By Jody Brown
April 26, 2006
(AgapePress) - Family-friendly media watchdogs say the television industry is merely trying to dodge its responsibility to police itself and its content. And the head of the FCC says the multi-million-dollar ad campaign just announced by the industry won't be enough to satisfy his agency's mandate to patrol the airwaves for indecency.
At their annual convention on Monday, the National Association of Broadcasters heard a pitch from the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) about an upcoming ad campaign designed to inform parents about V-chip technology and television program ratings. "We want to tell parents that they, and they alone, have total power to control every hour of television programming," said Jack Valenti in announcing the $330 million ad campaign.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has his own translation of Valenti's statement. The "avalanche" of ads, he says, is designed to persuade parents it is their sole responsibility to monitor what their children watch on TV. "In other words," says the FRC president, "the MPAA wants to continue to pump out the sewage and make you [parents] responsible for the cleanup."
"How noble. How empowering for you," Perkins says tongue-in-cheek. "And how ridiculous."
The announced ad campaign comes in the wake of a $3.6 million fine recently proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against CBS for what the agency determined to be indecent programming, and the FCC's decision to uphold another half-million-dollar fine against the network for the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" debacle during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. At the same time, the federal agency cited several TV programs -- but did not fine the originating networks -- for violating the standards for broadcasting indecent language. (See earlier article)
Since the FCC's announcement in mid-March, the four major networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox -- have sued the FCC over the indecency rulings. The networks claim the FCC "overstepped its authority" in making rulings that are "unconstitutional and inconsistent with "¦ previous FCC decisions."
Some media watchdogs claim that lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt by the networks to obtain the right to indiscriminately broadcast foul language in violation of current law. One of those who feels that way is L. Brent Bozell of the Parents Television Council (PTC) -- and he has a similar response to the ad campaign being promoted by Valenti and the MPAA. Bozell says his group's research has shown that the V-chip and the ratings system -- the core elements promoted by the ad campaign -- have failed.
"We have found that most television programs airing foul language, violence, and inappropriate sexual dialogue do not use the appropriate descriptors that would warn parents about the presence of offensive content," the PTC president notes. "Without accurate descriptors, the V-chip fails -- and thus, the ratings system is rendered meaningless."
According to Bozell, the only solution is for the industry to "clean up its act," rather than to try to make the public more aware of technology and ratings that have been proven to be ineffective. The ad campaign, he asserts, will not solve the problem.
"They're spending $300 million to defend themselves against their wretched excesses," he says. "Why don't they just stop airing their wretched excess?"
Someone else agrees with Bozell's assessment of the multi-million-dollar advertising blitz -- and that someone is Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. "I'm not sure that's the complete answer," Martin said of the campaign Tuesday in Las Vegas. He noted that live sports programming, such as the Super Bowl, is among the type of programs not rated.
In addition, Reuters reports, Martin observed that his agency's research indicates that upwards of 40 percent of the TV sets in the U.S. do not have V-chips or other blocking technology. He believes that other initiatives -- such as family-tier options or "a la carte" offerings by cable companies -- would give consumers more choice. Consequently, parents would have more control over what they allow into their homes.
Networks' Ad Campaign No Solution to Indecency Violations, Say Critics
They Ask: Instead of Pumping 'Sewage,' Why Not Just Clean It Up?
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Networks' Ad Campaign No Solution to Indecency Violations
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
STRANGE ENCOUNTERS WITH ANOTHER WORLD
For years Cathy Land was plagued by an unsettling sense of being "visited." When she realized what was happening, she turned to God to end her abduction experiences.
The pieces started to fit together the night they dropped her. For years Cathy Land had been plagued by the sense that something wasn't quite right. There were periods of unaccounted missing time, mornings when she felt heavy and lethargic despite a full night's sleep, an unsettling sense of somehow having been visited.
Then she woke up with an alien's face inches from hers.
"He had dropped me. I could feel his breath on my face. It startled him that I woke up. He had this confused--'That's not supposed to happen'--look on his face. The second one still had hold of my legs. I rolled over into a fetal position and went right back to sleep."
In the morning she told her son what had happened. Usually the family dismissed her recollections as a joke. This time he told her: "Those were not aliens; they were demons."
"It finally all made sense," she recalls.
Her son's comment propelled her to the Internet, where she found some Christians who didn't dismiss her experiences as nonsense. Her faith was enriched and deepened as she discovered that God's power could free her from her years of torment.
"I stopped being so scared, and I got mad," she says. "I finally understood. These things were trying to get the world's attention away from God, and how better to do that than make people think they are being invaded from outer space? These are not benevolent little E.T.s come to clean up the environment, fix the hole in the ozone layer. They are not from a distant galaxy. They are raping women, they are murdering animals, they are terrifying children."
An office manager for a medical supply company, and one-time stock-car racer and singer-musician, Land began to read all she could to learn more about what had troubled her for so long. She had been fascinated by UFOs since early childhood, one time reporting a seashore sighting to the police.
"Many times I would have a strange feeling just before going to bed," she says, adding that precise memories were hazy when she awoke. "I would feel like something had happened during the night--but nothing I could put my finger on."
One time her son told of a frightening encounter he'd had with "a tall man." She admits that his account had scared her.
But she continued to devour books and TV shows on alien phenomena. She told family members about her experiences and talked about UFOs with friends, though most laughed her off.
"Sometimes it made me feel like I was losing my mind. Maybe I did dream this all up. But there were too many things over and over and over again," she says.
As she read all the Christian material she could find on the subject after her spiritual awakening, she began to see how she had been so deceived for so long. "Everything started to make sense," she says. "I realized that everything I had read had probably been happening to me all along, and it scared me. Then it made me mad. How dare they mess with me and my children?"
Land's anger over the years her life was "held" has spurred her to tell her story to others caught in the UFO mesh.
"This is war. It's the most ingenious hoax there is. It's a plan to get the world's attention away from the gospel of Christ, and it's working."
She says many exploring the UFO world are, as she was, "searching for love."
"That's what they are looking for, really, in their beliefs about aliens. But there's only one place they will find unconditional love, and they are looking in the wrong place."
An active part of her local Baptist church in Jacksonville, Florida, Land says that she now has a peace she never knew before. "I didn't know it for years.," she says. "It was a miserable existence from day to day. Nobody should be victimized like that. If I can save one person from being harmed, then I have to do this for God. It's my offering to Him.
"It's not the mission field I would choose for myself," she adds. "I would rather be feeding hungry people in India because maybe people wouldn't laugh at me. [But] who else is going to go and tell them, 'You are all being so deceived?'"
ALIENS, FALLEN ANGELS AND THE BIBLE
Evangelist Chris Ward has an unusual theory about the true identity of extraterrestrials.
In his ministry to the UFO world, Chris Ward boldly goes where few other Christians do. And his studies of the Bible and the UFO phenomenon have led him to an understanding that for many demands a radically deeper, if not new, look at Scripture.
Ward has no doubt UFOs are real and that people have had encounters with the beings in them. Where Ward disagrees with UFO believers, and where his explanation differs from many Christians, is what the aliens really are.
They are not from another planet, he maintains. But they are not demons, either, as many Christians are inclined to identify them, he contends. Rather, they are fallen angels.
That is not theological hairsplitting, he says. It is important both for everyday ministry to people in the scene and for understanding its crucial importance, he says.
"The people who are involved in this scene know the difference [between angels and demons], yet the church dismisses them as though they are ignorant," Ward says. "Many of the people we have met are also involved in Wicca or paganism or whatever, and they conjure up demons all the time. But these people think they are dealing with beings from another planet."
While most UFO apologists believe Earth is being visited from other planets, the perspective held by Ward--that aliens are extradimensional rather than extraterrestrial--is being considered more widely. A few respected secular figures in the UFO world have raised the idea of a spiritual dimension to the phenomenon.
Ward's studies have taken him not only back to Scripture but also to other ancient texts highly respected by early church leaders, such as the books of Enoch, Jasher and Jubilee. These writings, some of which are referred to in the Bible or appear in the Apocrypha, shed further light on what can be gleaned from the Old and New Testaments, he says. Among his conclusions:
* Demons are not angels that have fallen. The two are different entities. Although spiritual beings, angels can manifest in human or other physical form. Demons seek embodiment.
* Extraterrestrials are the fallen angels variously named in the Bible as "watchers," "wicked hosts in high places," and "principalities and powers." They want to divert worship from God.
* Demons were not created by God. They are the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim--the hybrids created when the angels who fell with Satan had intercourse with humans, as recounted in Genesis 6.
* The fallen angels wanted to mate with humans to pollute the genes of humankind so that it would be impossible for Jesus to be born. Some translations of the Genesis 6 account describe Noah as being found "blameless in his generations," a reference to his pure DNA.
* Old Testament accounts of Israel's wiping out idolatrous tribes make more sense if they were doing so to rid the Earth of the last of the Nephilim, some of whom were still to be found after the Flood.
* The rising number of alien abduction accounts is consistent with Jesus' warning in Matthew 24 that the time of His return will be "just like the days of Noah"--when the Nephilim roamed the Earth.
* Reproductive experiments and sexual encounters often reported by abductees are part of an attempt to produce a new generation of angel-human hybrids, from which the Antichrist will arise.
While referencing texts in addition to the Bible is considered approvingly by non-Christians who reject the authority of Scripture, it is viewed suspiciously by some believers. "I do look at extraneous material, but I prove it all through the Bible," Ward says. "You don't have to refer to any of these other books, but they are standard texts...broadly accepted."
Ward admits that his perspective seems unbelievable to some. "[But] I do not speculate. I only synthesize what I read. There is no need to speculate because the information is sensational enough on its own."
Complete article at:
Aliens Among Us - Charisma Magazine
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
No Denying, Abortion Harms Women
By AFA Journal
April 24, 2006
(AgapePress) - A self-described pro-choice atheist and rationalist set out to prove that abortion does not have any psychological consequences. He found the opposite, and the results were so profound that they cannot be ignored in the scientific field or the political arena.
Professor David Fergusson, New Zealand researcher at Christchurch School of Medicine and Health, said, "[F]rom a personal point of view, I would have rather seen the results come out the other way -- but they didn't. And as a scientist you have to report the facts, not what you'd like to report."
Fergusson and his colleagues were surprised by the study that followed 500 women from birth to age 25 and revealed that abortive women were one-and-a-half times more likely to suffer mental illness.
"Those having an abortion had elevated rates of subsequent mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors and substance use disorders," according to the research published in the Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology.
Numerous journals refused to publish the research, but Fergusson defended its relevance saying it would be "scientifically irresponsible" to overlook the findings. "To provide a parallel to this situation, if we were to find evidence of an adverse reaction to medication, we would be obligated ethically to publish that fact," he explained.
"Fergusson's study underscores the fact that evidence-based medicine does not support the conjecture that abortion will protect women from 'serious danger' to their mental health," added Dr. David Reardon, a seasoned researcher of abortion's impact on women. "Physicians who ignore this study may no longer be able to argue that they are acting in good faith and may therefore be in violation of the law."
As a result, the study is heating up the political debate over abortion in the United States while having a more profound effect on countries such as New Zealand and Great Britain where abortions are certified based on what was once thought to be in the best interest of the woman's health.
"If we were talking about an antibiotic or an asthma risk, and someone reported adverse reactions, people would be advocating further research to evaluate risk," Fergusson explained. "I can see no good reason why the same rules don't apply to abortion."
News from Agape Press
Massachusetts Elementary School Shows Its Rainbow Colors
By Jim Brown
April 24, 2006
(AgapePress) - Some parents in Massachusetts are fed up with Lexington school officials who are defending a second-grade teacher's decision to read students a book about homosexual romance and "marriage" in class.
Estabrook Elementary School teacher Heather Kramer read her students the book King & King, a story about a prince who spurns a number of eligible princesses to marry another prince. The story ends with the two men marrying and sharing a kiss. When parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin complained about what took place, the school's principal told them no parental notification was required, nor would it be given before future discussion on homosexual "marriage."
Read AgapePress' March 2004 story about King & King
Brian Camenker with the Article 8 Alliance in Massachusetts says Kramer and school officials violated the state's parental notification law, which he wrote. "At this meeting the teacher and the principal were rather insulting," he says. Camenker contends the school officials basically told the Wirthlins "We're not going to give you notification on this -- we're not even going to tell you after it happened, and you can't opt your child out."
The Alliance spokesman says the approach being taken by the school toward the law is ridiculous.
"The law talks about human sexuality issues," he explains. "[School officials are] saying 'Well, homosexuality isn't a human sexuality issue, it's a human rights issue.' So they're saying it doesn't apply here, 'and so we're not going to notify you.'
"It's monstrous that they can just blatantly redefine the English language like that," he says.
According to Camenker, Kramer attend a presentation last year conducted by the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) on promoting homosexuality in the classroom.
One year ago, Estabrook Elementary School was the site of an arrest of the father of a kindergarten student who had been attempting for several months to get his son opted-out from discussions portraying homosexuality as acceptable. Last April, following a meeting with the school principal, David Parker was handcuffed, spent the night in jail, and appeared before a judge the next morning. Trespassing charges were eventually dropped against Parker, but a ban preventing the six-year-old's father from school property remained in effect.
News from Agape Press
Believers need to Prepare for Da Vinci Code Fallout
By Allie Martin
April 21, 2006
(AgapePress) - An upcoming movie based on a best-selling book that questions Christ's divinity can be challenged with fact and reason, says a Christian author. James Garlow advises Christians to be prepared to refute untruths that will be conveyed in Sony Pictures' The Da Vinci Code.
The movie, due to be released in the U.S. on May 19, is directed by Ron Howard and stars Tom Hanks. The film is based on the best-selling by Dan Brown, which asserts that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had children, and questions the divinity of Christ. The movie is rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, nudity, thematic material, brief drug references, and sexual content.
James Garlow is co-author of Cracking Da Vinci's Code, and he also compiled The Da Vinci Code Breaker. Garlow says Christians have an opportunity to counter the lies in Brown's novel with the historical truths found in scripture. He is convinced the Church must take seriously the challenge posed by the film.
"It'll either be catastrophic for the Church in terms of the unbelieving public losing a great deal of whatever confidence they may have left in the scriptures or in the person of Jesus," he says, "or if the Church is ready -- if we're able, as Peter writes, to give an answer for the hope that lies within us -- we can seize this opportunity and have fabulous evangelistic fruit ... or what I call pre-evangelism."
Christians, says the California pastor, must be willing and equipped to answer questions that will arise in the minds of non-believers about the reliability of the New Testament.
"If a person equips themselves on how to refute [the lies], they can just simply [say], 'Here, look at this information,'" he suggests, "and they can help a person establish a strong faith and even a sufficiently strong understanding of the historicity of the gospels, the historicity of Jesus and his life, even church history itself enough so that they can refute Dan Brown's notions."
Garlow's The Da Vinci Code Breaker is a sort of dictionary that contains numerous terms and facts about the people, places, and events referenced in the novel. One group -- Opus Dei, a conservative Roman Catholic group -- is depicted in the book as a murderous, power-hungry sect. The group has requested that Sony Pictures include a clarifying disclaimer in the film, saying "would be a gesture of respect toward the figure of Jesus, to the history of the Church and to the religious beliefs of viewers."
In its response, Sony does not say if a disclaimer will be attached, but insists that the film is "a work of fiction" and "not a religious tract."
News from Agape Press
Monday, April 24, 2006
Research Shows Early Porn Exposure Has Lasting Effects
By AFA Journal
April 21, 2006
(AgapePress) - Recent studies confirming the corruptive impact of pornography on people revealed a growing concern among both secularists and Christians regarding its effect on children, especially if they are exposed at an early age.
Author Peter Stock addressed the concern in a document titled "The Harmful Effects on Children of Exposure to Pornography," in which he noted that viewing pornography distorts the sexual development of children and adolescents. Not only does it give an inadequate perspective of human sexuality, it dehumanizes women.
"This possibly violent, very degrading image or depiction of sexuality becomes the normal depiction of sexuality in the child's mind," said Daniel Weiss of Focus on the Family Action.
Even if the exposure to graphic sexual images is accidental, research shows that it can warp a child's understanding of sexuality. This twisted view follows them through life-tainting relationships well into adulthood, and creates a plethora of problems along the way. For example, experts associate early exposure to pornography with an increase in teen pregnancy, abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and relationship problems.
According to researcher Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, these problems surface when external beauty fades after years of marriage. "The ability to see the human being on the inside and respond erotically requires that you not have set up and trained yourself in a set of completely artificial, impersonal expectations," he said.
But with constant advancements in technology, these artificial expectations are staring kids in the face while making it more difficult for parents to protect them.
As reported by the U.S. Justice Department, nine out of ten school age children are exposed to pornography, usually while doing their homework online. In addition, the New York Times recently cited a study titled "Impact of the Media on Adolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors" in which it was noted that one in five children ages 10 to 17 had "inadvertently encountered explicit sexual content, and one in five had been exposed to an unwanted sexual solicitation while online."
While Internet filters are helpful when it comes to protecting children from online pornography, counselor Joann Condie also encourages parents to help their children process a good, wholesome and healthy view of sexuality.
News from Agape Press
The Serpent of Porn
Feature by Steve Gallagher
Pure Life Ministries
April 20, 2006
(AgapePress) - Solomon intimately understood how powerful sexual temptation can be for a young man. It was with him in mind that he wrote the fifth chapter of Proverbs. "My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding .... For the lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech" (Proverbs 5:1-3).
Those two sentences perfectly describe both the power of sexual temptation and its antidote. The wise king understood that, if a young man is to successfully withstand the charms of the temptress, he must be prepared ahead of time. Time spent in the Word every day builds up a man's immune system against the poison of pornography. The scriptures are simply the thinking and perspectives of the Lord. As a man continually immerses himself in the Bible, he will gradually take on God's mindset toward life, people and, yes, even sexuality. a man who devotes daily time to the Word is given spiritual insight into the power of temptation and how it works.
Notice again what Solomon says about sexual sin. He personifies it as an adulteress whose lips of honey represent promised fulfillment. The temptation seems irresistible because it is laced with deception -- namely, that the act of sin will bring about tremendous pleasure and satisfaction. The tantalizing thought is presented and all thoughts of resistance are forgotten. the act of sexual sin looks absolutely intoxicating and therefore irresistible. The smooth oil represents the craftiness of the enemy .... Fully camouflaged and extremely calculating, he presents the perfect illusion, timing each consecutive attack "to steal, and kill, and destroy God's property."
The wise man, whose heart has been fortified with the Word of God, sees the devil behind that intoxicating temptation. In the Garden, Satan exposed himself as the "crafty" serpent he is. I imagine him being very much like a cobra. Known for the hideous hood it extends when preparing to attack, it actually spits into the eyes of its victim before striking. With its target blinded and helpless, the serpent could easily squirm away into the brush. But this viper is not content with escape; it enjoys killing. With bared fangs, it lunges, injecting its deadly poison into its victim's body.
Injected ... Infected ... and Helpless
This is a fitting picture of the man lured into viewing pornography. The temptation usually begins when he comes across a glimpse of flesh and/or a sexually suggestive hyper-link. It is just enough venom to temporarily blind him to the impending danger. The initial presentation is stimulating, creating a sensual atmosphere which spiritually incapacitates him.
Now the serpent moves in for the kill. That one glimpse of porn unleashes a poison that rockets into the man's soul and instantly spreads throughout his being. Just like a snakebite victim, he enters a catatonic state of mind: a sexual trance where all reason seems to abandon him. Lust rushes through his body; his face flushes with excitement; his palms get sweaty. Solomon described this spiritual stupor this way: "With her many persuasions she entices him. With her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver; as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life" (Proverbs 7:21-23).
Conversely, the man who "receives with meekness the engrafted word" discerns the source of temptation that comes his way. He understands that, behind the beautiful illusion of pleasure, there is a snake -- coiled and ready to strike. He has been bitten by it before and has learned the hard way the price that is paid for every indulgence. He has the heart-knowledge (much different from head-knowledge) to "be a doer of the Word" and turn away from the temptation.
Continuing in Proverbs 5, Solomon went on to speak of the "aharit" -- the end -- of sexual sin: "But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of hell." This Hebraic term describes the inevitable consequences of all sin. He would later write, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its 'aharit' is the way of death" (14:12).
Once a snake bites, its victim then becomes vulnerable to other predators. Some time ago, I watched a National Geographic special that showed a lioness who had been bitten by a cobra. For days, she suffered under the effects of its venom. Weakened to the point of collapse, she faced great danger from a roving pack of ravenous hyenas. She was helpless to defend herself from their savage attacks.
This is certainly true of the man who views pornography. Its poison, rather than dissipating after he has completed his act of lust, continues to contaminate his heart over the coming days. Its toxin remains in his system, altering his perspectives, polluting his mind, and spreading darkness over his soul. The lust it initially appealed to is now inflamed into burning desire. Rather than satisfying the man's sexual passion, it only serves to further ignite it.
Not only must the infected man deal with the after-effects of the bite, but now he is even more weakened spiritually against the enemies of his soul. He attempts to go about his daily routines, but lascivious memories continue to haunt him. These images are like Third World beggars crowding around him, clamoring for another handout. No matter how much you give them, they're never satisfied. Indeed, every gift only emboldens them to demand more.
No wonder Solomon warned: "Keep your way far from her and do not go near the door of her house, or you will give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one" (5:8-9). The house of the adulteress -- much like an X-rated website -- is nothing more than a den of writhing vipers. It would be wise to avoid such a place!
God's Word is the Antitode
The poisoned victim's only hope for freedom is to go "cold turkey." Just as a heroin addict must lock himself up until the drug gradually works its way out of his body, so too it takes time for the venom of pornography to lose its power. Every tick of the clock could be harboring a voluptuous temptress, ready to lure him back into sin. And yet, every minute that passes without failure, delivers the man that much further out of her reach. When it comes to porn addiction, the longer he stays away, the better his chances of escaping her evil clutches for good.
Just as the Word of God prepares a man to face temptation, it is also the only antidote for the man once he has been bitten by the serpent of lust. Regular doses of Scripture are the very thing he needs to be built up spiritually and thus counteract the effects of the poison of pornography. "Precept upon precept; line upon line; here a little, and there a little ..." (Isaiah 28:10). Every word, verse and chapter he meditates upon serves to strengthen him.
Christian men must do everything within their power to avoid the "house" of the adulteress. Two practical measures a man should take would be to use an Internet filter on his computer and controlling his television viewing. However, the fact remains that we live in a snake-infested world. In our day and age, it is almost inevitable that men will face this temptation at some point. The wise believer will prepare himself for that day with the Word of God. It is only "the sword of the Spirit" that can sever the head of the serpent of porn.
News from Agape Press
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
8th Circuit's Ruling Discriminates Against Christians
By Jim Brown
April 17, 2006
(AgapePress) - A civil liberties attorney is objecting to a federal appeals court's decision to side with a former teacher who complained about prayers at a graduation ceremony in an Arkansas school district.
The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of Steve Warnock in his dispute with the De Valls Bluff School District, but denied his request to stiffen penalties against the district. The ex-teacher had argued that a 2004 baccalaureate ceremony violated lower-court injunctions by including prayers by ministers, and the appeals court agreed with him, rejecting counter arguments that the baccalaureate ceremony was a student-organized event.
Warnock won an earlier lawsuit accusing the school district of discriminating against him because he is a non-Christian teacher. But attorney John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, believes it is the court that has shown bias in this case. He feels the Eighth Circuit's ruling discriminates against Christians.
Public events and speeches should not have to be censored or excluded "just because someone mentions Jesus' name," Whitehead insists. However, he points out, many special interest groups and liberal organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union apparently disagree and are willing to fight to make sure any Christian references to or expressions of Christian faith are silenced.
Such organizations purportedly fight for Americans' civil liberties, the Rutherford Institute spokesman notes, "but one thing that I think we really have to understand is that Christians pay taxes, and I don't think it's time for Christians to be second-class citizens." If freedom in America is to be maintained "for everyone, including Christians, Jews and others," he asserts, "we have to stand up and fight. This is not a time to be weak or to avoid an issue."
After all, Whitehead emphasizes, in cases like the one involving the De Valls Bluff School District and other school systems like it, Christians' right to pray or express their faith on campuses and in other academic settings is at stake, "and there are so many children in those schools." Based on the Eighth Circuit Court's ruling and similar ones, he feels the outlook for America's children and their children "does not look good."
The central issue in the debate, the pro-family legal advocate contends, is the question of whether Christians are going to be able to say Jesus' name in public in America. "And if you want to be able to do that," he says, "you're going to have to fight the cases."
Hopefully, Christians can win those cases, Whitehead adds, "but it's going to be uphill. It's going to take time. But anything worthwhile takes time, and it usually takes a fight." And, although the Eighth District erred in siding with Steve Warnock, the constitutional attorney points out that the courts have not always decided in the former teacher's favor.
Last year, Whitehead notes, in Warnock's case against the Arkansas school district that had employed him, a federal jury ruled against the former teacher. The jury found that he had failed to show he was fired by the district because of his allegations of religious discrimination and complaints about Christian prayers.
News from Agape Press
School District Caves to Call to Shut Down Bible Club
Legal Group Says It Is Shocked by District's 'Strong-Arm Tactic'
By Allie Martin
April 17, 2006
(AgapePress) - A Christian student group may have to sue a public school district in Texas over a dispute regarding use of school facilities.
The Grapevine/Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD) recently told Students Standing Strong, a student-led Bible study club, that it would have to pay fees to hold a previously approved club meeting on school grounds, sign a rental agreement, and obtain a one-million-dollar insurance policy. Administrators also informed the club it would be banned as a non-curricular student group. Notice of these requirements was given to the club on the Friday before a Monday meeting (April 10) of the club.
Liberty Legal Institute, located in nearby Plano, says the district's demands that the club sign a rental agreement and relinquish its status as a student club are in direct violation of the Equal Access Act. Liberty Legal brought that fact to the district's attention in a demand letter that outlined the club's constitutional rights and sought to resolve the matter quickly and without litigation.
The letter may have had the desired effect -- in part, at least. Kelly Shackelford, Liberty Legal's chief counsel, says although the club was allowed to use school facilities without charge on that Monday, the issue has not been settled -- and a lawsuit is still possible if the discriminatory practices continue, he says.
"We know this is going to be a long-term problem," the attorney says, "because what we have here is a district that is doing everything in its power to discriminate against these kids because they're meeting for good reasons and doing good things."
According to the Liberty Legal spokesman, the district does not impose fees and rental agreements on other student clubs. But because Students Standing Strong is a religious group, he says, the district is "just hunting and looking for some way to throw hurdles in their way."
Shackelford says it is "sad" what the district is doing to the club. "These are good kids," he says, noting that the group became an issue with administrators after several parents complained about the Christian club.
"The small group of parents is complaining because this group is so successful and it's a Christian group," he explains. "And they're asking the school district to stop them, which is against the law."
But instead of standing up to the parents and explaining that the district does not discriminate against any clubs, Christian or not, Shackelford says GCISD is "going along and trying to figure out ways to discriminate."
"And if they do it again," he warns, "we'll go to court, if necessary, to protect these kids' rights to meet, to encourage one another in their faith, to sing, and to do things that they're doing that the school should be happy that they're doing."
Shackelford says it is unfortunate, but apparently district officials are more worried about a small group of parents than they are about protecting the rights of the student-led club.
Texas School District Caves to Parents' Call to Shut Down Bible Club
Hindu Extremists Intensify Anti-Christian Persecution
By Allie Martin
April 17, 2006
(AgapePress) - The president of Gospel for Asia says it appears that Hindu militants have declared an all-out war against Christians throughout India. Recently across that country, Christians have been falsely accused of crimes, arrested, and beaten -- all for witnessing to Hindus.
Dr. K.P. Yohannan is founder and president of Gospel for Asia, which trains native Indians for missionary work throughout India. He says GFA tells its workers to expect persecution as they serve the Lord.
The persecution and violence being waged against India's Christians is not being carried out or sanctioned by all Hindus but is being perpetrated by "extremists in the Hindu religion, like we have in any religion," Yohannan points out. "They are the ones who are taking the lead like the Taliban," he says.
"But this is not getting easier," the ministry leader continues. "I tell my brothers and sisters, let's not be looking for easy times in the days to come, because persecution is definitely on the increase, and it is in the midst of persecution and suffering that we are going to see the kingdom's work done."
Earlier this month, the government of Rajasthan became the sixth state in India to enact an anti-conversion law. In other states with such legislation, Christians have been targeted for attacks by Hindu extremists.
Nevertheless, Yohannan notes, Christians in India are standing strong, and the increased persecution has only increased the effectiveness of the church's witness across the country. "We have more people coming to Christ now," he says, "especially in places where the worst persecution is taking place."
How this is to be explained, GFA's president confesses, is a mystery. "I don't understand it," he says, "but Jesus said He will build his church. We are suffering for it, but God is faithfully doing His work."
As the persecution against followers of Christ intensifies in India, Yohannan urges prayer. He asks believers in the United States and elsewhere in the free world to pray for Christians facing violence and intimidation from Hindu extremists in India and for believers facing persecution throughout the world.
News from Agape Press
Tehran's Shadow Grows
By Gary Bauer
Oil prices shot up to over $70 a barrel today as traders continued to weigh the implications of statements made by Iranian President Ahmadinejad. As Iran races toward producing nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad warns that the West better not do anything to try to stop him, because Iran now claims to have 40,000 suicide bombers ready to strike the U.S., Israel and England. Meanwhile, new U.S. satellite imagery indicates Iran is reinforcing its nuclear facilities and burying them deeper underground to try to withstand any military attack. Over the weekend, the Iranian government announced it will also give the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority $50 million, and it continues to pour money into Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
And that's just the military front. On the spiritual front the evidence is quite clear that Ahmadinejad believes that he has been chosen by Allah to pave the way for the return of the so-called "12th Imam"� in the next 2 years, a "Messiah"� type figure who will destroy all the Christians and Jews.
The Bush White House is working diligently to come up with an answer to the Iranian threat. Meanwhile, liberal senators have no answers except to demand that Bush work harder on a diplomatic solution. How is one supposed to do that given that we are dealing with a delusional enemy? Most U.S. media remain obsessed over the concern about the growing power of America's "Christian-right,"� while an Islamic fascist dreams of nuking Israel and watching America burn.
American Values - Your Voice to Help Protect Life, Marriage, Faith, and Family
TV Networks Taking FCC to Court on Indecency Rulings
Broadcasters: 'Isolated' Expletives Insufficient Grounds for Saying Programs Indecent
Media Watchdogs: Networks Ignoring Owners of the Airwaves -- the American Public
By Jody Brown
April 18, 2006
(AgapePress) - Advocates for family-friendly TV programming are blasting the four major television networks for suing the FCC over recent indecency rulings handed down by the federal agency. The networks say the FCC "overstepped its authority" in making the determinations -- but media watchdogs claim the networks merely want the right to indiscriminately broadcast foul language in violation of current law.
On March 15, the Federal Communications Commission levied a heavy fine against CBS for graphic scenes in the program Without a Trace, and upheld its earlier half-million-dollar fine against the same network for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. (See earlier article) At the same time, it released decisions addressing more than 300,000 citizen complaints regarding indecent, profane, or obscene TV broadcasts by the other networks.
Among that latter group were several programs the FCC found violated its standards for broadcasting indecent language -- CBS's The Early Show, several episodes of ABC's NYPD Blue, and two music award shows aired by Fox. Included in those broadcasts were the "s-word" and the "f-word." But because the shows named in the lawsuit aired before the FCC's 2003 ruling that the f-word on live television was not indecent -- a decision it later reversed -- the federal agency decided it could not fine television stations for broadcasting the shows.
That appears to be the point of contention in the networks' lawsuits, which were filed late last week in several federal courts by ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, their affiliate stations, and the Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc. chain. "We strongly believe that the FCC rulings issued on March 15 ... are unconstitutional and inconsistent with two decades of previous FCC decisions," the networks say. "In filing these court appeals we are seeking to overturn the FCC decisions that the broadcast of fleeting, isolated -- and in some cases unintentional -- words rendered these programs indecent."
'Neighborhood Bullies'
Several media watchdog groups say they find the networks' lawsuit ludicrous. "It's beyond preposterous that the networks would even propose that airing the 'f-word' and 's-word' on television is not indecent," says L. Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council.
He reminds the broadcasters that the nation's airwaves belong to the American people, and that the industry has to abide by community standards of decency. Obviously, Bozell points out, the networks seem to have forgotten that.
"The broadcast networks are spitting in the faces of millions of Americans by saying they should be allowed to air [the two expletives] on television," the PTC leader says. "This suggestion by the networks is utterly shameless."
Bozell implies, however, that the networks know where the American public stands on the issue. "The networks have taken this fight to a court of law because they know they don't stand a chance in the court of public opinion," he states.
The director of government relations for Concerned Women for America has a similar take on what he describes as "frivolous" lawsuits. "This is a bold-faced attempt by the networks to have free reign to say whatever they please," asserts Lanier Swan. "[And] this action illustrates how out of touch television moguls are with American families."
Swan says he is convinced that millions of Americans -- as evidenced by the complaints filed with the FCC -- want to be able to turn on their televisions without having to fear their children will be confronted with foul language and overt sexual conduct. But the networks, he says, "choose to ignore and abuse" those millions of consumers. "We encourage the FCC to continue to hold networks accountable for the programming that violates federal decency regulations -- and to enforce tougher indecency fines."
Another watchdog group, the American Family Association, accuses the networks of playing by the rules only when it is to their benefit. Randy Sharp, AFA's director of special projects, says the networks are acting like schoolyard bullies by challenging the FCC's rulings.
"The networks employ a bullying technique by exposing children to the profanity they dish out on a daily basis," observes Sharp. "But when someone finally stands up to them, they play by the rules."
The AFA spokesman reminds the broadcasters that the s-word and f-word are "off limits" to users of the public airwaves -- and that the networks and their affiliates agreed to those rules when they were issued their licenses. "If the television bullies don't want to abide by decency rules," Sharp suggests they "turn in their licenses and go play somewhere else."
Still, Sharp admits he is not surprised by the networks' legal challenge -- and he says he expects the case to make its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, the Washington Post states that the broadcasters have acknowledged privately that this could become the test case they have long awaited to challenge the government's ability to police the public airwaves.
News from Agape Press
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
When Did Defending Marriage Become an Act of Bigotry?
Robert Knight presents written testimony to the Maryland House Judiciary Committee.
Marriage defenders often hear some pretty amazing claims from opponents, such as, "You want to put bigotry into the Constitution."
Or: "You're against equality and for discrimination."
They're now even hearing such wild charges from sitting judges.
According to Baltimore Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock, who took it upon herself on January 20 to strike down Maryland's marriage law because it doesn't include unions that exclude a bride or a groom, the very nature of marriage as we have always known is discriminatory.
Since when did defending the integrity of marriage become an act of bigotry? Well, it's not.
For all of America's history, marriage has been defined as the union of a man and a woman. In fact, all major religions honor marriage. Marriage was created by God and is protected in the law because it is indispensable to human social order. Morality is not bigotry, even if Judge Murdock apparently thinks it is.
Marriage is about more than the union of two people, which is why the law bothers to take an interest. It is about two families joining, about children coming into the world and having a mother and father, about extending kinship patterns, passing on family names and property, and binding the sexes together in a unique, complementary union. If marriage was not so important for what it actually is, we would not even be worrying about its legal status.
But the attempt to eject an entire sex from the equation and then call it "equal,"� is not only dishonest but also dangerous. It imposes a lie on people who know better. That leads to tyranny.
It's one thing for people to have their own ceremonies and declare their affections. It's a free country; anybody can do that. But it is another thing entirely for the state to recognize a union, create incentives for such a union, and to impose that definition on all organizations and institutions.
Marriage was not "“ I repeat, not "“ invented to annoy and exclude homosexuals. Those who accuse marriage defenders of being "bigots"� are engaging in name-calling, nothing more.
The term "marriage"� refers specifically to the joining of two people of the opposite sex. When that is lost, "marriage"� becomes meaningless. You can no more leave an entire sex out of marriage and call it "marriage"� than you can leave chocolate out of a "chocolate brownie"� recipe. It becomes something else.
Giving non-marital relationships the same status as marriage does not expand the definition of marriage; it destroys it. In Scandinavian nations, marriage rights were "expanded"� two decades ago to unwed couples, destabilizing the real thing. Over the past decade, the conferral of marriage rights on homosexual couples has nearly finished the job of destroying marriage.
According to a well-documented article, The End of Marriage in Scandinavia , by Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover Institution, acceptance of "gay marriage"� has accelerated the process to the point where the vast majority of children in Norway, Sweden and other nations are now born out of wedlock and are being raised essentially by the government. The Netherlands is now on the same path. If that is the kind of future Marylanders want, then Judge Murdock will become the patron saint of a new order in which government will increasingly become both Daddy and Mommy.
Marriage, the Natural Family, and the Best Interests of Children
Marriage is the union of the only type of couple capable of natural reproduction of the human race"”a man and a woman. Children need both mothers and fathers, and marriage is society's way of obtaining them.
Even childless marriages are a social anchor for children, who observe adults as role models. Besides, childless couples can be "surprised"� by an unexpected pregnancy, and they can also adopt, giving a child a mother-and-father-based family. Single parents can eventually marry. And marriage is a stabilizing force for all. Even when a couple is past the age of reproduction, the marital and family commitment usually keeps an older man from fathering a child with a younger woman outside wedlock.
Children learn about family life by observing crucial relationships up close: interactions between men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and parents to children of the same and opposite sexes. Human experience and a vast body of social science research show that children do best in married, mother-father households. It is wrong to create fatherless or motherless families by design. The arrangement may gratify some adults, but it is not in the best interests of children.
Homosexual activists and their allies at professional organizations often assert that "science" has proved that children are no different if raised in homosexual households. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) even released a statement to this effect, and featured an article in an AAP journal by a pro-homosexual researcher as the foundation for its assessment. This researcher showed her biases right up front by describing marriage-based family law as "heterosexist."� So much for objective science.
Most "gay parenting" studies compare children in lesbian households with children in heterosexual, single-mother households. The only major study to directly compare children raised in married, single-parent and same-sex households was published by the journal Children Australia, and it revealed that, "Overall, the study has shown that children of married couples are more likely to do well at school, in academic and social terms, than children of cohabiting heterosexual and homosexual couples."
The "gay parenting" studies, as a whole, are extremely flawed, with all but a handful written by pro-homosexual researchers. In No Basis: What the studies Don't tell us about same-sex parenting, authors Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai demonstrate that all of these studies are "gravely deficient," with some having self-selected sample sizes of less than a dozen people. Earlier, the Journal of Divorce & Remarriage examined a number of "gay parenting" studies and reported: "The conclusion that there are no significant differences in children reared by lesbian mothers versus heterosexual mothers is not supported by the published research data base."
In 2001, a team of pro-homosexual researchers from the University of Southern California did a meta-analysis of "gay parenting" studies and published a refreshingly honest article in American Sociological Review, "(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?" The authors concluded that, yes, studies show that girls are more likely to "be sexually adventurous and less chaste," including being more likely to try lesbianism, and that boys are more likely to have "fluid" conceptions of gender roles, and that researchers should stop trying to cover this up in the hopes of pursuing a pro-homosexual agenda. The researchers said, in effect: Some of the kids are more likely to turn out gay or bisexual, but so what?
Even with all their statistical shortcomings, the parenting studies, as a whole, show that children raised in same-sex households are more likely to view homosexuality positively, try homosexuality themselves, or to suffer gender identity confusion. This makes sense; children's most important role models are their parents. If homosexual behavior is offered to them as normal on a daily basis, more of them are going to think it is normal and desirable.
In an often-quoted study by Susan Golombok and Fiona Tasker, the authors note that the "large majority of children who grew up in lesbian households identified as heterosexual." But another of their findings is often ignored: "Those who had grown up in a lesbian family were more likely to consider the possibility of having lesbian or gay relationships, and to actually do so." The authors conclude that growing up in a lesbian household's "accepting atmosphere" of homosexuality "may facilitate the development of a lesbian or gay sexual orientation for some individuals. But, interestingly, the opportunity to explore same-sex relationships may, for others, confirm their heterosexual identity."
Since there is no credible scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic, it makes sense that kids exposed to parental homosexuality will tend to see it as a viable option. This is tragic, since homosexuality has well-documented health risks, especially for young men, but also for young women.
The drive for homosexual "marriage"� by whatever name leads to destruction of the gold standard for custody and adoption. The question should be: "What is in the best interests of the child?"� The answer is: "Place children, whenever possible, in a married, mom-and-dad household."� As homosexual relationships gain status, marriage loses its place as the preferential adoption-family option, thus short-changing children.
Defining Marriage is not "Discrimination"�
Maryland's marriage law is not discriminatory. Marriage is open to all adults, subject to age and blood relation limitations. As with any acquired status, the applicant must meet minimal requirements, which in terms of marriage, means finding an opposite-sex spouse. Same-sex partners do not qualify. To put it another way, clerks will not issue dog licenses to cats, and it is not out of "bigotry"� toward cats.
Comparing current laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman with the laws in some states that once limited inter-racial marriage is irrelevant and misleading. The very soul of marriage"”the joining of the two sexes"”was never at issue when the Supreme Court struck down laws against inter-racial marriage in Loving v. Virginia.
"How Does It Hurt You?"�
Proponents of same-sex "marriage"� often ask the question, "How does a gay "˜marriage' hurt you or your marriage?'"�
First, creating counterfeits undermines support in the law and culture for the real thing. Second, requiring citizens to sanction or subsidize homosexual relationships violates the freedom of conscience of millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims and other people who believe marriage is the union of the two sexes. Civil marriage is a public act. Homosexuals are free to have a "union"� ceremony with each other privately, but they are not free to demand that such a relationship be solemnized and subsidized under the law.
Homosexual activists say they need legal status so they can visit their partners in hospitals, etc. But hospitals leave visitation up to the patient except in very rare instances. This "issue"� is a smokescreen to cover the fact that, using legal instruments such as power of attorney, drafting a will, etc., homosexuals can share property, designate heirs, dictate hospital visitors and give authority for medical decisions. What they should not obtain is identical recognition and support for a relationship that is not equally essential to society's survival.
The Legal and Social Fallout
Providing non-marital relationships with marital-type status will:
Further weaken the family, the first and best defense against an ever-encroaching government.
Encourage children to experiment with homosexuality. This will put more kids at risk for HIV, hepatitis A, B and C, "gay bowel syndrome,"� human papillomavirus (HPV), syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases. Homosexual households are also more prone to domestic violence. For example: "The incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population,"� according to D. Island and P. Letellier in Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them (New York: Haworth Press, 1991). A study in the Journal of Social Service Research reported that "slightly more than half of the [lesbians surveyed] reported that they had been abused by a female lover/partner."� (G. Lie and S. Gentlewarrior, "Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications,"� No. 15, 1991.) More cites can be found in Tim Dailey, The Negative Health Effects of Homosexuality, Insight paper, Family Research Council, 2001.
Put more children at risk as adoption agencies abandon the current practice of favoring married households and begin placing more children in motherless or fatherless households.
Encourage more people to remain trapped in homosexuality rather than seek to re-channel their desires toward normal sexuality.
Pit the law and Maryland's government against the beliefs of millions of people who believe homosexuality is wrong.
Create grounds for further attacks on the freedoms of speech, religion and association. Businesses that decline to recognize non-marital relationships will increasingly be punished through loss of contracts and even legal action. This is already occurring in California and Canada.
Change the popular understanding of what marriage is and what it requires. Homosexual relationships, which usually lack both permanence and fidelity, are unlikely to change to fit the traditional model of lifelong, faithful marriage, as several homosexual activists have admitted. Instead, society's expectations of marriage will change in response to the homosexual model, thus leading to a further weakening of the institution of marriage. Some homosexual activists have acknowledged that they intend to use marriage mainly as a way to radically shift society's entire conception of sexual morality. (See appendix.)
Conclusion
"Marriage"� for same-sex couples (or the counterfeit equivalent under pseudonyms such as "civil unions"� or "domestic partnerships"�) is being promoted as an extension of tolerance, equality and civil rights. But all these devices are really wedges designed to overturn traditional sexual morality and to win official affirmation, celebration, subsidization and solemnization of behavior that is harmful to the people who engage in it and to society, and that is still viewed as morally wrong by a majority of the American public.
For the well-being of children and of society, we must not allow the creation of judge-imposed counterfeit "marriage"� by any name. Marriage is civilization's primary institution, and we tamper with it at our own peril.
H.B. 48 is essential to protecting Maryland's future generations from social engineering and the type of judicial overreach epitomized by Judge Murdock's ruling.
Robert H. Knight is director of the Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America. Mr. Knight was a draftsman of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the current law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for all federal purposes and allows states to resist demands to recognize counterfeit "marriage"� licenses. Some references were drawn from "Questions and Answers: What's Wrong With Letting Same-Sex Couples "˜Marry?'"� by Peter Sprigg, Family Research Council, InFocus, Number 256, August 14, 2003.
Appendix: In Their Own Words
Homosexual activists have long understood the radical power of achieving official recognition for homosexual relationships as "marriage."� Here is a sample:
"A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution."�
"”Michelangelo Signorile, "Bridal Wave,"� OUT magazine, December/January 1994, p. 161.
* * *
"[E]nlarging the concept to embrace same-sex couples would necessarily transform it into something new....Extending the right to marry to gay people -- that is, abolishing the traditional gender requirements of marriage -- can be one of the means, perhaps the principal one, through which the institution divests itself of the sexist trappings of the past."�
"”Tom Stoddard, quoted in Roberta Achtenberg, et al, "Approaching 2000: Meeting the Challenges to San Francisco's Families,"� The Final Report of the Mayor's Task Force on Family Policy, City and County of San Francisco, June 13, 1990, p.1.
* * *
"It is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us."
"”Michelangelo Signorile, "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,"� OUT magazine, May 1996, p. 30.
* * *
"Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. "¦ Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. "¦ As a lesbian, I am fundamentally different from non-lesbian women. "¦In arguing for the right to legal marriage, lesbians and gay men would be forced to claim that we are just like heterosexual couples, have the same goals and purposes, and vow to structure our lives similarly. "¦ We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society's view of reality."�
"”Paula Ettelbrick, "Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?"� in William Rubenstein, ed., Lesbians, Gay Men and the Law (New York: The New Press, 1993), pp. 401-405.
* * *
And there's this from pro-homosexual and pro-pedophile author Judith Levine:
"Because American marriage is inextricable from Christianity, it admits participants as Noah let animals onto the ark. But it doesn't have to be that way. In 1972 the National Coalition of Gay Organizations demanded the "˜repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.' Would polygamy invite abuse of child brides, as feminists in Muslim countries and prosecutors in Mormon Utah charge? No. Group marriage could comprise any combination of genders."�
"” Judith Levine, "Stop the Wedding: Why Gay Marriage Isn't Radical Enough,"� The Village Voice, July 23-29, 2003. Levine declines to mention that the 1972 Gay Rights Platform also called for abolishing age of consent laws. This is a curious omission since Levine herself has written in favor of lowering the age of consent to 12 for sex between children and adults in her book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (p. 88). (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0330/levine.php)
Written Testimony by Robert H. Knight, Director,
Culture & Family Institute,
an affiliate of Concerned Women for America
For the Maryland House Judiciary Committee
January 31, 2006
Concerning H.B. 48, the Maryland Marriage Amendment
Concerned Women for America - When Did Defending Marriage Become an Act of Bigotry?
Why Such a Hard Time with Miracles?
By Rev. Mark H. Creech
April 12, 2006
(AgapePress) - Over the years a number of explanations have been given to explain away Jesus' walking on the water. Some have argued Jesus wasn't actually walking on the water but was standing at the lake's edge in a shallow place. Because the night was cloudy and dark, the disciples only thought they saw Jesus stride across the sea, when actually He didn't. Others have fancifully argued Christ actually walked across a series of stones in the middle of the lake.
Nevertheless, not to be outdone among the skeptics, Professor Doron Nof of Florida State University claims it may have been ice Jesus stood on and not water. According to a recent article by Reuters, "Nof used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the dynamics of the Sea of Galilee, which Israelis know now as Lake Kinneret. Nof's study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1,500 and 2,600 years ago could have included the decades in which Jesus lived. A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice -- thick enough to support a human -- to form on the surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore ... it might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water."
It's hard to believe any such theories are ever taken seriously. Yet they often are. Why? Why is it so incredibly hard for some to believe the obvious -- a miracle took place?
Perhaps it's because in a scientific age some people feel we've outgrown the idea of miracles as nothing more than silly superstitions. But what makes us feel some of the people in Jesus' day weren't skeptical too? There's every reason to believe Nicodemus, a highly educated man in his day, was skeptical. Yet it seems it was the miracles of Christ that drove him to seek a meeting with the Savior by night to try and resolve his many questions (John 3:1, 2). Certainly Thomas was skeptical concerning the miracle of the resurrection. "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe," he said (John 20:25). So the people of Jesus' day were no less skeptical than many are today.
Yet they couldn't avoid the inescapable, irrefutable evidence of Jesus' miracles. He healed leprosy, paralysis, a withered hand, deaf and dumbness, blindness, a severed ear, hemorrhaging, and dropsy. He turned water into wine, stilled a storm, caused a supernatural catch of fish, multiplied food, and dried up a fig tree. He raised a man's daughter, a widow's son, and Lazarus from the dead. Interestingly, even the critics of Jesus' day didn't deny His miracle-working power. Instead they wanted to kill Him before everyone believed in Him (John 11:48).
According to Reuters, Nof says, "If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't. Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it." But how will Nof, and others who share his position, naturally explain all the other reported miracles of Jesus?
Moreover, apologist Josh McDowell writes: "[W]e must remember that scientific laws neither dictate events nor do they explain them. They are merely a generalization about observable causes and effects .... The proper way of determining if something happened is not whether we can explain it. The first question to be asked is not can it happen, but rather did it happen .... If an event can be determined as having happened, yet it defies explanation, we still have to admit that it happened, explanation or not. The evidence for biblical miracles is as powerful historically as other historical events (such as the fall of Rome and the conquests of Alexander the Great). Just because miracles are outside our normal daily experience does not mean they have not occurred and do not occur."
Still another reason why some people have a hard time accepting the miracles described in the Bible is because they compare them to Greek and Roman mythology -- tales of pagan miracle accounts that are clearly superstition. The difference, however, between the miraculous events recorded in the Bible and those in pagan religions are the firsthand accounts. In the Bible, miraculous events are always validated by the testimony of eyewitnesses.
What is more, their reality is often attested to by Christianity's adversaries. For instance there are many references to Jesus' miracles in the Jewish law books and histories. These are not mentioned in a complimentary way, but in a way that verifies Christ performed miracles. Julian the Apostate, Roman Emperor from A.D. 361-363, an ardent opponent of Christianity, also unwittingly admits Christ's power to perform miracles when he writes: "Jesus ... has now been celebrated about three hundred years; having done nothing in his lifetime worthy of fame, unless anyone thinks it a very great work to heal lame and blind people and exorcise demoniacs in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany."
So the fact that some miracles are counterfeits doesn't mean all are a sham. It's incredibly unscientific to throw out the miracles of the Bible based on "guilt by association."
The fact is the miracles of Jesus attest to His person. They are His credentials, proving His claim to be the Son of God. As A.E. Garvie once so eloquently stated it: "A Christ who being the Son of God, and seeking to become the Savior of men, (and) wrought no miracle, would be less intelligible and credible than the Jesus whom the Gospel records so consistently present to us."
There is only one reason Jesus walked on the water. It was not because He was walking on ice, but because He was who He claimed to be -- God in human flesh -- the very one who has the power to supersede all the laws of nature. Most importantly, it should be mentioned Jesus also performed miracles to demonstrate His authority to change and redeem lives, which is a considerably greater miracle than the ability to walk on water.
News from Agape Press
Abandonment of Christianity in Europe May Be Leading to Disaster
Feature by Ed Vitagliano
April 12, 2006
(AgapePress) - Anyone know where we can find some Etruscans? You know, members of the Etruscan civilization that existed in ancient Italy, predating even Rome?
Well, there aren't any. The Etruscans were absorbed by the Roman civilization and ceased to exist as a distinct people.
Ominously, if a growing number of experts and cultural observers are right, it's entirely possible that the same question may be asked 100 years from now -- only about Italians or Spaniards or Russians.
As writer Mark Steyn glumly put it in The New Criterion, "Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries."
A Birth Dearth
What could possibly cause such a cataclysm? Another world war? A nuclear confrontation? The devastation of a plague, similar to that caused by the Black Death in the 14th century? Nothing quite so dramatic, say the experts. Rather, Europe is slowly dying simply by refusing to have enough children to replace the people who die each year.
Catholic scholar George Weigel, a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of The Cube and The Cathedral, says Europe is "committing demographic suicide, systematically depopulating itself."
For any population to remain stable, it must maintain a birthrate of 2.1 births per woman. That rate provides a replacement for both mother and father, while the .1 covers infant and child mortality. When the birthrate falls below that number, a population goes into decline -- unless it invites in large numbers of immigrants.
"The 'birth dearth' is what demographers call plummeting birth rates in most of the industrialized world," says culture critic Chuck Colson. "Throughout Western Europe and East Asia, the birth rate is well below 2.1 births per woman ...."
Sociologist Ben Wattenberg, author of Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future, puts this birth dearth in historical perspective. "Never in the last 650 years, since the time of the Black Plague, have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places."
According to U.N. figures and other projections, Patrick Buchanan states in The Death of the West that by 2050 Europe (from Iceland to Russia) will see its population drop from 728 million (in 2000) to 600 million -- and perhaps 556 million. And if current trends continue, by the end of the century Europe's population will stand at 207 million.
Collapse of Family Values
Why has this happened? As it turns out, a variety of factors and trends have combined to create, as it were, the "perfect storm."
World magazine's Gene Edward Veith sums it up this way: "Why the population decline? The worldwide collapse of what are, literally, family values. Thanks to contraceptive technology, sex has become separated from childbearing. With women pursuing careers of their own and men getting sex without the responsibility of marriage, why bother with children? For many women and men, pregnancy has become an unpleasant side effect, something to prevent with contraceptives or easily treated with a trip to the abortion clinic."
Abortion comes in for particular blame in Veith's view. "The dirty little secret of the population implosion, one seldom mentioned by demographers, is that the world is aborting its future generations," he says.
Pro-family groups in the U.S., for example, rightly bemoan the abortion rate here, where Veith says one-third to one-fifth of all pregnancies end in abortion. Some European nations are far worse, however. "In Russia, the average woman may have as many as four abortions in her lifetime," he says. "There are two abortions for every live birth. That is to say, Russians kill two-thirds of their children before they are born."
All this is symptomatic of a pervasive hedonism that permeates the West, "a complete philosophy of pleasure," according to Allan Carlson, president of The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society.
"Everywhere in the European Community and Anglo-America, real attention focuses on the consumption of food (alternately rich and fat-free), frequent sex, and raucous fun," Carlson says. "Relatively few are pestered these days by children. Fertile young adults rely on mechanical devices and chemical agents to thwart the designs of nature. In places as culturally different as Spain, Italy, Denmark and Germany, the sexual experimentation starts early, but hardly anyone brings forth a child."
Despite efforts on the part of some European nations to increase the desire of adults to have children -- such as tax breaks or cash incentives -- some experts think the pursuit of personal fulfillment will triumph.
Joseph Chamie, director of the U.N. Population Division, says, "No demographers believe birth rates will rebound. How much will it take to convince a woman to have four children? People are concerned about their appearances, their education, their careers."
What's ironic, however, is that this pursuit of personal pleasure and personal wealth may result in economic ruin.
"When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers," Steyn argues. "If only a million babies are born in 2006, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 ...."
Veith lists but a few of the ramifications of population decline. "Citizens are not just consumers but producers," he says. "Having fewer people can wreak havoc on an economy, creating both a labor shortage and a shortage of buyers. A government with a shrinking population faces a smaller military and fewer taxpayers. Dwindling populations have always signaled cultural decline, with less creativity, energy, and vitality on every level of society."
Abandoning Christianity
These explanations do not go far enough to suit culture critic and columnist Don Feder, who sees Europe's abandonment of its Christian heritage as the true root cause of its population problems.
"It's no coincidence that central to the new Europe ... is a refusal to acknowledge the continent's origins," says Feder, who is Jewish. "The proposed constitution for the European Union (a document of over 70,000 words) contains not a single reference to Christianity. Thus more than a millennium of European history is effectively erased."
The abandonment of Christianity in most European countries has been well-documented. For example, author and journalist James P. Gannon says that in five key European countries -- France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy -- over the last 30 years regular church attendance has fallen from roughly 40% of the population to about 20%." As Weigel says, Western Europe has become a "post-Christian society."
Feder believes there is a clear link between a lack of faith and the loss of that sense of duty to the future that leads people to conceive and bear children. "Having lost their faith and embraced an ethic of radical autonomy," he says, "Europeans stopped going to church, stopped taking the Bible seriously, stopped believing in the future and stopped having children."
Maria Burani, president of the Parliamentary Commission for the Family and Infancy in Rome, told Citizen magazine that faith is a foundation for the kind of lifestyle that parenting requires. "If you don't have inside your head great religious and ethical principles," she insists, "you're just not going to want to go and have these kids because it's a sacrifice."
Beyond that, of course, is the fact that religious principles also restrain the often selfish behavior that grows out of the "radical autonomy" that permeates Europe. "Among the consequences of Europe's abandonment of its religious roots and the moral code that derives therefrom is a plunge in its birth rates to below the replacement level," says Gannon. "Abortion, birth control, acceptance of gay marriage and casual sex are driving the trend."
Islamification of Europe
However, the prognosis for Europe gets even worse because many of the nations there have chosen a risky path for making up for their population shortfalls: immigration. Because North Africa and the Middle East represent a relatively convenient source of cheap labor, millions of Muslim immigrants have been flooding the continent for a half century.
"Western Europe has gone from a Muslim population of 250,000, 50 years ago, to 20 million today," says Feder.
Unlike Westerners, however, Muslims typically have large families. According to Robert S. Leiken, director of the Immigration and National Security Program at the Nixon Center, higher Muslim birthrates combined with Muslim immigration have led the U.S. National Intelligence Council to project that Europe's Muslim population will double by 2025.
As a result, Colson says flatly, "[d]emographics may bring about what the Moors and Ottoman Empire couldn't: a Muslim Europe."
But so what? Isn't such hand-wringing about Muslim immigrants nothing more than utter bigotry?
Hardly, say concerned Westerners. The Islamification of Europe would bring incredible cultural changes to Europe. "In 50 to 100 years, the Europe of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo, the Europe of Rembrandt and Bach, the Europe of Churchill and Karol Wojtyla will exist only in textbooks and museums," Feder says. "Or, perhaps the remnants of Christian Europe will be subjected to the fate of Afghanistan's Buddhist statues, demolished by the Taliban regime."
Political changes would also be inevitable, Steyn insists. "Can a society become increasingly Islamic in its demographic character without becoming increasingly Islamic in its political character?"
It is a rhetorical question, of course, and Steyn predicts that by 2050 many European nations will be forced to apply Sharia -- Muslim law -- to Muslim communities. He notes the results of a 2004 poll that found that over 60 percent of British Muslims want to live under Muslim law -- while living in the United Kingdom.
At first, most European governments would probably resist the demands of an increasingly assertive Muslim population. But in response, it would not be surprising to see an escalation of what has already begun to transpire: terrorist bombings in London and Madrid; the 2002 assassination of conservative Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who campaigned on a platform of limiting Muslim immigration; the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004 for allegedly insulting Islam; rioting by Muslim youths throughout France in 2005; and rioting this year in response to political cartoons that were deemed offensive to Muslim sensibilities.
Steyn thinks Europe will see more such unrest -- and soon. "It seems more likely that within the next couple of European election cycles, the internal contradictions of the [European Union] will manifest themselves in the usual way," he says, "and that by 2010 we'll be watching burning buildings, street riots and assassinations on American network news every night."
In any case, Carlson says, "the Great Party [of Western hedonism] will not last much longer. There is an iron law in history: the future belongs to the fertile. Just as the clan-centered, child-rich barbarian tribes of the Germans swept away the sensuous and sterile Western Roman Empire, so shall new barbarians arise."
Scripture teaches that God rules over the nations, and the future of Europe looks increasingly like that of Israel when its prophets warned of impending chastisement and judgment. Are we on the brink of God's chastisement of Europe, even after a century of wars and other atrocities failed to bring the continent back to Christianity?
How ironic it would be that a European culture that demanded unlimited personal freedom might wind up living under the repressive heel of Muslim totalitarianism. Or that a culture that rejected its Christian heritage might, instead, be subjected to Islamic fundamentalism.
Cultures have disappeared before. Just ask the Etruscans. If you can find one.
Europe's Chastisement? -- How the Abandonment of Christianity May Be Leading to Disaster
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Judge's Transcendental Meditation Sentence Crossed the Line
By Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
April 11, 2006
(AgapePress) - An attorney with the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (AFA Law Center) says a circuit judge in St. Louis, Missouri, may have overstepped his authority when he sentenced a woman who plead guilty to voter fraud and drug possession to take part in a transcendental meditation program.
When Michelle Robinson pleaded guilty to 13 violations of election law and possession of crack cocaine and a crack pipe, Judge David Mason sentenced her to four years of probation for all charges. He also ordered her to get training in the Hindu practice known as transcendental meditation.
AFA Law Center attorney Brian Fahling is troubled by the judge's sentence. "Even if you don't regard transcendental meditation as a religion within the constitutional sense," he explains, "what you have here is a judge ordering an individual to engage in a practice that does have a spiritual dimension to it, and it intrudes on the heart and the mind."
Brian Fahling
What that means, Fahling says, is "you've got a governmental actor who's ordering an individual to participate in something that perhaps may run contrary to their own particular beliefs and belief system." Still, the attorney says he is not really surprised by the judge's order because it is consistent with a larger trend toward secularization that is progressing in America.
Transcendental meditation, of which Judge Mason is an advocate, is traditionally associated with Hinduism; however, it is practiced by members of many world religions and has become popular with adherents of New Age spirituality as well. Those who engage in "TM" are encouraged to clear their minds and sit in silence, with eyes closed, mentally repeating a simple sound known as a mantra, their objective being what practitioners call "pure consciousness."
The question of whether or not transcendental meditation constitutes a religion is one that is still being debated, even though those who say it is a religion can point to a wealth of prima facie evidence. The abundant proofs include TM's references to and use of Hindu astrology, terms, scriptures, and even ceremonies, including one in which practitioners are asked to get on their knees and bow before a picture of Guru Dev, a revered Hindu "enlightened" master.
A federal court has even weighed in on this debate. In Malnak v. Yogi (1979), a U.S. District Court ruled that under the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, transcendental meditation is too religious to be taught in public schools. Nevertheless, the practice continues to be promoted by advocates under the rubric of health and wellness and stress-reduction programs, and other attempts have been made to incorporate TM techniques into public schools and other institutional settings.
Christian Lawyer Sees in TM a Poor Substitute for Spiritual Truth
Fahling believes the persistent popularity of such pseudo-spiritual techniques is a by-product of spreading secularism in America -- the effect of a society that has largely rejected biblical truth yet still hungers for something to believe in. "To coin an old phrase, nature abhors a vacuum," he notes. "The nature of man, as Luther said, [is that] there's a God-shaped void in his heart.
"To the degree you take out Christianity as the predominant 'hole filler,' if you will, then something is going to rush in to fill that void," the pro-family attorney continues. "And so, certainly, it's not unexpected [that] we do see this increasing cultural embracing of anything else -- other than Christianity -- that has a spiritual dimension to it."
Among the primary appeals of transcendental meditation, according to proponents, is that it offers a scientific means of overcoming stress while conferring many physiological benefits. Critics, however, contradict this claim and point to studies and anecdotal evidence suggesting that TM may actually be hazardous to participants' health and psychological well being
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Saturday, April 08, 2006
A review of Hallmark/ABC's The Ten Commandments
A review of Hallmark/ABC's The Ten Commandments
by John N. Oswalt
Research Professor of Old Testament
Wesley Biblical Seminary
Jackson, Mississippi
There is a lot to like about the movie.
In many cases, such as the healing of the water at Marah, or the giving of the manna, or the triumphing over the Egyptian diviners, the movie seems to follow the Bible text closely and presents good visual images of these.
The self-doubt of Moses and his inner struggles, especially in the early going, are probably accurate.
The rag-tag nature of the people and the vicious nature of Moses' opponents is well portrayed. There is no attempt to downplay the miraculous (in most cases).
That being said, I think the movie has a lot of problems.
The unnecessary departures from the Biblical story line:
The Pharaoh did not make a one-time attempt to kill the boy babies because of some silly prophecy. It was his settled policy that the mid-wives should conduct post-birth abortions in order to destroy the Israelites as a people. Aaron came out to meet Moses as directed by God and in confirmation of God's word to Moses. There was no hocus-pocus about Joseph giving them the "I AM" name in advance so that they could identify the deliverer.
Moses knew that he was to take them to Sinai where they would worship God; and they all knew where the Promised Land was.
The Golden Calf is expressly said to have been a molded image which Aaron cast from molten gold. They missed one of the best pieces of ironic humor in the Bible when Aaron whines to Moses, "I put the gold in the fire, and out came this calf!"
The additions to the story (all of which are designed to make the Lord [and Moses] look bad). Menrith, Zipporah's rejection (which is not what the story implies), and the Hur incident are all used to say that God is harsh and demanding and really doesn't care what he takes from us.
The omissions (which bother me most of all).
The conflict of the plagues was not between Moses and Pharaoh; it was between God and Pharaoh. This is lost by leaving out God's commands to Moses regarding each of the plagues.
The celebration by the sea recorded in Exodus 15. Moses was not weeping over some half-brother. He was leading the Israelites in exultant praise of God in one of the great hymns in all human history.
The whole point of the Exodus is the Covenant. This was not a "bargain" (the making of which takes about 4 minutes of the 180). The Covenant is a detailed revelation of the character of God, of which the 10 Commandments are a very brief summary. The people were carefully briefed on the nature of what was expected of them, both verbally and in writing. And when they agreed (Exodus 24) it was a very solemn ceremony, where they swore their obedience in blood, calling down curses on themselves if they failed, and culminating with Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the 70 elders having a meal in the presence of God. Thus, the Golden Calf incident was done in the full knowledge of just what it was they were rejecting.
The conversations between Moses and God in both Exodus 32 and 34, both of which show God's compassion and his willingness to forgive and restore the relationship.
The Tabernacle (!!!), which is the climax of it all "“ God coming to take up residence in their midst, not in curse, but in blessing.
Probably the reason the Covenant and the Tabernacle are left out is because of the "scholars" the producers say they consulted with. Many scholars today insist that the covenant and Tabernacle are much later additions to the story. But, good grief, if they are going to go part way, why not go all the way? Most OT scholars today, sad to say, not only deny those things, they also deny that there was a Moses or an Exodus. So if you are going to do the story, do it all the way or not at all.
The distortions
The Amalekites were raiders from the far north of the Sinai peninsula. They had no settlements south of Mt. Sinai. Their presence that far south in the peninsula was simply a sign that they saw the rag-tag crowd as "easy pickings" for a lightning aggressive attack. This is why the Bible pronounced a curse on them. They were not protecting their territory; they were slaughtering people they (wrongly) believed were helpless.
It was the Levites who stood with Moses after the Golden Calf incident and they went through their own tribe picking out those who had led the false worship. The total killed (out of the huge group of people) was 3000. There was nothing like the wholesale slaughter depicted in the movie. The incident is only 3 verses long!
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Proliferation of Public Profanity a Cultural -- and Spiritual -- Problem
By Tim Wildmon
April 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - Perhaps you saw the same survey I saw the other day about Americans and public profanity. It said that we the people are cursing more frequently and using words that were once considered taboo in public. I was probably 12 years old when I first heard the "f" word used by a neighborhood kid. I even asked my parents what it meant because I had no idea. Talk about an awkward moment for a parent. Today, however, you frequently hear words such as this out in the open.
A few weeks back I was on an airplane and the 25-year-old male a few seats over was yaking on his cell phone, letting everyone in on his business that none of us cared about. About every 60 seconds he felt the need to use the "f" word. I don't know if that made him feel more adult or what. Later in the airport waiting on a connecting flight, there was a lady, about 50, talking loudly on her cell phone. I heard her twice use the "f" word in what sounded like a casual conversation. Then while I walked at a local park earlier this week some teenage boys were playing basketball. One of them called another one a "mf" just as casual as you please. They were not in a fight, they were just talking to one another.
Raw profanity has become an acceptable part of popular culture today.
Rap music -- the most popular music among young people today -- is filled with gutter language. They play it loudly in their cars. Movies and television programs use hard profanity on a regular basis. In a way, we have become desensitized to it. This has been the goal of Hollywood for many years. There was a time before the mid-60s when foul language was not used on television, in movies or popular music.
But today many people mock you if you complain about public profanity. They say it's just the way people talk today and the language one uses doesn't matter. My question then is, why use words like "f" and "mf" and "gd" in public if language doesn't matter? Why didn't the teenage boy on the basketball court just say, "Give me the ball, John," instead of "Give me the ball 'mf'?" Why did certain words come out of the young man's mouth and not others? I contend most people who use foul language intentionally do so because they understand the words themselves represent rebellion against societal norms -- or what used to be societal norms. Otherwise, why use that kind of language? It's an attention grabber. Then, after using profanity for a long period of time, it does become second nature -- just the way people talk.
For the Christian, foul language is forbidden by the Bible. That is why using profanity in public was considered unacceptable before we became a post-Christian culture. Christian values and morals are now considered passé or "old-fashioned" to many Americans "“ especially the younger generation, sad to say.
In the New Testament book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul gives these instructions to followers of Jesus: "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there by any obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving" (Ephesians 5:1-4).
In Ephesians 4:29 Paul says: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
What I take from this is that we shouldn't tear down people personally. So, in the spirit of that biblical command, I don't desire to attack anyone. If we have criticism of someone, we can do so without attacking that person himself -- and do so with the purpose of achieving a positive resolution to the problem. We can talk about an offense without mounting a personal attack on the one who has offended.
Even though we know the standard, still, we are human and we often fail to live up to those standards. But the occasional slip is not what I am talking about. I wish it were. What I am talking about is a serious profanity problem in the general population. Sadly, I doubt we can reverse this trend. As I stated earlier, in many respects our American society has rejected the Christian moral value system. So this really is the way people talk to each other if they don't care what God thinks about the words that come out of their mouths. To them -- to us in our current cultural context -- it doesn't seem to matter. But according to God's Word, words still matter.
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