When I was a younger woman, I fled my home state of South Carolina like a bat out of hell. But the older I get, the more I like it. Especially after reading this.
There’s a law in SC that requires child killing “providers” to give women the option of seeing an ultrasound of their unborn babies before the slaughter. (SC isn’t the only state with this requirement.)
SC lawmakers now want to make sure women have in hand a list of clinics that provide free ultrasounds (including the cool new four-dimensional ones?). They’ve “prefiled” a bill.
I’m sure it’s much more difficult to be casual about killing the baby once the woman sees the little life inside her. Technology has illuminated what once was covered in darkness. The “clump of cells” and “blob of tissue” are revealed to be recognizable human beings. I’m grateful for it. Women who don’t want their babies surely can endure nine months of gestation to bless a couple who desperately wants a child. Exercise that choice.
Update: Wow. Somebody posted this link on Stumble Upon. I didn’t know kids were living like that. Mad traffic. Thanks to whoever (whomever? whatever!). 
Rest easy this weekend, everybody.
Looks like major Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson is hitching a ride on the powerful Disney-esque marketing machine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I just think it’s…wild, weird, and smart!
Young stars like “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks, Sean Astin of “Lord of the Rings,” (Astin’s only a few years younger than I am - does that mean I’m young, too?) curly-haired cutie Corbin Bleu of Disney’s “High School Musical,” and Emily Osment and Cody Linley of Disney’s “Hannah Montana” (which my 10-year-old niece can’t get enough of) read the New Testament in the recording “The Word of Promise: Next Generation - New Testament.”
What TN’s doing certainly isn’t new. Dramatic readings of the Bible, especially by well-known celebrities, must be hot sellers. If this product encourages more young people to “read” the Bible, I’m all for it. No doubt some of the audio Bible’s participants are Christians, though I won’t assume all are what we Bible thumpers call “born again.”
Included in the set of 20 CDs is a 75-minute “behind the scenes” DVD with interviews.
Speaking of Jordin Sparks, she earned major kudos from me after she defended “purity” rings on the Video Music Awards show. Some Brit joked about the Jonas Brothers wearing them, and Sparks (who wears one herself) reportedly said, “I just have one thing to say about promise rings. It’s not bad to wear a promise ring…because not everybody – guy or girl – wants to be a slut.” Some in the audience cheered.
I noticed the muted responses from homosexual and feminist bloggers to the gang-rape of a lesbian. I wondered why they weren’t up in arms, ravenously ready to hurl stinging yet passionate words dripping with anger, denouncing this brutal and senseless act of violence against one of their own.
Then it dawned on me. The races of the gang-raping thugs: three hispanic and one black. I’d venture a guess that the victim is white.
At this point in my blogging “career” (five years and counting), it’s sort of tedious to do this, but I’ll do it anyway. Can you imagine the national…no forget that…the international outrage over this gang-rape if the perpetrators had been fair-haired and white? (That it’s national news at all is surprising.) Throw in a pair or two of blue eyes for good measure. Man, that’s all we’d be reading and hearing for the next several months. (How fast can you say Duke Lacrosse?) Diatribes against the white racist patriarchy, white supremacists, how California’s Proposition 8 is to blame for the “backlash” against homosexuals, and on and on.
But the reactions I’ve read so far in the media and on blogs are stunningly restrained. The facts, and hardly any emotion. By next week, nobody will be talking or writing about this story.
Human nature never ceases to amaze me. Even though it’s mind-numbingly predictable, I’m always amazed that I know it so well.
May I interrupt the suicide and phony love story blogging for a few seconds of pop culture/music?
I “discovered” Coldplay a few years ago. Nice sound, but too hyped. When the new album came out, I avoided listening to it. Why? Kinda juvenile, I guess, but I try to avoid following the crowd. I favor non-hyped-but-should-be-hyped artists (hint, hint). I heard “Viva La Vida” while driving one day but didn’t know it was “Viva La Vida” and said, “I dig it.”
I like the sound of this thing:
Oh, how I wish I’d blogged about the latest literary hoax last week before the publisher canceled the contract! Feet-dragging is a bad habit, boys and girls.
The air’s out of the balloon now. A man named Herman Rosenblat claimed that while he was in a concentration camp, a Jewish girl whose family was pretending to be Christian gave him apples over a fence. One day he asked her not to come back because he had an “appointment” with the gas chamber. He wasn’t killed; he was transferred to another camp.
Years later, he went on a blind date with a woman who turned out to be the girl who’d given him apples lo those many years ago.
Critics cried foul. First, the concentration camp where Rosenblat said he was detained didn’t have gas chambers. Second, the Nazi’s didn’t tell prisoners when they were going to the gas chamber. The point was to trick them into going. Third, there’s no way Herman or Roma could have gotten close to the fence without the guards seeing them. Fourth, it was highly unlikely that a Jewish family who feared the Nazi’s wouldn’t know about their nine-year-old daughter’s daily visits to a concentration camp fence, for crying out loud, or would allow her to continue once they found out. And on and on.
Herman Rosenblat and his wife Roma ended up on Oprah, and Berkley Books offered him a deal for his memoirs, Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived. And you know Hollywood is partial to Holocaust stories. The book is set to be made into a movie.
Continue reading Holocaust Couple’s Love Story Exposed As Lie
A 22-year-old man killed himself because, according to WND, he lost his belief in God after reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Young Jesse Kilgore blew his brains out, convinced that God and faith in God are delusions. (I became a Christian some 10 years ago. Unlike young Christians today, I didn’t have to deal with unbelieving college professors challenging my faith or making me question my beliefs. I was just as much a heathen as they were.)
His father told WND that a biology professor was “really challenging my son, his faith…They didn’t like him as a Republican, as a Christian, and as a conservative who believed in intelligent design.”
First, I take a hard stand when it comes to suicide. It’s the work of inconsiderate and self-centered cowards, whatever the reason. But we’ve all had suicidal thoughts – from mild “what if I just offed myself right now” to actually taking a weapon in hand (bottle of pills, gun, whatever) to attempting suicide and ending up in the hospital. If you say you haven’t, you’re probably lying.
[Update: Did she write “inconsiderate and self-centered cowards”? There I go again, being too harsh. Christians aren’t allowed, so I’ve heard. What about the mentally ill, you ask? Well, if someone isn’t in his “right mind” when he commits suicide, I suppose that’s a different story. In some cases. Generally, my opinion of suicide, which I’ve contemplated in my younger years, stands. More sympathy for those left behind, please.]
David Wayne and I go way back. He’s a pastor at a church in Maryland, and his blog was one of my daily reads in the early years. Because of his perspective on political issues, his easy-to-understand exposition of the Scriptures, and his sense of humor, I really enjoyed reading his blog and called him my favorite theologian-blogger.
I finally got to meet “The Jolly Blogger” at a meet-up a few years ago (where I also met the “radical” Carolyn McCulley), and he was just what I thought he’d be…gregarious, funny, kind. We saw each other again at GodBlogCon.
I was stunned to learn, via Twitter of all places, that David has colon cancer. He made the announcement on his blog, and someone linked to the post in Twitter. Here’s the latest:
“I saw the surgeon yesterday and the news wasn’t good. My CT scan revealed not only a large tumor on the colon but a tumor on my liver and 2 nodules on my lungs. Needless to say this was a pretty big blow…The treatment plan as of now is this. I have surgery scheduled for tomorrow - December 24th at 11:00am at Harbor Hospital in Baltimore. After that I am to immediately begin receiving chemotherapy…Don’t know how much or how often I’ll be able to update after this but I will do so as I am able. Please know that I deeply appreciate all of the kind words and prayers.”
What do you say to someone who just found out he has cancer? And at Christmas? You’d think it would be easier to comfort a Christian, who knows and accepts the truth about Christ and forgiveness and salvation and heaven and hell. The Christian knows that God sends trials into our lives to chastise us, teach us, mold us, and make us more Christ-like. We know we’re living in a fallen world in fallen bodies, and those bodies break down. Death and disease are consequences of sin in the world.
Christians know all of that. But I still couldn’t stop myself from being angry. “Why, God?” I asked. “Why him? A man who faithfully preaches the Word, shepherds your sheep…a husband and father with children who still need him. Why?”
Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean pain ends and or that disappointment is a thing of the past. The Christ follower has to live in this world. Heaven comes later. While we’re in this world, we must deal with loss and hardship and heartache. The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is that we are part of God’s kingdom, and we have the privilege of advancing that kingdom.
We advance that kingdom by doing what God commanded: preaching the Gospel. But it’s not just our words that accomplish the goal. How we deal with pain and loss serves as a testimony to the unbeliever and accomplishes God’s will.
I already knew the answer to my question, but that didn’t stop me from asking. The Book of Job provides all the answers we need.
At the beginning of the book, Satan tells God that believers are faithful only as long as they prosper.
“But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has,” Satan said about Job, “and he will surely curse you to Your face.”
But God knew Job, a man he called upright and blameless, a true servant of God who shuns evil. In that moment, God allowed Satan to take away Job’s family, his health, and his wealth. Understandably, Job complains, cursing the day he was born. There seems to be no sense to his suffering, and he questions why he’s been afflicted. It’s important to note that Job remains faithful and loyal to God even in his confusion.
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
Beginning at Chapter 38, God answers Job’s questions, revealing his omnipotence.
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?…Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it.”( I can’t do the passages justice here, so I encourage you to read Chapters 38-41.)
Job was humbled by God’s series of questions, and he realized he was wrong to complain and to question why God allowed him to suffer. In the end, God restored what Job lost.
The Book of Job is a kind of blueprint for believers. Whenever you’re faced with sickness and loss and other disappointments in life, put yourselves in Job’s place. Imagine that God and Satan are having a conversation about you, and God is making your case as Satan accuses you. Which one do you want to prove right?
I don’t need to tell David Wayne about Job. I’m certain he knows. But I want him to know how sorry I am that he has to suffer through this, and I pray for him and his family. May they continue to keep the faith and know that God is with them.
This post is inadequate, and I don’t think I’m being very articulate right now. 
Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Christ, God made flesh, the One who came into the world to suffer for our sins and to redeem his people. No matter what “bad” things we’re going through, take comfort in knowing he came to redeem YOU. Though you may suffer from The Fall’s consequences, there will come a sweet day when there will be no more suffering, no more tears…
I’ve never read The Purpose-Driven Life nor am I inclined to now. I don’t like mega-churches or “superstar” pastors.
But I’m pleased Barack Obama chose the socially conservative Rick Warren to do his inaugural invocation, regardless of his motives.
Whatever you think of Warren, make no mistake: he’s a social conservative, my favorite kind. Among other things, he is pro-life and opposes homosexual “marriage.” (I’ve learned in recent years that being socially conservative doesn’t necessarily mean one holds these values.) And that’s good enough for me.
Homosexuals are a tad upset that their brother-in-arms chose someone who calls homosexual behavior by its proper name and shares my opinion about the slippery slope of allowing two men to call themselves married in the traditional sense of the word. People may be offended that I think such a mockery eventually would lead to atrocities like allowing adults to marry children. But look at it this way: I can’t believe in my lifetime, Americans are discussing allowing people of the same sex to marry. Whoever thought that would happen? You honestly don’t think it will lead to other perverted things? You’re either naive, imbecilic, or straight-up lying.
Be offended, curse, laugh, say evil things about me behind my back — whatever you need to do, but I will always oppose homosexual “marriage” and will continue to speak out boldly and publicly against it.
Why did Obama (who said he opposes homosexual “marriage,” by the way) choose a Prop 8-supporting man like Warren, knowing it would anger and confound his leftist base? To “reach out” to social conservatives who voted for John McCain, to skim off a few Republican-voting Christians who dig Warren – I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters that much.
I’m enjoying the fact that Barack Obama is not doing what his supporters expected. For example, blacks, hispanics, and radical leftists aren’t satisfied with his cabinet picks, and some say he’s being too careful, too timid. Careful or timid, he’s still an infanticide-supporting liberal. And that’s bad enough for me.
Happy invocating, Rick!
(Let’s pray that he smuggles in the Gospel.)
