Orthodox Editors

Tyranny is no Longer ‘Lurking’

Tyranny of IRS Government Oppressionby Cal Thomas –
Given last week’s revelation that the IRS targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, it’s worth recalling President Obama’s Ohio State University commencement address. The president decried “voices” warning “that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.”

It’s no longer lurking. It’s here.

Testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee by the outgoing acting IRS commissioner, Steve Miller, as well as numerous statements by individuals claiming they have been harassed and intimidated by IRS agents, reveal a government agency out of control, or more precisely, under the control of political hacks. It’s doubtful this was a freelance operation. J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, testified he knew as early as June 2012 that the IRS was targeting conservatives, but did nothing to stop it during the presidential campaign. Who else knew? [Read more…]

The Secret Sloth of Busy, Active People

Secret Sloth of Busy, Active Peopleby Dave White –
Slothful people, to many people’s surprise, are often active, busy, and hard-working people who have given their lives to trivial matters, not transcendent ones. They have immersed their lives with empty pleasures. Slothful people regularly find themselves bored and struggle to compensate by filling their time with self-centered diversions. It’s not that their lives are filled with motion, energy, and bustling about; it’s that their lives are slothful regarding the things that really matter!

Slothful People Embrace Escapism
Sloth is not mere laziness. It’s not a couch potato. Sloth is escapism of the deadly sort—including drug users, TiVo addicts, and obsessive video gamers. Yet escapism also includes most workaholics! Sloth saps our time and emotions through positive activities like clubs, hobbies, and sports—while leaving scant energy for our marriages or kids or preeminent duties. [Read more…]

Stomping on Jesus: The Iconoclasm of the Left

War on Christians Iconoclasm of the Leftby Fay Voshell –
Christians of every persuasion must come out of their little worlds and their self-imposed isolation and fight. Fight for the Kingdom of God characterized by righteousness and justice. Fight for religious freedom. Fight for the right, the good and the true-not just for themselves, but for future generations.

A recent incident Florida has revived an ancient mechanism for persecuting Christians: forcing them to stomp on a representation of Jesus. It reveals a mindset of the left determined to weaken and destroy Christian civilization from within.

Todd Starnes of Fox News recently reported a Florida Atlantic University professor instructed the students in an Intercultural Communications class write the name “Jesus” on a sheet of paper and put the inscribed paper on the floor.  The instructor, Deandre Poole, then said, “Stomp on it.”

Ryan Rotela, a devout Mormon, refused, telling the professor, “With all due respect to your authority as a professor, I do not believe what you told us to do was appropriate.  I believe it was unprofessional and I was deeply offended by what you told me to do.” [Read more…]

The Church’s Fading Influence on American Culture

Silencing Christians Persecuting the Church in Americaby Simon de Hundehutte –
It seems people have misunderstood, as well as misrepresented, the church’s role and influence in “secular society.” The early Christians lived in the secular society of Rome, but by heralding the good news of salvation, what some might call “thumping,” their words along with their deeds changed all of society of their day. In present-day America, however, secularists have taken over and changed the rules of the debate on so many key cultural issues.

Religion, or more accurately, the Christian way of life, is being shoved out of not only politics but the American culture. We believers are being forced to accept things anathema to our way of thinking and living — accept them or be labeled “haters” or, more recently, “thumpers.”

Every Christian is keenly aware of the Great Commission, where Jesus commanded, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19). Christians in the earliest days of the Church did not keep silent about their faith, bringing it with them (and many times at great cost) into the public arena. [Read more…]

The Madness of Liberal Moralizing

Plan B Girls Children Drugs Madness of Liberal Moralizingby Heather Mac Donald –
The paradoxes of liberal morality were on glaring display last week. The Obama administration OK’d the sale of “Plan B” post-coital emergency contraception over the counter without prescription (or parental consent) to girls as young as 15. At the same time, the City Council moved a step closer to banning anyone under the age of 21 from buying cigarettes (the legal age is now 18).

Apparently, a 15-year-old is a fully mature adult (a “woman,” in nauseating feminist parlance) when it comes to deciding to have sex. But a 20-year-old, in the City Council’s eyes (or a 17-year-old, under current law), can’t be trusted to make her own informed decisions on smoking and must be restrained by the government.

The Plan B decision was still too restrictive for some abortion-rights and feminist groups. The New York Times, on cue, denounced the administration’s “stubbornness” in setting any age restrictions on Plan B. [Read more…]

Homosexual Tyranny: The Gay Takeover of America

Homosexual Tyranny Gay Takeover of Americaby Crystal Wright –
What is happening to our country? Gays, who represent less than 3% of our population, are trying to dominate our culture and society. Love whom you want. Love the one you’re with. People don’t really care. This is the message most people want to say but are afraid to because the LBGT (lesbian, bi-sexual, gay and transgender) community will verbally flog anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Between gay marriage, gay adoptions, forcing the Boy Scouts to admit gay scouts and scout masters, and lauding a rich NBA player for announcing he’s gay, the message is clear from gay America to the 97% of the rest of us. You will accept our lifestyle as mainstream. My response: “No I won’t.”

Notice when anyone rejects this gay agenda based on religious beliefs or personal views, they are called bigots or mocked. Appearing on Meet the Press May 5, 2013, Republican Newt Gingrich noted the Catholic Church is prohibited from performing adoption services in states like Massachusetts and the District of Columbia because the Church will only allow a married couple (by definition a man and woman) to adopt a baby. This is a perversion of societal norms all in the name of liberals forcing their political correctness down America’s throat whether her people have an opinion about it or not. [Read more…]

God Recognized and Honored at Texas Graduation

Fr. Seraphim Holland - Orthodox priestby Fr. Seraphim Holland –

Proof that I live in Texas and not Massachusetts:
1. My daughter’s nursing graduation ceremonies began and ended with prayer.
2. Most autobiographies (probably 60 out of 70) thanked God.
3. They recited the Florence Nightingale Pledge at the end.

“I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.” [Read more…]

The Great Surrender

Nation of Sheep Begets a Government of Wolvesby Daren Jonescu –
Those who have been forcibly divested of their natural liberty by tyrants must be pitied. They have been coerced into accepting lies of security and state beneficence as paltry compensation for the loss of their birthright of a life worthy of human beings. And yet such wretchedness of external conditions, though destroying a man’s practical life, does not destroy the man. More wretched than this is the spiritual self-destruction of one who would freely sell himself into tyranny in exchange for that very same subhuman compensation.

Western politics has fallen under the domination of progressive authoritarianism. The press, once perceived as a safeguard against government corruption and overreach, has become an almost monolithic mouthpiece and apologist for oppression. Art, long modernity’s bastion of moral questioning and humane doubt in the face of materialist reductionism, has finally reduced itself to dogmatic nihilism, collectivist amorality, and court jesterism in the service of power. [Read more…]

Obama Administration is Corrupt, Incompetent, and Dangerous

Obama Administration is Both Corrupt and Incompetentby Orthodox Patriot –
These past couple of days have confirmed what many conservatives and other critics (including some liberals) have been saying about Obama and his cronies for years. Obama is not only a narcissistic socialist hypocrite and a pathological liar, but it appears he is also corrupt and incompetent at the same time. This is not just hyperbole, but an objective assessment of the damning facts and uncontested evidence that has been revealed so far.

The many dangers such an individual poses to the United States of America and all citizens cannot be underestimated. As Michael Goodwin from the New York Post cautions in his editorial, the “ultimate danger is a lack of accountability. The idea that ordinary citizens hold the power has no meaning when the political class circles the wagons and the press looks the other way while the president accumulates more power and control.”

Lest we forget, this is the same president who wants to eviscerate America’s nuclear capabilities, undermine our defensive capabilities, and expose us to unimaginable dangers from increasingly radicalized and tyrannical regimes with growing nuclear capabilities. [Read more…]

It’s a Great Day in America

Duck Dynasty Conservative Values Pro Gun Pro Familyby Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh –
“It’s a great day in America.” The atheist left is rejoicing that an NBA player is out of the closet and Tim Tebow, “the often-polarizing quarterback,” as the Washington Post describes him, is gone. Sport analysts and other NFL teams did not think he was good enough as a pro quarterback but he was a very popular player. His overt Christianity was offensive and annoying to the liberal PC police.

We are living in the “Great Diversion” era, one unresolved real or manufactured crisis after another and a disastrous economy, yet an NBA player’s sexual orientation, which should be nobody’s business, demands accolades and public speeches.

The word “courage,” which MSM uses loosely to describe such public disclosure, has lost its meaning entirely. Courage is fighting in battle when everyone else retreats, saving another human being from peril when the rest are cowards, and sacrificing heroically and bravely to the betterment of mankind.

No wonder people are turning away from the ugly and terrible reality to the “pane et circenses” (bread and circuses) reality TV, not just any reality TV, but Duck Dynasty. [Read more…]