CBS News | Declan McCullagh | May 12, 2009
President Obama’s call last year for “shared sacrifice” doesn’t extend to federal employees, at least based on the details of his administration’s 2010 budget released this week.
At a time when the official unemployment rate is nearing double digits, and 6.35 million people are receiving unemployment benefits, the U.S. government is on a hiring binge. [Read more…]
Washington Times | Wesley Pruden | May 12, 2009
Disconnecting the training wheels is a scary prospect for every apprentice biker, even with Daddy standing close by. We can sympathize with Barack Obama’s fright as his moment approaches. It’s not easy suddenly being on your own, paying the price of falling with your own skinned knees and bruised elbows.
Nevertheless, the dreadful moment approacheth. Anticipating D-Day, Peter Orszag, the president’s budget director, said Monday that the scarier than expected economic news – the deficit out of control, tax receipts down and costs of bailouts and “stimulus” plans up – is all the fault of George W. Bush: “It’s an economic crisis President Obama inherited.” [Read more…]
American Thinker | Vasko Kohlmayer | May 7, 2009
History clearly teaches that great civilizations are not brought down by their external enemies, but that they undermine themselves from within. In other words, they essentially commit suicide. Islamists could never bring down an America determined to defend itself. We can, however, be toppled if refuse to take the commonsense measures necessary to safeguard our survival. Choosing not to obtain critical intelligence about impending attacks against our country is the equivalent of committing national suicide. [Read more…]
Christian Examiner | May 7, 2009
A graduate counseling student at Eastern Michigan University, who was expelled from the program for not affirming homosexual behavior as acceptable, has filed a federal lawsuit.
Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom said the school dismissed Julea Ward from the program because she would not agree prior to a counseling session to affirm a client’s homosexual behavior and would not retract her stance in subsequent disciplinary proceedings. [Read more…]
London Telegraph | Michael Nazir-Ali | April 2009
Britain is suffering because we have been too willing to forget what made us who we are, writes Michael Nazir-Ali.
I have resigned as Bishop of Rochester after nearly 15 years. During that time, I have watched the nation drift further and further away from its Christian moorings. Instead of the spiritual and moral framework provided by the Judaeo-Christian tradition, we have been led to expect, and even to celebrate, mere diversity. Not surprisingly, this has had the result of loosening the ties of law, customs and values, and led to a gradual loss of identity and of cohesiveness. Every society, for its wellbeing, needs the social capital of common values and the recognition of certain virtues which contribute to personal and social flourishing. Our ideas about the sacredness of the human person at every stage of life, of equality and natural rights and, therefore, of freedom, have demonstrably arisen from the tradition rooted in the Bible. [Read more…]
Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, embrace life, have more children, and share the gospel with Muslims.
[Read more…]
AFR – The Illumined Heart | Kevin Allen | Apr 17, 2009
Writer, attorney, and university professor Chris Banescu discusses the economic, moral and spiritual issues surrounding the “capitalist” economic model and whether it serves the best interests of Christians living the life of the Beatitudes, in this interview with Kevin Allen host of The Illumined Heart podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.
Orthodox Christianity And Capitalism: Are They Compatible? – 4/17/09 http://audio.ancientfaith.com/illuminedheart/ih_2009-04-17_pc.mp3|titles=Orthodox
by Fr. Johannes Jacobse –
Only the Gospel of Christ, the proclamation that Christ is risen from the dead, reveals that death is an enemy destroyed and exposes the nihilistic embrace of death as a lie. The grand schemes of the social engineers who are intoxicated by their own pride and contemptuous of what is good and true, will one day come to nothing. Babel will fall. But until it does, destruction and suffering prevail by their hands.
How does evil flourish? Edmund Burke answered the question this way: When good men do nothing. God enters the world through a word. The Gospel of Christ, when preached with authority and by the Spirit of God, tears down strong places. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” writes the Apostle Paul. Truth, spoken into the world of space and time, draws from and reveals Him who is True, and tears down the towers that men build to reach God. [Read more…]
Christ is risen from the dead, Trampling
down death by death, And upon those in
the tombs bestowing life!
“Come, all you faithful, let us venerate the holy Resurrection of Christ. For behold, through the Cross joy has come to all the world. Ever praising the Lord, let us praise His Resurrection. For by enduring the Cross for us, He has destroyed death by death!” – Easter Sunday Resurrection Service
OrthodoxyToday.org | Fr. George Morelli | Mar 28, 2009
Is there any doubt that the Cross of Jesus Christ is a scandal, a shame and embarrassment to anyone who chooses not to respond to God’s grace? Look at Jesus from a Jewish perspective in the time of Christ. They were awaiting a messiah, the anointed one of God — a deliverer who would reign in glory with the power and adornment of a king.
But who was Jesus? He was the son of a carpenter who came from a place of no stature or notice — “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Jn. 1:46). He was an itinerant, poor preacher and would be condemned as a criminal, scourged, buffeted, spat upon and be crucified in total ignominy. [Read more…]