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Why Is the Church Silent... Again?
The Covenant News ^ | November 25, 2002 | Pastor Ralph Ovadal

Posted on 05/16/2003 8:08:49 AM PDT by Remedy

In January of 1973, at the age of 21, I became positionally pro-life. I was not a Christian; but when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the infamous, eternally unlawful Roe v. Wade decision, it caused me to think about abortion. By the grace of God and by the influence of a very "conservative" upbringing, I decided it was wrong to kill defenseless unborn human beings—wrong, that is, unless the mother had been raped or was the victim of incest or her life was in danger. At that time, and for some time, I did not do anything about abortion other than try to vote rightly and occasionally donate money to a Right to Life organization.

Several years after my pro-life awakening, it became clear to me that if abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, then it is murder in all cases. Thus I lost my exceptions. As the years progressed, my wife and I, and eventually our children, became more and more involved in the pro-life movement. We simply came to hate the murder of innocent little babies by blood-thirsty wretches called "doctors." In January of 1979, my wife and I took part for the first time in a pro-life public rally and, feeling a bit sheepish and hippy-ish, carried signs for the first time.

In 1983, we both were adopted as God's children through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Our pro-life commitment expanded and deepened considerably immediately after we were born again. This is because the Holy Spirit opened up the Holy Scriptures to us; and we realized that as Christians, among other responsibilities, we had a duty to reprove the "unfruitful works of darkness" and "deliver them that are drawn unto death." Over the years, we have been involved in politics, starting a crisis pregnancy center; and most of all, we have been deeply and continually involved in street ministry which has included my being arrested many times for blocking abortion clinic doors with my body as part of the "rescue" movement which first swept across America in the late 1980's.

As soon as I was saved and in a church, I began harping at my pastor to take a public stand against innocent bloodshed and for our helpless preborn neighbors being slaughtered for fun and profit in America's modern-day death camps. Over the years, and to this day, I have continued to exhort pastors to do their duty and set an example by publicly contending for God's Word and His Name as well as for the lives of helpless preborn babies by openly resisting and speaking out against abortion.

Eight years ago, I became a pastor myself and ever since have keenly felt my responsibility to take a prophetic, public stand against evil and for good. After all, that is clearly part of my job, even if I do not always do it as well as I should. If the shepherds of God's flock will not contend with the ravening wolves who are roaming this land in which their flocks live, if the ministers of God will not be the watchmen on the wall, if the pastors will not publicly contend for the Law of God and defend the weak and innocent, why in the world does anyone think the rest of the Church of Jesus Christ is going to do so consistently and zealously or, for that matter, at all? Yes, pastors have a primary duty to preach and propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ; but they also have a duty to offensively lead their people in the defense of life, liberty, and God's true Law. At the same time, their people have a duty to follow them into battle.

With regard to abortion, better called child-killing, it took years to get to the place where at least most true pastors (and their churches) do something about abortion—not nearly enough in most cases, but at least something. At the end of the 1970's and right through the mid part of the 1980's, the Church was for the most part silent about abortion. When the mass rescue movement burst on the scene in 1987, the cry on the lips of all of us involved was, "Why is the Church silent?" God had deeply impressed upon us not only the humanity of the preborn child, the brutality of abortion, and the duty of the Church to speak out against innocent bloodshed and to defend the helpless, but also the already awful consequences realized by the Church for not taking action sooner and the horrific consequences which would one day befall our posterity and our land if the Church remained silent.

It is too bad that American Christians seem to take so long to learn the obvious and take appropriate action on that knowledge. It is tragic that American pastors and their people have so much trouble finding their voices and their courage in the face of pure evil and looming disaster. With regard to abortion, the silence and inaction of the Church of Jesus Christ has resulted in a bloodbath of epic proportions and the wrath of God being directed toward our nation. The current semi-silence and tepid response of that same Church is what causes the slaughter to continue virtually unabated and will result in the blood tide lapping at the doorstep of every family in America someday. Blood touches blood, and the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

But at least the Church of Jesus Christ is saying and doing something about preborn child-killing; and where there is life, there is hope. The Church as a whole has moved from silence and inaction to an overall torpid state of "doing something"—granted, not enough. Still, as long as many Christians are praying for an end to abortion, some Christians are making great efforts to end it, and many other Christians are consistently doing something to end it, and that something is based on a sense of conviction and duty, there is hope that the bloodletting may come to an end. The fact that there is a tiny number of righteous pastors and zealous Christians who are fighting furiously and preaching loudly against the child-killing industry certainly is responsible for much of the hope I have that the modern-day Auschwitzes which dot our land will someday be shut down. When it comes to abortion, we may be encouraged that the Church of Jesus Christ across this nation is at least making her presence and perspective known to the world; and consequently, very few people today are eager to publicly defend preborn child-killing in the Name of God. I wish I could say the same with regard to another clear, present, and growing evil in our land.

In the last two decades, a New Sodom has grown up in our midst. In spite of what the Bible says about contending for the faith, reproving the unfruitful works of darkness, hating evil, and standing against the wicked; in spite of the awful historical examples we have of Sodom unchained, beginning with Genesis, chapters 18 and 19; in spite of the brazen fashion in which Sodom's heirs are publicly vandalizing and mocking the Word of God; in spite of the obvious duty we Christians, especially pastors, have to stand against the unbelievable filth, lawlessness, and tyranny of the sodomites, the Church of Jesus Christ, as a whole, is virtually silent once more!

She was silent when the law codes prohibiting sodomy were taken off of the books in most states. She was silent when sexual orientation was added to non-discrimination statutes in many states. She was silent as sexual perverts began parading in the streets during "gay pride" month to show their sin as Sodom. She was silent when open sodomites began running for public office. She was silent when sodomites started adopting children. She was silent when "gay theologians" and their friends began wresting the Word of God in order to claim homosexuality is not a sin but is in fact an activity blessed of the Lord. She was silent when a new "gay" denomination called the Metropolitan Community Church was birthed and began spreading.

She has been silent as mainline denominational churches have brazenly boasted of their "open and affirming" policy toward sexual perversion. She has been silent as the sodomite propagandists engage in the worst sort of demagoguery and intimidation to shame and confuse the general public into accepting and affirming "gay and lesbian" youth. She has been silent as tax money has been used by the Public Broadcast System and the government school system to brainwash Americans into accepting and embracing homosexuality. She has been silent as Republican politicians and elected officials, including President George W. Bush, have quietly provided the citizens of Sodom a giant leg up in their quest to complete the sodomizing of America. Last, but not least and certainly not conclusively, the Church of Jesus Christ has been for the most part silent in the face of a new Bible edition, the Oxford Annotated Third Edition to be exact, which contains pro-homosexual footnotes.

In the face of daily gains by the heirs of Sodom, the vast, vast majority of local churches and pastors have been, and to this day remain, publicly silent. Silent, silent, silent . . . deadly silent. If things do not change, I fear the only way the Church may wake up is when they hear the clanking of their own chains, riven in place by a cadre of sexually perverse task masters wearing pink swastikas. History, observation, common sense, and most importantly of all, God's Holy Writ all dictate that the local churches must take concerted action and raise a righteous roar against the lies being daily spewed out and the atrocious acts being daily played out across our land by the champions of perversion. Why is the Church silent? For what are the pastors waiting? Do they expect the "pro-family movement" to do their job for them? Are they expecting, in spite of their public silence, revival to sweep through the streets of New Sodom and its suburbs? If so, they would do well to consider the all-important question, "How shall they hear without a preacher?" If the pastors of this land continue to act like Lot, living in vexed but silent coexistence with a growing legion of sexual perverts, they should be prepared to end up like Lot—pathetically, impotently whining to a howling sodomite mob, "I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly." They should also expect their children and grandchildren to grievously suffer for the silence of their fathers and grandfathers.

Before doing anything at all about abortion, many Christians, led by their pastors, waited until our government had sanctioned the murder of innocent preborn babies on demand at any time up to birth. Now history is repeating itself with regard to sexual perversion and a growing homosexual nation within our nation. Have pastors, and Christians in general, adopted the attitude of some of the Corinthian Christians Paul acidly rebuked? Do they have the notion that being silent in the face of a vicious assault upon righteousness and truth is somehow a holy act?

The enemies of God, and of our families, have in this case not only slapped the Church in the face, but they have also kicked her pastors in the pants and spit upon the Word of our God! They have boldly preached that evil is good and good is evil; they have legislated immorality; they have taken truth hostage; they have rewritten the Bible; they are training up a cadre of corrupt "theologians" to spread their vicious lies in the Name of Christ; they have brainwashed a generation of children; and they are thumbing their noses at the blood-washed followers of Jesus Christ with full confidence that the sleeping giant is a selfish pygmy with a crisis of confidence in the Word of God and God the Word along with no inclination to do anything about anything New Sodom sets its mind to do next. The tragedy is that thus far they are right!

Why is the Church silent? When will her pastors start publicly proclaiming and defending what the Word of God really says about homosexuality? Do they not realize that the sodomites are the elite shock troops of an army of implacable God-haters which the Church faces? Do they think it is a coincidence that homosexuals are a driving and sustaining force behind the public nudity movement, public obscenity, and the destruction of all laws restricting any sort of "sexual expression"? Have they yet to notice that a commitment to preborn child-killing is woven into the sodomite culture? Do they not understand that, by and large, the politics of New Sodom are the politics of socialism, which is only communism in its adolescent stage? Surely the enemies of life, law, and Christian liberty have a spear pointed at the heart of the Church of Jesus Christ; and the sharp point of that spear is the sodomite juggernaut that daily achieves new conquests in its march to crush all resistance to its unholy agenda.

When will the true shepherds of God confront the howling wolves who boldly declare that they speak the Word of God in the Name of Christ? When will the leadership of local churches, the elders and pastors, sit down and, by the Lord's leading, work out a plan to consistently and publicly tell the truth about homosexuality and confront those in their area who champion those acts labeled by God as abominable, lawless, unnatural, and filthy? What is so difficult about local churches consistently airing truth in the theater of operations which God has trusted to their care? Surely Christ's charge to us, His disciples, that we "teach all nations . . . to observe all things whatsoever" He has commanded must include making it crystal clear to the world what the Bible says about homosexual acts, how that revealed Law of God should be expressed in civil law, and what will happen to our nation if it is not!

There are so many ways the local churches, led by her pastors, can take a stand for righteousness and truth against the flood of lies and the increasing tyranny of Sodom's heirs and allies that there is simply no excuse for the free ride the devil is getting in this matter. How difficult is it for a pastor to write a letter to the editor a couple of times a year, or lead his flock in doing a literature drop in their town every six months or so? How difficult is it for churches to buy space in the newspapers or on the radio to publish truth, or to hand out literature at the local high school, or perhaps to even do a prophetic picket now and then with signs and banners bearing biblical messages about homosexuality? In the face of continued attacks upon the Word of God and His immutable Law by the sodomites and in consideration of what is at stake in this situation, how difficult would it be for pastors and their flocks to do some or all of the above? How difficult is it especially knowing that God loves truth and will bless the efforts of those zealous for His truth?

And yes, such efforts are conducive to preaching and spreading the gospel. It is a bit troubling to consider that many Christians, including pastors, apparently do not think themselves capable of sharing the gospel unless they are in some sort of sterile vacuum. Beyond that, confronting sin is certainly an integral part of spreading the gospel. Certainly we must pray for homosexuals to repent of their sins, believe the gospel, and call upon the name of the Lord for salvation. Because of the heart-hardening nature of the sin of homosexuality, most sodomites will never turn to Christ (Rom. 1:26-28); but some will, and we must wrestle and fight and pray for such individuals. However, for Christians to hide behind the excuse that the Church of Jesus Christ should just preach the good news of the gospel and avoid confronting evil is to follow the cue of the sodomite apologists and others who grossly distort the Scriptures to avoid coming to grips with and obeying the whole counsel of God's Word.

The claim of a Christian to love good can only be validated by an obvious hatred of evil by that same person. "Let love be without dissimulation [hypocrisy]. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good" (Rom. 12:9). Homosexual acts are evil. They are sexually immoral acts which violate the Law of God. Homosexuals are not only sexual outlaws, as are fornicators and adulterers; but they also have gone a step further and exchanged the "the natural use into that which is against nature," "giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh." In this, sodomites not only deny and repudiate God as the Sovereign Lawgiver and Judge of the Universe, but they also reject Him as the Creator and Sustainer of all things. The Scriptures exhort Christians, "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked" (Ps. 97:10). Homosexual acts, along with the homosexual spiritual and cultural agenda, are the epitome of evil. That most American Christians do not hate such evil may explain why the Church is being gradually delivered into the hand of the wicked. That most local churches show no hatred of the spreading sodomite culture and influence perhaps has to do with a lack of fear of God. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil . . . " (Pr. 8:13). The Church of Jesus Christ will never be a worthy opponent of the sodomite movement until Christians, led by the example of their pastors, begin to hate homosexuality and seek God's favor by faithfully standing for His kingdom and His righteousness in this matter.

Perhaps the difficult part which is holding local churches back from confronting and exposing the lies of Sodom with God's immutable truth is having enough love to do so—love for the Word of God, love for the Savior Who bought us with His own blood, love for our own families and our descendants, and love for the lost and vulnerable. I pray a lack of love is not the problem.

Perhaps it is a lack of courage. If this be the case, the American Church has lost its savor; has become a reproach to the Name of Christ; and has acted treasonously toward those Christians who have over the centuries hazarded privation, persecution, torture, and death rather than give in to the enemy of our souls and those who serve him. As for America, it is both cursed and doomed if the American Church has become impotent and useless because it is so cowardly as to refuse to stand up for truth against such a massive assault at such a comparatively small risk. The Scriptures state that "the righteous are bold as a lion." In the face of Sodom's unrelenting assaults upon morality, eternal law, the young, and the faith of our fathers, most Christians resemble not righteous lions but rather pampered pussy cats, purring contentedly in the comfortable lap of luxury.

I suppose one could hope that the Church's deadly and dastardly inaction in the face of the sodomite offensive is based on ignorance. At least the ignorant can be revived by truth and conviction. Whatever the reason for the Church's silence, it is a silence which must be broken and broken in a big way very shortly. Our chains are being forged; the grave of Christian liberty is being dug; our legacy is being written; our Lord is being mocked. If this be not enough to rouse a righteous zeal for truth in the bosom of the people of God, it must be asked how many truly are the people of God.

Surely someone will say, "All of this talk about confronting, resisting, and exposing is not kind. We must simply show mercy to the homosexuals and try to live in peace with them." I would reply that mercy without truth is hollow and cruel, while peace without righteousness is folly and ruin. "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Ps. 85:10).

I leave the reader with one last exhortation. The sodomite nation which has sprung up in our land is truly a clear and present danger. The perverted sexual acts which define the inhabitants of that nation are an abomination in God's eyes just as is the tendency of most Christians, including some in the "ex-gay" ranks, to greatly downplay the evil of such acts (Prov. 17:15). My prayer is that the true shepherds of God who are now silent will soon break their silence in the face of the deafening, deceitful roar of the sodomite propaganda machine, and that when those pastors find their voice to defend God's Law, they will faithfully proclaim not only His goodness but also His holiness. I pray they will not only share the good news of salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, but they will also faithfully define homosexual acts for the evil they are; and in the process, the incredible love of God will be sharply defined, rather than blurred and disparaged.

Jesus Christ, God the Word, "made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant," lived a life of sorrow, and died an agonizing death on a cross. The wonder is that He did it to pay the penalty for the sins, all the sins, of any who would repent and put their faith in Him. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). Jesus Christ was willing to die to satisfy the sentence demanded by God's Holy Law for sin, all sin, even for a sin the Bible labels as "abomination," "lawless," "filthy." "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Is. 1:18). When we speak of sin as God speaks of sin, including sodomy and other sexually perverted acts, we exalt Christ, honor Him, and help others to more fully understand the love He showed by dying on the cross. In the face of God's amazing love, far be it from us, any of us for any reason, to downplay what Christ did at Calvary by refusing to confront and define sodomite sin with the very words God has given us for that very purpose.

May the Church of Jesus Christ all across America break her silence and take a visible, righteous stand against the vicious lies of Sodom. May it happen soon. Time is short.


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Six out of 10 Americans Say Homosexual Relations Should Be Recognized as Legal

Sodomy Laws SODOMY LEGAL IN 3/4 STATES

Homosexuality and the Nazi Party

These men were viciously anti-Jew and anti-Christian because of the injunctions against homosexuality inherent in the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

...While the neo-pagans were busy attacking from without, liberal theologians undermined Biblical authority from within the Christian church. The school of so-called "higher criticism," which began in Germany in the late 1800s, portrayed the miracles of God as myths; by implication making true believers (Jew and Christian alike) into fools. And since the Bible was no longer accepted as God's divine and inerrant guide, it could be ignored or reinterpreted. By the time the Nazis came to power, "Bible-believing" Christians, (the Confessing Church) were a small minority. As Grunberger asserts, Nazism itself was a "pseudo-religion" (ibid.:79) that competed, in a sense, with Christianity and Judaism.

From the early years, leading Nazis openly attacked Christianity. Joseph Goebbels declared that "Christianity has infused our erotic attitudes with dishonesty" (Taylor:20). It is in this campaign against Judeo- Christian morality that we find the reason for the German people's acceptance of Nazism's most extreme atrocities. Their religious foundations had been systematically eroded over a period of decades by powerful social forces. By the time the Nazis came to power, German culture was spiritually bankrupt. Too often, historians have largely ignored the spiritual element of Nazi history; but if we look closely at Hitler's campaign of extermination of the Jews, it becomes clear that his ostensive racial motive obscures a deeper and more primal hatred of the Jews as the "People of God."

The probable reason for Hitler's attack on Christianity was his perception that it alone had the moral authority to stop the Nazi movement. But Christians stumbled before the flood of evil. As Poliakov notes, "[W]hen moral barriers collapsed under the impact of Nazi preaching...the same anti-Semitic movement that led to the slaughter of the Jews gave scope and license to an obscene revolt against God and the moral law. An open and implacable war was declared on the Christian tradition...[which unleashed] a frenzied and unavowed hatred of Christ and the Ten Commandments" (Poliakov:300).

"The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution Of The Christian Churches"

Inoohr_org_index.htm This essay was printed in the February 15, 1987 issue of the homosexual newspaper Gay Community News by Michael Swift, and was reprinted in the February 15-21 1987 Congressional Record. EXCERPT

We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of you shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all-male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us. Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep.
If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.
There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled. We shall raise vast, private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you.
We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are as invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers. The family unit spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy, and violence will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in a communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.
We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution. Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks!

This newest manifesto was found in the Miami Dade Press, in response to the Christian Coalition wanting to protect their children in public schools.

"Homosexuality must be spoken in your churches and synagogues as an honorable estate. You will be expected to offer ceremonies that bless our sexual unions.

"You will instruct your young people in homosexuality as well as heterosexual behavior. If any older people in your midst objects, you will deal with them sternly, making certain they renounce their ugly and ignorant homophobia or suffer public humiliation. You will make certain that all the prestige and resources of your institutions are brought to bear on the community, so that laws are passed "forbidding" discrimination against homosexuality and heavy punishments are assessed. We expect and demand the same commitment to us you made to Blacks and to Women.

"Finally, we will in all likelihood want to expunge a number of passages from your Scriptures and rewrite others, eliminating preferential treatment of heterosexual marriages and using words that will allow for favorable viewing of the homosexual.

"Warning! If all of these things do not come to pass quickly, we will subject orthodox Jews and Christians to the most sustained hatred and vilification in recent memory. We have captured the liberal establishment and the press. We have already beaten you on a number of battlefield.

(From a Save Dade Press Release)

This Version was printed in "The Advocate" Steve Warren seems to want to rewrite the Bible, what do you think?

Recently, homosexual author Steve Warren told Christians what gays expect of them. In The Advocate, the nation's largest and most mainstream homosexual publication, he says: "Here are some of the things you will be expected to affirm. ...

1. Henceforth, homosexuality will be spoken of in your churches and synagogues as an 'honorable estate.'

2. You can either let us marry people of the same sex, or better yet abolish marriage altogether. ...

3. You will be expected to offer ceremonies that bless our sexual arrangements. ... You will also instruct your people in homosexual as well as heterosexual behavior, and you will go out of your way to make certain that homosexual youths are allowed to date, attend religious functions together, openly display affection, and enjoy each other's sexuality without embarrassment or guilt.

4. If any of the older people in your midst object, you will deal with them sternly, making certain they renounce their ugly and ignorant homophobia or suffer public humiliation.

5. You will also make certain that ... laws are passed forbidding discrimination against homosexuals and heavy punishments are assessed. ...

6. Finally, we will in all likelihood want to expunge a number of passages from your Scriptures and rewrite others, eliminating preferential treatment of marriage and using words that will allow for homosexual interpretations of passages describing biblical lovers such as Ruth and Boaz or Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Warning: If all these things do not come to pass quickly, we will subject Orthodox Jews and Christians to the most sustained hatred and vilification in recent memory. We have captured the liberal establishment and the press. We have already beaten you on a number of battlefields. ... You have neither the faith nor the strength to fight us, so you might as well surrender now."

SODOMY : Patriarchs of the Christian Faith, Early Writers Clearly Condemned Homosexuality

Is Same-Sex Marriage Good for the Nation? The only source for unalienable rights in all human history is the Creator, the God of the Bible.

Judaism's Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism (and then Christianity) Rejected HomosexualityWhen Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. The acceptance of homosexuality as the equal of heterosexual marital love signifies the decline of Western civilization as surely as the rejection of homosexuality and other nonmarital sex made the creation of this civilization possible.

Homosexuality: A Political Mask For Promiscuity: A Psychiatrist Reviews The Data Indeed, the Torah reserves its most intense condemnation for homosexuality: "to'eva" - abomination...


Sept. 2, 2000 ,Volume 15, Number 34 WORLD ON THE WEB, Marvin Olasky

Perhaps the most observant current viewer of Christophobia is not a Christian but an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. Daniel Lapin wrote in his book, America's Real War, "The educational bureaucracy expects the state to accommodate every possible bizarre cultural mutation and lifestyle, but finds prayer at graduation an intolerable and fatal compromise of state neutrality toward religion." Why else would such illogic reign if fear were not involved?

Some Jewish leaders would point to the Holocaust to say that their fear has an objective basis, yet the faith that animated Hitler was not Christianity but a racist version of Social Darwinism's emphasis on survival of the fittest. And the reason Hitler could put his faith into practice is because of a powerful government apparatus; although the left hates to admit it, National Socialism was one type of socialism.

That's why Rabbi Lapin's fearless statement makes sense: "Those of us who venerate freedom, be we Jewish or Christian, be we religious or secularized, have no option but to pray for the health of Christianity in America. No other group possesses both the faith and the numbers sufficient to hold back the ever-encroaching, sometimes sinister, power of the state."

Simon Wiesenthal Center Multimedia Learning Center Online From the Protestant side, the basis for opposition to nazism was developed in the 1934 Barmen Theological Declaration approved at the first synod of the United Evangelical church (or Confessing Church) in Germany. Its aim was to counteract the errors of the so called "German Christians" (those Christians who positively identified themselves with the Nazi programs on religious grounds) and the Reich church government.

The Confessing Church in Germany also provided temporary asylum for Jews, becoming, in effect, stations on an underground railway leading to the safety of neutral Switzerland.

Despite the different interpretations, a few directions seem clear: (1) an overwhelming majority of Christian clergy acquiesced in the destruction of European Jews; (2) church leaders were unable to mount a successful effort against the Nazis. This bears serious reflection for the continuing struggles which the churches face in the contemporary world; (3) the church's self- understanding and its own sufferings under the Nazis were far too isolated from the sufferings of non-Christians, Jews in particular, to whom suffering meant death. Why did the churches raise the issue of Nazi murder of "baptized" Jews to the exclusion of the Jewish people at large?; (4) the churches were far too connected with the dynamics of German society to really stand in Judgment against it; (5) the Jewish Question could not be adequately addressed because of the long-standing theological tradition of anti-Judaism in the churches. This tradition must be obliterated once and for all by the post-Holocaust Christian community; (6) the churches, which will never regain the kind of control over society they once had, must reflect anew on how to combat totalitarian power. Where are their primary resources in such a context?; and, finally, (7) the churches' fear of communism blinded them to all other forms of totalitarian oppression.

Is there danger of repetition in our day? Our Secularist Democratic Party (Long, Important Analysis)

SODOMY : Santorum Crisis Exposes Republican Weakness

1 posted on 05/16/2003 8:08:49 AM PDT by Remedy
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To: LiteKeeper; George W. Bush; TLBSHOW; RAT Patrol

1 Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

Luke 17: 26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; 29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

2 Peter 2:But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

Jude4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. 5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

2 posted on 05/16/2003 8:16:54 AM PDT by Remedy
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To: Remedy
Roe No More Ministry

Norma McCorvey is now a Catholic also.

3 posted on 05/16/2003 8:17:09 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Salvation
Priests for Life

Check out the numbers near the bottom of the page here! Five babies were killed as I posted this!

4 posted on 05/16/2003 8:20:13 AM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: BibChr; Clint N. Suhks
Chuck Baldwin -- Bush In Bed With Homosexuals? Why not? Why expect a politician to take a stand, while the church falls flat on its face in silent tolerance?
5 posted on 05/16/2003 8:27:51 AM PDT by Remedy
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To: Polycarp; cpforlife.org; Coleus
Catholics haven't cornered the market on Sodomy.

CCCU : Resource Center | Article: An Evangelical Looks at ... : From the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to a Postmodern Tetralectic, Christian Scholar's Review, Gary Strauss

  1. There are those who believe that homosexual behavior is unacceptable to God.
  2. Then there are those who say they have come to believe that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior in the context of a loving, committed, monogamous relationship and have, therefore, entered freely into a relationship with a lover and seek to maintain a quality and enduring bond. These individuals typically indicate that they are quite happy and fulfilled in their relationships, and they are often quite outspoken in support of their views of the issue. Many of these are critical-in some cases hostilely condemning-of those who maintain a more traditional position, yet clearly identify themselves as Evangelicals.
  3. The third basic response is (it seems to me) the most painful and difficult for those who have pursued it. It is painful because it involves becoming involved in homosexual behavior and relationships but believing that one is violating God's command by so doing. The resulting feelings of guilt and shame, and the fear of discovery by fellow Christians, typically creates significant internal conflict, not infrequently of suicidal proportions.

6 posted on 05/16/2003 8:38:26 AM PDT by Remedy
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To: Remedy
BTTT
7 posted on 05/16/2003 8:42:20 AM PDT by RAT Patrol (Congress can give one American a dollar only by first taking it away from another American. -W.W.)
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To: Remedy; .45MAN; AKA Elena; al_c; american colleen; Angelus Errare; Antoninus; aposiopetic; ...
Good essay, Remedy, thanks for posting it and thanks for the ping.
8 posted on 05/16/2003 9:32:56 AM PDT by Polycarp (Fellow Catholic Kooks and Cranks of America (CKCA'ers), UNITE!!!)
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To: Remedy
Then there are those who say they have come to believe that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior>>>

Ask any Orthodox Jew or who has a better grasp of the Old Testament and one will find out the reasons for the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah.

2358
The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359
Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
____________
We must be respectful and sensitive to thier lifestyle, huh? How about to rapist and murderers too.
9 posted on 05/16/2003 9:37:15 AM PDT by Coleus (God is Pro Life)
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To: 2ndMostConservativeBrdMember; afraidfortherepublic; Alas; al_c; american colleen; annalex; ...
`
10 posted on 05/16/2003 9:38:17 AM PDT by Coleus (God is Pro Life and Straight)
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To: Coleus
They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

Did you misunderstand on purpose? THEY, not any sinful acts ("lifestyle") must be accepted, and aided in avoiding sin.

11 posted on 05/16/2003 9:49:37 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Visualize whirled peas ...)
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To: Coleus
Thanks for the heads up!
12 posted on 05/16/2003 9:58:06 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Tax-chick
Yes, I know. The same logic is being used in the Current Church crisis. That's why we have one, "they, the priests" and not their sins or actions were accepted and forgiven and the sins never stopped.
13 posted on 05/16/2003 10:44:59 AM PDT by Coleus (God is Pro Life and Straight)
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To: Coleus
If you meet an alcoholic, do you reject him for wanting to drink to excess, or do you assist him in remaining sober?
Or what about a heterosexual who's interested in sex outside marriage, or a person practicing contraception? Do their sinful desires merit their rejection, as people, by Christians?

Honest question: Why is a sexual attraction to the same gender qualitatively different from any other tendency to sin?
14 posted on 05/16/2003 10:53:26 AM PDT by Tax-chick
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To: Tax-chick
Homosexuality is pictured by Paul not as the ultimate sin but as the ultimate distortion of God's creative genius. When the human family indulges in sexual behavior antithetical to that for which they were biologically, psychologically, and emotionally designed, the "futile" imagination has so "darkened" the foolish heart (v. 21) that it is virtually impossible to view anything as God intended. To these awesome sins of homosexuality and sodomy, Paul applies six terms of evaluation: (1) "uncleanness" (v. 24), (2) "lusts" (v. 24), (3) "dishonor" (v. 24), (4) "vile passions" (v. 26), (5) "against nature" (v. 26), and (6) "shameful" (v. 27). After listing a host of other iniquities, Paul concludes the section with the promise of the certainty of God's judgment against all such sin. Additional passages demonstrate that homosexuality is a hideous sin which falls under the scope of God's judgment (Lev. 18:22; 20:13; 1 Cor. 6:9).

CULTURE : HOMOSEXUALITY, ADULTERY & OTHER SEXUAL SINS

15 posted on 05/16/2003 11:24:24 AM PDT by Remedy
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To: Remedy; RAT Patrol; Polycarp
Here's one for the files (from the thread, "Tarzan's Cheeta's Life as a Retired Movie Star "):
For example, Grow said that several of the chimpanzees in her foundation's care, including those that were in the entertainment industry, do not know how to have intercourse or how to look after their young.
Looks like sex in man's closest genetic relative is learned behavior. (Imagine that.) Yet another reason to resist "rainbow" sex ed in our schools and adoption by same-sex couples.
16 posted on 05/16/2003 11:29:04 AM PDT by eastsider (Forgive me, it's FRiday.)
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To: Remedy; Coleus
Interesting, though, that many Catholic and Protestant writers, until the 20th century, specifically equated contraception with sodomy and/or homosexuality. Funny how many, particularly, but not exclusively, non-Catholics, totally dismiss this connection.

We wouldn't be facing this crisis, as it were, with homosexuality, if over the last 100 years our society, including most churches, hadn't given a pass to every form of heterosexual sin. Laws against adultery, fornication, contraception, and divorce went down a long time ago. It's easy to foam and froth at the sins we aren't tempted towards, and obviously much harder to show compassion toward those who are tempted in that way.

The Catechism simply states that all people deserve to be treated as people, irrespective of the sins they're tempted to or commit. Isn't this, what prison ministry, for example, is about: showing kindness, sensitivity, and compassion toward people who have committed sins that also happen to be crimes. Father McGivney ministered to convicted murderers and other criminals, because he recognized them as the truly needy souls they are, some of Christ's "least brethren."
17 posted on 05/16/2003 11:35:54 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Visualize whirled peas ...)
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To: Tax-chick
Where in the article did the gentleman say that we should reject homosexuals? He said we should reject their behavior, and the cultural consequences of it, even as we wrestle for their very souls.
18 posted on 05/16/2003 11:36:35 AM PDT by Zack Nguyen
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To: eastsider

including those that were in the entertainment industry, do not know how to have intercourse or how to look after their young.

Hollywood's contagious immorality leads to dysfunction in monkeys. That's payback for AIDS, which some claim originated with monkeys.

19 posted on 05/16/2003 11:43:20 AM PDT by Remedy
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To: Tax-chick

We wouldn't be facing this crisis, as it were, with homosexuality, if over the last 100 years our society, including most churches, hadn't given a pass to every form of heterosexual sin. Laws against adultery, fornication, contraception, and divorce went down a long time ago.

YOU NAILED THAT:

The Decline of a Nation The Decline of the Family

Nations most often fall from within, and this fall is usually due to a decline in the moral and spiritual values in the family. As families go, so goes a nation.

This has been the main premise of thinkers from British historian J. D. Unwin to Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin who have studied civilizations that have collapsed. In his book Our Dance Has Turned to Death, Carl Wilson identifies the common pattern of family decline in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Notice how these seven stages parallel what is happening in our nation today. In the first stage, men ceased to lead their families in worship. Spiritual and moral development became secondary. Their view of God became naturalistic, mathematical, and mechanical.

In the second stage, men selfishly neglected care of their wives and children to pursue material wealth, political and military power, and cultural development. Material values began to dominate thought, and the man began to exalt his own role as an individual. The third stage involved a change in men's sexual values. Men who were preoccupied with business or war either neglected their wives sexually or became involved with lower-class women or with homosexuality. Ultimately, a double standard of morality developed. The fourth stage affected women. The role of women at home and with children lost value and status. Women were neglected and their roles devalued. Soon they revolted to gain access to material wealth and also freedom for sex outside marriage. Women also began to minimize having sex relations to conceive children, and the emphasis became sex for pleasure. Marriage laws were changed to make divorce easy.

In the fifth stage, husbands and wives competed against each other for money, home leadership, and the affection of their children. This resulted in hostility and frustration and possible homosexuality in the children. Many marriages ended in separation and divorce.

Many children were unwanted, aborted, abandoned, molested, and undisciplined. The more undisciplined children became, the more social pressure there was not to have children. The breakdown of the home produced anarchy.

In the sixth stage, selfish individualism grew and carried over into society, fragmenting it into smaller and smaller group loyalties. The nation was thus weakened by internal conflict. The decrease in the birthrate produced an older population that had less ability to defend itself and less will to do so, making the nation more vulnerable to its enemies.

Finally, unbelief in God became more complete, parental authority diminished, and ethical and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government. Thus, by internal weakness and fragmentation the societies came apart. There was no way to save them except by a dictator who arose from within or by barbarians who invaded from without.

Although this is an ancient pattern of decline found in Greece and Rome, it is relevant today. Families are the foundation of a nation. When the family crumbles, the nation falls because nations are built upon family units. They are the true driving social force. A nation will not be strong unless the family is strong. That was true in the ancient world and it is true today.

Social commentator Michael Novak, writing on the importance of the family, said:

One unforgettable law has been learned through all the disasters and injustices of the last thousand years: If things go well with the family, life is worth living; when the family falters, life falls apart.

 

 

20 posted on 05/16/2003 11:49:26 AM PDT by Remedy
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