Rev. Ragsdale Goes to Congress: Time to Expose Counterfeit ‘Christianity’

Katherine Ragsdale abortion advocate
Rev Ragsdale at rally passionately promoting Abortion as 'pro-family'
by Deacon Keith Fournier –
The unbroken teaching of the Christian Church has been – and continues to be – that every procured abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.

Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale is the “go to” witness these days for the radical abortion on demand lobby. She not only makes for good optics when she wears that clerical collar, she feigns outrage that anyone would attempt to stop any abortion for any reason. After all, she has now openly identified her position that abortion is a “blessing”. She has the audacity to defend this position as consistent with the Christian faith she claims to profess.The early Church lived through similar examples of apostate leaders claiming the authority of the Church. ..

On Thursday March 8, 2012, Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, the President and Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, appeared in a clerical collar to testify in the United States House of Representatives. Her testimony was an example of the counterfeit which now claims to be Christianity. [Read more…]

‘Social Issues’ Are Really Moral Issues

Social Issues Moral Issues by Trevor Thomas –
One of the greatest deceptions perpetuated by the mainstream media concerning the American political scene is the idea that whenever the “social issues” are prominent in election debate, conservatives lose.  James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote about an upcoming book by Jeffrey Bell — The Case for Polarized Politics — that helps dispel this myth.

“Social issues were nonexistent in the period 1932 to 1964,” notes Bell.  “The Republican Party won two presidential elections out of nine, and they had the Congress for all of four years in that entire period. … When social issues came into the mix — I would date it from the 1968 election … the Republican Party won seven out of 11 presidential elections.” [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…]

Socialism without Guns

Greece communism socialism by Larrey Anderson –
As their economic orgy fades to its inevitable end, the people of Greece find themselves in a country that resembles more of a debtor’s prison than a representative democracy. The Greeks have sold their freedom for a mess of pottage. If the United States is not careful, we could soon find ourselves in a very similar situation.

Unlike the former Soviet Union, there was no violent Marxist “revolution” in Greece. Freedom was taken from the country’s citizens without a single shot being fired. The Greeks squandered their freedom by electing, time and again, politicians who promised an unsustainable socialist utopia. The Greeks committed political suicide by creating socialism without guns. [Read more…]