First, a couple how shall I say, not highlights but low-lights from the article.
1. Jim Wallis the white guilt so-called progressive so-called evangelical has pronounced Barak Obama a Christian and is helping him campaign.
2. Barak's faith is more communal and in terms of inequality read redistribution.
3. Barak's spiritual mentor saw everything in terms of black and white oppression and Barak was apparently estranged from his pastor and spiritual mentor at his mentor's death.
4. Barak's pastor mentor once told him if he won the primary he'd have to distance himself from his pastor, but my guess is this will be no problem for Barak because as recently as the late 80s Barak was being urged to be a Christian and join a church but refused. And he is eager to cheer those who want the church separated from politics and the State, unless they are of the more liberational theology sort (like Wallis and his alleged former pastor Wright).
5. Barak is a Christian but he doubts the existence of God and isn't big on miracles and wonders if there really is any afterlife and wonders if anything ever existed before the Big Bang. Christians can have doubts and thinking ones do, but they don't tend to let ones of this magnitude go without some word of witness to believing in the Creator, Redeemer, and Source of eternal life.
I'm guessing Jim Wallis and Barak Obama may need to coin a new kind of Christian for Barak, "the atheist-Christian". And perhaps they can coin a new one for Jim Wallis, 'the atheist Christian affirming evangelical'. That is real progressive! Or was that regressive?
The New York Times, Jim Wallis, and Rick Warren (apparently) on the faith of Obama.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/politics/30obama.html
Monday, April 30, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
After a 30+ year reign of deadly judicial fiats...a line.
In 1973 I was told Roe was just for the 1st trimester, then Bolton made it anytime for 'health' reasons defining health in the broadest (any reason) terms. Then Roe and Wade both became pro-life but no change in the law.
Then partial birth of sometimes viable children, then "treatment not to treat" newborns and a Presidential candidate flirting with infanticide. (Aside on viability: Weren't snowflake children, now viable children who were once frozen human embryos, adopted and brought to term, viable when they were frozen and living outside the mother's womb or does IVF only implant dead human embryos(?)...I'm confused a bit about viability. Not! They are viable and we are all confused as science brings for new understandings of viability.)
Finally a ban on partial birth abortion passes with a huge majority of both Houses supporting the ban and it gets a Presidential veto not just once from the champion of values, Bill Clinton. Ah but then George W. Bush gets it and signs it.
And activist, unaccountable justices challenge it for almost the full duration of W's administration. Finally the Supreme's hear it and apparently Scalia's low emotional EQ didn't frost the border-line Supremes and Kennedy flipped positions (frankly so should Souter!), and perhaps but not necessarily, compliments of Justice Robert's skill, reasoning, and higher emotional EQ than the otherwise brilliant Scalia.
And (drum roll please) the US Supreme Court rightly upholds the ban on partial birth abortion. One facebook group (and a pro-life one if you can believe it!) said if anyone was excited about this from either side that they were likely extremists! Well call me an extremist then. After over 30 years praying, working, lobbying, voting, informing, teaching, and praying some more, FINALLY a line has been drawn somewhere in the sand. Hopefully sand mixed with water and concrete.
Thank you George W. Bush, Congress, voters from both political parties who opposed partial birth abortion and United States Supreme Court. Thank you very much! I am excited. Yes. Thank you Jesus! Frankly I hope many will join me in being grateful. But keep on being discerning and engaged because the culture of death is not going to be happy until we are distributing abortion-causing, after-conception pills that were only politically nuanced through the FDA in the last couple years, performing tax-funded mass human embryo cloning, and allowing for hard-case, second-glance infanticide and such.
I expect to hear every hard case imaginable, real and mostly hypothetical soon. I'm sure we are going to hear from powerful personalities that promised to move to Canada if W was elected, that saving developed human children from being partially-birthed and the scissors inserted to the back of the head, brain sucking, skull breaking treatment is very bad and nearly the end of the world. But they are wrong.
The Supreme Court, majorities in both Houses, and President George W. Bush and the voters who elected him were right. I must confess that I do wonder what Hillary, Rudy, McCain, and Obama really think about this today.
I'm hoping if they are "personally opposed" (you know, like one might give favor to ones preference of a certain ice cream flavor) that they won't be wanting to push their privately held and frankly deadly views... But enough on the culture of death and their hereto unstoppable 30+ year reign of judicial fiats. This day is a really very wonderful day!
Then partial birth of sometimes viable children, then "treatment not to treat" newborns and a Presidential candidate flirting with infanticide. (Aside on viability: Weren't snowflake children, now viable children who were once frozen human embryos, adopted and brought to term, viable when they were frozen and living outside the mother's womb or does IVF only implant dead human embryos(?)...I'm confused a bit about viability. Not! They are viable and we are all confused as science brings for new understandings of viability.)
Finally a ban on partial birth abortion passes with a huge majority of both Houses supporting the ban and it gets a Presidential veto not just once from the champion of values, Bill Clinton. Ah but then George W. Bush gets it and signs it.
And activist, unaccountable justices challenge it for almost the full duration of W's administration. Finally the Supreme's hear it and apparently Scalia's low emotional EQ didn't frost the border-line Supremes and Kennedy flipped positions (frankly so should Souter!), and perhaps but not necessarily, compliments of Justice Robert's skill, reasoning, and higher emotional EQ than the otherwise brilliant Scalia.
And (drum roll please) the US Supreme Court rightly upholds the ban on partial birth abortion. One facebook group (and a pro-life one if you can believe it!) said if anyone was excited about this from either side that they were likely extremists! Well call me an extremist then. After over 30 years praying, working, lobbying, voting, informing, teaching, and praying some more, FINALLY a line has been drawn somewhere in the sand. Hopefully sand mixed with water and concrete.
Thank you George W. Bush, Congress, voters from both political parties who opposed partial birth abortion and United States Supreme Court. Thank you very much! I am excited. Yes. Thank you Jesus! Frankly I hope many will join me in being grateful. But keep on being discerning and engaged because the culture of death is not going to be happy until we are distributing abortion-causing, after-conception pills that were only politically nuanced through the FDA in the last couple years, performing tax-funded mass human embryo cloning, and allowing for hard-case, second-glance infanticide and such.
I expect to hear every hard case imaginable, real and mostly hypothetical soon. I'm sure we are going to hear from powerful personalities that promised to move to Canada if W was elected, that saving developed human children from being partially-birthed and the scissors inserted to the back of the head, brain sucking, skull breaking treatment is very bad and nearly the end of the world. But they are wrong.
The Supreme Court, majorities in both Houses, and President George W. Bush and the voters who elected him were right. I must confess that I do wonder what Hillary, Rudy, McCain, and Obama really think about this today.
I'm hoping if they are "personally opposed" (you know, like one might give favor to ones preference of a certain ice cream flavor) that they won't be wanting to push their privately held and frankly deadly views... But enough on the culture of death and their hereto unstoppable 30+ year reign of judicial fiats. This day is a really very wonderful day!
If you missed, you can still get some great stuff!
Did you miss the April 07 Graduate and Faculty Ministry retreat at the UW Madison? Too bad if you did ... But Wait...!
All the plenary sessions were digitally recorded and stream on the web or you can click & hold, or right-click them and download them to your mp3 player! Also all the handouts and powerpoints are up online as well! You may have missed the road trip, fellowship with colleagues, and the nice Spring weather and bomfire but the content is right here for you.
http://www.gfmuiuc.net/april07conference/Site/Audio.html
I would highly recommend the two sessions with Sharon Gartland and with Ric Ashley and the breakout with James Southard for men. The other breakout was good if you are interested in the new theology of Paul and Sanders and such but I recommend with some reservations as I had a significant amount of questions on this, but if you are into NT Wright and his thoughts on Sanders, you may well appreciate this session a lot, as well.
=== === === === === === === === === === ===
OK, but what awaits me? Check out this two page pdf brochure with Stanton L. Jones on "Sexual Ethics, Faith, and the University", in Toledo, OH., June 8-10, here http://mwgfm.org/images/June07GLE.pdf
That's it? No, there's more. July 12-14 in Kansas City, Missouri "Truth Under Deconstruction" with Paul Vitz, Norman Geisler, and J.P. Moreland here http://www.iics.com/
Faculty Conference. Cedar Campus. "In Thy light we see light" http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/event_item.php?id=816 Dr. Michael J. Murray (Philosophy), Dr. Daniel J. Trier (Theology), Dr. Steven Telian (Otolaryngology). June 16-22, 2007.
All the plenary sessions were digitally recorded and stream on the web or you can click & hold, or right-click them and download them to your mp3 player! Also all the handouts and powerpoints are up online as well! You may have missed the road trip, fellowship with colleagues, and the nice Spring weather and bomfire but the content is right here for you.
http://www.gfmuiuc.net/april07conference/Site/Audio.html
I would highly recommend the two sessions with Sharon Gartland and with Ric Ashley and the breakout with James Southard for men. The other breakout was good if you are interested in the new theology of Paul and Sanders and such but I recommend with some reservations as I had a significant amount of questions on this, but if you are into NT Wright and his thoughts on Sanders, you may well appreciate this session a lot, as well.
=== === === === === === === === === === ===
OK, but what awaits me? Check out this two page pdf brochure with Stanton L. Jones on "Sexual Ethics, Faith, and the University", in Toledo, OH., June 8-10, here http://mwgfm.org/images/June07GLE.pdf
That's it? No, there's more. July 12-14 in Kansas City, Missouri "Truth Under Deconstruction" with Paul Vitz, Norman Geisler, and J.P. Moreland here http://www.iics.com/
Faculty Conference. Cedar Campus. "In Thy light we see light" http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/event_item.php?id=816 Dr. Michael J. Murray (Philosophy), Dr. Daniel J. Trier (Theology), Dr. Steven Telian (Otolaryngology). June 16-22, 2007.
"Nexus: The Future of Healthcare, Science, and Humanity" Center for BioEthics and Human Dignity, July 12-14, 2007. http://www.cbhd.org/conferences/2007/index.htm Dr.Alvin Plantinga, Dr. David Prentice, Dr. Christina Bieber Lake, Joni Erickson Tada, Dr., Dr. Brent Waters, O.C. Snead J.D., Nigel Cameron.
OK, that's it. Have a great day and enjoy the fabulous resources from scholars with a living faith that influences their thinking, teaching, research, publishing, and public witness!
Monday, April 02, 2007
Zbigniew, Duke, Jimmy Carter, Yahoo's
Jimmy Carter's former head of national security Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke last week at Duke and a bigger scandal should have happened than the one Duke was exposed to most recently. The local paper reported on the speech here:
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-834412.cfm
Brzezinski said we need not assume that if we bailed out of Iraq today that there would have to be any blood-letting and stated that clearly such didn't happen when we pulled out of Vietnam. Ahem, It is good to remember why we don't want these elitists back in the White House.
No blood letting after we pulled out of Vietnam and no chaos in connecting countries? Such is the sort of 'left-nic cleansing' of the appeaser' s memory. Z-big-new, are you a brain dead ninny? Have you never heard of the Killing fields of Cambodia? Were you watching the 'Love Boat' when the news media briefly showed us the boat people fleeing murder, mayhem, and torture, favoring starvation or being eaten by sharks to their treatment under the surge of communist "liberators". Liberators of yours, Carter's, and Jane Fonda's ilk. Joined lately by Kerry, Murtha, Sheehan, and Pelossi.
Z-big-new, according to your and Jimmy Carter's worldview what exactly were these slaughtered lives then? Clearly if they were not humans experiencing bloodletting in your view, what were they! Were they just extra human embryos that were going to die anyway!? Were they sub-human and only "potential persons"!? Are you telling us not to worry, it all helped advance the glorious 'science' of population control and diminished the global warming at least from these human animals? Is this what you are telling us? Is this the Carter, Brzezinski, Murtha, Sheehan thinking and historical viewpoint? What loons! What a bunch of yahoos!
Zbigniew and Jimmy should have had an opportunity to sit where Daniel Pearl sat with the hooded men behind them and spin their near-absolute stupidity. The terrorists would have likely had a gut splitting laugh at their captive diplomat's near-lunatic loggings. Alas, only in the western media would such be quoted only with a sidebar question only. No snearing. No incredulous laughing out loud. No shaming the speaker or insider-mockery. No, when people of this ilk say such things we must seek first to understand. 'What could this mean?' or 'What must he have really meant?' or some polite benefit of the doubt, benefit of restrained incredulity. Why is this? He said it. He said it publicly. He has speech writers and screeners. He said it at a major university. He is a loon.
These two (Carter and Brzezinski, sounds like Lewinski...sort of) are silly and if we want to be gracious about it, let us just call it early senility. But please media and major universities, please don't embarrass them publicly by quoting them or interviewing them. Let them ride off into the Reagan sunset. They clearly will need help doing so as graciously as Reagan did. This is sad. Very sad if it weren't so pathetic. And very pathetic if it weren't feeding gun powder to the pitbull "peace at anyone elses' price" culture of death activists. OK, evil then.
Yahoo news today continues the nonsense with the headline that Iran sees hope in England's response to their (Iranian) illegal activities capturing and likely torturing the UK's Navy personnel and utilizing the captured in media propoganda footage. It is just so wonderful that Yahoo, like Duke, can report on such matters and make sure to give Iran the moral high ground along with Brzezinski and Carter, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan, military superstars Murtha and Kerry, and Pelossi and Kennedy and... Oops, I hurled my cookies.
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-834412.cfm
Brzezinski said we need not assume that if we bailed out of Iraq today that there would have to be any blood-letting and stated that clearly such didn't happen when we pulled out of Vietnam. Ahem, It is good to remember why we don't want these elitists back in the White House.
No blood letting after we pulled out of Vietnam and no chaos in connecting countries? Such is the sort of 'left-nic cleansing' of the appeaser' s memory. Z-big-new, are you a brain dead ninny? Have you never heard of the Killing fields of Cambodia? Were you watching the 'Love Boat' when the news media briefly showed us the boat people fleeing murder, mayhem, and torture, favoring starvation or being eaten by sharks to their treatment under the surge of communist "liberators". Liberators of yours, Carter's, and Jane Fonda's ilk. Joined lately by Kerry, Murtha, Sheehan, and Pelossi.
Z-big-new, according to your and Jimmy Carter's worldview what exactly were these slaughtered lives then? Clearly if they were not humans experiencing bloodletting in your view, what were they! Were they just extra human embryos that were going to die anyway!? Were they sub-human and only "potential persons"!? Are you telling us not to worry, it all helped advance the glorious 'science' of population control and diminished the global warming at least from these human animals? Is this what you are telling us? Is this the Carter, Brzezinski, Murtha, Sheehan thinking and historical viewpoint? What loons! What a bunch of yahoos!
Zbigniew and Jimmy should have had an opportunity to sit where Daniel Pearl sat with the hooded men behind them and spin their near-absolute stupidity. The terrorists would have likely had a gut splitting laugh at their captive diplomat's near-lunatic loggings. Alas, only in the western media would such be quoted only with a sidebar question only. No snearing. No incredulous laughing out loud. No shaming the speaker or insider-mockery. No, when people of this ilk say such things we must seek first to understand. 'What could this mean?' or 'What must he have really meant?' or some polite benefit of the doubt, benefit of restrained incredulity. Why is this? He said it. He said it publicly. He has speech writers and screeners. He said it at a major university. He is a loon.
These two (Carter and Brzezinski, sounds like Lewinski...sort of) are silly and if we want to be gracious about it, let us just call it early senility. But please media and major universities, please don't embarrass them publicly by quoting them or interviewing them. Let them ride off into the Reagan sunset. They clearly will need help doing so as graciously as Reagan did. This is sad. Very sad if it weren't so pathetic. And very pathetic if it weren't feeding gun powder to the pitbull "peace at anyone elses' price" culture of death activists. OK, evil then.
Yahoo news today continues the nonsense with the headline that Iran sees hope in England's response to their (Iranian) illegal activities capturing and likely torturing the UK's Navy personnel and utilizing the captured in media propoganda footage. It is just so wonderful that Yahoo, like Duke, can report on such matters and make sure to give Iran the moral high ground along with Brzezinski and Carter, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan, military superstars Murtha and Kerry, and Pelossi and Kennedy and... Oops, I hurled my cookies.
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