A Dearth (Death?) of Anglican News

For most of the last two decades my daily ritual has included checking the Anglican blogosphere as one of the first things I do when I turn on my computer each day.  Parenthetically, I will mention for those who were probably never aware, that, in 1994, the Rev. Tom Prichard (who was then executive director of SAMS) and I (when I was on faculty at Trinity) founded the now defunct "episcopalian.org" website and hosting service.  We hosted websites and listserv discussion groups including White Horse Tavern, which some will remember, and Virtuosity (which later changed its name to Virtue Online due to a trademark dispute).  I developed my avocation as a web designer and designed websites for many of the  member organizations of PEWSACTION, as well as the original website for the American Anglican Council, which were all hosted on episcopalian.org.  So one might say I was something of a pioneer in the the Anglican online world.

In 2001 I left Trinity to become Dean of Nashotah House. Tom Prichard left SAMS not long afterward.  SAMS and Trinity showed no interest in maintaining episcopalian.org; and, by then, the avenues for hosting websites and discussion groups were so numerous that episcopalian.org was no longer needed.

Having monitored the Anglican news scene for so long, I am noticing a sea change.  Some Anglican news outlets seem to be having trouble finding stories to report.  There have been slow seasons in Anglican news before, and the period following the Episcopal Church's triennial General Convention (which we are now in) is often one of those seasons.

But this time it is different, and I find myself questioning whether the Anglican news scene will ever be the same again.  In July, I wrote a piece entitled,  "Probably My Last Post about General Convention--Ever."  I felt safe in entitling it that because, not only has the Episcopal Church moved beyond my ability to care, it has moved beyond the ability to surprise.  For something to be newsworthy, there has to be a certain "Man Bites Dog" element to it; and, frankly, we will never see that kind of newsworthiness from the Episcopal Church ever again.

Gay bishops--done that.  Gay marriage--done that.  Transgendered clergy--done that.  Panentheist theology--now so much a part of the landscape that orthodoxy is virtually extinct.  Episcopal Church tries to co-opt African churches with its money--entirely predictable.  What is left to surprise us?  Polyamory?  Rewriting the Prayer Book for a gender-neutral or feminine God?  These are just the next stops on the train ride to Perdition.  The track is already laid and the destination is certain.  Any stops along the way are already mapped.  We may even get to the stop where the old canard comes true: "Farmer Marries Cow in Episcopal Ceremony."  (Though it appears the Russians may have us beat in the Bovine Matrimony race.)

Now the focus has shifted to the Anglican Communion, where we see the same pattern the Episcopal Church has followed for decades being played out all over again:  The official structures become increasingly heterodox, and a orthodox resistance movement forms which becomes the foundation for a movement of renewal.

But therein lies room for surprise!  It will make news when the Anglican Church in North America surpasses the Episcopal Church in average Sunday attendance.  It will make news when GAFCON separates from the dying Communion structures to establish structures of its own to which all orthodox Anglicans look.

The focus of our news will change:  We can now turn from the Obituary page to the page announcing new births.  New churches.  New dioceses.  New seminaries.  New mission enterprises.  New efforts to complete Christ's Great Commission and take the Good News to every people, tribe, and language.

Why do I know this is true?   Because Christ has promised that he will return and that his Great Commission to take the Gospel to every people group on earth will be fulfilled before he does so.  As we see events with apocalyptic significance happening in our world, our eyes should be mainly focused on this:  "And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14).  That is good news indeed, and that is where our energies should be focused and our prayers concentrated.  

We may be witnessing a dearth--and a death--of Anglican news.  But for those who are looking for Christ's kingdom, the best news is yet to come.
  

The Island

Last night I saw a movie I had somehow missed when it came out in 2005: The Island.  Once I realized the plot of the movie, my attention was riveted.

Lincoln Six-Echo (played by Ewan McGregor) is a resident of a seemingly Utopian but totally enclosed, underground facility in the year 2019.  Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the "The Island" -- a paradise that is reportedly the only uncontaminated spot on the surface of the planet.  But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie.  The earth's surface is not contaminated.  It is, in fact, very much like the earth we know.  He and all of the other inhabitants of the underground facility are actually human clones, being raised as "insurance policies" to provide organs and body parts for transplants to prolong the lives of their look-alikes on the surface--people who have no idea that the "tissue" and organs they receive are harvested from the clones.  Those inhabitants of the facility chosen by "the lottery" to go to the Island are actually selected to be killed when their organs are needed.  

Lincoln makes a daring escape with a beautiful fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta (played by Scarlett Johansson).  Relentlessly pursued by the forces of the sinister institute that once housed them, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers and to let them know that their "insurance policies" are actually human beings who are being killed for their organs and body parts.

What compelled my attention was the similarity between this work of science fiction and the recent revelations of  Planned Parenthood's involvement in harvesting fetal organs and body parts.  As in The Island, Planned Parenthood perpetuates the myth that those from whom the tissue and organs are harvested aren't actual human beings. 

In the now famous video, Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, discusses harvesting tissue and organs from aborted fetuses over lunch in Los Angeles:

I’d say a lot of people want liver.  And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.  The kind of rate-limiting step of the procedure is the calvarium, the head is basically the biggest part.  Most of the other stuff can come out intact . . .  So then you’re just kind of cognizant of where you put your graspers, you try to intentionally go above and below the thorax, so that, you know, we’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m going to basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.

Is this not the most callous discussion of harvesting human organs you have ever read?

After an extended and exciting chase, Lincoln and Jordan eventually reach the home of Lincoln's clone donor (also played by McGregor), who in a twist of deception proves to be more interested in prolonging his life than in caring about where the necessary body parts come from.  I couldn't help but wonder if those who support Planned Parenthood's outrageous conduct could see themselves in this character.

Finally, Lincoln and Jordan break back into the underground facility in order to destroy it and liberate the residents, eventually being aided by the very mercenaries who were sent by the facility to track them down and kill them.  Even in science fiction, the idea of harvesting human organs is too repugnant for all but the worst villains.

Write or call your representatives in Congress and demand that they stop funding Planned Parenthood with our tax dollars.
     

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet.  It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ.  Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry.  The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake.  For there is no professional childlikeness (Matt. 18:3); there is no professional tenderheartedness (Eph. 4:32); there is no professional panting after God (Ps. 42:1).

But our first business is to pant after God in prayer.  Our business is to weep over our sins (James 4:9).  Is there professional weeping?

Our business is to strain forward to the holiness of Christ and the prize of the upward call of God (Phil. 3:14); to pummel our bodies and subdue them lest we be cast away (1 Cor. 9:27); to deny ourselves and take up the blood-spattered cross daily (Luke 9:23).  How do you carry a cross professionally?  We have been crucified with Christ, yet now we live by faith in the one who loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20).  What is professional faith?

Thus begins, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, by John Piper.  Released in a second edition in 2013, this convicting and compelling work is probably more necessary now than when Piper wrote the first edition thirteen years ago.  It is more necessary because the "professionalism" of the church has only increased in the intervening years.

The seduction of the Church takes many forms.  The most obvious seduction is the one that has occurred in mainline traditions that have adopted the sexual morality of the culture.  The seduction that has affected the evangelical church is the one to which Piper points prophetically--the notion that a professional style and management techniques learned from a secular culture can somehow substitute for the radical nature of our calling and the spiritual graces and power that are God's gift along with that calling.

This outstanding work is now available as a FREE .pdf download from John Piper's ministry, Desiring God.  It is also available for purchase as a paperback or Kindle version.

If you are a pastor, or if you train or disciple clergy and lay leaders in the church, this book is an indispensable part of your formation in how to raise up servant leaders who have a passion for God and who are truly useful in his service.

And, after all, isn't that what it is all about?

Download or buy this book and read it now!
   

It's official: The universe is dying

From here, where there is more:

"The universe has basically sat down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket and is about to nod off for an eternal doze," the leader of the Galaxy and Mass Assembly project said.

Scientists have speculated since the '90s that the universe has been in decline.  This latest project between dozens of universities is just a further confirmation of that.

The researchers measured the energy being emitted from more than 200,000 galaxies.  They measured at 21 different wavelengths, between ultraviolet and the far infrared.

Theoretically, the Big Bang created all the energy in the universe, some of which became mass.  Thanks to Einstein and his equation E=mc², we know stars shine by transferring that mass back into energy.

The stars have already lost half their brightness, not just in terms of visible light but in all the 21 wavelengths measured.

"Once you've burned up all the fuel in the Universe, essentially, that's it.  The stars die, like a fire dies, and then you have embers left over that then glow but eventually cool down.  And the fire just goes out," says University of Hamburg researcher, Joe Liske.  

But, there's good news:  Researchers say the universe has a few billion years left to live.  That's plenty of time for us to figure out our next move, right?

Read the rest.

The Apostle John wrote in Revelation 21: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away..." (21:1).   As Christians, we know that the One who has the whole universe in his hands already has that next move figured out.  But these confirmations from science help us to realize that, even though it may be billions of years away, everything we take for granted in this physical universe will someday come to an end.  And the reminder of our own universe's mortalty puts everything we do now in a new perspective, doesn't it?
 

Sometimes there is pain...

Being an introvert, I tend to process things, not in the moment they are happening, but afterwards.  So vacations are often a time for recollection and introspection.  And, as I am getting older, that introspection tends to turn to thoughts of how I have lived my life, what I have stood for, and how well or unwell things have gone.

A few weeks ago, at the Anglican Congress in Fort Worth, one of the workshop leaders--an emerging leader in his diocese and a graduate of Nashotah House during my deanship, referred to that decade as "a golden era" in the life of the House.  A former faculty member with whom I had dinner last week said the same thing.

Again, being an introvert, I have never been good at self-promotion and, indeed, as a matter of godly principle, have eschewed it.  During my ten years as Dean and President at Nashotah House, whenever someone complimented the good things that were happening, I invariably gave credit (usually with a finger pointed upward) to God--and rightly so--without Him we can do nothing.  "God is doing great things; I am just going along for the ride," I often would say.

During that decade, we established two master's degree programs through distance education and a Doctor of Ministry program.  If you look at the enrollment of Nashotah House today, it is apparent that, without these programs, the House would be faced with closure.  We built Adams Hall, with its large assembly room and additional classrooms (the first public building constructed on the Nashotah campus since 1965), without which there would have been no room for the expanding degree programs or for the conference venue which the House seeks to become.

One of my greatest fears in life is having success be given the appearance of failure.  The machinations and betrayal that resulted in my stepping down as Dean and President are, without doubt, the greatest pain of my life and, have, quite frankly, left wounds that may not heal this side of heaven.

In 2007-2008 I underwent the standard evaluation specified in my contract prior to the renewal of that contract.  The external examiner for that evaluation was the Very Rev. Dr. Philip Turner, whose experience in the deanship of two other Episcopal seminaries makes him the unrivaled expert in the field.  (He was selected by the Board, not by me, for this evaluation.)  A Board committee conducted its own internal evaluation and the two reports were presented together.  Both reports constituted a glowing evaluation which resulted in a five-year renewal of my contract and an embarrassing (but much appreciated) 33% raise.

Two events ensued almost immediately that proved challenging to the House.  (1) The departure of four of the House's most supportive dioceses from the Episcopal Church and the subsequent formation of the Anglican Church in North America.  (2) The Great Recession, from which many individuals and congregations still have not fully recovered.

For many years, the Diocese of Quincy had taken "refugees" into its ordination process (conservative aspirants for Holy Orders who had been rejected in more liberal dioceses).   In the 2007-2008 academic year, Quincy alone accounted for 23 students in the House's student body, roughly one-third of the House's residential enrollment.  When Quincy left the Episcopal Church, that pipeline closed down immediately, and over the next three years, we watched a portion of those 23 students graduate each year with no replacements forthcoming.  A couple of the other supporting dioceses that left the Episcopal Church experienced "freezes" or moratoriums on their ordination processes with the result that nearly half of our residential enrollment was affected.  If it had not been for the distance education degree programs we had already put in place, the situation would have been bleak indeed.

Then, in 2009, the Recession hit.  I received letter after letter from rectors who expressed their continued support for the House but who said, sadly, that they were being forced to reduce their outreach budgets and that they would, for a time, have to reduce or suspend their giving to Nashotah House.

Both of these storms could have been weathered.  The four dioceses that left the Episcopal Church now constitute only a small part of the growing Anglican Church in North America--which is not only a substantial source of new students and financial support, it is a Church which shares the orthodoxy that the House says it wants to maintain.  

And so the second pain I feel is for Nashotah House.  Instead of pursuing stronger relations with the Anglican Church in North America, the Board leadership could only misread the signs of what was happening in this crucial period to conclude that the House needed to redouble its efforts to reach out to the Episcopal Church.

By continuing to pursue the Episcopal Church to the neglect of the Anglican Church in North America and other conservative bodies, Nashotah House has placed itself in a paradoxical and untenable position:  a seminary that has no ordained women on the faculty or staff and doesn’t allow women to celebrate at the altar, and that doesn’t recognize same sex marriages or allow same sex couples to live together on campus—and yet they are desperately pursuing the Episcopal Church where these things are all but mandatory.  Nashotah House has missed a golden opportunity to “come out of the closet” as a conservative, countercultural seminary, serving orthodox Anglicans of whatever jurisdiction and conservative Christians of other traditions—and to let the Episcopal Church continue on the path to its own inevitable destruction. 

There is no future in simply being another seminary of the Episcopal Church.  (The examples of Seabury-Western and General Seminary should be lesson enough--and the contrast with the success of Trinity School for Ministry, which has pursued a more independent course, is startling!)  But the House has too many trustees who are living in a romantic delusion, incapable of recognizing that their brand of Anglicanism is no longer welcome in the Episcopal Church.  They will probably never figure this out in their lifetimes.  But the House may well not survive either the dangerous fantasy or downright cluelessness in which many of the Nashotah Trustees are living.  This situation could still be turned around; but, alas, there is no one with the vision to lead them.

These are the things I ruminate over as I sit on vacation.  And sometimes it causes pain.
      

Probably my last post about General Convention--ever!

Between 1991 and 2009, I attended seven General Conventions of the Episcopal Church, five of those Conventions as a Deputy.  However, I was very glad not to have attended this most recent General Convention in Salt Lake City.  And I am especially glad not to have been there when the Supreme Court's decision legalizing homosexual marriage was announced.  It simply would have been too heartbreaking to watch the revelry as Episcopal bishops and deputies celebrated the nation's highest court giving validation to their degeneracy--Church, State, and Culture marching in lockstep on their relentless descent.  All that is missing is a handbasket.

Not all those present were celebrating:  Twenty-six bishops (vs. 129 in favor and 5 abstentions) went on record in the roll call vote as opposing the adoption of same-sex marriage.  Among those was Bp. William Love of Albany, who stated, "As we contemplate changing the understanding of marriage we must remember our Lord’s words in Matthew (19:5), 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’.”  Love continued,

If our Lord is the son of God … God incarnate, he is quite aware of the nature of marriage and could have offered alternatives but did not,” Bishop Love said.  The argument has been based on all sorts of things.  But it is not an issue that men and women can love each other... that is not the issue.  God has told us that is not appropriate to use the gift of sexual intimacy outside of the marriage of one man and one woman.

Bishop Love stated the church should ask partnered gay and lesbian couples, “Do you love your partner enough not to engage in sexual intimacy?  The issue before us is not about relationships but sexual intimacy.”

Writing from General Convention following the decision, Bishop Dan Martins of Springfield blogged that:

Nonetheless, the Episcopal Church has, today, effectively redefined marriage--a universal and timeless human social institution that Christians have believed is, in fact, not merely a human social institution, but a gift from God that is literally prehistoric, participating in the order of creation.  We have done so, moreover, without even a pretense of consultation with the other provinces of the Anglican Communion, to say nothing of the rest of the Christian world.  It is an act of breathtaking hubris, an abuse of common sense truly worthy of the descriptor Orwellian.

But then, Bp. Martins makes two distinctions that I am inclined to question.  His first questionable distinction has to do with the definition of heresy:

Is it heresy?  This is the question I will continue to ponder.  I don't use that term loosely.  It has a high bar.  Mere false teaching (which this manifestly is) is not necessarily, or even often, heresy.  Heresy must ultimately be traceable to the denial of one of the articles of the creeds.  The creeds don't talk about marriage.  The creeds do, however, talk about creation.  They name God as the creator of heaven and earth.  If marriage was indeed established by God in creation, we are denying the character of that creation when we trivialize the sheer given-ness of "make and female created He them."  These are some preliminary thoughts, at least.

His second questionable distinction follows:

One of my ecclesiological taproots is that one is obligated to remain in communion with a church that engages in false teaching as long as it continues to be a church.  When such a church progresses from mere false teaching into formal heresy--not just de facto heresy, but heresy enshrined in its liturgies and canons--and then persists in that heresy over more than one generation--and I would suggest forty years as a benchmark for "more than one generation"--then it ceases to be a church, and a faithful Christian is obligated to not be in communion with it.  We've certainly been winding the forty-year clock. Is it now ticking? 

Here is why I say the distinctions are questionable:  The New Testament makes no such distinction between false teaching and heresy.  When the Apostle Paul tells his disciple Timothy and the various churches to which he wrote not to tolerate false teachers, he did not make a distinction as to whether their false teaching concerned a matter that would someday be included in the Nicene Creed.  In fact, the admonition was often to separate from false teachers who promoted immorality (1 Corinthians 5:11, 1 Corinthians 10:8, 2 Corinthians 6:17, Ephesians 5:3).  The same is true for other apostles (2 Peter 2:1-10, Jude 3-7).

Heresy has also been defined as any departure from the faith of the Catholic Church, which Vincent of Lerins identified as that which has been believed by the whole church throughout the world, from the beginning, and by all (universality, antiquity, and the consensus of the faithful).  Who can disagree that the Episcopal Church has seriously departed from the received faith of the universal and ancient church--and on a matter of ultimate importance: God's stated will for humankind in the matter of sexual relations and God's ordained sacrament of Holy Matrimony?

And as to remaining in communion, the New Testament makes no such stipulation.  The Apostle Paul does not say, if the body with which you are associated continues in false teaching for a generation, then you (or, more likely, your children) are obliged to separate from it.  No, the admonition is that those who are serious about following the way of Christ are either to expel or to separate from false teachers immediately.

Further, as Attorney Allan Haley writes, the Episcopal Church has not only committed heresy but blasphemy:  "It was God Himself who defined marriage as between a male and a female in Genesis 2:24, and thus to invoke the name of that same God in blessing (or celebrating) a pairing that is not one that he made provision for in Holy Scripture is a blasphemy on His name."

Commenting on the proposals for same-sex marriage prior to General Convention, Mr. Haley had already written, 

What hope is there for the Episcopal Church if any of these Resolutions passes its General Convention?  At that point, the Church will be on record as promoting and encouraging its ordained clergy to speak blasphemously of the relationship between Christ and his church every time they perform a same-sex marriage.  And so at that point, the Church will most definitely no longer be a church, let alone a part of the "one true, catholic and apostolic church" instituted by our Lord.  Instead, it will be at war with our Lord's church.

Can anyone seriously disagree that the Episcopal Church, which has chosen the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil (1 John 2:15-16), has put itself in the position of being "at war with our Lord's Church?"

Bishop Martins has now issued "A Word on Holy Matrimony" in which he states the following policies for his diocese:

• The new marriage liturgies will not be authorized in the Diocese of Springfield.
• No member of the clergy who is either canonically resident in the diocese or resident elsewhere while licensed in the diocese may preside or officiate at any service in which the recently-adopted rites are used, either in whole or in part. This restriction applies both within the bounds of the diocese and beyond them.
• No resident or licensed cleric may sign the civil marriage certificate for a union between persons of the same sex.
• No resident or licensed cleric may preside or officiate at the Blessing of a Civil Marriage for persons of the same sex.
• Failure to abide by these expectations will be understood as a breach of an ordained person’s canonical vow of obedience to the Bishop, and dealt with accordingly.
• No church building of the diocese, nor any other venue owned by or associated with a church of the diocese, may be used for such a ceremony.
• No such ceremony may be recorded either in the Service Register or the Marriage Register of any church in this diocese.

In giving these directives, Bishop Martins has taken the path of a faithful, catholic Christian.  God bless him!  How long he and his fellow dissenting bishops can remain on that path in the Episcopal Church remains to be seen.
  

Where is the Outrage?

Kathryn Steinle, 32

I am reprinting this story (below) that I posted in July 2013 for an obvious reason.  A a 32-year-old San Francisco woman, Kathryn Steinle, was shot to death last week while taking a picturesque walk with her father down Pier 14 in San Francisco, a popular tourist area.  Police have arrested, Francisco Sanchez, 45, an illegal immigrant and a repeat felon who had already been deported five times, for the crime. 

This heinous murder points to (1) the the utter failure of this administration to secure our borders, (2) the general attitude that the President's executive amnesty is encouraging throughout our law enforcement community of looking the other way when it comes to illegal immigrants, (3) the stupidity of San Francisco and other cities who have made themselves "sanctuary cities" by refusing to cooperate with federal authorities to enforce immigration laws, and (4) the fallacy of thinking that gun control laws (which only affect law-abiding citizens) have anything to do with preventing situations like this.

Louise Sollowin, 93

At the time of my earlier article (July 2013), the Trayvon Martin story was attracting all the media coverage, while a 93-year-old Omaha woman was sexually assaulted and beaten to death by a 19-year-old illegal alien.  I predicted then that, apart from a local Omaha newspaper and television station, the national media are going to bury this story.  And they did.  No one outside Omaha heard about Louise Sollowin.  While President Obama called for a "national conversation about race" over the death of Trayvon Martin, there was no outcry for a "national conversation" about illegal immigration.

The murder of Louise Sollowin two years ago and the murder of Kathryn Steinle last week are not isolated incidents.  You can Google "illegal alien crimes" and read about hundreds and even thousands of similar incidents.

A lot has changed in the two years between these two murders: (1) the President has openly defied Congress and the will of the American people with his executive amnesty orders, and (2) more than a million more illegal immigrants have entered the US.

But a lot has also not changed: (1) nothing has been done to secure the borders, and (2) no one in Congress seems to have the political will to tackle this issue.  The voters gave Republicans a majority in the Senate and increased their majority in the House of Representatives with a clear mandate:  Securing the borders was a principal part of that mandate.  Now, establishment Republicans are acting like Democrats on this issue.  Meanwhile American jobs, American cities, and American lives are being lost as a consequence.

Here's the article from July 2013:

Where Is the Outrage?

Yo!  Trayvon Martin supporters!  How about saving a little of your outrage for this:

Church remembers longtime south Omaha matriarch

OMAHA, Neb. — A church and community are in mourning following the senseless death of a 93-year-old south Omaha woman.

A crowd is expected to turn out Friday night and Saturday to pay respects to Louise Sollowin, who lived most of her life in the home where police said she was beaten and sexually assaulted Sunday.

Sollowin died of her injuries Wednesday.

Her alleged attacker, Sergio Martinez-Perez, 19, returned to court Friday to face a first-degree murder charge in connection with Sollowin's death.

Those who knew Sollowin are now preparing to say goodbye.

"I can tell you at mass when we announced it, there were definitely tears," said Rev. James Buckley, of St. Francis Cabrini.  "I mean, we still have people in the parish who were raised with Louise, so they knew her, they remember her.  It's just a difficult time for the whole parish."

Buckley understands how difficult it is to process the unimaginable way Sollowin died.  He spent the last moments of her life at her hospital bedside praying with her and her family.  Buckley said he still can't shake the image of Sollowin's battered face or the severity of the crime.

In court Friday, prosecutors said Martinez-Perez admitted to looking for a victim because he was "mad at women."  He randomly picked Sollowin's house, prosecutors allege.

Read more (with video).

Police: Elderly woman who was beaten, raped dies

Sergio Martinez-Perez faces murder charge

OMAHA, Neb. —A 19-year-old accused of beating and raping an elderly woman who later died will now face a murder charge.

Prosecutors said Sergio Martinez-Perez beat and sexually assaulted 93-year-old Louise Sollowin in her home Sunday.  Sollowin died Wednesday.

Martinez-Perez is charged with first-degree murder.  Charges were dropped for first-degree sexual assault and first-degree assault and burglary.

A judge denied him bond on Friday.

Autopsy results showed that Sollowin's cause of death was blunt force trauma.

Sollowin's family remembers her as a strong woman with many stories and talents.

“She loved her family and her family loved her,” said Teresa Hartzell, the victim’s granddaughter.  “She was all about family.”

“(She was) a wonderful seamstress.  We all got pajamas from her for Christmas, all the grandkids.  She made her children’s clothes,” Hartzell said.

Sollowin's daughter found her suffering in her home Sunday morning.

“She heard my grandmother, and she went in the bedroom, her grandmother called, ‘Help me. Help me,'” Hartzell said.

Hartzell said her mother pushed Martinez-Perez away from her and was going to help her grandmother and saw that it was serious, ran into the other room and called police.

Hartzell and her husband arrived moments later, seeing the man police arrested.

“I was there when the police took him out and he just glared,” she said. “I don’t think there’s any words for it. I just can’t understand why someone would do that. Doesn’t make any sense.”

Prosecutors said Martinez-Perez admitted to the assault and rape, saying he was mad at women after a night of drinking.

Joe Sollowin, Louise's son, said Perez stole precious years from his mother, and the family is demanding justice.

“I want him to get the electric chair. That's what I want. Of course that can't bring my mother back, but he doesn't deserve anything,” he said.

Joe said he is haunted by the pain his mother suffered.  "I still can't get the thought of seeing what happened -- beating her up.   That's not how you want her to go and that's not right,” he said.

Martinez-Perez, who had been working as a roofer, has no ties to Omaha and no known relatives in the metro.

Investigators said Martinez-Perez is not a legal resident of the United States, and that his country of origin is not yet clear.

The victim’s family said a detective told them Perez has been in the country for about four months.  [Emphasis added.]
Read more (with video).
(with video)

Hello! White House?  Hello! Justice Department?  If the killing of Trayvon Martin is enough to merit the personal involvement of the President of the United States and the Attorney General, and if it is cause to open a national conversation about race, then shouldn't the brutal murder of Louise Sollowin by an illegal alien be sufficient to make us rethink the immigration proposals that are currently before Congress? 

Of course it is.  But the main reason it probably won't happen is because, apart from a local Omaha newspaper and television station, the national media are going to bury this story.

How many more lives will we lose before our political leaders act?

  

Unprecedented Four SCOTUS Dissents Promise to Keep Marriage Debate Open

Today, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court of the United States announced a new constitutional right that requires all 50 states to license and recognize same-sex marriage.  In a rare show of disapproval, all four dissenting U.S. Supreme Court justices have issued independent dissenting opinions for today’s landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges.

Today's SCOTUS decision does grave injury to the basic concept that the people—not the courts—make the law.  The Court has abruptly cut off the ongoing debate over the definition of marriage, unilaterally imposing its view of what’s good for society by suddenly discovering a new constitutional right that almost no one would have imagined just a few years ago.  The "separation of powers" most of us learned about in grade school is daily being undermined by executive fiat and judicial overreach.  It is time for all of us to remind our elected leaders that all governmental power ultimately resides in the consent of the governed—not in kings, dictators, or judges.

You can read the majority decision, and the four separate dissenting opinions, here.

Here are some excerpts from the dissenting justices, which show the level of alarm raised by this astonishing judicial act:

Chief Justice John Roberts:

"But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening....  The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment.  The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.  The majority expressly disclaims judicial 'caution' and omits even a pretense of humility, openly relying on its desire to remake society according to its own 'new insight' into the 'nature of injustice.'"

In doing so, Roberts contends, the majority justices have usurped the role of legislators and ultimately of the people themselves:

"The majority today neglects that restrained conception of the judicial role.  It seizes for itself a question the Constitution leaves to the people, at a time when the people are engaged in a vibrant debate on that question.  And it answers that question based not on neutral principles of constitutional law, but on its own 'understanding of what freedom is and must become'"

Similarly, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito all object to what they consider a horrifically wrong-headed decision not because they personally disagree with same-sex marriage, but because they care deeply about the role that the U.S. Supreme Court is commissioned to play in our American republic. 

Justice Antonin Scalia:  

"The [majority's] opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic.  It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so...  The stuff contained in today’s opinion has to diminish this Court’s reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis."

Justice Scalia also notes that at the time the Constitution’s 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, “every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so.” 

Justice Clarence Thomas:  

"Our Constitution—like the Declaration of Independence before it—was predicated on a simple truth: One’s liberty, not to mention one’s dignity, was something to be shielded from—not provided by—the State.  Today’s decision casts that truth aside.  In its haste to reach a desired result, the majority misapplies a clause focused on 'due process' to afford substantive rights, disregards the most plausible understanding of the 'liberty' protected by that clause, and distorts the principles on which this Nation was founded.  Its decision will have inestimable consequences for our Constitution and our society."

Justice Samuel Alito:  

"Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage.  The decision will also have other important consequences.  It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.  In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women.  The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent."

From the standpoint of those who support the traditional definition of marriage, there is no way to put a positive spin on today's ruling.  It is just about as bad as it can get.  The Court has plunged our nation into a world where, as Justice Scalia put it, "the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court."

We should take no solace in any assurances that our religious liberties will remain safe.  They will not.  Justice Alito is prescient in his estimation of the effect of today's decision: "It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy."  We fool ourselves if we rest in the belief that we are safe from those who wish to outlaw the sincerely-held views of millions of Americans who know the truth about marriage.

As we see most clearly on days like today, it really DOES matter who we elect to office, especially those who appoint judges!

May God have mercy on the United States of America!
  

Report: ISIS Jihadist Converts to Christianity After Seeing Jesus in His Dreams

From here:

ISIS slaughters Christians and destroys churches while they establish their caliphate in Syria and Iraq. But one militant reportedly converted to Christianity after “a man in white” appeared in his dreams.

Gina Fadely, the director of Youth With A Mission Frontier Missions (YWAM), told The Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network one of their workers met a former ISIS fighter who murdered Christians, but converted after a dream:

“He told this YWAM leader that he had begun having dreams of this man in white who came to him and said, ‘You are killing my people.’ And he started to feel really sick and uneasy about what he was doing,” Fadely continued. “The fighter said just before he killed one Christian, the man said, ‘I know you will kill me, but I give to you my Bible.’ The Christian was killed and this ISIS fighter actually took the Bible and began to read it. In another dream, Jesus asked him to follow him and he was now asking to become a follower of Christ and to be discipled.”

Read the rest.
  

Pope Francis Encyclical Calls for Climate ‘Justice,’ Formation of Global Political Body

From The Guardian:

Pope Francis will this week call for changes in lifestyles and energy consumption to avert the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem” before the end of this century, according to a leaked draft of a papal encyclical. In a document released by an Italian magazine on Monday, the pontiff will warn that failure to act would have “grave consequences for all of us”.

Francis also called for a new global political authority tasked with “tackling … the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions”. His appeal echoed that of his predecessor, pope Benedict XVI, who in a 2009 encyclical proposed a kind of super-UN to deal with the world’s economic problems and injustices.

According to the lengthy draft, which was obtained and published by L’Espresso magazine, the Argentinean pope will align himself with the environmental movement and its objectives. While accepting that there may be some natural causes of global warming, the pope will also state that climate change is mostly a man-made problem.

Read the rest of the story here.
  

NOAA Fiddles With Climate Data To Erase The 15-Year Global Warming ‘Hiatus’

From here:
 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have found a solution to the 15-year “pause” in global warming: They “adjusted” the hiatus in warming out of the temperature record.

New climate data by NOAA scientists doubles the warming trend since the late 1990s by adjusting pre-hiatus temperatures downward and inflating temperatures in more recent years.

“Newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s [National Centers for Environmental Information] do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus,'” wrote NOAA scientists in their study presenting newly adjusted climate data.

To increase the rate in warming, NOAA scientists put more weight on certain ocean buoy arrays, adjusted ship-based temperature readings upward, and slightly raised land-based temperatures as well. Scientists said adjusted ship-based temperature data “had the largest impact on trends for the 2000-2014 time period, accounting for 0.030°C of the 0.064°C trend difference.” They added that the “buoy offset correction contributed 0.014°C… to the difference, and the additional weight given to the buoys because of their greater accuracy contributed 0.012°C.”

NOAA says for the years 1998 to 2012, the “new analysis exhibits more than twice as much warming as the old analysis at the global scale,” at 0.086 degrees Celsius per decade compared to 0.039 degrees per decade.

“This is clearly attributable to the new [Sea Surface Temperature] analysis, which itself has much higher trends,” scientists noted in their study. “In contrast, trends in the new [land surface temperature] analysis are only slightly higher.”

Global surface temperature data shows a lack of statistically significant warming over the last 15 years — a development that has baffled climate scientists. Dozens of explanations have been offered to explain the hiatus in warming, but those theories may be rendered moot by NOOA’s new study.

NOAA’s study, however, notes the overall warming trend since 1880 has not been significantly changed. What’s increased is the warming trend in recent decades.

“Our new analysis now shows the trend over the period 1950-1999, a time widely agreed as having significant anthropogenic global warming, is 0.113 [degrees Celsius per decade], which is virtually indistinguishable with the trend over the period 2000-2014″ of 0.116 degrees per decade, according to the study.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “statement of two years ago — that the global surface temperature has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years’ — is no longer valid,” the study claims.

But that’s not all NOAA did to increase the warming trend in recent decades. Climate expert Bob Tisdale and meteorologist Anthony Watts noted that to “manufacture warming during the hiatus, NOAA adjusted the pre-hiatus data downward.”

“If we subtract the [old] data from the [new] data… we can see that that is exactly what NOAA did,” Tisdale and Watts wrote on the science blog Watts Up With That.

“It’s the same story all over again; the adjustments go towards cooling the past and thus increasing the slope of temperature rise,” Tisdale and Watts added. “Their intent and methods are so obvious they’re laughable.”

Adjusting Good Data Upwards To Match Bad Data Seems Questionable’

NOAA’s updated data was also criticized by climate scientists with the libertarian Cato Institute. Scientists Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger argue the adjustments made by NOAA were “guaranteed to put a warming trend in recent data.”

Cato scientists also argued that NOAA’s new data is an outlier compared to other global temperature records, which overwhelmingly show a hiatus in warming.

It “would seem more logical to seriously question the [NOAA] result in light of the fact that, compared to those bulk temperatures, it is an outlier, showing a recent warming trend that is not in these other global records,” the three scientists wrote.

“Adjusting good data upwards to match bad data seems questionable, and the fact that the buoy network becomes increasingly dense in the last two decades means that this adjustment must put a warming trend in the data,” wrote Michaels, Knappenberger and Lindzen, who is a top climatologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Scientists and climate experts skeptical of man-made global warming have become increasingly critical of temperature adjustments made by government climate agencies like NASA and NOAA. Skeptics charge that agencies like NOAA have been tampering with past temperatures to make the warming trend look much more severe than is shown in the raw data.

“It is important to recognize that the central issue of human-caused climate change is not a question of whether it is warming or not, but rather a question of how much,” they wrote. “And to this relevant question, the answer has been, and remains, that the warming is taking place at a much slower rate than is being projected.”

Georgia Tech climate scientist Judith Curry also chimed in, arguing that NOAA excluded extremely accurate sea buoy data in order to erase the hiatus in warming. Curry wrote that it “seems rather ironic, since this is the period where there is the greatest coverage of data with the highest quality of measurements — ARGO buoys and satellites don’t show a warming trend.”

“Nevertheless, the NOAA team finds a substantial increase in the ocean surface temperature anomaly trend since 1998,” she wrote. “This short paper in Science is not adequate to explain and explore the very large changes that have been made to the NOAA data set. The global surface temperature datasets are clearly a moving target. So while I’m sure this latest analysis from NOAA will be regarded as politically useful for the Obama administration, I don’t regard it as a particularly useful contribution to our scientific understanding of what is going on.”
  

Words and Phrases Remind Us of the Way We Word

Sent to me by e-mail:  Some of these expressions predate me by quite a few years, even decades.  But I love the classics:

Words and Phrases Remind Us of the Way We Word

by Richard Lederer

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included "Don’t touch that dial," "Carbon copy," "You sound like a broken record" and "Hung out to dry."  A bevy of readers have asked me to shine light on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie.  We’d put on our best bib and tucker and straighten up and fly right.  Hubba-hubba!  We’d cut a rug in some juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion pit or lovers’ lane.  Heavens to Betsy!  Gee whillikers!  Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!  Holy moley!  We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn’t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill.  Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell?  Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers.  Oh, my aching back.  Kilroy was here, but he isn’t anymore.

Like Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, we have become unstuck in time.  We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” or “This is a fine kettle of fish!” we discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind.  We blink, and they’re gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder’s monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone?  Long time passing.  Where have all those phrases gone?  Long time ago: Pshaw.  The milkman did it.  Think about the starving Armenians.  Bigger than a bread box.  Banned in Boston.  The very idea!  It’s your nickel.  Don’t forget to pull the chain.  Knee high to a grasshopper.  Turn-of-the-century.  Iron curtain.  Domino theory.  Fail safe.  Civil defense.  Fiddlesticks!  You look like the wreck of the Hesperus.  Cooties.  Going like sixty.  I’ll see you in the funny papers.  Don’t take any wooden nickels.  Heavens to Murgatroyd!  And awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters!  It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills.  This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart’s deep core.  But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice.  Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times.  For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age.  We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory.  It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging.  We can have archaic and eat it, too.

See ‘ya later, alligator!

After while, crocodile!
 

IRANIAN SPECIAL FORCES COMMANDER: ‘OBAMA HAS NOT DONE A DAMN THING’ TO FIGHT ISIS

The title pretty much says it all.  But there is more.

Iranian elite paramilitary force leader Major General Qassem Soleimani accused the United States of having “no will” to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and blasted President Barack Obama as not having “done a damn thing” to quell the terrorist insurgency. The remarks follow news that Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah is planning to increase its presence in Iraq to combat ISIS.

Read it all.

  

Oh, just peachy--Hezbollah increasing its presence in Iraq to fight ISIS!  That should make the region and the world a safer place (not!).   On this Memorial Day, we need to remember that the United States has been a powerful force for good in the world for more than 200 years; and where the US is absent, evil flourishes.  

  

How to preach sermons that don’t suck

From the Covenant blog, where there is more.  (Be sure and read it all.)

Let’s be honest, most sermons today are terrible.  They are boring.  They ramble.  They sound like bad imitations of high school book reports.  Listening to a sermon today is often like listening to the teacher from the old Charlie Brown cartoons.  And I believe the reason why preaching has gotten so bad, particularly in liturgical churches, is rather obvious.  We do not have good preachers because we do not understand what preaching is for.

Like being a great cello player or a great center fielder, a great preacher is born with a certain degree of raw talent that then must be honed and trained in order for the preacher to reach his or her full potential.  But in liturgical churches in the contemporary West, we see preaching as less important than other aspects of ministry.  We assume that anyone can be a great preacher and that the honing of preaching skills ought to be relatively low on the clergy’s priority list, something to tend to once all the other fires are put out.  We reap what we sow.  We treat preaching like it is nothing, and thus it becomes nothing.

What I offer here are a few maxims on what makes great preaching.  They are culled from my own experience both as a preacher and as someone who listens to sermons.  I am no expert, and this list is nowhere near exhaustive, but it is a start. I hope that others will build on this.  “Faith comes through hearing,” Paul says (Romans 10:17).  It is no secret that the Church in the West is in decline, and I see no scenario for its revival that does not include a renewal of great preaching.

Read it all.
  

And it is good...

Someone asked a retiring seminary president what he was going to do with his time once he retired.  "Well, for one thing," replied the president, "I am looking forward to getting back to my book."  His friend looked surprised and said, "I didn't know you were writing a book."  "No," said the president, "I mean the one I was reading."

I have told that story a number of times because it fits my life to a tee.  I have spent 31 one years in graduate theological education, ten of those as a seminary dean/president.  For much of that time, I was involved in administration.  My PhD program required two minors (in my case, New Testament and Missiology) and even my major was a double major: Historical and Systematic Theology.  I have taught in all these areas, as well as Church History, Christian Spirituality, Liturgics, and Christian Education.  But it was never enough to concentrate on my subject area; I always had a concern for creating a learning environment, recruiting good faculty, providing the infrastructure to make learning possible.  So it was almost inevitable that, at some point, I would become a seminary president.  At the same time, being involved in administration has meant that I have missed being able to immerse myself in research and writing to the degree I would have liked.

Even though the last three houses where we have lived have had a study where I could work, it didn't prevent books, computers, and a work area from overflowing into the master bedroom.  In our current house, we devoted the room that could have been a study to other things, so our master bedroom now has two desks, three computers (1 PC, 1 Mac, and 1 Linux) and enough floor to ceiling bookcases to hold roughly 2,000 books.  It looks more like a large study with a bed in it than a master bedroom.  (I have a very understanding wife.)   The remainder of our books (more than half ) are on shelves elsewhere in the house or still stored in boxes because there isn't enough room to unpack them.  Of the books in the master bedroom, I have read slightly over half of them.  So I lie in bed sometimes and look at all the books and think to myself, "If I knew everything that was in all these books...  Wow!"

I didn't retire as a seminary president; I left and became rector of a very wonderful congregation.  I am blessed to have in this congregation three other Anglican priests (in addition to myself), a Foursquare Gospel minister, and a Lutheran pastor who is also a psychologist.  Then there are three professors (Fuller Seminary, Biola University, Trinity School for Ministry) who are members, and a fourth (from Westminster Seminary) who owns a condo in the area and worships with us when he is in town.  Then there are few more MDs and PhDs--in total I would guess that more than a quarter of the congregation has one or more advanced degrees.  If you were to think that makes us a stuffy or pretentious bunch, you'd be wrong.  The congregation (aptly named "All Saints") embraces everyone from the wealthy to the homeless, from high IQ individuals to the developmentally challenged, and is the warmest, friendliest, most welcoming congregation I know.

The transition from seminary president to pastor has been a very natural one in some ways and monumental in others.  I have been here 18 months, and it has taken me almost that long to learn to read again.  I mean really read--seriously, deeply, enjoyably.  Maybe I'll get to read the rest of the books I own after all.

My life today is far from devoid of academic pursuits:  I helped found the St. Benedict School for Ministry in the Diocese of Quincy, to make quality theological education accessible online.  In addition to teaching Church History and Theology, I am the Dean and President of the School.  I continue to serve on the boards of Anglicans for Life, the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders (SAMS), and Anglican Frontier Missions, in addition to serving on the Commission on Ministry, the Diocesan Council, and the Committee on Constitutions and Canons in the Diocese of Quincy.  I served as one of the writers of the new Catechism for the Anglican Church in North America, and I currently serve on the ACNA's Ecumenical Relations Task Force and the Theology Working Group of the newly-appointed Task Force on Marriage, Family, and the Single Life.

(I didn't realize how busy I was until I typed that last paragraph.  No wonder I am tired sometimes.)

As a member of the ACNA's Ecumenical Relations Task Force, I wrote the paper on the Filioque (the phrase in the Nicene Creed translated as "and the Son") that was received by the College of Bishops and has influenced how the Filioque is treated in the Nicene Creed in the ACNA's Texts for Common Prayer.  For Forward in Faith North America, I wrote a paper entitled "An Anglican View of the Seven Ecumenical Councils that has been reprinted as one of their position papers.  Both of these papers are available at academia.edu.

At All Saints, our mission statement is: "Reaching Out With the Transforming Love of Jesus Christ."  We are exploring what it means to be a "place of healing" to all who come to All Saints and a "place of blessing" to those in the community around us.  By the grace of God, we are growing at a time when many congregations are finding that to be a challenge.

I am growing too--not always in the ways I would have chosen if it had been solely up to me.  But one of the challenges we all face in life is learning to "bloom where you are planted."  And again, by the grace of God, it is happening slowly but surely.  And it is good.
 

Islamic State uproots Christians who use the language of Jesus

From here:

BEIRUT — Suhail Gabriel was in bed when Islamic State militants stormed his village in eastern Syria, firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.  Gabriel rushed his wife and daughter onto his motorcycle and sped through the early-morning darkness, he later recalled.

“We left in our pajamas,” Gabriel said. “We didn’t even have time to put on clothes.”

He was among the thousands of people from an ancient community of Christians, known as Assyrians, who fled 35 farming villages in Syria’s Khabur River area in February because of attacks by the extremist Sunni Muslim group.  The militants desecrated churches and religious symbols during the offensive and kidnapped about 250 of the Assyrians, including women and children.

Over the past decade, Assyrians have joined waves of Christians who have fled Syria and Iraq because of war and persecution by extremist Muslims.  But the latest attacks have added to concerns that this unique Mesopotamian people are in danger of disappearing from the region.

Assyrians in Iraq and Syria belong to the last communities of significant size to speak the language of Jesus: Aramaic. Many of Assyrians are being forced to move outside the Middle East, where it becomes less likely that the tongue will be maintained, said Eden Naby, a Middle East historian and expert on Assyrian culture.

Aramaic is the oldest continuously written and spoken language in the Middle East, she said. It was once also used by other religious communities, including Jews. “Assyrians remain the last Aramaic-speaking of people of the world. So the disappearance and displacement of these people pretty much spells the closing chapter of Aramaic use in the world,” Naby said.

Read the rest.
 

Archbishop: Anglican Conflicts Coming to a Denomination Near You

As I have been saying for a very long time...

From here:

An orthodox renewal leader in the Anglican Communion has warned that the pressures which divided his family of churches are on the doorstep of every other Christian Church.

“What the Anglicans are suffering is already, or will be, the fate of us all,” warned Archbishop Peter Jensen.  “Even evangelical and catholic denominations and movements will not be exempt in years to come.  Do not think that you are living in a safe haven.  You are not.”

The emeritus Archbishop of Sydney, Australia spoke March 18 at Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania for the school’s eighth annual Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. Lecture on Theology, Culture, and Mission. Jensen’s lecture was entitled “Beginning in Jerusalem: The Theological Significance of the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference.” (GAFCON)

Speaking to an audience of mostly non-Anglicans, Jensen outlined the crisis within the third largest family of Christian churches, explaining why other Christians should take note, and what lessons they could bring back to their own Christian communities.

“This may all seem very remote to you,” Jensen noted.  “Your church home may be comfortably orthodox – but so fast is change coming and so massive are the forces at play that no one is safe.  You need perhaps to enter into our experience so that you can prepare yourself for what may come.  You too may need to form a new confessional fellowship.”

Read the rest.
  

Devil of a Job: Growing Number of Exorcists in England Due to Soaring Porn and Drug Use

The number of exorcists in England is growing following a rise in demonic possession, as both the (London) Times and the Daily Telegraph are reporting.

A week-long exorcism conference, held this week at the Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum in Rome and endorsed by the Vatican, is being attended by around 160 Roman Catholic priests from around the world, who insist that demonic possession is very real.  

Dioceses in the UK, Italy, Spain and elsewhere have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of people claiming to be possessed and have responded by training more priests in the dark arts of how to perform exorcisms.

A priest who is one of four Britons to attend the conference in Rome said that most Roman Catholic dioceses in England now have an official exorcist, whereas only half had one just five years ago.  He explained that part of the reason for this increasing demand is the rise in the consumption of pornography, drugs, and greater interest in the occult in modern society.

“Porn and drugs are addictions which can allow an evil spirit to enter, but there is also a growth in awareness within the church of the Devil,” he said.

Since his election two years ago, Pope Francis has frequently mentioned the Devil, helping put belief in Satan back into the mainstream of Catholic thought.  Father Cesare Truqui, a Mexican exorcist, told the media:

“Pope Francis talks about the Devil all the time and that has certainly raised awareness about exorcisms.  But all Latin Americans have this sensibility – for them, the existence of the Devil is part of their faith.”

One of the British priests added: “Until a few years ago, a significant number of people in the Church didn’t believe in the Devil, but people are now going back to the Scriptures.  Pope Francis has given a certain amount of encouragement to that.”

Fr Truqui, who serves as exorcist for the Swiss diocese of Chur, says he has taken part in around 100 exorcisms.  He said that exorcists are trained to discern the difference between demonic possession and medically treatable psychiatric disorders.

“Some people are mentally ill and do not need exorcism.  But others do and there are some classic signs – people who speak in ancient tongues, for instance.  Other people have supernatural strength when they are in a state of possession – it might take four men to hold down a slightly-built woman.  In some cases, people are able to levitate.”

One of the British priests also said: “If one is addicted to something, it allows the evil spirit to hook into that and make it more potent.”  He added, however: “A considerable number of the cases referred to us are in fact psychiatric cases.  It is important to be able to recognize the difference.”

In October, Pope Francis commended exorcist priests for their fight against "the Devil's works", saying that the Church needed to help "those possessed by evil."

During the week-long course, there will be lectures by Roman Catholic prelates on subjects such as “Occultism, black magic and Satanism,” “Angels and demons in Holy Scripture,” and “Criminal Aspects of Satanism.”
 

New York Times Writer: Christians Must Be Made to Embrace Gay Lifestyle

The war on Christians escalated on Sunday, with an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Frank Bruni, onetime Times restaurant critic and a gay activist.  Breitbart contributor Thomas D. Williams offers the following report on the NYT article:

In the wake of the Indiana donnybrook over religious liberty, which somehow was transformed overnight into a question of gay rights, it couldn’t be long before the New York Times weighed in against Christians.

Yet who could have expected the draconian measures the Times would propose?  Either Christians fully embrace the gay lifestyle, or you will be coerced into doing so.

Op-ed writer Frank Bruni, onetime Times restaurant critic and a gay activist, has written that Christians who hold on to “ossified,” biblically-based beliefs regarding sexual morality have no place at America’s table and are deserving of no particular regard.

In one fell swoop, Bruni trashes all believing Christians as “bigots,” saying that Christians’ negative moral assessment of homosexual relations is “a choice” that “prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing.”

In other words, if you still cling to your benighted views and your “ancient texts,” you are living in the past and your views merit no respect.

Bruni’s solution to the impasse is not some sort of goodwill compromise or a treaty of mutual respect, but a take-no-prisoners ultimatum to Christians to abandon their beliefs or else.  When Bruni says that Christians’ understanding of sexual morality is “a choice,” what he means is that there is a way out without completely losing face: just embrace the new morality preached by mainstream liberal churches that see nothing wrong with any sexual arrangement you are comfortable with.  Then we will accept you.

As a food critic, NY Times writer Frank Bruni was entertaining and occasionally informative.  As an op-ed columnist he is adolescent and often repetitive.  But as a theologian, he is simply abysmal.

Bruni takes it upon himself to explain how the Bible can be interpreted to read that God is really fine with sodomy and that all that antiquated stuff against adultery, fornication, and “men lying with other men” is a quaint vestige of an archaic worldview that went out definitively with Freud.

The scary part about Bruni’s essay is not his awkward attempt at playing the biblical scholar, but the undertone of evident disdain for Christians and his proposal that those who resist should be forcibly reeducated.

In Christians’ refusal to bend with the times, Bruni sees not faithfulness to God but willful obstinacy that must be broken.

“So our debate about religious freedom should include a conversation about freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can indeed jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other aspects of their faith’s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity,” Bruni writes.

But what if Christians don’t want to change?  What if they don’t want to “bow to the enlightenments of modernity”?  What if they are convinced that the modern worldview is not necessarily the most enlightened path when it comes to the ultimate meaning of life and death, time and eternity?

“Religion,” writes Bruni, “is going to be the final holdout and most stubborn refuge for homophobia. It will give license to discrimination.”

And thus it must be stamped out.

Bruni cites fellow gay activist Mitchell Gold, founder of the advocacy group Faith in America, as saying that church leaders must be made to take homosexuality off the sin list.  “His commandment is worthy — and warranted,” writes Bruni.

So now government should be dictating belief to churches and enforcing theological orthodoxy?  Now politicians and courts will be telling Christians what they are allowed to consider as sinful?  Isn’t this what America was founded to escape from? [Emphasis added.]

People are already talking about forcing churches to perform same-sex weddings, whether they like it or not, or get out of the marriage business.  Christians founded America and yet now the minority gay lobby is trying to tell them they are personae non gratae and their beliefs are no longer welcome.

America has a grand tradition of tolerance and religious freedom, respect for a diversity of beliefs, and an honest engagement with ideas of all sorts.  It seems that some would like to force all Americans to walk in lockstep, marching to the same drummer.

Sincere Christians have no problem accepting other people with all their sins, inclinations, and struggles, fully understanding that they are in no way superior to the next guy and no better in God’s eyes.

But attempts to force them to abandon their ethical standards and their principles reveal not open-mindedness or fairness, but intolerance, chauvinism, and hate.

These are the attitudes that have no place in America.

One further observation:  This kind of hatred toward Christians is precisely why laws protecting religious freedom are necessary.    
  

Head of US Episcopal Church: Climate Change Denial is Immoral

The head of the Episcopal Church has finally declared something immoral, and even if the headline didn't give it away, it wouldn't take a knowledgeable person 5 seconds to guess what it is.

From here:

The highest ranking woman in the Anglican Communion has said that climate change denial is immoral and threatens the rights of the world’s poorest people.  Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told The Guardian that she believes those who deny climate change are not using God’s gift of knowledge.  Her comments come at the start of a month-long campaign to encourage the church’s 2.5 million members to reduce their carbon footprint.

A former Oceanographer before her ordination at the age of 40, Bishop Jefferts Schori, one of the most senior women in Christianity, said that the campaign was needed to persuade her fellow Episcopalians of the need to do something about climate change personally, whether it was lobbying governments and corporations to fight climate change, or reducing their own carbon emissions.

So the Gospel-spreading organization, the Church, is instead going to lobby "governments and corporations to fight climate change."  Oh, I forgot, for the Episcopal Church, environmentalism is the Gospel, because "the world is God's body."

“I really hope to motivate average Episcopalians to see the severity of this issue, the morality of this issue,” she said. “Turning the ship in another direction requires the consolidated efforts of many people who are moving in the same direction.

Like lemmings.

“It’s hard work when you have a climate denier who will not see the reality of scientific truth,” she added.

You mean like a co-founder of Greenpeace who points out what a lot of codswallop this whole greenhouse gas/CO2 thing is.

But for Jefferts Schori, the question isn’t only scientific, it’s moral too.  Referring to those who do not believe in man made climate change theory as holding “a very blind position,” she compared the need to tackle climate change as a moral imperative, akin to the American civil rights movement.

Because we missed Selma, but we can still look important if we convince everybody this thing is real.

“[Climate change] is in that sense much like the civil rights movement in this country where we are attending to the rights of all people and the rights of the earth to continue to be a flourishing place. It is certainly a moral issue in terms of the impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable around the world already.

It is only a sin if it negatively impacts the poor.

“Episcopalians understand the life of the mind is a gift of God and to deny the best of current knowledge is not using the gifts God has given you,” she added. “In that sense, yes, it could be understood as a moral issue.”

Ummm, not buying that "best of current knowledge" canard.

She believes that evangelical strains of Christianity, more commonly associated with a conservative interpretation of the religion, are becoming increasingly concerned with climate change as a social justice issue.

“One of the significant changes in particular has been the growing awareness and activism among the evangelical community who at least somewhat in the more distant past refused to encounter this issue, refused to deal with it,” Jefferts Schori said. “The major evangelical groups in this country have been much more forward in addressing this issue because they understand that it impacts the poor.”

Most "evangelicals" who are jumping on this bandwagon are getting all their news from MSNBC and think having an iPhone is much more important than being a Christian.

But unlike many Christian denominations which are divesting from fossil fuels – the United Methodist Church has just sold its holdings in coal companies from its pension fund – Jefferts Schori does not believe that divestment is the best way forward.

Modern day United Methodists = Episcopalians with less money and bad liturgy.

“If you divest you lose any direct ability to influence the course of a corporation’s behavior,” she said. “I think most pragmatists realise that we can’t close the spigot on the oil wells and close the coal mines immediately without some other energy source to shift to.”

And of course, the Episcopal Church wouldn't dare make any investment changes that might cause it to lose money.

Her words come as the Vatican is preparing an encyclical on climate change, due to be released in June, which the Pope is said to hope will inspire world leaders to adopt tougher measures on climate change in Paris at the end of the year.

Apologies to my Roman Catholic friends, but I keep saying this Pope is only about five years behind the Episcopal Church. 
  

367 House Lawmakers Warn Obama on Iran

Why isn't this getting more media attention?

 From CNN, where there is more:

A veto-proof, bipartisan majority of House lawmakers have signed an open letter to President Barack Obama warning him that any nuclear deal with Iran will effectively require congressional approval for implementation.

A group of bipartisan senators have penned a bill mandating that any deal be reviewed and approved by Congress, but the House letter notes that lawmakers have another way to halt an agreement — by refusing to roll back sanctions.

"Should an agreement with Iran be reached, permanent sanctions relief from congressionally-mandated sanctions would require new legislation. In reviewing such an agreement, Congress must be convinced that its terms foreclose any pathway to a bomb, and only then will Congress be able to consider permanent sanctions relief," they write.

The letter, which was signed by 367 members of the House and released Monday by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, follows a similar one, issued to Iran's leaders and signed by 47 Republican senators, warning that any deal with Iran could be rolled back by a future president.

Read the rest.