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When Obama's Catholic supporters attacked Catholic League president Bill Donohue for his criticism of their candidate, they did not mention Obama's support for infanticide. The question will inevitably arise for the distinguished group of Catholics supporting Obama as to how they can defend his preference for infanticide in cases where a child survives a botched abortion. The fury Obama's Catholics vented toward Donohue will only force them to face that question sooner than they may have expected.  It's clear to me how it will be answered: It won't. Obama's Catholics are already attempting to reframe the abortion issue in their favor....

As my regular readers know, I have blogged in the past two weeks about my visit to Lakewood Church. I issued an open letter to Joel Osteen asking him to embrace the gay community by responding to Soulforce's request for Lakewood Church to participate in the American Family Outing. I also blogged about the press conference that Soulforce held last week. You can read these previous entries on this blog. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the picnic on Saturday because of other family and church obligations, but Soulforce issued the following press release just moments ago. Jay Bakker and...

(Editor’s Note: In an op-ed article in the April 25 issue of The Jewish Press, Dr. Tilford addressed the anti-Israel sentiment and activism so rife in America’s liberal Protestant churches. In this follow-up piece, he looks at some of the specifics driving that animus.) Most Christians, including many (if not a majority of) members of the mainline Protestant denominations, support Israel. Nevertheless, the Christian Left persists with its sometimes vehemently anti-Israeli and unabashedly pro-Palestinian sentiments. Why? Bluntly put, Israel stands for things the Christian Left cannot abide: human values based on biblically grounded eternal truths; a clear understanding of the...

Print This E-mail Link Send Letter Send Correction Groton (AP) - Connecticut's Episcopal Diocese has filed a lawsuit against the leadership of the Bishop Seabury Church, demanding it turn over control of the church property after voting to leave the national church in a dispute over theology and the appointment of a gay bishop. The Rev. Ronald Gauss was suspended from Bishop Seabury on May 3, when the diocese appointed another priest, the Rev. David Cannon, to take over. Rev. Gauss and 12 former and current church leaders were served this week with the lawsuit, which was filed in Superior...

If the Anglican Communion is to be "in Philippi", and I agree with Kings that it is, then it is time to obey God fully and send the dogs, the enemies of the gospel, away from the table. The problem with Lambeth is that Euodia and Synthyche would have to share their Sunday roast with wolves despite the Philippian church being told that they should do no such thing. There is, of course, an alternative. There is another gospel table where the dogs are not invited but Euodia and Syntyche sit side by side. At GAFCON evangelicals and anglo-catholics will...

The son of evangelical Tammy Faye Bakker Messner will spend his first Mother's Day weekend since her death in Houston, waiting to hear from Lakewood Church Pastor Joel Osteen. Jay Bakker, a high-profile supporter of Soulforce — a group that fights religious and political oppression of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders — wants Osteen to join the nontraditional families at a picnic Saturday and welcome them to church on Sunday. As the tattooed and pierced Bakker spoke at a Soulforce news conference Wednesday, it was clear his mother was in his thoughts. Though she died of cancer last July, she...

In an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC, practicing Homosexual controversialist Bishop Gene Robinson announced plans to enter into a ‘Civil Union’ with his Male Paramour. He told the interviewer it was “what God is telling me to do” Just as the splintering Anglican Communion was preparing for its International Lambeth Conference. Just as the controversy surrounding the actions of some orthodox Anglicans planning an alternative Conference seemed to be out of the limelight. Right at this time,a controversialist Bishop named Gene Robinson once again enters the limelight to make himself the center of attention.

I think since they--whomever they are--since they could not find anything wrong with him as a person, there seemingly has been an attempt to reach out and find something wrong with those who are allegedly around him. Everybody keeps saying, “Well, he sat there for 20 years." For starters, he didn’t sit there for 20 years, right? He’s been a member for 20 years. He’s not sat there for 20 years. For three years, he was in law school. Another eight years, he was in the state senate, and another three years--or three years, really now four--he’s been in the...

Last week, the West Coast Call to Action had its conference in San Jose. This blogs links to a video of the Closing Liturgy. Here’s a direct link to the video.Playing “spot the liturgical abuse� is not the point. Nor is snarking at the average age of the participants. (Just heading off the predictable commentary at the pass here. Let’s go deeper.)What I am just not grasping, despite my pretty strong powers of empathy, is the gestalt at work here.Why does everyone think the giant liturgical puppets are so awesome?This has got to be one of the oddest things...

Open the pages of a liberal magazine or peruse the liberal blogosphere, and you’re bound to come across denunciations of the religious right, if not religion itself. The “reality-based community,” as self-satisfied liberal bloggers call themselves, was a term created in direct response to the “faith-based community,” what the Bush administration called recipients of money from its Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Given the religious right’s use of “faith” to justify hoaxes such as “intelligent design” and the ruinous attempt to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals, the left had good reason to criticize, and sometimes mock, the absurdities that are...

Currently president of the US bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago mused that liberal Catholicism was an "exhausted project" back in 1997... and now, in posing the question, no less than TIME follows suit: The liberal rebellion in American Catholicism has dogged Benedict and his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. "Vatican II," which overhauled much of Catholic teaching and ritual, had a revolutionary impact on the Church as a whole. It enabled people to hear the Mass in their own languages; embraced the principle of religious freedom; rejected anti-semitism; and permitted Catholic scholars to grapple with modernity. But...

On May 29, Monica Kilburn Smith of Calgary will be welcomed into the small worldwide community of female Roman Catholic priests.Her ordination ceremony will take place in a United Church in Victoria and, of course, will not be recognized by the global Roman Catholic Church. However, Kilburn Smith and local supporters of major reform within the world's largest Christian church say it will be one more small step in a campaign to bring up questions, start discussion, open eyes and, eventually, win hearts."Many Catholics, both women and men, have been working for change within the church for centuries," says Kilburn...

In my ignorance, I once held hopes of gaining entrance into a club more exclusive than any country club or nightclub. Having been educated in public schools and therefore exposed to only one form of thought, I thought this club represented intellectualism. My first exposure to intellectual thought was a shelf filled with dime store Golden Books. One of the American “ladies� had heard about the cleaning abilities of a Slovenian immigrant woman who was laid off from her job in a factory. So this lady picked my mother and me up and drove us out to her big house...

Oprah's new online class covering Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth is exposed. They conducted the first mass trance. Over 2 Million participated in this new age class, a new book Don't Drink the Kool-Aid uncovers shocking truths that must be shared.

Ministers said they heard in Mr. Wright’s language “the same kind of passion and hyperbole as the Hebrew prophets,” said the Rev. Richard Wagoner of Union Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ church in St. Louis Park, Minn. Clergy members have cited the prophet Amos, who cursed all the nations, saving his harshest words for his own. But many congregants heard something different, Mr. Wagoner said, and were angry about Mr. Wright’s sermons. After his speech at the National Press Club, more frustration surfaced. “Many in our congregation are resonating with Obama’s talk of raising the discourse and that...

When Sen. Barack Obama recently announced the formation of his Catholic National Advisory Council, he said he was “deeply honored to have the support and counsel of these committed Catholic leaders, scholars and advocates.” Commenting on this group is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:“The best advice I can give Sen. Obama about his Catholic National Advisory Council is to dissolve it immediately. Of the 26 Catholic former or current public office holders he has listed as either National Co-Chairs (5), or as members of the National Leadership Committee (21), there is not one who agrees with the Catholic Church...

LAS VEGAS, NV April 29, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A visitor to the Cathedral of Las Vegas was shocked recently to see an advertisement for the Imago Dei ministry in the cathedral bulletin. Jack Fonseca, a 3rd degree member of the Knights of Columbus, has since worked to rally other Catholics to have Bishop Joseph Anthony Pepe disband the group for its infidelity to Church teaching regarding homosexuality.According to its official site, "Imago Dei was established to meet a need in the Church for support of gay Catholic women and men.  Gay people have been made to feel that they are...

In a new book the Anglican clergyman explains why he wanted to formalise his 20 year relationship. “I always wanted to be a June bride.� As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew there'd be trouble. I'd just delivered an hour-long lecture on the relationship between religion and public discourse, and why religious fervour over homosexuality plays such a large and negative role in the securing of full civil rights for gay people. During the question-and-answer period, someone asked me about the forthcoming civil union between me and Mark, my partner of 20 years. The audience...

Yesterday, 29 April 2008, at 3:32 PM, the United Methodist Church formally and explicitely rejected it's long held and Biblically-based mission to make disciples of Christ by saving souls, and declared officially that its mission is to transform the world. This codifies in the Book of Discipline of the UMC, its book of law, what was already the de facto case in practice. Here's the new text: The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.Here's the previous text: The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ....

FORT WORTH, Texas | Representatives of the United Methodist Church turned back attempts to liberalize its policy on homosexuality Wednesday. Almost 1,000 delegates to the church’s General Conference rejected a proposal from a legislative committee, leaving in place the position that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.” The General Conference, which meets every four years, is the only assembly that can set policy for the 7.9 million-member church. It includes delegates from all 50 states and 66 overseas regional jurisdictions. The question of the status of gays was likely the most contentious one delegates will deal with...

I can't decide if Gene Robinson should be made an honorary member of Herman's Hermits (second verse same as the first) or just be named Crybaby of the Decade. Sure does a lot of book tours for someone who wants to just be a simple country bishop. Can't you just hear the heavy sigh? Robinson is in London to promote his new book, In The Eye of the Storm. It is a spiritual memoir aimed, he says, at showing that he is more than "a one issue guy". The last of its five sections, however, sets a course for the...

"Coming here to bless a garden, especially at this time in the history of humanity, when we're focused on how the church can be a more proactive voice in caring for the rest of creation, is an important message," she said before the service. Bishop Jefferts Schori, 54, leads a church that is at odds with much of the Anglican Communion and faces revolt internally. The Episcopal Church has seen conservative congregations – and one California diocese – depart over what they say is its liberal drift, particularly the acceptance of openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson. "We're struggling over the...

N.B. bold red-letter emphasis is mine. The original article's emphasis is making the case that Barack Obama is a Muslim. My emphasis is that Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ claims to have "many Muslim members." --Dajjal http://www.sonsofapesandpigs.org/2008/02/press-release-america-is-being.html Press Release: America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! [posted by] ibn Misr on February 15, 2008 We ask for your immediate attention, and viral dissemination of this news. America is being fooled by Barak Hussein Obama!! "YES, MUSLIMS ARE MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH." "WE HAVE MANY MEMBERS IN OUR CHURCH WHO ARE MUSLIMS." I am Usama K. Dakdok,...

Found this posted on another thread by Bushwacker777. Very powerful - a wonderful reminder of why America is a Republic with an Electoral College instead of a simple-majority Democracy. Just what our founding fathers were worried about.

Methodists are being asked to single out Israel as sufficiently wicked to join the Sudan as a target of economic sanctions. While Barak Obama and John McCain have had to answer for the statements of their church leaders, neither Hillary Clinton nor George Bush have had to do the same, despite the fact that their church - the Methodists - are gathering in Fort Worth to take action that has real, rather than merely rhetorical, significance. During this week's General Conference, the United Methodist Church will be reviewing a number of resolutions urging divestment from companies doing business with Israel...

Tiburon, Calif. (AP) -- The highest court of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has found that a Northern California minister did not violate denominational law when she officiated at the weddings of two lesbian couples. The ruling announced Tuesday by the Louisville, Ky.-based court overturns a decision against the Rev. Jane Spahr last year. A regional judicial committee had found Spahr guilty of misconduct and gave her a rebuke — the lightest possible punishment. The church's high court found that the ceremonies Spahr performed were not marriages, so she did not violate the church's constitution. The panel reiterated the church's position...

One of the world's most famous evangelical theologians quit the Anglican Church of Canada this week because he believes many of its bishops are "arguably heretical" for adhering to "poisonous liberalism." James (J.I.) Packer, whom Time magazine recently named as one of the planet's 25 most influential evangelicals, said he hesitated before using the harsh terms to describe the Anglican bishops, but believed he must do so in the name of truth. Vancouver-based Packer, who has sold more than four million copies of his many books, said he and 10 other B.C. Anglican clergy left the national denomination this week...

Emily Derke looked surprised when she was asked why she was attending church on Earth Day. In her mind, the question was not "why" but "why not?" "I see Earth Day as a spiritual thing," said Derke, who drove from her home in Coon Rapids to St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Minneapolis for an interfaith celebration. "God made the Earth, and now it's up to us to protect it. Everybody here [at the service] is here for the same purpose. It's all about the Earth." Indeed, the faith community has become one of the major players in environmental issues....

More than 3,000 news stories have been penned since early April about Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. But behind the five second loop is a man who has preached three different sermons nearly every Sunday since 1972. In his interview on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, Reverend Wright discusses what drew him to the pulpit and the recent controversy surrounding him.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars. In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water...

The participation of emergent church leaders in an interfaith dialogue raised flags for some conservative Christians who have been concerned over a growing cooperation of emergent church leaders with New Spirituality/New Age leaders.Thu, Apr. 17, 2008 Posted: 08:31:33 AM EST The participation of emergent church leaders in an interfaith dialogue raised flags for some conservative Christians who have been concerned over a growing cooperation of emergent church leaders with New Spirituality/New Age leaders. Prior to Tuesday's InterSpirituality Day panel discussions, hosted by Seeds of Compassion, Christian talk show host Ingrid Schlueter of Crosstalk Radio warned the public that emergent leaders...

Whose 'Evangelical Manifesto'?Warren Smith - Guest Columnist - 4/17/2008 6:00:00 AM If all goes according to plan, on or about May 7, a group of evangelical leaders -- including the Rev. Rick Warren (of Saddleback Church and "Purpose Driven Life" fame) and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals -- will publish a document to be called "An Evangelical Manifesto: The Washington Declaration of Identity and Public Commitment." Though the document has been circulating around the Internet for a month, it has been "embargoed." For purposes of our discussion here, I will honor the embargo and not delve...

Emergent Church Spreading Spiritual Cancer Marsha West In the Sixties the counterculture rejected consumerism, individualism, traditional values and ideas, and protested against their parent’s middle class values. Thus began an all out assault on what had made America prosperous for two centuries. Now a similar assault on historic orthodox Christianity is underway that’s gaining momentum. Some Christians believe a paradigm shift is taking place in the Church and as a consequence “everything must change.” This is anything but good news for Christendom, my friends. In a radio interview with Worldview Network’s Brannon Howse, Professor Peter Jones of Westminster Seminary warned...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A leading United Methodist Church bishop is coming under heavy criticism for wanting to keep the Protestant denomination as a member of a pro-abortion coalition for religious groups. The UMC has been dogged from pro-life advocates within the denomination for decades.San Francisco-area United Methodist Bishop Beverly Shamana, the president of the church's Washington lobby office, is urging UMC officials to keep the group involved in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.The Washington-based RCRC defends unrestricted abortion in the name of its members and actively lobbies against pro-life legislation on Capitol Hill.The United Methodist Board of Church...

Barack Obama, Man of Faith August 22, 2004 by Nicholas Stix "I am a Christian.… So, I have a deep faith. I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. "That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.” Thus, U.S. Senate candidate for Illinois Barack Obama...

The more important issue than Senator Obama’s choice of words, is the world view underneath them. By using voter’s adverse economic circumstances to rationalize his cultural beliefs, Barack Obama has reintroduced what has been a defining question in American politics for more than generation: Why do so many working-class voters cast their ballots on social and values-based issues like gun ownership, abortion and same-sex marriage rather than on economic policy prescriptions?These voters — known as “the silent majority” in the 1970s, “Reagan Democrats” in the ’80s, and as “values voters” during the last two election cycles — have long been...

The "Compassion Forum" showed that even professed Christians can be tragically wrong on some of the most vital issues.

As a 17-year-old boy, I had looked for truth and answers in this world and found none. Then, to my own amazement, I found myself completely won over by the bold, unashamed witness of a group of committed Christians on my high school campus. People could have tried to be cool and win me over, but it would have never worked. I'd had enough of "cool" in the crazy home I was raised in to make me choke. I had pretty much seen it all, and nothing to me was lamer than people trying too hard to be cool. The...

Pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is expected to announce the formation of a Catholic Advisory Council today that he will likely use to try to make inroads among pro-life Catholic voters. However, whether Obama's position in favor of unlimited abortions funded with taxpayer dollars goes over with Catholic voters is another question. Senator Bob Casey and former Congressman Tim Roemer will participate in the Friday afternoon conference call to announce the formation of the advisory group. The participation and leadership of the two pro-life politicians is an obvious clue that Obama wants to siphon some of the pro-life Catholic...

Hillary Clinton and John McCain both ripped into Barack Obama Friday for reportedly saying residents of small-town America “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” out of bitterness over lost jobs, a remark his opponents interpreted as arrogant...

Have evangelicals abandoned the Religious Right for a more moderate center? Some say yes. ... Mr. McLaren says global poverty, destruction of the environment and increasing violence in the world must be addressed and calls for the church to "change its framing story" and to start trying to change public opinion in these areas. He launched a tour called "Everything Must Change" and is currently traveling throughout the country rallying support. ... Well-known liberal evangelical Jim Wallis called evangelicals the swing voters in '08. Not everybody agrees with his statement, but political analysts do a note a shift. Some religious...

In his eloquent Philadelphia speech, Mr. Obama likened Rev. Wright to a beloved, but politically extremist, family member with whom one profoundly disagrees but whose rage one understands. But this comparison just doesn't work for me. I don't get a chance to choose my family members. I do get a chance to choose my spiritual or religious leader and my congregation. And I do not have to remain silent or, more importantly, expose my children to the spiritual leader of my congregation who spews hate that offends my conscience.Mr. Obama made a choice to join the church and to ask...

I'm going with the "72-hour rule" on this one. I'll believe this when I see it: Dr Rowan Williams has held confidential talks with senior American bishops and theologians who oppose the pro-gay policies of their liberal leaders. A handful of hardline American dioceses are already defecting from the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism, and transferring their loyalties to a conservative archbishop in South America. Dr Williams is desperate to minimise further damage in the run up to the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference this summer which could be boycotted by more than a fifth of the world's bishops. His...

"...nvolve your congregation in Earth Ministry. Ask them to support us by taking our Membership Challenge, and maybe you will win a special workshop for your congregation. And what better day to support our work by taking a special collection or shared plate offering? These congregational gifts are a significant source of support for our work. The enclosed Celebration resource package gives you all you need to get started. As you celebrate Earth Day 2008, rejoice in the knowledge that you do so in spiritual community committed to the interdependent web of all existence. In Faith, Claudia Kern for the...

There are storms and then there are monster storms--the sort that spring from an unlikely confluence of an array of separate unpredictable events. And the effect can be devastating. If you're an Anglican or have an interest in things Anglican, you may have thought you were traveling on rough seas already. (I've been one for 34 years, and I have yet to see conditions I would describe as placid.) But hold on. We ain't seen nuthin' yet. What are the ingredients of this Perfect Storm? I'm not going to look for origins back at the dawn of creation itself, though...

"The Court agrees that it was major divisions such as those within the Methodist and Presbyterian churches that prompted the passage of 57-9. However, it blinks at reality to characterize the ongoing division within the Diocese, ECUSA, and the Anglican Communion as anything but a division of the first magnitude..."

In the days when Moses dictated the law of the land, the five daughters of Zelophephad took issue with the rules of inheritance. The Book of Numbers xxvii recounts how the sisters sought counsel with Moses in front of the congregation of travelling Israelites to demand that the laws be altered to accommodate female succession. This bit of biblical history is often brushed over, as are other feminist aspects of the Old Testament, because for thousands of years men alone have interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures, according to a feminist revision of the text. The Torah: A Women's Commentary re-evaluates the...

From the time Anglican pilgrims arrived in Jamestown, it's as if America and the Episcopal Church have been soul mates – for better or for worse. Now come the country's culture wars over sexuality, conservative versus liberal, change versus tradition. And the 2.4-million-member denomination that has given us more U.S. presidents than any other, along with its first-ever woman leader, is not being spared. Nearly five years after a gay priest was elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, the fallout continues. One diocese has seceded from the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Dozens of congregations,...

Several U.S. mainline Protestant denominations are about to face their latest showdowns on one of the most vexing issues since slavery: whether to break from biblical morality as traditionally understood to allow clergy with homosexual partners and to sanction blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. "Mainline" groups (predominantly white, with early American roots, and affiliated with the National Council of Churches) contain vocal, well-organized liberal and evangelical combatants. The resulting dispute "certainly has taken a big toll," says Jack Haberer of Presbyterian Outlook, an independent magazine that airs varied views. "For some, it's the total compromise of all things moral. For...

BALTIMORE - A federal judge in Baltimore ordered Westboro Baptist Church members to post their church building and nearly $500,000 more in cash and property while appealing a judgment for protesting a Marine’s funeral. The Kansas church members had hoped to avoid posting a bond while delaying payments in the $5 million judgment a jury awarded Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder who died in Iraq. Westboro church members preach that God kills American soldiers as punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuality. They protested Matthew Snyder’s Westminster funeral in March 2006 by waving signs...