Fr_J-H

Is It a Sin not to Vote?

Breakpoint Charles Colson November 1, 2006

Christians in the Public Square

Is it a sin not to vote?

That’s a question that’s been very much in the news in the wake of the supposed exposé by David Kuo, author of Tempting Fate. Kuo, a former aide to President Bush, says he became disillusioned when he heard administration staffers call evangelicals “nuts” and “goofy.” He was also bothered that staffers used political judgments in deciding where to hold briefings. Really? What administration since George Washington has not considered politics when scheduling meetings? As for the “nuts” charge—assuming it’s true—well, I’ve probably used the same term myself to describe some overly zealous brethren.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

October 23, 1956 The Hungarian Revolution: impotent, poignant, personal.

Wall Street Opinion Journal Peter Nadas October 23, 2006

So, on that Tuesday afternoon, a single flow of humanity was moving down the avenues; they were coming on Váci Avenue, on Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Avenue, but on Marx Square many stopped in hesitation: Which way now? The piled-up streetcars stood motionless where they had gotten stuck in their tracks, with the lights burning in the empty compartments. There were about 80,000 people stranded around the edges of the square, on the banks of this vast intersection. They were singing, shouting demands, having visions, speechifying. A crowd, half a million strong, was already in front of the Parliament building. They demanded that the Russians go home, and clamored for Imre Nagy to make a speech.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Economic hypochondria

Townhall.com George Will October 19, 2006

Recently Bill Clinton, at the British Labour Party’s annual conference, delivered what the Times of London described as a “relaxed, almost rambling” and “easy anecdotal” speech to an enthralled audience of leftists eager for evidence of American disappointments. Never a connoisseur of understatement, Clinton said America is “now outsourcing college-education jobs to India.”

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Orthodox Priest Beheading and Recent White House Omission

Religious News Service October 13, 2006

Lead to Call for American Protection of Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Meeting in Turkey

Yesterday’s reported beheading of an Orthodox Priest and a recent White House omission during a meeting between President George W. Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan increased concerns about protecting the spiritual heads of the two largest Christian denominations, while in Turkey together. Catholicism’s Pope Benedict XVI and Orthodoxy’s Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will be meeting in Turkey in late November. Turkey is the first Muslim country that Pope Benedict will visit. Until the year 1054, the Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch were presiding Patriarchs of the then-undivided Christian Church, in Rome and Constantinople.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

On 9/11, an inter-faith reality check

Jewish World Review Ira Rifkin September 11, 2006

He polished the prose of Muslim leaders so their views would be marketable. He invited them home to break bread. He even attacked his co-religionists in print for not being more realistic. No more.

In January 1985, the Los Angeles newspaper I worked for assigned me to the religion beat. My first story was a feature on what was then a new phenomenon in Southern California, a fully licensed Muslim parochial school.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail