Wednesday, November 27, 2013

For all the blessings of the year...

For all the blessings of the year,
For all the friends we hold so dear,
For peace on earth, both far and near,
We thank Thee, Lord.

For life and health, those common things,
Which every day and hour brings,
For home, where our affection clings,
We thank Thee, Lord.

For love of Thine, which never tires,
Which all our better thought inspires,
And warms our lives with heavenly fires,
We thank Thee, Lord.
...Al­bert H. Hutch­in­son image

A.S. Haley: Rump Diocese Tries “Hail Mary” Pass in South Carolina

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Let’s see ... when you’re on your own 20-yard line, it’s third down and still ten to go, you’re behind 7-0 and there’s just 30 seconds left in the half, what do you do as quarterback?

You send your ends out wide and long and hope to connect with what is called a “Hail Mary” pass.
Now in the current litigation in South Carolina, the drive by ECUSA’s team to move the ball into federal court has been blocked at every maneuver. They are stuck back on their own 10-yard line, with just a few dozen seconds left on the clock. (The case in South Carolina’s Court of Common Pleas for the County of Dorchester is due to go to trial early next summer; all discovery in the case has to be completed by February 7.)

And so what do they decide to do?

The defendant rump group (but not yet ECUSA itself) throws a “Hail Mary” pass—a motion to add, at this late date, four new defendants and eighteen new claims against those defendants, who are Bishop Mark Lawrence, James Lewis, Jeffrey Miller and Paul Fuener. The Rev. James Lewis serves as Bishop Lawrence’s Canon to the Ordinary and Executive Secretary to the Diocesan Convention; the Revs. Miller and Fuener have both served as President of the Standing Committee of Mark Lawrence’s Episcopal Diocese.

The very first claim the rump group seeks to assert demonstrates the flaw in the entire motion: it is a claim for alleged breach of “fiduciary duty.” The theory of the claim is that Bishop Lawrence and the three additional priests each took vows upon their ordinations which imposed upon them “fiduciary duties ... to adhere to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church ... and of the Diocese ...”...the rest Comments at Stand Firm TitusOneNine

ACNA friend of the court brief in the Falls Church case

Sunday, November 24, 2013

A Mother's Love...


Ward Miles - First Year from BenjaminScot on Vimeo.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Rejoice, the Lord is King!

File:Holy Family Catholic Church (North Baltimore, Ohio) - stained glass, cross and crown.jpg
Rejoice, the Lord is King!
Your Lord and King adore;
Mortals give thanks and sing, and triumph evermore;
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

Jesus, the Savior, reigns, the God of truth and love;
When He had purged our stains He took His seat above;
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

His kingdom cannot fail, He rules o’er earth and Heav’n,
The keys of death and hell are to our Jesus giv’n;
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

Rejoice in glorious hope! Jesus the Judge shall come,
And take His servants up to their eternal home.
We soon shall hear th’archangel’s voice;
The trump of God shall sound, rejoice!
...Charles Wesley image

Anglican Unscripted Episode 86


Nov 23, 2013           
Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Every Week Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe.

Show Index

00:00 GAFCON and the ABC
09:56 Allan Haley and TEC Legal Fantasy
22:00 Raceophobic Church
28:56 GAFCON Down Under
42:52 Marriage
4719: Extinct COE

59:00 Closing and Bloopers

Friday, November 22, 2013

How different the world would look...

How different the world would look, how different the state of our nation would be, if there were more sanctified priestly souls! These are souls who have the power to bless, for they intercede with sanctified hearts. They never begin their daily time of intercessory prayer without having first brought to the cross all that is unholy in their lives, so that their old self can be crucified there with Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb. ...Basilea Schlink image

Massacre in Syria; Prostitutes love Obamacare; Monster Gamma Ray Burst; Doorknobs...

Horror of Christian massacre in Syria
Horrific details are emerging of what has been described as the largest massacre of Christians in the Syrian civil war...
‘Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria’ Ignored

Syrians 'feel lost and without support'
...Stressing the scales of the deaths in the country, the Maronite prelate said: "[T]hey are dying where they are, in solitude and silence.

"And since all the cemeteries are already full, our only project for 2014 is to build a bigger cemetery."...

Thanks Obamacare: Prostitutes Say It Is "Truly a Blessing"
Taxpayers will be happy to know they not only fund abortions under the Affordable Care Act, they also help prostitutes stay healthy.

Prior to Obamacare, brothel workers at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada said they were unable to find coverage under their profession...

27 Democratic Senators Who Promised You Could Keep Your Health Coverage
Including: SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “If you like your insurance, you keep it.” (U.S. Senate, Finance Committee, Bill Mark-Up, 9/29/09)

Four Republican Senators Haven’t Co-Sponsored Late-Term Abortion Ban
It’s no surprise Senate Democrats, who are almost unanimously pro-abortion, haven’t jumped on board. But four Republican lawmakers haven’t co-sponsored the bill either. They include: Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), Sen. Dean Heller (Nevada), Sen. Mark Kirk (Illinois), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)...

Judge Rules Pittsburgh Catholic Church Doesn’t Have to Comply With HHS Mandate
In yet another pro-life victory against the HHS mandate that forces churches and religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees, a federal judge has ruled that the Catholic Church in Pittsburgh doesn’t have to comply.

Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh made such a stink when he testified in court recently that he received national attention. He said would rather pay fines, no matter how much they might be that be forced to follow the directives of the abortion mandate...

Supernova blast emitted record burst of gamma rays
Astronomers have chronicled a record-setting burst of gamma rays from the violent death throes of a relatively nearby massive star that imploded into a black hole.

“This burst was a once-in-a-century cosmic event,” Hertz said during an international media briefing Thursday.

"It's much more than the energy that the sun has emitted in its whole life," said Stanford University astrophysicist Nicola Omodei, one of the authors of a series of studies analyzing the gamma ray burst published online Thursday in the journal Science... image

McDonald's restaurant turns to opera to drive out loitering teenagers
Fed up with outlet's night-time transformation into unofficial youth club, staff at an Australian McDonald's are playing classical music and opera to deter young people from loitering...

Vancouver to ban doorknobs
...The new building bylaw, to come into effect in March 2014, bans doorknobs in new homes, favouring the more accessible door handle instead.

The ban not only applies to municipal buildings such as Vancouver City Hall, where most of the treasured art deco style doorknobs will be removed, but extends to all new homes built within city limits.

The bylaw is not retroactive, so if residents won’t have to get rid of doorknobs they already have in their homes...

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Time alone with the Lord Jesus each day...

Many Christians backslide...They are unable to stand against the temptations of the world, or of their old nature. They strive to do their best to fight against sin, and to serve God, but they have no strength. They have never really grasped the secret: The Lord Jesus will every day from heaven continue His work in me. But on one condition—the soul must give Him time each day to impart His love and his grace. Time alone with the Lord Jesus each day is the indispensable condition of growth and power.
...Andrew Murray image

Montana Bishop Brookhart: We Episcopalians Are Just “Open” Liberal, Not “Crazy” Liberal!

November 21, 2013
by John Lomperis

In defending his denomination, the Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. C. Franklin Brookhart, Jr. was not always truthful in the ecumenical greetings he brought to the global United Methodist Council of Bishops meeting in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina last Thursday.

Bishop Brookhart, who leads the Diocese of Montana, also shared some very basic structural info about his denomination.

While the Episcopal Church is known as a rapidly dying and extremely liberal church, and Bishop Brookhart noted to his UMC colleagues that “[s]ome of you have told me we are ultra-liberal,” he “would assert the Episcopal is not a liberal church as the secular press uses” such terms.

Of course, I recognize that there are a (dwindling) number of faithful Christians still within the Episcopal Church, and that even a tiny minority of the denomination’s 109 dioceses have theologically orthodox leadership. And there are also growing numbers of faithful Christians who were Episcopalian at some point in the past... the rest

General Synod backs women bishops

Archbishop Welby's statement on the women bishops vote

Surprised By Sacraments; Kirsten Powers on her conversion; NYC hospitals not covered by Obamacare....

Obama Honors Gay Socialist, Lesbian Astronaut with Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Barack Obama on Wednesday awarded the highest honor that can be bestowed on a civilian – the Presidential Medal of Freedom – to 16 people, including a homosexual who led the socialist party in the United States and astronaut Sally Ride, whose partner “outed” her as a lesbian in Ride’s obituary last year...

Thomas Sowell on the 'Knockout Game'
...Attacks of this sort have been rampant in St. Louis. But they have also occurred in Massachusetts, Wisconsin and elsewhere. In Illinois the game has often been called "Polar Bear Hunting" by the young thugs, presumably because the targets are white.

The main reason for many people's surprise is that the mainstream media have usually suppressed news about the "knockout game" or about other and larger forms of similar orchestrated racial violence in dozens of cities in every region of the country. Sometimes the attacks are reported, but only as isolated attacks by unspecified "teens" or "young people" against unspecified victims, without any reference to the racial makeup of the attackers or the victims — and with no mention of racial epithets by the young hoodlums exulting in their own "achievement."

Despite such pious phrases as "troubled youths," the attackers are often in a merry, festive mood. In a sustained mass attack in Milwaukee, going far beyond the dimensions of a passing "knockout game," the attackers were laughing and eating chips, as if it were a picnic.

One of them observed casually, "white girl bleed a lot."...

Surprised By Sacraments
I love being part of ecumenical dialogues because I always learn as much about my own family of churches as I do about the other traditions represented. A few years ago I was involved in an ecumenical conversation as one of five representatives of Pentecostalism. The team members were from various parts of the world with two being from lands traditionally Orthodox.

At one point in the conversation the Pentecostal team was asked about our views of the sacraments: Do Pentecostals believe in the sacraments and how many? One of my fellow team members immediately responded in the affirmative and said that we Pentecostals had seven. After recovering from a bit of shock at this answer, I interjected that this perspective did not hold true for most Pentecostals in the United States.

At the first break I inquired further about this view among Pentecostals in former Communist nations. Did they really hold such a view of the sacraments? Much to my surprise I was told that in lands historically Orthodox, Pentecostals had drunk deeply from Orthodox life and this affected their theological development. While it remains true that many Pentecostals still function with a Zwinglian view of the sacraments, there is a small, but growing effort by some Pentecostal theologians and church leaders to recover a more robust sacramentalism. These efforts remain part of a broader dialogue with Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Patristic thinkers as well as an extension of the spirituality central to Pentecostal life and witness...First Things

Kirsten Powers: Fox News' Highly Reluctant Jesus Follower
Just seven years ago, if someone had told me that I'd be writing for Christianity Today magazine about how I came to believe in God, I would have laughed out loud. If there was one thing in which I was completely secure, it was that I would never adhere to any religion—especially to evangelical Christianity, which I held in particular contempt.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church in Alaska, but my belief was superficial and flimsy. It was borrowed from my archaeologist father, who was so brilliant he taught himself to speak and read Russian. When I encountered doubt, I would fall back on the fact that he believed.

Leaning on my father's faith got me through high school. But by college it wasn't enough, especially because as I grew older he began to confide in me his own doubts. What little faith I had couldn't withstand this revelation. From my early 20s on, I would waver between atheism and agnosticism, never coming close to considering that God could be real...

New health plans sold through exchanges not accepted at some prestigious NYC hospitals
...As of this week, not one of the plans for sale on New York’s health benefit exchange would cover treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, one of the world’s largest and most respected cancer hospitals.

That could mean that the 615,000 individuals and 450,000 small business employees expected to eventually get their insurance through the exchange would have to go someplace else for treatment, or pay the bill out of their own pockets...

Cancellations are coming for millions more

Largest ever number of HIV diagnoses in UK gay men – due to increased testing and new infections
...Improved HIV testing practices have therefore likely contributed to the greater number of HIV infections which are diagnosed. But Public Health England also believe that HIV transmission continues at high levels – their estimations of HIV incidence using a back-calculation analysis suggest that there have been 2300 - 2500 new infections in gay men each year over the past decade. The large majority of transmissions originate in men unaware of their own infection...

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Billy Graham in hospital; Boko Haram abducting Christian women; Obama to "re-brand" ACA-more cancellations coming...more

Evangelist Billy Graham in hospital for respiratory issue
U.S. evangelist Billy Graham is being treated for respiratory congestion and is expected to be hospitalized for several days, his spokesman said on Wednesday.

Graham, who celebrated his 95th birthday earlier this month at a party attended by nearly 900 guests, including celebrities, was admitted on Tuesday to a hospital near his home in the North Carolina mountains...

Nigerian Terrorists Reportedly Abducting Christian Women, Forcing them to Convert and Then Marry Islamic Militants
...“They were about to slaughter me and one of them begged me not to resist and just before I had my throat slit I relented. They put a veil on me and made me read from the Koran,” she said.

Hajja went along with the unit on dozens of attacks in which police and suspected collaborators were killed. In one particularly grisly episode, Hajja was forced to lure civilians working for the army. Five approached her, and were then ambushed by the Boko Haram gang.

“They took them back to a cave and tied them up. They cut their throats, one at a time…I thought my heart would burst out of my chest, because I was the bait,” Hajja told Reuters...

Obama: ‘We’re Going to Have to…Re-market and Re-brand’ the Affordable Care Act
President Barack Obama told a gathering of corporate executives Tuesday he's confident that his model of health care will work in the end, but he said he's going to have to "re-brand" it to sell it to a skeptical public.

 He didn't use the word "Obamacare" once on Tuesday in talking about his health care law, but he mentioned the "Affordable Care Act" seven times...

Second wave of health plan cancellations looms
A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall -- right before the mid-term elections.

The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

US May Have Let 'Dozens' of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees
Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky -- who later admitted in court that they'd attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists' fingerprints...

Cheating students more likely to want government jobs, study finds
College students who cheated on a simple task were more likely to want government jobs, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania found in a study of hundreds of students in Bangalore, India.

Their results, recently released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, suggest that one of the contributing forces behind government corruption could be who gets into government work in the first place...

Monday, November 18, 2013

God is waiting anxiously to lead each of us in the dance of praise...

God is waiting anxiously to lead each of us in the dance of praise. God is on a mission - a quest. He is looking for worshipers. As he constantly draws each of us into a deeper and more intimate friendship with himself, he is creating within us hearts that will praise him. ...Claire Cloninger image

Obamacare marriage penalty; 'White moms Common Core remark; Tornadoes in Midwest

Penalty for Marriage in Obamacare
...The Atlantic reports that in practice, this means that a married couple in New York making more than a combined $62,040 gets no subsidies from Obamacare. But two people who live together without getting married? They can make up to a combined $91,920 and still get subsidies from the government...

Rasmussen: New High: 58% View Obamacare Unfavorably
...Unfavorable views of the national health care law have risen to their highest levels this year...

Obama Administration Puts a Price Tag on Your Religious Freedom
...The penalty for failure to abide by the Obamacare HHS abortion-pill mandate is an astounding $36,500 a year.

Refusal to violate your faith will cost you...

Obamacare Death Spiral: How much will it cost to re-stabilize the Exchange insurance markets?

Up to 90% of Italian gynecologists refuse to abort babies as abortion rate continues to drop ...The report shows that the numbers of conscientious objectors among health care workers has also increased steadily, to its current peak of almost 90 percent of gynecologists in the region of Campania and over 80 percent in all of Southern Italy...

'White moms' remark fuels Common Core clash
...“All of a sudden, their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought … and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said at the event Friday.

Two hours later, with those comments sparking outrage on social media, Duncan told POLITICO that he “didn’t say it perfectly.” But he stood by his thesis: To oppose the Common Core is to oppose progress...
To the immense frustration of Common Core supporters, an eclectic array of critics have raised sustained and impassioned objections about the new standards. From New York to Florida to Michigan to Louisiana, their voices are so loud and their critiques so varied that they have muddied the narrative around Common Core. It’s no longer a focused national debate about high standards; it’s hundreds of local debates, about everything from student privacy rights to cursive handwriting to computerized testing to the value of Shakespeare
At least six dead after tornadoes, storms sweep through Midwest
Rescuers fanned out across at least a half-dozen states Monday morning in a search for victims, a day after a series of deadly tornadoes and powerful storms tore through the nation's heartland on Sunday, destroying homes and flipping over cars.

At least six were dead, thousands homeless and hundreds of thousands without power Monday as the region began the daunting task of recovering from powerful storm system that spawned several tornadoes. Illinois was hardest hit, with at least six people killed and seven counties declared disaster areas by Gov. Pat Quinn. The storms were felt in at least 12 states, though Illinois, Indiana and Ohio were hardest hit. One tornado that blew through Illinois' Washington County, east of St. Louis, left a path of destruction more than three miles long, according to a preliminary survey by the National Weather Service...

Episcopal Church names ex-Planned Parenthood exec as UN delegate

November 18, 2013

...The 2014 priority theme of UNCSW is “Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for women and girls.”

Pilling will be one of 20 provincial delegates who will join with those representing the provinces of the Anglican Communion.

 A member of Christ Church Philadelphia, Pilling has extensive experience in working with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), both professionally and in the Episcopal Church. A widely published author, lecturer and consultant, she also has worked with United Nations agencies, international nonprofit organizations as well as the U.S. Peace Corps with a focus on women’s health. 

She was vice president of International Programs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and senior program officer at Columbia University where she supervised a $50 million Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative. Pilling managed primary health care programs in Africa and Latin America for 13 years (Ghana, Kenya, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Zimbabwe) and provided short-term technical assistance around the world. Dr. Pilling is affiliated with Thomas Jefferson University School of Population Health and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in Philadelphia.

She teaches courses in global health and public health in the community... the rest

Child abuse royal commission to focus on Anglican Church-run North Coast Children's Home in Lismore
Hearings for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will reopen in Sydney today, with the focus on a New South Wales home run by the Anglican Church.

Between the 1940s and the 1980s it is alleged that at least 200 children living at the North Coast Children's Home in Lismore were sexually or physically abused.

They were children who already had a tough start to life, having been neglected or abandoned by their families....

Church of England synod due to debate women bishops
The Church of England is preparing for a debate at its ruling general synod about how to create women bishops.

It is due to consider an accelerated programme for introducing women bishops and the appointment of an independent arbitrator to resolve disputes.

The synod's general secretary William Fittall has warned that failure would have "very serious" consequences... BBC

Diocese may opt out of marriage
The Bishop of North West Australia has warned that if the state or federal governments legalize same-sex marriage, Anglican clergy in his diocese would no longer serve as marriage registrars.

 The statement by the Rt. Rev. Gary Nelson follows the decision last month by the Australian Capital Territory to legalize same-sex marriage – a move that has been challenged by the federal government as being unconstitutional...

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Church of England discusses overhaul of ‘rude and unchristian’ Synod

Church of England’s parliament debates overhaul of how it operates amid claims it has become dominated by parties and factions and "rude" and unchristian arguments
By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
16 Nov 2013

The Church of England is considering overhauling its governing body, the General Synod, because of fears it has created an image of a church constantly at war with itself.

Members of the Synod, which meets next week, say that it has become too much like Parliament, dominated by unofficial “parties” while debates are conducted in a “rude” and even unchristian way.

It follows claims in the wake of the collapse of women bishops legislation last year that the body had been hijacked by single issue factions able to exert influence out of proportion to their numbers in the pews.

Amid the anger over the outcome of that vote last November, there were calls for Parliament to step in or even for the Synod to be dissolved.

The issue of women bishops will be top of the agenda when the Synod is meeting for three days in London next week. the rest

Four women running to be next Vancouver Anglican bishop

New bishop to be voted in Nov. 30, will replace Bishop Michael Ingham
By Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun
November 15, 2013

Four female priests with strong resumes are running for election to be the next Vancouver-area Anglican bishop.

The women are among eight candidates seeking to replace outgoing Bishop Michael Ingham, who became the focus of a storm in the 60-million-member global Anglican communion when he approved the blessing of homosexual relationships.

The women who have been nominated to run for bishop are Rev. Ellen Clark-King, vicar of Vancouver’s Christ Church Cathedral; Rev. Dawn Davis, who is based in Toronto; Rev. Lynne McNaughton, a former Vancouver School of Theology instructor now at St. Clement’s Church in North Vancouver and Rev. Melissa Skelton, an Episcopalian priest and church educator in Seattle, Wash.

Only one of the eight candidates has opposed same-sex blessings: Rev. John Oakes is a “loyal conservative” who did not join thousands of local Anglicans in leaving the denomination over the conflict about homosexuals, says former diocese spokesman Neale Adams.  the rest

Friday, November 15, 2013

It is not the strength of our faith, but the perfection of Christ's sacrifice that saves!

With a weak faith and a fearful heart, many a sinner stands before the Lord. It is not the strength of our faith, but the perfection of Christ's sacrifice that saves! No feebleness of faith, nor dimness of eye, no trembling of hand can change the efficacy of Christ's blood. The strength of our faith can add nothing to it, nor can the weakness of our faith take anything from Him. Faith (weak or strong) still reads the promise, "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." If at times my eye is so dim that I cannot read these words, through blinding tears or bewildering trials, faith rests itself on the certain knowledge of the fact that THE PROMISE IS THERE, and the blood of Christ remains in all its power and suitableness upon the altar, unchanged and unaffected.
...Horatius Bonar image

Albert Mohler: Their Abortions—What Do These Abortion Testimonies Really Reveal?

November 15, 2013

Excerpt:
If the purpose of this article was to assist women to overcome the stigma of abortion, it is hard to imagine that it succeeded. The fact that this article appears four decades after Roe is proof that the decision failed to reset the nation’s conscience on abortion.

The pro-life movement faces huge challenges in the task of reaching the nation’s conscience, but there are also great opportunities. This article reveals both in full force.

For the advocates of abortion, these testimonies offer a clear refutation of their strategy of doing everything possible to speak constantly of a “woman’s right to choose,” while avoiding any reference to the baby. The baby refuses to disappear. When these testimonies of abortion reveal the very women who had an abortion speaking of “our baby” and noting that “the baby would now be one year old,” the moral bankruptcy of the pro-abortion argument is there for all to see. The baby refuses to leave the picture.

That essential point is powerfully revealed in Bryce A. Taylor’s eloquent poem, “How to Have an Abortion,” originally published at First Things:

Don’t think about the freckles he, or she,
Might have, or how much hair, how big a grin,
Or whether swimming would come naturally,
Or whether–it?–might play the violin.

Don’t think of prom, don’t think of puppy love
Or calculus, or snow, or spring in bloom,
Or anything that might remind you of
The future now contained within a womb.

Don’t feel anxiety, don’t feel regret,
Don’t fret about some otherworldly guilt.
Don’t feel the bond of parenthood, don’t let
Insane outmoded Don Quixotes tilt.

At private windmills–don’t spill any ink
Examining yourself. Don’t feel. Don’t think.

Meaghan Winter says that Americans prefer to speak of abortion as an abstraction. But, as that poem makes so clear, the baby will not agree to remain an abstraction. For that reason we should see this important cover article as proof of the urgency and the enormity of our challenge in the defense of life—and as evidence of our opportunity as well.
Full Essay image

New York Magazine: My Abortion

Obamacare Lies; Boko Haram, Herpes Virus on books; Jesus statue survives typhoon...

Second O’Keefe video exposes more Obamacare Navigators telling people to commit fraud
James O’ Keefe’s Project Veritas has released a second video showing even more Obamacare Navigators in Texas suggesting fraud and deceit to undercover reporters — despite some in the mainstream media calling the first exposé an “isolated incident.”

“Today, Project Veritas released a second investigation exposing more Obamacare navigators counseling applicants to lie and cheat the health care system by erroneously reporting income status, health history, and more,” Project Veritas wrote....

Obama Misled Public About Number Of Uninsured Too
Just 18% of the uninsured have bothered to go to one of the ObamaCare exchange websites, according to a recent Gallup survey. And only 22% say they plan to buy an ObamaCare plan next year.

That same week, a Reuters poll found that 56% of the uninsured oppose ObamaCare. Just 44% view it favorably. In other words, the uninsured are, if anything, more opposed to the law than are the public at large.

Given the mounting fury over millions of policy cancellations and the federal exchange website debacle, these findings garnered little public attention...


Obamacare Architect: 'Could Be the Beginning of a Death Spiral'

C.I.A. Collects Global Data on Transfers of Money
The Central Intelligence Agency is secretly collecting bulk records of international money transfers handled by companies like Western Union — including transactions into and out of the United States — under the same law that the National Security Agency uses for its huge database of Americans’ phone records, according to current and former government officials...

US Classifies Christian Persecutor Boko Haram as Terrorist Group
...Boko Haram is responsible for killing an estimated 3,000 Nigerians and citizens of 15 other countries—primarily Christians—in the last four years and has acknowledged it has ties to al-Qaida and al-Shabab. A 2012 terrorism report posted on the State Department website ranks Boko Haram second only to the Taliban among the top 10 perpetrator groups with the most attacks worldwide...

PEI guide for parents: ‘healthy’ for kids to masturbate, touch genitals of ‘familiar adults’
A new guide from the government of P.E.I. is telling parents that it is “natural and healthy” for young children to “touch the ‘private parts’ of familiar adults” and to look at “nude pictures on the Internet, videos, magazines”. Parents are also being told that they should not discourage their children from masturbating.

“This is not only inappropriate, but destructive,” said Gwen Landolt, National Vice-President of REAL Women of Canada, to LifeSiteNews.com.

The 7-page guide, titled “Children’s Sexual Behaviours: A Parent’s Guide”, put out by the Provincial Child Sexual Abuse Advisory Committee, provides a standard for what experts consider normal sexual behaviour in children from preschool to grade four...

Herpes Virus Found on Library Copies of 'Fifty Shades of Grey'
Two Belgian university professors recently decided to submit the 10 most borrowed books at the Antwerp library to bacteriology and toxicology tests.

Traces of cocaine were found on all 10 books. The traces were small enough that readers would not feel the effects, but significant enough that they could test positive for cocaine...

 Jesus statue unscathed by Typhoon Haiyan

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Anglican Unscripted Episode 85


Nov 14, 2013
          
Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Every Week Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe.

Helping the Philippines:
00:00
GAFCON Update 04:16
Fleeing the Churches 16:00
Legal Update 20:06
GAFCON in England 30:07
Closing and Bloopers 47:15

Obama Changes ACA by Executive Order; Personal Data shared with U.S. Agencies; Obamacare Ads...

Obama Changes Affordable Care Act Requirements by Executive Order
If you like your insurance plan, maybe you can keep it after all, for another year, President Obama told the American people on Friday.

 He said people may keep individual plans that haven't already been canceled; or they may buy similar ones, if they're available -- even if those plans don't meet the coverage and cost requirements of Obamacare, as the law says they must.

But insurers can't sell those old plans to new customers...

Americans’ personal data shared with CIA, IRS, others in security probe
U.S. agencies collected and shared the personal information of thousands of Americans in an attempt to root out untrustworthy federal workers that ended up scrutinizing people who had no direct ties to the U.S. government and simply had purchased certain books.

Federal officials gathered the information from the customer records of two men who were under criminal investigation for purportedly teaching people how to pass lie detector tests. The officials then distributed a list of 4,904 people – along with many of their Social Security numbers, addresses and professions – to nearly 30 federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. Although the polygraph-beating techniques are unproven, authorities hoped to find government employees or applicants who might have tried to use them to lie during the tests required for security clearances. Officials with multiple agencies confirmed that they’d checked the names in their databases and planned to retain the list in case any of those named take polygraphs for federal jobs or criminal investigations...

obamacare ads
New Obamacare Ads Use Party Girls, Bloody Kids And Keg-Stands (Again) To Sell Insurance
The people that brought you the Obamacare keg-stand "brosurance" campaign are back with a new set of eyebrow-raising ads.

The ads, which all live on the DoYouGotInsurance.com website, are a collaboration between Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education, and reference the famous "Got Milk?" ads.

In one ad -- called "Let's Get Physical" -- characters named "Susie" and "Nate" are described as "hot to trot." Susie gives a thumbs up while holding a back of birth control pills...

Boom in pot vaporizers lets yuppies secretly get stoned in public
...“I smoke so much, I’d been giving myself sinus infections,” says one 25-year-old graphic designer in Bushwick who recently switched to a Pax after a decade of smoking daily via bowls and joints.

She felt a difference right away: “It feels so much better to be smoking a vaporizer. I’ve been getting sick less.”...

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Are you worried because you find it so hard to believe?

Are you worried because you find it so hard to believe? No one should be surprised at the difficulty of faith, if there is some part of his life where he is consciously resisting or disobeying the commandments of Jesus. Is there some part of your life that you are refusing to surrender at his behest, some sinful passion, maybe, or some animosity, some hope, perhaps your ambition or your reason? If so, you must not be surprised that you have not received the Holy Spirit, that prayer is difficult, or that your request for faith remains unanswered. Go rather and be reconciled with your brother, renounce the sin that holds you fast—and then you will recover your faith! ...Dietrich Bonhoeffer image

Sun's Magnetic Field Almost Completely Reversed

Sun's magnetic fields
 Nov 12, 2013
By James A. Foley
 
The Sun's magnetic field is poised to completely flip, an event that happens every 11 years. Solar physicists began anticipating the reversal of polarity this summer, reporting in August that the reversal would be complete in the coming months. The polarity of the star's northern hemisphere already appears to have reversed and the southern hemisphere should be complete soon, scientists report.
 
"It's not a catastrophic event. It's a large-scale event that has some real implications, but it's not something you need to worry about," said Todd Hoeksema, a solar physicist at Stanford University's Wilcox Solar Observatory. "You've probably never even noticed it in the past. But technologically, we care more and more about it as time moves on."

While the internal mechanism that drives the switching of the magnetic field is not completely understood, researchers are able to identify the process as it occurs on the Sun's surface. Sunspots, areas of intense magnetic activity, appear as dark blotches on the surface of the Sun near its equator. Over about one month's time, the sunspots disintegrate and their magnetic activity migrates from the equator to one of the Sun's poles, eroding any existing and opposite polarity in its path, Hoeksema said in a news release. The magnetic field gradually recedes towards zero, then rebounds in the opposite polarity... the rest/image

Sun's Magnetic Field Expected to Flip Soon, Rare Solar Event That Occurs Every 11 Years 

Archbishop Wabukala: In Defense of GAFCON


November 12, 2013
Here

Comments at TitusOneNine

Obamacare; Little Sisters of the Poor; The Pain of Being Dehydrated; Military Chaplains....

Obamacare Enrollment Numbers Brutally Low
On Wednesday, the Obama administration finally released its first numbers for Obamacare health insurance exchange enrollment dating from October 1 to October 31. The numbers were not pretty: just 106,185 people “selected a Marketplace plan” using the exchanges, after the administration predicted that 494,620 people would do so.

Even the Associated Press was forced to lament the “dismal numbers.” The federal health care exchange signed up less than 27,000 people. Meanwhile, nearly 7 million people are expected to lose the insurance plans President Obama said they could keep. So far, five million have lost their insurance...

The Little Sisters of the Poor, the Bogeyman and His Evangelical Henchmen
It is utterly embarrassing that of all the countries where Little Sisters of the Poor operates — India, Chile, Argentina, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, France, and Italy — it is the United States of America, a country built on religious freedom, that is trampling on the Little Sisters’ religious convictions and will ultimately force their closure if they refuse to comply.

Using fear mongering tactics, the Obama Administration is set to force Catholic charities like Little Sisters of the Poor either into compliance or extinction. For these devoted nuns, priests and their helpless patrons the President’s mandatory health care law has become an embodiment of fear, a veritable bogeyman...

Dems Introduce Bill to Prevent States from Restricting Abortion In Any Way
...Following an unprecedented three-year wave of state legislative attacks on abortion and family planning services, a group of Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate plan to go on the offensive Wednesday with a historic bill that would make it illegal for states to chip away at women's reproductive rights...

Atheist Takes Over Evangelical Leader's Twitter Account, Gives Ultimatum
Evangelist Ray Comfort has had his official Twitter account taken over by an unknown atheist who has given Comfort an ultimatum: stop "denigrating" nonbelievers or you won't get your Twitter account back...

Chaplains withdraw from, sue training program over alleged harassment    A lawsuit alleges that the leader of a San Diego-based Department of Veterans Affairs chaplain-training program severely mocked two Christian participants because of their evangelical Christian faith.

Chaplains Maj. Steven Firtko, U.S. Army (Ret.) and Lt. Cmdr. Dan Klender, U.S. Navy, entered the San Diego Veterans Affairs (VA) Department of Defense (DoD) Clinical Pastoral Education Center program in August 2012. Shortly thereafter, the program's supervisor, Nancy Dietsch, allegedly began to harass the two men for their beliefs.

In February, Klender voluntarily withdrew from the program solely because of Dietsch's harassment...

‘Vegetative’ patient described the excruciating pain of being dehydrated, starved  ...In preparation for this article, I contacted Adamson for more details about the torture she experienced while being dehydrated. She told me about having been operated upon (to remove the bowel obstruction) with inadequate anesthesia when doctors believed she was unconscious:

“The agony of going without food was a constant pain that lasted not several hours like my operation did, but several days. You have to endure the physical pain and on top of that you have to endure the emotional pain. Your whole body cries out, “Feed me. I am alive and a person, don’t let me die, for God’s Sake! Somebody feed me.”

Unbelievably, she described being deprived of food and water as “far worse” than experiencing the pain of abdominal surgery. Despite having been on an on an IV saline solution, Adamson still had horrible thirst...

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Our trusting the Lord...

Our trusting the Lord does not mean that there are not times of tears. I think it is a mistake as Christians to act as though trusting the Lord and tears are not compatible.
...Francis A. Schaeffer image

More on Gafcon

NAIROBI: Irish leader Reports on GAFCON II: October 21st - 26th, 2013
By Tim Anderson
November 6, 2103

Peter Jensen, as General Secretary of GAFCON and recently retired Archbishop of Sydney, opened the six day conference in a warm Nairobi on Monday 21 October with these words: GAFCON is the future. What he meant was that GAFCON is now the future for worldwide orthodox Anglicanism. Liberal Anglicanism is moribund and a hindrance to the proclamation and spread of the true gospel.

It is numerically small (it represents a minority of the worldwide Anglican church) and instead of growing is declining. In contrast orthodox Anglicanism, reflected within GAFCON, is numerically large and is growing. GAFCON therefore, is where the future lies. So what the remainder of the Conference did was to flesh out what this future will look like on the ground in provinces, dioceses and parishes worldwide.

To that end, the four page Nairobi Communique and Commitment was presented to the Conference on the penultimate day and adopted by the delegates. So how did this work? How was GAFCON able to produce a very detailed document that reflected a common mind of so many people (1,358 delegates from 38 countries representing millions of faithful Anglicans worldwide)? The key to this were the nine mini conferences that met on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (in total, each one meeting for 11 hours)...

NAIROBI: GAFCON II - The Final Word
Future of the Anglican Communion is now in the hands of Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
AMIE is the life boat to rescue orthodox Anglicans in the UK...

GAFCON to be ‘an Anglican province’ in all but name

IRD: Bishop David Hicks on GAFCON II (Part 1)

IRD: Bishop David Hicks on GAFCON II (Part 2)

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

To pray is to let God into our lives...

To pray is to let God into our lives. He knocks and seeks admittance, not only in the solemn hours of secret prayer. He knocks in the midst of your daily work, your daily struggles, your daily grind. That is when you need Him most. ...O. Hallesby image

Awesome Video Shows the Miracle of Human Creation and Development


Mar 31, 2013

The human body is the most complicated machine in the world. We see with it, hear with it, breathe with it, walk and run with it, and sense pleasure with it. Its bones, muscles, arteries, veins and internal organs are organized with marvellous design, and when we examine this design in detail we find even more amazing facts. Every part of the body, though each may seem to be so different from another, is made up of the same material: cells.

Cells, each of which is one thousandth of a millimetre, are the structural units that form our body and everything in it. Some of these cells unite to form bones, others to form nerves, the liver, the inner layer of the stomach, the skin or the cornea of the eyeball. Each has the size and shape that exactly meet the requirement of that part of the body.

How and when did cells, which have such varied functions, come into being?

The answer to this question will take us into a process whose every moment is filled with mystery. All the approximately 100 trillion cells that make up your body today came from the division of one single cell. That single cell which had the same structure as all the cells in your body now, came from the union of your mother's egg cell and your father's sperm cell.

Obamacare; Iran Christians receive 80 lashes; Gambling expanded in NY...

Expansion of Gambling in New York Is Approved
...The casino amendment was promoted by a coalition called New York Jobs Now, which was primarily financed by gambling interests, including operators of the racetrack slot machine parlors, as well as labor unions that stood to benefit from the development of casinos. The coalition raised more than $4 million for the effort, which included a series of television ads promoting the economic benefits of casino development and citing endorsements from newspaper editorial boards...

A.S. Haley: The Coming Bailout of Obamacare
“Houston, we have a problem.”

Peter Ferrara, the author of this disturbing analysis in The American Spectator, is an expert on the long-term problems of Social Security and other government welfare programs. His conclusion about the coming death spiral of Obamacare:
The pool the insurers end up covering, then, will be a lot more like the pool of all burnt down houses for fire insurers discussed above. The premiums the insurers receive from this adversely shrunken pool will not remotely cover the costs of that pool. Hence they will be facing bankruptcy next year, absent another taxpayer bailout of hundreds of billions. So the choice will be that, or socialized medicine, including the government death panels we see in every other country weighed down by this “enlightened” last century albatross....
Visualizing the 15 million people who will lose their current individual health plans  ...But how many people is 15 million? Is it really such a small number, something we shouldn’t care about?...

Mystery shrouds plans for release of ObamaCare enrollment data 
The Obama administration said it will publish Affordable Care Act enrollment data next week, but has repeatedly refused to disclose which figures it plans to release.

The silence from federal health officials raises the possibility that they will release a single sign-up number that fails to shed light on how the enrollment effort is really proceeding.
The long-awaited disclosure will come as the White House works to quell a political firestorm over both real and perceived problems with its healthcare reform rollout....

Iran: Christian “whipped with extreme violence” for drinking communion wine ...Two of the four Iranian evangelical Christians who were recently convicted on charges of consuming alcohol have received their 80-lash sentence...

UK: Legalized Same-Sex Marriage is Not Enough–Homosexual Couple Sues for a Church Wedding  ...Britain’s new legislation legalizing same-sex marriage includes a provision that protects churches from being forced to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies. But homosexual couple Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow have set out to demolish that protection for churches because it stands in the way of their coveted church wedding.

“It upsets me because I want it so much—a big lavish ceremony, the whole works.”  The duo filed a lawsuit against the Church of England, demanding that the court compel all Anglican churches to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies in their houses of worship...

The End of Religious Liberty in the Land of Lincoln ...Senate Bill 10 offers no specific protection regarding employment practices. If a current church employee chooses to "marry" a same-sex partner, the legislation offers no specific protection regarding the church being forced to pay -- from funds collected every Sunday from faithful church-goers in the pews -- for benefits for the "spouse."

The legislation offers no conscience protections to health-care facilities, educational facilities, or social service agencies. So, faith-based hospitals, colleges, and universities that own and operate venues for rent are not protected.

Individuals and independent business owners whose religious beliefs do not condone same-sex marriage are also left in the dust. There are the stories about the photographers, bakers, florists, and bed-and-breakfast owners who have come under fire for refusing to serve same-sex weddings. What about the county judge asked to perform a same-sex wedding, or a public school teacher forced to teach about a family with two moms, two dads, or some other permutation?

They get nada....

Monday, November 04, 2013

“Expect Surprises”: Archbishop of Canterbury’s Remarkable Interview at the World Council of Churches

November 4, 2013
By Kathy Schiffer

The Archbishop of Canterbury has hinted that we should expect “a few surprises” in terms of ecumenical relations between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.

Archbishop Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion, is in Busan, South Korea, attending the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. In his address to the Assembly, he noted that the WCC Assembly really reflects the depth and breadth of God’s great Church; and he called members to recommit themselves to the task of restoring full, visible, sacramental unity to the Body of Christ. “We must be one,” he said, “so that the gospel we preach is not denied by the way we live our separate lives.”

In an extraordinary interview with Philippa Hitchen of Vatican Radio, Archbishop Welby also spoke with conviction about the importance of Christian unity, and expressed his hope that the participating churches will work fervently on the important doctrinal and dogmatic differences between them... the rest

Bishop Jack Iker reflects on GAFCON II

Sunday, November 03, 2013

Anglican Unscripted Episode 84 GAFCON II


Nov 3, 2013

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Every Week Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe.

This weeks show is everything you wanted to know about GAFCON I, II, and III but were afraid to ask.

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Giver of all, another day is ended...

Giver of all, another day is ended and I take my place beneath my great Redeemer's cross, where healing streams continually descend, where balm is poured into every wound, where I wash anew in the all-cleansing blood, assured that Thou seest in me no spots of sin. Yet a little while and I shall go to Thy home and be no more seen; help me to gird up the loins of my mind, to quicken my step, to speed as if each moment were my last, that my life be joy, my death glory.

I thank Thee for the temporal blessings of this world—the refreshing air, the light of the sun, the food that renews strength, the raiment that clothes, the dwelling that shelters, the sleep that gives rest, the starry canopy of night, the summer breeze, the flowers' sweetness, the music of flowing streams, the happy endearments of family, kindred, friends. Things animate, things inanimate, minister to my comfort. My cup runs over. Suffer me not to be insensible to these daily mercies. Thy hand bestows blessings: Thy power averts evil. I bring my tribute of thanks for spiritual graces, the full warmth of faith, the cheering presence of Thy Spirit, the strength of Thy restraining will, Thy spiking of hell's artillery. Blessed be my sovereign Lord! -Puritan Prayers image

Sea Change in the Anglican Communion; Episcopal Church down 24% in ten years

30 Oct 2013
By the Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll

Excerpt:
The Lambeth Resolution led to a decade of strife within the Communion as the North Americans flatly rejected its norm and now are on the brink of providing official same-sex marriage rites. In the UK, same-sex marriage has now been signed into law by the Queen, and the Prime Minister vows to export it to the  Commonwealth partners. While the Church of England has not approved same-sex marriage, the Archbishop of Canterbury argues that same-sex civil unions are a neglected moral obligation: “It is clearly essential that stable and faithful same sex relationships should, where those involved want it, be recognised and supported with as much dignity and the same legal effect as marriage” (Speech in House of Lords, 3 June 2013).

But isn’t sex outside marriage “incompatible with Scripture” (1998 Lambeth Resolution I.10; cf. Resolutions III.1 and III.5)? Indeed the larger question underlying the sexuality debate entails the authority of the Bible. To which question Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori replies, channeling her inner Humpty Dumpty: “When I use the Word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” Or so it seems, as Bishop Schori interprets St. Paul’s exorcism of a slave girl, oppressed by demonic and human masters (Acts 16:16-18):

Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it. It gets him thrown in prison. That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so!
 
Permit me, as a biblical scholar and defrocked (by TEC) priest, to protest: that an apostolic leader can twist the text of Scripture and rebuke St. Paul as she does is emblematic of the false Gospel rampant in her church, and that she remains unrebuked by and in good standing with her elders in the Communion is emblematic of the utter dysfunction of that body. In what sense can one call it a “Communion” when such denial of the faith passes for normal? the rest

Chris Sugden: 'Proud to be at GAFCON'
Those who attended GAFCON in Nairobi have begun reporting back...

Episcopal Church down 24% in ten years

Gafcon looks to the future
AT THE second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), held this week in Nairobi, the General Secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, the Rt Revd Dr Peter Jensen, said that the "future" of Anglicanism had "arrived" - and it was GAFCON.

The sentiment was apparently shared by most of the 1352 delegates from 40 countries, including more than 100 from the UK. Women clerics from Africa and the United States worshipped with conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics (Comment, 18 October).

"We believe the apostolic faith," Dr Jensen said in the opening session, "and we do not believe the faith of those who contradict the Bible, and who deny the uniqueness and supremacy of Christ."...