SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund in conjunction with the Family Research Council began sending letters to thousands of pastors across the U.S. Monday, informing them about their right to speak to congregations on issues which will be critical to this year’s elections.
“A pastor has the same free speech rights as any other American,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “Pastors who want to speak out on life and marriage issues, for example, need not fear the tax man, despite what some in the media would have them believe.”
According to the joint letter from ADF and FRC, signed by ADF Chief Counsel Benjamin Bull and FRC President Tony Perkins, “Plainly stated, there is nothing in federal tax law to prevent a pastor from directly telling the congregation to support legislation that the church believes to be beneficial to the community. On the other hand, IRS regulations do prohibit tax-exempt organizations—including churches—from endorsing candidates. However, churches remain free to educate their congregations through distributing voter guides, registering voters, or hosting candidate forums.”
The joint letter offers ADF’s legal knowledge and FRC’s public policy expertise on the subject. ADF provides pro-bono assistance to pastors and churches on First Amendment and other constitutional legal matters. FRC’s Pastoral Outreach program regularly briefs thousands of pastors on public policy issues impacting the family and culture.
“We strongly encourage pastors to ignore these frivolous scare tactics and seize the opportunities to speak out for moral truth,” said Perkins. “We join our friends at the Alliance Defense Fund in offering our assistance to church leaders who exercise their First Amendment right to speak freely on the vital issues of our day.”
A copy of the ADF/FRC letter to pastors is available at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/ADF-FRC-pastorletter.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
http://www.telladf.org/
Posted by Walt as Constitutional Issues at 4:37 PM EDT
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ST. LOUIS — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in support of a successful Prison Fellowship rehabilitation program being attacked by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
“It is a shame that groups hostile to religious faith like Americans United will go to such lengths to silence a faith-based program. This program not only saved Iowans money, but more importantly, saved them from a litany of horrible crimes that went uncommitted because the program reduces rearrest and reincarceration,” said ADF Litigation Counsel David LaPlante.
“Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange program has a proven track record of transforming lives,” LaPlante added. “It is our hope that the 8th Circuit will agree and dismiss Americans United’s legal attack for what it is: an attack upon the right for Iowa’s prisoners to voluntarily participate in a proven and successful rehabilitation program.”
In 1999, Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative program contracted with Iowa’s Department of Corrections to help alleviate overcrowding in the state’s prisons and provide pre-release prisoner treatment. The state did not provide any funding to the program’s religious content but only reimbursed InnerChange’s non-religious program expenses. Nonetheless, InnerChange found itself a target for a lawsuit filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
On June 2, Federal District Court Judge Robert Pratt ruled that the program be shut down. The judge ruled that the program is “pervasively sectarian” and thus violated the so-called “separation of church and state.” The judge’s ruling was based upon the historical assumption that rehabilitative treatment was “a function traditionally reserved to the state” and ordered InnerChange to repay the state $1.7 million that it had received under the contract.
“In effect, InnerChange and Prison Fellowship are being held responsible for damages for the violation of a constitutional provision that only the government can violate,” LaPlante explained. “Our brief points out this error by disputing the notion that rehabilitation is solely a function of the state. America’s history and United States Supreme Court precedent clearly demonstrates it is not.”
ADF’s friend-of-the-court brief in the appeal filed in Americans United for Separation of Church and State v. Prison Fellowship Ministries is available at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/PrisonFellowshipAmicus.pdf. Prison Fellowship is represented by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
http://www.telladf.org/
Posted by Walt as Constitutional Issues, Ministries, News Events at 6:05 AM EDT
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"Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in
your hearts and make you wise." (Colossians 3:16)
by by James Robison
www.lifeoutreach.org
Most of my walk with God has been characterized by unusual lessons He has shown me through life situations, relationships and nature. While enjoying the beauty of God’s outdoors, He often translates my visual picture into spiritual truths I’ve studied in His Word. He also talks to me when I observe people, telling me how to pray or approach them with the truth of Jesus’ love. Other times He baits my curiosity with a question, then gently reveals a need in my life or insight for the days ahead.
Does my experience sound strange? This kind of communication started early in my relationship with the Lord. As a college freshman, I ran to the woods to meet Him when classes were over each day. When I arrived, I felt His presence already there. He had been waiting for my visit. I was overwhelmed that as a boy starved of fathering in my life a heavenly Father desired time with me.
In peaceful quietness, beneath towering pine trees, I worshiped Him and spent time listening as He told me how much He loved me. He showed me His plan to use my preaching to tell the world about Jesus Christ. I made a commitment to Him, that no matter how He used me in the world, I would always come aside and meet with Him. I regret that I didn’t keep my word.
Though I wandered from those times of consistent intimacy, God fulfilled His promise for my ministry. Church meetings became citywide crusades—in large coliseums and stadiums—and God blessed them even if it seemed I was too busy to meet with Him. Gradually, tormenting thoughts dominated my life, and strongholds drove my appetite for entertainment, sports and any outdoor activity. I lost all desire to read God’s Word or preach, but I kept going because many people were receiving Christ.
I cried out for God’s help and experienced a dramatic deliverance with the prayer and counsel of several friends. I devoured Scripture, preached boldly and, above all, returned to intimate time in conversation with the Lord.
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Posted by Walt as Ministries, The Bible at 2:12 PM EDT
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(September 21, 2006) The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has just become informed that the three Christian men facing the death penalty in Indonesia have been executed by firing squad. The men were executed just after midnight on Friday, September 22, 2006, Indonesia time.
“Justice has once again been denied Indonesia’s Christians,” said Jeremy Sewall, ICC Policy Analyst. I am deeply saddened at this news, and ask all concerned Christians to pray for the families of these men. This is a tragedy. This is not justice.”
After their execution was stayed last month by the Attorney General for Central Sulawesi, Mohammad Yahya Sibe, he was suddenly replaced. He was the one who had to give the order for the executions to proceed. The Chief of Police was also suddenly replaced and sent to another department. The appeal for these men that should have lasted months or even a year to process was denied within weeks.
Tibo, Riwu, and Da Silva, all Christian, were the only men charged in the Poso conflict, even though the conflict started in 1998 and went till 2003. This is a glaring injustice and hints of a massive coverup by the Indonesian government. ICC has personally investigated the Poso conflict. Entire Christian villages were attacked with government munitions and burned down using Indonesian government fuel trucks. Christian adults and children were beheaded. The Muslim community initiated the attacks and there was every indication that local Muslim government leaders were involved. Why were no Muslims ever charged in any of the attacks?
“These men were sacrificed as scape-goats so that the Indonesian government could wash their hands and walk away from the Poso conflict of 1998 to 2003. But if Indonesia really wants to show the world they value truth, they should re-open the investigation into this conflict and find all those responsible for the violence,” stated Sewall.
Posted by Walt as Ministries, Persecuted Church at 3:52 PM EDT
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By Alan Caruba
What Pope Benedict XVI actually said was vastly overshadowed by the Islamic reaction to one line from a lengthy, intellectually complex speech given on September 12th at the University of Regensburg, Germany.
We know by now that the Islamic response was to burn Catholic and Christian churches throughout the Middle East and, in one case, to shoot a nun in the back, killing someone who had labored more than three decades as a nurse to serve the poor in Africa.
Nothing more perfectly frames the real issue at stake. Islam cannot and will not accept anything other than the surrender and domination of all other faiths. For Islam, it is either dar al’Islam or dar al’harb. The latter translates the world of war.
For those too squeamish to address this too obvious fact, since the 1970s in particular and throughout its history, Islam been at war with the West.
Its war with the Hindus in India dates back and beyond that nation’s independence and the partitioning that led about the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh as places of separation for Muslims. That said, a sizeable Muslim population continues to live in India and, not surprisingly, whenever there is a bombing in Mumbai or something ugly occurs in Kashmir, you don’t have to look far to know who did it.
The reaction of Muslims living in Paris and other urban centers in France was to devote themselves for weeks to burning cars and other mayhem when they became incensed and, in London, native-born Muslims of Pakistani descent so no reason why they shouldn’t kill their countrymen on buses and in the subways of London.
To this day, there are Americans so frightened of the notion of a holy war—a Jihad—against the United States (and the West) that they cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that it was Muslims who hijacked four commercial jets and flew two of them into the Twin Towers and one into the Pentagon in 2001.
Instead, they embrace ludicrous conspiracy theories that the Bush administration did it. In the Middle East and elsewhere, Muslims are so convinced that Arabs could not have been smart enough to pull off 9-11 that it is widely believed that it was done by Jews. Strangely, despite Osama bin Laden’s many efforts to take credit, they don’t even want to believe him!
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Posted by Walt as Islam, News Events at 7:36 PM EDT
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When Mahomet would charm the world into the belief that he was the prophet of God, the heaven he pictured was not at all the heaven of holiness and spirituality. His was a heaven of unbridled sensualism, where all the passions were to be enjoyed without let or hindrance for endless years. Such the heaven that sinful men would like; therefore, such the heaven that Mahomet painted for them, and promised to them. - C.H. Spurgeon
Posted by Walt as C.H. Spurgeon Gems, Islam at 10:07 AM EDT
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"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
By James Robison
LifeOutreach.org
John Winthrop, the Puritan governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, quoted the words of Jesus when he talked about his founding settlement. “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
Since that time, America has, for the most part, shone the light of truth and freedom around the world as an unashamedly Christian nation. Once again, the “eyes of all people” watch America to see if we will continue to be that light, even in the darkest places on earth. Never has the hill upon which we sit been so visible.
Throughout recent history, darkness has encroached upon truth and freedom. Darkness under Hitler and Mussolini, darkness under the Soviet Union, and now darkness under the radical, fascist regimes of Islamism. (“Islamism” is the politicization of the Islamic religion. It attempts to control the state, run society, and remake the human being in the name of Allah.)
Christians and free people all over the world must understand that darkness can only prevail in two circumstances. Despite setbacks and distorted perceptions, the Bible tells us that darkness cannot overcome light. Therefore, only two scenarios allow darkness to triumph.
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Posted by Walt as Ministries, The Bible at 7:58 PM EDT
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The Pope's recent speech which was appealing to the "Religion of Peace" to stop the violent and deadly acts against innocent victims. But the Islamic "Religion of Peace" responded with a multitude of violent demonstrations including murdering more innocent victims in a manner as their response to the cartoon caricatures of Mohamed published by the Danish newspaper last year.
One website reports of the murder of a Christian and more to follow:
According to the website Islam Memo, one Christian was killed in Baghdad after the Pope's speech two days ago. The speech created a wave of anger throughout the Islamic world, including Iraq. A poster has been placed in many Baghdad mosques for the previously unknown group, "Kataab Ashbal Al Islam Al Salafi," (Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions). This group threatens to kill all Christians in Iraq if the Pope does not apologize in three days in front of the whole world to Mohammed. (AINA)
On the website, The Age, another call by the "Religion of Peace" for all Muslims to kill the Pope:
Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin urged Muslims to find the pontiff and punish him for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Allah in a speech that he said was as offensive as author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.
"We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion," he said in Friday evening prayers.
"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," Malin, a prominent cleric in the Somali capital, told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu.
And from the website. The Australian
CAIRO: Muslim leaders yesterday condemned Pope Benedict XVI over comments he made about Islam on a visit to Germany and demanded he apologise.
A grenade exploded near the oldest church in Gaza City, injuring no one, and hundreds of Muslims in Indian Kashmir held a day-long strike with protests in the capital, Srinagar, as a statement from the Vatican failed to quell the anger in the Muslim world.
And from AP, they reported:
ISTANBUL, Turkey - Pakistan's legislature unanimously condemned Pope Benedict XVI. Lebanon's top Shiite cleric demanded an apology. And in Turkey, the ruling party likened the pontiff to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of reviving the mentality of the Crusades.
And the reports of the violence goes on and on.
Posted by Walt as Islam at 8:18 AM EDT
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An Arab intellectual apologizes, and explains 9-11.
By ALI SALEM
As an Egyptian, I find myself compelled to apologize to the American people for what happened to them on Sept. 11. I apologize because one of those involved in that horrible disaster was Egyptian. As a man of letters, I declare myself innocent of having any part in the creation of the culture that spawned these individuals.
A long time before New York City's Twin Towers were destroyed, many towers in my country were brought down by this same brand of perpetrators. They killed President Anwar Sadat, who initiated peace with Israel and liberalism in Egypt; they killed the Egyptian writer Farag Fouda, a defender of freedom and secularism; they stabbed our Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, when he was 82 years old, after discovering that 30 years earlier he had written a novel they considered the work of an infidel. They said they had not read the novel. Who told them it was sacrilegious? Someone living in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, or sitting in a London café or a mosque in New Jersey, told them so. In Egypt alone, these fundamentalists have killed more than 1,000 policemen and ordinary citizens, Christian and Muslim alike. In one of the most beautiful places on earth, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Luxor, they slaughtered nearly 60 tourists in 1997. In Algeria their sickles endlessly harvest the souls of the poor and helpless. They have committed all these crimes with the purpose of establishing the kingdom of God on earth and have succeeded only in turning our lives into hell.
In my country, art, education and the economy have all been leveled to a ground zero. I'm convinced, though, that the problem we face is not religious but political. And so it will never be solved with a religious summit. If you hold a meeting of Muslim sheiks, Christian pastors and Jewish rabbis, they inevitably come out with blissful smiles and report that they have found their values to be mostly identical, and they are right.
Extremism may claim God as its redeemer, but it's really the selfish product of lunacy. In America, the most free and modern nation of our time, you see it too. You saw it with Jim Jones, who told his flock in Guyana to follow him into death by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid, and you saw it when David Koresh created his own small hell in Waco, Texas.
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Posted by Walt as Islam, News Events at 8:41 PM EDT
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Dear Walter,
Last month I sent you an urgent message asking for prayer for the victims of the monsoon floods that have ravaged vast regions of India. Today I write to you to let you know that the rains have continued and many more lives have been lost and entire villages destroyed—yet in the midst of it all, our GFA Compassion Services missionaries and volunteers are sharing the love of Christ in real and dramatic ways.
I encourage you to read the stories from India that will not only give you "the big picture" of how these unprecedented floods are bringing much destruction to India, but also how our missionaries and pastors are serving others, even when they themselves have been impacted by the raging waters.
And when you do read the stories and see the pictures<, please pray for the missionaries, their families, and those they are serving so sacrificially in the name of Jesus.
Yours for the lost in Asia,
K.P. Yohannan
Founder & President
Gospel for Asia
P.S.
Any gift you can make to GFA Compassion Services will help us bring the Good News of Jesus to these suffering men, women and children.
Posted by Walt as Ministries at 9:03 PM EDT
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