Defense of Innocence

The Courage to Refuse to Cooperate in Evil

Tim Roach and his family
Tim Roach and his family
by Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. –
Modern health care is replete with situations that tempt us to cooperate immorally in evil.

An electrician by trade, Tim Roach is married with two children and lives about an hour outside Minneapolis. He was laid off his job in July 2009. After looking for work for more than a year and a half, he got a call from his local union in February 2011 with the news anyone who is unemployed longs for, not just a job offer, but one with responsibility and a good salary of almost $70,000 a year. He ultimately turned the offer down, however, because he discovered that he was being asked to oversee the electrical work at a new Planned Parenthood facility under construction in St. Paul on University Avenue. Aware that abortions would be performed there, he knew his work would involve him in “cooperation with evil,” and he courageously declined the offer.

Significant moral issues can arise if we knowingly cooperate in another’s evil actions, even though we don’t perform those evil actions ourselves. [Read more…]

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The Hijacking of Earth Day

by Gilbert Ross, M.D. –
The last weekend in April saw the confluence of Earth Day and World Malaria Day. The very first Earth Day back in 1970 found many of us devoted to saving the world from polluting corporations and their toxic smog. And in fact, over the course of the next two decades or so, major strides were made in cleaning up our air and water. The sky over Los Angeles was even seen to be blue on occasion, and Hudson River fish were pronounced safe to eat again.

The momentum flowing from the first Earth Day led to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that same year. Its first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, was appointed fresh out of an environmental advocacy nonprofit, whose agenda included banning the insecticide DDT.

DDT had become the poster child target of the nascent environmental movement, thanks to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962. Ruckelshaus — ignoring the voluminous testimony of his own scientific advisors demonstrating the unique effectiveness and lack of toxicity of DDT — signed the DDT ban in June 1972. He may as well have signed the death warrant for millions of victims of malaria and other insect-borne diseases. [Read more…]

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God: The Central Question of Worldview

God Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit by Tom Gilson

Of all the issues affecting every person’s picture of reality, nothing is more fundamental than questions about God. Is there one God, Creator and Sovereign of all? Could there be more than one god? Or no God at all? If there is a God (or gods), then what is that God (or gods) like? Nothing determines your worldview—and the course of your life—more than how you answer those questions.

And yet some atheists like to make light of the God question. Richard Dawkins brushed it aside this way in The God Delusion:

I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon-Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.

I like to call that the arithmetical atheism argument. Its force (such as it is) depends on the idea that in counting gods, as in counting inches on a ruler, the distance between one and zero is no different than the distance between two and one. [Read more…]

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Why Don’t Christians Help … Christians?

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager
by Dennis Prager –

In 1969, at the age of 21, I was sent to the Soviet Union. I was a young American Jew who spoke Hebrew and Russian and who practiced Judaism. My task was to bring Jewish religious items into the Soviet Union and the names of Jews who wished to leave the Soviet Union out of that country. Upon returning to the United States, I became the national spokesman for the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, one of the most effective organizations for Soviet Jews in the world.

As such, I spoke before synagogues of every denomination, Hadassah groups, Jewish federations, Jewish groups on college campuses. If there was a Jewish organization, it cared about the plight of Soviet Jews. For decades, virtually every synagogue in America had a “Save Soviet Jewry” sign in front of it.

Over time, the plight of the Soviet Jews awakened me to the plight of all Soviet dissidents, whether secular ones — such as that great man, the physicist Andrei Sakharov — or Christian. [Read more…]

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False Hope – The Truth About Embryonic Stem Cells

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
by Chuck Colson –

Embryonic stem cell research destroys human lives. And it’s also destroying the credibility of scientific researchers, as well.

Many of us remember sadly when Ron Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Reagan said he was there to talk about research into “what may be the greatest medical breakthrough in our or in any lifetime: the use of embryonic stem cells…to cure a wide range of fatal and debilitating illnesses: Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes” and more.

Reagan then invited listeners to imagine being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and undergoing a procedure that involves the use of embryonic stem cells. These cells would — if injected in the brain — replace the “faulty cells whose failure to produce adequate dopamine led to the Parkinson’s disease in the first place.” Reagan explained. “In other words, you’re cured,” he announced. [Read more…]

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The Fathers of the Orthodox Church on Abortion

Christ, the Author of Life from OrthodoxyToday –
The following represent the teaching of the Orthodox Church from the [early] second century through the fifth century…. Note that penalties, when they are given, are neither civil nor criminal, but ecclesiastical and pastoral (excommunication for the purpose of inducing repentance). Also note that the these quotes deal with both surgical and chemically induced abortion, both pre- and post-quickening.

From the Letter to Diognetus:
(speaking of what distinguishes Christians from pagans) “They marry, as do all others; they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring” (literally, “cast away fetuses”).

From the Didache:
“You shall not slay the child by abortions.”

From the Letter of Barnabus:
“You shall not destroy your conceptions before they are brought forth; nor kill them after they are born.”

From St. Clement:
“Those who use abortifacients commit homicide.” [Read more…]

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I Am In Awe of Such Faith

Christian Persecution in Afghanistanby Matthew Archbold –
An Afghanistan Christian and father of six, is imprisoned and scheduled to die. His crime? He believes Christ is his Savior. And he is scheduled to die because of it. No defense lawyer will take his case for fear of retribution. And he has been told that if he renounces Christ things would go easier. But he doesn’t. He won’t.

Said Musa, who lost his leg from a landmine in the 1990’s and has worked since then as a medical worker for the Red Cross fitting children with prosthetics, has been in jail for eight months. According to a public letter written by him and addressed to our President and the world community, he has been brutally tortured and abused in every way possible, both by guards and inmates.

As of yet the media and the world seem to have taken little notice of Said Musa. There are currently less than 100 mentions of Musa in the news and most of them are not considered part of the mainstream media, other than the Wall Street Journal. [Read more…]

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In Vietnam, Hating Communism Anew

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager
by Dennis Prager –
Seeing the Communist North induces outrage at the senseless deaths and historical lies.

Here is the truth: Every Communist dictator in the world has been a megalomaniacal, cult-of-personality, power-hungry, bloodthirsty thug. Ho Chi Minh was no different. He murdered his opponents, tortured only-God-knows-how-many innocent Vietnamese, and threatened millions into fighting for him — yes, for him and his blood-soaked Vietnamese Communist party, backed by the greatest murderer of all time, Mao Tse-tung. But the moral idiots in America chanted “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh” at antiwar rallies and depicted America as the real murderers of Vietnamese — “Hey, Hey, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?” …

It was difficult to control my emotions — specifically my anger — during my visit to Vietnam last week. The more I came to admire the Vietnamese people — their intelligence, love of life, dignity, and hard work — the more rage I felt for the Communists who brought them (and, of course, us Americans) so much suffering in the second half of the 20th century.

Unfortunately, Communists still rule the country. Yet Vietnam today has embraced the only way that exists to escape poverty, let alone to produce prosperity: capitalism and the free market. So what exactly did the 2 million Vietnamese who died in the Vietnam War die for? [Read more…]

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Met. Hilarion: No One Has Ever Seen God

Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev Fr. Johannes Jacobse (AOI)

Met. Hilarion delivered the sermon at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas last Sunday (February 13, 2011). The title of his talk was “No One Has Ever Seen God.” It was part of a larger pastoral visit where he met with Orthodox believers in the area, had an audience with former President George Bush, and attended the Dallas premier of his symphony “St. Matthew’s Passion.” Listen to his sermon below.

It’s an outstanding talk; a cogent and uncompromising defense of biblical morality and teaching.

http://www.orthodoxnet.com/podcasts/Alfeyev_Hilarion_2011-02-13_God.mp3|titles=Met.

[Read more…]

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