Dear Ron,
The News In Review newsletter is a service
provided
by Understand The Times that
is a compilation of the news articles
previously posted
on our site . Understand The Times does not
endorse these events but rather is
showing the church the current events.
The
purpose of posting these articles is to warn the church of deception from a
Biblical perspective.
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March 26 - Growing Intolerance for Christianity in U.S.
Article: Perilous Times
"In a world of political correctness devoid of
the rule of law, tolerance has come to mean
total rejection of Christianity and moral standards. Modern tolerance
redefines words like 'marriage,' 'discrimination,' 'equality,' 'morality,'
and even 'absolutes.' The word 'tolerance' as it is used today never
includes opposing arguments or competing worldviews. Tolerance has become
Orwellian and decidedly intolerant." - Matthew Staver,
Dean and Professor of Law at Liberty University School of Law. A few
examples of recent intolerance for Christianity:
· The Supreme court determining
to exclude anyone who prays in Jesus name from a rotation of officials who
open city business meetings
· The removal of US military Chaplain Gordon
Klingenschmitt, over the issue of praying in Jesus
Name
· UCLA's prohibiting a graduating student
from thanking her "Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" in
her graduation speech
· Colleges making special accommodations for
foot baths and Muslim only prayer rooms, while a Muslim group membership may
be suspended or revoked for 57 reasons including but not limited to:
unbecoming behavior, insubordination, or inactivity;
but denying Christian groups campus recognition "because it requires its
officers and voting members to agree with its Christian beliefs"
These incidents have raised several questions
that Brannon Howse, author and founder of Worldview Weekend, agreed to
answer:
CP: Would you consider these examples
of intolerance shocking or unexpected?
Howse: Not at all. Jesus said all nations
will hate you. If you are
a Bible-minded believer such persecution should not be uncommon or a
surprise," he stated, quoting 2 Timothy 3:12 "all who desire to live godly
in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
Without a sound theological foundation,
when persecutions increase, and they will, according
to scripture, many who call themselves believers won't want to be marked as
Christians. Those only committed to culture war will give up with no hope.
Our culture is doing what Scripture said -
getting worse and worse. The books of James and 1
Peter tell us not to be surprised at fiery ordeals ...[when they come - not
if] as though some strange (or foreign) thing were happening to you.
Suffering, intolerance and persecution are building us up for the best part
of life - which is yet to come.
Intolerance for
righteousness is to be expected and embraced as an opportunity to live so
that anytime Christians are persecuted, the world will watch and wonder why
are they willing to persevere and not compromise.
Read Full Article ....
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April 7 - Group Says Spies Have Found Secret Iranian Nuclear Facility
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
A new facility
in Iran is being used to secretly produce components for the country's
renegade nuclear program, a well-known Iranian dissident
tells FOX News.
Alireza Jafarzadeh and his organization,
Strategic Policy Counseling, have released a report that claims
a clandestine facility, called TABA, has played an
integral part in Iran's nuclear ambitions. Though Fox News cannot
independently confirm the facility or Iran's intention for it, Jafarzadeh
and his group are leading sources on the Islamic state's activities.
"This site is one of the secret centers
affiliated with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and
plays a significant role in producing centrifuge parts and advancing the
secret portions of the Iranian regime's nuclear program,"
the report says. "Over the course of the past four-and-a-half years,
parts for tens of thousands of centrifuges
have been manufactured at this site and secretly relocated
"
The report Thursday on Iran's nuclear program
claims several parts of
nuclear centrifuges are manufactured at the TABA site including centrifuge
casings, composite tubes, centrifuge magnets and molecular pumps at the
secret location. Since centrifuges are a vital component of uranium
enrichment, they have been a focal point in the monitoring of Iran's nuclear
program.
"[The facility]
strongly suggests to me that there are other also hidden also unknown
locations that are producing the next generation of centrifuges,"
Bolton said.
"Today's revelation
shows the Iranian regime's heightened deception and
concealment policy in order to get to the bomb as rapidly as possible,"
the report concludes. "This continuing and systematic effort has made it
abundantly clear that international sanctions, albeit necessary, have not
had the desired impact in halting the advancement of Tehran's nuclear
weapons program, its support for terrorism and crackdown at home."
Read Full Article....
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April 4 - Many yoga practitioners find spirituality - and some religious leaders object
Article: Miscellaneous
She grew up dancing,
and in her 20s decided to look into yoga. She thought it would be
good exercise. And now Gina Kilpela, 36, thinks of yoga as more than
a workout - it has become a big part of her
spiritual life.
"I really have come to see the mind, body,
spirit connection, for me, is very important,"
said Kilpela, who lives in Park Hill with her husband and twin
18-month-old boys. She was raised Catholic, in
Pittsburgh. She doesn't attach herself to a specific religious faith
anymore.
Meanwhile, other
religious scholars are decrying what has happened to yoga in
America, lamenting its divorce from
Hinduism and calling for a reunion of the physical exercise and the
ancient East Indian religion.
"I think it's a shame" that the Hindu roots of
yoga are often opaque, said Sheetal Shah, senior
director of the Hindu American Foundation, in New York City. The
foundation recently launched a program called "Take Back Yoga" that
aims to introduce yoga practitioners to links between the physical
practice and Hinduism.
Some say
just doing the poses invites a unique brand of
spirituality, one that comes without texts or dogma.
On the other end of the yogic spectrum are
places like Shoshoni Yoga Retreat, in the mountains near Nederland.
There, participants are invited to take part
in ceremonies involving dancing, singing, East Indian music,
meditation and chanting in a temple adorned with different Hindu
gods, such as the elephant Ganesh.
"I see both
sides," said Swami Kripananda, the ashram's resident swami, or
leader. "I think absolutely we should
respect the roots of this amazing tradition. But
everybody doesn't have to be a Hindu to practice it."
Like Potocnik,
Kripananda doesn't preach. At the same time, her connection to
yoga is deeply spiritual. The
two become entwined, she said, not through texts, but through
practice. "Even if somebody doesn't think
about it spiritually, if they do it under a good instructor,
that will come alive in them," she
said. "Something starts to happen."
Read Full Article ....
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March 23 - King Warns Gadhafi May Strike Against US
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
The United States
is running the risk of suffering a major terrorist
attack at the hands of Libyan proxies because of its military
intervention in Libya to overthrown dictator Moammar Gadhafi,
according to Rep Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security
Committee.
King told The Hill that he backs the multinational campaign to enforce a
no-fly zone over Libya, but he warns of
retribution from Gadhafi, who has a long history of terrorist activity.
"In the long term, it is [in U.S. national security
interests], but we also have to be
concerned about terrorist attacks by Libya, either in the United States
or more likely in Europe," King told The Hill. "We
have to realize that the risk of attack
from Libya is certainly greater now than it was two weeks ago."
The chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), also noted Gadhafi's
history of terrorism. "In assessing U.S. security interests and
objectives, the president must also keep in mind
Gadhafi's attacks on Western targets resulting in the deaths of
Americans in the 1980s," she said in a statement Sunday.
Gadhafi's government was implicated in the bombing
of a nightclub in West Berlin in 1986 - which prompted President
Ronald Reagan to order retaliatory military strikes - and the bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, The Hill pointed
out.
"Our counter-terrorism, law enforcement, intelligence and Homeland
Security communities are staying vigilant and are
taking steps to prevent any attempts, here or abroad, to exploit the
current situation in Libya," said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman
for the Department of Homeland Security, in a statement responding to
King's comments.
Read Full Article ....
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March 25 - Giving up Christianity for Lent
Article: Unbiblical Christiianity
As a former Episcopalian, I can sadly report
that this story doesn't shock me. The Rev. Steve Lawler, a part-time
rector at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Ferguson, Mo.,
is practicing Islam for Lent. According to a report
in Christianity Today, Lawler
on Ash Wednesday began praying five times daily to Allah, studying the
Quran, and adhering to Islamic eating restrictions. During Holy Week,
he plans to fast from dawn to dusk, in imitation of Ramadan.
Lawler claims that
his goal is merely to learn more about Islam than he could by, say,
reading books on the subject.
Bishop George Wayne Smith of the
Episcopal Diocese of Missouri is not quite as sanguine about this
unusual priestly practice of Lent. In fact, he's pretty clear that it's
not acceptable. "He can't be both a
Christian and a Muslim," he said.
"If he chooses to practice as Muslim, then he
would, by default, give up his Christian identity and priesthood in the
church." Smith threatened punitive action if Lawler
continues.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lawler wasn't
upset by the bishop's reaction. "It's a conversation, so I don't feel
excluded or ordered about, and I understand Bishop Smith's concerns
about what this would mean. I knew I was stepping
into this as a discovery. It's turning out to be different than I
thought, but also richer than I thought."
Lawler told Christianity Today
that he gave up the Roman Catholicism
of his youth because it was too conservative. "The Episcopal church is a
fairly open church," he said.
And that's precisely the problem. While
I'm glad to see Bishop Smith taking a strong stand against this inanity,
the fact that an Episcopal priest could
possibly think this was a good way to spend Lent speaks volumes about
the state of the Episcopal Church today.
Read Full Article ....
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March 23 - Canadians losing faith as religion faces extinction
Article: Signs Of The Last Times
Religion may be on the road to extinction in Canada
- mathematically speaking, that is.
Travelling with us are Australia, Austria, the Czech
Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
A study presented Tuesday at the American Physical Society meeting in
Dallas noted a steady rise in the
percentage of those countries' residents who claim no religious affiliation,
and explained how social factors could help push religion toward the dustbin
of history.
Richard Weiner, a University of Arizona researcher and
one of the study's authors, explained the formula's conclusions.
"There'll be a continuing loss of membership among
people that identify themselves as belonging to a religion. Over time, we
could reach a time where society is dominated by people who claim religious
non-affiliation," he said.
The study attempted to link these countries' religious identities with the
social motives behind belonging to particular groups. Researchers said that
as the masses who claim religious non-affiliation
swell, it becomes more appealing to join the ranks of that group.
"The model predicts that for societies in which the perceived utility of not
adhering is greater than the utility of adhering, religion will be driven
toward extinction," the study said.
Weiner speculated that social pressures are contributing to the decline in
religious identification in these countries.
"People no longer see the slate of benefits as being
as great as they probably did 100 years ago. It's become less socially
useful."
In the Netherlands, where close to 50 percent of the
population identifies as not belonging to a religion, Weiner said they found
that by mid-century close to 70 percent of
the country will be made up of non-believers. "That's very substantial
growth over four decades," Weiner said. "It's not saying
that religion will not exist, but it
will very strongly change the makeup of society. Maybe in 100 years in some
of these countries if this trend continues, there will be a very small
percentage of people that still identify themselves as belonging to a
religion."
Read Full Article ....
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March 22 - My View: Decent of the dollar: On the end of America's purchasing power
Article: One World Government
Comment from
Understand the Times:
The following article explains in
easy to understand language the demise of the American economy to be
followed by other economies of the world. We are headed towards a
One World economy headed by a One World New World Order and a One
World Religion, headquarters in Rome.
Read the Bible for more
information
Many of us witnessing inflation
in the price of goods and services accept it as the result of
limited supply or increased demand. However, the major cause of
"inflation" these days is neither. Rather,
it is a symptom of the
devaluation of the dollars we use to buy these goods due to an
oversupply of those dollars. Where all these dollars are coming from
is the single, most important issue everyone with savings or
investments must understand.
The federal budget this year
is $3.51 trillion. Of this amount, $1.65
trillion is in deficit. Over 43 percent of the entire budget is
borrowed. So from where are such vast sums to be found?
We can't
finance the budget deficit from a trade surplus. The United
States has been running trade deficits since 1976, which has only
made the problem worse. In that time,
America has gone from being the world's
greatest creditor to becoming its largest debtor nation.
The
money cannot be borrowed from other countries running a trade
surplus, either. According to Bloomberg, China's 2010 surplus
of $190 billion is expected to decline this year. Also, on March 8,
China's leading economist, Li Yining, in his speech before the CPPCC
National Committee, stated, "China should
increase the size of gold in its foreign exchange reserves." They no
longer want to lend us more money.
Excess
revenue from Social Security taxes can no longer finance the federal
budget. In the past, these funds have bankrolled over $2.5
trillion of our national debt. In 2011,
for the first time, Social Security will
experience a deficit in the amount of $45 billion. The Congressional
Budget Office projects Social Security deficits to total $547
billion through 2021. In truth,
there is not enough money in the world to
finance the continuous budget deficits of the United States
government. The sole option remaining is called "monetization of
debt."
Consider Bill Gross. He is the
founder of Pacific Investment Management Co. and manages portfolios
amounting to $1.23 trillion. On March 9, Gross announced that PIMCO
Total Return, the world's largest
mutual fund, had eliminated all dollar-denominated bonds from its
portfolio.
A leading central banker,
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International
Monetary Fund, called on Feb. 10
for a new global currency to replace the dollar. His voice is but
one in a chorus of world leaders calling for an end to the dollar's
dominant status as the global reserve currency.
When titans of the financial industry begin to
openly state their disdain for Treasury debt and dollars, one can
only imagine what is being discussed behind the closed doors of
boardrooms across the globe. If you have ever
lamented that those in the know have preserved their wealth while
leaving you to sustain the losses they've gamed into the system,
then consider this your memo that
the investment world is about to change yet again.
Read Full Article ....
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March 21 - Young Evangelicals Find Faith in Emerging Church Movement
Article: Emerging Church
Comment from Understand the Times:
The present
church trend that tends to leave the Bible and embrace postmodernism
will be the destruction of Christianity as we once knew it. The
emerging church is just another road to Rome. The Bible states that
we should come out of the harlot, not embrace the harlot.
It's Sunday morning
at the Jammin Java cafe in Vienna,
Virginia. A group of people have gathered in the back - to pray. The
sticky floors and low lighting are not exactly inspirational. But this
is no ordinary church. It's a new kind of worship
that has sprung out of Evangelical Christianity and is being called the
Emerging Church.
Only a generation ago, Evangelical Protestants were flocking to
so-called megachurches with congregations that numbered in the
thousands. The worshippers were fundamentalists, including Evangelicals,
who view the Christian Bible as the literal truth. The churches were
often led by a charismatic pastor who gave fiery sermons against
abortion or homosexuality. Now, a new generation
of Evangelical and other Christians is seeking a more
personal experience with a different political tone. They are meeting in
more intimate settings, like the corner cafe, and
no one is told what to believe.
Stavlund says
it's okay to question anything - even
the most basic tenets of Christian belief. "To me
it feels like an honesty, when we have doubts to say we've got doubts,
when we've got faith to say we've got faith,
but in all of it to be able to be accepting of
everybody else," he says.
Many Common Table members are just starting families and
searching for a way to practice their faith
differently from how their parents did.
Still, the Emerging Church movement
is treading on ground that traditionalists call
unorthodox, if not heretical. Rob Bell, an Emerging
pastor from Michigan, has drawn criticism over his new book.
It argues that people of all faiths can go to heaven - something many
Americans believe but Evangelical theology rejects.
But young Americans are increasingly shunning them.
One study found that adults aged 18 to 29 who say
they don't identify with any denomination have more than doubled in the
last two decades.
"Just as the Megachurch as we
know it today recreated what it meant to belong to a church and gave
people a sense of community in a period where other civic institutions
were failing, there's going to be some
style of religion - maybe it's this Emerging Church, maybe it's some
other movement - that will reach these young people."
Read Full Article....
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
Sincerely,
Roger Oakland
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