On a subsequent O’Reilly show, liberal NPR analyst Juan Williams was explaining the importance of not stereotyping everyone within a religion because of the violent acts of some members of the religion. In the course of his argument, he said that when he’s on a public flight, he worries when he sees people on the flight whose dress makes it clear that they are devote Muslims.
I’ve been on many flights since 9/11, and on numerous occasions since then have experienced the same concerns. If I watched Mr. O’Reilly’s show and heard the statement, it would’ve registered as a yawner … a statement of the obvious. As Mr. Krauthammer points out, this admission by Mr. Williams wasn’t too terribly different from Mr. Jackson’s admission years ago that when he hears footsteps approaching him from behind at night, he’s relieved when he sees it’s not a young black man. In the case of Mr. Williams, there was one big difference with this admission — the consequence. NPR promptly fired him.
Never a shrinking violet, Mr. Williams explains here why he’s none to happy with NPR’s punishment. That liberals are intolerant of dissent is nothing new. That federally funded NPR is a bastion of liberals and Washington DC group-think should only be a surprise to someone who doesn’t listen to NPR. What is, however, somewhat surprising, is how, accordingly to Mr. Williams, the leadership at NPR militantly opposes anything that even gives the appearance of cooperating with conservatives. I could care less about any of this if NPR was a private entity, supported by the fruits of its own labors. However the fact that my tax dollars support these left-wing wind bags makes it chaffing. In 1994, I hoped that one of the “Republican Revolution” results would be the defunding of NPR. Mr. William’s timing is perfect. Hopefully a 2011 Republican Congress will take note and act accordingly. O’Reilly is making the same point here.
On a recent episode of “The View”, apparently Bill O’Reilly offended a couple of the host ladies for stating that the 9/11 terrorist acts were done by Muslims. The ladies argued that it wasn’t Muslims, it was “Extremists” that killed the Americans and then stormed off stage.
So what is an Extremist? Webster’s dictionary defines an Extremist as “advocacy of extreme measures or views,” and extreme as “going to great or exaggerated lengths.”
How does one become an extremist in their faith? Is it that they live and obey the teachings, practices and principals of the founders of the religion? If so, then what is the argument presented by these ladies?
The founder of Islam is Mohammed. The founder of Christianity is Jesus Christ. It is my understanding that Mohammed killed or at least gave instructions to kill. Jesus did neither. I have read by some Muslims that Mohammed killed in self defense. Jesus ordered Peter to put away his sword in self defense on the night of His arrest.
Because I believe in the Bible, believe in Jesus as my Savior, believe in Creation and the Creator, believe in Hell, believe in separation from God through sin, believe in the 10 commandments, believe in His resurrection…does this mean I am an extremist? I often wonder for those who have never studied Christianity, if they interpret a Christian Fundamentalist as someone who is living and obeying the laws of the Old Testament only. Wouldn’t that then make me a Sadducee or Pharisee instead?
For an interesting article of the differences between Mohammed and Jesus, see here.
It’s been 16 months since Swedish “authorities” state-napped Dominic Johannson as he and his family were preparing to leave Sweden. Swedish authorities forcibly removed Dominic from his family and placed the child in state-controlled foster care because his parents had been homeschooling the 7-year-old. Authorities denied visitation rights but have relented to allow brief, supervised visits every five weeks or so. The parents raised an international protest, and Swedish social services have dug in and refuse to reunite the child with the family.
Apparently, the legal authority Sweden cites to justify its exercising state parental rights over the authority of the actual parents is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This convention is a very bad piece of public policy that should not be implemented in the US. The state should not be given the authority to ensure that children are raised and educated as “the state” deems appropriate.
See latest report from WND as well as links to prior reports here. Kudoas to ADF and HSLDA for continuing the legal fight for Dominic and his family.
Islamist Watch reports details about the criminal prosecution of Christians who proselytize Muslims. What makes this newsworthy is that the prosecution trend reported is in the United States. See here. Ruth R. Wisse writes at the Wall Street Journal (full access via Google) of uber-educated Harvard students responding violently to criticism (by Mr. Martin Peretz) of Muslims:
After the event adjourned, the afternoon turned ugly as police had to protect Mr. Peretz while he walked across campus surrounded by a mob of screaming students. On Sept. 4, blogging at the New Republic’s web site, he lamented that Muslims don’t respond more vigorously to acts of terrorism against their own people:”Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf [of the proposed Cordoba House mosque] there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”
Apparently, there were no student protests or violent reactions over the serial use by Muslims of suicide bombers against Muslim civilians in Iraq and in Afghanistan. No report today of protests at Harvard in response to the Muslim bombing of civilians at the Shirkat mosque in the Takhar province of Afghanistan. So long as no one criticizes Muslims for such conduct, no protests at Harvard are expected. Not to be outdone, a class of nearby Yale students interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to better understand him and his goals, shortly after Ahmadinejad explained to the UN the possibility that the US staged 9/11. Fifty years ago, our intellectual elites cozied up to Communist dictators and murderers. (Of course, many Academics as well as most Hollywood still fawn over the same in Cuba.) The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The legitimacy of the Ivy League sympathies and of the criminal prosecution of those who seek to convert Muslims in this country depends at least in part on whether Islam poses a threat. Were the agents of 9/11 and the numerous attacks against the US the acts of fringe radicals or are they representative of a large percentage of Muslims? A recent and well-considered analysis by the Center for Security Policy concludes that Shariah, a fundamental component of Islam, poses a serious threat to the security and well-being of the United States.
Today, the United States faces what is, if anything, an even more insidious ideological threat: the totalitarian socio-political doctrine that Islam calls shariah. Translated as “the path,” shariah is a comprehensive legal and political framework. Though it certainly has spiritual elements, it would be a mistake to think of shariah as a “religious” code in the Western sense because it seeks to regulate all manner of behavior in the secular sphere – economic, social, military, legal and political.
Shariah is the crucial fault line of Islam’s internecine struggle. On one side of the divide are Muslim reformers and authentic moderates – figures like Abdurrahman Wahid, the late president of Indonesia and leader of the world’s largest libertarian Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama – whose members embrace the Enlightenment’s veneration of reason and, in particular, its separation of the spiritual and secular realms. On this side of the divide, shariah is a reference point for a Muslim’s personal conduct, not a corpus to be imposed on the life of a pluralistic society.
By contrast, the other side of the divide is dominated by Muslim supremacists, often called Islamists. Like erstwhile proponents of Communism and Nazism, these supremacists – some terrorists, others employing stealthier means – seek to impose a totalitarian regime: a global totalitarian system cloaked as an Islamic state and called a caliphate. On that side of the divide, which is the focus of the present study, shariah is an immutable, compulsory system that Muslims are obliged to install and the world required to adopt, the failure to do so being deemed a damnable offence against Allah. For these ideologues, shariah is not a private matter. Adherents see the West as an obstacle to be overcome, not a culture and civilization to be embraced, or at least tolerated. It is impossible, they maintain, for alternative legal systems and forms of governments peacefully to coexist with the end-state they seek.
Full report here.
It’s one thing for school administrators and legal elites to serially discriminate against Christianity in the public sphere. It reaches an entirely new and much more dangerous level when our peers, as reflected in our courtroom juries, follow the lead in discriminating against the free exercise of Christianity.
In Knoxville, Kentucky, a jury recently held that a public school could prohibit its 5th grade students from studying and discussing their Bibles during recess. The federal judge overseeing the case upheld the jury’s decision. A ten-year-old student and some of his friends had been studying and discussing their Bibles during recess. A student complained and the principle prohibited any further Bible studies at recess.
Prejudice against Christianity from a federal judge in the form of allowing such content based discrimination isn’t surprising. A jury from the American heartland upholding such blatant discrimination is a cause for concern. Full story here.
In today’s USA Today, there is a large article on a survey done by Baylor University. The premise of the survey was to get an understanding of how Americans view God to be.
9 out of 10 Americans believe that there is a god. But of those, how do they view god? The survey categorized 4 categories describing god based on the views of how people view god:
– Authoritative (28%)
– Benevolent (22%)
– Critical (21%)
– Distant (24%)
* The remaining 5% they categorized as Atheist / Agnostic
Personally, I would have liked to have seen additional questions in the survey to identify if their god is the Biblical God. Perhaps questions like:
– Do you actively read the Bible?
– Can you site scriptures for each response provided?
I would imagine that the majority of those 9 of 10 people replied to the survey questions about who / what is god with statements that began with “I think that god…” or “I believe that god is…”. It’s one thing to say that there is a god. But it’s a completely different question if they can identify that god with the God of the Bible. In other words, how many people base their views of what the Bible says about God versus those who have made up their own image of a god.
A small group of North Carolina attorneys are working to pass special regulatory protections based upon sexual orientation and “gender identity,” which would include pedophiles, transsexuals, polygamists, and anyone else based on their stated sexual orientation or gender identity. They’re attempting to amend the code of ethics that governs licensed attorneys in NC. These radicals within the North Carolina State Bar are advancing regulations that would make it unethical for North Carolina attorneys to take “sexual orientation or gender identity” into account when hiring or when chosing which clients to represent. The full text of the pending amendment is as follows:
While employed or engaged in a professional capacity, a lawyer should not discriminate on the basis of a person’s race, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. This responsibility of non-discrimination does not limit a lawyer’s right to advocate on any issue.
After initial protests from attorneys, the Ethics Committee subsequently added a paragraph that these requirements “reflect the aspirational goals of the legal profession.” The NC Bar Ethics Committee approved the amendment. NC Bar leadership is presently accepting public comment on this amendment and is scheduled to vote on it later this year.
This amendment ought to be soundly rejected. It is based on a radical moral philosophy and it discriminates against those who adhere to Judeo-Christian views.
Some claim that this amendment is intended to protect homosexuals. While this amendment would accomplish that, it goes far beyond that objective. By extending the ethical guideline to “sexual orientation,” the authors draw a circle of protection well beyond homosexuality to include all forms of sexual orientation, which includes pedophilia, polygamy, bestiality, sadomasochism, necrophilia and every other form of sexual deviancy. If this amendment was intended to protect only homosexuals, the amendment is incompetently drafted. Since this draft was promulgated by a committee of intelligent and experienced attorneys, one can presume these few attorneys intend the Bar to impose radical social philosophy regarding human sexuality on all practicing attorneys in North Carolina.
To make sure the point is not missed regarding the scope of this amendment, the authors of the amendment tacked on “gender identity.” “Gender identity” involves a behavioral and philosophical system, distinct from “sexual orientation” and from “gender” itself.
Gender identity (otherwise known as core gender identity) is the gender(s), or lack thereof, a person self-identifies as. It is not necessarily based on biological fact, either real or perceived, nor is it always based on sexual orientation. The gender identities one may identify as include male, female, both, somewhere in between (“third gender”), or neither.
Gender identity is most typically associated with transsexuals and is a recognized psychological disorder. See here. Transsexuals and cross-dressing involve issues of gender identification.
Gender identity is also part of the post-modern and critical legal theorists vocabulary where one’s gender, like assertions of truth, is portrayed as an arbitrary and subjective experiences at best, and often these theorists portray gender identification as a tool of subjugation and oppression. It is necessary to view gender identification as a means of oppression in order to justify ethical guidelines designed to prohibit discrimination based on divergent views of gender identity. Gender identity is anathema to the Biblical concept that God intentionally created men and woman unique from each other and that God chose each person’s gender.
This radical “ethics” amendment would compel members of the bar to neutrally view the sexual choices of those we hire and those we chose to represent. Similarly, NC attorneys could not refuse to associate, hire or represent based on someone’s philosophy of gender. This would certainly protect cross dressers, transsexuals and men who would prefer to use the ladies latrine in my office. Since members of the NC judiciary are licensed attorneys, its unclear what effect this regulatory requirement would have on rulings in NC involving sexual orientation and gender identity.
It’s also worth noting that there’s no exemption based on employer. Attorneys on staff for ministries are not exempted. I represent a number of national, Christian ministries in my private practice. These clients would not appreciate my bringing a cross-dresser or openly homosexual attorney into their Board meetings to provide counsel.
While some members of the NC State Bar leadership apparently have radical beliefs regarding human sexuality and gender, other’s to include myself do not. This amendment would label it unethical to discriminate with and for whom we use our professional talents, because of their sexual practices and beliefs regarding gender. While some may disagree with my Judeo-Christian beliefs regarding human sexuality, there is not a compelling justification for labeling such beliefs unethical. In fact, I do not believe there is any justification for imposing this such a radical moral view of human sexuality on any attorney. Ironically, many forms of “sexual orientation” that would fall within the scope of this “ethics” rules are still felonies in NC. This amendment would open the door to prosecuting attorneys if they adhere to their Judeo-Christian beliefs. It would also stigmatize those who reject radical views of human sexuality.
It’s unclear who or what motivates this effort. I am not aware of problems within the legal profession that these amendments would address, let alone that a majority of NC practitioners would agree should be addressed. These are highly political and disputed public policy issues. Instead of addressing practice of law concerns in NC, this appears to be a transparent attempt to obtain the credibility of a state bar organization to endorse one side in a disputed political and moral debate while suppressing the other side. The NC Bar should steer clear of this debate regarding human sexuality and gender identification and let it be handled in the legislature and courts of public opinion. The State Bar should not impose an ethical obligation to conform our law practices to align with one side on these contested issues.
UPDATE March 2011: See NC SCt Rejects Bar Leadership’s Ethics for Sex and Gender
At her blog Holy Experience, Ann Voskamp shares touching thoughts and photos from her walk through a shanty town in Guatemala in her essay the one word that fixes a broken heart, this broken world. It’s worth the read …
The Bible says, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” and “I will give You all this domain and its glory”.
How great does that sound? The prosperity gospel at its finest. Just beware. Be like the Bereans, “for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11.
If you don’t already know who said the first 2 scriptures quoted above, study chapter 4 of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
by Joyce Kilmer
A loud cry into the world
And out ventures every baby boy and girl.
They are cradled in arms, seats, and beds
Then, they crawl on the floor instead.
They take a step then fall, step then fall,
Till they walk, and we all
Wonder: where the time has gone.
Still, the pondering continues much past one.
We tell them rhymes unlike the last,
And they learn mimicry much too fast
For censorship or thought.
“Was I store-bought?”
They might ask,
Or say something else to make us laugh.
They take each step before our eyes,
And soon we say goodbye
To them when they go off to school—
First: elementary, middle, then high.
Dropping them off at college feels like the last time
We will ever see them again and begin to cry.
Still, the final step at the wedding aisle
Is the hardest goodbye.
We return home to our empty nest,
And wonder if we did our best.
We turn to our spouse and say “yes,”
If we shared Christ: that is the final test.
How many times will you share your faith with a stranger tomorrow? How many times would you share your faith tomorrow if I gave you $1,000 for every stranger you share your faith with ? Which is the greater motivator, God or money?
My thought of the day…
When you read a letter sent to you from a loved one, what is your frame of mind before you open the envelope and begin reading it? You may know their whereabouts, their circumstances, health, financial situation, family problems, struggles, and on and on. The words in the letter are much more meaningful because you may have a better clue as to the reason, the urgency, the encouragement for writing you. You have a better idea as to what the impact is to you, how you can help, how you should respond.
When you read the letters of the New Testament, do you commonly go through the motions of reading the verses? Do you just try to find a meaning for the verse(s) as it applies to your life situations? Or do you take the time to really understand why the author was writing the letter. What was their motive? Where were they writing from? Where were the reciptients? What did they fear?
Although the authors died almost 2,000 years ago, try getting to know them as much as possible and the timing and situation that they wrote it. And since you are reading the letters as more of an interceptor then the actual recipient of the letter, get to know the recipients. The verses than have so much more impact to your life and walk with Christ.
There is a great article on Runner’s World here.
This article chronicles the experience of an experienced runner attempting his first triathlon.
Some of my favorite quotes from the article:
“I was already a decent if casual cyclist, and as for the swimming, well, all kinds of folks swim a good distance without drowning–so why not a runner in marathon shape? … ‘You’ll find out,’ said my Wise Inner Voice, and then it went off to spend the summer with somebody more inclined to listen to it.”
About swimming:
“Pool swimming is as different from open water as running on a treadmill is from running from a hungry bear.”
About biking:
“Legends are full of heroes who unknowingly pick up the instrument of their own destruction, but rarely do they pay retail for it.”
“…cycling encompasses everything from Lance Armstrong climbing an Alp to an English vicar pedaling about his parish, and the difference is discomfort. Runners train so they can run long distances comfortably. Cyclists train so they can cover long distances while in pain the whole time.”
About running:
“My legs complained at the strain, feeling both stiff and soft. They felt as if I had swapped my legs for someone else’s…I was pretty sure I could do the distance. I just didn’t know whose legs I’d be using to do them.”
Personal note: I was thrilled with my 52 minute PR for the 10K run leg of an Olympic Tri. This guy did a 43 minute split on the run leg for his first ever tri. That is why he gets to write the articles and I end up reading them!
During my Army officer training, I used to wonder whether being a leader was more of an art form than a learned skill. Now, twenty years later, I see the same issues and questions about leadership present themselves repeatedly, if somewhat more subtly, in the business world. I’ve concluded that leadership is a like being a quarterback — there are natural, intangible, non-replicable characteristics of some leaders, and for others it’s more learned. From what I can tell, there’s a key difference between leadership and management and no matter how well someone naturally leads, experience only improves the ability to lead. The abilities to analyze problems, communicate clearly, listen well, and instill confidence are important traits for both managers and leaders. Nearly anyone can be taught to manage, however, and at some level, leaders have to understand management if not practice it as well. All managers do not and need not lead though. In fact, in my experience, many if not most managers are not leaders. I believe leadership requires at the upper levels — political, business and military — traits that really cannot be taught. It’s either there in some form or it’s not, kinda like the ability to throw a spiral 50 yards on target.
The essential leadership attribute is the ability to cast a vision that others want to pursue. That attribute itself depends on two traits: the ability to envision something better for the group one is called to lead, and the ability to communicate and share that vision in an effective manner. President George W. Bush had vision with regard to foreign policy in the Middle East, however, he was nearly incapable to communicate and cast that vision for a majority of our fellow citizens to follow.
Leadership is a skill. By itself, it’s value neutral. George Washington, Genghis Khan, Thomas Jefferson, Lenin, Churchill, Hitler, and Reagan each were able to motivate many to pursue a vision for tomorrow. Leadership also does not guarantee success. Robert E. Lee had a vision and a powerful way of motivating his followers to commit to his vision and to make the ultimate, final sacrifice to fulfill that vision. I just finished reading Killer Angels (great book). The brief description of General Meade’s war council after the first day of battle in Gettysburg is an antithesis of leadership. Lee led his troops to a catastrophic defeat. Great terrain and strong leadership by his subordinates meant Meade won despite his pathetic leadership. Longstreet had a much better vision for the Confederacy at Gettysburg and was in fact a generation ahead of the rest of the world in understanding how technology changed the art of war, but thankfully for the Union, Longstreet could not communicate that vision well enough to get Lee to follow it.
Leadership is rare in any sphere of activity. It is too often sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. In politics, it is also often subordinated to the fickle will of the electorate. In any event, with all respect due to the sacred trust of the Office of the President, leadership is currently non-existent in our White House.
President Obama was certainly one of the best received news media candidates in modern history, and certainly of my lifetime. The product of a biracial and bi-cultural marriage, the buzz was that he would transcend race, something many Americans are eager to see — a post-race country. Early in his own campaign, then Senator Biden lauded then Senator’s presentation and demeanor. As the general campaign unfolded, candidate Obama promised a third way. Not only would he lift the nation to transcend issues of race, he would transcend partisan politics, a redundant phrase if ever there was one. Regardless, he cast a vision and he clearly could communicate well. With the worldwide economic meltdown in the final stages of the national election, Oprah and many others in and outside the media saw a strong leader, even a secular savior.
After a year and a half, it appears no one is satisfied with President Obama’s leadership. To the contrary, it appears that most are resigned to the fact he is not and likely will never be a great leader and as a result, his administration will not likely accomplish great things. To the contrary, it appears his party and thus his administration is on the verge of an electoral disaster in the upcoming midterm elections. In his essay The Unengaged President, Mark Steyn details how President Obama fails at fundamental leadership tasks.
There are some areas where it should be easy to have a vision, any vision really, that’s easy to share. The government’s role in exploring the limitless depths of the universe is one of the softballs of chief executive vision casting, or at least it should be. The age of explorers … There’s something fundamentally contagious and exciting about our insatiable curiosity. If curiosity contributed to the fall of mankind, it also is responsible for our endlessly seeking to overcome the next frontier.
Even if Obama fails at the more mundane tasks of domestic and international leadership, a new leader and a new way should be able to communicate a new vision for the new millennia — new vision for pressing outwards the boundaries of human knowledge and exploration. No chance. One of the very few government agencies that captures the imagination … Provides hope in a more interesting tomorrow, inspires fantasy and fuels the imagination of every child that has dreamed of visiting planets or floating through space … NASA. The recently disclosed Obama imprimatur on our space agency: NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World. The ironies are too many and to painful to dwell upon. NASA as an outreach tool to some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, none of whom have a space program? How does that fit with NASA’s mission over the past 50 years? It doesn’t. Regardless of agency purpose or history, it’s also a horrid “fit” for outreach. While in early medieval times, the middle east was at the forefront of innovation and learning, the modern Islamic states have sat on the sidelines during the last two hundred years (or more) of western science and technology advances. See here, here and here. Why “reach out” with our most scientifically advanced agency? Finally, the notion is simply goofy. NASA’s mission is space. Outreach to foreign states and terrestrial people groups aren’t really what astronauts “do.” That’s what the State Department is for. In any event, hardly a compelling vision. Better no leadership than misguided leadership.
Presently, President Obama’s failure of leadership is a good thing. We do not want him assisting us with charging uphill at the center of the line in Gettysburg. There are enough really troubling things going on in this Country — a liberal Congress that without strong liberal leadership is bankrupting the country with out of control spending; federal district court judges cavalierly overturning well grounded electoral results on highly charged public policy issues (Arizona, California), Muslims building a $100 million mosque on the location where fundamentalist Muslims destroyed the largest symbol of western capitalism (which the Islamic states reject). It can always be worse and it would be worse, much worse, if Obama was a strong leader. He’s clearly a political elite, hardcore 1960s liberal. We should give thanks and praise that as such, he has turned out to be a bit of dud on the leadership front. It could be much worse.
Sapphire Sky 