Tuesday, April 03, 2012


How the mainstream churches were lost to a secular gospel

Initially, whole denominations acquiesced and allowed women to be ordained, but most churches still did not call women to be pastors. But with an influx of women into the system, something had to be done. So while the men worked by pastoring to parishes and parishioners, many women aimed at taking over denominational committees. Time and persistence had a way of succeeding.

By the early 90s, women made up only 20 percent of the clergy in some denominations, but they controlled every single committee.

With control of the ministerial candidate selection committees, for example, they focused on expanding the number of women clergy, not expanding the Kingdom of God. Time after time, I saw good young men turned down for ordination while spiritually unqualified women were given the green light.

I once asked why so many good men were being rejected. I was told that it was necessary to “make up for past injustices.”

But once the dam had been cracked, the people who flooded in were no longer those who argued for justice and equality. They were people whose hidden agenda was nothing short of apostasy and control.

From that point, committee leaders began to push for extreme feminism, abortion rights, homosexual advocacy, and other issues that were repugnant to biblical obedience.

All of that inevitably sapped the energy of the faithful. They no longer had the time or strength to preach the Word of God and witness to others. Although they still called themselves “the church,” they had strayed from the fold.

Today, the flood waters continue to rise and are even encroaching into some evangelical churches. But thank God for those who still stand strong, for they represent the last great hope for biblical submission. We need the evangelical church to refuse to put on the garment of compromise, to not bow to the gods of social acceptability and popular culture. We need it to never surrender to the secular armies and their weapons of manipulation and false accusation.

Back in 1980, I met with the retired Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta, who had been Bishop during those tumultuous times. It was soon before his death, and he told me, “If I had known all this would happen, I would not have been quick to give in.” He went to his grave in regret.

The apostates are like the ancient Greeks who destroyed the city of Troy by offering them an apparently innocent gift—the Trojan horse. The people of Troy willingly took the deceptive symbol of peace and moved it within their walls. Later, under cover of night, Greek soldiers crept out of the giant horse, opened the city gates, and ushered in the enemy army.

As with Troy, apostates today take over the church through means that seem innocent at first. For that reason, bible-believing Christians must stand at the watchtower and be prepared to defend biblical truth, even when the threat seems harmless. If not, many more Christian leaders will go to their graves with deep, deep regret.

SOURCE





Military academy has drunk the Kool Aid

Has its First Gay Pride Week Celebrating ‘Condom Olympics’ & ‘Queer Prom’

At the beginning of the school year, gay pride events at a military academy with titles like “condom Olympics” and “queer prom” would have been unthinkable. This week, they’re a reality.

Cadets in uniform at Norwich University, the nation’s oldest private military academy, participated Monday in sessions about handling bullying and harassment as part of the school’s first gay pride week. The events are believed to be the first of their kind on a military campus.

These developments follow the official end last year of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule that prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. Less than a year later, it’s a different — and less secretive — world.

Until last year, only a select few at Norwich knew of the sexual orientation of Joshua Fontanez, 22, of Browns Mills, N.J., a past president of the student government who quietly laid the groundwork for the school’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Allies Club, which held its first meeting the day the law ended.

He had always wanted to be a soldier but figured he’d have to keep his sexuality a secret.  “The aspects of my sexual orientation, how that played in the military, that was something I was willing to sacrifice, being open versus serving my nation,” Fontanez said. “It’s something I feel I was truly called toward and truly loved, so it‘s great that I don’t have necessarily to make that sacrifice.”

In December, a group of students at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., formed a group called Spectrum, which has many of the same goals as the Norwich club. A similar organization with the same name is being formed in New York at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

For many of the newly open student leaders, the changes brought by the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell” haven’t overwhelmed, despite the years-long political wrangling that culminated in the policy change.

“It was definitely a big change, but it happened over such a long period of time for me that it didn’t seem like that big of a deal,” said Coast Guard Academy Senior Chip Hall, 21, of Monterrey, Calif.

“Everyone has been very professional here at the academy,” said West Point Cadet Andrew Fitzsimmons, 19, a sophomore from Algonac, Mich. “It’s been a very positive environment.”

A group of alumni called Knights Out will hold a campus dinner this weekend and is expecting at least a dozen cadets to attend, said the group’s director, Sue Fulton, a 1980 West Point graduate who was among the first women admitted to the academy.

“The official status has changed dramatically, in that public events that would have been prohibited are happening; but in terms of attitudes, I think cadets and midshipmen have long been supportive of their gay and lesbian classmates,” Fulton said.

Norwich, established in 1819, has about 1,300 cadets and 1,100 civilian students. About 115 of the 200 graduating cadets plan to be commissioned in the armed forces through ROTC.

The gay student club is believed to be the first of its kind in the country on a military campus, Norwich officials said. Thirty to 35 people attend meetings.

The events this week — held at a different time of year from many other gay pride events, which usually are observed in June or October — include discussions of HIV testing; the “condom Olympics,” in which prophylactics are given as prizes; and a dance at which same-sex partners are welcome.

As an institution, Norwich never banned open homosexuality in the corps of cadets, but because many of its students were destined for the military, which prior to the end of “don‘t ask don’t tell” the law served to keep people quiet, said Norwich spokeswoman Daphne Larkin.

Some members of Norwich’s Christian Fellowship have been uncomfortable with gay student club, but the two organizations have worked together, with members of each attending some of the other’s meetings, said biology emeritus professor Carlos Pinkham, the Christian group’s faculty adviser.

“We make it clear to them that we use the Bible as our guide and that as a result we can’t condone the stuff they do,” Pinkham said. “But the Bible is also equally clear, in fact, even more clear. … Being judgmental about the sin without extending love to the sinner is another form of sin.”

The groups are a consequence of changing times, said Norwich Vice President Michael Kelley, a 1974 graduate who spent 27 years in the military before returning to academia. He noted the school was among the first to allow female cadets.

“It’s saying that we as a military community are looking to more to the future, that we’re not quibbling about the past, what was or what wasn’t,” he said, “that we can take a leadership role to help move our students to a more enlightened future.”

SOURCE




How to get tough with a terrorist: As UK agonises over Qatada, Italy simply ignores Euro judges and kicks out fanatic

For years, successive governments have insisted that extremist preacher Abu Qatada cannot be kicked out of Britain, claiming it would breach his human rights.

Perhaps we should have looked to Italy as an example.  Yesterday the European Court of Human Rights admitted it is effectively powerless to intervene in the case of a convicted terrorist deported from Italy.

Although the Strasbourg court ordered that compensation be paid to Mohamed Mannai, who was sent home to Tunisia in 2010 in breach of a court order, officials said they are unable to force Italy to take him back.

A spokesman said: ‘Once the applicant has been deported there is nothing much we can do because he is in Tunisia, a country that is not part of the European Court of Human Rights.’

Last night, the ruling prompted calls for ministers to follow Italy’s example and deport Qatada.

The Government has argued the radical Islamist – described by a judge as Osama Bin Laden’s right hand man in Europe – cannot be removed to his home country of Jordan because of an ECHR  judgment.

The court’s judges said Qatada could not hope to receive a fair trial there because it would  likely be based on evidence obtained by torture.

But Dominic Raab, Tory MP for Esher and Walton, said: ‘The Italian and French governments have a track record of ignoring Strasbourg in deportation cases where there is a risk of torture with precious little consequence.

‘In the Qatada case, Strasbourg went well beyond existing human rights law. Having bent over backwards to accommodate this flawed ruling, we now need to put him on a flight to Jordan without delay.’

Mannai was jailed for five years and four months in October 2006 after he and two other men, thought to be linked to radical group Ansar al-Islam, were convicted of terror charges.

Police said the cell planned attacks in Italy and brainwashed recruits to act as suicide bombers. After Mannai’s conviction, the Milan court said he should be deported at the end of his sentence.

However, the ECHR ordered Italy to block the deportation while it  considered if sending him home would breach his human rights.   Despite this order, within months of finishing his sentence in February 2010, Mannai had been put on a plane back to Tunisia.

Yesterday the ECHR criticised the Italian government for ignoring its earlier ruling and ordered it to pay Mannai 15,000 euros (£12,500) plus expenses.

The Council of Europe has also written to the Italian government,  saying it is ‘deeply concerned’ by  its actions.

Italy took similar steps in June 2008 when it ignored a court ruling and sent convicted terrorist Ben Khemais back to Tunisia.

The Home Secretary is currently negotiating with the Jordanian government to get assurances that Qatada would be given a fair trial.

Last week Theresa May refused five times in an interview to say whether she would defy Strasbourg judges and return the hate preacher.  However, she insisted she wanted to find a way to deport Qatada so the Government was ‘not required by any court’ to take him back.

A Whitehall official last night pointed out that while Mannai had been deported as his case was still pending, a final judgment had been made with regards to Qatada.

Government lawyers fear that any attempt at removing him would therefore be in contempt of court.

SOURCE




Lying Lefties gradually being exposed

Crusading Left-wing journalists thought the internet was going to be their friend, enabling them to broadcast the evils of capitalism to a new audience. But things haven’t gone quite to plan. Instead, the web has thrown a spotlight on liberal hacks indulging in a habit that they just can’t kick, however hard they try.

I refer, of course, to making stuff up. With the best of intentions, naturally.

Let’s start with a journalistic hero of the London/New York literati who is being accused of breaches of professional ethics but denies any wrongdoing.

Step forward Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent of the Independent – former employers of Johann Hari – who is in an extremely tight spot this weekend. Private Eye has printed a round-up of allegations made about him by fellow foreign correspondents on a private Facebook forum. They accuse this ferocious anti-Zionist of (and I’m choosing my words carefully) embroidering news reports that invariably cast the leaders of the “US-Israeli axis” as Bond villains.

“I do not make stories up. Full stop,” Fisk told me when I rang him in Beirut this week. He also told me he didn’t spend much time reading the internet. Probably just as well, Bob, because if you did you’d find ex-colleagues telling extraordinarily detailed anecdotes about your lucky scoops.

Now let’s consider a Lefty polemicist who has been caught red-handed. He’s an American broadcaster called Mike Daisey who this month confessed to being a serial liar about the Foxconn factory in China that makes Apple products. Those 12-year-old labourers he met there? They didn’t exist. Nor did the workers poisoned by factory gas.

Talking of interviewees who possibly didn’t exist, what about the rich cast of characters in the reports by another serial liar, Johann Hari? The squeaky-voiced fraudster has confessed to plagiarism and vandalising Wikipedia entries in the dead of night (in the process frightening a woman friend of mine to whom he’s still too vain to apologise). But what he’s never done is explain the anomalies in his articles about Dubai and central Africa.

These pieces, full of conveniently quotable eyewitnesses who pop up just when Hari needs them, won him awards and money. The Orwell Prize took away his bauble, but he’s been allowed to cling on to other “progressive” awards.

We can go back further in time – to the films and books by Michael Moore, whose casual approach to evidence-gathering was eventually exposed online. But it took ages before people cottoned on, because readers lapped up his conspiracy theories and the metropolitan media considered him “one of ours”.

There’s a term for this modus operandi – telling “The Greater Truth”. Lefty hacks polish their stories in order to expose a greater truth obscured by an inconvenient lack of evidence. (Right-wingers do it too, of course, but they don’t have liberal allies high up in the BBC, the Guardian and, of course, the poor old Indy.)

The internet information exchange makes it easy to spot the holes in tales of corporate villainy. Until now, however, the right-on digital “community” has been reluctant to eviscerate its heroes. But has the humiliation of Johann Hari tipped the balance? His Lefty hangers-on are livid that they were hoodwinked and will be less trusting in future. Also, trainee reporters may now be more careful about splashing their stories in local colour. If so, Hari will have made a contribution to journalism after all – though not in the way he intended.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCHAUSTRALIAN POLITICSDISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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