Category Archives: Christianity

by | January 10, 2014 · 2:01 pm

2014 World Watch List

Pray for the persecuted

The annual World Watch List ranks countries by the intensity of persecution that Christians face for demonstrating their faith in all spheres of life – private, family, community, national and church.

For the 12th straight year, North Korea is numero uno on the Open Doors list of “worst places to be a Christian.” In North Korea, a Christian can be executed or forced into a lifelong labor camp along with several generations of his or her family just for possessing a Bible or for spending time in prayer.

NoKo is Atheist Communist. However, worldwide it is Islamic Extremism that is the worst persecutor of Christians. Overall, persecution of Christians worldwide continues to increase. It is estimated that 100 million Christians are actively being persecuted. A total of 2,123 Christians are known to have been martyred in 2013 compared to 1,201 in 2012. Syria had the most martyrs with 1,213. The death total in North Korea is not available.

Source:

http://www.religiontoday.com/news/north-korea-remains-number-one-persecutor-of-christians.html

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Filed under Christianity, Prayer

by | January 10, 2014 · 12:56 pm

HHS Mandate challenge scheduled for Feast of Annunciation

SCOTUS calendar announcement:

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius (consolidated for one hour of argument) – whether the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that employee health plans include birth control and other pregnancy-related services violates the religious rights of corporations and their owners

March 25th is the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary which marks the day the Archangel Gabriel came to Mary and told her she would be the mother of the Messiah.

Modern Annunciation icon

This feast day is celebrated by In the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental and Eastern Catholic liturgical calendars. In the west, the date is moved if necessary to prevent it from falling during Holy Week or Easter Week or on a Sunday. In the east, it is always celebrated on March 25th.

This year, the feast will be celebrated on March 25th around the world.

Sources:

SCOTUS calendar @ http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/01/march-argument-calendar-day-by-day-2/#more-203278

Painting @ http://reinkat.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/icon-of-the-annunciation-2/

About the feast @ http://www.ewtn.com/library/FAMILY/MARCH25.TXT

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Filed under Christianity, HHS, Obamacare, Supreme Court

by | January 10, 2014 · 11:50 am

A pastor with the smell of sheep

2014_01 08 Pope Francis greets Father Baez

Father Baez is a parish priest in Pope Francis’s former Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. He arrived in Rome late Jan. 7 and headed over to St. Peter’s Square the next day.

Pope Francis saw him from a distance and yelled to him, “What are you doing here?”

And he yelled back, “I came to see you!”

The pope had the driver stop the vehicle. He gestured to the priest to come.

“And I ran as best I could,” squeezing past the people pressed in front of him, past the large wooden barricades snaking through the square and past a large security detail that is now used to protocol being thrown to the wind.

The pope said, “Come, get on!” and gave the priest an empty seat next to his papal assistant.

Father Baez said that later, when he thought about it, he felt that phrase “Come, get on” was also meant for the whole world.

“When he invited me, he invited all priests to be near the people,” he said, and the pope was also inviting all people “to stand up, rise up and go,” and lift their hearts and lives up to the Lord.

Father Baez spoke very fondly of his former bishop. “He showed all of us priests how to be a priest, how to care for people, to be a pastor with the smell of sheep.”

Pope Francis’ homily Jan. 9 during his morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives, was about what Jesus meant by love.

Jesus “speaks to us of concrete things: feed the hungry, visit the sick. When there isn’t this concreteness, one can be living a Christianity of illusion because the person doesn’t really understand the core of Jesus’ message,” he said.

The pope said there were two things that make Christian love concrete. “First, love with actions, not with words. The wind whisks words away; today they’re here, tomorrow they’re not,” he said.

The second thing is “for love, it’s more important to give than receive. A person who loves, gives and gives,” he said, while someone who doesn’t love “is self-centered, always tries to receive, always looks to have things, have perks.”

Instead, people need to have an “open heart” that isn’t hardened against God.

Sources:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1400084.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/08/pope-francis-friend-argentina-popemobile

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Filed under Catholic Church, Christianity, Pope Francis

by | January 8, 2014 · 8:39 am

Trust in Jesus

Jesus I trust in You

Jesus said, “Have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. … Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” -Matthew 10:26,28

Conformity vs Morality

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by | January 3, 2014 · 4:47 am

The religious underpinnings of Leftism

J-bob sent me a list of links about Josh Fox’s numerous lies about fracking. At one of them, I read an illuminating piece by Tom Shepstone excerpted here:

The truth is irrelevant for their purposes, only material to be cut from or pasted into the script when convenient. It reminds me of a forum discussion, in which I was engaged recently, where an anti-natural gas commenter argued the following:

Weak-minded individuals confuse facts with truth. Facts are merely data points, and data can be used to support just about any argument you care to make. When people want to distract you from a critical issue, they often attempt to push the debate into factual minutia. It’s a common rhetorical tactic in today’s American public forum.

Sadly, this is how so many of our activist friends think. It’s all about the narrative, the story and the theater for them – a way for them to tell us what they believe, rather than what they know. The entire debate, for them, is anything but a review of the evidence, the logic or the science. No, it’s about what they imagine to be true, what they have faith to be true. Facts that contradict are just distractions to them because they are committed, heart and soul, to one set of beliefs about what they see and don’t care to know anything else. Their minds have been captured in an ideological perspective that allows no dissent and dismisses all criticisms, all facts to the contrary and all possibilities of any other view.

Shepstone is talking about the fracking debate, but we’ve seen the same thing from Gore-acles, Obama-philes, Pro-Aborts, Atheists and on and on.

How to arrive at logical conclusions

It reminds me of something Dinesh D’Souza wrote about life after death:

The bottom line is that the atheist has no better proof that there isn’t life after death than the believer has that there is. Both groups are claiming knowledge that neither group actually possesses. For the atheist, no less than for the believer, it is entirely a matter of faith.

This equivalence between atheism and belief might seem equally damaging to both positions, but in fact it poses a much bigger problem for atheism.

First, the faith of the believer at least has a plausible source. That source is divine revelation as expressed in a sacred text. So the believer is trusting in what is held to be an unimpeachable source, namely God.

From where, by contrast, does the atheist get his faith? Who or what is the atheist trusting for the determination that there is no afterlife? To this, the atheist typically replies that he is trusting in reason. …

[But] there are no controlled empirical experiments that can resolve the issue one way or the other. Consequently atheists [say,”The absence of evidence is evidence of absence.” … But this position] confuses “what is known by a given person under the circumstances” with “what is or is not the case.” …

“Not found” is not the same thing as “found not to exist.” … On the basis of the available facts, not only does the atheist not know what happens after death, he cannot possibly know. The absence of evidence is evidence of nothing. …

Atheists like to think of themselves as the party of reason, advancing views that are based only on facts and evidence [when in reality they too hold] a faith-based position.

Source:

2 Comments

Filed under Atheism, Christianity, Environmentalism

by | January 2, 2014 · 3:53 am

So it’s a New Year

Looking for some resolution ideas? Mine is 7. I really need to work on 7.

Ten ways to love

1)      Listen without interrupting. – Proverbs 18

2)      Speak without accusing. – James 1:19

3)      Give without sparing. – Proverbs 21:26

4)      Pray without ceasing. – Colossians 1:9

5)      Answer without arguing. – Proverbs 17:1

6)      Share without pretending. – Ephesians 4:15

7)      Enjoy without complaint. – Philippians 2:14

8)      Trust without wavering. – 1 Corinthians 13:7

9)      Forgive without punishing. – Colossians 3:13

10)   Promise without forgetting. – Proverbs 13:12

I read over at Twitchy that the MSM has slid so far into the cesspool of Progressive Morality that it is no longer safe to let your kids watch the ball drop. Apparently, NBC was so busy with their filth, they forgot to show the ball dropping! Unbelievable.

The tweet that scored the highest upticks was “a nation of moral depravity that will soon get the full wrath of Gods Justice upon it!” You got that right. My big wish for 2014 is that we’ll get Raptured BEFORE the Progs pull the debt trigger.

MUSIC New Year's resolution

Source:

http://twitchy.com/2014/01/01/attention-parents-its-no-longer-safe-to-let-kids-stay-up-to-watch-the-new-years-ball-drop/

2 Comments

Filed under Christianity, Prayer

by | December 31, 2013 · 5:51 am

Faith, Science and the Shroud of Turin

This interview is fascinating!

EWTN Live – Barrie Schwortz – Shroud of Turin – 2013-11-6 – Catholic History [56:34]

Zugibe's crucifixion book

Schwortz mentions this book by Dr. Zugibe, who was a leading expert in the field of forensic medicine and chief medical examiner of Rockland County, New York from 1969 to 2002. He spent a good portion of his life studying crucifixion and the Shroud of Turin. I am part way through his book and loving it. His writing is clear and easy for this non-scientist to follow, even when he gets into anatomy, chemistry and other geeky CSI stuff for which I have no background beyond tenth grade biology. Among other things, I’ve learned how Jesus actually died (it wasn’t suffocation) and how the nails went in through his palms and came out at his wrists (they were angled just like you angle a picture hook and for the same reason). Learning in detail what Jesus endured has built my faith and gratitude so much that it’s hard to describe. I highly recommend it.

I got this from my Catholic Catechism emails this week:

The Catholic Church teaches that there is no insoluble contradiction between faith and science, because there is only one truth, to which both faith and scientific reason refer. Faith reminds science that it is supposed to serve creation and not set itself up in place of God. Science must respect human dignity instead of violating it.

Catholic Catechism section

http://www.catholiccrossreference.com/catechism/#!/search/159

Audio CD: Science, The Origin of the Universe, and God by Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ

http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/science-the-origin-of-the-universe-and-god

Other sources:

1 Comment

Filed under Catholic Church, Christianity, Science

by | December 31, 2013 · 3:08 am

With what measure ye mete

Sermon on the Mount window

Lefties are big on throwing, “Judge not” at Christians in a way that really means, “Shut the hell up.” I’m just guessing here, but I kinda doubt any of them could actually locate this line in the Bible (it’s Matt 7:1) and I’m for fair certain none of them know or care what ELSE Jesus said about judging … for example in the very next verse. Here’s a list of parallel translations for Matthew 7:2, just so we can be sure we’re grasping Jesus’ teaching correctly:

  • For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. [NABRE]
  • For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. [NIV]
  • For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. [NLT]
  • For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. [KJB]

What’s it mean? Suppose you’re at your judgment and God brings up all those times you were Little Miss Tell All and you say, “I’m sorry I was a gossip, Lord.” But see … back when your friend apologized for blabbing your secrets, you told her to go to hell. Jesus is saying that God will apply to your apology the standard you applied to hers. OUCH.*

Right after, Jesus added this gem (Matthew 7:3-5):

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye. [NABRE]

Speaking of hypocrites … remember back when Barack wagged his finger at us and said we Christians should pay more attention to the Sermon on the Mount? ICYMI, Matthew 7 is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Just sayin’.

Jesus also said specifically that we are supposed to judge … not that Lefties know or quote that one. It’s John 7:24.

  • Stop judging by appearances, but judge justly. [NABRE]
  • Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly. [NIV]
  • Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly. [NLT]
  • Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. [KJB]

His words here are based on God’s law as given to Moses:

Leviticus 19:15 – You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment. Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your neighbor justly. [NABRE]

Got all this? Jesus never said we were not to judge at all. 

He never wanted for us to be so “tolerant” that we can’t recognize sin for what it is.

He said we must each be very careful to …

… use God’s true standards in our judgments and

… judge ourselves more rigorously than we judge others.

Why did Jesus tell us these were important?

BECAUSE God will judge us all and God hates hypocrites.

*Note: Forgiving another person is not the same as trusting that person again. You can forgive a blabbermouth for breaking your confidence AND choose not to trust her with your secrets ever again.

Sources:

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by | December 30, 2013 · 12:42 pm

ICMYI — PHIL’S OK AGAIN

Posted by Pistol Pete

It’s times like this I wish I could pull quotes and put in bold type and all the other things CtH can do. I’ll just do the best I can.

A&E Lifts Phil Robertson’s Suspension; ‘Duck Dynasty’ To Resume Filming In Spring

Here’s their statement:

Our values are centered around creativity, inclusion and mutual respect. We believe it is a privilege for our brands to be invited into people’s home and we operate with a strong sense of integrity and deep commitment to these principals.

That is why we reacted so quickly and strongly to a recent interview with Phil Robertson. While Phil’s comments made in the interview reflect his personal views based on his own beliefs, and his own personal journey, he and his family have publicly stated they regret the “coarse language” he used and the mis-interpretation of his core beliefs based only on the article. He also made it clear he would “never incite or encourage hate.” We at A&E Networks expressed our disappointment with his statements in the article, and reiterate that they are not views we hold.

But Duck Dynasty is not a show about one man’s views. It resonates with a large audience because it is a show about family… a family that America has come to love. As you might have seen in many episodes, they come together to reflect and pray for unity, tolerance and forgiveness. These are three values that we at A+E Networks also feel strongly about.

So after discussions with the Robertson family, as well as consulting with numerous advocacy groups, A&E has decided to resume filming Duck Dynasty later this spring with the entire Robertson family.

We will also use this moment to launch a national public service campaign (PSA) promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people, a message that supports our core values as a company, and the values found in Duck Dynasty. These PSAs will air across our entire portfolio.

Translation:we’re not about to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars to mollify a bunch of rump rangers.

Never satisfied,the jock-sniffers released their so-angry-I-could-just-spit response:

Text of GLAAD’s response: “Phil Robertson should look African American and gay people in the eyes and hear about the hurtful impact of praising Jim Crow laws and comparing gay people to terrorists. If dialogue with Phil is not part of next steps then A+E has chosen profits over African American and gay people – especially its employees and viewers.”

Notice they had to include the Homies. Even though blacks could care less.
Human Rights Campaign assured ‘Duck Dynasty’ family will work with LGBT groups
THIS IS FROM TWITCHY; I WISH I COULD SHOW SOME OF THESE TWEETS… THEY’RE REALLY FUNNY. I’M INCLUDING LINK AT THE BOTTOM
DOES THIS GUY LOOK LIKE HE NEEDS SENSITIVITY TRAINING??

It didn’t take very long for A&E to find out that people of faith went way beyond the Bible belt. In any confrontation,it’s always paramount to know your opponent. The network never dreamed that the Robertsons would not hesitate to walk away from the show because money is not their sole motivating factor,as it is with most liberals. They also do not see that we’ve been mocked,ridiculed and demeaned for as long as we’re going to. The network may already have done irreparable harm to their brand after the ‘indefinite suspension’ of Phil Robertson which lasted all of 8 days.

This is his class photo from his sophomore year at La. Tech..in 1967

Scources:

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/e-lifts-phil-robertson-suspension-duck-dynasty-resume-221004725.html

http://therightscoop.com/glaad-responds-to-phil-robertsons-return-to-aes-duck-dynasty/

http://twitchy.com/2013/12/27/human-rights-campaign-assured-duck-dynasty-family-will-work-with-lgbt-groups/

9 Comments

Filed under Christianity, Funny Stuff, Islam, Louis Farrakhan, Media Bias, Phil Robertson

by | December 30, 2013 · 4:06 am

The Left’s War on Children

December 27, 2013: A Houston federal court issued an injunction against the Obama Democrat HHS Mandate requiring employers to provide employees with abortion-causing drugs and devices. The ruling said the HHS Mandate – which Democrats drafted and Obama vigorously supports – violates federal civil rights laws. Altogether there are 89 lawsuits challenging the HHS Mandate. Twelve of the cases involving non-profit groups have been decided; nine have resulted in injunctions against the HHS Mandate.

1994: Mother Teresa of Calcutta at the National Prayer Breakfast

The National Prayer Breakfast is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. It is hosted by members of Congress and typically has two special guest speakers: the President of the United States and a guest whose identity is kept confidential until that morning. In 1994, that president was the pro-abortion Democrat, Bill Clinton, and the guest was the pro-life Catholic, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Text below begins at about 14:00.

“[I]f we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”

“How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, her free time, to respect the life of her child.

“For the child is the greatest gift of God to the family because it has been created to love and to be loved. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble — so abortion just leads to more abortion.

“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love one another, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

ABORTION Archbishop Chaput

GRAPHIC images of the victims of 12 week abortion.

Pictures: Abortion at 12 Weeks

Sources:

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Filed under Abortion, Catholic Church, Christianity, HHS, Life Issues, Mother Teresa, Obamacare