Mere Comments: Skeptical Inquirer & Rejoinders

re: James M. Kushiner: "This article by Mary Eberstadt at National Review On-Line is worth a look, if you're interested in responses to the recent spate of atheist evangelical tomes. /But I especially recommend the new article in the June issue of Touchstone, The Skeptical Inquirer: If Only Atheists Were the Skeptics They Think They Are, by Edward Tingely, of Augustine College in Ottawa..."...

Mere Comments: Transracial Adoption and the Gospel

re: Russell D. Moore: "...Right now, there are untold numbers of children, many of them racial minorities, languishing in the foster care system in the United States. Would the social workers really have us believe that it is better for an African-American child to grow up bounced from home to home in this bureaucratic limbo than to be a child to parents whose skin is paler than his? Do they really believe that a white Russian child would do better to live in an orphanage until she is dismissed at eighteen to a life of suicide or homelessness than to grow up with loving African-American parents? /This approach loves the abstract notion of humanity more than actual humans. It neatly categorizes persons according to their racial lineages rather than according to their need for love, for acceptance, for families. Our love for neighbor means we ought to prioritize the need for families for the fatherless -- regardless of how they're skin colors or languages line up with one another. /But there's an even bigger issue here: the gospel of Jesus Christ. /I'm not surprised that a group of secular social workers believe racial identity is more important than familial love. The Scripture tells us we always, if left to ourselves, want to categorize ourselves "according to the flesh." Whether it is the Athenians clinging to their myth of superior origins or Judaizers insisting on circumcision or Peter refusing to eat with pig-devouring Gentiles, we love to see ourselves first and foremost in fleshly categories -- because it keeps us from seeing ourselves in Christ. /The gospel, though, drives us away from our identity in the flesh, and toward a new identity, indeed a new family, defined by the Spirit..."...

Townhall.com::Environmentalists Pick Up Where Communists Left Off::By Charles Krauthammer

re: "...Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation. "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism." / ... [snip]... / For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism). /Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history. /Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but -- even better -- in the name of Earth itself..."...

Townhall.com::Media Shove Boy Scout Story Under a Tent::By Robert Knight

re: Robert Knight: "...The Scouts are fighting what amounts to an attempt at extortion. Given that tens of millions of American men have been in the Boy Scouts and that this story brims with David and Goliath drama, why is it being ignored?..."...

Townhall.com::When You Fill Up the Tank Thank Congress for High Gas Prices::By David Strom

re: "Americans have been treated to a lot of whining by our elected officials about the high cost of oil and gas these days, but as usual the fingers are being pointed by rather than at the guilty parties..."...

Traffic fatalities fall to lowest state level since 1970 holiday: The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore.

re: "After the deadliest Memorial Day weekend in 25 years in 2007, the number of fatal traffic collisions over this year’s holiday weekend dropped to the lowest since 1970, Oregon State Police said Tuesday. /The weekend’s one known traffic death occurred Friday night near Lebanon when a 51-year-old woman died after the car she was riding in left Santiam Highway and crashed into a tree. Police said alcohol was a possible contributing factor in the crash, which seriously injured the woman’s 47-year-old husband, who was driving the car. / The official holiday period began at 6 p.m. Friday and ended at midnight Monday. /Nine people died on Oregon roads last year, making it the state’s deadliest Memorial Day weekend since 1982..."...

Legal aid group: Texas officials offer 'diversionary reasons' to keep FLDS kids - Salt Lake Tribune

re: "SAN ANGELO, Texas -- Texas RioGrande Legal Aid today filed a response to the state Supreme Court saying the Department of Families and Protective Services offers only "diversionary reasons" for why it would be impractical and wrong to return FLDS children to their parents. / "The department cannot scatter hundreds of children -- including infants and toddlers -- to the four winds and then complain that it cannot put the pieces of the puzzle back together again," TRLA wrote. / The legal aid firm represents 38 FLDS mothers whose children are in state custody. It filed the 17-page document in response to the high court's request that it counter the state's effort to overturn an appeals court ruling that some if not all of the more than 450 children taken into custody last month should be sent home..."...

The Archbishop and the Embryo

re: "Archbishop Rowan Williams, Primate of the Church of England and leader of the Anglican Communion was once a human embryo. So was I. So were you. So also were those who would now reduce human embryos to the status of a commodity to be used and destroyed in the name of medical progress. /This archbishop is known for taking tepid and confusing positions on any number of issues. But in response to a proposal to create human-animal hybrid embryos in Great Britain, Rowan Williams has staked out a position that at least protests the subversion of human dignity..."...

Life Without Father

re: "Britain's Labour-led government has unleashed the hounds of biomedical and cultural revolution in recent days, voting to allow expanded research using and destroying human embryonic research, the development of animal-human hybrid embryos, the development of "savior siblings," and now equal access to IVF technology regardless of sexual orientation. /Until this week, British law required IVF clinics to take a child's need for a father into consideration when IVF services were sought. Now, this requirement has been removed and the new language simply requires attention to the child's "need for supportive parenting." This opens the door..."...

Mommy Life: Parental Rights - organizing to protect them

re: "One could say that there are plenty of signs around us that the government is encroaching more and more into the once-secure area of parental rights. While we may not agree with the polygamist practices of some far-out sect, seeing the government come in an arbitrarily remove 400+ children to disburse them over the state of Texas into foster care - breaking up families and sibling groups - is beyond imagination. /And I've been hearing tales - including one close to home of a family with a special needs child whose wandering has gotten them in trouble with CPS. Imagine having a file started on you as a parent because your child did something that is actually quite normal for even normal kids to do! And be careful what you share with your child's teacher - if she thinks it's abuse, you may have CPS knocking on your door, too. /In anticipation that recent efforts to exert the rights of the state over the rights of parents (remember the California judge who arbitrarily decided that parents had no right to homeschool?), some may want to investigate ParentalRights.org..."...

World On the Web » An inconvenient (and reasonable) debate

re: Harrison Scott Key: "Skeptic features a cogent debate about climate change with these two great essays that seem rather reasonable in their presentation: “The Climate of Belief” (which argues that we just don’t have the science to confirm that humans have caused global warming) versus “How We Know Global Warming is Real” (which argues exactly what it says)."...

No Left Turns: Zakaria’s book

re: Peter Schramm: "Josef Joffe reviews Farred Zakaria’s The Post-American World and explains that in fact it is not another exercise in declinism. His point is not the demise of Gulliver, but the "rise of the rest." Joffe calls it intelligent. I have started reading it and, so far, I agree..."...

No Left Turns: Anti-Green Britain

re: Peter Schramm: "This is good news: More than seven in ten British voters "insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll. The survey also reveals that most Britons believe ’green’ taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes."

TOB for Teens

re: information on the Theology of the Body for Teens program...

To Follow Jesus - Prison Fellowship

re: T. M. Moore: "...We’ve been seeking crowds, not disciples. We’ve considered every possible means of getting the most people into our buildings and keeping them there, and we’ve attracted people on the basis of mere self-interest, so that what we have are congregations ecstatic to belong to some place that, in the name of the Lord, takes their self-interest as seriously as they do. /I wonder what would happen if we ever began seeking disciples? Would the crowds turn on us with as much vehemence and vengeance as they did on Jesus? /Or might we be surprised to see some, perhaps many, step forward, like convicted Isaiahs, saying, “Here am I; send me”? My own sense is that church people are weary of status quo Christianity, whether that status quo is of the traditional church, dying on the vine, or the contemporary church that is merely contemporary and not much church. People want to be challenged to lay down their lives, to nurture passionate, exclusive love for Jesus through prayer and devotion to His Word. The world is all superficial and self-centered. Shouldn’t the church be something else? Something solid, profound, deeply mystical, altogether other-worldly, and devoted to loving God and neighbor no matter the cost?..."...

Radical Rantings - Prison Fellowship

re: Chuck Colson: "...Among Cone’s more radical teachings: God is against white people. My friend Mike Gerson, the columnist, quotes Cone as saying, “Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy.” Jesus, Cone declares, did not come for all, but only for the poor and the oppressed. /Clearly, these beliefs are inconsistent with biblical teaching. Jesus was concerned, of course, about the rights of the oppressed, but He also made it clear that the Good News is for everybody—male and female, Jew and Gentile, and even the Roman soldiers who nailed Him to the cross. /I had always written off black liberation theology as a movement embraced only by isolated radicals. You can imagine how surprised I was to read in the New York Times this week that perhaps a quarter of all black pastors are followers of this movement. /Black liberation theology parallels the liberation theology within the Catholic Church. A few years ago, many believed that the impoverished masses of Latin America would embrace liberation theology with its Marxist promises of justice and redistribution of wealth. But the people wanted none of it. Why not? Because their governments had become so corrupt that they would not put their trust in them. /What South Americans chose instead, as I write in my new book The Faith, was a reinvigorated faith in Christ, orthodox Bible-preaching churches. Women love this because they saw the results: Their husbands came home to be with their families at night instead of hanging out in bars. The Church spread. /It is hard for me to believe the New York Times is correct about all this. But if it is, I hope African-American leaders will recognize liberation theology for what it is: Marxism that failed everywhere it has been tried; and a theology that brings about not reconciliation, but further alienation..."...

ADF Alliance Alert » ADF announces new initiative to reclaim pastors’ First Amendment rights

re: "SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Alliance Defense Fund announced a new initiative Friday that will challenge the tactics of groups that use the Internal Revenue Service to intimidate churches and pastors into silence on important issues of the day..."...

ADF Alliance Alert » Oregon threatens over statutes copyright?

re: "David Post has this post on the Volokh Conspiracy indicating that the state of Oregon is threatening some web vendors who have post the state statutes on their website. Apparently, Oregon is trying to claim copyright. Post writes: //What burns me up is that the State of Oregon would choose to assert its rather fanciful copyright claim for the purpose of making public access to the authoritative version of its laws more, rather than less, difficult. It is completely outrageous that in 2008 we do not have a complete and authoritative compendium of all of the laws of the 50 States, and the federal government, available at no cost on the net..."...

ADF Alliance Alert » Rutherford Institute Intervenes After School Officials Allegedly Order Students to Cease Wearing ‘Virginity Rocks’ Abstinence T-Shirts

re: "The Rutherford Institute has issued this press release: //Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have come to the defense of high school students who were allegedly warned by school officials to cease wearing t-shirts to school that proclaim an abstinence message. In a letter to the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools, John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, informed school officials that they could face possible legal action if they do not take steps to ensure that students who wear “Virginity Rocks” t-shirts as part of a campaign to promote abstinence are allowed to do so without threat of punishment . . ."...

ADF Alliance Alert » Lauren Richardson Case Eerily Similar To Schiavo

re: "June Maxam reports in the North County Gazette: // The clock is ticking away the life of Lauren Marie Richardson, a 23-year-old woman who suffered an anoxic brain injury as the result of a heroin overdose in August 2006. A decision is due any day whether Lauren lives or dies. She has been sentenced to death by dehydration and starvation by Delaware Court of Chancery Master Sam Glasscock III by granting guardianship to her mother who wants to remove Lauren’s feeding tube which will result in her painful and agonizing death, in the same manner as Terri Schiavo. /Lauren’s father, Randy Richardson of Newark wishes to take her home from the Arbors Nursing Home in New Castle and care for her. He is seeking legal recourse to appeal the Jan. 24 court order that will allow the removal of Lauren’s feeding tube. / While Lauren is disabled, she is not terminal. She is not on life support and according to her father and family members, reacts to stimulation and is steadily improving . . . /
Randy has appealed this decision which has in effect stayed Glasscock’s decision and joint guardianship is still currently in effect. He is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund based in Scottsdale, Arizona.“ADF continues to aggressively defend Lauren’s life”, Greg Scott, ADF director of National Media Relations told The North Country Gazette . . ."...