The Week in Summary

From: Marshall Ramsey

Lord, Have Mercy!

No matter where you are in this world, I hope you will join with me and so many other believers in prayer for the millions of people in the eastern U.S. now suffering under the fury of Hurricane Sandy.

Kyrie Eleison - Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy!

   

Bristol Palin Talking Grace & Forgiveness

It is no secret that I was and am a fan of Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska. Now I am becoming a fan of her daughter Bristol also.

You may only know Bristol Palin from all the coverage of her very public unplanned pregnancy and conflicted relationship with the father of her child. Or you may know her from her time on the reality TV show Dancing with the Stars. But now, she is a blogger! Miss Palin has a blog at the Patheos site. One of her earliest posts was called How I Got Over My Very Public Mistakes. She says:

Most of the comments were wonderful and supportive. (I’ve addressed some of the not-so-nice comments here.)  But there’s one constant criticism I didn’t talk about:  some of you insist on calling me a hypocrite. After all, I became a mother before I walked down the aisle – how can I talk about waiting until marriage for sex?

I find it strange that the culture rightfully applauds former drug addicts who warn children of the dangers of drug use. They are happy to listen to former alcoholics talk about how they finally are living a clean life. But when it comes to me talking about waiting until marriage for sex, it’s almost like people want me to slink away in shame… unable to show my face in public again because of my past mistakes.

I want this blog to be a place where we can all be honest, so let me start. I’ve struggled with feelings of guilt and shame. I know (judging from my inbox) many of you have too.

She then quotes from Christian Counselor Ed Welch:

It feels so right – so spiritual – to live with regrets. It means you feel bad for the wrong things you have done or think you have done, and that sounds like a good thing. If you forget those wrongs, you are acting like they were no big deal.
…
We live with regrets because we think we should. We think it’s the right thing to do—that it is our duty before God. But…

The Kingdom of Heaven is regret-free. The truth is that the triune God liberates us from past regrets. His will is being done. Bank on it. Neither your human limitations nor your sins hinder the good plans of your sovereign Father.

Let’s go one important step further. It is God’s will that you jettison past regrets.

In a more recent post she talked about the message of Easter that "it’s not about what you’ve done, it’s about what’s been done for you." She embedded a video of the song You Are More by Christian band Tenth Avenue North which contains those words, and which I featured on my blog last year.

Way to go, Bristol. I look forward to reading more of your stuff.

Norway and the Scandal of the Cross

Jared Wilson proves once again why he is widely considered one of the best Christian bloggers in this piece - That Irritating Feeling, That Twinge? That's the Scandal of the Cross.  An excerpt below:

The horrid beast who murdered upwards of 100 in Norway last week deserves the full measure of justice executed upon him, and worse. He deserves the wrath of God. And if he goes to his grave as he is, he will experience the eternal conscious torment of hell.

But if he repents and believes in Christ . . .

That little "twinge" we feel at the very idea is our brushing up against the scandal of the cross....

...If this vicious murderer in Norway repents of his sins and trusts in Jesus' saving work on his behalf, when he goes to his grave he will be welcomed into the arms of the Father like a beloved child.

If this bothers me, it is because I have forgotten most of the Psalms and most of the New Testament were written by murderers.

And it is because I consider myself a better judge than God.

And it is because I have forgotten that I deserve the same fate as this horrid beast. Or I think I do not face this fate because of some comparative goodness of my own.

If this idea rubs you wrong or offends you, perhaps you need to rethink the depths of your own evil heart, for, like mine, it is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). You may also need to reconsider the awesome grace of God. What a Savior we have!

Pray for Afghan Christian Said Musa

We need to pray for our Afghan brother Said Musa:

A terrible drama is unfolding in Afghanistan: There are reports that Said Musa, whose situation I described at Christmas, will soon be executed for the ‘crime’ of choosing to become a Christian. (For background, see here.)

Musa was one of about 25 Christians arrested on May 31, 2010, after a May 27 Noorin TV program showed video of a worship service held by indigenous Afghan Christians; he was arrested as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy. He converted to Christianity eight years ago, is the father of six young children, had a leg amputated after he stepped on a landmine while serving in the Afghan Army, and now has a prosthetic leg. His oldest child is eight and one is disabled (she cannot speak). He worked for the Red Cross/Red Crescent as an adviser to other amputees.

He was forced to appear before a judge without any legal counsel and without knowledge of the charges against him. “Nobody [wanted to be my] defender before the court. When I said ‘I am a Christian man,’ he [a potential lawyer] immediately spat on me and abused me and mocked me. . . . I am alone between 400 [people with] terrible values in the jail, like a sheep.” He has been beaten, mocked, and subjected to sleep deprivation and sexual abuse while in prison. No Afghan lawyer will defend him and authorities denied him access to a foreign lawyer.

And what is the US Governement doing about this?

The U.S. government -- reportedly including Secretary of State Clinton -- and other governments have pushed for his release, but to no avail.

But the president has been silent, even as we fight a war that has among its goals the creation of a government that conforms to international human-rights standards.

An American president certainly needs to guard and shepherd his political capital, and should not speak out about every prisoner. But Musa himself has appealed to “President Brother Obama” to rescue him from his current jail. And when an obscure and aberrant Florida pastor, Terry Jones, threatened to burn a Koran, not only President Obama but much of his cabinet, as well as General Petraeus, weighed in on the matter.

If the actions of a Florida pastor who threatened to destroy a book holy to Muslims deserved public and presidential attention, then the actions of the Afghan government, ostensibly a ‘democratic’ ally, to destroy something holy to Christians, a human being made in the image of God, also deserve public and presidential attention.

See more at America Quiet on the Execution of Afghan Christian Said Musa - By Paul Marshall - The Corner - National Review Online:

What the News Will Not Report: Coptic Christians Killed in Egypt

Pray for the Christians of Egypt!

With Internet access now restored, the Assyrian news service has been able to report that an attack on Christians took place in Egypt at about 3 p.m. on Sunday, January 30, in the village of Sharona near Maghagha, which is in Minya Province. Two Coptic families were attacked in their homes and eleven people, including children, were killed. Four others survived, despite having been shot.

The report states that the families knew their attackers, Islamist militants divided into two groups who accessed the Coptic homes through the roofs of their neighbors’ houses. The survivors say the masked attackers of the first home were led by Ibrahim Hamdy Ibrahim. They killed Joseph Waheeb Massoud, his wife Samah, their 15-year-old daughter Christine, and their eight-year-old son Fady Youssef.

The other masked group was led by Yasser Essam Khaled. They killed Saleeb Ayad Mayez, his wife Zakia, their four-year-old son Joseph and three-year-old daughter Justina, his 23-year-old sister Amgad, their mother Zakia, and Saniora Fahim.

Though there has been violence and looting enough throughout Egypt in recent days, these attacks do not appear to have been simple robberies. All indications are that these were deliberate attacks on Christians.

— Paul Marshall is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

From: Coptic Christians Killed in Egypt - By Paul Marshall - The Corner - National Review Online

Unplanned Conversion

The truth is winning!

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director, has released a book on her conversion to the pro-life position. The catalyst point was her personal participation in an actual abortion procedure. The book is called unPlanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line

The quote below is from an article and interview in the Baptist Press.

"...In her last year with the clinic she was having more difficulty justifying her work. But it was not until an afternoon in September 2009 that Johnson came face to face with the reality of abortion. It would no longer be a simple matter of numbers on paper or a discussion in a management meeting.

Never had she been called into the procedure room to help with an abortion. In the past she had been in the room to hold a patient's hand or give counsel to patients during the process. But on this day the visiting abortionist was performing an ultrasound-guided abortion, an unprecedented procedure in her clinic. Johnson would witness -- in real time -- the life of a 13-week-old baby taken. She held the ultrasound probe on the woman's abdomen so the doctor could see the baby and the instrument as he did his work. The procedure was visible on a monitor.

The shock of witnessing an abortion in progress made Johnson question everything she had believed and advocated about the work of Planned Parenthood.

In her book, Johnson recalled thinking, "I had believed a lie! I had blindly promoted the 'company line' for so long. Why? Why hadn't I searched out the truth for myself? Why had I closed my ears to the arguments I'd heard? Oh, dear God, what had I done?"

Two weeks later she resigned her position as director of the clinic and walked to the offices of Shawn Carney of the Coalition for Life."

This is happening more and more. Truth does win in the end!

Update (1/19/11) New article in Christianity Today: Pro-life Challenges, From a Former Planned Parenthood Director's View.

Only Geezers Use E-Mail

According to the NY Times. the younger you are the less likely you are to use e-mail. See E-Mail's Big Demographic Split - NYTimes.com

Apparently you young folks use texting instead. Now I am feeling old!

Prayer or Pancakes

IHOP (the pancake-maker) sues IHOP (the prayer center) over trademark

Picture from What’s In A Name? - The Sacred Sandwich
 

The Threat to America from Shariah Law

I do not enjoy posting things like this on my blog. If you wandered here following some search engine, you should know that this is not a typical post at this site. I'd much rather be talking about Jesus and the Gospel. However, I think the information in the report discussed below is so important that it needs the widest distribution possible.

I saw an article at the American Thinker  today entitled The Shariah Threat to America. For those of you who do not know, Shariah is Arabic for the code of Islamic law, the entire system of moral and societal code based on the Quran. The article described the conclusions from The Shariah Threat To America, a report published yesterday by the Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. This report was not produced by a bunch of right wing "Islamophobic" kooks. The people behind this report include, among others, a former Director of the CIA, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, and a former Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet - heavy hitters all.

The key findings of the report, as quoted from the referenced article, include:

• The United States is under attack by foes who are openly animated by what is known in Islam as shariah (Islamic law).
• Shariah is based on the Quran, hadiths (sayings of Mohammed), and agreed interpretations. It commands Muslims to carry out jihad (holy war) indefinitely until all of the dar al-harb (i.e., the House of War, where shariah is not enforced) is brought under the domination of dar al-Islam (the House of Islam -- or literally, the House of Submission, where shariah is enforced).
  
• Shariah dictates that non-Muslims be given three choices: convert to Islam and conform to shariah, submit as second-class citizens (dhimmis), or be killed. Not all classes are given the second option.
• Both Islamic terrorism and pre-violent "civilization jihad" (popularly referred to as "stealth jihad") are commanded by shariah. That is not the view of only "extremists" and "fringe" elements "hijacking the religion," but of many authorities of Islam widely recognized as mainstream and drawing upon orthodox texts, interpretations, and practices of the faith.
• The Muslim Brotherhood is the font of modern Islamic jihad. It is dedicated to the same global supremacist objectives as those (like al-Qaeda and the Taliban) who share its adherence to shariah but who believe that violent jihad is more likely to more quickly produce the common goal of a global caliphate.
• The Brotherhood's internal documents make clear that civilization jihad is subversion waged by stealth instead of violence only until such time as Muslims are powerful enough to progress to violent jihad for the final conquest.
• Those who work to insinuate shariah into the United States intend to subvert and replace the Constitution (itself a violation of Article VI) because, according to shariah, freedom of religion, other civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution, and the rule of man-made law are incompatible with Islam (which means "submission").
• The shariah-adherent enemy prioritizes "information warfare," manifested in American society as political warfare, psychological warfare, influence operations, and subversion of our foundational institutions. Our government structure fails to recognize this strategy because it is focused so exclusively on kinetic attacks. As a result, the United States remains crippled in its inability to engage this enemy effectively on his primary battlefield.
• The Brotherhood exploits the atmosphere of intimidation created by Islamic terrorists, thus inculcating in the West a perceived need for "outreach" to the "Muslim community," which, in turn, opens up opportunities to pursue a campaign of stealthy infiltration into American and other Western societies. The combined effect of such "civilization jihad" and jihadism of the violent kind may prove to be considerably more dangerous for this country and other Western societies than violent jihad alone.
• The Brotherhood has succeeded in penetrating our educational, legal, and political systems, as well as top levels of government, intelligence, the media, and U.S. military, virtually paralyzing our ability to respond effectively.
• Muslim Brotherhood organizations conduct outreach to the government, law enforcement, media, religious community, and others for one reason: to subvert them in furtherance of their objective, which is implementation of Islamic Law.
• An informed and determined counter-strategy to defend the Constitution from shariah can yet succeed -- provided it is undertaken in the prompt, timely, and comprehensive manner...

There is much more at the link. All of this information should be kept in mind when reading and discussing the proposed Mosque at Ground Zero in New York, and the efforts of our government to win "hearts and minds" and appease the Islamic world.

I think itt should also be the subject of much prayer.

See also:  Press Release, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R), House Intelligence Committee

A Clear Sign

 Hat Tip:  On the Lighter Side (5) « The Master's Table