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Hurting at Christmas

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Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?  And none of them doth light on the ground, without your father...  Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. — Matthew 10.29, 31 Tyndale/Coverdale Bible (Modern Spelling) This should prove to be one of the more unusual approaches to a "Christmas article" that you have read, I'll wager. It will have some pretty raw honesty, and I earnestly hope you'll stay with me. There have been several teachings I have come across lately that remind us not to forget that the reason for the humble birth in the manger of Bethlehem was the cross at Calvary. I would like to go further and remind us of the glorious end of it all. The attached video by Petra as excellent lyrics (reproduced below the video). Written while the fear of global nuclear war was still strong, it is emphasizing a point that is as relevant now as it was then: God is in control. He has plans (Revelation 21.1-8), and humans are not going to thwart

A Few More Persecutions

Buon girono. As much as I dislike interrupting your Christmas festivities, I want to lay out some timely information (cause in part by listening to Crosstalk America ). My Christian readers should be made aware of what is happening in the world; we should be informed, lean to deal with situations as well as pray about them. Unbelieving readers... well, I take a bit of  pleasure in showing you that, despite your desire to dismiss and disbelive these things, they are still happening nonetheless. First, Dr. Gaskell is suing the University of Kentucky because he claims that his faith cost him a job. (You'll be surprised that my reference is the New York Times, even they seem to think that the story has merit.) Do you want to scream, "Separation of church and state"? OK. Here is the state making it a point to suppress religious expression. The Federal Reserve ordered a bank in Oklahoma to take down crosses, Bible verses and Christmas buttons. From the "Don't Me

March of the Gaystapo

Edited for clarity Here is an edited version of a letter I received from a homosexual man: I know you've done some stuff on this recently, and I know this goes on around the world far more than most people would admit. But can you believe this one? I find it difficult to get my head around this in a country with one of the longest Christian traditions. If lefties are looking for oppressed people to defend, Christians should be at the top of the list these days. And I absolutely despise the type of "activists" quoted in this story. No wonder so many people think of gay people as abnormal when virtually all of the "spokespersons" spout this loony PC crap. Damn it I hate it! ... But this bigotry against committed Christians is just too damn much . And the excuses, good grief! "If she goes to church every Sunday, it may impact on the amount of child care she can give." Idiotic. They sound like a loving family, yet they're painted as

Revisiting a Classic

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Credit: Freeimages / c-unie Edited 7-19-2017 Buon giorno. I was thinking about neurotic people on the Internet like my pet troll, Norman. (He's the one that claims almost everything I say is a lie, cannot learn from others, is always right and has tantrums when he humiliates himself or is proven wrong.) So, people like that want to mess with me, and I like to use absurdity to illustrate absurdity (to misquote Rush Limbaugh). I am a follower of Jesus. But I do not go for the modern churchianity version of Jesus or their image of Christians being peace, love and grooviness with sappy smiles and letting people constantly kick us around. (Some atheists have that concept of Christians, too.) When people act up in my presence online, they may very well get shown that their attacks, lies, abuse of logic &c. are not fooling anyone. When I call them on it, they get angry. When some called out this loser, he lost last vestiges of his mind . Here is an internet classic. Some of

Persecution Question

Here is some interesting timing. I did my last article about the persecution of Christians in the US military, which was a sort of follow-up to this one . I received an interesting comment on that earlier post from Whateverman (hope you don't mind your name in lights, so to speak): By all accounts, Christians outnumber other religious demographics in the US. If you're right, and anti-Christian discrimination gets less coverage than that of other groups, wouldn't you think this is at least part of the reason? It's difficult to cry "discrimination!" (and I'm not accusing you of doing so here) when the discriminated group is in the majority. My response was to the effect that it's not just people who claim to be Christians that receive discrimination or forms of persecution, but those who actively live like followers of Jesus. An interesting coincidence, later today, Ray Comfort posted an article at Atheist Central that also addressed this topic

Persecution in the Military?

Yes, I am putting a question mark on the title of this one. I would like to hear from you about what I am about to relate. (If you are going to fire off anti-God or anti-Christian venom, you'll just be deleted.) I am especially interested in the opinions of military personnel, past and present. There was a story I heard about how "the armed forces confiscated the Bibles of soldiers in Afghanistan and burned them". I hate sensationalism, so I had to check it. There is an element of truth to this, but... In 2009, a soldier received Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages and, being evangelistically minded, was going to hand them out. Those are the Bibles that were confiscated and burned , even though the story I heard implied that the personal possessions of soldiers were taken away, and that is not the case. The reason these were taken away is that the US military did not want to give the impression that they were there to convert the Muslims.

Persecution Shuffle

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Blessed are ye when men hate you, and thrust you out of their company, and rail on you, and abhor your name, as an evil thing, for the son of man's sake. Rejoice ye then, and be glad: for behold, your reward is great in heaven. After this manner their fathers entreated the prophets. (Luke 6:22-23, Tyndale-Coverdale Bible, modern spelling) Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer persecutions. (2 Timothy 3.12, Tyndale-Coverdale Bible, modern spelling) Buon giorno. That's right, it's not easy to be a follower of Jesus. You want easy? Be a piece of deadwood and float with the current. Still waiting for input on text size and colors, gang. Subscribers are stuck, they get what the service sends them. Sorry. My subscribers, followers and regular readers know that I have been posting articles about the persecution of Christians. The instances to which I refer have been blatant "renounce Jesus" kinds of things, inclu