I imagine this should have been obvious, but it did surprise me a little.

World's Oldest Ritual Discovered -- Worshipped The Python 70,000 Years Ago

A startling archaeological discovery this summer changes our understanding of human history. While, up until now, scholars have largely held that man's first rituals were carried out over 40, 000 years ago in Europe, it now appears that they were wrong about both the time and place.

Python stone. (Photo Credit: Sheila Coulson)

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Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankind's oldest known ritual.

The archaeologist made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.

Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world.

The Tsodilo Hills are still a sacred place for the San, who call them the "Mountains of the Gods" and the "Rock that Whispers".

The python is one of the San's most important animals. According to their creation myth, mankind descended from the python and the ancient, arid streambeds around the hills are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills in its ceaseless search for water.

Sheila Coulson's find shows that people from the area had a specific ritual location associated with the python. The ritual was held in a little cave on the northern side of the Tsodilo Hills. The cave itself is so secluded and access to it is so difficult that it was not even discovered by archaeologists until the 1990s.

When Coulson entered the cave this summer with her three master's students, it struck them that the mysterious rock resembled the head of a huge python. On the six meter long by two meter tall rock, they found three-to-four hundred indentations that could only have been man-made.

"You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python. The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving".

They found no evidence that work had recently been done on the rock. In fact, much of the rock's surface was extensively eroded.

When they saw the many indentations in the rock, the archaeologists wondered about more than when the work had been done. They also began thinking about what the cave had been used for and how long people had been going there. With these questions in mind, they decided to dig a test pit directly in front of the python stone.

At the bottom of the pit, they found many stones that had been used to make the indentations. Together with these tools, some of which were more than 70,000 years old, they found a piece of the wall that had fallen off during the work...

This is the political world you are growing up in..

Newsweek Tells Evangelicals What to Do
by Don Feder

After decades of excoriating evangelical Christians as bigoted morons, foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics and vile hypocrites -- both sexually-obsessed and sexually-repressed (part Elmer Gantry, part Elmer Fudd) -- the media have hit on a new tactic.

The cover story (“America’s God Complex – Like George W. Bush, The Religious Right Is At The Crossroads”) in the Nov. 13 Newsweek explains that evangelicals aren’t really that bad – it’s just that the poor fools have been duped by the Republican Party, their energies (which should be devoted to more worthwhile endeavors) diverted to sordid politics.

But there’s hope that the Bible Belt will come to its senses and abandon Values Voter activism for bake sales – Newsweek discloses.

The publication contrasts such movement icons as Focus on The Family’s Dr. James Dobson, with a reputed new breed of evangelical leaders.

One of these young Turks, Adam Hamilton, tells the members of his Leawood, Kansas church, “Our task is not to go around judging people – Jesus didn’t do that.” Apparently, Pastor Hamilton missed the incident with the woman accused of adultery, described in the Gospel of John. Jesus saved her from stoning, then told her to “Go and sin no more.” Sin no more? – rather judgmental, wouldn’t you say?

Leaders like Dobson, Falwell and Robertson have “lost their focus on the spirit of Jesus and have separated the world into black and white,” Hamilton declares. “I can’t see Jesus standing with signs at an anti-gay rally.”

Nor can one picture Jesus standing with a sign at a pro-life demonstration, an anti-pornography rally or a rally against global warming.

There weren’t many leather bars in Jesus’ day. In 1st century Judea, “gay rights” was a non-issue. There also weren’t rallies against child sacrifice or ritual prostitution – which the Bible puts in the same category as conduct of the San Fran persuasion.
By the way, only Newsweek could compare a Kansas pastor nobody has ever heard of with a radio psychologist whose voice reaches an estimated 220 million worldwide, as if they represented contending currents within the evangelical movement.

But the (quote, unquote) news magazine moves doggedly forward with its thesis. The “new generation of evangelical believers” is “pressing beyond the religious right of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, trying to broaden the movement’s focus from the familiar wars about sex to include issues of social and economic justice.”

Feed the homeless and shelter the hungry? Now that’s the stuff! Newsweek doesn’t understand that it’s not a choice of caring for the needy or fighting to save marriage and stop the slaughter in the womb. All are integral aspects of the same ethic.

Since their political awakening in the mid-1970s, while evangelicals worked to end the scourge of abortion and stay the steady march of social decay (the Sodomizing of American culture), they have simultaneously raised billions to fight famine in Africa, build homes for the poor, rehabilitate addicts and provide aid to the most destitute among us.

The religious right’s crusade to save the family -- opposition to abortion and so-called same-sex marriage -- might itself be seen as charity. The family is the first and most important social welfare agency.

Functional families raise children who won’t end up living on the streets or pregnant and on welfare at age 16. If the left succeeds at destroying the American family, there will be homeless shelters, soup kitchens and rehab centers as far as they eye can see – assuming there’s anyone left to man them.

Still, Newsweek rhetorically asks if conservative Christians can “move beyond the apparent confines of the religious right as popularly understood, or are they destined to seem harsh and intolerant – the opposite of what their own faith would have them be?” And, if the latter, will they still beat their wives with worn-out cliches?

According to Newsweek, evangelicals can continue their obsession with abortion and homosexuality, their “God complex” (and thus “seem harsh and intolerant”) or repent and adopt an agenda more pleasing to the media elite – “social and economic justice,” the Gospel of Gore.

There’s a major flaw in this line of reasoning: Even if evangelicals are prepared to leave politics alone, politics won’t leave them alone.

The left is on a mission against God. It correctly perceives Christianity (more broadly, the Judeo-Christian ethic) as the principal obstacle to the attainment of its utopian vision. Thus, it is determined to stigmatize, marginalize and ghettoize Christians – to increasingly circumscribe their influence and to confine their values to a designated building on a chosen day of the week.

You guys do know about this right? If not, we may need a discussion about this, or I may even need to talk with your teachers..

In an interview turned history lesson, Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, helped talk-show host Larry King understand -- over his protests -- that "separation of church and state" is not found in the U.S. Constitution.

During last week's hour-long conversation on Larry King Live, King quizzed Dr. Dobson on myriad topics including O.J. Simpson's rejected book, the fall of evangelical leader Ted Haggard and Michael J. Fox's TV ad for embryonic stem-cell research. But when the discussion turned to attempts to redefine marriage -- the TV host made it an issue of separation of church and state.

KING: Why is it a state institution rather than a religious institution? Why is the state involved?

DOBSON: Well, it's both. It is both.

KING: But we have a separation of church and state.

DOBSON: Beg your pardon?

KING: We have a separation of church and state.

DOBSON: Who says?

KING: You don't believe in separation of church and state?

DOBSON: Not the way you mean it. The separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. No, it's not. That is not in the Constitution.

KING: It's in the Bill of Rights.

DOBSON: It's not in the Bill of Rights. It's not anywhere in a foundational document. The only place where the so-called "wall of separation" was mentioned was in a letter written by (Thomas) Jefferson to a friend. That's the only place. It has been picked up and made to be something it was never intended to be.

What it has become is that the government is protected from the church, instead of the other way around, which is that church was designed to be protected from the government.

KING: I'm going to check my history.

And well he should, according to Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action. He said King bought into a misconception that is far too common. Many Americans continue to believe the phrase "separation of church and state" is found in the U.S. Constitution, illustrating the need for a better civics education.

"Dr. Dobson's statement regarding separation of church and state was entirely accurate," he said. "Most Americans do not realize that it wasn't until 1947 that the U.S. Supreme Court imposed that metaphor -- 'separation of church and state' -- upon the country as law."

The court actually lifted the phrase from an 1802 letter President Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut. They had asked him to help protect the rights of religious minorities.

"Jefferson politely declined in his letter to use his office for such influence," Hausknecht said, "explaining that the First Amendment prohibited him from doing so because it had created a 'wall of separation of church and state.' Although it's not completely clear among historians as to the complete scope of Jefferson's meaning, because of the letter's specific historical context it's accurate to say, as Dr. Dobson did, that Jefferson felt the First Amendment protected the church from government interference -- not the opposite."

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore told CitizenLink that he shares Jefferson's perspective.

"The words 'separation of church and state' are not found in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence or the Articles of Confederation or any document of our history," he said. "The First Amendment to our Constitution basically embodies a concept of separation -- meaning that the state should stay out of the affairs of the church and of the relationship that men have with their God."

In modern law, he said, many use "separation of church and state" with the intent to separate God, moral values and Christian principles from the state.

"It means none of that," Moore said. "The way people use 'separation of church and state' is not historically or legally accurate. What it does mean is that the state can't interfere with the church and can't interfere with our mode of worship and our articles of faith. And that's what 'separation of church and state' means."

Jefferson and the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration and the Constitution gave recognition to God, he said. It's only been in the last few decades that God has been removed from the public square.

"Even the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist," Hausknecht said, "called 'separation' a 'metaphor based on bad history' as he urged his fellow justices to abandon its use in First Amendment Establishment Clause cases."

Instead of being reviled by the secular Left, he said, conservatives should be understood and appreciated as trying to restore the original understanding of the Constitution.

"We have let judges rewrite the First Amendment," Moore said, "to actually forbid that which it was meant to allow."

Such has become clear legally, historically and logically, he said.

"To let judges rewrite the First Amendment," Hausknecht said, "is simply to abdicate our own responsibility as citizens to ensure that the Constitution continues to say and mean what it has always said."

Insight on our current video series.. You guys keeping up with this blog? Let me know. I am curious who deserves extra credit..

The War of All Against All
Evolution and Altruism

November 28, 2006

In the new novel The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, an unnamed catastrophe has wiped out most of humanity. What remains is a colorless, lifeless shell where "long lines of charred and rusting cars," filled with incinerated corpses, sit "in a stiff gray sludge of melted rubber."

The survivors find themselves living in what Thomas Hobbes called "the war of all against all": scrounging for food while avoiding their fellow men, many of whom have turned to cannibalism.

Among the survivors are the unnamed protagonists of the novel: a man and his 10-year-old son who was born after the catastrophe. As the father tells his son, "I was appointed by God to [take care of you]. I will kill anyone who touches you."

At the same time, he wants to preserve his son's goodness, which is next-to-impossible in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. In the novel's world, the boy's survival depends on his father eradicating his altruistic impulses. The man must teach his son that being willing to "give that little boy half of my food" is a bad idea.

McCarthy's protagonist isn't the only one who has trouble reconciling our survival instinct with our capacity for altruism. As the philosopher David Stove pointed out, altruism—the willingness, that is, to sacrifice for others—is obviously disadvantageous in what Darwin called "the struggle for life." In a world where the goal is to pass on your selfish gene, helping someone else pass on theirs makes no sense.

While Darwin himself never acknowledged the difficulty posed by altruism, his acolytes and disciples did. Their responses led to the creation of the discipline known variously as "evolutionary psychology" or "sociobiology."

Whatever it's called, the evolutionary "explanation" for altruism is basically the same: It's really selfishness in disguise. When the son offers to give away half of his food, it's not goodness—it's a kind of enlightened self-interest. We do what we perceive as "good" for others so that they, in turn, might do the same for us and, thus, increase both of our chances for survival.

Of course, the transaction being described isn't "altruism" at all; it's called "cooperation." It's the stuff of zebras and baboons, both of which live in large groups for mutual protection and neither of which would knowingly sacrifice its life to save another's.

But in the Darwinian scheme, true altruism "has no place in nature." When you start from the assumption that our behavior is the product of "selfish genes," then you must agree with the sociobiologist who wrote "scratch an 'altruist' and watch a hypocrite bleed."

Little wonder that Stove called Darwinism, especially sociobiology, a "ridiculous slander on human beings." Darwinism not only cannot account for what is most essentially human—that is, things like altruism and music—it insists on denigrating them, as well.

In contrast, Christians understand that while we are born with the capacity for selfishness and even cruelty, we are also capable of caring for others. Because we are created in the image of God, we not only don't have to be at war with our neighbors, we can willingly die for them, as well.

So who is worse? The guy who says unacceptable things when drunk, or the other when he loses his temper? Let's see who is forgiven first.. I'm willing to bet it is not the one associated with Jesus..

Richards: outburst fueled by anger

By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer Tue Nov 21, 5:21 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - He called two black hecklers the "n-word" and enthusiastically referenced a time when blacks were often victims of civil rights abuses, but Michael Richards said his verbal barrage during a stand-up routine was fueled by anger and not bigotry.

"For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry," the former "Seinfeld" co-star said during a satellite appearance for David Letterman's "Late Show" in New York.

"I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this," Richards said, his tone becoming angry and frustrated as he defended himself.

Richards described himself as going into "a rage" over the two audience members who interrupted his act Friday at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood.

His explanation was reminiscent of Mel Gibson's assertion that he wasn't anti-Semitic after he let off a barrage of Jewish slurs during a traffic stop last summer: despite what came out of his mouth, that's not what is inside him.

Industry colleagues were in no hurry to accept Richards' apology.

This is the unofficial, unstated goal for our time together. FYI..

Engaging a Needy World
The Centurions

November 20, 2006

In the months before World War II, an Oxford don by the name of C. S. Lewis wrote, "Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason because bad philosophy needs to be answered." Lewis's students questioned the importance of studying the humanities and sciences with war on the horizon. But Lewis understood, as he wrote so beautifully in his classic book Weight of Glory, that "To be ignorant and simple now . . . would be to throw down our weapons and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen."

Three years ago, I launched a year-long distance education program called Centurions, designed to equip one hundred men and women each year to defend truth in an age when too many are throwing their weapons down.

Sadly, bad philosophy—like relativism, naturalism, and secular humanism—runs rampant in our legislatures, schools, movie theaters, and even our churches. In the face of this, Centurions is preparing men and women not just to understand and articulate their own Christian worldview, but also to proactively teach that worldview to others and engage the culture in their own particular sphere of influence.

One of our Centurion graduates, Jeff Clinton, a contributor to BreakPoint's blog, The Point, describes in a recent post what sets the program apart. He writes, "The Centurions program is not a program where you [leave simply] with a fresh set of books. Entering the program comes with a commitment to . . . influence others and pass on knowledge, [which] creates a special dynamic that goes with being part of a community of serious, kingdom-minded Christians who want to engage a needy world for the cause of Christ." Jeff underscores exactly the vision we have for the program, one of exponential cultural impact.

And we have plenty of examples of Centurions doing just that from Wendell Cantrell in Johannesburg, South Africa, who is investing deeply in discipling fifteen others in biblical worldview, to Centurions Nanci Boice, Rick Hooten, and Dave Brown, who hosted a worldview conference in Austin, Texas, for 130 people last January.

But not only are Centurions sharing the training they've received, they are also impacting the culture firsthand. There's Jim Walter, who is engaging in public debate, meeting with public officials, and writing letters-to-editors on issues of bioethics and human dignity. There's Will Burns, who is part of a team that is planting a church that will seek to draw in artists, encouraging and supporting them in their craft during the week and celebrating the Creator on Sundays. And there's John Nunnikhoven, who has taught an eight-week worldview course for civic and political leaders in Vermont.

If you'd like to find out more about how to join the ranks of the next class of Centurions, please visit us at BreakPoint.org. The deadline for application is November 30, so don't delay. Our culture urgently needs more men and women who will rightly wield good philosophy to counter the bad philosophy of the postmodern era, men and women who can winsomely present the Christian worldview in their sphere of influence.

This is worth pondering as you enjoy the holidays with family, and think about how much closer you should be with people in church, in the LIT group, etc.. who are your Christian family..

A Proud Heritage
What We Can Learn from the Marines

November 16, 2006

I was one of those fortunate enough to attend the dedication of the Marine Corps Museum at Quantico—a beautiful structure rising out of the Virginia countryside in the shape suggestive of the famous image of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. While I waited for the festivities to begin on that glorious autumn day, I was struck by the incredible camaraderie displayed by all of the Marines and former Marines.

An 85-year-old man sitting right behind me said, "I've been a Marine for sixty-seven years." Once a Marine, always a Marine. He enlisted when he was 18, did his duty in the Pacific, came home, and built a life for himself. And here he was, halfway across the country, celebrating the opening of the museum.

Jim Lehrer, the PBS newscaster and a former Marine, was the day's emcee, and he explained it well. "What's important to understand about Marines," he said, "is that they know that their safety depends on the person on their right and the person on their left." You are bonded together in battle.

Then the question hit me: Why is it that the Church does not feel the way the Marines do?

Do we believe that our safety or our Christian faith depends upon the people in the pews on our left and on our right?

The story of Jason Dunham says it all. President Bush introduced Dunham's parents, who received their son's posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor, our nation's highest military award.

Dunham, a corporal from upstate New York, was leading a squad of Marines in Iraq when they were ambushed by insurgents. During the hand-to-hand combat, Dunham leapt to place his helmet over a live grenade. Dunham's bravery saved his friends—and cost him his life.

Why did he do it? To save the men serving under him. It was true heroic altruism—the one thing that Darwinian theories of natural selection can never account for. But would you or I be prepared to show what Jesus called no greater love? Would we lay down our lives for our Christian brothers?

As the various Marine battle flags were paraded in front of the dais, bearing names familiar to every Marine—Tripoli, Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Fallujah—I know I wasn't the only one in the crowd with my spine tingling, my chest swelling with pride in the heritage of the Corps.

But then I wondered how many Christians really understand the proud heritage of our faith; how the martyrs in the first century gave their lives to preserve the Gospel; how Christians through the centuries have championed great causes for the benefit of mankind: the abolition of slavery, the development of hospitals and universities, care for the poor, the protection of human life. We all remember Mother Teresa, of course, and some of the great missionaries, but how about the saints of bygone years? How about the Christians in the Roman Empire who gave their lives to tend the sick during the great plagues when pagan doctors fled?

The story of human history is a great cosmic battle between good and evil, a greater struggle than any war in human history. We're engaged in it, and we're on God's side. What if we Christians had the same sense of loyalty, commitment, and responsibility for our heritage as do these proud Marines?

A nagging question in the midst of a glorious autumn day.

Simply amazing awesome science stuff. Again proving why adult stem cell research beats the pants off embryonic stem cell efforts. The key is how the body accepts the produced material..

Source: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Date: November 14, 2006

Adult Pig Stem Cells Show Promise In Repairing Animals' Heart Attack Damage

Johns Hopkins scientists have successfully grown large numbers of stem cells taken from adult pigs' healthy heart tissue and used the cells to repair some of the tissue damage done to those organs by lab-induced heart attacks. Pigs' hearts closely resemble those in humans, making them a useful model in such research.

Following up on previous studies, Hopkins cardiologists used a thin tube to extract samples of heart tissue no bigger than a grain of rice within hours of the animals' heart attacks, then grew large numbers of cardiac stem cells in the lab from tissue obtained through biopsy, and within a month implanted the cells into the pigs' hearts. With help from a blue-dye tracking system, the scientists have shown that within two months the cells had developed into mature heart cells and vessel-forming endothelial cells.

"This is a relatively simple method of stem cell extraction that can be used in any community-based clinic, and if further studies show the same kind of organ repair that we see in pigs, it could be performed on an outpatient basis," says Eduardo Marbán, M.D., Ph.D., senior study author and professor and chief of cardiology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute. "Starting with just a small amount of tissue, we demonstrated that it was possible, very soon after a heart attack, to use the healthy parts of the heart to regenerate some of the damaged parts."

Marbán cautions that no overall improvements in heart function have yet been shown in these studies, which were not designed to establish such changes and used relatively low numbers of infused cells (10 million or less). "But we have proof of principle, and we are planning to use larger numbers of cells implanted in different sites of the heart to test whether we can restore function as well," he says. "If the answer is yes, we could see the first phase of studies in people in late 2007."

The latest Hopkins findings are scheduled to be presented Nov. 13 at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago. They are believed to be the first results in animal studies to show that so-called cardiac stem cell therapy can be successfully applied with minimally invasive methods to circumstances closely resembling those in humans. Scientists say the results build on earlier studies with cardiac stem cells in mice and humans that demonstrated success in regenerating infarcted heart muscle and restoring heart cell function post-infarct.

For the study, cardiac stem cells were extracted by tissue biopsy from eight pigs whose main arterial blood supply was tightened for more than two hours, duplicating the effects and damage caused by heart attack.

Using techniques developed in Marbán's lab, researchers extracted about a million cardiac stem cells from undamaged heart tissue, growing them without the use of potentially dangerous chemical stimulators.

After three weeks, the stem cells turned into spherical balls of cells that mimicked the electrical properties of heart muscle cells. The so-called cardiospheres yielded on average more than 14 million cells.

Within a month after the initial heart attack, a catheter tube was inserted into an artery in the pig leg for infusing the cardiospheres. Previous research had shown that they would on their own migrate to the damaged zones of the heart. Marbán's team was able to confirm this because they had labeled the stem cells with a gene that codes for an enzyme producing a blue dye, which could be seen under a microscope.

Months later, when researchers examined the hearts to see if any damaged tissue had been repaired, they found blue spots indicating where the stem cells had taken root. Closer examination of results revealed that stem cells had matured and grown in the border zones of the damaged area, where researchers suspect both dead and living tissue mingle and some blood supply remains.

"The goal is to repair heart muscle weakened not only by heart attack but by heart failure, perhaps averting the need for heart transplants," says Peter Johnston, M.D., study author and a Reynolds Foundation postdoctoral cardiology research fellow at Hopkins' Heart Institute. "By using a patient's own adult stem cells rather than a donor's, there would be no risk of triggering an immune response that could cause rejection."

The studies were supported by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. Coauthors were Tetsuo Sasano, M.D.; Kevin Mills; Amr Youssef, M.B.B.Ch., M.Sc.; Mark Pittenger, Ph.D.; and Richard Lange, M.D. Marbán is also the Michel Mirowski, M.D., Professor of Medicine at Hopkins and director of its Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center and the Institute of Molecular Cardiobiology. Johnston's work on this study was recently recognized at Hopkins, on Oct. 26, with one of three Stanley L. Blumenthal Cardiology Research Awards.

This is really good.

Answering Wisely

With all the election excitement, Ted Haggard is old news, but an interview with new interim president of the NAE, Leigh Anderson, on CNN is worth noting. Anderson was interviewed by Miles O'Brien on Monday. The topic was forgiveness, restoration, and the likelihood of Haggard serving again in a pastoral role--until right at the end when O'Brien tacks on one last question: "Do evangelicals believe Ted Haggard was born gay?"

It's a loaded question with one obvious aim: to stir up controversy. O'Brien didn't really care about the answer, and Anderson knew that; you can see it in his smile. Saw it coming, flicked it away. "I don't know what evangelicals think," Anderson said, "because we're talking about a really diverse group, and certainly there's difference of opinion on that."

I couldn't help but cheer when I heard his answer. It's so easy to go on the defensive, or the offensive for that matter, when we're challenged in a public forum, but the better part of wisdom says that sometimes the best answer is no answer at all. Jesus did this pretty frequently with the religious leaders of His day who were trying to trip him up with one controversy or another. And Proverbs offers the juxtaposed wisdom that we are to "answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself," and, in the very next verse, "answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes." As the preschool song goes, "Oh, be careful little mouth what you say."

Those who are genuinely seeking the truth deserve an answer; those who just want to cause trouble don't.
Thu, Nov 9, 2006 6:35

The thing you have to realize as young people is this:

You have lived under a conservative leadership. It has been that way for most of your life. Things have changed with the elections this week. But they are simply changing to liberal leadership, something this country endured for 30 (more or less?) years before this recent window of conservative leadership. Hopefully, it won't be another 30 years of liberal leadership. Hopefully, you will impact this country and help reform it, without becoming hypocrites along the way.

And! Remember to honor those who have stayed faithful. It is not as easy as it looks. So go give props to your pastors and parents and such.

A Pounding at the Polls
Why Conservatives Lost

November 9, 2006

Election Day is over, the votes have been counted, and it's clear that conservatives took a beating. I have always maintained that Christian leaders should not make partisan endorsements—and I never have. But I am unashamed to say that I am a conservative.

In one sense, I think, all Bible-believers are conservative, because we believe in governing our lives by revealed truth rather than by man-made, utopian ideologies. Modern liberalism wants to remove all restraints on people's behavior. Conservatives believe in the moral law. So Bible-believers might be liberal on a lot of issues, at least in the common sense of that word, like helping the poor, but they would be fundamentally conservative in their disposition toward life.

So, what happened in Tuesday's election? The economy is strong. And it's true we're in an unpopular war, but people vote their pocketbooks most often. Yet the conservative movement, which had been gaining ground, has blown it. It has been defeated. Why?

The answer is one that may startle you. Conservatives lost because they deserved to. They failed to live up to the high standards of personal behavior they preach about. And that's what brought them down.

Is there a double standard here? Why should the case of Mark Foley have helped bring down the Republicans? After all, twenty years ago a Democratic congressman, Gerry Studds, had an affair with a male page, disclosed that he was a homosexual, got his wrist slapped by the House, and then got re-elected! Why has Foley's indiscretion turned into Foley-gate?

The answer is because it's just the tip of the iceberg. Look at how the conservatives for years railed against the Democratic liberal establishment and all of its money, the lobbying establishment, the junkets, the payoffs. The conservatives campaigned against it in 1994, only to take over Washington and do exactly the same thing. This is what is known as rank hypocrisy.

Is it unfair that when conservatives do things liberals do, that they, the conservatives, are labeled as hypocrites? No.

According to that great conservative thinker Russell Kirk, the first tenet of conservatism is the preservation of the moral order. True conservatives don't look at government as a plaything by which they can impose their latest ideas on the country; they look at political power as a guardianship, what Chesterton called the democracy of the dead. In other words, we have a debt to those who have gone before us, and the primary debt is to preserve the moral and constitutional order that our forebears fought to defend.

So when a conservative has a much-publicized affair or is outed for improper sexual behavior with pages, or digs into the congressional budget pot to hand out earmarks to his own district, he is a hypocrite to be scorned.

My hope and prayer is that conservatives in America will do some serious, sober soul-searching. We need to get our own act together before we can preach to others, or before we deserve to hold power. And if we break trust, we are breaking trust with the very essence of who we are. Our own character is at stake.

You can talk all you want about the unpopularity of President Bush, or the Iraq war, or immigration. But what this campaign really boiled down to was, well, when it comes to conservatives, it's character, stupid. If conservatives don't learn that lesson, they will spend a long time in exile—and deservedly so.

This is a sweet interview, and amazingly timely for our discussions.

This bit of news is a little scary. Implications are that this entire war effort was a waste. We would hope not. I would like to hope the Iraqi people step up to the challenge and act responsibly with the freedoms given them.

THE ARAB FAILURE IN IRAQ
Written by Ralph Peters
Friday, 03 November 2006

We went to Iraq to overthrow a police state. Through a combination of stubbornness, naïveté and noble intentions, we've replaced it with another police state - more violent, more corrupt and less accountable.

Our greatest setback in Iraq may be that country's undoing: It has proven impossible to develop an honest, nonpartisan police establishment anywhere in the country's Arab provinces. The police aren't feared by criminals, but by law-abiding citizens.

The secret police are back, in the form of death squads. And the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki looks perfectly happy with the situation.

An ugly truth is emerging. As dearly as we believe in democracy, Iraq's Arabs are proving that they're incapable of the political, social and moral maturity necessary to run an elected government.

So the gist of this article is:

For some liberal leaders, there is a real desire to avoid confrontation at all costs. Sometimes they do it with the idea of promoting peace, sometimes they do it for profit without saying who is paying them to denounce war and defense efforts. The long and short of this is: You do have to believe this death-ray is real. The guy who is making it goes to church with you..

WILL NOVEMBER 7 BE A CAPITULATION TO MASOCHISM?
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, 02 November 2006

If they were honest, liberal scientists who fanatically believe in the religion of anti-missile defense should band together and call themselves SFADA: Scientists For A Defenseless America.

No matter what breakthroughs are achieved by the Pentagon in missile defense, you can depend on these guys to lie about them and claim they won't work.

Last week, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency reached an extraordinary milestone: putting a "death-ray" high-energy laser aboard an airplane that can destroy at the speed of light an enemy nuclear missile aimed at the Unites States shortly after its launch.

It was immediately denounced by liberal scientists being paid to lie for the left -- yet another example of liberal masochism that doesn't want America to be defended. The question of the moment is whether Americans will capitulate to such masochism next week.

Even if God never calls you to suffer for your faith, you can learn to pray for those who are suffering..

The Baptist Tibet?

Defending the Faithful

November 6, 2006

If I were to ask you to name the most Baptist state, you would probably guess Georgia, Alabama, or somewhere else in the South.

The correct answer is the Indian state of Nagaland. More than 90 percent of its two million inhabitants are Christians, and more than 80 percent are Baptists. And there's nothing nominal about their Christianity. Church attendance is "very high" in Nagaland.

What makes these numbers even more remarkable is that, as recently as 125 years ago, many Nagas were head-hunters! They were converted to Christianity through the work of courageous Baptist missionaries in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Christianity not only transformed individuals, but Naga society, as well: Nagaland's literacy rate is four times that of the rest of India; they have "created effective health care programs"; and their goal is to send 10,000 missionaries to India, Burma, and the rest of Asia.

It will come as no surprise that the Nagas' relationship with the rest of India is tense. Ethnic and religious differences led to what has been called India's "dirty little war" in which at least 200,000 Nagas were killed during the last half of the twentieth century. Indian troops "burned entire villages, raped women in churches, and then burned the churches."

Even after a cease-fire, Indian troops continued to show "disdain for the Nagas' churches and religion," prompting the Christian Century to compare India's treatment of Nagaland to China's treatment of Tibet.

Recently, the Nagas, like the rest of India's 23 million Christians, have experienced discrimination, even violence, from Hindu nationalists. The former ruling party, the BJP, as part of its "Hinduization" program, enacted laws aimed at preventing conversions to Christianity; and its followers burned churches and even killed pastors and parishioners.

While the BJP's surprise defeat at the polls two years ago temporarily derailed the most aggressive aspects of Hinduization, India's Christians are by no means secure. The BJP lost power because of economic conditions, not because of its treatment of religious minorities. And the Hindu majority is out of power only for a season.

Religious freedom is far too important to be so vulnerable to the whims of this or any other majority. Ending this vulnerability is one of the goals of the "International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church," which will be observed this Sunday, November 12.

In addition to the vital task of intercessory prayer, the sponsors hope to "increase awareness of the persecuted Church worldwide" and "promote ongoing and appropriate action on behalf of the persecuted Church." That means using international pressure.

The need for awareness is urgent. While the Nagas' situation is better than that of other persecuted Christians, if it can happen in a democracy like India, it can happen almost anywhere.

The Nagas are living proof of the Gospel's power to transform lives and even whole societies. We need to do what we can so that they will add more chapters to an already-remarkable tale.