 5 per cent are Catholic. If we use the same reporting period (52yrs) the Catholics are using, scale by capita (in other words X .5) and then use 40% of that number to separate the actual numbers of Protestant clergy/staff abusing minors from volunteers/parishioners, we end up with a per capita comparison of 2740 : 10,667 of Protestant to Catholic abuse victims or 389% higher rate of abuse by Catholic Clergy. Protestant circles apparently have, per capita, even less VICTIMS then the RC Church has ABUSERS!!! (And few abusers only abuse once…)

The RC Church can rant all they like about this not being a problem of celibacy — but, apparently married people seem to not score as homosexuals with ephebophilia anywhere near as often as the celibate…

In other words, It’s already a huge problem, it’s been suppressed from the top and the lid (judging from their call center crash) is about to blow off of thousands more victims. There are only about 400,000 Catholic clergy worldwide. “1.5-5 percent” is not much of a defense – it’s actually a completely damning figure. Their own numbers really mean 6,000-20,000 abusing priests world wide — the majority of which their own stats say they have done nothing about. The occurrence of homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia in the general population is a tiny fraction of that. Honestly, if the Vatican decides to sell stock, I wouldn’t be buying any for the next few decades as the payouts are going to be mind blowing…

But, here’s the interesting part of all this — the hope inducing part:

For years, the general public has been screaming for the RC Church to do something about the problem of Pedophile priests. And, the RC Church has been responding with statements about how it is unfortunate that positions of power attract Pedophiles and with statements about plans for addressing that problem (And real action). That’s blatant denial. It’s the equivalent of saying: “We have a weasel problem in our hen house and all of our chickens are getting eaten. We need to erect an electrified bear fence to keep out large predators.”

What this rather whiny but still highly placed Vatican leader is really saying here is that the Church finally gets it, is admitting it and, hopefully is going to do something about it. Now, what is going to be interesting to see is if they attempt to put in place some band-aid screening test for homosexuals who struggle with ephebophilia or if someone at the top is finally going to grow a set of them and admit that the only sure way to select for non-homosexuals who are attracted to and can maintain healthy sexual and romantic relationships with adult members of the opposite sex is to make sure the priests are married — you know, kinda-sorta like Paul’s idea…

It’s not like we DON’T know that around 20% of them are already married and doing just fine… (Which, by the way, makes that 6,000-20,000 number all the more extreme…)

The actual transcript of what he had to say:

“It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject.”

There’s two aspects of this that grab me:

(1). Once again, a clever marketer uses the insulted outrage of Evangelical mouthpieces to make himself millions — and they still are too dense to figure out they are being used.

(2). He’s so dead right.

You know, here’s a mind blowing, revolutionary and never-before-thought-of idea for the entirety of Christendom: How about we take this guy’s advice? Let’s stop doing our required whining to make these people money, stand up and tell the truth about what it means to be free to really live the life Christ died to give us and then get in the faces of the religious right that would continue to preach a gospel of rules or raw stupidity (Or just kowtow to this silliness) and cease living lives of reactionary humiliation.

You know, sorta like that Jesus guy did???

Can you imagine if Jesus actually showed up for that service? The first-century Galilean apocalyptic radical is somehow transported through time and space ala Bill and Ted’s phone-booth, and he can understand English and has a social context for the gathering “in his name”…I imagine him fashioning a whip and driving people out of their seats saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of retards.”

Hopefully, after his mini-sermon Jesus mounts one of the mimes and beats him into submission… ’cause that would be awesome!

Ok, a client just gifted me this site today. My abs and throat already hurt from laughing and I’ve only been at it for 1/2 an hour.

What Evangelical Christendom most desperately needs is another 500 sites like this — sites run by people who stand up in what the true prophetic calling of Christ and His Church really is: the call to truth in the face of that which is SO overwhelmingly and pervasively, yes, “Retarded.”

Then, just maybe, the general public will start waking up, cut off the funding that keeps these people on the air and demand a real relationship with the living God.

Some very scary s**t is going down in Texas. Scarier than usual. “Repent Amarillo” is a rabid group of religious nuts—homegrown religious extremists of the conservative Christian variety—and they’re not just going after the gays.

But, then again, Pat Robertson is actually starting to look rather normal, sane and on page with Jesus — at least when compared with, “Repent Amarillo,” where ministering the love of Jesus now includes stalking and terrorizing swingers in Amarillo, Texas (until the group disbanded) — and now is about erasing the Episcopalians…

Ya, getting them all fired is certain to bring the gentle, kind and love starved swinging community to the real love of Jesus and the healthy community of believers they so deeply need…

The American Family Association, a religious right group, is urging that Tillikum Tilly, the killer whale that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando, be put down, preferably by stoning. Citing Tilly’s history of violent altercations, the group is slamming SeaWorld for not listening to Scripture in how to deal with the animal:

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” Exodus 21:28

However, the group is going further and laying the blame for the trainer’s death directly at the feet of Chuck Thompson, the curator in charge of animal behavior, because, according to Scripture, But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time,

“the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” Exodus 21:29

SeaWorld has no plans to execute Tilly.

And, we all hoped they would learn from Pat Robertson/Haiti…

But, I for one vote for it… but, they have to stand in the tank while throwing the stones…

Steve McVey:

“‘My feelings were aroused for him’ (5:4). That happened to us all when Jesus swept us off our feet and we trusted Him.

Don’t think it irreverent to view Christ in a romantic way. He is the One who calls us His bride. He is the One who wrote to us in terms of passion and romance. We simply respond to Him. ‘We love Him because He first love us’ (1 John 4:19). We didn’t initiate or set the pace for this relationship. He did. We have simply responded to His irresistible charm, affirming by faith, ‘My beloved is mine and I am His’ (Song of Solomon 2:16)! Like every new bride, our profession of faith in Him is nothing less than the thrilling realization that, ‘I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me’ (7:10, emphasis added)!

I didn’t imagine the idea of the dance as a literary metaphor to describe your relationship to Him. That is how He described it. In Zephaniah 3:17, the Bible says, ‘He will exult over you with joy’ (emphasis added). Strong’s Concordance defines the word ‘exult’(sometimes translated ‘rejoice’) in the following way: ‘To spin around under the influence of a violent emotion.’

One character quipped, ‘I grew up in a church where we were taught that premarital sex was wrong because it might lead to dancing, and now you tell me that the Lord dances over me??’ It’s true, He does. The love of Jesus Christ for you is not just a ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ kind of love. It is a love filled with passion. It is a love that caused your Prince Charming to wield His sword (of the Spirit) and fight the dragon (the devil, see Revelation 12:9) for you!

His love for you is great! One might say that the love of Jesus for you could be X-rated, not because of impurity, but because of intensity. Does that idea make you feel uncomfortable? It shouldn’t, because He really does love you with an intensity beyond human comprehension. You are the pearl of great price for which He paid everything He owned in order to possess you. (See Matthew 13:45-46)

I pray this love for us/clients/schools/the world in all our intimate relationships, especially receiving it from our Father/Mother God.

“Relax, and enjoy your journey. Rest in your Father’s sovereignty. Your life is an adventure, planned and performed by Him. We grow weary when we try to do what He alone can do. It is through our trials that He will lift our controlling need to be in charge. We must see that we are not in charge, but God alone determines and controls the unfolding of our destiny. Control is an arena for which we are not suited. Our Father, on the other hand, is perfectly suited for that role. So let go. Lay down your life for His sake and you will find it. Cling to your own life and you will lose it. Zoe (an authentic, abundant life) is yours. Don’t forfeit it for bios (biological life, mundane existence). If that is your deep desire, join in heartfelt agreement with this prayer: Father, move in me and through me to lay down my agenda and my control and trust You alone. Thank you that You will complete the work you have begun in me. I yield my circumstances to You and ask You to teach me to trust You more through all of it. Bring me to maturity, according to Your plan.”

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL ARTICLES!!! I PRAY WWHEN WE, OUR FAMILIES, FRIENDS, CLIENTS, SCHOOLS, AND WORLD FEEL BROKEN HEARTED THAT WE REST to feel content in all circumstances according to HIS PLAN.

” until we receive glorified bodies, we each possess the power of indwelling sin in our bodies. (See Romans 7:21-23) As we trust Christ at each moment, His life empowers us to walk in victory. However, when we fail to depend on Him, we yield ourselves to the power of sin.”

The is a very good article on God revealing healing. However it needs to be read in light of Jesus taking away sin and it’s power by us being open to it/Him by faith. May it be so that we depend of Jesus every moment to experience the victory.

“hen we feel nothing, God’s grace shines brightest. It’s one thing to trust Him when everything is going our way, but when circumstances close in on us, trusting Him is evidence of supernatural grace flowing through us. Do you find yourself not feeling the ‘joy of the Lord’ the way you want? If so, be assured you’re at a place where the current of grace can run deeper and wider than usual in you. Whether you feel His presence or not, just trust Him. Be assured that He knows the path you are walking and He is quietly walking it with you. Cling to Jesus and know that the Sun will shine again for one simple reason – Great is His faithfulness.  ”

I pray the spirit would teach us/the world the comfort of His grace in our painful times.

At least nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, says a new report. And premarital sex isn’t new — the high rates include the sexual habits of women born in the 1940s, challenging the idea that sexual behaviors used to be more restrained.Sex has apparently become something of a young American habit. “It’s hard to stop the evolution of that urge,” said Judy Kuriansky, a sex therapist, media personality and adjunct professor of psychology at Columbia University Teachers College in New York.The report, published by the private Guttmacher Institute in New York, challenges the thinking behind government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

So to summarize, everyone is having premarital sex. All the Christians are having premarital sex too — even those subjected to purity balls and purity rings. In fact, it matters not at all what race, sex or religion the persons hold, they are all having every sort of sex and the only reason they are not having babies all over the place is that, in spite of the US government and abstinence education, more and more of them have figured out contraception.

Oh ya, and 5% of Americans apparently lie on anonymous surveys about having sex…

“Do you say too much, too often? If so, pray for God’s grace to flow through your actions in such a way as to cause you to know when to say nothing and then enable you to do it. Sometimes grace never looks better than when it enable us to simply shut-up.  ”

This is a great article! After being frustrated with not being able to communicate and completely know the truth of Jesus taking away our/the world’s sin now, I told God. He said I do not have to say anything, IT IS JUST HIS SPIRIT!!! “Well then Spirit teach and enable me/other believers to sense when to Shut Up!!!”

On Wednesday, an Ottawa official named Athanasios Hadjis quietly announced that section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, popularly known as the hate-speech law, will no longer be enforced.

The law prohibits the transmission on telephone or Internet of “any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt” on the basis of “race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted.”

Mr. Hadjis is an adjudicator with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which rules on discrimination cases. While he is not a judge, and therefore can’t strike down a law, he is the main gatekeeper for the hate-speech law, and his decision was bold.

“I have concluded,” he said, that the law is unconstitutional under 2(b) of the Charter of Rights, which guarantees freedom of thought, opinion and expression. As a result, he declared that “I will simply refuse to apply these provisions” to the hate-speech case he was judging, and by extension to any future cases.

Suddenly, the place known as the public sphere looks very different. For the past three decades, Canada has tried to keep it clean and neutral by preventing the appearance of the sorts of words and images that are linked to discriminatory actions. Kathleen Mahoney, a University of Calgary law professor who advocates such laws, boasts that Canada has more laws limiting harmful speech than any other country.

But there is a strong sense, even if Mr. Hadjis’s decision is overturned by the Supreme Court, that the era of hate-speech laws is coming to an end.

First, in practical terms, hate-speech laws have failed. Attacks on people based on religion or skin colour remain rare but occasional crimes in Canada, but their prevalence hasn’t been affected one way or another by outlawing hateful speech.

So very seldom does anyone connected to anything of government manage to get anything right, even the slightest touch of reason deserves to be applauded. But this, this is so far beyond just a touch of reason!!!

The psychology under it is actually very similar to claims of school uniforms eliminating gang violence in schools. If you actually look at the violence stats before and after the requirement of uniforms is in place at an institution, you find the exact same levels of violence — but no one can identify if a perpetrator of violence was a gang member or not. Thus the violent act is simply listed as violence and not attributed to a gang.

Laws intended to stop the speech of those who are inherently criminal will do almost nothing to arrest their behaviors (and it is almost always the behaviors that pose the threat.) All silencing them does is hide them from view. The problem is that, then, those same laws are used to also silence those with no criminal intent.

If there is ever a set of otherwise useless laws that have been used to suppress truth and cancel debate, it’s hate laws. They have been used to fine religious leaders speaking out against abortion. They have been used to destroy therapists who would treat politically correct disorders some do not want healed. They have been used to force religious institutions to hire those who do not support their views and they nearly canceled the degrees of hundreds of teachers who believed homosexuality should not be promoted. That’s not the elimination of hate — that’s reverse discrimination — politically correct hate against those who would stand in the public square and speak..

Personally, I WANT every wack job, hate monger, lunatic and predator to have the right to stand on the public street corner of the internet and shout their vile proclamations at the top of their digital lungs. It’s when your enemy goes silent that you know you are in trouble anyway and I WANT to know exactly where the problems are…

I want to watch them stand there toe-to-toe with every other idea and have to defend themselves from all the other people now free to speak and/or call them idiots…

I also WANT the ranks of the politically correct to have to stand up and defend the oh-so-sacred ideas they hold dear (Because I’m gonna to enjoy watching a lot of them start looking pretty silly..)

By some miracle, even the human rights commission agrees that we’re finally big enough boys and girls to be able to talk to each other — or at least have the right to go make some popcorn and watch the fireworks go down.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire

Voltaire APPLAUDS

Christian parents who objected to their children being taught about other religions in a mandatory new Quebec school course have suffered a serious setback with a ruling this week that the teachings do not infringe their religious freedoms.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-Guy Dubois dismissed a bid by parents in Drummondville, Que., who said the course on ethics and religious culture introduced across the province last year was undermining their efforts to instill Christian faith in their children.

“In light of all the evidence presented, the court does not see how the … course limits the plaintiff’s freedom of conscience and of religion for the children when it provides an overall presentation of various religions without obliging the children to adhere to them,” Judge Dubois wrote.

Step #1: Schools and the governments that back them all over North America throw their lot in with secularization and toss religion out of schools. The backing belief is that our society needs freedom of religion — and such freedom demands a secular state that supports all religions equally and promotes none of them.

Church response: “Help, we’re being oppressed!!! You have taken God out of the classroom and our children are becoming secular humanists.”

Step #2: Those same school systems and governments realize that religion is a critical part of society and the ability to understand those religions usually means less killing of the members of such. As such, they introduce a fair and balanced program that promotes none of those religions but simply teaches the facts about them.

Church response: “Help, we’re being oppressed!!! You are indoctrinating our children with other religions…” (Then they sue the school board…)

Step #2: Judge comes back with a well reasoned response saying that learning about world religions is not the same thing as promoting them — and tells them to go away and shut up.

Church response: “Help, we’re being oppressed!!! You are infringing on our rights to form our children’s faith development and we’re gonna sue you some more…”

Humm, so, let me get this straight: The only way a free society which values general human rights can avoid treading on your specific rights is to teach every student in every school only about your religion… Thus, your snowflake’s little minds can remain properly ignorant I mean pure, undefiled and Godly.

Sounds to me like the veil just got ripped back on a plan for a totalitarian theocracy — not the freedom Jesus died to bring.

It may actually be rather pivotal though… We finally get the chance to see Fundamentalist Evangelicalism and Catholicism admitting their hatred of that freedom and acknowledging what they really wanted all along:

Control.

Pivotal, because at least truth provides a foundation for change…

“As is God¡¯s customary way of working, He began to show His answers when I came to the end of myself. I had wanted Him to show me how to motivate the people. He had other plans. He had been wanting to do a deeper work in me which would transform first my own life, then my ministry. This night of despair became the doorway through which God brought me to bring me into an arena of grace like I had never known. In the days to follow the Lord began to reveal truths to me about walking in grace which radically changed the way I understood and did ministry. Before my church became a grace filled ministry, it was necessary for God to cause me to become a grace filled pastor. That began to happen as a couple of truths were deposited deeply into me by the Holy Spirit. ¡ö Christ is life, not ministry. For 17 years, if you had asked me who I am I would have answered, ¡°I am a preacher.¡± My sense of identity came from my role. In reality, that isn¡¯t who I am but is only what I do. Who I am is a child of God who shares the very life of Jesus Christ. This may sound like a minor distinction, but beginning to see myself first and foremost as a man consumed with Jesus caused ministry to flow from me in a way I had never known. Focusing on ministry produces religious activity, but understanding our union with Christ will cause one to experience an outflow of divine life. ¡ö Success comes through a Person, not a performance. I believed that success in ministry meant measurable progress. While there is certainly nothing wrong with results which are measurable, I have come to believe that real success comes as we abide in Jesus Christ and allow Him to continually express His life through us. That may or may not always produce results which look impressive. Was John successful on Patmos? Was Paul successful while in the Philippian jail? Was Jesus successful when he hung dying on a cross? God measures success differently from contemporary society. Grace Filled Churches As God continued to work the truths of this new grace walk deep into me, I began to see a change in the life of my church. As I changed, they began to change too. It wasn¡¯t unlike what happens in a marriage when God begins to do a deep work in the husband and the wife responds as she sees the Holy Spirit work in him. Church life began to be different in two ways.”

This is an incredibly inspiring article on the way motivation really occurs, esp in churches. I disagree with some of the “trying” words, but it clearly says the leader/counsellor is Jesus. May it be so for us, our families, friends, our practice and the world.

A set of resources definitely worth noting.

All but Richard Rohr are relationship focused New Covenant theologians. (Rohr is more of a mystic in search of experience but he does, to some level, get grace.)

Steve McVey is very good and I’m rather fond of hijacking his quotes — but needs to be read carefully as he still has some thinking about sin that needs transformation…

This guy should also be added to the list — thanks Kathy!