Thursday, December 31, 2015

For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard...

Hiker as pilgrim
You shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. —Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him. -Oswald Chambers image

Dying Churches, Vibrant Churches; The Real Role of Diversity...more

Dying Churches, Vibrant Churches ...Forty years ago, when I was a boy, Arlington was losing population and closing schools. The WWII generation who first suburbanized Arlington had finished their child rearing. Young families were drawn to the outer suburbs. In recent years Arlington has again boomed in population, is building schools, and has become fashionable. Millennials have flocked to Arlington, but so too have young families, and many immigrants. The old Mainline churches, some of them dating originally to the rural past, and which built big buildings after WWII during suburbanization, are mostly empty. Some have closed.

Not far from this soon to be demolished stone Presbyterian church is a large formerly United Methodist sanctuary that once was the virtual cathedral church of United Methodism in Arlington. It’s now occupied by an apparently thriving new Calvinist congregation that cites the Westminster Confession, along with venerable ecumenical church creeds, on its website...

The Real Role of Diversity
...Consider this scenario. Twenty white male Yale students surround a black faculty member, cursing and taunting. If Yale's president expelled them, our power elite would applaud. Now, consider what actually happened at Yale, which was the opposite, students of color cursing and berating a white professor. Had Yale's president expelled them, he would have triggered an institutional crisis that in all likelihood would have cost him his job.

Given the importance of “diversity” for the legitimacy of our ruling class, I can't imagine significant resistance to student demands. What's $100 million when running America is at stake? I'm quite sure nobody important is going to object to scrubbing Woodrow Wilson's name from Princeton's campus, if that what's necessary to re-secure the complaisant cooperation of black students in Princeton's project of being a model of “diversity.” This won't come about because the grown-ups at Princeton and elsewhere are feckless. It's because they know what's at stake—their own legitimacy...

Speaker at huge Intervarsity Christian conference criticizes pro-life efforts as “a big spectacle” A keynote speaker at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Urbana missions conference criticized the pro-life movement as “a big spectacle” on Monday in St. Louis where 16,000 evangelical students gathered together.

The comment came from Michelle Higgins, the director of Faith for Justice and a #BlackLivesMatter activist, during her discussion (video) on racial injustice. “We could end the adoption crisis tomorrow. But we’re too busy arguing to have abortion banned. We’re too busy arguing to defund Planned Parenthood,” charged Higgins. “We are too busy withholding mercy from the living so that we might display a big spectacle of how much we want mercy to be shown to the unborn. Where is your mercy? What is your goal and only doing activism that is comfortable?”

The problem here is that Higgins bashes a social justice movement that aides her cause...

Oregon State Seizes Christian Couple's Bank Accounts To Pay Lesbians Over 'Wedding' Cake Dispute

The Islamization of Britain in 2015
Sex Crimes, Jihadimania and "Protection Tax"

Planned Parenthood Attempts To Blame-Shift Onto Pregnancy Centers ...How ironic that Planned Parenthood’s website describes all the elements of prenatal care visits, such as regular checkups during pregnancy and ultrasounds (which most or all Planned Parenthood locations do not do)—yet they claim pro-life care and pregnancy centers are “misleading” if they tell women about abortion but don’t actually perform abortions.

Contrary to what pro-Planned Parenthood politicians, pundits, and celebrities imagine, they are no paragon of women’s healthcare. With no mammogramsfew clinics (especially as compared to federally qualified health centers and rural health centers), few ultrasounds, and far fewer patients than those politicians like to claim, it’s hard to see what they’re good for.

Migrant crisis: Over one million reach Europe by sea  More than one million refugees and migrants have reached Europe by sea since the start of 2015, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) says.

More than 80% of the 1,000,573 people arrived in Greece, with the majority landing on Lesbos island, it said.

About 844,000 travelled to Greece from nearby Turkey. Most of the others - over 150,000 - crossed the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy.

The migrant crisis is Europe's worst since World War Two.

Suddenly, drones are everywhere
...The sudden popularity of drones—and the threat they represent to the public and aviation generally—has spurred the FAA into action. Reports of recreational UAVs interfering with regular air traffic have been running at over 100 a month of late. With some 1.6m recreational drones buzzing the skies (400,000 were expected to be bought in the weeks before Christmas), the FAA has been forced to hurry out safety rules before serious accidents occur...

Surreal photos of crashing waves caught in motion on Lake Erie 

Just Desserts
Sandy Jenkins was a shy, daydreaming accountant at the Collin Street Bakery, the world’s most famous fruitcake company. He was tired of feeling invisible, So he started stealing—and got a little carried away...

Thursday, December 24, 2015

He has come! the Christ of God...

He has come! the Christ of God;
Left for us His glad abode;
Stooping from His throne of bliss,
To this darksome wilderness.

He has come! the Prince of Peace;—
Come to bid our sorrows cease;
Come to scatter, with His light,
All the darkness of our night.

He, the Mighty King, has come!
Making this poor world His home;
Come to bear our sin’s sad load,—
Son of David, Son of God.

He has come whose name of grace
Speaks deliverance to our race;
Left for us His glad abode,—
Son of Mary, Son of God!

Unto us a Child is born!
Ne’er has earth beheld a morn
Among all the morns of time,
Half so glorious in its prime.

Unto us a Son is given!
He has come from God’s own heaven;
Bringing with Him, from above,
Holy peace and holy love.
... Horatius Bonar image

Bishop Julian Dobbs Christmas Message 2015


Christmas 2015 from Julian Dobbs on Vimeo.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Anglican Unscripted Episode 210


Dec 23, 2015

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Mohler: Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?; Powers: Becoming a Christian Ruined My Love of Christmas...more

Kirsten Powers: Becoming a Christian Ruined My Love of Christmas  ...Ironically, after all of this, Christmas lost its luster for me. The rank materialism became too much to bear, and the Christmas season morphed from being a time I savored into something I tried to survive each year. Santa Claus, Christmas trees, the holiday jingles—they all felt like pagan oppression. When people complained about a war on Christmas I often smirked and thought to myself, Where do I sign up? Honestly: When a sale at Crate and Barrel gets entangled with the birth of Jesus Christ, something has gone horribly wrong.

But then I realized that I had allowed the secular celebrations of Christmas to crowd out its transcendent meaning. As theologian N. T. Wright points out, it’s Christmas that is the moment when God launched a “divine rescue mission” of humankind.

God didn’t just condescend to come to earth as a human. He came as a helpless infant. The King of Kings was born amid barnyard animals and piles of hay after His lowly parents were turned away from better lodgings. When the Magi came to see the Lord, there was no security on hand to judge whether they were worthy. The Messiah was approachable.

He was both one of us, and at the same time, “God with us.” He was flesh. He would hunger, He would bleed, He would love, He would thirst, and He would die. None of this could have happened had He not been born fully human...Don't miss this!

Mohler: Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?
Hard times come with hard questions, and our cultural context exerts enormous pressure on Christians to affirm common ground at the expense of theological differences. But the cost of getting this question wrong is the loss of the Gospel...

6 Presidential Candidates Pledge to Support Bill to Protect Gay Marriage Opponents  ...Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Dr. Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee have signed onto the Project's pledge in support of FADA.

GOP candidates Donald Trump, former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky have expressed support for FADA but did not sign the pledge...

Since Chile’s ban on abortion, not only has maternal health improved but the number of women seeking illegal abortion has plummeted! Since Chile banned abortion in 1989, the number of maternal deaths decreased from 41.3 to 12.7 per 100,000 women (69.2% reduction). That puts Chile in second place for the lowest maternal mortality rate in the Americas (that’s right, even better than the United States)...It’s not sheer coincidence that Malta, The Republic of Ireland, and Chile, all of which have prohibited abortion, have lower maternal mortality rates than the United States...

Chinese Christian Says He and His Church do Not Fear Government Persecution ...China is reportedly increasing its crackdown on churches and Christians, but Zhang says, “As a Christian and a member of Huoshi Church, I would say that we do not fear. We accept that God blesses us; we also accept that God allows suffering to happen.”

Friday, December 18, 2015

Berlin police shut down mosque; Europe, Multiculturalism, and Nihilism...more

Europe, Multiculturalism, and Nihilism
... The idea of a superficial multiculturalism, in which everything is conformed to State nihilism and secularism without reference to any religious reality—especially the Christian one—has miserably failed. The golden rule of assimilation led only to the cultural attitude of “dissembling” or lying about one’s true beliefs; this is the practice of “taqiyya” that is not only permitted but often required among Shiites. In recent decades, an increasing number of young Muslims have rebelled against the pressure to assimilate to the secular culture in this way, and they have refused to conceal the true nature of their religious beliefs. They want to live their faith in every sphere of their lives. Some of them choose the Jihad as a way to freely give testimony of their faith.

European totalitarian secularism is strong, and a discriminatory, violent attitude against religion is spreading...

Christians could be excluded from refugee resettlement plans, says Cardinal ...Cardinal Vincent Nichols, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, said there are fears that few if any Christian families fleeing Isil militants will be offered sanctuary in Britain because the scheme is aimed at refugees registered through the UNHCR, rather than church-run centres where most of the persecuted Christians are concentrated.

He said it was an “unintended consequence” of the plan but a “point of deep concern” for Catholic and Orthodox and other Christian churches with a stake in the region...

Berlin police have shut down a mosque with suspected links to ISIS German authorities raided a mosque in Stuttgart that is allegedly supporting Isis as well as a number of addresses in Berlin as part of anti-terror operations.

Police seized computers, data storage devices, smartphones and documents from the Islamic Educational and Cultural Center Mesdschid Sahabe in the southwestern city of Stuttgart, said interior minister of Baden Wurttemberg state Reinhold Gall...

Parents Outraged after Students Practice Writing in Arabic 'There is No God but Allah' Some Virginia high school students’ parents were outraged after a class assignment involved writing the Muslim statement of faith. Charisma News reports a geography assignment at Riverheads High School in Staunton asked students to practice calligraphy by writing, “There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,” in Arabic.

The message was not translated to English.

Students were also shown a quran and female students were also invited to try on a headscarf while learning about the modest dress of Islamic cultures...

The End of Internet Advertising as We’ve Known It
Millions of people are refusing to let intrusive, distracting, or irrelevant ads load on our devices. Consumers should seize the opportunity to demand a more mutually beneficial relationship with online advertisers...

Christ-Centered Silence for the Noisy Advent Season
...In brief, here are three ways I build worshipful silence into my days. I commend them to musicians in the church, but they can also be valuable for non-musicians in the sound and fury of the season.
  • Retreat. Take a day during Advent and go on a personal retreat for prayer and quiet biblical reflection.
  • Take long walks. This isn’t walk for exercise; it’s time to breath the cool air and observe God’s handiwork. Slow down and meditate on his Word and his world.
  • Visit an empty sanctuary. For those who have access to a church sanctuary where reverence is expected, being alone in a quiet, dark house of worship forces us to be still and silent. It’s a great place to go for moments of reflective, private worship.

Archbishop Wabukala: What is at stake in Canterbury

17 Dec 2015

Archbishop Justin Welby has called the Primates of the Anglican Communion to meet in Canterbury 11th-16th January to find a way to resolve the spiritual and moral crisis that has beset the Communion throughout the opening years of the twenty first century.

This is a courageous initiative and the GAFCON Primates will attend in the hope that Archbishop Welby will, like them, stand firm to guard the gospel we love, knowing that we cannot rewrite the Bible to suit the spirit of a secular age.

Many orthodox Primates did not attend the last Primates Meeting in 2011 under the chairmanship of his predecessor, Rowan Williams. They were not prepared to share in fellowship with provinces like The Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC) which had rejected the clear teaching of Scripture and the collegial mind of previous Primates Meetings and the Lambeth Conference 1998 by pressing ahead with the blessing of same sex unions and ordaining those in such relationships.

This time, GAFCON and the other orthodox Primates are willing to attend, but they know that after many years of debate, action is needed to restore the spiritual and doctrinal integrity of the Communion they care for so deeply. They are clear that their continued presence will depend upon action by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a majority of the Primates to ensure that participation in the Anglican Communion is governed by robust commitments to biblical teaching and morality...
the rest
It has been suggested that the way forward is for the Anglican Communion to abandon the idea that there should be mutual recognition between the provinces and that it should instead find its unity simply in a common relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

This is not historic Anglicanism; the See of Canterbury is honoured and respected as the Mother Church of the Communion, but the unity of the Communion does not depend upon the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rather, it depends upon the various provinces being able to recognize each other, with all their differences of culture, as truly apostolic and committed to the faith as it has been received. Tragically, that recognition has now broken down and affection for Canterbury is no substitute. As the GAFCON movement affirmed in the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008.

Eliud Wabukala writes to Gafcon clergy about the forthcoming Primates gathering

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens gets rave reviews; Bob Beckel-new life in Christ...more

Cameron 'warned ISIS run camps' from where UK is getting 20,000 Syrian refugees The Prime Minister has come under under fire after the International Development Committee, which is investigating the Syrian refugee crisis, received evidence that ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups were running the camps within the war-torn country, but also in Lebanon and Jordan where the majority of the 20,000 heading for the UK are currently based.

A report by Barnabas Fund, an organisation which helps persecuted Christians across the globe, said Mr Cameron was told there were Islamic extremists within the refugee camps for displaced Syrians in Lebanon when he visited them in September, weeks BEFORE any of the refugees began coming to the UK.

Mr Cameron announced the extended number of asylum seekers in September after the harrowing image of the Syrian boy who drowned trying to get to Europe went around the globe...

Bob Beckel: Around for a reason
A political operative who ‘should be dead’ instead found life in Christ... Amazing!

Wheaton College Suspends Hijab-Wearing Professor ...Wheaton College said the disciplinary action was taken not because Hawkins was wearing a hijab, but "in response to significant questions regarding the theological implications of statements that [Hawkins] made about the relationship of Christianity to Islam." Hawkins will receive “the full review to which she is entitled as a tenured faculty member,” the college stated...

Yale students sign petition calling for repeal of 1st Amendment College students at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, were purportedly caught on camera signing their names to a document that said the First Amendment of the US Constitution ought to be repealed.

Ami Horowitz appears in the footage, speaking with students on campus and asking for their signatures.

The students' faces have been blurred out...

High School Seniors Now Prefer Marijuana to Cigarettes
More students in the 12th grade said they smoked pot every day, compared to those who smoke daily cigarettes, finds a new federal report. It’s the first time since the survey began in 1975 that daily marijuana use surpassed cigarettes.

The “Monitoring the Future” survey released on Wednesday shows that 6% of 12th graders used marijuana every day—about the same rate as last year—while 5.5% of seniors reported smoking cigarettes daily. (That’s a drop from 2014, when 6.7% of high school seniors smoked cigarettes every day.)...

Star Wars: The Force Awakens gets rave reviews
The first full reviews for the new Star Wars film The Force Awakens have hailed it as "a triumph" and "a classic".
 
UK newspapers were happy with the movie, with many awarding it five stars.
The Times critic Kate Muir wrote: "Adults will be floored by tearful nostalgia because this is a classic."... BBC

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

"Teach Is To Pray"

Monday, December 14, 2015

Bp. Julian Dobbs: Advent teaching Part III


Advent 2015 | Part 3 from Julian Dobbs on Vimeo.

ISIS orders killing of children with Down's Syndrome; Merkel to 'drastically decrease' number of refugees...more

ISIS orders killing of children with Down's Syndrome in latest sickening attack on the innocent ...Iraqi activist group Mosul Eye says the ISIS Shar'ia Board issued a savage "oral fatwa (an Islamic term for a religious decree)" to its members authorising them to "kill newborn babies with Down's Syndrome and congenital deformities and disabled children".

If true - and reports from the war-torn region are difficult to verify - it means ISIS has taken a leaf from the Nazis, who murdered disabled children it perceived to be a "burden on the state"...

One Christian Slaughtered Every Five Minutes
Report: Muslim Persecution of Christians: September, 2015

Angela Merkel to 'drastically decrease' number of refugees coming to Germany Angela Merkel has said she wants to “drastically decrease” the number of refugees coming to Germany amid criticism from her party over her management of the crisis.

The German chancellor, who will address a congress of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) today, has faced criticism from allies within her party after she refused to place a cap on the number of refugees accepted, a figure expected to total 340,000 this year.

“At the same time we took on board the concerns of the people, who are worried about the future, and this means we want to reduce, we want to drastically decrease the number of people coming to us,” she told radio station ARD...

America and Africa after Obama
...“If the medical injunction of ‘do no harm’ is the measuring stick,” writes Nicolas van de Walle in Foreign Affairs, “Obama’s record in Africa can be characterized as a success… But if judged by a more ambitious standard, Obama’s policy towards Africa has been something of a disappointment.” The Obama administration’s lackluster engagement with Africa is the result, according to Mr. Van de Walle, of at least four factors: budgetary constraints as a result of the recession, America’s thin diplomatic and intelligence presence in Africa, African affairs’ small effect on American interests, and the African continent’s sheer size and complexity...


DHS Official Struggles To Answer Basic Security Questions

Gutfeld: Fight Radical Islam With 'Radical Americanism' ..."I'm sorry, Mr. President, that this era couldn't be about rising sea levels. But the crisis of today chooses our leaders, not the reverse. It's radical Islam versus radical Americanism, and the polar bears will have to wait."

To End Campus Tantrums, Treat Young People Like Adults We’re finding out what happens when youngsters grow up after having been shielded as much as possible from every obstacle and uncomfortable situation...

The New Campus McCarthyism It’s getting deadly serious because the chronically aggrieved have federal law on their side...

Planned Parenthood sends aborted babies’ bodies to landfills, violating state law: Ohio AG Every Planned Parenthood office in Ohio violates state law by sending aborted babies to landfills and treating them like "common...trash," the state attorney general announced today...

Feds Expected To Announce Registration Process For Drones An announcement is expected Monday about a federal plan to register drones that is aimed at helping the Federal Aviation Administration keep track of the growing number of drone owners.

The new rules come after more than 240 close-call collisions between drones and planes nationwide over the last two years, including nearly 90 in the Tri-State area, according to a report released Friday.


Stormscapes 3

The History of the Christmas Card
Borne out of having too little time, the holiday greeting has boomed into a major industry...

A.S. Haley: Episcopal Abuses Turn Inward

December 13, 2015

In a development that few Episcopalians of four or five years ago could have imagined, the Episcopal bishops of the most powerful and financially secure dioceses have begun to turn on their own once-strong, but now severely weakened, parishes. Having driven out all the dissenters at enormous expense to their coffers, these dioceses are increasingly trying to make up their losses by sacrificing valuable real estate -- even if it means turning out previously loyal congregations from their hard-won property. And -- who could have foreseen it? -- the parishes most harmed by the continuous litigation were precisely those with the most valuable properties.

A prime example is the Diocese of Los Angeles, led by the litigious J. Jon Bruno -- he of the forkèd tongue. For nine years he waged war in the California courts against four dissident congregations to prevent them from keeping title to their own parish properties. Using the notorious Dennis Canon, he was singularly successful in having California courts impose an irrevocable trust on the local parishes' real estate, so that when they voted to withdraw from the diocese, they necessarily forfeited all rights to their property.

But his victories came at a tremendous cost: the Diocese had spent more than eight million dollars as of last year, and was still incurring more costs to subsidize two of the remnant congregations in their newly recaptured sanctuaries. Bishop Bruno negotiated sales of two of the properties: the parish of All Saints Long Beach was allowed to purchase their property on a long-term contract, and he sold the church of St. David's in North Hollywood to a private school... the rest (updated)

Kenya reaffirms break with TEC
The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Kenya has reaffirmed that it remains in a state of impaired communion with the Episcopal Church of the USA. At its September 2015 meeting, the synod adopted Resolution 15 “On Mission” expressing disappointment with the decision by the June 2015 meeting of General Convention to authorize rites for the blessing of same sex marriages...Anglican Ink

Sudan break with TEC
The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan and the Sudan have voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church of the USA and have asked their primate, the Most Rev. Daniel Deng Bul to recognize in its place the Anglican Church in North America. In a communique released at the close of their 25-28 Nov 2015 meeting in Juba, the Sudanese bishops said the June decision by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to authorize rites for the blessing of same-sex marriages placed the Episcopal Church beyond the boundaries of fellowship. “In our view such innovations are not in conformity with the Scriptures,” the bishops wrote. The break with the Episcopal Church is not complete, however, as the Sudanese church continued to recognize and support those dioceses in the Episcopal Church that had rejected the innovation...Anglican Ink

Friday, December 11, 2015

TEC Presiding Bishop Curry removes 3 top administrators for "possible misconduct"

December 11, 2015

Dear Friends,

I need to inform you that on Wednesday I placed on administrative leave Bishop Stacy Sauls, Chief Operating Officer, Samuel McDonald, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Director of Mission, and Alex Baumgarten, Director of Public Engagement. This is a result of concerns that have been raised about possible misconduct in carrying out their duties as members of senior management of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society.

I want to be clear. My decision should not be confused with a finding of fault, but is necessary to allow us to find clarity. We are taking these allegations seriously and there will be a full and fair examination of the concerns that have been raised to be conducted expeditiously by an independent investigator. To protect the integrity of that process, we will not be able to say more about the concerns at this time.

I ask that you pray for all who are involved and who are impacted by this situation... the rest
(H/T TitusOneNine)

Michael Curry cleans house in New York
Cui bono? To whose profit is it that Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has suspended the Episcopal Church’s top three administrators?

In a letter issued on 11 Dec 2015 from his hospital bed in Richmond the Presiding Bishop told the Church Center staff that he had placed the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, the Episcopal Church’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Samuel McDonald, the Deputy Chief Operating Officer, and Mr. Alex Baumgarten, the Director of Engagement, on “administrative leave”.

Bishop Curry stated he had taken this action in response to “possible misconduct in carrying out their duties as members of senior management” of the Episcopal Church. He went on to say that the suspension was not a declaration of guilt of the accused, but was necessary to enable an investigation into the “issues”.

The presiding bishop’s letter declined to offer details of the alleged misconduct, and noted that no further information on the charges would be provided.

What do we know?

Nothing. Save for Bishop Curry and his immediate staff, the complainants -- and perhaps the accused -- no one has the full story. Bishop Curry has urged Episcopalians to refrain from speculation on the nature of the charges while the “independent investigator” carries out his task, but the manner in which this news was disclosed, and the form of the investigation -- coupled with the recent history of the church -- does limit the universe of outcomes.

Lingering concerns that Michael Curry is an empty suit -- a populist preacher and all round nice guy (but who is also a puppet manipulated by his staff) -- now have been put to rest. Whatever the outcome of the investigation, Michael Curry is firmly in charge at 815...
...more at Anglican Ink

Added:  Episcopal Officials Suspended by Presiding Bishop
Three top officials with the Episcopal Church have been suspended by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry.

Chief Operating Officer Bishop Stacy Sauls, Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Director of Mission Samuel McDonald, and Director of Public Engagement Alex Baumgarten were placed on administrative suspension on Wednesday, December 9.

“This is a result of concerns that have been raised about possible misconduct in carrying out their duties as members of senior management of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society [DFMS],” Curry explained in a letter to Episcopal Church staff that was made available on the afternoon of Friday, December 11. The DFMS is the organizational name for the national Episcopal Church...Juicy Ecumenism

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Iran sends defiant signal to the West with missile test; Google’s new quantum computer...more

Iran sends defiant signal to the West with missile test
Iran has broken a United Nations resolution and delivered a pointed signal of defiance to the West by testing a new ballistic missile with a range of at least 1,000 miles.

The Ghadr-110, which could be adapted to carry a nuclear warhead, is believed to have been launched on November 21, according to Western officials...

F.B.I. Chief Says Texas Gunman Used Encryption to Text Overseas Terrorist   The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said Wednesday that investigators could not read more than 100 text messages exchanged by one of the attackers in a shooting this year in Garland, Tex., because they were encrypted, adding fuel to law enforcement agencies’ contention that they need a way to circumvent commercially available encryption technology...

The flow towards Europe
This interactive map shows the flow of asylum seekers to European countries over time...

A Crash Course on the Muslim Worldview and Islamic Theology

De-mystifying ISIS and radical Islam
...We need to stop, breathe and think. We need to be prudent. We have no Biblical mandate to put our citizenry at risk. And real risk there is. Think Chattanooga and San Bernardino. In fact we are duty bound to protect the innocent. At the same time, we have the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to obey. We need to start thinking like Christ followers. We need to stop shouting and start repenting, praying and fasting. God moves His hand in repentance. God is looking for obedience...

Toronto school officials say sex-ed partly to blame for dropping enrollment    Two Ontario public school boards have reported markedly lower elementary school enrollments this fall than expected and admit that opposition to the Liberal government's controversial sex ed is likely behind the drop.

A rash of new private schools opening in the Greater Toronto Area, as reported in the Globe, is also backlash against the sex ed curriculum's rollout in the province's publicly funded schools this September...

Universities' universal irrelevance
...And universities, to their undying discredit, have been rightly singled out as the principal incubators of political correctness. Contempt for the muzzling of unpopular opinions has reached portions of the public that have had little contact with institutions of higher education. Too many campuses have become the domain of euphemism and inoffensiveness rather than vigorous debate. Most horrifying of all is when they become places of inquisition and persecution based on the contagion of hysteria, such as occurred at Duke and the University of Virginia, when fabricated allegations of sexual abuse produced a purge mentality worthy of the Red Guards in Maoist China. It should be no surprise, then, that it is more profitable for politicians to revile universities than to identify with them other than, perhaps, with their football teams...

Google’s new quantum computer is '100 million times faster than your PC'  ...Google and Nasa announced they were collaborating on the D-Wave X2 quantum computer, which they say is 100 million times faster than a conventional computer chip, in 2013. It can answer certain algorithms in seconds rather than years.

Google director of engineering, Hartmut Neven, said: “For a specific, carefully crafted proof-of-concept problem we achieve a 100-million-fold speed-up.”...

Bishop Michael Curry in Recovery, But Numbers Show Episcopal Church Is Not ...The medical setback for the church’s leader comes as the 1.9 million-member faith group released new statistics indicating its continuing slide in membership and participation.

There has been an almost 20 percent drop in active members in the last 10 years and a 25 percent drop in the average Sunday attendance in that same period. More than half of Episcopal parishes — 53 percent — have seen a decline in average Sunday attendance of at least 10 percent in the last five years...

The World’s Most Popular Bible Verses
Every second, 112 people open the Bible app. Here’s what they’re looking at...

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Bp. Julian Dobbs Advent teaching Part II



Advent 2015 | Part 2 from Julian Dobbs on Vimeo.

Christ, whose glory fills the skies!

sunrise glory
Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
   Christ the true, the only Light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise!
Triumph o'er the shades of night:
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart appear.

 Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee;
Joyless is the day's return,
Till thy mercy's beams I see,
Till they inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

 Visit then this soul of mine!
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief!
Fill me, Radiancy Divine;
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.
-Charles Wesley image

Anglican Unscripted Episode 208


Dec 9, 2015

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/

Meet the New GunTV Channel; Border surge overwhelms immigration officials...more

NYT Freaks Out: Meet the New GunTV Channel
For those of you who have not cut the cord and ditched your cable/satellite service, a new cable channel could be joining your programming line-up: GunTV. It's a 24-hour shopping channel for firearms and firearms accessories.

The channel will roll out on January 20, 2016, and will start with a six-hour daily broadcast and then move to a 24-hour programming schedule beginning 2017.

The New York Times writes, "The project is the brainchild of Valerie Castle and Doug Bornstein, two home shopping industry veterans based in Rancho Mirage, Calif., who saw what looked to them like an untapped market."

And it is an untapped market. There were nearly 21 million background checks for firearms purchases in 2014. The Times writes that "Americans’ appetite for firearms has in recent years seemed insatiable."

Insatiable. How adorable....

Emergency measures imposed as border surge surprises, overwhelms immigration officials The surge of illegal immigrant children continued unabated in November, pushing the Obama administration to announce emergency measures to try to handle a problem it thought it had solved earlier this year.

Two months into the new fiscal year, the number of unaccompanied minors jumping the border and getting caught is at an all-time high. So far, the U.S. Border Patrol has picked up over 10,500 — more than twice the number at the same point last year...

3 Wealthiest U.S. Counties Are All Virginia Suburbs of D.C. Five of the nation's Top Ten wealthiest counties--when measured by median household income in 2014--are suburbs of Washington, D.C.; and the three wealthiest are all in suburban Virginia, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.


Church smashes world record for largest ever gospel choir
The world record for the largest gospel choir has been smashed by a church in the Philippines.

Church of God International in Manila formed a chorus of 8,688 singers and reduced the Guinness World Records adjudicator to tears during the 15-minute performance....

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

2 million fewer jobs under ObamaCare; Fighting Terror by Self-Reproach...more

CBO projects 2 million fewer jobs under ObamaCare 
ObamaCare is expected to cost the U.S. workforce a total of 2 million jobs over the next decade, Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeeper said Monday.
 
The total workforce will shrink by just under 1 percent as a result of the new coverage expansions, mandates and changes in tax rates, according to a 22-page report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)...

America's Most Futuristic Warship Is Boldly Going Out To Sea ...The very shape of future American warships is in the hands of none other than Captain James Kirk. In development for years, the USS Zumwalt looks as much like a spaceship as an ocean-going vessel, with sharp angular sides and a body that looks upside down. The commanding officer does indeed share a name with fictional Star Trek captain James Kirk. No naval vessel is really complete without first proving that it can survive on the open seas, and now it’s headed out for sea trials.

“We are absolutely fired up to see Zumwalt get underway,” said Kirk, according to the Tampa Bay Times, “For the crew and all those involved in designing, building, and readying this fantastic ship, this is a huge milestone.”

The Zumwalt is a strange ship. Classified as a destroyer, it’s built to escort larger ships and protect them from small, deadly threats. The U.S. Navy currently has 62 Arleigh Burke class destroyers, with thirteen more in the works. The Zumwalt is the first of a three-ship trial program to see if the next generation of destroyers can improve on the original series. To get there, the Zumwalt is taking a radical approach: With enough automation to cut the crew size down from the Burke’s crew of over 250 to just 154 sailors and officers on board. Additionally, the Zumwalt will generate so much power on board it can easily fire laser weapons or rail guns, once the Navy develops them...

Mohler: Relativity, Moral Relativism, and the Modern Age
Moral relativism and the rejection of absolute truth now shape the modern post-Christian mind. Indeed, relativism is virtually taken for granted, at least as an excuse for overthrowing theistic truth claims and any restrictive morality...

 Fighting Terror by Self-Reproach ...By now we are familiar with the cast of Mr. Obama’s mind. He does not make a case; he preaches a moral. He mistakes repetition for persuasion. He does not struggle with the direction, details or trade-offs of policy because he’s figured them all out. His policies never fail; it’s our patience that he finds wanting. He asks not what he can do for his country but what his country can do for him.

And what’s that? It is for us to see what has long been obvious to him, like an exasperated teacher explaining simple concepts to a classroom of morons. Anyone? Anyone?...

4,000 dolls encouraging terror seized in Haifa ...Each doll bore the words 'Jerusalem is ours' and 'Jerusalem, we are coming!'; Palestinian Authority (PA) colors; a keffiyeh; and a rock in its hand...

Monday, December 07, 2015

72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List; Democrats to Attend Prayer Service at Radical Mosque...more

72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List
 At least 72 employees at the Department of Homeland Security are listed on the U.S. terrorist watch list, according to a Democratic lawmaker.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D., Mass.) disclosed that a congressional investigation recently found that at least 72 people working at DHS also “were on the terrorist watch list.”

“Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector general did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security,” Lynch told Boston Public Radio...

Shooter’s Mother Active In US Branch Of Pro-Caliphate Islamic Group Rafia Farook, the mother of San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, is an active member of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a Muslim organization that promotes the establishment of a caliphate and has ties to a radical Pakistani political group called Jamaat-e-Islami...

Fred Barnes: The President's Scary Speech
...There are so many reassuring things he could have said. I'm dramatically increasing the number and intensity of air strikes against ISIS in Iran and Syria. I'm halting my plan to close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo and free the incorrigible jihadists no country is willing to take. I'm putting on hold the Syrian refugee program until we developed a process of vetting the refugees in a tougher, unforgiving, and as foolproof as possible way. We heard none of that last night...

Main Stream Morons
 
 

  ...On the heels of a deadly mass shooting by two Muslim individuals in San Bernardino, California, a group of Democratic lawmakers said they would attend Friday prayer services at the Dar al-Hijrah Mosque in Virginia, which has been linked to the financing of terrorists and where al-Awlaki served as the spiritual leader.

The Democrats set to attend include Reps. Don Beyer (D., Va.), Joseph Crowley (D., N.Y.), Betty McCollum (D., Minn.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D., D.C.), and several Virginia state lawmakers, according to the New York Times...

New Numbers Detail Uneven Episcopal Decline  ...The new trend summaries reveal that 53 percent of Episcopal congregations report a 10 percent or greater decline in attendance over the past five years, while only 18 percent show 10 percent or greater attendance growth during the same time period. Seventy percent of Episcopal congregations have fewer than 100 attendees, with the denominational median congregation down to 60 attendees.

The denomination reports a 25 percent decline in attendees and a 19 percent decline in membership during the past 10 years. Only 4 percent of Episcopal congregations report an average attendance of greater than 300 persons...

Man Sues Museum Because Blond Jesus Made Him Feel "Rejected and Unaccepted"  ...He says he suffered “personal stress” after viewing “The Holy Family with Angels” by Sebastiano Ricci; “The Resurrection” by Perugino; “The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes” by Tintoretto; and “The Crucifixion” by Francesco Granacci.

They are especially offensive to him, he claims, because he himself has “black hair like wool and skin of bronze color.”...


Sweet!

Saturday, December 05, 2015

Women in Combat and the Undoing of Civilization; The Most Essential Life Skill...more

  ...What kind of a society puts its women on the front lines to risk what only men should be called on to risk? In countries ravaged by war, we consider it a tragedy when the battle comes to the backyards of women and children. Why would we thrust our own wives and daughters into that horror? My own instinct is to keep them as far from it as possible.

Perhaps some people believe that women ought to be able to volunteer for whatever job they are qualified to do. But what if the draft were reinstituted? Under the right conditions, the draft would be a very real possibility, and that specter of a draft is really clarifying. It’s one thing for women to volunteer for combat service. It’s an entirely different matter for them to be drafted into it. I have a hard time believing that the women of America would want to be forced into such conditions. Any man that would countenance for one second his 18-year old daughter being pressed into this kind of service is abdicating his responsibility. Are we really going to be the kind of people who press our wives and daughters and mothers to fight in combat?...

Islamic State says California killers of 14 were their followers 
Islamic State said on Saturday that a married couple who killed 14 people in California in an attack the FBI is investigating as an "act of terrorism" were followers of the militant group based in Syria and Iraq.

 
The group's declaration, in an online radio broadcast comes three days after U.S.-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his spouse, Tashfeen Malik, 29, a native of Pakistan, carried out the attack on a holiday party for civil servants in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.
The two died hours later in a shootout with police...

Investigation by FBI becomes terror probe

Another Evil on Another Street in America
In the middle of the coverage from San Bernardino yesterday I got a text from my husband:

“SWAT just showed up two doors down!”

A few minutes later: “Shots fired!”

Expected during that moment if we lived in San Bernardino perhaps, but we live in Denver. In a nice little up and coming neighborhood in the northwest part of the city. If you mention our neighborhood to those who’ve been here all their life, they recall stories of being warned to stay away from The Highland because of its high crime rates. In the past five years, though, crime is at an all-time low, housing prices keep rising, and it’s becoming one of the coveted neighborhoods in Denver.

Police surrounded our block yesterday until late into the night. At the end of it all, there was a dead fugitive and a wounded SWAT officer. When we knew it was safe, hours into the ordeal, my husband brought a mug of coffee and a bottled drink out to the policeman standing in the middle of the street outside our house. He’d been brandishing a rifle while diverting traffic and answering questions for hours. We should have offered him a bathroom break too, but I doubt he would have taken it...

Despite ISIS, American Church Still Ignorant About Christian Persecution, Expert Says  Americans remain largely ignorant and indifferent toward the plight of Christians overseas despite headlines featuring ISIS' violence, argued an expert on religious liberty.

Timothy Samuel Shah, associate director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, argued as part of a panel held Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C. that American Christians are not as involved as they should be in fighting persecution abroad...

No Room for Sanity at the Inn: Stifling Democratic Debate over Same-Sex Marriage Democracy and common sense teach us to seek the truth by listening to one another. If we will not even provide a room for people who want to talk with one another because we do not like what they say, then democracy is impossible...

The Most Essential Life Skill
...Think of all the successful people you know, what is it that distinguishes them all? It’s teachability, isn’t it? Think of all the people you know that never really made the most of the gifts and opportunities God gave them. Unteachability is the common thread, isn’t it?

If there’s one thing I want to to teach my children and students, it’s teachability.

When I speak to young people or students, I can usually tell quite quickly the ones who will do well in their lives and callings… and those who won’t. Teachability makes the difference...

Satanic group plans Christmas ‘snaketivity’ to rival Christmas Nativity display A US satanic temple is planning a “snaketivity” to rival a Christmas Nativity display.

The Satanic Temple of Detroit has applied for permission to display its particular interpretation of Christmas.

The application is in response to an application by supporters of Ted Cruz to show a more traditional Nativity scene at Michigan Capitol lawn.

Black Cop Writes Fake Racist Letter
...The headlines from February tell the story: “Threatening ‘white power’ letters appear at police department with a history of racial tensions,’ proclaimed the Washington Post.”

“Racist ‘white power’ letter found in Bridgeport Police Department mailboxes says black cops belong in toilet,” said the New York Daily News.

Ten months later, a black cop has confessed  to writing the letter -- and at the behest of Lt. Lonnie Blackwell, the head of the Guardians, the black police officers’ union in Bridgeport.

Bridgeport police officer Calvin Higgins, the confessed perpetrator of the hoax, achieved some local notoriety when he and two white officers were accused of using excess force when they arrested a Hispanic suspect in 2011.

The two white officers were convicted. In January, Higgins, a black man, was acquitted....

Friday, December 04, 2015

Tashfeen Malik Passed DHS Counterterrorism Screening; "Phantom Menace" superbug...more

San Bernardino Shooting suspect Tashfeen Malik Passed DHS Counterterrorism Screening ... As Kerry Picket at the Daily Caller reported last month, Obama administration counterterrorism officials have trained DHS law enforcement officers to focus on the behavior of people entering the United States, rather than their political, ideological, or religious background...

Superbug known as ‘phantom menace’ on the rise in U.S.  ...A particularly dangerous superbug, dubbed the "phantom menace" by scientists, is on the rise in the United States, according to a report Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This superbug's strains belong to the family of bacteria known as CRE, which are difficult to treat because they are often resistant to most antibiotics. They are often deadly, too, in some instances killing up to 50 percent of patients who become infected, according to the CDC. Health officials have called CRE among the country's most urgent public health threats...

Ancient Seal of Biblical King Hezekiah Discovered in Jerusalem's Old City  An ancient seal of the Biblical King Hezekiah has been found at an archaeological site at the foot of the wall that surrounds Jerusalem’s Old City.
 
Charisma News reports that the clay imprint is known as a bulla and is dated from the period of King Hezekiah around 700 B.C. The area in which it was found is rich in relics from the period of the first two ancient Jewish temples.
 
However, "This is the first time that a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king has ever come to light in a scientific archaeological excavation," said Eilat Mazar of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University who directed the excavation...

Researchers Reveal Recent Shifts Among American Megachurches  ...Today's megachurches have fewer seats but fill them more often. They take in more money, yet giving has declined. More than ever take Communion weekly, while fewer than ever partner with other churches. They have less conflict than smaller churches, yet lose more staff and tithes when flareups occur.

These are among the many findings of the fifth national survey of America’s largest Protestant churches, released today by Leadership Network and the Hartford Institute for Religion Research...

Zombie Nativity spat continues for second year For the second year in a row, Jasen Dixon has dressed up Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the three wise men as zombies in a nativity scene in his front yard.

And for the second year, Sycamore Township officials have told him to remove the display. In 2014 when he set up the display he had a mission...

Anglican Unscripted Episode 207


Dec 4, 2015

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe.
Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Thursday, December 03, 2015

"Thy kingdom come!"

Mediterranean Sunrise
"Thy kingdom come!" on bended knee
the passing ages pray;
and faithful souls have yearned to see
on earth that kingdom's day.

But the slow watches of the night
not less to God belong;
and for the everlasting right
the silent stars are strong.

And lo, already on the hills
the flags of dawn appear;
gird up your loins, ye prophet souls,
proclaim the day is near:

The day to whose clear shining light
all wrong shall stand revealed,
when justice shall be throned in might,
and every heart be healed;

When knowledge, hand in hand with peace,
shall walk the earth abroad;
the day of perfect righteousness,
the promised day of God.
-Frederick Lucian Hosmer
image

"Prayer shaming"; The left's disgraceful reactions to San Bernardino shooting...more

"Prayer shaming" – The New York Daily News jumps in with both feet after San Bernardino ...What propelled some in the media not to go after the alleged attackers, who have turned out to be Muslims, but to launch a coordinated attack against those who pray?...

The media mocked conservatives who prayed in aftermath of shooting ...Progressive and liberal politicians called for gun control. And other politicians prayed for the victims and their families while waiting for more information.

That’s when things got super weird. For some reason, much of the media began mocking the efficacy of prayer. This was happening while victims of the shooting were actually asking people to pray. I mean, the critiques were everywhere. An editor at ThinkProgress said, and I quote,Stop thinking. Stop praying. There’s a bumper sticker for you!

Muslims Kill in California, NY Daily News Mocks Christians

Anne Kennedy: Buzzfeed, God, and the Shame of Prayer ...The very idea that God is not fixing it, that the person who prays and who offers prayer to the grieving, the broken, the suffering, should experience shame for doing so is a most instructive sign. God himself promises that he will shed forth his common grace upon humanity’s ugliness, keeping them in check, up to a certain moment. But then, when the time suits him, he will remove his gracious preventing hand, he will let humanity do whatever it wants to do. And we can know what humanity wants to do from the first few chapters of the bible. They want to grab, covet, lie, and kill. That’s what we most want. That’s who we really are.

God did provide a way for the human person to be “fixed”, and what an ugly way of saying it that is, and that was at the cross where he took all the death on to himself. You can have his solution, you can have his death count for you, but you have to repent, you have to say that you are sorry, you have to ask him to help you, to save you. You don’t get to have the merits and benefits of the cross if you are screaming angry at him for who you are and who he is...

The left's disgraceful reactions to San Bernardino shooting  ...Late on Wednesday night, Los Angeles radio station KNX1070 reported that “a neighbor did not call authorities about suspicious activity because she did not want to racially profile.” If this report is true, it will be a chilling example of how PC isn’t just something obnoxious. It’s something that can get people killed....

Deadly D.C.: The land of no consequences ...Have you forgotten? President Obama, who proclaimed himself “madder than hell” when the scandal first broke, apparently can no longer be bothered to care as he gallivants around the planet fretting about climate change.

How about some climate change at the toxic VA?...