Patriots and Liberty

New Advent
By Father George Rutler

The Geneva Convention’s classification of military chaplains as noncombatants has traditionally been interpreted in the United States to mean that chaplains normally do not carry weapons. This often puts them in precarious positions when they are in war zones. Over four hundred chaplains have been killed in the line of duty. Catholic chaplains are especially exposed to dangerous situations by their obligation to administer Absolution and Anointing. They have received every kind of decoration for valor, and seven have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

All four chaplains awarded the Medal since the Civil War have been Catholic. Among them, Lieutenant Vincent Capodanno, a Maryknoll priest and Navy chaplain, who served with the Marine Corps and was killed while aiding the second Platoon of M Company at the battle of Dong Son in Vietnam, has been proposed for heaven’s highest honor, canonization as a saint.

The military chaplaincy is under threat by our own government as part of its social agenda. One year ago, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains tried to forbid Catholic chaplains from reading a statement from the Military Ordinary, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees all priests in the Catholic Ordinariate for the Armed Forces, in which he objected to federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception in violation of the right to religious freedom. Now the government would compel chaplains to acquiesce in “same-sex” simulations of marriage. The Army’s deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel has said that military members who dissent from this agenda are “bigoted” and “need to get out.”

As behavior contrary to Christian morality becomes a civil right, Catholics in particular could soon become, quite literally, outlaws. Our current President recently announced that he will disobey a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by his own hand, which states that chaplains cannot be forced “to perform any rite, ritual or ceremony that is contrary to the conscience, moral principles or religious beliefs of the chaplain.”

I am always edified by the sacrificing spirit of good soldiers, and as a chaplain to West Point alumni here in New York, I am pleased when cadets serve at Mass. Governments that have tried to manipulate soldiers and doctors and teachers in perverse ways have always had a short shelf life. The nineteenth-century French political philosopher Frédéric Bastiat warned: “When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.”

Military chaplains do not bear arms, but they have recourse to another arsenal: “Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect” (Ephesians 6:11).

http://blog.newadvent.org/2013/01/as-sin-becomes-civil-right-catholic.html

Bob Unruh
WND

Democrat members of the Colorado Senate have told Christians there’s no place in society for them, warning them to “get thee to a nunnery” for their biblically based beliefs that homosexuality is a sin.

“What to say to those who claim that religion requires them to discriminate? I tell you what I’d say: ‘Get thee to a nunnery, and live there then. Go live a monastic life, away from modern society, away from people you can’t see as equals to yourself,’” said homosexual state Sen. Pat Steadman of Denver.

He was advocating for a “civil unions” bill in Colorado that skirts the state’s constitutional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman. The bill essentially provides the benefits of marriage to those who choose the homosexual lifestyle.

The bill died in a Republican-controlled House last year, but this year, with Democrats in the majority in both houses, it is expected to be approved – but with a difference.

Steadman has removed last year’s provision that would have allowed business owners of faith to make decisions on how they would provide their own services.

Steadman expressed absolutely no tolerance for those of faith.

He also said the issue of the mandatory recognition by all of homosexuality was why he ran for public office.

“It’s very rewarding to know something I worked on for many years is this close to becoming reality,” he told the local CBS affiliate.

“Go some place and be as judgmental as you like, go inside your church, establish separate water fountains if you like. But don’t tell me that your free exercise of religion requires the state of Colorado to establish separate water fountains,” he said, according to a report on Denver’s KDVR television.

Video of his statement has been posted online by the station.

KDVR reported that Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, pointed out the very intolerance being exhibited.

“Telling us get thee to a nunnery?” the station reported he said. “That doesn’t sound very inclusive to me.”

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/dems-to-christians-get-thee-to-a-nunnery/#1pVm0e47PVDOoMG2.99

Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com

It didn’t take long for news of Pope Benedict XVI’s planned resignation to hit the Internet before haters went to Twitter to flood his account with death threats and harassing messages.

A sample of the vile tweets follows (Warning: very graphic language).

Jens Vanderbeke @JenzlWashington – Hey, @Pontifex: why don’t you die like every guy before you.

something in the way @AllApologies_ -RT @Pontifex: Fuck the lot of ya. Go to hell. Cunts.

Patrick Terrill @PatricknSD – AP News – Vatican says Pope Benedict XVI resigning on Feb. 28. GOOD RIDDANCE ASSHOLE

Steele Saunders@ SteeleSaunders -”Oh he didn’t die” – Billions of disappointed people. #Pope

Kaos @RKA0S -Good riddance @Pontifex off you fuck! You vile harbourer of child molesters!

Kieran Morris @hipsterscumbag – Hahahaha yes @pontifex, congrats on the retirement, now DIE

Inggrid?@lolinggrid – im atheist. ha ha fuk u pope. god is dead. pedophilia inthe church lol so funy!!! ha Ricky gervais lemme give u a mouth kiss bro. im athiest

Mojave Phone Booth?@MojaveFoneBooth -Cracks me up that the Pope thinks he’s going to heaven, & that there is a heaven, & that Peter was a Pope, & that a cracker is a dead Jew, &

Pig?@AGreatPig -I am going to kill myself because everyone is talking about the pope

On the positive side, Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, had this wonderful farewell for the leader of the Catholic Church

I was stunned to wake up this morning to the news that Pope Benedict XVI is retiring his office at the end of this month.

I was thrilled when he was elected in 2005. I had long been a fan of his writings under his given name of Joseph Ratzinger, especially his beautiful little memoir, “Milestones.”

That book makes it clear that a quiet life of scholarship and prayer was always his heart’s desire. But he set that life aside when called by Pope John Paul II to serve at the Vatican.

Benedict’s reflections on the beatitudes in his book “Jesus of Nazareth” profoundly deepened my understanding of the spiritual significance of pro-life activism, especially our presence in prayer at abortion facilities.

Those words were a major inspiration behind my “Blessed Are They Who Mourn” project last month, calling on pro-lifers to visit memorial sites and mourn for the victims of abortion.

Both Catholics and Protestants recognize Benedict as a strong but humble witness to the sanctity of life. His leadership will be missed, but we know that we will continue to be in his prayers.

Please join me in returning the favor and praying for this great champion of the truth, this moving example of obedience to God’s call to serve others.

Farewell, Pope Benedict! May you grow ever closer in your well-earned retirement to the Lord you have served so faithfully!

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/02/11/haters-tweet-death-threats-to-pope-after-resignation-news/

The Mormonism Research Ministry is a missionary/apologetics organization organized in 1979 to propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to critically evaluate the differences between Mormonism and biblical Christianity. Of the many crucial differences, the Mormon rejection of the Genesis account of supernatural creation ex nihilo in favor of a naturalistic account is perhaps the most glaring example.

MRM reveals that Joseph Smith taught that matter is eternal and the Mormon God Elohim had no power to create out of nothing. Elohim merely reorganized already present elements, which have no beginning or end and cannot be destroyed. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 350-352):

“Since Mormons believe that the elements are eternal, it follows that they deny the ex nihilo creation.” (Encyclopedia of Mormonism 1:400).

In this vein, the great Mormon prophet Joseph Smith explains how their God came to be God:

“It is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and suppose that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did… Here then, is eternal life–to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priest to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one. . . . (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-47)

The Mormon God is a creature from within creation (nature). In fact, Mormon scripture states that he is merely a physical, exalted man who lives on a planet near the great star Kolob where he and his wives busily procreate millions of spirit children who are sent into this material realm of suffering and evil to live according to the laws of the gospel and thereby earn their own godhood over their own planet:

“The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” (D&C 310:22, Ed Decker, “The Lesser gods of Mormonism”)

In the Genesis account the living, supernatural Triune God created all things “ex-nihilo,” or out of nothing. He is self-existent, eternal, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He is the sovereign Lord of the universe. He is the God of all creation. He is the God who stands outside of the space-time dimension. This means that creation actually began before time came to be as God spoke life, soul/spirit, matter and all else out of nothing. The living, supernatual God is the First Cause of all things. (Psalm 33:6; John 1:3; Romans 4:17; Hebrews 11:3):

“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Col. 1:16,17

In the “Pagan Temptation,” Christian scholar Thomas Molnar writes that the idea that matter is eternal is a pattern of thought stretching back to the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks in the West and in the East to the Upanishads:

“Matter is regarded as the opposite of God, equal to him or even greater in power, and thus absolutely evil. All of the great philosophers of Greece believed this….with the exception of Aristotle (and the materialists, of course.)” (P. 26)

In this way of thinking, everything somehow emerged out of either eternally existing matter as the ancients and Joseph Smith taught, or in contemporary terms from out of spontaneously-generated matter. From the Babylonians forward primordial matter has gone by many names. For example: divine One Substance, watery abyss, chaos, or void.

The Egyptian Sun-God Ra emerged (created himself) from out of Nu—the divine void or One Substance (primordial matter) and then as Joseph Smith recounts, became God “by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one:”

“I came into being from primordial matter…I made all the forms under which I appeared by means of (or out of) the god-soul which I raised up out of Nu (i.e., the primeval abyss of water.) (The Long War Against God, Dr. Henry Morris, p. 243)

In all pagan systems that speak of pre-existent matter as “spirit,” Molnar writes that spirit is not personal. It does not live, think or speak; it merely is. The human soul therefore is not created in the spiritual image of the living God Who exists outside of the time-space dimension (nature) Who Spoke and revealed Himself to man, thus it must be said that,

“Thought, reflection, and discursive reason entered the world through humanity…” (p. 30)

This is naturalism or materialism, which is the belief–taught by Joseph Smith—that there is neither living supernatural God nor heavenly realm outside of the space-time dimension. There is only the natural dimension and in modern “scientific” terms, the idea that brute matter spontaneously generated itself from nothing (void) is called abiogenesis.

Materialism is held in common by pantheism and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-Biblical, non-Genesis account (creation ex nihilo) thought systems.

The unresolvable problem for all of these systems, and this includes Mormonism, is the ultimate origin of life and soul/spirit. This is why contemporary naturalists such as SETI researcher Paul Davies and Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, have rejected abiogenesis in favor of panspermia.

Panspermia is the idea that life on earth was accidentally seeded by meteorites containing the essential building blocks of life or perhaps by highly evolved extraterrestrials from deep space who for billions of years have been guiding the evolution of man. The extraterrestrial idea was favored by Arthur C. Clarke in his book, “Childhood’s End” and a variation on this theme has recently been advanced by Davies, Crick, and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Crick however admits that panspermia only pushes the unresolvable problem of the origin of life out into deep space:

“This scenario still leaves open the question of who designed the designer [aliens] — how did life originally originate?” (Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, 1981)

The revolutionary impact of the Christian teaching about the Incarnation was nothing less than a scandal for pagan sages just as it is for modern materialists (i.e., Karl Marx, Freud), pantheist idealists such as Hegel and Luciferian Theosophists, as well as for both pre-Christian and Christian-era Gnostic’s and Mormon prophet Joseph Smith:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

Molnar writes that it is inconceivable to nature sages that God,

“…the spiritual being par excellence, should assume materiality—a thought as distasteful to their contemporaries as the idea of creation ex nihilo, which meant that matter too was God’s creation and did not preexist creation as a separate and evil principle.” (pp. 26-27)

In company with pagan sages, Mormonism rejects the historical Jesus of Christianity, meaning they reject the Incarnation. While Christians adhere to the fact that Christ’s birth was the result of a miraculous conception, that Mary was a virgin yet still conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18), according to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (4:1676),

“Jesus Christ is not the Father of the spirits who have taken or yet shall take bodies upon this earth, for He is one of them. He is The Son, as they are sons and daughters of Elohim.”

Gospel Principles, an LDS Church manual (2009, p. 9), states,

“All men and women are literally sons and daughters of Deity.”

This includes the Mormon Jesus, who according to Sixth LDS President Joseph F. Smith was,

“Among the spirit children of Elohim, the first-born was and is Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, to whom all others are juniors” (Gospel Doctrine, p.70).

So both Jesus (Jehovah) and his spirit-brother Lucifer were birthed by the human-god Elohim who lives near the great star Kolob with his many goddess-wives. Twelfth President Spencer W. Kimball comments,

“Long before you were born a program was developed by your creators … The principal personalities in this great drama were a Father Elohim, perfect in wisdom, judgment, and person, and two sons, Lucifer and Jehovah.” (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, pp. 32-33; source: Mormonism Research Ministry).

Putting all of this together, the Mormon man-god Elohim emerged (self-created) out of the primordial abyss (eternally existing matter) much like the ancient Egyptian’s self-created Sun-God Ra. And as with all ancient nature origin accounts, the Mormon man-god cannot account for either the ultimate origin of life or man’s soul/spirit:

“The essence of the human is not the body, but the soul. It is the soul alone that God made in his own image and the soul that he loves….For the sake of the soul…the Son of God came into the world….” (Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 25, Ancient Christian Devotional, Oden and Crosby, p. 153)

Nor can it ultimately account for the two created sexes, male and female since all things–including the Mormon man-god Elohim– somehow emerged out of genderless spirit (pre-existing matter). Thus like their ancient counterparts, Mormonism is fated to give way before the demands of gender-neutral homosexualism. Capitulation is already in process:

“Attorneys for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in quiet discussions with leaders of Utah’s gay and lesbian community, trying to hammer out language for a statewide ban on housing and employment discrimination that the church could support. Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, opened a bill file on Thursday — the last day to request attorneys draft legislation — titled Housing and Employment Amendments and will sponsor the legislation should an agreement be reached.” (Mormon Church Working on Bill to Protect Gays From Discrimination, hypervocal.com)

By whatever label, homosexuality, gay, transgender or bi-sexuality, androgyny and paganism go together like a hand and glove. Prior to Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry pagan sages generally taught and practiced some form of gender-neutrality (androgyny) in keeping with their belief that pre-existent matter is the “one substance” out of which all things originated. But when Jesus Christ, fully man, fully God walked this earth, sages were faced with the distasteful truth that God really did create just two sexes, male and female.

Knowing the truth they chosen the lie instead, as Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, makes clear in Romans 1:25-27:

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

In conclusion, by rejecting the supernatural Triune God, Mormonism cannot account for either the origin of life or of man’s soul/spirit (Psalm 115:4-8). And by rejecting the historical Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, Mormonism cannot logically account for the two sexes, fating it to eventually give way to homosexualism in its’ every permutation…the crimes against nature said Augustine, which are the,

“….crimes of the men of Sodom (and if) all nations in the world committed them they would all stand guilty of the same crime against the Law of God, which did not design men so that they should use each other this way.” (Confessions of St. Augustine, p. 49)

@Linda Kimball

hypervocal.com
by Slade Sohmer

There’s an astonishing piece in Thursday’s Salt Lake Tribune, and if you haven’t been paying attention to the sudden “evolution” of the Mormon church’s leadership on homosexuality, it will make your jaw drop.

Most people associate The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with overwhelming animous towards the LGBT community, heaping on the church total responsibility for 2008?s devastating Prop 8 victory.

But, wait, times are a-changing, and the Mormons are now working with Utah’s LGBT leaders to help craft a statewide anti-discrimination law:

Attorneys for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in quiet discussions with leaders of Utah’s gay and lesbian community, trying to hammer out language for a statewide ban on housing and employment discrimination that the church could support.

Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, opened a bill file on Thursday — the last day to request attorneys draft legislation — titled Housing and Employment Amendments and will sponsor the legislation should an agreement be reached.

The church actually endorsed a similar ordinance in 2009 in Salt Lake City.

This is momentous, surely, but the Mormon faith, whether real or done for politics, is changing. In December, Mormon leaders launched a website called mormonsandgays.org, and the church stressed that homosexuality is not a choice, that all the brothers and sisters need to be treated with compassion, that we all “need to love one another.”

The LDS Church has a long way to go. But it’s rare to see a church even head-fake towards equality and progress.

The real takeaway about Utah, though, isn’t about the LGBT community or anti-discrimination bills at all. No, it’s about how Utah is a theocracy!

If the LDS Church, the state’s largest faith to which nearly 90 percent of the Utah Legislature belongs, were to endorse the anti-discrimination bill, it would be a major boost for efforts to pass the legislation, which has failed the past several years.

If the LDS Church says it shall be so, it shall be so.

http://hypervocal.com/news/2013/mormon-gays-discrimination-utah/#lax1aX7x8MVmHGz7.99

Christian Post
By Kyle Beshears

Last month I stumbled upon an article about an atheistic “church service” in London. I didn’t even read the whole thing before I decided I had to go.

The Sunday Assembly, as the group is called, meets once a month at The Nave in North London for “anybody searching for a sense of community, to meet and ‘turn good intentions into action.’”

It is, all things considered, an atheistic church.

Yes. A church for atheists.

This morning I woke up, sacrificed hearing Os Guinness speak at my own church, and ventured down to Islington with my wife who is used to being dragged to peculiar things like this by now.

We showed up 40 minutes early, but weren’t the first ones there.

In typical British fashion, we all politely “queued up” as we waited for the doors to open. The press was there catching interviews. (They also recorded the entire service along with the attendees to a point that it made it uncomfortable).

In fact, I’ll probably end up in The Guardian or The Independent. I can see it now: Local Atheist Londoner Worships at The Sunday Assembly.

You can’t trust everything you read in the news.

Once the doors opened, the church filled up fast. In fact, by the time the service started there was standing room only. There had to have been about 200+ in a church meant to comfortably hold 150.

After snagging two great seats, I surreptitiously wandered around taking photos of the event. I was, after all, running a clandestine intel-gathering mission behind enemy lines. In just three months, I’ll be joining the staff of a church. Before then, however… game on. (Sarcasm, for those who don’t know me.)

To be honest, I was taken aback by how many people showed up. Church planters dream of a second-ever service this full, and here I was in the midst of atheists, humanists, and agnostics who were all anticipating something new, something fresh, something exciting for their movement.

Once 11:00 came the service kicked off with the band.

Yes. There was an atheistic church band. (Bet you never thought you’d read that in your life.) It was led by comedian Pippa Evans.

Once the band had captured our attention, the “pastor” figure of this service exploded onto the stage. And he was hilarious.

Rightfully so, as the entire service was led by British comedian Sanderson Jones. Jones kicked the service off by warmly welcoming everyone and offering an amusing story of how he had learned that it was actually fellow atheists, not Christians as he had expected, who vocally disapproved of The Sunday Assembly.

He displayed a screenshot of his twitter feed from one disgruntled atheist who claimed that the term “church” to all atheists is like the term “concentration camp” to all Jews. Jones made short work of the mystery atheist – it was pretty funny.

After his introduction, we sang a Queen song as the service moved along.

ONE IN A BILLION

After some singing, the service shifted to the talk.

It was given by the (wonderfully articulate and intelligent) guest speaker, Harry Cliff – a researcher at the University of Cambridge and super particle physicist from CERN. Cliff delivered a great talk, which I believe ironically pointed to the very God of creation that the church was disavowing.

His talk, entitled “It’s a Wonder We’re All Here” in keeping with the theme of “wonder,” centered around the seeming impossibility of all matter (and consequently us) of existing at all. Why are we all here to wonder why we’re all here in the first place?

As Cliff explained, according to a theory from physicist Paul Dirac, nothing should exist. The stars, the planets, us, all matter… none of it should exist. But it does. So why?

The answer is found in anti-matter. ”Whenever you create a particle of anti-matter,” Cliff explained, “you also have to create a particle of matter.” Likewise, whenever matter and anti-matter meet, they annihilate each other, a la the spectacular climax to Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons.

Couple this with the theory of the Big Bang, when energy was converted into matter, and the symmetry of one particle of anti-matter to one particle of matter should have made everything disappear. What should have happened after the Big Bang is not the universe we know today, but rather a cold, empty universe of nothing. No stars, no galaxies, no us, no nothing.

But, again, here we are. So, what happened?

Cliff, in his own words, explained what happened.

“At the Big Bang, matter and anti-matter annihilate each other producing particles of light so every billion particles of light corresponds to one of those annihilations. So everything in the universe is just one-billionth of what was originally there – we are just a tiny leftover of what was there at the beginning of the universe.

All of that is enough to create all the galaxies, all the stars, all the stuff of you and me. So we are basically talking of absolute, tiny asymmetry of matter and anti-matter that allowed us to exist. In fact, if the asymmetry hadn’t been there, we would live in a completely empty universe.”

“So,” I thought to myself, “at the creation of the universe from nothing there was an inconceivable amount of light followed by the most improbable conditions that allowed for the entire universe to exist.”

I couldn’t hold back a huge smile.

Why? Because Cliff’s talk sounded an awful lot like this:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void…

and God said, ‘Let there be light.’”

Genesis 1.1-3

Here we were at an atheistic church service being delivered evidences of both God’s existence (the improbability of asymmetry at the Big Bang) and the Bible’s trustworthiness (the fact that God’s first creative act was light).

Awesome.

Although, I doubt anyone else in the church shared my sentiment.

My only complaint about Cliff’s talk was that he never discussed the obvious question of how the most improbable condition was probable in the first place. What made the asymmetry, well, asymmetrical? He essentially sidestepped the chicken-or-the-egg issue with the Big Bang.

Perhaps it’s because there needed to be an intelligence behind the asymmetry of matter and anti-matter in order to bring about the creation of the universe in the most explosive display of light in the universe’s entire existence.

The answer is clear – God caused the conditions for the asymmetry. Furthermore, an ancient culture of divinly-inspired Jews nailed it on describing the event. If you’re not looking at this data from a theistic perspective, the obvious will always evade you.

But, hey. That’s just me.

“I WANTED MUSIC AND COMMUNITY AGAIN”

Throughout the service, I began to notice a consistent theme with almost everyone we spoke with, overheard, or witnessed in the service – everyone missed the music and community of their childhood experiences in church and want to bring it back into their lives.

I feel comfortable saying that many of the atheists in attendance were there precisely because they missed the community and songs of church.

The leader, Jones, mentioned that he missed the community and songs that his childhood church had given him. The woman seated behind us made a similar claim. Another woman, I overheard, said she missed singing songs and being with other people.

“When I was a kid, at church there was always music and other people. I wanted music and community again,” she said in a conversation with a fellow atheist.

It seemed that most people were there for those very reasons – community and singing. Or, what we Christians like to call, fellowship and worship.

People missed the fellowship and worship they left behind in their childhood churches, but have since yearned for a return to them.

The more I came to realize this point, the more obvious it became – all of these people, made in God’s image, are simply trying to fill the void of their design and purpose without actually knowing how.

Every human is created in the image of a triune God (community) who designed us to worship. That doesn’t go away simply because you don’t believe in Him.

Deep down in every human being, we yearn to be in community and fellowship, just like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have enjoyed for eternity.

Deep down in every human being, we are compelled to worship, because it’s what we were created to do.

Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean that all goes away. And today only drove that point home for me. It’s doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in God, every human being still desires community and wants to worship. Where we find our community and what we worship, however, is what will eventually define our joy, lives, and destinies.

Everyone at The Sunday Assembly seemed to believe that by adding community once a month and singing random songs, they will fill that nagging void in their life.

The more I though about this, the more I wanted to stand on my chair and yell “You’re missing the point! It’s not enough!” But, perhaps the unusually large amount of cameras and journalists stopped me in my tracks. After all, I didn’t want to be that guy.

It doesn’t matter how many songs you sing or how many people you hang out with – if it’s not centered around Jesus (the true reason for church in the first place) it’s never going to be enough.

The Sunday Assembly was gathered today in celebration of life, but not the life.

The Sunday Assembly attempted to instill wonder but without the God of Wonder behind it.

The Sunday Assembly tried to experience a spirit in singing, but without the Holy Spirit of a good, perfect, and loving God.

They are missing the point entirely.

Church isn’t about music, it isn’t about making people feel happy, and it isn’t about instilling wonder. Church isn’t even about getting together in community to get your felt needs met.

Church is about Jesus.

Because we were designed to worship and to live in community, we do get some felt needs met at church, but it’s not the entire focus or purpose of church. The entire focus and purpose of church should be Jesus.

Until the good people of The Sunday Assembly understand this simple truth, they will never fill that missing void of worshipping Jesus in the community of imperfect yet redeemed people, no matter how many songs they sing, guest speakers they have, or good works they promote.

THE “REAL CHURCH” NEXT DOOR

Next to The Nave was a small (in comparison, tiny) chapel annex that was housing an African worship service. While we were first “queuing up” to get in The Nave, a woman dressed in Sunday’s best squeezed her way past us. ”Excuse me,” she politely asked for a clearing to walk through. Two women behind us giggled as one muttered, “I bet she’s going to real church.”

The real church service started before The Sunday Assembly and was still running after our service had ended. I snuck into the back of the chapel annex to hear the prayer that the pastor of this tiny church offered his congregation in the shadow of their new atheist neighbors next door.

The annex next to The Nave where “real church” was being held.

His voice filled the room.

“We love you Jesus,” he said with a thick African accent. “We love you so much and want other’s to know you, so they can experience your love and, in return, love you simply for who you are and what you’ve done for us.”

“Amen,” I thought to myself. That was the most encouraging thing I had heard all day.

A group of people, most of whom were down-and-out, gathered together in community to worship Jesus in song and prayer. No media attention, no comedian-led entertainment, no high-profile speaker.

Just a few Jesus people getting together to worship, fellowship, and pray on a Sunday morning.

Now that’s church.

http://blogs.christianpost.com/guest-views/my-sunday-at-an-atheistic-church-14529/

Kristine Marsh
CNSNews.com

If you needed any more proof that the media has influenced youth culture with the gay agenda, then this might be it.

The Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Youth (BAGLY) and Boston [Gay] Pride are sponsoring a Valentine’s dance for LGBT teenagers this weekend. The liberal gay-friendly social meetup group Sojust.org describes the event more on its website:

“Boston Pride is hosting their very first Valentine’s Day Dance Party for LGBT Youth, hosted by Lakia Mondale (Queen of Boston Pride 2010) with a special performance by a 14 year old drag Sensation Miss Crystal Foxx and our special Guest from RuPaul’s Drag Race Stars Mystique Summers.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race is a popular reality television competition on the gay network Logo.

So apparently the Left’s idea of a festive Valentine’s Day is hosting a gay dance for sexually confused 13- and 14-year-old kids, complete with a 14-year-old in drag. If that wasn’t bad enough, the event promises complimentary HIV testing.

These kind of events targeting children have become common but don’t get covered by major media. Most likely because they would horrify the average parent.

While ABC and NBC makes shows like “Modern Family” and “The New Normal” that show the homosexual community as wholesome and normal, they leave out this aspect of the gay community. You wouldn’t see children performing in drag and free STD testing at a high school prom for instance. Here it’s center stage.

http://cnsnews.com/blog/kristine-marsh/celebrate-valentines-day-14-year-old-drag-sensation

“They hate me without a cause….they that would destroy me, are mine enemies falsely, (and being powerful)…. I restored that which I took not.” Psalm 69:4

In other words, depraved men projected their own vices, that is their sins, onto the intended victim, the innocent man. Then they psychologically crucified him for possessing what they coveted. Having found him guilty (deserving) of their own evil intentions, they seized his goods and redistributed them to themselves…for the “common good” of course.

Like self-righteous Cain, the depraved view themselves as faultless while in reality their conscience is depraved and their will turned to evil, and this spiritual pathology is the most destructive force in political, social, economic, and cultural life. This is because intelligence (reason, understanding, logic, judgment) is the spiritual ability that gives humanity its power over all other creatures, but what is not generally understood is that rightly ordered reasoning depends upon a necessary foundation of unchanging, higher moral standards together with a morally-informed conscience and a will in submission to higher truth and morality. In other words, the soul must be open to God rather than inward-turned in contemplation of self.

The will of the self-contemplative soul is turned toward self-gratification (vice) and its’ conscience is depraved, and though intelligence remains intact it is useless for pursuit of the good, the just and the true. Guided by a depraved conscience, intelligence is used in pursuit of the preservation of self-image and in gratification of self (i.e., desires, appetites) at any cost because ‘self’ comes before all else. This is why Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com admitted that even though she knows that from the moment of conception an unborn child is undeniably a human life, in her judgment it is nevertheless permissible,

“…that this unborn human life…be terminated if a woman desires an abortion.” (“So What if Abortion Ends a Life? Rare Candor from the Culture of Death,” Albert Mohler, February 1, 2013)

Williams conscience is depraved, thus even though the child is a human life,

“…in her grotesque view,” said Mohler, the child is “a life worth sacrificing.”

For increasing numbers of Americans, there is no living God of Revelation, no heaven, hell, fixed meaning, immutable truth, moral absolutes, and no ultimate accountability for what we do here in this world, thus there is no logical reason not to kill unwanted human life anymore than there is to be “good” in the traditional sense of virtuous behavior— Ten Commandments.

And for those who have accepted the lie that there is no God, then why not lie, cheat, plunder and kill unborn human life since selfish humans are their own ‘gods’ and get to define what is ‘good’? Why not live a very selfish, self-centered life?

A reader recently wrote in regard to my last essay, “In a World without God, Meaning, Purpose and Accountability, why not Lie, Cheat, Plunder and Kill?” and as he is a former “amoral” man his penetrating insight into the depraved reasoning of Mary Elizabeth Williams and others like her is of great interest.

Describing himself, for lack of better words, as “born without a conscience” to amoral parents he said that “going through the pinball machine called life” has finally brought spiritual healing, a cleaned-up conscience and some measure of wisdom.

In his new-found wisdom he said that in our Godless, meaningless, truthless culture, lying comes easily because you do not have to,

“…..remember what you said yesterday and attempt to keep it straight today.”

The light of truth has all but been extinguished throughout our land. It is hard to find it even within many churches because no one needs to remember what they previously said, or even attempt to keep their story straight. How convenient!

With regard to plunder, which he said covers everything from, “…possessions, money, image, ideas, lifestyle, honor, business ‘things’, need I go on?” the envying, coveting and theft of ‘plunder’ is easily rationalized by,

“….that stupid game, these days, called ‘getting even’. There is another stupid game called ‘non-harmful revenge’. This is similar to a lot of things, that once you start, you can’t quite seem to quit. Divorce is legalized plunder. Businness lawsuits are legalized plunder. One-on-one, usually ends up with your last ‘why’…”

In a world without God, meaning, higher truth, moral laws and ultimate accountabilty after death, the light of truth has been extinguished and law and order have broken down. Our former state of law is now lawlessness, allowing greed, gluttony, hate, covetousness and envy to be “legalized.” “Gay” marriage is legalized plunder. Hate-crime laws are legalized hate. The demand for tax-payer funded reparations for people who have never been slaves, for the killing of the unborn (abortion), and for sex-change operations for sexually confused individuals is legalized plunder. Then there is ‘legalized’ plunder as death taxes, capital gains taxes, taxes on the wealthy, marriage-penalty taxes and tax-payer money awarded to illegals, druggies, and other social parasites.

What greater example of ‘legalized’ plunder than the vast amount of loot amassed by our criminally-minded transnational progressive ‘elite’ banker/corporatist leviathan:

“….$32 trillion (USD) of hidden assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenue (which) excluded such non-financial assets as real estate, precious metals, jewels, yachts, race horses, luxury vehicles and so on. Of the $32 trillion in hidden assets, $23 trillion is held by the super-rich of North America and Europe. A recent report by a United Nations Special Committee on Money Laundering found that US and European banks laundered over $300 billion a year, including $30 billion just from the Mexican drug cartels.” (The Ascendancy of a Criminal Financial Elite, Professor James Petras, globalresearch.ca, 5 August 2012)

With regard to the depraved choices of all who choose to lie, plunder, and kill unborn human life, it is their choice to live without a conscience, said the correspondent. This is why Augustine rightly notes that though pride is the root of all vices, an evil will is its necessary companion.

And finally, for all who view unborn human life as “a life worth sacrificing” on behalf of self-gratification, my correspondent offers the following warning:

“Personal killings…are acts chosen, even in passion. People forget that they will live with that in their minds for the rest of their lives.”

They will be unable to forget their guilt while they live because there really is a living God Who Spoke, the Judge Who holds all men accountable for what they have done here in this world.

@Linda Kimball

AlbertMohler.com

Is an unborn baby “a life worth sacrificing?” The question is horrifying, but the argument was all too real. In a recent article, Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com conceded what the pro-life movement has contended all along — that from the moment of conception the unborn child is undeniably a human life. And yet, Williams argues that this unborn human life must be terminated if a woman desires an abortion. The child is a life, but, in her grotesque view, “a life worth sacrificing.”

The abortion rights movement has always had a problem with language. The average American still hears the world “abortion” with some degree of moral revulsion. Activists did not need sophisticated marketing analysis to understand that much. Early on, the abortion rights movement shifted its public argument to the language of choice — a woman’s “right to choose.”

But to choose what? No legal revolution was necessary in order for a woman to have the right to carry her unborn child to birth. What was demanded was the right to choose to kill the unborn child. This is the moral reality that was clouded and camouflaged by the “pro-choice” language.

In recent weeks leaders of Planned Parenthood disclosed that they are moving away from the pro-choice language because it just isn’t working. Mary Elizabeth Williams agrees, saying that the change is “long overdue.” She argues that the pro-abortion movement has fallen prey to the “sneaky, dirty tricks” of the pro-life movement — a movement she says has controlled the life issue for too long.

Then, in chilling candor, Williams proceeds to affirm that every single unborn child is a human life. But, her argument is not pro-life. Far from it.

In her words:

“When we on the pro-choice side get cagey around the life question, it makes us illogically contradictory. I have friends who have referred to their abortions in terms of “scraping out a bunch of cells” and then a few years later were exultant over the pregnancies that they unhesitatingly described in terms of “the baby” and “this kid.” I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages. Why can’t we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different, but that it’s pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn’t the same? Fetuses aren’t selective like that. They don’t qualify as human life only if they’re intended to be born.”

Williams skewers the “pro-choice” evasion. The fetus is a human life, she asserts — every fetus, wanted or unwanted by its mother, planned or unplanned as a pregnancy. She even affirms that life begins at conception. But, she quickly argues, the fact that the unborn child is a human life doesn’t mean that it should not be aborted.

She explains:

“Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.”

So the mother and the child are both fully human, fully alive, and fully recognized as human life. But the mother can abort that human life within her for any reason or for no stated reason at all. Williams argues that the mother is an autonomous agent, whereas the unborn child is not.

In premeditated candor Mary Elizabeth Williams declares that the unborn child is a human life, but not a human life worthy of respect or protection. As Williams insists, “I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life.”

She candidly calls the unborn child a human life, and then ends her argument with this — ”a life worth sacrificing.”

The Culture of Death is rarely so candid, but this is the undisguised logic behind the case for abortion rights. The unborn human baby is just “a life worth sacrificing.”

Read it and weep.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2013/02/01/so-what-if-abortion-ends-a-life-rare-candor-from-the-culture-of-death/

By Elizabeth Harrington

CNSNews.com) – Floyd Lee Corkins II, who pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday to the Aug. 15 shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC), identified the FRC as a target by using the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which includes what it calls a “Hate Map” that features the FRC’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

As the court filing’s “Statement of Offense” for United States of America v. Floyd Lee Corkins II reads, “He was a political activist and considered the FRC a lobbying group. He committed the shooting for political reasons. He had identified the FRC as an anti-gay organization on the Southern Poverty Law Center Website.” (See Floyd Lee Corkins II – Unstamped Statement of Offense.pdf)
The statement said that when Corkins was arrested he carried in his pocket a handwritten list of four organizations. “Each of the four listed organizations are nationally recognized advocacy groups that openly identify themselves as having socially conservative agendas, supporting, among other things, legislation defining “marriage” as a relationship between one man and one woman and generally against legislation that would promote gay marriage.”

Although charged on 10 counts, Corkins pleaded guilty to three: act of terrorism while armed; assault with intent to kill while armed; and interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition

He admitted to opening fire at the FRC, which is a conservative, pro-family group, and wounding the security guard there. And his actions were designated an act of terrorism, to which he also pleaded guilty.

According to the “Statement of Offense,” assault with intent to kill is an “act of terrorism,” if it is committed with the requisite intent. As it states: “On August 15, 2012, the defendant assaulted [security guard Leo] Johnson and the FRC with the intent to intimidate or coerce a significant portion of the civilian population of the District of Columbia and/or the United Sattes; namely, any and all individuals associated with or supporting the FRC, like-mided organizations, or otherwise holding beliefs contrary to or advocating against gay marriage.”

In an interview with the FBI following the shooting, as provided in the “Statement of Offense,” Corkins said that “(1) intended to enter the FRC that day to kill as many people as possible and smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces; (2) he intended to kill the guard who confronted him in the lobby (i.e., Johnson); and (3) he had taken substantial steps in the preceding week in furtherance of carrying out the crimes.” (See Floyd Lee Corkins II – Unstamped Statement of Offense.pdf)

In addition, as the statement reads, “He committed the shooting for political reasons. He had identified the FRC as an anti-gay organization on the Southern Poverty Law Center Website.”

It further reports, “Consistent with his statement to the FBI, a subsequent search of Corkins’ family computer revealed that on the afternoon of Sunday, August 12, Corkins used the computer to visit the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, as well as the websites for the FRC and the second organization on his handwritten list.”

FRC President Tony Perkins said the SPLC “can no longer say that it is not a source for those bent on committing acts of violence.”

“The day after Floyd Corkins came into the FRC headquarters and opened fire wounding one of our team members, I stated that while Corkins was responsible for the shooting, he had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a ‘hate group,’” Perkins said.

“Today both assertions were validated in court as Corkins pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges, including terrorism,” he said.

“Only by ending its hate-labeling practices will the SPLC send a message that it no longer wishes to be a source for those who would commit acts of violence that are only designed to intimidate and silence Christians and others who support natural marriage and traditional morality,” Perkins said.

As of Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center still lists the FRC as one of the 13 “hate” groups on its “Hate Map” for the Washington, D.C. area. The FRC is described as an “Anti-Gay” group whose “specialty is defaming gays and lesbians.”

Requests for comment from the Southern Poverty Law Center were not returned before this story was posted.

Corkins could face up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal charge of transporting a firearm across state lines and to D.C. charges of assault with intent to kill and committing an act of terrorism while armed. His sentencing is scheduled for April 29.

The plea agreement also revealed that at the time of the shooting, Corkins was carrying a loaded Sig Sauer P229 pistol, two fully loaded magazines, a box of 50 rounds of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches, intending to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in their faces.”

Corkins said he wanted to “make a statement against the people who work in that building…with their stance against gay rights and Chick-fil-A.”

“They endorse Chick-fil-A and also Chick-fil-A came out against gay marriage so I was going to use that as a statement,” he said.

At the time, the fast food chain was thrust into the national spotlight when CEO Dan Cathy said he supported traditional marriage. On Aug. 1, after pro-same-sex marriage groups criticized the chain by accusing it of “hate,” thousands of supporters flocked to restaurants across the country on Aug. 1 for “Chick-fi-A Appreciation Day.”

Corkins also told the FBI that he “intended to kill” the guard Leo Johnson who, though unarmed and wounded, was able to subdue Corkins until police arrived.

Corkins had a handwritten list in his pocket with the addresses of four organizations that “openly identify themselves as having socially conservative agendas,” and at the scene he said, “I don’t like the organization [FRC] and what it stands for.”

For six months prior to the shooting Corkins had volunteered at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. Following the shooting, the DC Center released a statement condemning the violence, which was signed by 40 other local and national LGBT groups.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/chick-fil-sandwich-shooter-identified-frc-target-using-southern-poverty-law-center