This year’s National Day of Prayer will be celebrated May 3rd.

ADF attorneys file motion to dismiss criminal cases against silenced Gideons

Frugality Opens Doors to Giving, Enjoying God's Blessings

Deborah Smith Pegues

Lawmakers to Consider Hate-Crimes Legislation

We are always ready to find dignity in human beings, including those whose mental age will never exceed that of an infant, but we don't attribute dignity to dogs or cats, though they clearly operate at a more advanced mental level than human infants. Just making that comparison provokes outrage in some quarters. But why should dignity always go together with species membership, no matter what the characteristics of the individual may be?....[Ashley] is precious not so much for what she is, but because her parents and siblings love her and care about her.

North Carolina Family Policy Council

Debt can be an exhausting trial on a marriage. It is so much easier to spend ourselves into debt than it is getting out, but the baby steps given by financial expert Ron Blue can help.

Articles within this series

By Aqeel Hussein in Mosul and Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph

The snow has already settled on the mountains further north, but the Christians of the Iraqi city of Mosul are scared to put festive decorations outside their homes this year. Their ancestors settled here in the 1st century AD, yet as teacher Jamal Fadi has discovered, some of their Muslim neighbours want this Christmas to be their last. "A letter was delivered to my door with two bullets placed on top of it," said Mr Fadi, 32, standing watchfully in the neat garden of his two-storey villa. "It said: 'Leave, crusaders, or we will cut your heads off.' They want us to go from Mosul completely." After months as a nervous bystander to the spiralling civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Iraq's Christian minority now faces the spectre of sectarian violence coming to their traditional home city. They fear that al Qaeda-backed zealots within the Sunni community, which forms the bulk of Mosul's one million population, want to end nearly 1,500 years of co-existence with an onslaught of ethnic cleansing. Residents say that the campaign, which they claim has intensified in recent weeks, is prompted by Sunni fears of a complete Shia takeover of Baghdad in coming years. In response, Mosul would be turned into a northern capital for a Sunni-dominated enclave, which would include Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit and stretch south to the anti-American towns of Fallujah and Ramadi. The fact that no such blueprint has been endorsed by the Iraqi government is of little comfort to Christians. The plan's architects, they fear, are capable of enforcing it themselves through threats and indoctrination alone. For proof, they say, look no further than playgrounds, where Christian and Sunni Muslim children have played together for decades. advertisement "Our children are told by other pupils that they are 'f***ing spies' who have brought the Christian occupation to Iraq," said Father Shamoun Butris, a Christian minister in Mosul. "It is not true, but makes no -difference." Iraq's Christian community is made up of Eastern Rite Chaldean Catholics and Assyrian Orthodox Christians, and numbered around one million, or five per cent of the population, before the US-led invasion. Traditionally well-educated, they won respect in a Muslim land by specialising in teaching, academia and medicine, which earned them protected status under Saddam Hussein. Since his fall, those blessings have turned to curses. Their well-paid jobs have made them targets for kidnappers, while their grasp of English has fuelled suspicions that they work as translators for the US Army. In the past three years, 200,000 have fled abroad. So far, save for a few brief but bloody car-bombings against Christian churches, they have at least escaped the mass pogroms of the kind being meted out to each other by Sunnis and Shias. Now, however, they sense the start of a systematic campaign. Anxiety has been fuelled by reports in Mosul of Christian women being told to stop wearing Western clothes. Muslim leaders deny such claims. Yet the more hard-line clerics make clear that they no longer see Christians as part of Mosul's future. "We want an Islamic society, and the Christians should leave because they follow the occupiers' religion," said Saad al Jibouri, from the Sunni Al Rahma mosque. "We did not force them to leave, nor did we kill any of them." With talk now growing of partitioning Iraq into federal states for Sunni, Shias and Kurds, some Iraqi Christians want their own, autonomous zone in an area west of Mosul. But the plan has little chance of success with the Iraqi government, and with about half of their number still resident 250 miles away in Baghdad, it has limited support among Christians themselves. Despite feeling vulnerable, many Christians are reluctant to complain. Canon Andrew White, a British clergyman based in the Green Zone who administers to a 1,000-strong congregation at St George's Anglican Church in Baghdad, said: "Christians keep stressing to me that they do not want to over-emphasise what they are going through for fear of it escalating. But things are bad." For some in Mosul, there is bewilderment at why the West – with its powerful Christian figures in George W Bush, Tony Blair and Pope Benedict XVI – cannot help. Among them is Firaz Adis, 51, who will pass this Christmas without his son Ricot, kidnapped from Mosul University four months ago. "I paid a ransom of $10,000 but they killed my son anyway," he sobbed. "They said 'This will keep happening as long as you are agents of the occupiers'. I ask all the Christians in the world: 'Please help us'."

Judge Says 'Awesome God' Allowed in School Show

…will have all the rights and responsibilities of a registered student organization except that they will be exempt from the provisions of the University's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy relating to membership in the organization based upon religion.

I'm going to put my Christian hat on for a moment — I think there are ways that Christian people are supposed to be able to solve problems without litigation…Let's see if we can find enough common ground to both ensure no one's religious rights are abridged and secondly that the university ensures that people are not being discriminated against.

While this all sounds so reasonable, it plays into a common guilt trip repeatedly inflicted on religious students. Aren’t religious students supposed to be nice? Aren’t they supposed to get along with everyone? How does litigation advance the Christian witness? By asking questions like this, universities deflect attention from their own failings and ignore the bureaucratic black hole that sucks in the vast majority of all student complaints.

[…]

The fact that students appeal to the courts — as is their right and as the Apostle Paul did when faced with illegal persecution — is evidence of their courage and conviction, not of any spiritual or moral defect.

UGA officials said they have not finalized plans for a policy change. At the heart, a main issue is how to amend the policy without opening it too far. The chess club, or a social fraternity for example, would not be allowed to exclude Muslim students or Christians based on their faith.

From Gray Abercrombie of Fort Mill, S.C., who recently completed a four-year term as a Baptist deacon:

The founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network has taken the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina to task for excluding homosexuals from the denomination ("Baptists again side with cause of exclusion," Nov. 19). The convention did no such thing.

What the convention did do was pass a resolution in which current member churches that ordain homosexual clergy, make public statements supporting homosexuality, baptize or allow openly homosexual members would be disassociated from the convention. As one spokesman said, the reason the convention felt the need for action was that homosexuality seems to be the only sin with its own advocacy group. The convention's intention is to hold member churches accountable to the authority of scripture.

The convention's resolution is not even close to being the same thing as excluding homosexuals. In fact, most churches, including the Baptists, would welcome the chance to minister to homosexuals. They are certainly valuable in God's eyes and they are valuable in the eyes of Christians. Just because Christians reject homosexuality and the homosexual agenda of normalizing what they view as immoral, that doesn't mean they are not fulfilling the second greatest commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

The error here results from confusion over what is love and what is sympathy. Sympathy would make no demands and would encourage whatever seems to fulfill the individual at the moment. Love involves a certain accountability and discipline. I love my children, but I don't let them engage in harmful behavior just because they think it's fun. Why would Christians accept and condone a lifestyle that runs counter to biblical teaching when that lifestyle results in reducing the practitioner's life span by an average of 20 years?

Trying to jump on the civil rights bandwagon by condemning the church's conduct in dealing with racism and slavery in the South is not a very good argument, for these reasons:

1. Ethnicity is not determined by conduct. No one does anything to be born of a particular race. Scripture plainly states that there is to be no distinction of race, gender or social status for Christians, that all are equal before God.

3. The Bible gives very clear and consistent instructions of how we are to conduct ourselves in the area of sexuality. Homosexual activists condemn the church for ignoring biblical teaching in the area of race relations, but then turn around and ask it to ignore biblical teachings when it comes to sexuality. Go figure.

The solution is simple. Members of the N.C. Baptist Convention certainly believe man was created in the image of God. Implicit in this is the idea that God designed us a certain way and has placed moral demands on us in every area of life.

The only thing homosexual activists have to do to get the convention to reverse what they view as a misguided resolution is to explain to them how the human body designed by God was designed for homosexual sex.

from staff reports

Research counters common claims of economic justice.

Although liberals are often quick to say they are the stalwarts of "social and economic justice," research continues to show that when it comes to charity, churchgoing conservatives give far more to help the poor.

The book Who Really Cares is the latest to come to that conclusion, surprising even Arthur Brooks, the author. He told Family News in Focus he began his research expecting to bolster the claim that liberals are the most generous -- but found the opposite.

"People who attend a house of worship give four times more money per year than people who don't," he said. "For people who are deeply religious, there is the notion that religion or religious behavior and charity come from the same God-given impulse. In other words, God makes you charitable."

Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for American Values, said Brooks' research is a breath of fresh air for conservatives tired of being lambasted by liberals as selfish.

"Despite all the bad press that the liberals and elitists like to give people of faith," she said, "the truth is, that those Christian values of tithing, of helping the poor, of seeing the needy -- these things motivate the community of faith to give and to give generously and to give above and beyond the call."

Brooks said he tells conservatives not to celebrate their giving and tells liberals to take the gap in giving as a lesson.

"It's a call to action to make sure that giving values are taught more widely among American liberals," he said, "so that they can take their place in the fabric of voluntary charity that is characteristic of American values and American culture."

by the President of the United States of America

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620. Their destination? The New World. Although filled with uncertainty and peril, it offered both civil and religious liberty.

For over two months, the 102 passengers braved the harsh elements of a vast storm-tossed sea. Finally, with firm purpose and a reliance on Divine Providence, the cry of "Land!" was heard.

Arriving in Massachusetts in late November, the Pilgrims sought a suitable landing place. On December 11, just before disembarking at Plymouth Rock, they signed the "Mayflower Compact" - America's first document of civil government and the first to introduce self-government.

After a prayer service, the Pilgrims began building hasty shelters. However, unprepared for the starvation and sickness of a harsh New England winter, nearly half died before spring. Yet, persevering in prayer, and assisted by helpful Indians, they reaped a bountiful harvest the following summer.

The grateful Pilgrims then declared a three-day feast, starting on December 13, 1621, to thank God and to celebrate with their Indian friends. While this was not the first Thanksgiving in America (thanksgiving services were held in Virginia as early as 1607), it was America's first Thanksgiving Festival.

Pilgrim Edward Winslow described the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving in these words:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling [bird hunting] so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as... served the company almost a week... Many of the Indians [came] amongst us and... their greatest King, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought... And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet BY THE GOODNESS OF GOD WE ARE... FAR FROM WANT."

In 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, America celebrated its first Day of Thanksgiving to God under its new constitution. That same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, "unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities." Yet, despite these early national proclamations, official Thanksgiving observances usually occurred only at the State level.

Much of the credit for the adoption of a later ANNUAL national Thanksgiving Day may be attributed to Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey's Lady's Book. For thirty years, she promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting President after President until President Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November as a national Day of Thanksgiving. Over the next seventy-five years, Presidents followed Lincoln's precedent, annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday.

Lincoln's original 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation came - spiritually speaking - at a pivotal point in his life. During the first week of July of that year, the Battle of Gettysburg occurred, resulting in the loss of some 60,000 American lives. Four months later in November, Lincoln delivered his famous "Gettsysburg Address." It was while Lincoln was walking among the thousands of graves there at Gettysburg that he committed his life to Christ. As he explained to a friend:

When I left Springfield [to assume the Presidency] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving each year, we hope they will retain the original gratefulness to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers , and remember that it is to those early and courageous Pilgrims that they owe not only the traditional Thanksgiving holiday but also the concepts of self-government, the "hard-work" ethic, self-reliant communities, and devout religious faith.

New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- Following the lead of abortion advocacy groups, ABC News reporter Dan Harris wrote a news article Friday attacking the work of the thousands of pregnancy centers nationwide that provide abortion alternatives and help for pregnant women. The article also contained a false claim that induced abortion has no link to various confirmed risks. In the headline of its story, ABC News claims that crisis pregnancy centers are "offering information long discredited by the medical community." The claim comes after comments from abortion advocates who allege pregnancy centers "harass and mislead women by telling them ... that abortions can lead to breast cancer, sterility and depression." Harris then writes, "These claims have all been widely discredited by the medical community" though he provides no evidence in the story to back up his assertion. The news report, however, runs counter to significant recent medical research. A study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in January found that mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts, were more likely to occur among women who had an abortion than women who had never been pregnant or didn't have an abortion. The research found that 42 percent of the women who had abortions had experienced major depression within the last four years. That's almost double the rate of women who never became pregnant. The risk of anxiety disorders also doubled. LifeNews.com contacted Harris about his article and the false claim on the abortion risks and Harris defended the allegation. The "medical community" that Harris says believes abortion doesn't lead to depression, breast cancer or sterility consists only of an internal group of doctors that advise ABC News. ACTION: Contact ABC News and urge it to feature abortion news reports that are fairly and accurately written: ABC News, 77 W. 66 St., New York, NY 10023 (p) 212-456-7777. Or send an email to support@abcnews.go.com about Dan Harris' news story. Read the complete story.

1. "Hold a pubic hearing for the Right to Life (HR 552), a bill to ban all abortion in America, which has been repeatedly filed since at least 1995!
2. "Amend the Health and Human Services Appropriations bill (HR 5647) to:

• de-fund Medicaid surgical abortions;
• de-fund Medicaid and Title X chemical abortions; and,
• de-fund Planned Parenthood, getting over $100 million per year from Title X and Medicaid

1. "Right to Life Act (HR 552) (see bill at http://thomas.loc.gov)

   "Hold a public hearing for the Right to Life Act (HR 552), repeatedly introduced since at least 1995, currently with over 100 co-sponsors, and yet it has never even had a public hearing, though the Republicans have been in the majority in the US House continually since 1995!!!

   "Right to Life Act (Introduced in US House) HR 552 - sponsor, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)

   www.christianlifeandliberty.net/HR552.03.doc

   "Current Party Divisions of the House: (109^th Congress, January 2005 through January 2, 2007) 229 Republicans, 201 Democrats, 1 Independent, 4 Vacancies http://clerk.house.gov

   "New Party Divisions of the House: (110^th Congress, beginning o/a January 3, 2007) 232 Democrats, 203 Republicans

   http://www.usatoday.com/news/politiceselections/vote 2006/front.htm

   "H.R. 552 is sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who has announced he is running for U.S. President. The Right to Life Act is in the US House Subcommittee on the Constitution (chaired by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), of the House Judiciary Committee (chaired by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), both committees still controlled by a Republican-majority throughout the remainder of the now ‘lame-duck’ 109^th Congress, until January 2, 2007.

   "Call these three Republican Congressmen, and urge them to finally hold a public hearing for HR 552 now while Republicans still control the committees and chairmanships in Congress through January 2, 2007:

   "Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA): 202-225-5672
   http://www.house.gov/hunter/

   "Representative Steve Chabot (R-OH): 202-225-22165
   202-225-3012 (fax) www.house.gove/chabot/ 202-225-5101
   www.house.gov/sensenbrenner/
   "U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 202-224-3121

   "Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI):
2. "Health and Human Services Appropriations bill (HR 5647)

   See bill at http://Thomas.loc.gov

   "Amend the Health and Human Services Appropriations bill (HR 5647) to:

   de-fund

   de-fund

   de-fund Planned Parenthood

   http://www.house.gov/house/floor/thisweek.htm

   http://majoritywhip.house.gov/calendar.asp

   http://clerk.house.gov/floorsummary/floor.html

   Medicaid surgical abortions; Medicaid and Title X chemical abortions; and, , getting over $100 Million per year from Title X and Medicaid

   "This HHS bill has passed the House Committee on Appropriations, and is now waiting to be taken up on the House floor.

   "H.R. 5647 Title: Making appropriations for the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes.

   "Will the Republicans in their last 50 days of majority control of Congress pass a Health and Human Services Appropriations bill (HR 5647) that NO LONGER FUNDS these abominations?:

   Medicaid surgical abortions (rape, incest, life of the mother)

   Medicaid and Title X chemical abortions (Planned Murder, Inc.) through Title X and Medicaid (Title X)

   Planned Parenthood

   Birth control for unmarried adolescents, even if the parents object

   "Planned Parenthood reports record 255,000-plus abortions last year (2004-2005) …Planned Parenthood received $272.7 million in state and federal funding…

   "U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 202-224-3121

   "Please call your individual Congressman, from your own US House district, from your own State, while he is back in Washington, D.C., beginning today, November 13, and ask them to introduce an amendment on the floor of the US House, when the HHS Appropriations bill (HR 5647) is taken up, to

   1) de-fund Medicaid surgical abortions;

   2) de-fund Medicaid and Title X chemical abortions; and,

   3) to de-fund Planned Parenthood from getting over $100 Million per year from Title X and Medicaid through this HHS bill. …

   "Specific Title X and Medicaid surgical abortion language to be deleted by House floor amendment: (go to http://thomas.loc.gov, enter bill HR 5647)

   "H.R. 5647 "Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act,. 2007 (Reported in House)

   "Title X – ask your Congressman to introduce an amendment to delete the $283 Million for the Title X birth control, Planned Parenthood, and population control funding program:

   "TITLE II – DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Health Resources and Services Administration "Provided further, That of the funds made available under this heading, $283,103,000 shall be for the program under title X of the PHS Act to provide for voluntary family planning projects:

   "Medicaid surgical abortions – ask your Congressman to introduce an amendments to simply delete SEC. 508(a), and thereby remove the mandatory requirement that states fund Medicaid abortions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, if they want to continue receiving Medicaid (socialized medicine) money from the federal government

   "SEC. 508. (a) The limitations established in the preceding section shall not apply to an abortion—

   "(1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or

   "(2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising form the pregnancy itself, that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed.

   .

   "When is the Republican Party going to carry out its own national party platform, and exercise the power that Congress and the President have had at their disposal for over 33 years, to end abortion in America by applying Art. III, Sec. 2 of the US Constitution, and limiting the appellate jurisdiction of the US supreme Court, thereby preventing if form overturning a Congressional bill to ban all abortions in America?

   "This is the strategy of the Sanctity of Life Act of 2005 (HR 776), sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX): [removes jurisdiction of Federal Courts]

   www.christianlifeandliberty.net/HR776-01.doc."

   .

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Sunday, Nov. 12, 2006