A Liberal by Any Other Name

by Christian D. Malesic –
Those on the left side of the political spectrum have always wrestled with labels, wearing them proudly until they become dirty words and then throwing them quickly to the curb. Nonetheless, in order to communicate with one another, our language needs a term that describes the political views of those who oppose the conservatives of the Right.

Historically speaking, the left were ‘progressives’ then ‘liberals’; now they want to be ‘progressives’ again. Around the start of the 20th century (circa 1900), the term progressive came into popularity and common use. It was used proudly by many on the left to describe their political ideology until sometime in the 1940s when it began to fade away. Essentially, the progressives themselves showed the American public what it was that a progressive believed through President Woodrow Wilson’s anti-Capitalism and pro-Socialism stances, onto which President Franklin D. Roosevelt placed an exclamation point with his New Deal. [Read more…]

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Unfit to Foster, Christianity an ‘Infection?’

Owen and Eunice Johns
Owen and Eunice Johns
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…]

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

Christian Marriage Sacrament 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…]

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ACLU v. Religious Liberty

ACLU vs God assault on Christianityby J. Matt Barber –
Irony is defined as “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.” The term doublespeak means “evasive, ambiguous language that is intended to deceive or confuse.”

There is perhaps no greater example of ironic doublespeak than inclusion of the phrase “civil liberties” within the inapt designation: “American Civil Liberties Union.”

Indeed, few leftist organizations in existence today can compete with the ACLU in terms of demonstrated hostility toward what the Declaration of Independence describes as “certain unalienable rights” with which Americans are “endowed by their Creator.”

Consider the doublespeak inherent throughout the “progressive” Goliath’s flowery self-representation:

The ACLU is our nation’s guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

[Read more…]

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The Reasonableness of Christianity

Jesus Christ - Lord God and Saviorby Jack Kerwick –
Contrary to atheistic boilerplate, Christianity is anything but a crutch for the weak minded and timid hearted. Christians have gone to great lengths over the centuries to show that, while reason is no substitute for faith, and while it can never occupy anything other than a subordinate position with respect to the latter, reason can indeed establish at least the probability of God’s existence. Some Christians have gone further than this to argue that God’s existence is rationally demonstrable — that is, that it can be established with certainty by reason alone.

St. Anselm, the eleventh century bishop of Canterbury, is famous for his “ontological proof” for God. Anselm tried to show that there was no way that God can’t exist. The idea of God, Anselm reasoned, is the idea of a being “than which none greater can be conceived.” When the atheist and the theist deny and affirm God’s existence respectively, it is this idea that they have in mind. But since it is better for a being to have existence than for it to lack it, and since God is, by definition, the best, the conclusion is inescapable: God necessarily exists. It is no more possible, logically, to affirm the idea of God while simultaneously denying His real existence than it is possible to affirm the definition of a “bachelor” while denying that a bachelor is an unmarried man. [Read more…]

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Vigorous Defense, Getting Serious About DOMA

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
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…]

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The Totalitarian Minority

Totalitarian Leftby Lance Fairchok –

“On top are the Haves with power, money, food, security, and luxury. They suffocate in their surpluses while the Have-Nots starve. Numerically the Haves have always been the fewest. The Haves want to keep things as they are and are opposed to change.” Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

It is ironic that the people described as Haves in Saul Alinsky’s community organizing primer Rules for Radicals mirror public sector unions so closely. Alinsky had a cluttered view of the world, full of contradictions and conspiracies and moral convolutions to justify his tactics. His wretched little book will probably vex us for a dozen more generations, as it is easy to read and requires little effort to memorize the self-justifying rules. His confused disciples in Wisconsin envisioned themselves as the freedom fighters of old, using words like “justice” and “freedom” and “democracy” as they contradict each of those concepts to protect their right to steal from the taxpayer. [Read more…]

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What’s so appealing about Orthodoxy?

St Sophia Orthodox Churchby Rod Dreher –

I came to Orthodoxy in 2006, a broken man. I had been a devoutly observant and convinced Roman Catholic for years, but had my faith shattered in large part by what I had learned as a reporter covering the sex abuse scandal. It had been my assumption that my theological convictions would protect the core of my faith through any trial, but the knowledge I struggled with wore down my ability to believe in the ecclesial truth claims of the Roman church (I wrote in detail about that drama here). For my wife and me, Protestantism was not an option, given what we knew about church history, and given our convictions about sacramental theology. That left Orthodoxy as the only safe harbor from the tempest that threatened to capsize our Christianity.

In truth, I had longed for Orthodoxy for some time, for the same reasons I, as a young man, found my way into the Catholic Church. It seemed to me a rock of stability in a turbulent sea of relativism and modernism overtaking Western Christianity. [Read more…]

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Distant Recall

by Ken Myers –
In his 1983 Templeton address, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn began by recounting a memory from his childhood. “I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why this has happened.’”

As a telegraphic summary of the source of Russian ills under communism, it would be hard to improve on those four initial words. Since Solzhenitsyn spoke them, they have served many Christian pundits in the West as a description of the disorders within liberal democratic regimes. But while this slogan boasts a certain scrappy punchiness, it doesn’t offer us much help in figuring out how the memory lapse in question was provoked. [Read more…]

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