Orthodox Editors

Why Is Observing Obama as a Marxist Verboten?

Obama Marxist Despot Communism
Obama is a Marxist
by Bill Flax –
The recent release of a tape by Andrew Breitbart’s outfit sparked renewed interest in President Obama’s murky past. In anticipation, conservatives were elated that the president might finally be exposed. The tape showed Obama, then at Harvard Law, orchestrating a protest on behalf of Derrick Bell.
 
Without providing any background on just how radical is Professor Bell, the compliant liberal media derisively dismissed it all as conservative paranoia, even proclaiming presidential vindication. It still appears preposterous to purport that America elected a communist ideologue. The world’s greatest beneficiary of capitalist bounty would never willingly empower a radical socialist to “fundamentally transform America.”

Unfortunately, we did, even if Americans loathe admitting it. And this ought to have been obvious even before Mr. Breitbart’s valiant efforts.

Obama exploits the citizenry’s concerted blindness, cloaking his views under veneers of “social justice,” “fairness,” and “progress.” Unadulterated Marxism attracts few votes. In rare candor, sans teleprompter, Obama lectured Joe the Plumber that his prescription for widespread prosperity is “spreading the wealth around.” [Read more…]

Pope to US Bishops: Evangelize American Culture, Defend Marriage

Pope Benedict Evangelize American Culture by Catholic Online –
Particular mention must be made of the powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage. The Church’s conscientious effort to resist this pressure calls for a reasoned defense of marriage as a natural institution consisting of a specific communion of persons, essentially rooted in the complementarity of the sexes and oriented to procreation. Sexual differences cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the definition of marriage. Defending the institution of marriage as a social reality is ultimately a question of justice, since it entails safeguarding the good of the entire human community and the rights of parents and children alike. …

On Friday morning, March 9, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI addressed another panel of US Catholic Bishops undergoing their ad limina visit. He spoke with clarity and urgency concerning the need for the evangelization of the American culture and their charge concerning what he called the “contemporary crisis of marriage and the family” and presenting a “Christian vision of human sexuality”. We present the full text of the message with appreciation to Rocco Palmo and Whispers in the Loggia: [Read more…]

Stand Up for Religious Freedom – March 23, 2012

Nationwide Rally for Religious FreedomThe Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom is being held Friday, March 23 at noon, local time, outside federal buildings, Congressional offices and historic sites across the country. The theme for the Rally is “Stand Up for Religious Freedom—Stop the HHS Mandate!”

Thousands of Americans of all faiths will be participating in these peaceful rallies, organized by the Pro-Life Action League and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society to oppose the new mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that requires all employers provide free contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs through their health plans, even in violation of their consciences.

Religious leaders and other public figures will speak out against the HHS Mandate at each Rally site. Holding signs reading “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” and “Stop the HHS Mandate,” participants will offer hymns and prayers for our nation and pass out literature to the public about why the HHS Mandate is unconstitutional and Un-American. [Read more…]

Cappella Romana CD: Angelic Light – Music from Eastern Cathedrals

Angelic Light - Music from Eastern Cathedrals Cappella Romana A new Orthodox CD has been released by Cappella Romana titled “Angelic Light – Music from Eastern Cathedrals.” You can experience the otherworldly sounds of Byzantine chant and choral works in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, from ancient hymns from Constantinople to new choral works inspired by that tradition performed by Cappella Romana. The album selections feature both liturgical and para-liturgical works, seamlessly moving from ancient chant melodies to compositions by some of the world’s most notable composers working in the tradition today including Rev. Dr. Ivan Moody, Peter Michaelides and Tikey Zes.

OrthodoxNet has received an advanced copy of this CD and we have listened to it many times. The hymns are magnificent and heavenly, simply amazing! We wholeheartedly recommend the “Angelic Light – Music from Eastern Cathedrals” CD from Cappella Romana. The album is available as MP3 file downloads or a traditional CD from Valley Entertainment’s website: Angelic Light – Music from Eastern Cathedrals. [Read more…]

Freedom vs. the Secular Seminary

Freedom vs. the Secular Seminaryby Christopher Chantrill –
Little did I know, when contrasting conservative freedom and liberal liberation, that a poster-girl for liberation was presenting herself at the Altar of the Victim, the remarkable Sandra Fluke, the toast of our Democratic friends. For Ms. Fluke’s belief system suggests to her that she cannot have access to her sexuality unless a big institution provides her contraception. Moreover, since she is a law student with a degree in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Cornell, she is evidently well into a professional career in liberation activism.

Conservatives scratch our heads at the activist university and its characteristic products like Ms. Fluke. But we are fools. The university has seldom been an institution of higher learning devoted to science and disinterested scholarship. More often it has been a seminary. When young Fred Vincy, son of a Middlemarch merchant, went off to the University of Cambridge in around 1830, it was to study to be a priest in the state Church of England. [Read more…]

Obama Miserable Failure: 4 Million Lose Health Coverage Under Obamacare

Obama Miserable Failure
Yet more evidence is coming out that government socialist “solutions” never work as intended and always make an existing problem much worse. Two different news stories highlight the real consequences of the destructive and misguided ObamaCare regulations (known as the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”). Rather than helping, the ObamaCare rules are wreaking havoc on companies, individuals, and medical institutions, spreading more misery to all of America.

Instead of reducing costs and helping people, it’s dramatically raising costs (estimates have doubled to $1.76 TRILLION) and hurting Americans (4 Million will lose coverage), while gradually destroying our world-class health care system which America has created based on ethical capitalism, competition, and free-market principles. Conservatives warned this was going to happen and this is exactly what we’re witnessing.

Of course, these objective (non-partisan) facts and clear results before us will not deter the liberals, leftists, and progressives who cannot be bothered with reality. The left will continue to support the suicidal socialized medicine model that has been a failure throughout history. [Read more…]

How to Win the Marriage Debate

Defend Marriage Orthodox wedding by Selwyn Duke –
The big news on the culture-war front is a federal court’s striking down of Proposition 8, California’s constitutional amendment protecting marriage.  In a two-to-one ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote, “The people may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group for unequal treatment and strip them, without a legitimate justification, of a right as important as the right to marry.”

Now, I’m not sure why the judges mention a “disfavored group,” as if singling out a “favored” one for unequal treatment would be okay.  As far as I know, the 14th Amendment, on which the court based its ruling, doesn’t offer equal protection to only those the current fashions deem “disfavored.”  Thus, I think this is an example of emotionalism influencing a ruling and its language, sort of as if a judge sentenced a defendant and, adding an adjective, announced him as “stupid” Mr. Smith.  Calling a group “disfavored” is similarly a subjective judgment.  This is not the only thing the judges were subjective about, however. [Read more…]

Obama Admin Finalizes Rules: $1 Abortions in ObamaCare

Obama Abortion HHS mandate by Steven Ertelt –
It’s official. The concern pro-life organizations had about the ObamaCare legislation funding abortions has been confirmed, as the Obama administration has issued the final rules on abortion funding governing the controversial health care law.

Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Obamacare act — that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government — approved insurance or pay a penalty — is an “abortion premium mandate.” This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion. As a result, many pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.

The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule regarding establishment of the state health care exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. [Read more…]

Fixing the Moral Deficit, Biblical Principles for Debt Reduction

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
by Chuck Colson –
Thirty-five years ago, my friend Ron Sider published Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, a very influential book at the time. While I haven’t always agreed with Ron, in fact, we’re poles apart politically, I have no doubt of his integrity, his wisdom and his desire to bring biblical truth to all aspects of life.

That’s why so I’m happy that Ron has turned his attention to one of the most pressing issues of our time: our national debt.

His new book, Fixing the Moral Deficit, is the result of his reflections on the issue. As the title suggests, for Ron, the ballooning national debt isn’t simply a matter of accounting. According to him, there are three “crises” operating here: the first is the deficit crisis, the result of government spending more than it collects in taxes; the second is a poverty crisis, in which the bottom 20 percent become poorer, while the top twenty percent get wealthier.

Together, he says, these add up to a third crisis—which he calls the “justice crisis”–in which we “put current expenditures on our grandchildren’s credit cards,” which Sider calls “flatly immoral.” Amen. [Read more…]