Religion | Ain't Complicated

Good News…

…followed by bad.

Australian scientists said Monday they had mapped a blood cell structure which could hold the key to improved drug treatments for diseases such as leukaemia, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

[…]

“We hope that this discovery will lead to targeted therapies, more specific to the malfunctioning cells seen in diseases such as leukaemia.”

Lesbian, Atheist, Muslim to “Attempt” Christian Life

A new television program being broadcast this month follows a group of 13 non-Christian volunteers, who, on camera, attempt to “live by the teachings of the Bible for three weeks.”

“Make Me a Christian,” broadcast in a three-part series, asks the participants to be mentored by four pastors from a variety of backgrounds – Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal – as they attempt to live like Christians, an effort that runs in stark contrast to many of the participants’ backgrounds.

The 13 volunteers who will make the effort include a tattooed militant atheist biker, a man who converted from Christianity to Islam, a lesbian schoolteacher, a lap-dancing witch with a lust for expensive shoes, a middle-class yuppie couple that can’t find time to spend with their children and a party animal who claims he’s slept with over 150 women.

Whether people can be made into Christians by a three-week crash course in discipleship, however, remains a matter of debate.

[…]

The show’s website concludes with the teaser line, “All this is just the start of their three hard weeks. Can they embrace Christian ideals and learn to live in a different way or will their old lives prove just too strong to resist?”

You cannot live the Christian life without Jesus.

There is no Christian life without Christ. Not in real life. And certainly not in for-TV life.

Help Us

As a Russian jet bombed fields around his village, Djimali Avago, a Georgian farmer, asked me: “Why won’t America and Nato help us? If they won’t help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?”

A similar sense of betrayal coursed through the conversations of many Georgians here yesterday as their troops retreated under shellfire and the Russian Army pressed forward to take full control of South Ossetia.

Note to other countries: Who will go to war against Russia for you? 😯

US-Russian Tensions “Worsen”

Dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia on Monday, officials said, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of trying to undermine Russia’s mounting military offensive.

[…]

Russia and Georgia pursued their attacks as diplomatic tensions worsened. US President George W. Bush, Georgia’s biggest western ally, said he had told Russia’s influential prime minister that its bombing of Georgia was “unacceptable.”

Putin responded by accusing the US of trying to disrupt the Russian military operation by transporting Georgian troops from Iraq into the “conflict zone.”

“I regret that some of our partners are not helping us but in fact are trying to impede us,” Putin said directly referring to the US flights of Georgian troops.

[…]

The UN refugee agency said up to 80 percent of Gori’s population of 50,000 have fled the city because of Russian attacks.

[…]

Russia, which has already moved battleships to the Black Sea and said it has sunk a Georgian navy vessel, is preparing to deploy 9,000 troops to bolster its forces inside a second separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, a military spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax.

It will send more than 350 armoured vehicles to add to what is officially a Russian peacekeeping force in the breakaway region, the spokesman said.

“What is officially a Russian peacekeeping force” highlights a concept I’ve found difficult to grasp for years. Look at Russia’s track record through fairly recent history and who wouldn’t consider their “friendly” military presence anywhere without at least some trepidation?

PS to Putin: So some of your partners aren’t helping you? Well, what’s the US to do when it’s also partners with your adversary? Ah, the strange world of geopolitics. And of plain ole politics. 🙄

Well, may the good news from Australia result in new and effective cures for leukemia. Amen.

Islamic Debit Card

Please note that my headline is more accurate than is NewsMax’s, which at this point still reads: MasterCard Starts Islamic Credit Card:

MasterCard Worldwide and Malaysia’s EonCap Islamic Bank have jointly launched what they are calling the world’s first Islamic debit MasterCard.

The EonCap Islamic Debit MasterCard is basically a debit card with ATM functions, as well, Business Week reports. It also works on PayPass systems and is compliant with Islamic religious law, which prohibits earning or paying interest.

“The card ensures that purchases are automatically deducted from the cardholder’s account and approved only if enough funds exist within the account,” said Fozia Amanulla, chief executive officer of EonCap Islamic Bank.

I’d go for a two-way-interest-free debit card.

Especially if its use is approved only when sufficient funds exist in the account. (No more overdraft fees, you know.)

I should ask MasterCard for equality with the Muslims (on this score, anyway). 😆

Should I Care about McDonald’s Profits

Maybe I should. But I don’t.

Here, though, are some people that do:

And here is some of what WorldNetDaily has to say about the matter:

“McDonald’s says they ‘stand by and support our people to live and work in a society free of discrimination and harassment,'” the AFA said. However, “Here is what they won’t tell you. McDonald’s helped sponsor the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.”

The American Family Association asked McDonald’s to remain neutral in the culture war. The company refused, “stating they will continue to support the gay agenda including same-sex marriage,” the AFA said.

McDonald’s spokesman Bill Whitman even told the Washington Post people, including Christians, who oppose homosexual marriage are motivated by “hate.”

“The boycott is not about hiring homosexuals or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald’s choosing to put the full resources of their corporation behind promoting the homosexual agenda,” AFA said.

The issue erupted after McDonald’s paid $20,000 and installed one of its executives on the board of the National “Gay” and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

The AFA now is asking consumers to sign a boycott petition and contact their local restaurant managers to raise objections over the company’s activism.

[…]

AFA Chairman Don Wildmon said, “It’s a shame that McDonald’s would tarnish their family-friendly image. But the company has ramped up its support of the gay agenda and it leaves us no option but to call for a boycott.”

I don’t agree with McDonald’s on this one.

And I imagine I wouldn’t agree with AIT, WalMart, Safeway, ARCO, Burger King, Taco Bell, BiMart, True Value, Circuit City, Quill, Yoder Store, UPS, USAirways, Honda, Chevrolet, Dell, Verizon, Canby TelCom, and Portland International Airport on some things either. Perhaps even on some very important things.

Shall I boycott them all?

Then with whom shall I do business?

Death in Church

We had peaceful Sunday services yesterday.

As always.

At least as measured by this kind of event:

Man charged in Tenn. church shooting

A man suspected of opening fire on a roomful of people during a church youth performance was in custody Monday after being tackled by witnesses.

But church members are still searching for answers to why they were targeted by someone who was an apparent stranger to the church.

[…]

The FBI was assisting in case the shooting turned out be a hate crime, Police Chief Sterling Owen said.

The church, like many other Unitarian Universalist churches, promotes progressive social work, such as desegregation and fighting for the rights of women and gays. The Knoxville congregation has provided sanctuary for political refugees, fed the homeless and founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, according to its Web site.

I am thankful for the rarity of such a tragedy. (I know, it seems there’ve been quite a few recently, but considering how many church services take place in the United States, such tragedies are still a rarity here.)

I wonder how this church will choose to respond.

Especially toward him:

“a really, really nice guy”

What does he need?

Belarus: Religious Restrictions

There’s official anti-church activity going on in Belarus:

Officials in Grodno [Hrodna] Region of north-western Belarus have moved against three different Protestant communities to try to prevent them from conducting religious activity which each community insists is guaranteed in the country’s Constitution. Forum 18 News Service has learnt that the local authority in the small town of Svisloch has banned an open-air baptism planned for the afternoon of Sunday 3 August. In the nearby town of Mosty a Pentecostal pastor was fined nine months' minimum wages on 9 June for leading a small unregistered church. In the city of Grodno a Baptist pastor faces a second fine for holding worship services without state registration.

Each of the three communities point to Article 31 of Belarus' Constitution, which declares: "Everyone shall have the right independently to determine one's attitude towards religion, to profess any religion individually or jointly with others, or to profess none at all, to express and spread beliefs connected with one's attitude towards religion, and to participate in the performance of acts of worship and religious rituals and rites, which are not prohibited by the law."

[…]

Belarus maintains tight restrictions on all religious activity. In defiance of international human rights standards, it is the only country in Europe requiring religious organisations to gain state registration before they engage in religious activity. Article 25 of the Religion Law, as well the Law on Mass Events, require that permission for religious events in places not designated for religious worship be obtained in advance from local executive committees. Only registered religious organisations are eligible to ask for such permission. Organisers of and participants in such religious events without official permission risk punishment.

Target: Samir Kuntar

Sure, this fellow is a target of various Israeli forces.

But I have him in mind as a prayer target.

Is this the kind of person Christians should pray for?

Kuntar was serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison for murdering three Israelis, including smashing to death a 4-year-old girl with the butt of his rifle.

Among his yet-living victims who make good prayer targets: the mother to the above girl.

As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

PA Hate Crimes Law

Good news!

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules against Homosexual ‘Hate Crimes’ Law

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and attorneys with the Foundation for Moral Law applauded the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for its ruling yesterday in Marcavage v. Rendell affirming that the state legislature violated the Pennsylvania Constitution when it added “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to Pennsylvania’s “ethnic intimidation” law (18 Pa. C.S. § 2710) in 2002.

The Foundation, along with attorney Aaron D. Martin, represented Christian evangelists Michael Marcavage, Mark Diener, Randall and Linda Beckman, Susan Startzell, Arlene Elshinnawy, and Nancy Major, who in 2004 were arrested and charged under the “ethnic intimidation” law for evangelizing at a Philadelphia homosexual parade. The Christian evangelists sued and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania agreed that the law was unconstitutional and struck it down. On appeal the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in a short per curiam order, agreed with the Commonwealth Court’s opinion and the Christian evangelists’ appellate brief filed by the Foundation.

Judge Roy Moore remarked on this historic case: “We are very happy that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled in our favor to stop the Governor and a group of corrupt politicians from sneaking a ‘hate crimes’ bill through the Pennsylvania legislature. Preaching to homosexuals about the sin of sodomy should not be made a ‘thought crime’ in Pennsylvania or any other state.”

But eventually things will change back in favor of homosexuals. Such are the times we live in and the times that are yet to come.

When the law of the land finally codifies such statements as hate crimes, what will Christians do?