Culture is at Risk of Becoming Anti-Culture without the Church

AOI | by Fr. Johannes Jacobse | 3/10/2010

Metropolitan Hilarion
Metropolitan Hilarion

Metropolitan Hilarion’s warning deals with what Nietzsche called the “transvaluation of values” — what his dark prophesy warned would happen in the West because “God is Dead,” by which he meant that Western culture was entering into a period where it functioned within the cultural structures shaped by Christianity but without concrete, existential communion with the Savior — the kind of communion that would lead to martyrdom if required. Those structures would weaken as the historical memory of Christianity grew increasingly dim from one generation to the next.

That is the period we are in today, call it secularism, but understand that secularism is just a layover from one city to the next. We have left the City of God (recalling Augustine) for what — Islamic domination? Perhaps. Man cannot live by bread alone, and that includes the secularist as well as the believer. [Read more…]

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Five Myths About Same Sex Marriage

Townhall | by Janice Shaw Crouse | 3/9/2010

March 9, 2010, is the first day that same-sex couples in District of Columbia (D.C.) will be able to have legal marriage ceremonies. More than 100 couples — some coming from nearby states — have licenses for ceremonies. So-called same-sex “marriages” are legal in five other states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont — where the words “bride and groom” are replaced with the names of the individuals, who are each called “spouse” or “Person A” and “Person B.”

Those who oppose same-sex “marriage” are called by derogatory labels: bigot, narrow-minded, hate-filled among the nicest. Such name-calling obscures the very real problems associated with watering down and denigrating traditional marriage. [Read more…]

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The Communist Holocaust

Communist Holocaust - The deadliest ideology in the history of manCompiled by Chris Banescu
(Contributors: Chris Banescu, Scott Manning, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation)

In October 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution gave birth to the deadliest ideology in human history – Communism. In less than 100 years, Communism has claimed more than 100 million lives. Today, it continues to enslave one-sixth of the world’s population.

A free people cannot afford to forget the evils of Communism. We cannot allow the atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Ceausescu, and Castro to fade into the background of history. We must not forget the trail of blood and tears this utopian deception has left behind.

It is a great moral failing that so many don’t know the extent of Communism’s atrocities and the great evil they unleashed on the world. While the horrors of Nazism are well known, who knows that the Soviet Union murdered more than 20 million people? Who knows that China’s dictators have slaughtered as many as 60 million? Who knows that the Communist holocaust has exacted a death toll surpassing that of all of the wars of the 20th century combined? (Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation) [Read more…]

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The Lukewarm Generation


First Things | by W. Bradford Wilcox | 3/8/2010

Sociologist Christian Smith began his ambitious, multivolume effort to plumb the religious lives of Americans across the life course in his 2005 with Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. In that book—aimed at an audience that the author hoped would include general readers as well as clergy and scholars—Smith painted an incisive portrait of religion among America’s adolescents. Especially insightful was the way Smith explained why the more sectarian religious traditions in the United States, such as evangelical Protestantism and Mormonism, were achieving greater success than more churchly traditions such as mainline Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in transmitting their faiths to the next generation. Also notable was the way Smith explained how the guiding religious ethos of American teenagers—what he aptly termed “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”—seemed so suited for our culture. [Read more…]

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The Undemocratic Democrats

Townhall | by Linda Chavez | 3/5/2010

Arrogance is an occupational hazard in politics, one that is often fatal, and the Democrats show every sign of having succumbed. You would think someone in the party would sound the alarm. But, so far, Democrats seem willing to follow their leaders off the cliff. The president, House speaker and Senate majority leader appear ready to defy the American public and ram a disastrous and unpopular overturn of health care down our throats, regardless of the consequences to the country or their own political futures. There is something deeply disturbing about this turn of events — and undemocratic. [Read more…]

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Fear-Mongering Demagogue Al Gore

Al Gore is a Fraud and a Charlatan
Al Gore is a Fraud and a Charlatan

WorldNetDaily | by Joseph Farah | 3/3/2010
Al Gore is nothing but a two-bit charlatan, but he is treated by the press establishment like a prophet, a courageous leader, a selfless crusader, a man of vision and ideals.

Which are you going to believe: Al Gore or your own eyes?

Forget what we in the United States and many around the world have experienced this winter, he writes in a New York Times op-ed. It may seem colder, but this is exactly what should be expected in a global-warming scenario, he claims. Just as a snowless winter in Washington a few years ago was also exactly what we should expect.

If it’s hot, blame global warming. If it’s cold, blame climate change.

Al Gore is not a serious person. He’s a get-rich-quick artist who is peddling the biggest con game in the history of man. [Read more…]

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Teacher wins major victory for God in school

Judge scolds district for trying to scrub America’s Christian heritage

Bradley Johnson 1
Bradley Johnson and one of the two banners he was ordered to take down

WorldNetDaily | by Drew Zahn | Mar. 1, 2010

A federal judge in California has handed down a scathing ruling against a school that required one of its teachers to remove signs celebrating the role of God in American history from his classroom walls.

As WND reported, math teacher Bradley Johnson had banners hanging in his classroom at Westview High School in San Diego, Calif., for more than 17 years with phrases like “In God We Trust” and “All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed by Their Creator,” only to have the principal order them torn down during the 2007 school year.

But Johnson filed a lawsuit alleging the order a violation of his constitutional rights, and the teacher has now been rewarded with a court victory and a powerfully-worded ruling. [Read more…]

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Government, Yes! God and Parents, No!

Townhall.com | by Dennis Prager | Feb. 23, 2010

One of the major differences between the right and the left concerns the question of authority: To whom do we owe obedience and who is the ultimate moral authority?

For the right, the primary moral authority is God (or, for secular conservatives, Judeo-Christian values), followed by parents. Of course, government must also play a role, but it is ultimately accountable to God and it should do nothing to undermine parental authority.

For the left, the state and its government are the supreme authorities, while parental and divine authority are seen as impediments to state authority. [Read more…]

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