GodTube presidential poll

Guess who's winning? Huckabee of course, is there any Christian candidate? Though, Obama and Thompson are tied for second :-) Ron Paul only has 6.5%, I guess the Paulians haven't discovered it yet.

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Atheist sues to have his child removed from Catholic school

A Catholic mother wants to send her son to Catholic school but the atheist father wants to send the son to public school because he doesn't want his child indoctrinated:

According to Kagin, when Ryan and his wife got divorced, a judge ordered their son continue attending a Catholic school.

[...]

Kagin said part of Kentucky’s constitution reads, "Nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed."

Kagin said going by the law, the judge's decision should be easy, but he doesn't know how much the judge will consider Ryan’s son's wishes on the matter.

OK, so let me get this straight, if the father doesn't want the child sent to Catholic school, then the state should force the child to go to public school even though the mother wants him to go to Catholic school (and possibly the son wants to go). What is this? The constitution only protects the father's rights? Not the mother's rights? What about the part that says "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof?" The state doesn't have the right to stop her from sending her child to Catholic school. I think this case is in constitutional limbo :-)

BTW, the Friendly Atheist states that if the law is followed, this should be an open and shut case. Do atheists really believe that the father's rights supersede that of the child and the mother? Or is that only in the case where the mother is a Catholic and the father is an atheist?

Evangelicalism Today

Touchstone examines the future of evangelicalism by bringing together a diverse group of contributers: Russell Moore, Denny Burk, John Franke, D. G. Hart, Michael Horton, and David Lyle Jeffrey.

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Christians voted for a Christian tonight

Huckabee won because he played identity politics. He asked Christians to vote for him because he was a Christian and they did. And I believe it was a huge mistake. Christianity has been co-opted by the Republicans too much already and this just marries the two more closely together and the two do not mix. I offer exhibit A as proof, the spokesman for Huckabee:

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Here the article they were refer to.

Ed Rollins really makes a fine spokesman for a Christian leader doesn't he?

Robertson's 2008 predictions

Even though it's been proven beyond dispute that Robertson is a false prophet, here is further proof:

Robertson also noted that one especially horrible prediction he made last year - that a terrorist act, possibly involving a nuclear weapon, would result in a mass killing in the United States - did not come to pass.

"All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed and God in his mercy spared us," Robertson said.

So why should we believe this?

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Wednesday that 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010.

[...]

"The Lord was saying that there's going to be violence and chaos in the world," Robertson said on his "700 Club" news-and-talk show.

"We've just begun to see what's going to happen, and the nations are going to be convulsed with violence," he said, citing as an example unrest in Pakistan after the death of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Evangelism will increase because more people are going to be seeking God as the chaos develops, he said.

"We will see the presence of angels and we will see an intensification of miracles around the world, which I think is going to be a wonderful thing," he said.

He also predicts that oil will hit $150 a barrel and that there will be a major stock market crash in 2009 or 2010 (I guess God hasn't decided what year he will send it). All these things might happen but Robertson has already proved that God has not spoken to him:

Deuteronomy 18:20-22 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' 21 And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?'-- 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

Good thing Robertson isn't living under the old covenant, huh?

Joel Osteen, Stuart Smalley, and the Secret Compared

I think it's clear that they all have in common the power of positive thinking. You hold the key to your success. That's not a message that's found anywhere in the Bible. You can't unlock the power of God, he can't be manipulated. He isn't your person genie who will grant your every wish, he is a God who gives you what you need not necessarily what you want.

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Christianity Today's Top Ten Stories of 2007

Christianity Today has complied a list of stories that "have shaped, or will significantly shape, evangelical life, thought, or mission."

Crosswalk.com hacked by atheist

On Sunday:

Instead of the largest Christian website in the world (2.5 million views a month; 200,000-plus subscribers), people who visited www.crosswalk.com this morning found a single, crudely designed static page featuring cheesy-looking burning crosses and a message from the hacker directed to “Christian sheep,” talking about how Christianity sucks and is nothing but lies believed by idiots and so on. The message was maybe 50 words long. (It was also about impossible to read, since, as the hacker/author readily admitted, English is not his first language. He’s from the great country of Finland.)

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Girl gets anti-capitalist note instead of iPod for Christmas

Her father got the iPod from Wal-Mart and it wasn't the only iPod that was replaced with a note:

A little girl thought she was getting an iPod for Christmas but ended up getting a rude surprise. She got the box but when she opened it up, she found a surprising switch: the iPod had been replaced with a bizarre note.

The note reads in part "Reclaim your mind from the media shackles."

The whole note:

Reclaim your mind from the media shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage go to your nearest Apple Store.

How arrogant of this person to think that their note would have any impact at all. Why does he/she think that their own mind is free? Isn't she/he imprisoned by their own hatred of capitalism or consumerism that they would steal an iPod to make a point? That they would steal the joy away from a child's Christmas morning. How sick is that?

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Teenager arrested for stealing Jesus outfitted with a GPS

Maybe this will put a stop to this annoying Christmas tradition.

At 6:45 a.m. Thursday, a village employee noticed that the statue was missing. Building maintenance supervisor Gus Arnold logged on to the monitoring system and saw that it was taken from the manger at 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Arnold homed in on Jesus' location and called the sheriff's office to get it back.

Jesus was in a home on Suellen Circle, in a neighborhood across the street from the Nativity scene.

Deputies knocked on the door Thursday morning. When a woman answered, they saw the statue face-down on the living room floor.

The woman's son directed the deputies to the alleged culprit.

The simple spur-of-the-moment prank landed an 18-year-old suburban Lake Worth woman in jail, charged with a felony. Danielle Santino told deputies she took the statue and dropped it at a friend's house, then left.

[...]

Santino's friend, 18-year-old Fernando Silva, was initially arrested but cooperated with deputies and was released. Santino turned herself in and was booked into Palm Beach County Jail with bail set at $3,500. She is charged with a felony for taking an item valued at $800, plus $400 for the GPS system.

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GospelTube.com Presents the Top 10 Christian Videos of 2007

Here.

"Ron Paul Rejects Evolution Too"

What do these people expect? Christians generally reject the theory of evolution because they accept the biblical account of creation.

Mary is changed to Lucy in order not to offend non-Christians

This is in Britain where the Queen is the head of the church:

For decades, children have enjoyed singing about the little donkey which is said to have carried the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem.

But one group of young singers was ordered to change the traditional lyrics of the Christmas song - because they were said to be "too religious".

Instead of "Little donkey, carry Mary safely on her way", the youngsters were told to sing "carry Lucy" for fear of offending non-Christians. The incident, at the school's Christmas concert, appears on a new calendar alongside 11 other examples of extreme political correctness from around Britain.

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OK, so let me get this straight, they don't want to offend non-Christians who are attending a Christmas concert? These people appear to be too dumb to be involved in educating children.

It brings a tear to the eye when you see...

A wish fulfilled at Christmas :-)

Christmas in Iraq

Let's pray that this continues:

Thousands of Iraqi Christians made their way to church through checkpoints and streets lined with blast walls, many drawing hope from a lull in violence to celebrate Christmas Mass in numbers unthinkable a year ago.

Death is never far in Iraq—two separate suicide bombings north of Baghdad killed at least 35 people and wounded scores more. But the number of attacks has fallen dramatically in the past few months—the U.S. military says by 60 percent since June.

"We did not celebrate last year, but this year we have security and we feel better," said Rasha Ghaban, one of many women at the small Church of the Holy Family in Karradah, a mainly Shiite district in downtown Baghdad where many Christians live. "We hope our future will be better, God willing."

[...]

Muslim clerics—both Sunni and Shiite—also attended the service in a sign of unity.

"May Iraq be safe every year, and may our Christian brothers be safe every year," Shiite cleric Hadi al-Jazail told AP Television News outside the church. "We came to celebrate with them and to reassure them."

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Stolen Baby Jesus Returned

Remorseful?

It may not qualify as a Christmas miracle, but residents are grateful that a baby Jesus figure stolen from the town's nativity scene a year ago has been returned.

The miniature figure and the manger that held him were stolen last December from the nativity scene off Highway 36 in Brazoria, about 55 miles south of Houston. They were mysteriously returned sometime last week.

Merry Christmas to our troops!

Thank you for your sacrifice and your desire to service and protect this country.

Carol of the Bells

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of our readers and those just passing through. I hope you have a very nice day spending time with your family and friends and that you don't overindulge :-)

I'm waiting for my husband and teenage daughter to get up so we can open presents. I already opened mine weeks ago (my very wonderful Vaio) so I have no surprises under the tree :-) My joy will be in watching the faces of my daughters reacting to the surprises I have for them.

I also have to wait for breakfast since it's a family tradition to have french toast and bacon Christmas morning. I can't tell you what I'm having for dinner because my dad reads the blog occasionally and I don't want to spoil the surprise but I can tell you that I'll be making cheese fondue. We only have it once a year and it's soooo yummy. It's what I look forward to each year. The last couple years I've forgotten an ingredient. Last year it was the worcestershire sauce, one year it was bread. My poor husband had to go out for all hours looking for an open store to get it which is not easy since everything is closed Christmas. He found the bread at an Italian restaurant and the worcestershire sauce in an Asian market. This year I checked the list of ingredients to make sure I have them all.

I was going to give you the recipe but my husband just got up and we got my teenager up so we're off to open presents. I'll try to put it up later. I'll leave you with my favorite Christmas video clip:

Baby Jesus to get a GPS

They should sell those baby Jesus figures with a GPS already installed since so many of them get stolen. Another solution is to buy the inflatable Nativity scene. There's no way to get the baby Jesus without stealing the whole thing.

A statue of the infant Jesus on display near Miami in Florida is being fitted with a Global Positioning System device after the original figurine was stolen.

[...]

The original vanished three weeks ago, despite being bolted to the ground.

[...]

A Jewish lawyer, Jeffrey Harris, from Cincinnati, who read about the theft on the internet, has donated the new Jesus figurine in the Founders Circle area of the city.

That was nice! He did it because he liked the Christmas spirit.