Islam into the Breach: Another Great Mark Steyn Article

“Think globally, act locally” works for environmentalism and jihad --Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn nails the stand-for-nothing PC secularists who encourage jihadis on Western soil. These dangerously misguided liberals apologize for Western Civilization and denigrate Christianity and Judaism while aiding and abetting illiberal Muslim chauvinism.

Secular progressives and triumphant Muslims join forces to tear down Europe's great cathedrals. The Muslims construct mosques while the intellectually clapped out Western apologists build altars to Gaia. (BTW enviros, all that global warming crap is out the window when the Muslims gain electoral plurality in Europe. No way are they bowing to a strange god, especially a female one.)

Here are some excerpts from Steyn's excellent article:

And so in much of the post-Christian West “a pluralist society” has subsided into a vast gaping nullity too weak to have any purchase on large numbers of the citizenry. In practice, the “secularist and liberal defense” is the vacuum in which a resurgent globalized Islam has incubated.

It is only human to wish to belong to something larger than oneself, and thereby give one’s life meaning. For most of history, this need was satisfied by tribe and then nation, and religion. But the Church is in steep decline in Europe, and the nation-state is all but wholly discredited as the font of racism, imperialism, and all the other ills.

So some (not all) third-generation Britons of Pakistani descent look elsewhere for their identity, and find the new globalized Islam. And some (not all) 30th-generation Britons of old Anglo-Saxon stock also look elsewhere, and find global warming.

Progressive Multiculturalism is a One Way Street

To progressive opinion, it’s taken as read that “multiculturalism” is a one-way street: It seems entirely reasonable for a Wahhabist to say an Anglican church in Riyadh would seem, gee, I dunno, just somehow kinda un-Saudi, whereas it is entirely unacceptable for Heidi’s grandfather to say a Deobandi mosque in Lucerne is un-Swiss.

Everybody's gotta believe in something, and you can't replace something with nothing

Jesus told us 2000 years ago that nature abhors a vacuum:

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." -- Luke 11:24-26

That goes for removing good stuff as well. You can't just sweep the house clean and expect it to remain empty. You've got to fill it with good things, or evil spirits will swoop in to fill the emptiness.

And a few verses before this passage, Jesus reminded us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Are you hollowed-out Westerners listening?

Rifqa Bary: The Flip Side of Religious Intolerance

Conservatives in the know are up on what's happening down in Florida concerning Muslim convert to Christianity Rifqa Bary.

Perhaps the girl really is in danger, but too many conservative Christians damned her family to hell instead of waiting for the facts, all because they are Muslim

I was roundly flamed at the time for condemning this rush to judgment against a suspect group as unfaithful to our constitution. I asked these crusaders to pause and consider that it could happen to them as well, since Christianity is already suspect in many corners of this nation.

Well, here's the other side playing out in New Hampshire:

One of these courts is in New Hampshire, where a judge recently ordered that home-schooled Amanda Kurowski be sent to public school. The order signed by Family Court Justice Lucinda V. Sandler says the 10-year-old's Christian faith could use some shaking up—and that the local public school is just the place to do it. [...]

This is based on complaints from Amanda's father, divorced from her mother for 10 years. The mother had primary custody and has chosen to home-school the girl, including religion in her curriculum.

But the order appears to be based on the guardian ad litem's worry about Amanda's "rigidity on faith." The order also accepts the same guardian's conclusion that Amanda belongs in a public school because she "would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs."

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so:

The family unit is sacrosanct, and unless lawbreaking is going on, no judge or pastor or anyone else has any business poking their nose in. This is a fundamental freedom that conservative Christians usually stand up for.

It's all well and good until Uncle Sam decides to bust up your Jesus Camp and liberate your brain-washed kids from your home and your authority.

Religious bigotry cuts both ways...

WSJ - William McGurn
Citizen Times - Cal Thomas
AmericanFreePress.net

Rifqa Bary: The Muslim Girl and the Christian Pastor

The Christian Come Hither

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The fate of a 17-year-old girl who ran away from her Ohio home because she says she feared punishment for converting from Islam to Christianity could be decided in an Orlando courtroom Friday.

The teenager disappeared last month and police used phone and computer records to track her to the Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of Orlando, Fla.-based Global Revolution Church, who she had met through an online Facebook prayer group.

My first thought was, this one's easy.

Send her back to her family and prosecute Reverend Blake Lorenz for luring a minor child.

Yes, I know about the Muslim husband who cut his wife's head off in New York, as well as the Muslim father in Georgia who strangled his daughter to death because of his twisted, 7th century sense of honor. We also have the Texas "honor" killings.

Still in question is whether this young lady, Rifqa Bary, is in that kind of danger. He parents found out awhile back, and they were mad as hell, I'm sure. But she's still alive, which says something in her father's defense.

Too many things don't smell right. 17 year old girls are famous for being drama queens, even more so than Muslims are for decapitations. I saw the YouTube video and all I kept thinking was, she's saying exactly what those church people want to hear. And this whole episode is quite an advertisement and money boost for the pastor who used the internet to lure her to Florida. Striking a blow against Islam is just icing on the cake.

Could this be merely a cultural and generational clash gone viral?

I'd like to know more about what went on back in Ohio. How are her grades? Are boyfriends or some other teen-parent conflict behind this? Any parent can tell you how a simple matter can spin out of control when angry parents and emotional teens are involved. Religious conviction in the mix just makes the situation hotter. Her Christian faith could be sincere and her parents could be really mad, but that doesn't prove her dad will kill her.

Hillary Clinton and Marian Wright Edelman Would be Proud

The family unit is sacrosanct, and unless lawbreaking is going on, no judge or pastor or anyone else has any business poking their nose in. This is a fundamental freedom that conservative Christians usually stand up for.

I guess if you agreed with preemptive war, it's not much of a stretch to support preemptive justice. It's all well and good until Uncle Sam decides to bust up your Jesus Camp and liberate your brain-washed kids from your home and your authority.

To those who are convinced this is a black and white case, ask yourself this question: If this were a 17-year old girl from a fundamentalist Christian family running into the arms of an imam, would you still be sticking up for the girl and the mosque?

Once again, you can't use the honor killing excuse. If such arguments were valid, the Branch Davidian episode could be used to outlaw Christians having custody of their children.
It remains to be seen if this girl's life is really in danger. I trust the good judge in Florida will sort that out in due time,

One thing's for certain: Reverend Blake Lorenz must be prosecuted under Florida law for Luring a Minor.

* Update: I posted this over at Free Republic and got over 60 comments. You can read them here. Although debate was empassioned, it never stooped to the level of the kook left sites. Conservatives are good people, especially Freepers.

ABC News
Breitbart
Bailaman
YouTube - Rifqa Bary

God Is Not Dead

Christianity Strikes Back
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge have written a book entitled God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World. If you don't have time to read the book you can read an article in The Times that summarizes this good news story about Christianity's success in the new millennium.

Micklethwait and Wooldridge bring glad tidings. Despite the predictions of crabby existentialists and snooty modernists, Christianity has not withered away.

From Russia and Communist China (more Christians than Communist Party members), to the continent of Africa, Christianity is on the march. Although atheism has increased in the US, the vast majority is still Christian, and more dedicated than ever due to outside forces shaking believers out of their sense of complacency.

Practicing Christians are happier than the "free-thinkers"

One of the most striking results of the Pew Forum's regular survey of happiness is that Americans who attend religious services once or more a week are happier (43 per cent very happy) than those who attend monthly or less (31 per cent) or seldom or never (26 per cent).

The correlation between happiness and church attendance has been fairly steady since Pew started the survey in the 1970s; it is also more robust than the link between happiness and wealth. Attending church weekly, rather than not at all, has the same effect on people's reported happiness as moving from the bottom quartile to the top quartile of income distribution - and is a lot easier to do.

More Christianity, less crime, less social deviance

James Q.Wilson, perhaps America's pre-eminent criminologist, summarises a mountain of evidence from the social sciences succinctly: “Religion, independent of social class, reduces deviance.”

The authors' use of Ned Flanders and The Simpsons to press their case makes this an interesting and entertaining read.

Times Online
God is Back

Reports of Christianity's Demise Greatly (and gleefully) Exaggerated

Is Christianity Dying in America? Only, perhaps, at the hands of political entanglement.

Jon Meacham, following Newsweek's tabloid trash journalistic standards, has completely botched an article on Christianity in America. He slants his report on the latest American Religious Indentification Survey to make is seem as if Christianity is dead in America. He was obviously in over his head, so I won't spend too much time on his pathetic effort. I'll only point out the grossest stupidities.

Atheism isn't Overtaking Christianity
The survey report concludes that self-identification confusion among deists, atheists, and agnostics clouds the true numbers, but that perhaps one percent of the population is atheist. That's hardly a groundswell of God-rejection, but it doesn't stop Meacham's gleeful dance upon Christianity's grave.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Christianity declined 10% in the 1990's, but has declined less than one percent in the past eight years. To make the case more alarming, he focuses on the steep decline of the 90's and ignores the leveling off of the new millennium

God Does Not Hate Worship of Him
Most egregious is his ripping an Old Testament passage completely out of context in order to slam organized religious ceremonies:

As an archbishop of Canterbury once said, though, it is a mistake to think that God is chiefly or even largely concerned with religion. "I hate the sound of your solemn assemblies," the Lord says in Amos.

The Lord said that because he was greatly unhappy with the Israelites' actions at that point in history. Even a cursory reading of Amos makes that clear. Further reading would instruct this ignorant man that God requires us to assemble and worship him. How lazy.

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's"
E.J. Dionne has a much firmer grasp on the situation. He eschews the hysterics and takes the longer view, which is more appropriate when evaluating a 2000 year old religion's place is a society that is less that 500 years old:

In fact, the United States has gone through many periods in which religious enthusiasm and affiliation waned, only to be renewed in a subsequent revival. Christianity is a rather durable faith. Many believers would ascribe this to the power of its truth claims, but its resilience also speaks to the adaptability of its core message.

EJ, a devout Christian, throws some jabs at the religious right, but they are thoughtful and not mean-spirited, which is why he is one of my favorite liberals:

But, yes, something is changing, and that change will strengthen rather than weaken the Christian church over the long run. For nearly a quarter-century, Christianity in the United States has been defined to a large degree by the voices and the ideas of a very conservative strain of evangelical Christianity that, over time, became highly politicized and closely allied with a single political party.

These conservative Christians had as much right as any other group to bring their core concerns to politics. But in doing so, they narrowed the Christian message. They sometimes became apologists for politicians whose behavior and attitudes could not easily be called Christian and forgot that Christ himself became a victim of injustice at the hands of a mighty empire.

Christianity got too cozy with the GOP
I agree with E.J., but to be fair to Christians and the GOP, the Democratic party's agenda of pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, anti-prayer, and state usurpation of parental roles ran off the socially conservative Christians. Despite liberal hostility to Christian morality, any good church should avoid entanglements with government and politic parties.

Such entanglements are responsible for Christianity's demise in Europe. The Catholic Church became joined at the hip with the crowned heads, and when royalty became discredited, so did the church. Government sponsorship of certain approved Protestant religions in Western Europe has destroyed those churches.

Christianity is thriving in America like it is in few other western countries. Assiduously preventing political parties from slapping their bumper stickers on it will go a long way towards maintaining that progress.

Mark 12, NIV, Bible Gateway.com
http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/rediscovering_the_true_calling.html
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:L8BktLCQJ7gJ:livinginliminality.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/aris_report_2008.pdf+American+Religious+Identification+Survey&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
ARIS

Christian Abortions

Boston Catholic Hospital System Yields to Pro-Abortion FOCA Before it Happens

This is why I'm against religion-government entanglements. A religion cannot survive a government liaison with its integrity intact.

Remember that news story last year about the botched abortion where the baby survived and was callously left to die? It happened at Christ Hospital in Chicago, which is affiliated with the United Church of Christ. Killing babies in the name of Christ... The sick and the dying inside must be all that keeps God from striking that place down. Jesus turned over the tables in the temple for less than that.

WWJD? He sure as hell wouldn't put his name on a building where practitioners kill babies.

Why is an organization that professes to be Christian allowing this barbaric practice on its premises? Probably has something to do with federal funding. That's how it happens, folks. The government pushes its snout into a private-sector function, brings generous gifts, and Bingo! You're hooked, bent over, and Uncle Sam is letting you know who's boss. Can you imagine a hospital running nowadays without government funding? Don't call it socialism; this is more of a fascist technique.

Back to the headline. From LifeNews.com:

Boston,MA (LifeNews.com) -- Abortion advocates have yet to re-introduce the radical Freedom of Choice Act in this Congressional session, but the effects of the pro-abortion bill are already taking hold. That's because one Catholic hospital in Boston has agreed to go back on its pro-life policies in a merger that ultimately promotes abortion.

FOCA is a dangerous bill that, in its last form, would overturn hundreds of pro-life state laws and could be used to force medical centers to do abortions.

The nation's Catholic bishops have warned that one of the dangerous effects of FOCA is that it could result in shutting down Catholic hospitals that do not want to allow abortions on site.

A St. Louis-based company, Caritas has joined in a bid to provide government-subsidized health insurance in Massachusetts. Caritas Christi, is joining with Centene Corporation in a bid for the government contract that would include coverage for abortion.

Cardian Sean O'Malley, The Archdiocese of Boston's Bishop, has stated categorically that Catholic Hospitals will never engage in such abhorrent practices, and the agreement is not final. The diocese is investigating ways to improve health services without compromising church teachings. It's a complex world.

Catholic-sponsored abortion. That's change, and in the Obama Era, I can almost believe it.

http://www.lifenews.com/state3907.html
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2NmMGNkMTdkZWJkZWRkMjRkNjY5NjllNzZlYjkyNmY=&w=MA==
http://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=10132