US Aid Subsidizes Persecution of Christians

March 10, 2013 By 3 Comments
U.S. FOREIGN AID SHOULD NOT GO TO COUNTRIES, LIKE EGYPT, WHERE CHRISTIANS ARE PERSECUTED.

U.S. FOREIGN AID SHOULD NOT GO TO COUNTRIES, LIKE EGYPT, WHERE CHRISTIANS ARE PERSECUTED.

Much has been made – and rightly so – of recent news reports that President Obama somehow managed to find a spare $250 million to send to Egypt while warning American taxpayers about “immediate, painful, arbitrary budget cuts” to come as a result of the so-called sequester.

The president’s dishonesty offends. But what particularly outrages is that he gifted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi with U.S. foreign aid even as his Islamist regime continues to persecute the country’s Coptic Christians, who make up 10 percent of Egypt’s population.

CNN recently reported, “Threats by Muslim extremists against Coptic Christians in the past year have forced scores of Christian families to flee their homes in Dahshur and the Egyptian border town of Rafah.”

For Egypt’s Copts, memories remain fresh of Islamist terror attacks upon their churches two years ago, as well as violence suffered at the hands of Egyptian military and security forces by Christian protestors demanding protection of their places of worship.

The reason Mr. Obama has no compunction whatsoever about cutting a quarter-billion dollar check to Cairo – a mere down payment on more than $1.5 billion Morsi’s government  will receive in 2013 – is that the more than three-quarters of Americans who count themselves Christian haven’t uttered a peep in protest.

Well, we should be silent no more. We should raise voices until they are heard all the way to Washington. We should demand that Congress withhold foreign aid to countries, like Morsi’s Egypt, in which our brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted.

The initial targets should be the ten countries that are, both, among those for which Mr. Obama has proposed the most foreign aid in 2013, according to the State Department’s foreign assistance dashboard, and those that rank among the 50 countries where persecution of Christians is most severe, according to the 2013 watch list compiled by Open Doors, an international faith-based organization.

Here, then, is The Christian Diarist list of the Worst of the Worst U.S. Foreign Aid Beneficiaries:

Afghanistan. The president proposes to send $2.5 billion this year to Kabul (not including U.S. funding of continuing military operations). According to Open Doors, Christians cannot meet in public and even gatherings in private houses require extreme caution. No church buildings exist, even for expatriates. Both local and foreign Christians are subject to kidnapping, abduction, killing, often having to flee the country.

Pakistan. Mr. Obama’s foreign aid budget includes $2.2 billion for the ally – supposedly – that harbored Osama Bin Laden. Many of Pakistan’s persecuted Christians are uneducated manual workers, says Open Doors, who suffer unfair treatment from employers. Muslim men continue to sexually assault underage Christian girls. Opening a new church building is virtually impossible and emigration of Christians continues.

Iraq. The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki looks forward to $2 billion from Washington. Christians in Iraq are on the verge of extinction, Open Doors warns. Large numbers of persecuted Christians have fled abroad or to the (until recently) safer Kurdish region. The church faces many challenges, not the least, members being killed or abducted.

Egypt. For the reasons previously stated.

Jordan. King Abdullah II is expecting $671 million from U.S. taxpayers. Public evangelization of Muslims is against government policy. There is no official recognition of those that leave Islam for Christianity. Converts can find their marriages annulled and children taken from them.

Nigeria. Lagos has a $600 million payday coming from Washington. The government of President Goodluck Jonathan has done little to reign in the Nigerian terror group, Boko Haram, whose attacks upon Christian churches have claimed the lives of at least 800 Christ followers.

Tanzania. President Obama has earmarked $571 million for this Christian majority African nation. On the Zanzibar archipelago, Islamic militants are bent on wiping out all Christians. They have burnt and looted churches and threatened persecuted Christians with death.

Kenya. The birthplace of the president’s father looks forward to $460 million in U.S. largesse. Like Tanzania, Kenya is a Christian majority country. However, according to Open Doors, in the Muslim-majority areas there are high levels of intolerance and hostility towards Christians. Al-Shabaab and similar Islamist terror groups were responsible last year for a high level of violence against Christians, according to Open Doors, with 22 killed and more than 10 churches were burnt, looted or destroyed.

Uganda. Mr. Obama proposes $438 million for Kampala. Muslims are spread over the whole country. They live in pockets, and in those areas Islamist extremists present a serious threat to the Christian church. Meanwhile, local authorities controlling those Muslim areas discriminate against  Christians, barring them from public office or denying them promotion.

Ethiopia. The government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn is in line for $351.3. Converts to Christianity, as well as “underground believers,” have to be exceedingly cautious to avoid being traced by Islamist extremists, like the terror group, Kewarjah, which is blamed for repeated attacks against Christians in the country’s southwest.

Filed Under: PERSECUTION Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Why Christians Should Not Vote For Obama

November 4, 2012 By 6 Comments

‘BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST,’ BY REMBRANDT. ‘YOU HAVE BEEN WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES, AND FOUND WANTING.’

The Bible tells the story of Belshazzar, the very last king of Babylon, who held a great feast for a thousand of his lords during which he commanded his servants to bring the sacred vessels which had been pillaged from God’s holy temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords could drink from them.

In the midst of the unholy revelry, a disembodied hand materialized and wrote upon a wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

It was a message to Belshazzar.

“God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it. You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; Your kingdom has been divided…”

America is today ruled by a president who defies God, much as Belshazzar did. And for faithful Christ followers who remain undecided how they will vote on Election Day, let us offer ten reasons why they absolutely should not cast their ballots for Barack Obama:

I. The president refuses to acknowledge America’s Christian origins. During a state visit to Turkey, Mr. Obama told his Muslim hosts, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” That amounted to a repudiation of the nation’s founders, almost all of whom were devoted Christ followers.

II. The president has undermined the institution of marriage – which heretofore was known as “holy matrimony” – by embracing same-sex marriage. His position defies the Word of God, which unequivocally states, “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.”

III. The president is complicit in the slaughter of more than 4.5 million unborn children during his watch, having sold his soul to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider. The president even supports late-term abortion and, worst still, the withholding of physician care for babies that actually survive attempted abortion.

IV. The president has said nothing, and done nothing, about the religious oppression, the violent attacks, upon Christian minorities in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. The attacks have increased more than 300 percent over the past 10 years.

V. The president only pretends to be a friend of Israel, the birthplace of Christianity. During last year’s G-20 Summit in Canne, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Mr. Obama that he couldn’t bear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Sarkozy called “a liar.” The president concurred. “You’re fed up?” he said. “I have to deal with him everyday.”

VI. The president gave his imprimatur to a decision to remove any reference to “God” in the Democratic Party Platform, and any declaration of Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel (a designation disputed by Islamists who refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist). He reversed course only after a great public outcry.

VII. The president is hostile to religious freedom as evidence by the argument his  administration made before the Supreme Court that church employees can claim workplace discrimination when their beliefs or conduct are contrary to the tenets of their faith-based employers.

VIII. The president’s health care reform mandates the insurers provide contraceptives on demand for single women – like Sandra Fluke – which amounts to tacit approval of sexual promiscuity.

IX. The president takes spiritual counsel from radical pastors like Jeremiah Wright and Joseph Lowery. Rev. Wright, who married Barack and Michelle Obama, infamously stated that, instead of singing “God Bless America,” blacks should sing “God Damn America.” Rev. Lowry, who spoke at Obama’s inauguration, just recently said, when he was a young civil rights activist, he would say “all white folks are going to hell.” Then he mellowed “and just said most of them are.” Now, he said, he is back to where he was.

X. The president professes himself a man of faith but has managed to attend Sunday church services not even a tenth as many times as he has stolen away from the White House to play golf.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hooray to Our Medal-Winning Christian Olympians

August 10, 2012 By 2 Comments

GYMNAST GABBY DOUGLAS WON TWO GOLD MEDALS AT THE LONDON GAMES.

I’m proud of the entire U.S. Olympic team. But I’m particularly proud of our Olympic athletes who competed in London not for personal glory– and the fame and fortune that comes with it in some cases – but for God and country.

Among our Christian Olympians who medaled over the past fortnight were two precocious high schoolers, 16-year-old Gabby Douglas and 17-year-old Missy Franklin.

Gabby, a gymnast, won gold in both the women’s all-around and team competition. Missy, a swimmer, won five medals, four gold and one bronze, while setting two world records in the process.

“I give all the glory to God,” said Gabby. “God has blessed me with so much,” tweeted Missy.

Similar sentiments were expressed by two members of the U.S. women’s track and field team, Allyson Felix, who captured gold in the 200 meters, and Sandra Richards Ross, who took gold in the 400 meters.

There were also two faithful Christians on the gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s soccer team, Lauren Cheney and Amy Rodriguez.

Then there’s Kevin Durant, a member of the U.S. men’s basketball team, who may very well score gold when he and his fellow NBA roundballers take on Spain in the finals.

Of course, not everyone is happy to see our Christian Olympians fare as well as they have in London.

Like Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams, who hated on Gabby, in an article in which bemoaned, “The gold medalist is a teenager of deep faith and gratitude – and that can be a little unnerving.”

Williams added that she agreed with a colleague at Salon who said of young Gabby, “I would like her more if she were not so, so, so into Jesus.”

That’s the kind of animus faced by Christian athletes – like Gabby, Missy, Allyson, Sandra, Lauren, Amy and Kevin – when they dare to lift up the name of Jesus.

And that’s why they need the support, the prayers, of those us who count ourselves Christ followers.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Missouri Prayer Amendment Nears Passage

August 7, 2012 By 1 Comment

BALLOT MEASURE WOULD AFFIRM RIGHT TO PRAYER IN PUBLIC SQUARE.

Missouri voters decide the fate today of a ballot measure, Amendment 2, which would affirm the right of residents of the Show Me State to pray “individually or corporately in a private or public setting.”

The proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution has, of course, provoked much sound and fury from the godless element, as well as those who profess to believe in God, but who want to ban their Creator from the public square.

“Help protect our children from indoctrination and a lifetime of ignorance,” exhorts the nascent Missouri chapter of the atheist Secular Coalition of America.

“Missouri Amendment 2 is completely unnecessary,” claims Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“If Missourians amend their Constitution, they will erode rather than enhance their religious freedom,” opines the New York Times.

These and other foes of Amendment 2 just don’t get it.

The reason the measure almost certainly will be approved today is because Missouri’s Christian majority has decided it will no longer do nothing as the godless, the secularist, the non-sectarian wage unholy war against those who share the faith of this nation’s founders.

Indeed, James Madison, author of the First Amendment, who said the “whole future of American civilization” depended upon the “capacity of each and every one of us” to “sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God,” could never have imagined how hostile this nation would become to the Almighty, and to His only begotten Son.

Would Madison have had a problem with display of a nativity scene in a public library? Would he have objected to crosses marking the graves of Christian war dead at national cemeteries? Would he have considered student prayer at a public school an unconstitutional establishment or religion?

I don’t think so. And neither does Missouri state Rep. Mike McGhee, who sponsored Amendment 2.

McGee consulted for many years with Rev. Terry Hodges, his pastor at First Baptist Church in Odessa, Missouri, before crafting the measure that appears today on the state ballot.

For much of the nation’s first 150 years or so, said Pastor Hodges, those who shared Madison’s Christian faith “enjoyed home field advantage,” However, he added, “That’s changed, and there’s now there’s a hostility to Christians.”

Passage of Amendment 2 will not diminish the freedom from religion the godless, the secularist, the non-sectarian currently enjoy. It simply will “level the playing field,” as Pastor Hodges puts it, for Missouri residents who desire to freely exercise their religion.

Filed Under: CHURCH & STATE Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

ESPN The Magazine Stoops to Soft-Core Porn

July 11, 2012 By 6 Comments

NFL JOCK ROB GRONKOWSKY STRIKES A POSE FOR ESPN THE MAGAZINE’S ‘BODY ISSUE.’

Since its debut back in 1998, ESPN the Magazine has tried to find a hook to rival the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Well, the editors at “the Mag,” as they refer to their publication, may very well have found it with their annual “Body Issue,” which just arrived at newsstands.

It boasts multiple covers, the most shocking of which features New England Patriots tight-end Rob Gronkowski, in all his naked splendor, striking a full-frontal pose, save for a strategically-placed dot covering his package.

And Gronkowski is not the only athlete that put out for ESPN’s Body Issue. Another 26 jocks and jockettes got unclothed for the cameras, much to the titillation, no doubt, of the magazine’s more voyeuristic readers.

Of course, the editors at the Mag deny they are trying to out-sex SI, whose annual swimsuit issue is borderline soft-core pornography. ESPN claims that its Body Issue is “a celebration of the athletic form.”

Indeed, some of the nudes might be considered “artistic” in some quarters. But ESPN’s image of Gronkowski will never be mistaken for Michelangelo’s “David.” Nor will the Mag’s photo of Ronda Rousy, the mixed martial artist, be confused with the “Venus de Milo.”

ESPN’s Body Issue is not about art. It’s not about stopping, as the Mag disingenuously suggests, “to admire the vast potential of the human form.”

It’s about luring readers to the Mag to see athletes “taking it off,” as ESPN teases.         

That’s why the Mag promises us nude pictorials of “the bodies we want.” That’s why it invites its readers to “imagine how it would feel to inhabit those bodies.”

There is little doubt those double entendres are intentional.

What particularly disappoints is that ESPN the Magazine has persuaded professed Christian athletes to appear unclothed in its Body Issue.

Like Carmelita Jeter, who appears in this year’s issue, who praised God effusively after winning the 100-meter dash at the recent U.S. Olympic Trials, but who somehow sees nothing ungodly about posing for nudey photos.

She follows the example set last year by Lolo Jones, the U.S. Olympic hurdler, who says she is honoring God by staying a virgin until marriage, but who stripped down in the Mag for the whole world to see.

Like every other athlete whot has appeared in the Body Issue the past four years, Jeter and Jones rationalize that there is nothing wrong with nudity. That it’s natural. That it’s a beautiful thing.

Well, the young women are right, for the most part, when it comes to private nudity. But they are wrong, for the most part, about public nudity, such as their soft-core pictorials in ESPN’s Body Issue.

Indeed, the nude athletic bodies on public dispaly in the Mag tempt readers to look upon them lustfully. And causing others to stumble into sin is itself a sin.

Filed Under: Popular Culture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Defeat Awaits Gay-Marriage Backers in North Carolina

May 8, 2012 By 7 Comments

PRE-ELECTION DAY POLLS SHOW NORTH CAROLINA VOTERS SUPPORT TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE.

Here’s a message to gay America as voters in North Carolina go to the polls today to decide the fate of Amendment 1, a ballot measure that would define marriage as between one man and one woman in the Tarheel State’s constitution:

Don’t attack those who vote for the measure as “gay haters.”

I voted for a similar measure in my state. And it was not because of any animus I have toward gays – some of whom I count as valued friends, some as respected colleagues and some as beloved members of my very own family.

I simply believe that homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God. And I refused to check my Christian convictions at the door to my polling place when the issue of same-sex marriage appeared on my state ballot.

Some suggest that it is inconsistent for those who share my views to fully accept gays as friends, colleagues and family members while, at the same time, denying them the right to marry same-sex partners.

But it’s actually consistent with Christian doctrine, which teaches that we are to love the sinner, while hating the sin.

Indeed, I’ve had congenial relationships with individuals I suspected of adultery or illegal drug use or working in the sex trade. I did not condone their aberrant behavior, their sinful conduct. But I treated them with loving-kindness as I prayed that they would come to repentance.

Now if they had sought society’s blessing of their immoral lifestyle – if, say, the acquaintance I suspected of being a paid escort joined a movement to legalize prostitution – I would have strenuously opposed them.

Just as I oppose homosexual activists who demand society’s acceptance of their ungodly lifestyle. Who insist that they should enjoy the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples.

Supporters of same-sex marriage say that those of us who stand against them on moral grounds are religious bigots. Some even go so far to defend the homosexual lifestyle as to invoke the words of Jesus, who said, “Judge not lest you be judged.”

But, of course, they conveniently ignore something else Jesus said:

“Go and sin no more.”

Filed Under: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Tagged With: , , ,

Latest Muslim Terror Attack on Christians

April 29, 2012 By 1 Comment

ISLAMIST GROUP VOWS TO KILL ALL OF NIGERIA'S CHRISTIANS.

At least 16 Christians were murdered today while attending church services in Kano, Nigeria, the nation’s second-largest city. As many as 22 other worshippers reportedly suffered gunshot  wounds.

The massacre took place on the campus of Kano’s Bayero University. Police report that gunmen interrupted the church service and used small explosives to chase worshippers out before shooting those who fled.

This is but the latest violent attack upon Christians in Muslim-majority nations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Such attacks increased more than 300 percent between 2003 and 2010, according Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a research fellow at the America Enterprise Institute.

In no country do Christians face greater danger than Nigeria, where the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram (which means “Western education is sacrilege”) has publicly declared its intent to kill all Christians in the country.

And that was no idle threat.

In 2011, the terror group killed more than 500 Christians, while burning down or destroying more than 350 Christian churches. And Boko Haram continues its jihad against Nigeria’s Christian community in 2012, killing 54 in January, 38 this month at an Easter church service and, today, 16 murdered in Kano.

What particularly troubles is that the alarming increase in genocidal attacks against Christians witnessed not only in Nigeria, but throughout the Muslim World, has generated little outrage in the United States, Europeand the rest of the non-Muslim World.

Ali, who authored a recent Newsweek cover story on the Muslim “War on Christians,” attributes that unconscionable silence to the outsized influence of such well-financed lobbying groups as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Individuals and organizations that call attention to Muslim atrocities against Christians – like the attack this morning in Nigeria– are accused by those lobbying groups (and others) of being “Islamaphobic.”

Of course, that accusation is patently absurd. No less so than the claim that Islam is a religion of peace.

Filed Under: MUSLIM Tagged With: , , ,

The Myth of Christian Card Counters

April 23, 2012 By 2 Comments

'HOLY ROLLERS' DOCUMENTARY REQUIRES SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF.

A friend forwarded me a copy of a recent cover story in the San Diego Reader, the city’s alternative newspaper, profiling several members of a purported Christian card counting ring.

The tale of Will and Shirley, who held Bible classes in their home for newly married members of their San Diego church, according to the story, and Nate and Faith, who were recruited by Will and Shirley, smells to me like fiction.

It brings to mind the fabricated writings of Stephen Glass, former staffer for The New Republic.

Among his more infamous articles was a completely made up tale, titled “Spring Breakdown,” about hard-drinking, drug-abusing, sexually-promiscuous Young Republicans at the 1997 Conservative Political Action Conference.

Glass’ scandalous career at TNR was dramatized in the film “Broken Glass.” Much as the highly-suspicious story of Will and Shirley, Nate and Faith and their gambling ring was featured in the documentary “Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians,” which was released last month on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Glass’ deceit went undetected by his liberal editors at TNR because it seemed perfectly plausible to them that Young Republicans at a conservative conference would get drunk, get stoned and get sexed up.

In much the same way, the editors of the San Diego Reader, the producers of “Holy Rollers,” were all too willing to believe that true Christ followers would actually operate a card counting ring.

Indeed, the Reader says that, before Nate and Faith made a commitment to join the ring, they ran it by the pastor of their church and their Bible study group.

“Most people were supportive,” Nate told the paper, although one couple had a problem with the idea. “It was mostly the wife,” Nate explained. “She had a problem with the deceit.”

But they worked it, out, he continued.

How? By agreeing that Christ would probably take a dim view of gambling? By deciding that money made by counting cards at casinos was unclean, and that it wasn’t less so if used to plant new churches or for other good purposes?

No, the alleged Christians agreed that Nate would never take trips alone to Vegas, that he would always have a spotter and that he wouldn’t pretend to be someone he wasn’t.

“I would go into it,” he told the Reader, “with integrity and honesty.”

Puh-leeze.

I believe the story of Christian card counters is made of whole cloth, like Glass’s fictional account of Young Republicans participating in alcohol- and drug-fueled sex parties.

Will and Shirley and Nate and Faith may indeed have been members of a card counting ring. But there was absolutely nothing Christian about it.

Filed Under: BLASPHEMY Tagged With: , , ,
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