The Mystery of the Resurrection

Resurrection Christ

5/1/2010 – Regis Nicoll –

The resurrection is one of Christendom’s deepest mysteries and, yet, no different in kind than the mystery of creation—whereby, man was formed from the dust of the earth, and the earth, ex nihilo, by the utterance of God. Consequently, folks who are put off by the resurrection of the dead will likely find the creation of the living a difficult pill as well.

It suggests that the real objection to the resurrection mystery is not so much over the process, but over what the process implies. Someone who is able to reassemble, refurbish, and reinvigorate our remains is Someone who can assert cosmic authority over us and make demands of us. And that is Someone some people would rather not think about, for now. [Read more…]

Daily Kos Article Says Number of Abortions is “Too Low”

4/30/2010 – Sarah Knoploh –

April 28 was apparently Abortion Uber Alles day at the liberal Web site Daily Kos. Aimee Thorne-Thomsen of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project stated that the number of women who receive abortions is “too low” in “Keep Abortions Safe and Legal? Yes. Make it Rare? Not the Point.”

A separate article blasted the new law in Oklahoma that makes it mandatory for woman to receive ultrasounds by making crude comparisons and calling it “blackmail.”

Even though 1.21 million abortions were performed in 2005, this was not enough for Thorne-Thomsen. She wrote, “On the other hand, if those 1.21 million abortions represent only the women who could access abortion financially, geographically or otherwise, then that number is too low. Yes, too low.” [Read more…]

Coptic Hierarch Takes Episcopalians to Task

Bishop Anba Suriel
Bishop Anba Suriel

4/28/2010 – Josephus Flavius –

A Coptic Orthodox Church observer to the Fourth Global South to South Encounter ripped into the Episcopal Church, stunning some 130 archbishops, bishops, clergy and laity, urging them to say “no to ordination of homosexuals, no to gay marriage, no to such immorality, and that it is time to purify the sanctuary of the Lord from this abomination that causes our God to suffer, bleed and be crucified again everyday.”

“You are martyrs without the shedding of blood because you are upholding the teaching of the Gospel handed down once and for all to the apostles,” Bishop Anba Suriel told the stunned delegates.

“An army of sheep led by a lion is more powerful than an army of lions led by a sheep. I really pray that you lions here, the primates of each of the provinces of the Global South will stand united with one accord against the heresies of The Episcopal Church. [Read more…]

Obama’s Greatest Deficit Is Wisdom

4/28/2010 – Tom White –

It is often said, by both supporters and detractors, that President Barack Obama is intelligent, smart, well-educated, and even cerebral. However, President Obama is never described as wise. Wisdom is a special quality reserved for a few rare individuals. And wisdom is the most important characteristic which distinguishes ordinary leaders from extraordinary leaders.

Obama’s wisdom deficit is not necessarily a flaw or defect in his character. It is simply a quality that does not yet exist within the man. The old adage “with age comes wisdom” hints that wisdom takes time to acquire, but not all people become wise. [Read more…]

A Carefully Crafted Immigration Law in Arizona

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signs the illegal-immigration bill
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signs the illegal-immigration bill

4/26/2010 – by Byron York –

The chattering class is aghast at Arizona’s new immigration law. “Harkens back to apartheid,” says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker. “Shameful,” says the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne. “Terrible…an invitation to abuse,” says the New York Times’ David Brooks.

For his part, President Obama calls the law “misguided” and says it “threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.” Obama has ordered the Justice Department to “closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. [Read more…]

Liberals and the Violence Card

Wall Street Journal | by Rush Limbaugh | 4/26/2010

The latest liberal meme is to equate skepticism of the Obama administration with a tendency toward violence. That takes me back 15 years ago to the time President Bill Clinton accused “loud and angry voices” on the airwaves (i.e., radio talk-show hosts like me) of having incited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. What self-serving nonsense. Liberals are perfectly comfortable with antigovernment protest when they’re not in power. [Read more…]

Barbarians Among Us?

OrthodoxyToday | by Fr. Gregory Jensen | 4/11/2010

On a post on my blog Koinoia (“An Editorial: Orthodoxy & the Public Square“), I wrote that whether or not I like Frank Schaeffer’s politics or his moral theology, or whether or not his support of abortion and gay rights are compatible with the tradition of the Church, the reality is that he is well within the mainstream of current Orthodox opinion in America. According to the PEW survey, the majority of Orthodox laity agree that abortion and gay marriage should be legal.  It may surprise you, then, that the problem isn’t Schaeffer – it’s us; specifically, it’s the clergy.  For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, we clergy are not effectively communicating the moral tradition of the Church to the laity.  Or, if we are, the laity aren’t listening –- which would imply that the clergy are willing to tolerate the laity ignoring the Gospel.

We see the same prevalence of pro-choice, pro-gay marriage positions among Orthodox politicians.  This kind of a consistent pattern of belief does not just happen.  As in the Catholic Church, we see in the Orthodox Church evidence of a significant pastoral failing.  This appears to be more than just a widespread lack of sound moral education for the faithful.  It appears to be an embrace of, or at least resignation to, the influence of secularism in our parishes. [Read more…]

Why Left Talks about “White” Tea Parties

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager

by Dennis Prager | 4/27/2010

Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea party, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration.

But there are two other facts that are far more troubling: The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers.

It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender and class rather than through the moral prism of right and wrong. [Read more…]

Believe It or Not


First Things | by David B. Hart | 4/2010

I think I am very close to concluding that this whole “New Atheism” movement is only a passing fad—not the cultural watershed its purveyors imagine it to be, but simply one of those occasional and inexplicable marketing vogues that inevitably go the way of pet rocks, disco, prime-time soaps, and The Bridges of Madison County. This is not because I necessarily think the current “marketplace of ideas” particularly good at sorting out wise arguments from foolish. But the latest trend in à la mode godlessness, it seems to me, has by now proved itself to be so intellectually and morally trivial that it has to be classified as just a form of light entertainment, and popular culture always tires of its diversions sooner or later and moves on to other, equally ephemeral toys.

Take, for instance, the recently published 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. Simple probability, surely, would seem to dictate that a collection of essays by fifty fairly intelligent and zealous atheists would contain at least one logically compelling, deeply informed, morally profound, or conceptually arresting argument for not believing in God. Certainly that was my hope in picking it up. Instead, I came away from the whole drab assemblage of preachments and preenings feeling rather as if I had just left a large banquet at which I had been made to dine entirely on crushed ice and water vapor. [Read more…]

Gianna Jessen Abortion Survivor, Defender of Life

Gianna Jessen
Gianna Jessen

by Gianna Jessen and alleyesonCHRIST | 4/25/2010

Gianna Jessen is a devout Christian. Her life was given to her by the grace of God. She shouldn’t be walking, but more miraculous still; she should not even be alive. Gianna’s biological mother was 17 when she had a saline abortion in her third trimester. Many Americans don’t realize it is legal to have an abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. After being burned alive for approximately 18 hours in the womb from the saline solution, Gianna was delivered alive in a Los Angeles County abortion clinic. Her medical records state, “born during saline abortion”…this is what caused her Cerebral Palsy.

Gianna was born in an abortion clinic and raised as an orphan in a foster home, yet Gianna Jessen isn’t going to complain. … For all of us who sometimes think life can be overwhelming, Jessen is a swift dose of reality. For everyone who believes a woman’s right to choose overshadows a child’s right to live Jessen is God’s answer. [Read more…]