Defense of Innocence

Digitally Dangerous, Rewiring Our Minds

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
12/13/2010 – Chuck Colson –
Spending too much time in the digital world, which hurts our ability to focus, is going to make it hard to engage in spiritual disciplines, which require concentration. And our minds will not develop as God intended them to. […]

Vishal is a bright high school senior who hopes to study filmmaking in college. There’s just one problem: Vishal is rewiring his brain in such a way that he may never enjoy the career he dreams of.

As Matt Richtel reports in the New York Times, like many teens today, Vishal spends a big chunk of his day on his computer–on Facebook, playing video games, creating digital films, or sending text messages to friends.

Richtel writes that the digital world—cell phones and computers—may actually be changing how developing brains work. He notes that many kids do homework at the same time they’re texting friends. Others talk on the phone while texting other friends at the same time. And they all spend many hours every week surfing the Internet. [Read more…]

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Orthodox Christian Responsibility in the Public Arena

Fr. John Peck
Fr. John Peck
by Fr. John Peck –
First of all, let me begin by saying that it is my duty, as a priest and pastor, to impose moral standards on you. Part of my job and function is to teach Christian morality and to get us, as a body, to adhere to Christian moral standards, so before you come to me with complaints about the separation of Church and state, be aware that I am doing my duty in telling you what the Church, as the Body of Christ, teaches about life and responsibility.

Moral theology in the Orthodox Church in America is pretty loosey-goosey, as is clearly evidenced by the Reflections on Voting for Orthodox Christians article that was posted, at first anonymously, on the OCA website. I have said, and will say here, that a more poorly reasoned collection of moral mish-mush does not yet exist. If you have read it, you can see that what is being said behind the lines is, ‘Things like abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell experimentation are wrong, but we don’t like the candidate who stands against these things, and anyway, capital punishment is wrong, and harming the environment is wrong.’ The statement that we are forced to become ‘reluctant republicans’ or ‘reluctant democrats’ betrays the writer’s real concern, which is to look impartial politically. He would have been very welcome by the Soviets in Russia, as a Christian who does nothing about his Christianity… [Read more…]

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Deafening Silence, Moral Issues in the Election

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
10/27/2010 – Chuck Colson –

Next Tuesday, I hope you will do your Christian duty and head to the polls to vote for the candidate of your choice. I trust that your faith will guide you in your decision. Which candidate will best promote justice and preserve order? After all, those are the biblically-sanctioned roles of government.

And which candidate best exemplifies the cardinal virtue of prudence in his or her public and private life?

And which candidate will best promote the sanctity of human life, advocate for traditional marriage, and protect religious freedom? Well, if you’ve got an answer for that last question, then you’re among the few. Because for the life of me, I have never heard so little about these core issues during a political campaign. These core issues—human life, marriage, and freedom—which—all expressed so powerfully in the Manhattan Declaration and supported by half a million signatories, aren’t even on the political radar this year. And that, to me is shocking. [Read more…]

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Read the Label

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson

7/19/2010 – Chuck Colson –

Everywhere you turn, someone is warning Americans about the dangers of childhood obesity. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver toured the country preaching the gospel of healthier school lunches. The first lady has made fighting childhood obesity her top priority.

While I’m all for healthier eating and exercise, I can’t help but think, however, that in our concern over our kids’ waistlines, we have overlooked a far bigger threat—the one to their souls.

The threat I’m referring to is pornography. [Read more…]

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Give Childhood Back to Children

6/13/2010 – Jeffrey Eckert –
Children are being dragged into adult situations on a more frequent basis. A child’s age of innocence is diminishing, and children are now living extended versions of young adulthood due to the immature actions of the adults responsible for raising them. Parents should be a buffer between their children and the world. All too often, children are becoming the person the parent goes to for emotional relief. The parents involves the child in the particulars of their messy divorce, money problems, health problems, and even sexual relationships.

In generations past, these problems occurred, but the children were kept out of the discussion. Adults spoke to other adults (family members, peers, professionals) about their problems. [Read more…]

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What a Difference Christianity Makes

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson

6/3/2010 – Chuck Colson –
A recent issue of Time magazine tells the story of Nirupama Pathak, an Indian journalist murdered by her own mother. Being charged with killing your own daughter by itself is enough to make the news. But what makes this story especially compelling for the Indian media is that Pathak’s mother is alleged to have killed her to avenge her family’s honor.

By some estimates, dozens of such “honor killings” occur in India each year. It’s a crime that rightly shocks the Western conscience. It’s also a reminder of the way Christianity transformed the Western world.

According to prosecutors, Pathak was murdered because she wanted to marry a man who belonged to a lower caste. She then compounded her offense by becoming pregnant with his child. [Read more…]

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Youth Defence: ‘Abortion Never Saves a Mother’s Life’

Youth Defence Anti Abortion6/2/2010 – Hilary White –
“Abortion never saves a mother’s life – it just kills a baby,” says a newspaper advertisement that will appear in all of Ireland’s major papers starting today.

The Irish pro-life group Youth Defence said that the ads, which they have sponsored together with the Life Institute, are to counter implications by abortionist groups that there is no moral difference between treatment for an ectopic pregnancy and direct abortion. The ad quotes “Rene” who describes the loss of her unborn child, who implanted in her fallopian tube instead of her uterus, as “heartbreaking.”

“Now I hear pro-abortion campaigners claiming that treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is abortion,” she continues. “That’s absolutely untrue – and it’s so wrong to scare women by claiming that necessary medical treatments are abortions. I didn’t want my baby to die. And it hurts to see his death used to push for abortion.” [Read more…]

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A ‘Duty to Die’?

5/11/2010 – Thomas Sowell –
One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die” rather than become a burden to others.

This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.[Read more…]

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