elpisman

Archive for September, 2009


Romans 5:1-5: True Freedom(Sermon Notes from 9-27)

In Christianity, Sermons on September 27, 2009 at 1:31 pm

I. Introduction – The  Uniqueness of Biblical Christianity

Above all we should consider the accusations that were brought against the early Christians. In the relevant Roman texts they are regarded not merely as "enemies of the human race"but as atheists and destroyers of religion. For the Romans nascent Christianity was not at all a new religion. It was "antireligion." This view was well founded. What the first Christian generations were putting on trial was not just the imperial religion,as is often said,but every religion in the known world. ( The Subversion of Christianity,Jacques Ellul,pg.55)

Christianity is the true antireligion. It is a relationship that is with the true and living God of the universe. This relationship transcends buildings,rituals,laws,and every effort of man attempting to earn merit/favor with God. It is grace based,faith based,not law based. A relationship accomplished by the love of God.

This relationship is based on the revelation of God Himself to mankind through His word. His word is truth,it is genuine and it is authentic. Because it is true it exposes all that attempts to contradict it as lies and falsehoods. Even words of grace and mercy act as "fire and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces." ( Jeremiah 23:29) The hard heart must be broken that repentance and humility may have their proper work.

II. Romans 5:1-5 – Some Key Scriptures

1.verse 1 – Therefore,since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

a.Therefore refers to the first four chapters of Romans where Paul proves that salvation cannot be earned by works. His example in chpt.4 is Abraham who trusted God.  That trust was credited to his account as righteousness.

b. Justified – dikaioo – to render righteous, to declare,to pronounce one to be just,righteous. Romans 3:28- " a man is justified apart from works of the law."  It is God’s declaration.

c.Romans 4:1-8 – The covering of our sins/transgressions – this is the starting point of salvation- of being born again. Jesus told Nicodemus " You must be born again." We must have new life,become a new creation.

d.When we are born again we have peace with God. " Let us enjoy peace with God."(Robertson) This the beginning of a new relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

e.This all happens "through our Lord Jesus Christ". Works cannot bring about this relationship. We do not merit this relationship in any way. The Lord speaks His Word to us – "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.In the world you have tribulation,but take courage; I have overcome the world."(Jn.16:33)  In Christ – peace, in the world – tribulation = fact  The victory is the Lords-he overcame all principalities and powers on the cross. If we define victory by numbers,glitz and glitter – wrong definition.Victory cannot be measured in terms of human success.

2. verse 2- Through the Lord Jesus Christ we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand,and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

a.echo – obtained,received,have,access- prosagoge- introduction,to usher in. Used for introducing someone to royalty. Jn.14:6- I am the way the truth and the life,no one can come to the Father except by Me.  Exclusive claim- all other religions that claim to lead one to God without knowing Jesus Christ fail at this point.  Mormonism uses the same terminology,but has so redefined God,Jesus,salvation that created a false gospel. Ephesians 3:12 – we have boldness and and confident access through faith in Him. Hebrews 10 – The finished work of Christ on the cross – one sacrifice for sins for all time (vs.12) leads to the fact that " we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Christ."  Because this salvation is by faith through grace the continued relationship is not based on our works. If we sin we should rush to the throne room of the Father and not feel that we cannot go to Him because we are not "good enough". We were never good enough !

b.grace- charis " good will,favor,that which affords joy,pleasure,delight"- it is God’s unmerited favor toward us who are not deserving.

c. stand – " to make to stand" – God’s unmerited favor and blessing with us each day – we live in the midst of His blessing every day.

d.rejoice- exult – Let us exult ! Glory – take pride in

e.in hope- elpis- joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation.

f. of the glory of God – future expectation should motivate our life in the present.

Past forgiveness of sins leads to present new life motivated in part by future expectations as well as present thankfulness.

3.5:3- Not only this,we rejoice- exult in our sufferings

a. tribulations – thlipsis- anguish,persecution, literally means pressure. Life is full of pressure- it can come from all angles – job,family,society, But in God’s economy pressure does not have to be wasted.

b. fortitude- endurance plus - " the spirit which can overcome the world- it means the spirit which does not passively endure,but which actively overcomes the trials and tribulations of life." ( hupomone)

c. This type of endurance produces character and character produces hope. Character- dokime- the process or result of trial,proving- proven worth. Used of a metal that has been passed through the fire sot that everything base has been purged out of it . Ex.- Sterling coins.

d. This proven character produces hope -  joyful,confident expectation – elpis

There is such a contrast between the life of one who is confident in the Lord and the one who has lost hope. The hopeless one is depressed,angry,sad,bitter,in despair – results in whining and complaining and an unforgiving spirit towards those who are "to blame".

5.And hope does not put us to shame- " Because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." This is an amazing verse. Christians have new life,eternal life.We should be marked by an extraordinary humility toward one another, exhibiting;

  • grace – toward one another – based on an humble estimate of our own foibles
  • love- This love is not an emotion,but rather the love that is expressed in action
  • mercy- love covers a multitude of sins – imperfections that we all have.
  • compassion – Meeting whatever needs we can possibly meet whether physical,spiritual.

III. True Freedom

1. We have been;

  • justified – placed into a right standing with God
  • given the opportunity to enjoy peace with God
  • have obtained access to God which leads to fellowship
  • live in the grace of God receiving His blessing
  • exult in confident expectation of the glory of God
  • exult in tribulation,knowing that the pressures of life are working and overcoming endurance,character,and joyful hope.

2. We face:

  • The cares of the world,the deceitfulness of riches,(Mt.13:22)
  • The temptation to fear (John 14:27)
  • The hatred of the world (John 15:18-19)
  • The pressure of the world to conform to the world’s way of viewing life – of holding to an anti-biblical worldview. (Romans 12:2)
  • The temptation to justify ourselves before God as being self-righteous and moral in our own strength.( Colossians 2:8)
  • The temptation to be friends with the world and thus be at enmity with God.(James 4:4)

IV. Multicultural attacks and a Biblical Response

1. Multiculturalism (in theory) says that all cultures,religions (non-religions) are equally valid and we should appreciate and learn from all.  One should not point out errors,criticize,or in any way "attack" another viewpoint. As a result multicultural thought is based on relativism – truth is relative. Ethics are situational and vary. What might be right for you may be wrong for me and vice versa.

2.Cultural Christianity i.e. the outward forms of church services,baptisms,weddings, is acceptable to society. As long as Christians live like the world and fit into the world’s categories there is no problem.If we accept the world’s standards of right and wrong,of love,then we are tolerated. homosexual pastors,the Bible regarded as a "good book" but replaced by multi-media,educating our kids to be "world citizens",and personal morality based on what we like and don’t like = a useless,salt less Church.One that cares nothing for truth,and has forsaken its love for Jesus Christ.

3.As we face growing persecution for sharing truth with others,for providing a Christian education,for standing up for the unborn,we will have the choice of retreating into cultural enclaves or in being actively involved yet risking what freedoms we have.

4. Christianity presents one way – one truth-one Word.Jesus Christ is like no other.His work on the cross is a complete and perfect work. And yet God’s grace is offensive to human beings;

gracious grace rejects the validity of all human sacrifice.It ruins a basic element in human psychology.Revelation is essentially contrary. It does not satisfy (human)religious needs.It satisfies none of our needs or  great aspirations ir great assurances,such as the need for self justification.We are possessed by an obsessional desire to justify ourselves,to declare that we are righteous,to be righteous in our own eyes,to seem to be righteous in the eyes of others,of neighbors and acquaintances,and finally to be declared righteous by the whole group to which we belong.In human conduct and sociological movements this thirst for self-justification is constant and fundamental. (ibid.pg.159)

Thus, multiculturalism itself is empowers self righteousness,self justification by saying that all is good,all is equally valid and true.

V. Summary

1.Human beings desire self justification and self-determination,even to the extent of harming themselves and failing miserably in life.

2.Most religion is built around the innate need that we have for self-justification through works,earning merit points with God,and in co-existing at a certain comfort level with the world.

3.God’s revelation shatters the idea that we have any intrinsic righteousness.

4.Salvation is totally of God-through the  perfect work of the cross,that upsets the wisdom of the world.

5.Salvation cannot be accomplished by any particular work,or any number of works. It is by grace through faith lest any man boast.

6.We now have peace with God,access to God,and can exult at the future expectation of glory,exult in the midst of our pressures,because we know that God is working a new type of overcoming endurance in us that will result in a fire tested character.

7.The net result will be a joyful confident expectation of God’s working in the midst of severe circumstances in ways that we cannot even see or comprehend.

Be sure that you always out -rejoice your adversaries.If something is worth fighting for,it is worth rejoicing over. And joy is essential to the battle,for nothing is worth fighting for that will not increase our everlasting joy in God.Courage in conflict must mingle with joy in Christ. (Contending for Our All,John Piper,pg.62)

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.Who is he who overcomes the world,but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?(I John5:4-5)

, , , ,

Obama’s Foreign Policy:Worthy of Derisive Laughter

In Israel, Obama on September 26, 2009 at 11:46 pm

Caroline Glick – one of the most perceptive Middle East commentators

Caroline Glick

An enfeebled Obama

Posted: 25 Sep 2009 10:57 AM PDT

If Zbigniew Brzezinski had his way, the US would go to war against Israel to defend Iran’s nuclear installations.
In an interview with the Daily Beast Web site last weekend, the man who served as former US president Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser said, “They [IAF fighter jets] have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? We have to be serious about denying them that right. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not.”
Brzezinski has long distinguished himself as one of the most outspoken Israel-haters in polite circles in Washington. Under normal circumstances, his remarks could be laughed off as the ravings of a garden variety anti-Semite. But these are not normal circumstances. Brzezinski served as a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, and his views are not terribly out of place among Obama’s senior advisers in the White House. In an interview in 2002, Samantha Powers, who serves as a senior member of Obama’s national security council, effectively called for the US to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians.
The fact of the matter is that Brzezinski’s view is in line with the general disposition of Obama’s foreign policy. Since entering office, Obama has struck a hard-line position against Israel while adopting a soft, even apologetic line toward Iran and its allies.
For eight months, Obama has sought to force Israel to the wall. He has loudly and repeatedly ordered the Netanyahu government to prevent all private and public construction for Jews in Israel’s capital city and its heartland in order to facilitate the eventual mass expulsion of Jews from both areas, which he believes ought to become part of a Jew-free Palestinian state.
Until this week, Obama conditioned the resumption of negotiations toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians on such a prohibition of Jewish building and so encouraged Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to further radicalize his positions toward Israel. Until Obama came around, Abbas had no problem negotiating with Israeli leaders while Jews were building homes and schools and other structures in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. But with Obama requiring a freeze of all such construction, Abbas made clear in an interview with The Washington Post in May that he couldn’t talk to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu without looking like a sellout.
Obama made no equivalent demands of the Palestinians. He did not precondition talks on freezing illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem, or on dismantling the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group, or even simply on setting aside the Palestinian demand that Israel release convicted terrorists from its prisons. To the contrary, he has energetically supported the establishment of a Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas – which the US State Department has since 1995 designated as a foreign terrorist organization to which US citizens, including the US president, are required by law to give no quarter.
As for Iran, during his meeting with Netanyahu in May, Obama gave the clear impression that the Iranian regime had until September to accept his offer to negotiate the disposition of its nuclear installations. But it is now September, and in its belated response to Obama’s generous offer of engagement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime rejected the terms of Obama’s engagement out of hand. Obama did not retaliate by taking his offer to negotiate off the table or – perish the thought – working to implement the sanctions he had pledged would follow an Iranian rejection of his open hand.
Instead, Obama announced that he is sending a senior US official to meet with the Iranians on October 1. And with that announcement, any residual doubt that Obama is willing to live in a world in which Iran is armed with nuclear weaponry dissipated completely.
In the meantime, in his address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and in his remarks at his meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas on Tuesday, Obama made clear that, in the words of former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, he has “put Israel on the chopping block.” He referred to Israeli communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines as “illegitimate.”
Moreover, Obama explained that Israel can no longer expect US support for its security if it doesn’t bow to his demand that it surrender all of the land it has controlled since 1967.
Apparently it is immaterial to the US leader that if Israel fulfilled his demand, the Jewish state would render itself defenseless against enemy attack and so embolden its neighbors to invade. That is, it matters not to Obama that were Israel to fulfill his demand, the prospect of an Arab war against Israel would rise steeply. The fact that Obama made these deeply antagonistic statements about Israel at the UN in itself exposes his hostility toward the country. The UN’s institutional hostility toward Israel is surpassed only by that of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
So given Obama’s positions toward Israel on the one hand and Iran and its allies on the other, it seems clear enough that the logical endpoint of Obama’s policies would look something like Brzezinski’s recommended course of action. Moreover, Obama’s foreign policy as a whole makes it fairly easy to imagine him ordering the US military to open hostilities against a US ally to defend a US adversary – even as that adversary goes out of its way to humiliate Obama personally and the US in general.
Since Obama took office, he has been abandoning one US ally after another while seeking to curry favor with one US adversary after another. At every turn, America’s allies – from Israel to Honduras, to Columbia, South Korea and Japan, to Poland and the Czech Republic – have reacted with disbelief and horror to his treachery. And at every turn, America’s adversaries – from Iran to Venezuela to North Korea and Russia – have responded with derision and contempt to his seemingly obsessive attempts to appease them.
The horror Obama has instilled in America’s friends and the contempt he has evoked from its enemies have not caused him to change course. The fact that his policies throughout the world have already failed to bring a change in the so-called international community’s treatment of the US has not led him to reconsider those policies. As many Western Europeans have begun to openly acknowledge, the man they once likened to the messiah is nothing but a politician – and a weak, bungling one at that. Even Britain’s Economist is laughing at him.
But Obama is unmoved by any of this, and as his speech at the UN General Assembly made clear, he is moving full speed ahead in his plans to subordinate US foreign policy to the UN.
His stubborn insistence on advancing his feckless foreign policy in the face of its already apparent colossal failure is of a piece with his unswerving commitment to his domestic agenda in spite of its apparent colossal failure. Obama’s economic stimulus package failed to stimulate the US economy and increased the US’s economic deficit to heights undreamed of by his predecessors. His nationalization of major US corporations like General Motors, his cash-for-clunkers program to stimulate the US auto industry and his massive encroachments on the banking and financial industries have done nothing to increase economic growth in the US and indeed, unemployment has reached generational highs. And yet, rather than reconsider his belief in vastly expanding the size of the federal government’s control over the private sector, Obama has insistently pushed for further governmental control over the US economy – most notably in his drive to transform the US health care industry.
Both Obama’s supporters and his opponents have claimed that his presidency may well stand or fall on his ability to pass a health care reform law in the coming months. But the fact of the matter is that if he succeeds in passing such a law, his success will be a Pyrrhic victory because Obama has promised that his plan will do the impossible, and therefore it will unquestionably fail.
He has promised that the health care plan he supports will increase access to health services and improve their quality, but simultaneously will not increase the size of the federal deficit or be funded with tax hikes – and this is impossible. Obama’s health care plan will fail either to pass into law, or if it becomes law, it will fail to live up to his promises.
Obama’s failures in both foreign and domestic policy have weakened him politically. His response to this newfound weakness has been to put himself into the public eye seemingly around the clock. Apparently the thinking behind the move is that while Obama’s policies are unpopular, Obama’s personal popularity remains high, so if he personalizes his policies, it will become more difficult for his opponents to argue against them.
But alas, this policy too has failed. The more Obama exposes himself, the less he is able to leverage his personal celebrity into political power.
The question for the US’s spurned allies in general – and for Israel in particular – is whether we are better off with a politically strong Obama or a politically weak Obama. Given that the general thrust of his foreign policy is detrimental to our interests, America’s allies are best served by a weak Obama. Already this week Israel benefitted from his weakness. It was Obama’s weakness that dictated his need to stage a photo-op with Netanyahu and Abbas at the UN. And it was this need – to be seen as doing something productive – that outweighed Obama’s desire to put the screws on Israel by preconditioning talks with a freeze on Jewish construction. So Obama was forced to relent at least temporarily and Netanyahu won his first round against Obama.
During a television interview this week, Sen. John McCain was asked for his opinion of Brzezinski’s recommendation that the US shoot down IAF jets en route to Iran in a hypothetical Israeli air strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. He responded with derisive laughter. And indeed, the notion that the US would go to war against Israel to protect Iran’s nuclear installations is laughably absurd.
The weaker Obama becomes politically, the more readily Democrats and liberal reporters alike will acknowledge that attacking US allies while scraping and bowing before US foes is a ridiculous strategy for foreign affairs. Certainly no self-proclaimed realist can defend a policy based on denuding the US of its power and forsaking a US-based international system for one dictated by its foes.
It is true that a weakened Obama will seek to win cheap points by putting the squeeze on Israel. But it is also true that the weaker Obama becomes, the less capable he will be of carrying through on his bullying threats against Israel and against fellow democracies around the world.

,

Commentary on President Obama’s Speech to the United Nations

In Obama on September 25, 2009 at 1:24 am

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SPEECH TO THE UN

Ken Berwitz       http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/

I was going to write about President Obama’s disheartening, dispiriting, jimmy-carteresque speech to the United Nations yesterday.  But the New York Post has an editorial that says pretty much everything I would have, so why re-invent the wheel?

Here it is:

The naïf-in-chief

Last Updated: 1:06 AM, September 24, 2009

Posted: September 24, 2009

Who wrote President Obama’s speech for the start of the UN General As sembly yesterday — Rodney King? You know, the guy whose videotaped run-in with cops sparked the 1992 LA riots, leading King to ask: “Can’t we all just get along?”

Today that question is used derisively, to mock naive “solutions” for social ills. But it essentially sums up Obama’s 38-minute UN plea, as Washington’s former UN envoy John Bolton noted.

Except that Obama is supposed to be the wise leader of the Free World.

What a truly pathetic performance.

Not only because of the president’s stunning cluelessness about the world’s nature. But also because of his repeated insults to America. And his back-stabbing of Washington’s top Mideast ally, Israel.

Obama, yet again, focused on the world’s “distrust” of this nation, thanks to the “belief . . . that America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interest of others” — presumably, under George W. Bush’s presidency.

Not to fear, though; Obama’s here: He’s closing Gitmo, he said, banning torture, quitting Iraq, scrapping nukes …

What about protecting America?

Obama believes “deeply,” he said, that “the interests of nations and peoples are shared.” (Cue the Kumbaya singers.)

Indeed, he practically begged world leaders to take their “share of responsibility” in responding to global challenges.

Did no one brief him about who’d be at the event? Like lunatic Libyan murderer-in-chief Moammar Khadafy (who ranted for 95 minutes)? And Holocaust-denying, terror-sponsoring, nuke-building, election-stealing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Obama can’t truly believe these guys will do their “share” to make the world safe, however much he pleads.

And what’s up with those gratuitous slams at Jerusalem? “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” Obama hissed. He insisted that “Israel respect the legitimate claims . . . of the Palestinians.”

Memo to POTUS: Israel has always respected legitimate Palestinian claims.

Indeed, it is neither Israeli disrespect nor settlements that stand in the way of peace there — but the Palestinian fantasy (fueled by folks like Ahmadinejad) of wiping the Jewish state off the map.

Obama can wish all he wants for everyone to “just get along.”

But wishing won’t make it happen.

He’s got some serious learning to do.

What a cesspool of moral equivalency, ridiculous tra-la-la perceptions about the rest of the world….and, not incidentally, gratuitous attacks on Israel.

President Obama brings us right back to the naive, puerile mindset that somehow the United Nations is going to provide peace and safety for us all, and the United States overreaches if it operates outside of the UN’s parameters.

Is this ludicrous and dangerous?  Yes, and yes.

But we deserve it.  We elected this horror show, and a huge Democratic majority in congress to back him up.

Come 2010, we’ll see if enough of us realize what a mistake this was to do something about it.

===================================================================

UPDATE:  Here is additional commentary by Paul Mirengoff of www.powerlineblog.com.  Like the Post, Paul hits the nail on the head:

Conservative commentary on President Obama’s U.N. speech has correctly taken note of the extent to which Obama once again has apologized for America. What struck me as new, though, was extent to which he begged his audience to award the U.S. brownie points for his good acts. The one form of supplication follows from the other. Obama isn’t just saying that the U.S. has been a bad boy in the past; he’s also saying that we’re a good boy now:

We know the future will be forged by deeds and not simply words. Speeches alone will not solve our problems — it will take persistent action. For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.

Obama then listed a series of decisions that he hoped might placate the assembled thugs, dictators, and hypcrites — a crowd from which he feels compelled to seek approval on behalf of the United States. Obama noted that he has banned torture, closed Gitmo, moved to end the war in Iraq, moved towards disarmament, attempted to advance the ball on creating a Palestinian state, “re-engaged the United Nations, paid our bills, joined the Human Rights Council.”

So here was the president of the United States doing everything but getting down on his hands and knees before the representatives of every wretched regime in the world to plead that the U.S. has turned over a new leaf and, in effect, become harmless.

Does Obama believe that anything positive will come of this stomach-turning spectacle. Or does he just like to bask in the glow of applause for the proposition that the U.S. was a pretty rotten place until he assumed control, without worrying about who it is that’s applauding?

, , ,

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Speech to the U.N.

In Israel on September 24, 2009 at 11:37 pm

Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.
I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.
The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust.  It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.  Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.
Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants.  Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.
Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee.  There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people.  The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.
Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews.   Is this a lie?
A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.  Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself.  Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered.  Is this too a lie?
This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp.  Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?
One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration.  Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own.  My wife’s grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis.  Is that also a lie?
Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium.  To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you.  You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.
But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame?  Have you no decency?
A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace!  What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!
Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews.  You’re wrong.  History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.
This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.
In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims.   It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others.  Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.
The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.  It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century.  The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.
Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future.  And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope.   The pace of progress is growing exponentially.  It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.
What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come.
We will crack the genetic code.  We will cure the incurable.  We will lengthen our lives.  We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.
I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances – by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment.  These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.
But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time.   And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.
That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge?  Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?
Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood?
Will the international community thwart the world’s most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?
Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?
The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime.  People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall.   Will the United Nations stand by their side?
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging.
Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims.  That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.
For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities.   Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.
We heard nothing – absolutely nothing – from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.
In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza.  It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis.
We didn’t get peace.  Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv.   Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare.
You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.
Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond.  But how should we have responded?
Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country’s civilian population.  It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II.
During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties.   Israel chose to respond differently.  Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians – Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.
That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances.
Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.  We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave.
Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way.   Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel.
A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.
By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals.  What a perversion of truth!  What a perversion of justice!
Delegates of the United Nations,
Will you accept this farce?    Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.
If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity.
And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace.  Here’s why.  When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop.  Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense.
What legitimacy?  What self-defense?
The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us –my people, my country – of war crimes?  And for what?  For acting responsibly in self-defense.  What a travesty!
Israel justly defended itself against terror.  This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments.   Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?
We must know the answer to that question now.   Now and not later.  Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow.
Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
All of Israel wants peace.   Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace.   We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat.  We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein.
And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace.  But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.
In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state.  The Jews accepted that resolution.  The Arabs rejected it.   We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years:  Say yes to a Jewish state.
Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people.   The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel.   This is the land of our forefathers.
Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.  They shall learn war no more.”   These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city – in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.   We are not strangers to this land.  It is our homeland.
As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own.   We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.
But we must have security.  The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.
That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized.   We don’t want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.
We want peace.
I believe such a peace can be achieved.  But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order.
The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.
Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the “confirmed unteachability of mankind,” the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.
Churchill bemoaned what he called the “want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”
I speak here today in the hope that Churchill’s assessment of the “unteachability of mankind” is for once proven wrong.
I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history — that we can prevent danger in time.
In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage.  Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

, ,

Climate Change Propaganda

In Obama, science on September 23, 2009 at 10:26 pm
From Gateway Pundit  http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/
Hero Czech President: UN Climate Meeting Was Propaganda


The 2009 arctic sea ice exceeded the 2005 sea ice extent.
A voice of reason among the climate change clowns…
Czech President Vaclav Klaus condemned the UN climate change meeting on Tuesday as undignified propaganda.
Reuters reported:

Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.
“It was sad and it was frustrating,” said Klaus, one of the world’s most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming.
“It’s a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem,” he said. “It’s simply not dignified.”
At the opening of the summit attended by nearly 100 world leaders, 13-year-old Yugratna Srivastava of India told the audience that governments were not doing enough to combat the threat of climate change.
Klaus said there were increasing doubts in the scientific community about whether humans are causing changes in the climate or whether the changes are simply naturally occurring phenomena.

Another hero Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) says he will send a “truth squad” to the Copenhagen global climate change meetings later this year.
Related… Cuban Marxist Fidel Castro praised Barack Obama’s brave speech on the manmade global warming hoax.

, ,

Hear Hear !!

In Obama on September 23, 2009 at 7:27 pm

(HT-Reality Check http://thetruthmechanic.com/)

The UN loves Barack Obama because he is weak

It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits Barack Obama when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly today, writes Nile Gardiner.

By Nile Gardiner
Published: 8:34AM BST 23 Sep 2009

Comments 164 | Comment on this article

Barack Obama’s Gallup approval rating of 52 percent may well be lower at this stage of his presidency than any US leader in recent times with the exception of Bill Clinton. But he is still worshipped with messiah-like adoration at the United Nations, and is considerably more popular with many of the 192 members of the UN than he is with the American people.

The latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey of international confidence in Obama’s leadership on foreign affairs shows strikingly high approval levels for the president in many parts of the world – 94 percent in Kenya, 93 percent in Germany, 88 percent in Canada and Nigeria, 77 percent in India, 76 percent in Brazil, 71 percent in Indonesia, and 62 percent in China for example. The Pew survey of 21 countries reveals an average level of 71 percent support for President Obama, compared to just 17 percent for George W. Bush in 2008.

As the figures indicate, Barack Obama is highly likely to receive a warm reception when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly today, whereas his predecessor in the White House was greeted with undisguised contempt and stony silence.

It is not hard to see why a standing ovation awaits the president at Turtle Bay. Obama’s popularity at the UN boils down essentially to his willingness to downplay American global power. He is the first American president who has made an art form out of apologizing for the United States, which he has done on numerous occasions on foreign soil, from Strasbourg to Cairo. The Obama mantra appears to be – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do to atone for your country. This is a message that goes down very well in a world that is still seething with anti-Americanism.

It is natural that much of the UN will embrace an American president who declines to offer strong American leadership. A president who engages dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez will naturally gain respect from the leaders of the more than 100 members of the United Nations who are currently designated as “partly free” or “not free” by respected watchdog Freedom House.

The UN is not a club of democracies – who still remain a minority within its membership – it is a vast melting pot of free societies, socialist regimes and outright tyrannies. Obama’s clear lack of interest in human rights issues is a big seller at the UN, where at least half its members have poor human rights records.

The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage, with rare exceptions like the war against the Taliban. His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt.

Simply put, Barack Obama is loved at the UN because he largely fails to advance real American leadership. This is a dangerous strategy of decline that will weaken US power and make her far more vulnerable to attack.

As we saw last week with his shameful surrender to Moscow over missile defence, the president is perfectly happy to undermine America’s allies and gut its strategic defences while currying favour with enemies and strategic competitors. The missile defence debacle is rightly viewed as a betrayal by the Poles and the Czechs, and Washington has clearly give the impression that it cares little about those who have bravely stood shoulder to shoulder with their US allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider war on terror.

The Obama administration is now overseeing and implementing the biggest decline in American global power since Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately it may well take another generation for the United States to recover.

Nile Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation.

, ,

Get Ready

In Christian life, Christianity, Spiritual Warfare on September 22, 2009 at 1:47 am

Saturday, September 19, 2009     (HT- Vitamin Z) http://takeyourvitaminz.blogspot.com/

Domesticating Godliness

I tremble when I read this, but I know it’s as true as true gets:

“Obedience in missions and social justice has always been costly, and always will be. In the village of Miango, Nigeria, there is an SIM guest house and a small church called Kirk Chapel. Behind the chapel is a small cemetery with 56 graves. Thirty-three of them hold the bodies of missionary children. Some of the stones read: ‘Ethyl Armold: September 1, 1928-September 2, 1928.’ ‘Barbara J. Swanson: 1946-1952.’ ‘Eileen Louise Whitmoyer: May 6, 1952-July 3, 1955.’ For many families this was the cost of taking the Gospel to Nigeria. Charles White told his story about visiting this little graveyard and ended it with a tremendously powerful sentence. He said, ‘the only way we can understand the graveyard at Miango is to remember that god also buried his Son on the mission field.’
And when God raised Him from the dead, He called the church to follow Him into the same dangerous field called ‘all the world’ (Mark 16:15). But are we willing to follow? In Ermelo, Holland, Brother Andrew told the story of sitting in Budapest, Hungary, with a dozen pastors of that city, teaching them from the Bible. In walked an old friend, a pastor from Romania who had recently been released from prison. Brother Andrew said that he stopped teaching and knew that it was time to listen.
After a long pause the Romanian pastor said, ‘Andrew, are there any pastors in prison in Holland?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Why not?’ the pastor asked. Brother Andrew thought for a moment and said, ‘I think it must be because we do not take advantage of all the opportunities God gives us.’ Then came the most difficult question. ‘Andrew, what do you do with 2 Timothy 3:12?’ Brother Andrew opened his Bible and turned to the test and read aloud, ‘All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.’ He closed the Bible slowly and said, ‘Brother, please forgive me. We do nothing with that verse.’
We have, I fear, domesticated the concept of godliness into such inoffensive, middle-class morality and law-keeping that 2 Timothy 3:12 has become unintelligible to us. I think many of us are not prepared to suffer for the gospel. We do not grasp the truth that God has purposes of future grace that he intends to give his people through suffering. We can speak of purposes of suffering because it is clearly God’s purpose that we at times suffer for righteousness’ sake and for the sake of the Gospel. For example, ‘Let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.’ (1 Peter 4:19, 3:17 and Hebrews 12:4-11).
To live by faith in future grace we must see that the suffering of Gods people is the instrument of grace in their lives.”

- John Piper, Future Grace

, , , ,

Sacramental Salvation Or Amazing Grace?

In Christianity, The Cross, salvation on September 11, 2009 at 9:16 pm

What does it mean to be a Christian? Are you a Christian? If I were to ask you why you are a Christian how would you answer? Some friends of mine who do some witnessing ask these very questions. The answers they get are very interesting.Here are some common answers:

  • They attend church
  • They have been baptized- either as an infant or as an adult
  • They believe in God
  • They believe in God and live a decent life

There are many people who believe that the sacraments i.e.baptism,confirmation,communion,belonging to the right church,all dispense grace and contribute towards salvation. Because the sacraments provide grace to the recipient the priests become dispensers of grace – this is known as sacerdotalism. In the Catholic Church, communion (the Mass) is where the priest turns the bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord Jesus-according to Catholic teaching. Irwin Lutzer explains the ramifications of sacramentalism:

Sacramentalism stresses that salvation comes through the church’s channels of grace…Sacramentalism asks sinners to look to the church to be saved. It is through the church and its ordinances that God’s grace is communicated to men.The church takes the place of God.(The Doctrines That Divide,Erwin Lutzer,pg.94-95)

This brings up a key question in the discussion. What must I do to be saved?Does salvation come through the sacraments and faith,by faith alone,by works alone,or by a combination of baptism,faith,and works? Roman Catholicism would insist on a combination of all of the above.One must be a member of the Roman Catholic Church,receive its sacraments,do good works,and then hope for the best. If all of that is not enough, then some time in purgatory will remedy the situation.

Karl Keating a Roman Catholic apologist has the following criticism of those whom he calls “fundamentalists”:

First to catch one’s eye is the fundamentalists’ reliance on the Bible to the complete exclusion of any authority wielded by the Church.The second is their insistence in a faith in Christ as personal Lord and Savior.”Do you accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” they ask. “Have you ever been saved?” This is unalloyed Christian individualism.The individual is saved without real regard to a church,the congregation,or anyone else. It is a one-to-one relationship,with no mediators,no sacraments,just the individual Christian and his Lord.(Catholicism and Fundamentalism:The Attack on “Romanism” By “Bible Christians”,Karl Keating,pg.23)

No priests,no mediators other than Jesus Christ,no sacraments are necessary to become a Christian.What is necessary is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit,a God induced metanoia.That is,a repentance from sin, a turning from self and a turning to God,.There is an acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and there is a deep work of the Holy Spirit. One becomes a “new creation”,a disciple of Yeshua. As J.C.Ryle puts it:

The church is made up of all who are really holy and converted people.It comprehends all who have repented of sin,and fled to Christ by faith,and been made new creatures in him.It comprises all God’s elect,all who have received God’s grace,all who have been washed in Christ’s blood,all who have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness,all who have been born again and sanctified by Christ’s Spirit.All such,of every name and rank,and nation,and people,and tongue,compose the church.This is the body of Christ.This is the flock of Christ.This is the Bride.This is the Lamb’s wife.This is “the holy an Catholic and Apostolic Church” of the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed.This is the “blessed company of all faithful people,”spoken of in the Communion Service of the Church of England.This is “THE CHURCH ON THE ROCK.” (Holiness:Its Nature,Hindrances,Difficulties,and Roots,J.C.Ryle,pg.272)

J.C.Ryle was an evangelical pastor/bishop in the church of England. He was born in 1816 and died in 1900. His apt summary of who really comprises the church has been the testimony of all who have been brought into the kingdom of God from the Book of Acts to the present. There really is Amazing Grace!

So since we have come to considered righteous by God because of our faith,let us continue to have peace with God through our Lord,Yeshua the Messiah.( Romans 5:1)

,

Obama and the Truth? Health Care Deceptions

In Obama on September 10, 2009 at 3:43 pm

http://www.moonbattery.com/

And, Representative Joe Wilson is right. H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchanges. House democrats have twice voted against amendments to provide such language in the bill.

And that was not the only lie to come out of Chairman Zero’s mouth last night:

Lie: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period.”
Fact: CBO Scoring says the plans on the table will add at least $200 Billion in deficits over ten years. Beyond 2020, the scoring gets even worse.

Lie: “Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”
Fact: The CBO says at least 3,000,000 people will lose their coverage under any of the plans being put forth. Other estimates have ranged as high as 88,000,000. And that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. The goals of these plans are to saddle insurance companies with so many mandates that premiums will have to go up and drive people to subsidized government care. Pre-existing conditions are to health insurance what drunk drivers and teenagers are to auto insurance; what do you think is going to happen when companies are required to cover them, but not charge them more than healthy people?

Lie: “Don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut. … That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.”
Fact: Obama and congressional Democrats want to pay for their health care plans in part by reducing Medicare payments to providers by more than $500 billion over 10 years…

Lie: “Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.”
Fact: The Capps-Wasman Amendment to House Bill 3200 explicitly allows the Secretary of HHS to subsidize abortions with Federal funds as part of the public option. Democrats have voted against amendments to block abortion funding under the House Bill.

To his credit, Joe Wilson is standing by his statement regarding the Emperor’s fashion sense.

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit.

, , ,

Pro-Abortion Politicians and Lady Macbeth:An Adaptation

In abortion on September 8, 2009 at 1:34 am

What is it they do now? Look how they rub their hands.

It is an accustom’d action with them,to seem thus washing their hands. I have known them continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Yet here’s a spot.

Hark,they speak.I will set down what comes to them,to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Out,damn’d spot,I say!- One;two: why then tis time to do’t.- Hell is murky.- Fie,my lords,fie,a protester,and afeard? What need we fear who knows it,when none can call our pow’r to accompt?-Yet who would have thought that the unborn had so much blood in them? (Macbeth Act 5 scene 1,26-40)


Ticking Time Bombs and Honor Killings

In Islam on September 7, 2009 at 10:18 pm

Yes,it can be fathers,it can be brothers,it can be members of the mosque. Who can tell which one is the  “ticking time bomb” that will restore “honor” to the family? Are there ticking time bombs awaiting Rifqa in Ohio ? I would not want to be the one responsible for sending her back. (Ht- Pamela) http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/

Thanks to Reality Check for the update !

THE MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Special Dispatch – No. 2521

September 7, 2009
No. 2521

Saudi Columnist Attacks Custom of Honor Killing in Saudi Society

Recently, in Saudi Arabia, two sisters were murdered by their brother after they were picked up by the Saudi religious police on suspicion of hanging around with boys. [1] The incident inflamed the Saudi press, particularly because the brother killed them immediately after their father arrived to collect them from the police station. In her column in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, liberal Saudi columnist Maliha Al-Shahhab wrote that Saudi society was backsliding, and that honor killing was just like the custom of burying girls alive that prevailed during the Jahiliyya [2] – which, she said, was one of the customs that Islam came to eradicate.

Following is a translation of her column, which was titled “[The Custom] of Burying Girls Alive is Still With Us”: [3]

“Early last month, a catastrophe shocked [our] society. The publication of the news in the papers caused a deluge [of reactions] from writers. As for me, I was not just shocked; I simply could not comprehend it, and it took me some time to understand what had taken place.

“Two girls in the dawn of their youth, aged 15 and 16… [and] not yet emerged from the cocoon of innocence, were suspected [of hanging around with boys] and were apprehended [by the religious police]. The officials who arrested them were from this society, and knew better than anyone how a family reacts to being informed of such an incident involving one of its daughters, and also what a girl would be exposed to on the part of her family and society after being arrested. But these [officials] had no pity for the girls, [despite] the air of girlhood wafting from them, and they phoned their father.”

“I imagine [the two girls] Rim and Nouf waiting for their father, their young hearts full of joy at being rescued, despite the fear that filled them… Once their father had picked them up… they hadn’t taken their first step… [before] they were welcomed by shots of death, burying them alive. What were their souls praying for at that moment? A brother murdered his two sisters!

“Who planted in a young boy the notion of purging the [family] honor? Who programmed him to be a ticking bomb set to detonate at a specific time – without equipping him with the tools of insight that would give him some self-control? Who is responsible for this crime, for this senseless [act of] burying [them] alive, for the contempt for the lives and fate of others?

“These painful questions must be answered, in order to stop this frightening backsliding of a society that thinks itself part of human civilization… It would be proper for us to prepare ourselves to take part in the development of humanity by [contributing] all the values of which we boast to the nations.

“We thought that we belonged [to human civilization] – but suddenly we discovered that not only are we outside it, but that… we are going backwards, to the Jahiliyya, and adopting its concepts – concepts that Islam came to ban.”

[1] ‘Okaz (Saudi Arabia), August 7, 2009.

[2] The pre-Islamic era, or era of ignorance, in the Arabian Peninsula.

[3] Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia, August 7, 200

, , ,

Why Rifqa Bary Must Be Protected

In Islam on September 6, 2009 at 11:01 pm

Article from Reality Check- an important post (Mark)

Whether it is honor killings or death to apostates,there is a potential threat to Rifqa. She is 17 years old,and in light of all the evidence should be protected.If there is to be error,err on the side of life.http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/

Great article by the Sultan below- be sure and sign up for his blog articles.

from NY to Israel Sultan Reveals The Stories Behind the News

Link to Sultan Knish

The Muslim Wolf at Feminism’s Door

Posted: 05 Sep 2009 06:55 PM PDT

More than 5000 women are victims of honor killings each year. Most of those women are Muslim, and while most of them are killed in Muslim countries– more and more of them are being killed in Europe, Canada and America. A 2007 study by Dr. Amin Muhammad and Dr. Sujay Patel in Canada’s Memorial Hospital observed that honor killing spreads when those whose who practice it emigrate to Western countries.
Honor killings however are only the final act in the drama of a Muslim woman’s life. Before that she is expected to walk behind a man, to be a second class citizen, to cover herself as much as possible in order to deflect male desire and to take the blame for the sexual intentions that men have toward her. She knows that if she fails to deflect male desire, she may suffer a variety of penalties from imprisonment to death. In countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran, those penalties are imposed by courts. In countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan, they are imposed by rough tribal justice. In the West, where there is no Islamic court system or tribal courts, they are imposed by the family.
The burka, the chador, the hijab or any of the other covering garments are assigned to Muslim women to “protect” them from men, and to protect men from them. These garments are meant to cover their “Awrah”, which in Arabic means nakedness, fault or defect. While for a Muslim man “Awrah” is only the swimsuit region, a Muslim woman is entirely “Awrah”.

Al-Qadhi Ibn-Al-Arabi Maliki states: “And all of a woman is ‘awrah; her body, her voice, and it is not permissible for her to uncover that unless out of necessity, or need such as witnessing in court, or a disease that is affecting her body…” [Ahkam Al Quran 3/1579]
Imam Al-Qurtubi stated went even further stating; “It is forbidden for a woman to speak when non-related men are present and it is forbidden for men to hear the voice of a non-mahram woman as long as there is no need for that.”

What that means is that all of a woman is “a zone of shame” and obscene. Even the sound of her voice is a form of “nakedness” or “lewdness”. Various Muslim authorities claim that this applies to even a woman’s fingernails and eyes. A woman who fails to dress this way is behaving obscenely and is open to being assaulted, as the Koranic verse which orders Muslim women to cover themselves makes clear.

“O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested.” -Al-Ahzab:59 (Qur’an)

The key word here of course is “that they shall be known as such and not molested”. Conversely the failure to fully cover up (a covering that Mohammed demonstrated by cloaking himself and leaving only one eye uncovered in order to see) leaves them open to being molested under the code of “she was asking for it.”
In the wake of the brutal Sydney gang rapes in which the perpetrators told the victims and exchanged messages among themselves making it clear that the attacks were motivated by the girls being Australian and Christian, Australia’s top Muslim cleric, the infamous Sheikh Hilaly delivered a sermon stating;

“When it comes to rape, it’s 90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.”
“But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it.”

The “uncovered meat” were girls as young as 14, whom the attackers brutalized for hours. Their crime was that they were meat, and they had left themselves uncovered by failing to wear Chadours or Hijabs to prevent themselves from being “molested”.

This is the Muslim wolf that now stands growling outside the feminist door. The wolf dictates that women in any country with a sizable Muslim population have two choices, to cover up or be assaulted. By covering up the woman accepts her inferiority to the male. Refusing to do that could get her raped or killed. There is no third option within Islam. In Iraq, in Kashmir, in Pakistan; women have had acid thrown in their faces for not wearing the appropriate Muslim garb.
But why speak of countries under medieval Islamic laws, when you can speak of the “Free West”. A French survey found that 77 percent of the women who wear Hijabs did so because of threats by Islamist groups. 77 percent. France. We are not speaking about some backward little Third World nation where the tribal elders decide what goes. We are speaking of Paris, the glittering city of lights, the capital of art and music. The birthplace of Republican Europe.
This is what Hijab feminism looks like in France,

More often the girls were under orders from their fathers and uncles and brothers, and even their male classmates. For the boys, transforming a bluejeaned teen-age sister into a docile and observant “Muslim” virgin was a rite de passage into authority, the fast track to becoming a man, and more important, a Muslim man…. it was also a license for violence.
Girls who did not conform were excoriated, or chased, or beaten by fanatical young men meting out “Islamic justice.” Sometimes the girls were gang-raped. In 2002, an unveiled Muslim girl in the cite of Vitry-sur-Seine was burned alive by a boy she turned down.
Jane Kramer, Taking the Veil, New Yorker

Despite that 77 percent number, American feminists insist on fighting for “the right” of Muslim women in France and America to wear the veil. They might as well be fighting for the right of women to be barefoot and pregnant, since they are one and the same.
Much as they might eagerly parrot the propaganda of the Muslim Student Association, itself an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, regarding the veil being liberating, the veil is a statement of female submission and degradation. There is nothing feminist about being inferior. The hijab is part of a larger agenda to force Muslims in the West, and even non-Muslims to live under Islamic law. A law which states that women are inferior to men.

In the process apologists for Islam like Karen Armstrong or Noah Feldman misrepresent key Arabic words, for example defining “Awrah” as beauty, or “Zina” as meaning only adultery, or seizing on whatever property Sharia law allowed women to hold as feminist, while completely ignoring the larger issue that women were considered inferior by Mohammed and his men, and are considered inferior under Islamic law today. Not simply in theory, but in fact. A fact that expresses itself in the rapes, beatings and murders of women, both Muslim and non-Muslim, by Muslim men on a regular basis.
Rather than confront the threat to women posed by Islamic law, feminist authors like Naomi Wolf are instead claiming that the wolf is really a misunderstood poodle. They have tried to transform the Hijab into a statement of Muslim feminism, while completing ignoring the fact that the Hijab only exists because Islamic law views all of a woman as obscene and treats the woman’s presence in the public sphere as a source of Fitna and Zina, Discord and Immorality, that incites men to do immoral things, including rape her. Under Islam the woman is a threat to men that can only be rendered safe for men by fully covering her up and keeping her apart from men as much as possible.
What does Naomi Wolf think is an urgent issue? Based on her blog, it isn’t women, but Muslim men. Specifically defending the sort of Muslim men who kill women who don’t wear the veil. Wolf’s blog is filled with posts fulminating against Guantanamo Bay and the plight of the Taliban and assorted other Islamists imprisoned there. The same men who if given a chance would have a knife to her neck in minutes.
This spring in Pakistan’s Sindh province alone, 40 honor killings took place. One woman took refuge in a police station, only to be handed over to her brother who killed her. A 14 year old girl was burned to death. Two women had acid poured on them after being raped. Two women had their noses chopped off for violating family honor. The Sindh province had been overrun by the Taliban.
Rather than writing about any of these women, Naomi Wolf instead wrote demanding to know “What Happened to Mohamed al-Hanashi?” Her article describes Mohamed al-Hanashi as “a young man” who could shed light on many crimes. Not the crimes of Islamist terrorists, but the crimes of the US in detaining in Islamist terrorists. At no point in time throughout the article does Naomi Wolf mention that Mohamed al-Hanashi was a member of the Taliban. The same Taliban which mandated complete covering for women, forbade women to be treated by male doctors or to get an education.
In April 2009, Sitara Achakzai, a leading women’s rights activist in Afghanistan, was murdered by the Taliban because she supported rights for women. 3 days later, Naomi Wolf did not write about her. Instead she wrote an article claiming that the American people had “blood on their hands” over Gitmo and demanded that we hold Nuremberg Trials to determine who gave the order to “torture” captured Al Queda and Taliban terrorists in order to gain information about future attacks against America.
Unfortunately Naomi Wolf, like most modern liberal feminists had no interest in defending those women, only in defending their abusers. While women were being murdered by the Taliban, she sweated blood and tears to defend members of the Taliban. Finally in August, Naomi Wolf went to a Muslim country, put on a headscarf and described how it made her feel free. That seems like a reasonable preparation for the sort of environment that Naomi Wolf and much of the feminist movement are helping to create for women in the West.

In 1984 the Party’s slogan is “Slavery is Freedom.” The political use of such an idea is that it is easier to enslave people, if they believe that being enslaved makes them free. It is why every one party Communist dictatorship made sure to call themselves a “Democratic People’s Republic”. It is why the Muslim Brotherhood fronts understand that it will be easier to sell Westerners on subjugation to Islam, if they believe that this subjugation makes them free.
For almost a decade, Wolf and those like her, have been assailing the brave men and women who helped liberate women from the Taliban… while fighting for the Taliban. In the name of freedom of course. The freedom of those who shot up girls’ schools, who threw teachers down staircases and beat women in the streets. Now the Muslim wolf has its snout thrust into half of Europe, into Australia, Canada and America. The honor killings continue to rise. Bodies continue to show up in hospitals and morgues. The bodies of the victims of Islam.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

, , , ,

Presidential Fabrications and Bearing False Witness

In Obama, abortion on September 3, 2009 at 1:43 am

Bearing false witness is serious business. The person doing so is not only deceiving another person or persons,but breaking the ninth commandment,”You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16) There are numerous Scriptures that warn against lying,and of the importance of speaking the truth. God commands that we speak the truth,and as Christians we are to speak the truth in love.That is,with a desire that the person being spoken to will receive the truth and leave the falsehood that they have been promulgating.

The president spoke to 140,00 people of various “faith communities” about his health care plan. He referred to the issue of health care as a “core ethical and moral obligation”,and called on those listening to his call to mobilize and help pass his legislation. He also stated that,”you have heard that this is going to mean government funding of abortions.Not true.” This was stated in the context that those who are actively opposing his health care plan are “bearing false witness”. Is the president telling the truth or is he “bearing false witness” himself? Since the issue is abortion and we are talking about the murder of unborn children,we need to know . Here is some information from National Right to Life with a number of links that give additional information:

The Obama Administration, working with powerful Democratic leaders in Congress, is trying to smuggle into federal law sweeping expansions of access to abortion on demand, including federal funding of abortion, through “health care reform” legislation. The White House and congressional Democratic leaders are pushing for quick votes on these bills. If enacted in their current form, these bills would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. To read a summary of the current legislative situation and to learn what you can do to help, click here.

FactCheck.Org:  “Which Side is Fabricating on Abortion?” The independent FactCheck.org has examined President Obama’s August 19 claim that it is “not true” and “a fabrication” that his health plan will “mean government funding of abortion,” and NRLC’s challenge to the Obama claim.  Read the full FactCheck.org article here.

Obama Says “Government Funding of Abortion” is “Fabrication,” But the White House-Backed House Bill Explicitly Authorizes It – August 19, 2009

Key Points on Pro-Abortion Provisions in Obama-Backed Health Care Bills — August 26, 2009 (PDF

Here  are some of the observations made by FactCheck:

Analysis   ( From Fact Check)

Obama’s “Fabrications” Remark

Obama’s remarks Wednesday came during a telephone conference call to thousands of listeners, organized by religious organizations supporting his health care proposals. He said that “there has been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness.” And then he lumped in abortion coverage at the end of a list of claims that he branded as untrue:

Obama, Aug. 19: We are closer to achieving that reform than we have ever been. And that’s why we’re seeing some of the divisive and deceptive attacks. You’ve heard some of them. Ludicrous ideas. Let me just give you one example, this notion that we are somehow setting up “death panels” that would decide on whether elderly people get to live or die. That is just an extraordinary lie. This is based on a provision in the House legislation that would allow Medicare to reimburse you if you wanted counseling on how to set up a living will or other end of life decisions. Entirely voluntary, it gives you an option that people who can afford fancy lawyers already exercise. That’s the kind of distortion that we’ve been hearing too much of out here.

We’ve heard that this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal aliens. That’s not true. There’s a specific provision in the bill that does not provide health insurance for those individuals. You’ve heard that there’s a government takeover of health care. That’s not true. You’ve heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true. This is all, these are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation, and that is that we look out for one another, that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper. And in the wealthiest nation on earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.

The White House did not post any transcript of the president’s words, but sponsors of the conference call, a coalition of faith-based groups supporting an overhaul of the health insurance system, posted the full audio of the president’s call on its Web site. His words come near the very end of the recording, and we transcribed them from the recording.

Abortion foes quickly denounced Obama’s statement as untrue. The NRLC’s Johnson said “the bill backed by the White House (H.R. 3200) explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions.” And our analysis shows that Johnson’s statement is correct. Though we of course take no position on whether the legislation should allow or not allow coverage for abortions, the House bill does just that.

The House leadership’s bill (H.R. 3200) actually made no mention of abortion when it was introduced. Johnson refers to an amendment to the bill adopted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee July 30. Abortion rights proponents characterize it as a compromise, but it hasn’t satisfied the anti-abortion side. Offered by Democratic Rep. Lois Capps of California, the amendment was approved narrowly by the committee, 30 – 28, with most but not all Democrats voting in favor and no Republicans backing it. The Capps amendment states that some abortions “shall” be covered by the “public option” plan, specifically those types of abortions that Congress allows to be covered under Medicaid, under the so-called “Hyde Amendment,” which has been attached regularly to appropriations bills for many years. These are abortions performed in cases or rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.

As for other types of abortions, the Capps amendment leaves it to the secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether or not they will be covered. It says, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing” abortion services that would not be legal for Medicaid coverage. Says the NRLC’s Johnson: “The Capps Amendment MANDATES that the public plan cover any Medicaid-fundable abortions, and AUTHORIZES the secretary to cover all other abortions. … [F]rom day one, she [Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] is authorized to pay for them all. And, she will.”

We can’t say what anyone will do in the future. But Obama himself said on July 17, 2007, that “[i]n my mind, reproductive care is essential care” and would be covered by his public insurance plan. He was addressing Planned Parenthood:

Obama, July 17, 2007: We’re going to set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don’t have health insurance. It will be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services, as well as mental health services and disease management services, because part of our interest is to make sure that we’re putting more money into preventive care.

Obama has promoted abortion throughout his political career. It is also very obvious that he is bearing false witness on a number of issues related to his health plan( Sarah Palin vs. Dr. Death) . He,like all of us,will answer for his words and actions before a holy God.May we be found in Christ,and may we be truth tellers.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.(Matthew 10:28)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

, , ,

New Hampshire Judge Invents Faith Measuring Device

In Education, Homeschooling on September 2, 2009 at 3:02 am

Homeschooled Girl Ordered to Attend Public School Over Her ‘Rigid’ Faith

By Lillian Kwon

Christian Post Reporter

Sat, Aug. 29 2009 06:23 PM EDT

[-] Text [+]

Amanda Kurowski is a 10-year-old homeschooled girl who performs well academically and is socially well-adjusted. But her strong Christian beliefs were reason enough for a New Hampshire court to order her out of homeschooling and into a public school.

The daughter of divorced parents, Amanda has been homeschooled by her mother, Brenda Voydatch since first grade. Her father, Martin Kurowski, is opposed to homeschooling, arguing that it prevents “adequate socialization” for Amanda with other children. He requested that she be placed in a government school.

In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the Guardian ad Litem – who acts as a fact finder for the court – reported that Amanda was found to “lack some youthful characteristics,” partly because “she appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on questions of faith.”

The GAL concluded that Amanda “would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.”

Although there is no dispute that Amanda is excelling academically and is generally interactive with her peers, her religious beliefs were seen as being held a bit too sincerely, Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney John Anthony Simmons explained to The Christian Post.

“What this has become is an assault on the child’s faith,” Simmons said.

Judge Lucinda V. Sadler approved the GAL’s recommendation earlier this summer and ruled that it would be in Amanda’s best interests to attend a public school in the 2009-2010 academic year.

“Education is by its nature an exploration and examination of new things,” the court order reads. “[A] child requires academic, social, cultural, and physical interaction with a variety of experiences, people, concepts, and surroundings in order to grow to an adult who can make intelligent decisions about how to achieve a productive and satisfying life.”

Sadler stated in the order that the court did not consider the merits of Amanda’s religious beliefs but only the impact of those beliefs on her interaction with others.

And while the court is “extremely reluctant to impose on parents a decision about a child’s education,” Sadler noted that there was an absence of effective communication between the parents.

Simmons filed a motion this week asking the court to reconsider and stay its decision. He contends that the mother enrolled Amanda in three public school courses and got her involved in extra-curricular activities such as gymnastics and softball in an effort to acknowledge the father’s concerns.

Evidence also reveals that homeschooling has not deprived Amanda of socialization, as the father has argued. The order issued by the court also acknowledged that Amanda is “generally likeable and well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level.”

“Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children. In this case specifically, the court is illegitimately altering a method of education that the court itself admits is working,” Simmons stated. “It is not the court’s role to decide whose beliefs are right or whether or not someone is as skeptical as the court thinks she should be.”

“Can anyone imagine a court ordering a child out of a government school and into homeschooling because the child is a ‘rigid’ secularist? Of course not,” he noted. “The court has intruded on the child’s most fundamental liberties and should reconsider this unconstitutional encroachment.”

Raw judicial power exercised by an elitist- New Hampshire’s state slogan of ” Don’t Tread on Me” has been steamrolled into oblivion. Wouldn’t want anyone to hold their religious beliefs too sincerely would we? (admin)