Moral issues

The Welfare State and the Selfish Society

April 28, 2011April 29, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Dennis Prager –

In the contemporary world, where left-wing attitudes are regarded as normative, it is a given that capitalism, with its free market and profit motive, emanates from and creates selfishness, while socialism, the welfare state and the “social compact,” as it is increasingly referred to, emanate from and produce selflessness.

The opposite is the truth.

Whatever its intentions, the entitlement state produces far more selfish people — and therefore, a far more selfish society — than a free-market economy. And once this widespread selfishness catches on, we have little evidence that it can be undone.

Here’s an illustration: Last year, President Obama addressed a large audience of college students on the subject of health care. At one point in his speech, he announced that the students will now be able to remain on their parents’ health insurance plan until age 26. I do not ever recall hearing a louder, more thunderous and sustained applause than I did then. [Read more…]

False Hope – The Truth About Embryonic Stem Cells

April 16, 2011April 18, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Chuck Colson –

Embryonic stem cell research destroys human lives. And it’s also destroying the credibility of scientific researchers, as well.

Many of us remember sadly when Ron Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Reagan said he was there to talk about research into “what may be the greatest medical breakthrough in our or in any lifetime: the use of embryonic stem cells…to cure a wide range of fatal and debilitating illnesses: Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes” and more.

Reagan then invited listeners to imagine being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and undergoing a procedure that involves the use of embryonic stem cells. These cells would — if injected in the brain — replace the “faulty cells whose failure to produce adequate dopamine led to the Parkinson’s disease in the first place.” Reagan explained. “In other words, you’re cured,” he announced. [Read more…]

Why God Isn’t Doing Well These Days

April 11, 2011April 12, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Dennis Prager –

God is not doing very well these days. Here are four reasons:

The first is that increasingly large numbers of men and women attend university, and Western universities have become essentially secular (and leftist) seminaries. Just as the agenda of traditional Christian and Jewish seminaries is to produce religious Christians and religious Jews, the agenda of Western universities is to produce (left-wing) secularists. The difference is that Christian and Jewish seminaries are honest about their agenda, while the universities still claim they have neither secularist nor political agenda.

That is why the more university education a person receives, the more he is likely to hold secular and left-wing views. The secular left argues that this correlation is due to the fact that a college graduate knows more and thinks more clearly and therefore gravitates leftward and toward secularism. But if you believe that the average college graduate is a clear and knowledgeable thinker as a result of his or her time at university, I have more than one bridge to sell you. [Read more…]

What We Can’t Not Know – Universal Moral Truths

April 9, 2011April 9, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Chuck Colson –
Want to clear the room at a party? Just say something like, “There is such a thing as right and wrong, and everybody knows it.”

The great commandment in this postmodern, relativistic world of ours is this: “Don’t impose your morality on me.”

Obviously, it didn’t used to be this way. Once, if you mentioned basic moral rules like the Ten Commandments, everyone would agree that they were right. Not only were they right for all, but they were also known to all. Everyone knew that honoring parents and telling the truth is right for everyone. And everyone knew that deliberately taking innocent human life, sleeping with your neighbor’s spouse, and mocking God is wrong for everyone. Today all of that has changed.

Or has it? According to University of Texas Professor J. Budziszewski, it really hasn’t — at least not in the way you might think. [Read more…]

Unfit to Foster, Christianity an ‘Infection?’

March 31, 2011March 31, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Chuck Colson –
For 15 years, Owen and Eunice Johns served as foster parents to British children. Social workers praised them as “kind and hospitable people” who “respond sensitively to” children.

But London’s High Court has just ruled that the Johnses are unfit to foster.

The reason: The Johnses are devout Christians, and their views about homosexuality may harm the children in their care. This opinion echoes that Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, which, according to the Daily Mail, claimed foster children risked becoming “infected” by the Johnses’ Christian beliefs.

The case came about when the Johnses re-applied to the Derby City Council to foster children after taking a break. But instead of welcoming them back with open arms, social workers expressed concern that the couple’s beliefs were in violation of the new Equality Act Regulations, which protect the rights of homosexuals. [Read more…]

Exchanging the Truth of God for a Lie: Transgender Activists, Cultural Revolution

March 28, 2011March 30, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Deacon Keith Fournier –
The Gender Identity Movement demands the recognition of a ‘right’ to choose one’s gender and laws which accommodate, fund, and enforce such a ‘right’

The “Gender Identity Movement” is dangerous. It is a part of a broader Cultural Revolution which substitutes an entirely different view of the dignity of the human person, human freedom, human flourishing, human sexuality, marriage and the family and the moral basis of a free society than that which formed Western Civilization. […]

In the first chapter of the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Christians of Rome he writes of a progressive moral corruption which can occur to people who “while claiming to be wise become fools.” St. Paul pulls no punches saying of such people that they “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.” He also addresses the consequences of their immoral choices and actions.( Romans 1) In this strongly worded admonition, the Apostle is quite clear in affirming the early Church’s rejection of homosexual practices in a list of debased behaviors which grow out of moral corruption.

Anyone who maintains that there is no reference to the rejection of homosexual practices in the Bible has to remove this entire chapter and many other biblical references. They must also get rid of early Church documents which uniformly condemn homosexual practices. [Read more…]

Vigorous Defense, Getting Serious About DOMA

March 21, 2011March 22, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Chuck Colson –

As I have told you, the President and the attorney general will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in the courts. It’s outrageous, it’s disingenuous, but it’s not the end of the story. As a co-equal branch of government, Congress has a stake in seeing that the laws it enacted are enforced and defended in the courts. The question is “Are they serious about doing so?”

Federal law requires the attorney general to notify the House if he decides not to defend the constitutionality of a federal statute. Federal law also authorizes the Senate and the House of Representatives to intervene in litigation over the constitutionality of a federal statute. What’s more, the House can hire outside counsel to represent its interests in the litigation if that’s the best way to defend the law. [Read more…]

Moral Matters – It’s Up To Us To Teach Our Kids

March 7, 2011March 8, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Chuck Colson –

As turbulent as the late 1960s were when my children were in school, I’m almost glad I don’t have to raise kids today. Yes, the sexual revolution, questioning authority, rolling around in the mud at Woodstock — all the hallmarks of ’60s culture — were bad enough. But they were just the seeds of a sad harvest our culture is reaping right now. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that many of today’s political, academic, and media elites are products of the ’60s and that they are in the vanguard of the assault on traditional marriage, traditional morality, and the traditional family.

Look around you. The courts are now routinely overturning the will of the people concerning marriage. The Administration refuses to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court — and for specious reasons. And schools are constantly bombarding our kids with moral relativism and pro-gay propaganda. Students are now being taught that all like choices are equal, so you simply decide which one you choose, how you want to live any way you want. It’s madness! [Read more…]

Catholic Teaching’s Pro-Union Bias

March 2, 2011March 2, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Rev. Robert A. Sirico –

There is a long-standing bias in Catholic social teaching toward unions, and this dates from the long history of labor struggles for fair wages and safe working conditions. There is a romance associated with this history, and it is bound up with strong moral concerns. And it is not just historical. The Catholic Church played a heroic role in the fall of Communism in Poland through its influence on labor unions that were striking against oppression, which is to say state coercion.

Pope John Paul II, who knew something about the social role of labor unions, also warned about their drift into politics. In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, he wrote: “Unions do not have the character of political parties struggling for power; they should not be subjected to the decision of political parties or have too close links with them.”

The reality with all public affairs, however, is that conditions change. Just because something is called a union does not make it automatically good and moral. [Read more…]

Christianity Isn’t Dying, It’s Being Eradicated

March 2, 2011March 2, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Cristina Odone –
It’s official: Britain is no longer a Christian nation. In banning Eunice and Owen Johns, a devout Christian couple, from fostering children, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson declared that we live in a secular state, and that the Johns’ religious convictions disqualified them from raising citizens of that state. We’ve outgrown Christianity, the judges professed. Instead, we have graduated to the status of a multicultural nation, blessed by a plurality of faiths.

Ironically, the justices who have pronounced that Britain is no longer Christian did so in a court where witnesses swear on the Bible and invoke God’s help in telling the truth. I do not imagine that these judges leave out the first word in “God Save the Queen” – nor would they shun an invitation to the Royal wedding, which is happening not at a registry office but the centrepiece of official Christendom, Westminster Abbey. [Read more…]