The human being is a threat to the ideals of a Progressive New World Order.

I will be running Michaels columns as they become available, he is right up my alley
The Egyptian

Ordinary Miracle

by Michael Moriarty

For me the human being is a miracle.

For Progressive Americans, however, because of the particularly Progressive Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade Decision of 1973, the human being has become less than ordinary.

The human being is now an easily disposable or aborted threat to the ideals of a Progressive New World Order.

With this “fundamental transformation of the United States of America,” as President Barack Obama has reminded us, I begin the first excerpt of a possibly endless series entitled, The Ordinary Miracle.

As a self-imposed exile, my life’s journey from my birthplace in Detroit, Michigan to Canada is a bit longer than the mild jaunt across the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario.

The country I left under the subtly unconstitutional care of Bill and Hillary Clinton has now exploded into the incipiently treasonous arrogance of the Obama Nation.

My life is now a miraculous melodrama in which those who would make me and many fellow members of the human family less than ordinary are an indisputable villainy.

From my personal experience, the American Progressive Movement has endeavored to paint what is traditionally American into an increasingly vilified form of irrelevance.

Meanwhile, the Progressives now move from legalized abortion to Health Care Death Panels.

It’s progress, you see.

It is actually thanatos, the love of death … as versus eros and agape, the love of life … that is being offered as the best solution to the problems of life.

More on those wonderfully ancient words in later excerpts of this offering.

It is, indeed, the replacement of a Judeo-Christian God with the Marxist God of Science.

To Karl Marx even his suicidal economic theories were a science.

Now with Global Warming, a tyrannizing delusion arising from Marxist Science, we’re in the last big chapter of the Bible.

Revelations.

And we’re the Good Guys!

This is as certain as the goodness of the Allies versus the evil of the Nazi, Fascist and Imperialized Japanese Axis.

Instead of the Axis we face Red Islam, Communist Jihads best represented by our unquestionably mortal enemy, Osama bin Laden and the equally Marxist imprint that President Barack Obama would like to leave upon not just the earth, but all of Mankind.

This cast of good guys and bad guys is so clear, so eternally indelible, that this editorial series of mine may soon turn into either a Batman/Superman epic or into The Ordinary Miracle of G.I. Joe.

Those to the rescue, however, are in the millions and, yes, most of them are The Ordinary Miracles of the Tea Party Movement.

With that intensely short introduction, let me begin my American recollections, not necessarily in chronological order.

Much of this will be an improvisation which I am occasionally good at.

Let’s start with my first introduction to Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood.

Yes, many of you were there and, of course, Big Hollywood’s interest in me was its discovery of my persistently dedicated commitment, through my writings for enterstageright.com, my immense trust in the proven power of not the American Constitution but her Declaration of Independence and its “inalienable” tribute to our “Creator.”

I am, indeed, a self-described, pro-life, Catholic libertarian.

Catholic libertarian may seem like a contradiction in terms.

However, when you compare my own form of faith to the Progressive Catholic hypocrisy of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, their pro-abortion defilement of a Judeo-Christian, five thousand year old commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”?!

Well … here’s my first Moriarty Pause in this possibly endless trip down memory lane.

I sigh and take a breath to recover from the cardinal sins committed every passing second by the Biden/Pelosi hypocrisy.

“Ye hypocrites!”

“Ye lawyers, you heap on people pains that you yourselves could not endure!”

That’s my rather Dionysian version of Christ engaging in a counter-revolutionary but very French pastime entitled J’accuse!

Ye Progressives!

You heap on your citizens, and their future generations, agonies which you, as Congressmen, Congresswomen and White House CEO’s cannot, will not and could never, in your most hypocritically brave or falsely humble moments, endure!

If you don’t like my Dionysian Catholicism blame it on the Jesuits who fed me Greek and Latin for two to four years.

My vocation in the theater was ordained by the Black Robes as certainly as they themselves were ordained priests.

Meanwhile, back amidst the counter-revolutionary dens of Big Hollywood, I have the great privilege of not only having a Tea Party audience but the very Third Millennium freedom to carry on a post-editorial conversation via an entirely state-of-the-art Town-Hall Meeting.

And we all have the courage to “go on the record!”

Life is good.

It is and can be so good that Christ’s words are confirmed daily.

“Unless ye become like little children, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

What is our counter-revolution but the classic child’s exclamation, “The Emperor has no clothes … and our President obviously cannot tell the truth about anything.”

His “transparency” is a big, fat, juicy, utterly irreversible, historically recorded Lie!

Now there’s a truth that cannot only set you free, it can release you into a whole new level of catharsis.

I also highlight that word because it, along with thanatos, eros and agape, will return repeatedly as the main force and rules of evidence for unseating the entire American Progressive Movement.

Send Progressivism back to France, where the whole, Communist nightmare began!

Here is my lesson for the day.

There has been a human genius so old that the “enlightened despots” of Harvard think it so antiquated that it no longer has contemporary relevance, except as a foil for their Progressive Comparative History Lessons, their “teachable moments”, their vision of Mankind’s inevitably scientific progress to the clearly envisioned destination: The Completion of The Progressive, One-Thousand-Year Plan For All of Humanity.

In other words, The New World Order.

The last Progressive of that ilk was Adolf Hitler.

We have seen and spoken of … repeatedly … the image of our President looking down his flared nostrils at us, and we’ve heard the words that accompany such arrogant certainty.

“The fundamental transformation of the United States of America!”

Within one year of office, President Obama has been captured in photos that make some of Mussolini’s grandstanding grimaces look reticent.

Oh, before I leave off, I will leave a “teaser” for you, one previously left on the response blog for my editorial, Bradley’s.

“Who is the new Jane Fonda?”

I’ll await your guesses with a few hints in future offerings from this, my apparently autobiographical series, The Ordinary Miracle.

Defend marriage

The Other McCain is a protestant with a passel of kids and a saintly wife for putting up with him. But seriously why do we not hear this kind of thing from pulpit in the Catholic Church these days? Does it really take an evangelical to say it, Has the church become so secular that it no longer wants to tell the truth. Why is the church short of priests and sisters today? We are losing the high ground on birth control and marriage that's why, too much of Bernadine's seamless garment happy clappy crap, and CINOs such as the Kennedys and Pisslousy, look at all the Cinos in Washington, it's a damn disgrace

The Egyptian

‘Forbidding to Marry’

If you put something out with the trash . . . it’s not really yours anymore; you’ve relinquished your claim to it. And that’s exactly what we’ve done with marriage. We might as well let gays have it. We’re not using it. . . .

And for my fellow Christian conservatives: we haven’t got a moral leg to stand on. Our divorce rate is identical to the national average.

Well, to repeat the punchline of an old joke, “What do you mean, ‘we,’ Kemosabe?” As of next Monday, I will have been married to the same woman for 20 years. My lovely and long-suffering wife deserves almost all the credit for that achievement, of course, but I have at least been present for the occasion.

Most of what you have written about the marriage crisis is, of course, right on target, especially when you say that Christian churches “fail to create a culture of marriage in our youth and twenty-somethings.” But, as with your statistical generalization about the failure of “we,” I fear that you are missing the trees for the forest on this issue. What has happened, it seems to me, is that everybody’s sitting around moaning about “society” and “the culture,” rather than seeking to intervene directly and personally to make a difference in the lives of those closest to them.

For me, being pro-marriage, pro-family and pro-life is more than a political position. My wife and I have six kids ranging from age 5 to 19, and you can imagine how challenging this has been on a journalist’s pay. (Never mind a blogger’s pay.) But as my late father advised me long ago, “Son, if you wait to have kids until you can afford to have kids, you’ll never have kids.”

‘TWO AND TIE ‘EM’
Christians believe that marriage is an institution ordained by God, and every marriage is thus blessed. However, in ordaining marriage, God commanded man to “be fruitful and multiply.” This commandment has never been repealed or amended, no matter what any Malthusian population-control fanatic tries to tell you. One trend that has undermined marriage has been the rise of the Contraceptive Culture, which celebrates sterility as the norm and views fertility as a pathology requiring medical prevention.

How many Christians have embraced this false — dare I say, evil — worldview? How many young Christian married couples use contraception because “we can’t afford children now”? And how many married Christian couples have unwittingly subscribed to the Zero Population Growth ideal of exactly two children per couple? Did you know that surgical sterilization (tubal ligation) is the No. 1 form of birth control for American women? It’s the “two and tie ‘em” mentality: Have exactly two children, then get yourself surgically sterilized.

My wife and I encountered this mentality with our second pregnancy (our twin sons, who are now 16). During a prenatal examination, the obstetrician told my wife, “If you want me to perform a tubal at the time of delivery, it will be cheaper than if you want me to do it later, because the insurance will only have to pay for one hospitalization.” My wife came home in tears: “Am I an unfit mother? Why would he even suggest such a thing?” But millions of women across America not only accept such suggestions, they actively seek sterilization, viewing it as a liberation from the menace of pregnancy.

In this, many “Christian conservatives” seem entirely comfortable with being “conformed to this world,” slavishly following the secular trend. What one confronts is an attitude I call “middle classism”: The belief that the object of life is to accrue the symbols of middle-class status (college education, office job, new cars, home in the suburbs, vacation travel) and to ensure that one’s children accumulate the same symbols.

A SHOCKING CHOICE
Life without these symbols is deemed unworthy — “underprivileged” — and many parents who consider themselves Christian conservatives strongly caution their children against early marriage and early parenthood, since these are perceived as obstacles to obtaining middle-classness. If a 19-year-old returns from her freshman year at college to announce that she is a lesbian, her Christian conservative parents may not approve, but they will still love and cherish their child. Let the same 19-year-old announce that she’s marrying her boyfriend and dropping out of school to start a family, and this would drive her Christian conservative parents to the verge of suicidal grief: “You’re ruining your life!”

What is the result of this attitude? I wrote about it a decade ago:

Fact: In 1960, the median age at first marriage for U.S. women was 20. Today, it´s 25. For men, the median age at first marriage has gone from 22 in 1960 to 27 today. Yet researchers report that the average young American today first has sexual intercourse at age 17 or 18.
Judging from these statistics, then, most young people in this country will be “sexually active” . . . for eight to 10 years before marrying. If that is true, what future can there be for the politics of “family values”? . . .
If young Americans are less likely to marry than Americans of a generation ago, they are also less likely to become parents.
Overall, U.S. fertility rates have declined by 43.6 percent since 1960 and like the marriage trends this decline is most pronounced among the young. The birth rate for women aged 20-24 decreased 56.5 percent between 1960 and 2000, according to the Census Bureau. For all the outcry over America´s “teen pregnancy crisis,” the teen birth rate is now 34.7 percent lower than it was in the final year of the Eisenhower administration.

This trend away from marriage and parenthood has not been opposed or condemned by Christian leaders, who are afraid to offend their congregations. Many evangelical Christians like to talk about “stepping out on faith,” even while they live an existence carefully calculated toward attainment of upwardly-mobile middle-classness. Thus, at noon on Sunday, they get into one of their 2.4 cars and drive home from their suburban mega-church to their cul-de-sac development, to their 4BR/5BA house with 1.7 children. And then they wonder why they don’t feel particularly “spiritual.”

Too many people who consider themselves Christian conservatives are disobedient to God’s commandments, yet idolatrously reverent toward the conventions of a middle-class lifestyle. Their true religion is the Theology of Niceness: Get a nice job so you can live in a nice neighborhood with nice schools for your nice children who will wear nice clothes when you drive them in your nice car to play with their nice friends. Everything all neat and tidy, you see? Hard for the Duggars and their 18 children to live nice like that. Yet they work hard and have faith in God, and somehow they don’t all starve to death.

Thou shalt go to college is the first commandment of middle-classness, and the lifestyle idolators don’t consider how this inflexible attitude contributes to the flourishing of adolescent fornication. It’s very good to tell young teens that they should save sex for marriage, but . . . well, how soon can they get married?

“Oh, you’ll have to go to college, start a career and become financially stable first.” And the 13- or 14-year-old does the math and thinks, “Twenty-five? 26? 27? You’re freaking kidding me! That’s like a zillion years in the future! I’ll be practically 30 by that time!” The prospect of an (honestly) white wedding being dangled off in the distant future has a profoundly demoralizing effect on kids. As a result, every church youth leader can tell you stories about the 17-year-old girl who got pregnant after her boyfriend convinced her that “it’s not wrong if we really love each other.” (It’s the oldest line in the book, girls.)

THE DEATH OF ROMANCE
This is why pop songs no longer feature promises of “endless love” and “always and forever.” In 1971, the protagonist of the Temptations’ hit “Just My Imagination” saw a beautiful girl walk past and dreamed:

Soon we’ll be married
And raise a family.
In a cozy little home out in the country
With two children, maybe three.

If such visions of wedded bliss occupy no part of the youthful imagination today, why not? Perhaps because children are indoctrinated to believe that marriage is strictly for grown-ups — heaven forbid an 18-year-old boy should get a job, marry his high-school sweetheart, and start their life together in a tiny little basement apartment. What about college? What about your career? What about the upwardly-mobile ambitions of middle-classness?

If this status idolatry isn’t anti-marriage, what is it? I’m reminded of the fourth chapter of Timothy:

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; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry . . .

Myself, I try to actively encourage marriage for young people. I’m a relentless matchmaker, and as soon as I see young folks pairing up as boyfriend and girlfriend, I start asking, “When’s the wedding?” (And once they’re married, “When’s the baby due?”) Instead of sitting around waiting for somebody’s legislative agenda, I’m “pro-family” in the most direct, personal way possible.

If young Christian conservatives want to be “pro-family,” then, they need to be getting married and having babies. And what a youth rebellion that would be, huh? “No, mother, I’ve decided against law school. As a matter of fact, Jennifer and I went to the courthouse and got married last Saturday and . . .” Strange to say that the most shocking thing a young person can do in 2009 is to get married. They can change the world one “I do” at a time.

UPDATE: Is this a harmonic convergence or what? While I was writing this, it appears that Laura was updating her post to link my American Spectator column, “Marriage: A Hill to Die On.”

UPDATE II:In the comments at my blog, father-of-five Larry says:

I cannot count the number of times we have been unintentionally insulted by well meaning, self-identified Christians, asking if we know what causes that (pregnancy) . . .

To which I always answer, “Yes, and we’re very good at it.” That shuts ‘em up quick.

In the comments here, meanwhile, Feel of Shadows calls our attention to an article in First Things outlining the role of the decline of the family in the economic crisis:

America’s population has risen from 200 million to 300 million since 1970, while the total number of two-parent families with children is the same today as it was when Richard Nixon took office, at 25 million. In 1973, the United States had 36 million housing units with three or more bedrooms, not many more than the number of two-parent families with children—which means that the supply of family homes was roughly in line with the number of families. By 2005, the number of housing units with three or more bedrooms had doubled to 72 million, though America had the same number of two-parent families with children.
The number of two-parent families with children, the kind of household that requires and can afford a large home, has remained essentially stagnant since 1963, according to the Census Bureau. Between 1963 and 2005, to be sure, the total number of what the Census Bureau categorizes as families grew from 47 million to 77 million. But most of the increase is due to families without children, including what are sometimes rather strangely called “one-person families.”
In place of traditional two-parent families with children, America has seen enormous growth in one-parent families and childless families. The number of one-parent families with children has tripled. Dependent children formed half the U.S. population in 1960, and they add up to only 30 percent today. The dependent elderly doubled as a proportion of the population, from 15 percent in 1960 to 30 percent today.

BTW, we should not neglect to mention that, in myriad ways, government policies have incentivized the decline of the traditional family. Beginning in the 1960s, federal money paid for “family planning” services, numerous welfare programs that fostered unwed motherhood, and policies that tended to destroy the kinds of neighborhoods where young families once got their start.

Legend in his own mind

I believe it says it all, don't you, my apologies to Norman Rockwell

The Egyptian

WOW

I have no opinion on this , just found it interesting, he even calls for 40 days of prayer

feelin real bad

left wing anti-life crowd

I apologize for all the cut and paste I've been doing lately, Dairy farming this time of year is busy and I don't have the time for photography and deep thought needed to write brilliant commentary.

This Tiller murder really has me in a quandary, two army recruiters were shot yesterday, and not one word of apology from the anti-war, anti-military left wingnuts, how about Rachel Madow, the whole MSNBC crowd, yet the second abortionist murdered in over 10 years and we prolifers are going to be drug on the carpet and villified. Let's hear the liberals in this country take responsilibity for their murdering anti-life progeny. Want odds on that happening?

The Egyptian

Sadly needed

Sign seen at the door of San Secondo d'Asti Church in Guasti Calf. Good idea, but kind of sad that it is required, sort of think it would be a good idea around here
brought to my attention by Lost Lambs

The Egyptian

PS Beautiful church in a Spanish mission kind of way, take a look

Anglican Church follies

Giggle-snork, wiping my nose, leave it to the brits, this is what happens when religion is run by committee and worried about being up to date with the secular world

From Gloria Tv

Just A Few Thoughts From Almost 200 Years Ago

stolen joyfully from The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen
Thanks guys


Some things never change

I thought you might enjoy (if not find thought provoking) from Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America. ~ Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

~ Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

~ Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

~ The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

~ There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

~ America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good it will cease to be great.

The coming evangelical collapse

" Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions."

Brick by Brick, they are not coming over for more of the same that the evangelical churches gave them.

The Egyptian
------------------------------------------------------

From the Christian Science Monitor

An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.

By Michael Spencer

from the March 10, 2009 edition

Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap ofbelieving in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.

Is all of this a bad thing?

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.

Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.

Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.

The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.

Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.

We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?

• Michael Spencer is a writer and communicator living and working in a Christian community in Kentucky. He describes himself as "a postevangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality." This essay is adapted from a series on his blog, InternetMonk.com.

We Catholics Have A Lot Of Work To Do

Look at what 40 years of Liberal Happy Clappy Crap has brought us, when you stand for nothing you will have nothing

"when people believe in nothing they will believe anything"
Paraphrasing Chesterton

More Americans say they have no religion

By RACHEL ZOLL – 8 hours ago

A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out o of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.

"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.

In the Northeast, self-identified Catholics made up 36 percent of adults last year, down from 43 percent in 1990. At the same time, however, Catholics grew to about one-third of the adult population in California and Texas, and one-quarter of Floridians, largely due to Latino immigration, according to the research.

Nationally, Catholics remain the largest religious group, with 57 million people saying they belong to the church. The tradition gained 11 million followers since 1990, but its share of the population fell by about a percentage point to 25 percent.

Christians who aren't Catholic also are a declining segment of the country.

In 2008, Christians comprised 76 percent of U.S. adults, compared to about 77 percent in 2001 and about 86 percent in 1990. Researchers said the dwindling ranks of mainline Protestants, including Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians, largely explains the shift. Over the last seven years, mainline Protestants dropped from just over 17 percent to 12.9 percent of the population.

The report from The Program on Public Values at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., surveyed 54,461 adults in English or Spanish from February through November of last year. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.5 percentage points. The findings are part of a series of studies on American religion by the program that will later look more closely at reasons behind the trends.

The current survey, being released Monday, found traditional organized religion playing less of a role in many lives. Thirty percent of married couples did not have a religious wedding ceremony and 27 percent of respondents said they did not want a religious funeral.

About 12 percent of Americans believe in a higher power but not the personal God at the core of monotheistic faiths. And, since 1990, a slightly greater share of respondents — 1.2 percent — said they were part of new religious movements, including Scientology, Wicca and Santeria.

The study also found signs of a growing influence of churches that either don't belong to a denomination or play down their membership in a religious group.

Respondents who called themselves "non-denominational Christian" grew from 0.1 percent in 1990 to 3.5 percent last year. Congregations that most often use the term are megachurches considered "seeker sensitive." They use rock style music and less structured prayer to attract people who don't usually attend church. Researchers also found a small increase in those who prefer being called evangelical or born-again, rather than claim membership in a denomination.

Evangelical or born-again Americans make up 34 percent of all American adults and 45 percent of all Christians and Catholics, the study found. Researchers found that 18 percent of Catholics consider themselves born-again or evangelical, and nearly 39 percent of mainline Protestants prefer those labels. Many mainline Protestant groups are riven by conflict over how they should interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships, salvation and other issues.

The percentage of Pentecostals remained mostly steady since 1990 at 3.5 percent, a surprising finding considering the dramatic spread of the tradition worldwide. Pentecostals are known for a spirited form of Christianity that includes speaking in tongues and a belief in modern-day miracles.

Mormon numbers also held steady over the period at 1.4 percent of the population, while the number of Jews who described themselves as religiously observant continued to drop, from 1.8 percent in 1990 to 1.2 percent, or 2.7 million people, last year. Researchers plan a broader survey on people who consider themselves culturally Jewish but aren't religious.

The study found that the percentage of Americans who identified themselves as Muslim grew to 0.6 percent of the population, while growth in Eastern religions such as Buddhism slightly slowed.

On the Net:

• Survey results: http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/

Here come the Brown Shirts

Maybe I shouldn't have posted the previous rant, Oh well at least I won't be alone

The Egyptian

Big Brother Obama Supporters On the Internet Are Watching You

By Judi McLeod Thursday, February 26, 2009

While the Obama-led Democrats control the future of the United States of America, the grassroots on the Internet (The Obama Forum) are in the process of turning in “enemies of Obama”, including the parents of children who are Obama supporters.

Obama supporting children have actually posted their parents’ names and addresses on the Obama Forum. (here).

In all of its searches, Canada Free Press (CFP) has found no comment from any official in the Obama administration repudiating the Forum.

The Obamaforum.com instructs people to “Report Anti-Obama Sentiment By Your Coworkers and Peers (here) and more.

All mainstreet Americans can do is hope that the secret service who visited the Oklahoma city motorist, tooling around town with the “abort Obama sign” on his car, does not log onto the Forum.

“The following is not for those who are frightened easily or for those with a weak stomach,” a CFP tipster wrote.

You can let Obama know how his stimulus bill is helping you at the website, whose name was a number, according to Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday night. The veep, of course, was really talking about: Recovery.gov- Share your experience

But Obamameisters in darker corners have a thread just for what to do with their perceived enemies:

From the Obama Forum: Ban websites with the help of officials (Italics CFP’s).

To get the ball rolling here are some of the sites:

Get the ball rolling here are some sites
www.gop.org <---Opposing party www.redstate.com <---Conservatard watering hole www.freerepublic.com <---See redstate.com www.mccain.senate.gov <---Ran against Obama and attacking him now. www.sarahpac.com <---Sarah "Carabou Barbie" Palin's "Political Action Committee." drudgereport has a bunch of firearms sites and a ton of others.

Here they are keeping a list and checking it twice...”Ok, if you see a car with a bumper sticker or anything about freedom or liberty or hatred for taxes or one of those “Nobamba” bumper stickers or anything that is against the government or Obama, do what you can to mark down the license plate number. Maybe the make and model of the car, I bet we might be able to get a statistical probability based on make and model to just go after all of a certain type of car. The government will have need for such a list pretty soon.

“I saw t his one this morning so I’ll start the list:
“License Plate: 1M1337-Texas,
“Silver Cadillac Escalade
“Infraction: Ron Paul 2008 bumper sticker and a little “don’t tread on me” sign...”

There is zero tolerance for Doubting Thomases on a website that likes to depict Obama as Jesus walking on water.

The Forum has a take-no-prisoners attitude: “Anyone overheard doubting President Obama should be immediately reported to local officials. Make the jobs of local officials easier by posting any dissent you may have overheard in the elevator from one of your coworkers, while drinking a beer at the local sports bar, or by strangers buying groceries at the grocery store, or reading Conservative books and other racist publications (Italics CFP’s) at the library. Remember to jot down as much information as possible about them. Height, weight, hair color, eye color, etc. Try to sneak a photograph of them with your cell phone, but be careful and don’t let them see you. License plate numbers, social security information, FEMA records, criminal background checks. Post it all here. “Remember, in the great words of President Obama: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!”

To suggest that it was President John F. Kennedy who inspired Americans with these words, could get you branded as a racist.

Other sentiments of Internet Obama supporters: “All gunowners should die”.

“Websites (that) don’t comply on their own, we will take them down by force,” is their promise.

“To keep hope alive, in spite of all mistakes, horrors, and crimes, recognize the obvious superiority of socialism”, their avowed mantra.

“For struggle, Solidarity and Socialism! I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Obama. Our laws and his will, according to him. We will not overthrow the government with violence. We shall stand, remain and be the law of his realm forever. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead for Obama to deliver them from evil.”

Meanwhile, it’s going to be a long, intolerant and even excruciating four years.

Copyright © 2009
Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and Glenn Beck.

Judi can be emailed at: judi@canadafreepress.com

A FUNNY SORT OF DEPRESSION

I know off the religion topic but we need to put things in perspective here, when the Ipods are gone and the cell phones are out of commission and walmart sales drop, then, we are in a depression, right now the economy is in a down turn but if Obama's manic grasp for control is left unchecked we will be in a depression for real, now is the time for people to keep their wits about them and PRAY that sense returns to DC before it's too late.
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PRAY for the POPE and our elected officials, that they do the right thing and not spend us down the toliet

My Rant
The Egyptian

A FUNNY SORT OF DEPRESSION

By Victor Davis Hanson, Tribune Media Services,
Hanson, Victor Davis
Posted 02/25/2009 at 3:00 pm EST

Are we headed to something like the Great Depression?

There is clearly much to be worried about. Most of America's private retirement 401(k) accounts have significantly decreased in value since last autumn's crash. Home equity has plunged. The unemployment rate is above 7 percent and climbing.

We had negative GDP growth last quarter. Stock prices are the lowest in 10 years. Almost daily some company announces layoffs. Some big banks may be nationalized. The American auto industry will not survive as we have known it for nearly a century.

Abroad, the news is worse. European banks have lost trillions of euros in bad loans to Eastern Europe and Asia. Countries like Iceland, Ireland and Greece are teetering on insolvency. China's export industries may have to lay off millions of workers.

Given all that news, we are in a funny sort of depression. Our spiraling national deficit is being financed by China, Japan and other overseas concerns at almost no interest -- saving the United States trillions of dollars in debt service costs.

Nearly 93 percent of those Americans in the workforce are still employed. The difference between what the banks pay out in interest on depositors' savings and what they charge borrowers for loans is one of the most profitable in recent memory.

The sudden crash in energy prices may be hurting Iran, the Gulf monarchies, Russia and Venezuela. Yet Americans, who import 60 percent of their transportation fuel, along with natural gas, have been given about a half-trillion-dollar annual reprieve. The reduced price of energy could translate into more than $1,500 in annual savings for the average driver, and hundreds of dollars off the heating and cooling bills for the homeowner.

For the vast majority of Americans with jobs, the fall in prices for almost everything from food to cars has, in real dollars, meant an actual increase in purchasing power. The loss in value of home equity is serious for those who need to relocate for work or want to downsize and move to an apartment or a retirement community. But when averaged over the last decade, real estate still shows a substantial annual increase in value.

Moreover, the vast majority of American homeowners -- well over 90 percent -- meet their mortgage payments. They have no plans to flip their homes for profit. For them, the fact that they have lost paper equity, or even owe more than their homes are currently appraised at, is scary -- but not equivalent to a depression. Most are confident that after a few years their houses will appreciate again. As for now, working young couples have a chance to buy a house that would have been impossible just two years ago.

The same holds true for many retirement accounts whose decline is terrible for those retirees who count on drawing out each month what they put away or must cash out their depleted accounts at vastly reduced value.

But the majority of working Americans are not yet pulling out their sinking retirement funds. Most are still putting away pre-tax money each month, apparently confident that within a few years their portfolios will return to their former value. Some are even consoled that they are now buying mutual funds at rock-bottom prices rather than investing in sky-high investments at the peak of a bull market.

Times are bad for those out of work or those who bought expensive homes with paltry down payments. Yet for those hurting, there is a vast array of government help. Both private companies and public agencies offer all sorts of ways to either walk away from mortgage obligations or have them renegotiated. The same is true for credit-card debt.

Unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps and even more new social programs on the way have redefined poverty from what our grandparents told us of the Great Depression.

I live in southeastern Fresno County, one of the poorest regions of a now nearly bankrupt California. Many people are hurting. Yet to go to the local Wal-Mart is to see late-model cars in the parking lots and plenty of cell phones, iPods and BlackBerrys among the shoppers. Carts are stuffed with consumer goods, lots of food and Easter confections.

So are we in a depression that justifies a vast redefinition of government and a massive takeover of the private sector? Not quite. What we are a witnessing instead is a sharp downturn from the most affluent era in the history of civilization. For the last two decades, we borrowed and spent as if there were no tomorrow. Now we are living in that tomorrow of cutting back and making do.

In relative terms, it is no longer 2005, but that does not mean it is 1932 either. (Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.)

Relevant Quotes From Thomas Jefferson

Thanks Kyrie Eleison


Relevant Quotes From Thomas Jefferson

http://kaiserfam.com/kyrieeleison/

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. Thomas Jefferson

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. Thomas Jefferson

WTF prolife campain,

Leave it to the youth to finally get it, all the milk toast babble from the USCCB won't do what these kids may accomplish.

Thanks Damian
the Egyptian

stolen from Damian Thompson
Holy Smoke Blog (UK)

"Finally," writes one of my favourite bloggers, the loveable but savage "five feet of fury" Kathy Shaidle. "A hip, cool pro-life campaign - no plastic foetuses or crabby old men yelling 'whore'."

As Hot Air explains, Students for Life wanted to find a catchy title for their campaign against the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). So they came up with "WTF", as in "What the FOCA?" Here is the WTF Campaign website, which explains that the offensive term to which the title refers is not nearly so offensive as FOCA.

I'll say. This is a horrendous piece of legislation that turns abortion on demand into a "fundamental right" of women, overturning bans on partial-birth abortion. Plenty of pro-choice Americans oppose it, because it's so extreme. Don't believe me? Read this.

Fortunately for supporters of FOCA, the new President of the United States is the most pro-abortion in history - indeed, he was the most pro-abortion politician ever to sit in Congress. Which has not stopped supposedly pro-life Catholics sucking up to him because, hey, he's just great, isn't he?