White House's Silence on Church Arsons

from Agape Press
by Allie Martin

Christian Defense Coalition director Pat Mahoney says the White House needs to get its priorities straight when it responds to the bombing of an Islamic place of worship in the Middle East while remaining silent in the wake of serial arson attacks on Christian sanctuaries in the United States.

{Are we really surprised???? Sadly, I'm not. While Bush may be a bit more "religious" than many of his predecessors, he still does not walk his talk as far as I can see. Not consistently anyway.}

After reports of the bombing emerged, President Bush issued a statement, saying, "The terrorists in Iraq have again proven that they are enemies of all faiths and of all humanity.
...also promised that the U.S. would provide help, both in tracking down those responsible for the attack and in repairing the Muslim shrine."

{Hey, how about financial aid in rebuilding these churches in OUR country before rebuilding a mosque in an Arab country that no doubt has the money to rebuild on its own?????????? Does this tick off any other Americans? Why is OUR tax money subsidizing a religion, that is a very small minority in our nation, in another sovereign nation who can afford to rebuild this shrine; when our own church institutions are being completely ignored? Especially after the fact that many of these churches helped in the Katrina/Rita aftermath and now they need help and are being ignored????? This is just WRONG. This President and his administration are WRONG. }

The Christian Defense Coalition director believes the statement from the White House indicates a problem. "When the President responds within hours to a mosque being attacked in a foreign country and refuses to speak up when 10 churches are attacked -- five burned completely to the ground -- in his own country, I think
the President really needs to reevaluate his priorities," Mahoney says.


Mahoney has raised questions about how differently the White House might respond if ten U.S. abortion clinics or mosques had been burned within less than ten days rather than ten Christian churches.


His group's message to the President, the Coalition leader says, is simply "do the right thing and publicly condemn these church fires and assure us that this administration will not tolerate attacks on faith."

{Meanwhile, I don't think I'll hold my breath for this~~I fear I would pass out.}

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Louisiana again

from Agape Press
by Chad Groening

...A Louisiana citizens group has launched a petition drive aimed at recalling their state's Governor Kathleen Blanco for what the group is calling her lack of leadership in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. {I wish them luck....it is Louisiana, a state that still operates under the old Napoleonic laws. And its democrat to boot...}

Kit Landry is the founder of Responsible and Effective Citizen Action for Leadership in Louisiana, or RECALL. She says Governor Blanco has been more concerned with politics than with taking care of the state's disaster victims.

"Every time I saw our governor speaking, it was just about what had happened to her voter base," Landry says, "and it seemed to me that she was more concerned about her political future than the future of the citizens that were devastated by floods in the New Orleans area and southern Louisiana. I was absolutely appalled." {Gee, honesty in politics~~that's not only refreshing it's unusual...or politically inept.}

Also, the activist questions the governor's decision to take an entourage to the Netherlands. "Why do our governor and 50 other people have to go to the Netherlands to check out flood protection?" she asks. "If I have a problem with plumbing at my house, I don't go to the plumber's house. I have the plumber come here." {We always KNEW political minds were wired differently~~how can we waste the taxpayers money in a BIG way~~kind of philosophy. Or as the "common" people call it~~NO COMMON SENSE!!!!}

According to the RECALL spokeswoman, the citizens of Louisiana are no longer going to tolerate a lack of leadership in the Governor's office.

"We as citizens have a responsibility to say to our elected officials that if you do not have the leadership capabilities to do what needs to be done to help our citizens," Landry asserts, "then we as citizens have a responsibility to send a message to you that you will not serve in that capacity."


And......


...Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the group Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), says the city of New Orleans' main problem is moral poverty, not a lack of money.

The conservative black leader was appalled to learn that an investigation into Katrina disaster aid has uncovered widespread waste and fraud involving the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The month-long investigation by two federal agencies revealed that nearly half the 2.5 million applicants who received federal aid after Katrina had made fraudulent claims.

The investigation also found that many FEMA-issued debit cards were used for such things as gambling, pornography, tattoos, and even a diamond ring. {Don't tell me they don't know how to "work" the system.} "Folks turned the Superdome into a ghetto in three days," Peterson asserts, "and then they turned FEMA into an ATM machine.

When you give folks something without requiring them to earn it, this is what we get. They don't develop character. You only can develop that by working hard."

{Something the liberals have NEVER understood. Throwing money at a problem does NOT solve the problem. Often it creates an entirely new one. Such as, today, we have nation of welfare recipients who EXPECT to be taken care of without giving back to their communities. In Texas, when you receive government aid, you are required to volunteer a certain amount of hours. Many of the welfare folks refuse to do this. What does the government do then when they do so? Not a thing. They will still receive the money. No consequences just perpetuates the problem. They don't care that they have no dignity or character......}

Also, BOND's spokesman finds it interesting that many Big Easy residents seem so preoccupied with bringing back the city's decadent Mardi Gras festivities. "It really speaks about what New Orleans is all about," Peterson says. "You'd would think that would be the last thing on their minds, but they can't wait to get back to their old ways."

{Right after the hurricane, the organizers of the "decadent" gay pride parade went right ahead and held it. That told me what New Orleans was about then. They don't care HOW tourist money comes into their community as long as it comes. If it requires selling sex, decadence, homosexuality, so be it. They are FOR SALE.}

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The Rising Intolerance of Our Public Institutions

from Agape Press
by Stephen M. CramptonCenter for Law & Policy

Harvard President, Larry Summers, has resigned. His sin? Suggesting that women perhaps lack an aptitude for science and math. Truth? Test scores bear this out. But who cares about truth. Here is a MAN who dared to knock feminism and has paid the price for it. As we know, feminists will not forgive nor forget.

"...Summers becomes the latest casualty in the Fourth Reich's tireless efforts to enforce uniformity of politically correct thought.

...the Reich has taken to the streets to silence a peaceful gathering of Christians in Worcester, Massachusetts, vandalized billboards that dared to question homosexual orthodoxy in St. Louis, and forced Christian high school students in Boyd County, Kentucky to attend re-education -- I mean, sensitivity training classes over the objections of their parents."

If American parents are not careful, they are going to lose their "right" to raise their children. Instead, the "state" will take over that nurturing and produce the best little automatons the world has ever seen. Why with American gung-ho spirit we'll be better at communism than the communists ever envisioned!

In communism, the state determines how a child will be raised. Deciding who will be educated and who will be manual labor based on.....aptitude? wealth? or connections? Shoot, the poor don't have a chance then.

We all KNOW, wink wink, it isn't your abilities that get you anywhere in life.....no, it's WHO you KNOW that does. There goes the destruction of the American dream. That with faith, hard work, perseverance, & determination, ANYONE can achieve and succeed. There is no room in communism for this.

"Earning honorable mention was the Ohio Board of Education, which recently issued an ultimatum prohibiting critical analysis of evolution in Ohio schools. Message to faculty and students: Critical thinking will not be tolerated in our science classes!"

In fact, in communism, there is no such thing as the "individual" or individual thought. Nope, that is too dangerous for such a system. Therefore, the young are brainwashed, oops, I mean trained in how to think~~no original thought.
And the elders? Well, FEAR is always a good motivator and re-educator.

"...the Left" are "intolerant of opposition; the ranking members of the Reich may ease their angst by abusing and disrupting the dissenters."

Recently, here is how they showed their intolerance to different beliefs or thoughts:

• In Worcester, Massachusetts, for example, they forced Christians to pay $6,200 to the local police just to protect against the numerous death threats issued by homosexual activists. But the homosexuals, led by none other than the Mayor Himself, gathered en masse (pun intended) outside the event, shut down the streets, and never had to obtain a permit, much less pay a dime for the extra police necessitated by their actions.
• 
  In St. Louis, Missouri, billboards depicting ex-homosexuals proclaimed, "I Questioned Homosexuality. Change is Possible. Discover How." The messages were sponsored by Exodus International, a network of former homosexuals. Obviously, such hateful statements could not be allowed to go unchallenged. So the leaders of the homosexual activists challenged Exodus to a public debate -- no, wait, wrong story. In fact, the brownshirts did what they do best; they went out in the dead of night and defaced the signs by spilling paint all over them. "Maturity" is not a word that seems to have entered their vocabulary.
• 
  In Boyd, Kentucky, the Gay-Straight Alliance won the right to meet in the schools, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood ACLU lawyers, when the schools gave up and entered into a consent decree. As part of the settlement, the schools agreed to require sensitivity training for all students.
• 
  When the parents learned their children would be forced to attend these brainwashing sessions, they objected and filed suit, raising parents' rights concerns among others. But a federal judge ruled this week that mandatory training was a perfectly legitimate means of furthering the schools' goal of eliminating harassment.

Parents around this country need to start speaking out decisively and if that means boycotting the public schools your tax dollars pay for then so be it. If it means going to jail for a principle than it should be pursued.

To allow the liberals to destroy our nation, our families, our school systems without a fight is WRONG.

"For those having trouble keeping score, allow me to offer a simplified version of the status of free speech in America today: vile epithets directed against Christians are protected by the First Amendment; questions or criticisms by Christians and others of the wonderful world of homosexuality are not protected, but are punishable as 'hate speech' or 'harassment.' Any questions?

So, the discontent of the Left works itself out in the denial of the fundamental rights of dissenters. In other words, they make us feel their pain.

Note that neither logic, nor the Constitution, nor even the scientific method is allowed to stand in the way of the Reich's efforts to obliterate the opposition.

If truth is not tolerated, freedom is no longer free. To maintain our freedom we must fight for truth. Suppression never works. As the Supreme Court observed over 60 years ago, 'compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.'

There is a once-commonplace expression scarcely heard today, that may be just the medicine for the Left's loathing of the truth: 'Deal with it.' "

I would add that to help them deal with it, takes INVOLVEMENT on our parts. Involvement that shows this intolerance to freedom of speech, to raising our children on our own, and to critical thinking is not going to go quietly away!

So let the liberal left "deal" with that!



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The New Whipping Boy for the GOP

from Agape Press
by Matt Friedeman

Actually, at first glance, you gotta like Senator Tom Coburn's prophetic edge. Crosswalk's Religion Today Summaries on February 15 features the conservative Oklahoma senator's comment: "There's $1.7 billion fraud in the food-stamp program. If the churches had done their job and followed Jesus' teachings, the government wouldn't have started all these programs and created all these problems."

I like that kind of backbone, and it may well be something that the church, and everybody else, needs to hear. Given that the religious right is the most active and reliable support of the GOP's recent electoral success, it takes courage to verbally slap them around for problems obviously caused by a series of elected Congresses with a Messiah complex (the current Congress being no exception).

Still, I have some questions:

• 
  First, Coburn is one member of the "churches" he talks about. The first paragraph of his Senate bio tells us he and his wife are members of Muskogee's New Community Church. He should thus frame his remarks in terms of "we" instead of "them." As in, "if we the church had done our job ..." More particularly, since he sits in the middle of the real gargantuan perpetrator of this problem, he might begin by describing to us his own culpability concerning the entitlement culture that besets America.
• 
  Coburn is right -- churches don't give enough in either money or effort. But ask, for instance, who the real heroes of Katrina relief are, and the suffering folks on Mississippi's Gulf Coast whom I have talked to will say it is the churches, not government. While Congress' relief efforts are still flagging, the church has been quietly and heroically taking care of business. And where good compassion is happening around this country, it is not government but ministries consecrated to following Jesus' example of "preaching the gospel to the poor" that are leading the way.
• 
  Churches would have a lot better chance of helping now if government hadn't created such an "entitlement" and "victimization" culture. {Government has been creating this "culture" since the 60's. Intentionally. After all, people taking government money have to do what the government says. AND they will do so, so they can continue receiving that money. "Sheeple have been created. NOW, ask yourselves WHY....}Helping the poor today is difficult. The prevailing mindset is that it is a "right" to receive aid, if not from government, then from the church. Marvin Olasky (see his book, The Tragedy of American Compassion) has proposed that, to be effective, compassion must be personal (we must establish a relationship with the individuals), hold the poor accountable for improving their behavior (before we continue to give more aid), and include a spiritual component (God must be brought to bear on the problem). Even the church, which once did these things marvelously, has a tough time today when the poor who come to its doors have been taught by the multi-trillion dollar War on Poverty that it is their right -- apart from relationship, accountability, or God-talk -- to receive a handout.
• 
  I would like to know what Coburn, as a private citizen and not a legislator, is doing today to shoulder his part of the blame. I don't know the senator, and he might be doing much. But it is a good question for him, just as it is a good question for every member of the Church of Jesus Christ. Accusation is easier to swallow from someone who is getting the work of Jesus done on his own time and not on the public nickel or on the ministry tab.

Fundamentally, I disagree with Coburn. If churches had been doing their job, government with its feckless can-do confidence would still have come smashing in to mess it up. No matter how well the job is done, our legislators think that more money and another layer of bureaucracy will help. Check the latest Congressional budgets.

And yet, I will not deny, churches need to do more.

My church needs to do more.

The Church Universal needs to do more.

I need to do more.

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The Tacky democrats

From everything known of Coretta Scott King, a gracious woman, I believe she would have been appalled that her funeral became the means to a presidential bashing not seen before.

Talk about the tacky......
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

from Agape Press
by Tim Wildmon

Jimmy Carter {a son of the South?!?!?!} needs to retire from public speaking. He needs to retire and pick peanuts. He can even talk to the peanuts about his some of his nutty statements recently as far as I am concerned. But his attack on President George W. Bush at Coretta Scott King's funeral was shameful.

The occasion again was the funeral service for Mrs. King held at the New Birth Missionary Church in Atlanta on Tuesday. It was carried on Fox News, CNN and other places. Millions of people watched. Among those speaking were President George Herbert Walker Bush, President Bill Clinton, President Carter and President George W. Bush.

Here is what President Carter had to say in remembering Mrs. King: "The struggle for equal rights is not over. We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, those who were the most devastated by Katrina, to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."

What? What the heck are you talking about, President Carter? That is an idiotic statement which only fans the flames of reverse racism among some black Americans against whites when what you are saying is not even true. Hurricane Katrina wiped out the Mississippi Gulf Coast, sir, with no respect to the color of the individuals affected. And if you want to go on shear numbers, there were many more whites who had homes and businesses destroyed than there were blacks. You want to talk about "equal opportunity," Hurricane Katrina was an equal opportunity catastrophe. If you want to make the point that racism still exists in America, Mr. Carter, fine. But at least make your point with some actual facts.

Of course, {Former} President Carter knew precisely what he was doing. He was shamelessly trying to embarrass President Bush who was sitting only a few feet from the podium. He was playing to the audience in attendance who shouted in support and applauded his comments as he knew they would. What he was saying was, "Remember the black folks in New Orleans who were held down at the Convention Center and Superdome after the levee broke? Well, right behind me here is the racist culprit who didn't care about those people because they were black and he is white. Now let him have it."

And remember now, we are talking a funeral service, not a political rally.

Jimmy Carter should no longer be considered a statesmen by those who considered him such. He has now shown himself to be a shameless political opportunist like so many other politicians, both Republican and Democrat.

And by the way, in case you missed it, Mr. Carter said (on Larry King Live) he has come up with a way the United States government could fund the terrorist organization Hamas, recently elected by the Palestinian people, if we want to get around our own law. He says we could launder (my word) money though the United Nations.

Great thinking outside the box, Mr. Carter. Now see if you can work on that part in the Hamas charter about wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

++++++++++++++++++
Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. King, also took pot shots at President Bush, calling him out on the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and saying, among other things: "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor."

That is a good rhyme, I will give Rev. Lowery that. Two things. One, the federal government is responsible for paying for wars that the American military is engaged in. And two, the federal government already has many social welfare programs that help the poor and needy and that will continue.

Funerals should be a place to remember the deceased in a dignified manner, not to sucker-punch a sitting president who is also there paying his respects.

It was not too long ago when I had admiration for President Carter and especially his work with Habitat for Humanity. But the older he gets, the more I think the peanut juice is fermenting in Plains, Georgia.

{c~b~n couldn't say this any better. I don't think I would have/could have been as forebearing as President Bush. I admire his restraint. His respect for Mrs. Coretta Scott King whom he came to HONOR was much more apparent than the others who used a FUNERAL as a political rally to bash a Republican President. Tacky, tacky, tacky.}

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