Orthodox Editors

Are Liberals Just Giving Lip Service to “the Least of These”?

Townhall.com | Will Hall | Aug. 28, 2008

I have held my tongue for some time while folks like Jim Wallis (Sojourners), Mara Vanderslice (Matthew 25 Network) and Brian McLaren (emerging church movement) -– all religious and political liberals — have manipulated a compliant secular media and some of the religious press to shill talking points for them.

The message varies in slight ways from story to story but basically asserts “the left” cares more for the poor than does “the right.” A companion assertion stated as fact is that evangelicals are “fractured” and that there is an emerging progressive group of evangelicals “discovering” there are other issues “just as important” as protecting the unborn and defending the biblical definition of marriage. Then a tired liberal political agenda is reframed in the language of faith.

It’s not just political chicanery or religious wrangling, but simply fraud — a form of wishful thinking that if repeated enough times, de facto becomes the truth. [Read more…]

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If There Is No God

Townhall.com | Dennis Prager | Aug. 19, 2008

We are constantly reminded about the destructive consequences of religion — intolerance, hatred, division, inquisitions, persecutions of “heretics,” holy wars. Though far from the whole story, they are, nevertheless, true. There have been many awful consequences of religion.

What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism — the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies.

For all the problems associated with belief in God, the death of God leads to far more of them. [Read more…]

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Archbishop says Democrats don’t even know Christianity

WorldNetDaily | Bob Unruh | Aug. 26, 2008

Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput says Democrats simply don’t know Christianity if they insist on continuing to spin the Bible’s teachings on abortion.

“It’s always important to know what our faith actually teaches,” he said in a “clarification” for Catholics in northern Colorado as Democratic National Committee members met in Denver this week to hear a speaker from the National Abortion Rights Action League promote Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, as the next “pro-choice” president. [Read more…]

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Democrats Move Left On Abortion

Wall Street Journal | Naomi Schaefer Riley | Aug. 20, 2008

“Above my pay grade.” Those words rang in the ears of Gene Taylor, a middle-age member of Saddleback Church I interviewed after the worship service on Sunday morning. He was referring to the answer offered by Barack Obama when Pastor Rick Warren asked him at what point in its development a baby gets “human rights.”

“In this country,” Mr. Taylor told me, “there is no higher pay grade than the president.” Which is true at least metaphorically. Mr. Taylor added, “I thought I was going to be supporting John McCain. Now I’m sure of it.” [Read more…]

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Christianity and the Cult of Celebrity

BreakPoint | Stephanie Bennett | Aug. 22, 2008

It used to be that people were known for being heroes. Doing something noble or worthy of praise would be reason for someone’s popular acclaim, but with the advance of mass media, a new phenomenon arose within American culture. People began to be known—just for being known. In media studies we’ve come to know this phenomenon as the rise of the celebrity.

Today, people famous for being famous are not simply celebrated; they are part of an entertainment culture that increasingly sets the tone for the values we espouse as well as those we project out into the wider world. Unfortunately, whether or not we personally adhere to the values of celebrity culture, we are influenced by them in many ways. Whether through obvious temptations, endless amusements and distractions, obsession with our “looks,” the frittering away of our time, or the slow and seemingly innocuous stream of a carnal images and ideas, our lives are increasingly shaped by the entertainment culture in which we live. It is an environment. We are in its bubble. [Read more…]

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Intel Cuts Electric Cords with Wireless Power System

AFP | Aug. 21, 2008

Intel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the California firm’s annual developers forum in San Francisco.

Electricity was sent wirelessly to a lamp on stage, lighting a 60 watt bulb that uses more power than a typical laptop computer. Most importantly, the electricity was transmitted without zapping anything or anyone that got between the sending and receiving units. [Read more…]

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What about the Poor?

FrontPageMagazine.com | Barry Loberfeld | Aug. 13, 2008

For defenders of the Constitution, the free market, and individual liberty, no single issue has thus far proved more defeating – on both the intellectual and electoral battlefields – than that of poverty. It has handed one unearned (and by no means inevitable) victory after another to the unconstitutional statism of collectivist liberals.

The conquest of poverty (to borrow the title of Henry Hazlitt’s classic) requires just two weapons: wealth and compassion. So the only real question is: Who can better provide these – civil society (“the market”) or the political state?

The answer as it regards wealth has now been settled: “[C]apitalism has won,” conceded left-aligned economic historian Robert Heilbroner in 1989. “Socialism,” conversely, “has been a great tragedy this century.” [Read more…]

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Imagine Abortion Was a Terrible Disease

An Orthodox priest places the horrors and evil of Abortion in their proper perspective.

OrthodoxNet.com | Fr. Jason Kappanadze | Aug. 13, 2008

There is evil, injustice, pain, suffering and unfairness everywhere, and our Christian hearts must be wounded by all of it. But would you consider the argument that the worst of these is abortion?

Imagine if a terrible disease began to spread through the country, resulting in 50,000,000 suffering deaths — the equivalent of 1,851 OCAs. Imagine that the disease was able to mutate, avoiding every attempt to eradicate it, and able to appear in different forms at will so as to infect as many victims as possible. What if there was no end in sight for this death machine? Would the headlines or office talk be about health insurance, or global warming, or distribution of wealth? I think not! [Read more…]

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