Christian Defense Coalition Responds to Senator Obama's Speech on Faith and Values
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07365.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- Senator Obama has no moral authority to speak on faith and social justice while promoting a radical pro abortion position which brutalizes children and diminishes women.
If elected President, Senator Obama would be the most pro-abortion President in America history.
The Christian Defense Coalition calls for Senator Obama to embrace a Christian faith which supports and affirms justice and human rights and works to end the tragic violence and suffering of abortion.
Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, states, "In today's speech, Senator Obama will affirm the importance of faith, values and social justice. Sadly, Senator Obama does not have the moral authority to address these issues while supporting the tragic killing of innocent children and diminishing of women through abortion.
"The question must be asked, how can one support faith and values while embracing policies that brutalize children and wound women? Senator Obama cannot talk with integrity about his faith and social justice anymore than a segregationist or racist can talk about their faith, justice or equality with integrity.
"Throughout the Gospels, Christ taught us to stand for the most defenselessness, needy and broken in our society. Senator Obama betrays those sacred principles through his radical pro-abortion position."
Katilin Clare, Program Director for the Christian Defense Coalition, adds,
"As a 23 year old emerging generation faith leader it is easy to see through Sen. Obama's attempt to reach the faith community. It seems completely illogical that one person can talk about faith and values while simultaneously supporting the brutal killing of children through abortion. Sen. Obama has no moral authority to speak about faith and social justice; it's like a hunter speaking at a PETA meeting."
Concerned Women for America Statement on the Passing of Senator Jesse Helms
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07367.shtml
WASHINGTON, (christiansunite.com) -- CWA Founder and Chairman Mrs. Beverly LaHaye said, "Jesse Helms was not only a dear friend and a friend of CWA, he was a statesman who fought fearlessly for family and moral values. He was a staunch defender of the sanctity of life, and he stood against the onslaught of those who would grant special rights to the sexually confused and broken. He weathered the kinds of storms and personal attacks under which others have quickly caved.
"Jesse Helms is a culture war hero, and as a nation we are indebted to him. Our prayers are with Jesse's family during this time."
CWA President Wendy Wright said, "Sen. Jesse Helms courageously represented the true beliefs of mainstream America. He was beloved by those who were grateful for his profound respect for America and the religion and morality that underpins this great country. We extend our condolences to his family as we rejoice in knowing he has reached his true home."
Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Director and Senior Fellow of CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute, said, "How noteworthy that Senator Jesse Helms died on this hallowed date in American history, the same date as former patriots John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Like John Adams, he had his contemporary detractors, but history will show what a great champion he was for conservative values. No senator in modern times has done more than this giant of liberty to protect those values of freedom that are the foundation of America. We mourn his passing while celebrating his extraordinary life."
Grand Jury Fails to Charge Tiller
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07366.shtml
WICHITA, Kansas, (christiansunite.com) -- The citizen-called grand jury that investigated late-term abortionist George R. Tiller was dismissed today without issuing an indictment. Operation Rescue President Troy Newman released this statement concerning the grand jury:
"We are extremely disappointed that this grand jury did not indict Tiller for committing illegal abortions. Our own research proves that viable babies up until the moment of birth are being wrongly and illegally killed by Tiller and his cohorts under the misuse of a mental health exception that was not written into the law, but forced upon it by a pro-abortion former attorney general.
"Once again, we are suspicious that corrupt influences in the government, which have been influenced by Tiller's large financial involvement in Kansas politics, may have thwarted justice once again.
"We will not stop seeking justice for the innocent victims of Tiller's late-term barbaric practice, and will continue to exercise every legal avenue to stop the shedding of innocent blood and bring Tiller to justice."
About Operation Rescue
Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation. Operation Rescue recently made headlines when it bought and closed an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas and has become the voice of the pro-life activist movement in America. Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre-born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.
The Myth About Abortion and Crime
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,377181,00.html
Violent crime in the United States soared after 1960. From 1960 to 1991, reported violent crime increased by an incredible 372 percent. This disturbing trend was seen across the country, with robbery peaking in 1991 and rape and aggravated assault following in 1992. But then something unexpected happened: Between 1991 and 2000, rates of violent crime and property crime fell sharply, dropping by 33 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Murder rates were stable up to 1991, but then plunged by a steep 44 percent.
Many plausible explanations have been advanced for the drop during the 1990s. Some stress law-enforcement measures, such as higher arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, “broken windows” police strategies, and the death penalty. Others emphasize right-to-carry laws for concealed handguns, a strong economy, or the waning of the crack-cocaine epidemic.
Yet, of all the explanations, perhaps the most controversial is the one that attributes lower crime rates in the ’90s to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision to mandate legalized abortion. According to this argument, the large number of women who began having abortions shortly after Roe were most likely unmarried, in their teens, or poor, and their children would have been “unwanted.” Children born in these circumstances would have had a higher-than-average likelihood of becoming criminals, and would have entered their teens — their “criminal prime” — in the early 1990s. But because they were aborted, they were not around to make trouble.
It is an attention-grabbing theory, to be sure, possibly even more noteworthy than recent research indicating that liberalizing abortion increased pre-marital sex, increased out-of-wedlock births, reduced adoptions and ended so-called shotgun marriages.
But a thorough analysis of abortion and crime statistics leads to the opposite conclusion: that abortion increases crime.
The question about abortion and crime was greatly influenced by a Swedish study published in 1966 by Hans Forssman and Inga Thuwe. They followed the children of 188 women who were denied abortions from 1939 to 1941 at the only hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. Their study compared these “unwanted” children with another group, this one composed of the first child born at the hospital after each of the “unwanted” children. They found that the “unwanted” children were much more likely to grow up in adverse conditions — for example, with divorced parents, or in foster homes. These children were also more likely to become delinquents and have trouble in school. Unfortunately, the authors never investigated whether the children’s “unwantedness” caused their problems, or were simply correlated with them.
Forssman and Thuwe’s claim, notwithstanding the limits of the data supporting it, became axiomatic among supporters of legalized abortion. During the 1960s and ’70s, before Roe, abortion-rights advocates attributed all sorts of social ills, including crime and mental illness, to “unwanted” children. Weeding these poor, crime-prone people out of the population through abortion was presented as a way to make society safer.
Indeed, the 1972 Rockefeller Commission on Population and the American Future, established by Richard Nixon, cited research purporting that the children of women denied an abortion “turned out to have been registered more often with psychiatric services, engaged in more antisocial and criminal behavior, and have been more dependent on public assistance.”
Even in the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun noted the same social problems attributed to “unwanted” children.
Recently, two economists — John Donohue and Steven Levitt — tried resurrecting the debate. They presented evidence that supposedly demonstrated abortion’s staggeringly large effect on crime rates, and argued that up to “one-half of the overall crime reduction” between 1991 and 1997, and up to 81 percent of the drop in murder rates during that period, was attributable to the rise in abortions in the early to mid 1970s. If that claim was accurate, they had surely found the Holy Grail of crime reduction.
Most people who challenge the “abortion reduces crime” argument do so on ethical grounds, rather than trying to rebut the empirical evidence. But it is worth looking at the data, too — because they do not prove what they are supposed to.
To understand why abortion might not cut crime, one should first consider how dramatically it changed sexual relationships. Once abortion became widely available, people engaged in much more premarital sex, and also took less care in using contraceptives. Abortion, after all, offered a backup if a woman got pregnant, making premarital sex, and the nonuse of contraception, less risky. In practice, however, many women found that they couldn’t go through with an abortion, and out-of-wedlock births soared. Few of these children born out of wedlock were put up for adoption; most women who were unwilling to have abortions were also unwilling to give up their children. Abortion also eliminated the social pressure on men to marry women who got pregnant. All of these outcomes — more out-of-wedlock births, fewer adoptions than expected, and less pressure on men “to do the right thing” — led to a sharp increase in single-parent families.
Multiple studies document this change. From the early 1970s through the late 1980s, as abortion became more and more frequent, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, from an average of 5 percent (1965–69) to over 16 percent 20 years later (1985–1989). Among blacks, the number jumped from 35 percent to 62 percent. While not all of this rise can be attributed to liberalized abortion laws, they were certainly a key contributor.
What happened to all these children raised by single women? No matter how much they want their children, single parents tend to devote less attention to them than married couples do. Single parents are less likely than married parents to read to their children or take them on excursions, and more likely to feel angry at their children or to feel that they are burdensome. Children raised out of wedlock have more social and developmental problems than children of married couples by almost any measure — from grades to school expulsion to disease. Unsurprisingly, children from unmarried families are also more likely to become criminals.
So the opposing lines of argument in the “abortion reduces crime” debate are clear: One side stresses that abortion eliminates “unwanted” children, the other that it increases out-of-wedlock births. The question is: Which consequence of abortion has the bigger impact on crime?
Unfortunately for those who argue that abortion reduces crime, Donahue and Levitt’s research suffered from methodological flaws. As The Economist noted, “Donohue and Levitt did not run the test that they thought they had.” Work by two economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, Christopher Foote and Christopher Goetz, found that, when the test was run correctly, it indicated that abortion actually increases violent crime. John Whitley and I had written an earlier study that found a similar connection between abortion and murder — namely, that legalizing abortion raised the murder rate, on average, by about 7 percent.
The “abortion decreases crime” theory runs into even more problems when the population is analyzed by age group. Suppose that liberalizing abortion in the early 1970s can indeed explain up to 80 percent of the drop in murder during the 1990s, as Donohue and Levitt claim. Deregulating abortion would then reduce criminality first among age groups born after the abortion laws changed, when the “unwanted,” crime-prone elements began to be weeded out. Yet when we look at the declining murder rate during the 1990s, we find that this is not the case at all. Instead, murder rates began falling first among an older generation — those over 26 — born before Roe. It was only later that criminality among those born after Roe began to decline.
Legalizing abortion increased crime. Those born in the four years after Roe were much more likely to commit murder than those born in the four years prior. This was especially true when they were in their “criminal prime,” as shown in the nearby chart.
The “abortion decreases crime” argument gets even weaker when one looks at data from Canada. While crime rates in both the United States and Canada began declining at the same time, Canada liberalized its abortion laws much later than the U.S. did. Although Quebec effectively legalized abortion in late 1976, it wasn’t until 1988, in a case originating in Ontario, that the Canadian supreme court struck down limits on abortion nationwide. If the legalization of abortion in the U.S. caused crime to begin dropping 18 years later, why did the crime rate begin falling just three years after the comparable legal change in Canada?
Even if abortion did lower crime by culling out “unwanted” children (a conclusion derived from flawed statistics), this effect would be greatly outweighed by the rise in crime associated with the greater incidence of single-parent families that also follows from abortion liberalization. In short, more abortions have brought more crime.
Release warns of persecution threat against British Muslim converts
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/release.warns.of.persecution.threat.against.british.muslim.converts/20233.htm
A growing number of Christians in Britain from a Muslim background are facing harassment and persecution, warns Release International.
They include ‘Yasmin’, whose ex-husband planned to kill her. She’s been attacked in the street, driven from her home and was taken under police protection.
Yasmin became a Christian after receiving a vision of Jesus during the difficult birth of her son. She tried to keep her faith a secret from her family, but eventually told her mother.
"When my mother found out I had become a Christian she went to the local mosque and told them that I had gone crazy," Yasmin told Release International, which serves the persecuted church in 30 nations.
"She went to get some holy water to heal me of my madness. A campaign was set up against me; people would come and bang on the door every ten minutes during the night."
The police set up a panic alarm but finally told Yasmin they could no longer protect her and moved her into a women’s refuge.
Yasmin relocated to another part of the country, but her ex-husband tracked her down and demanded custody of their children as he objected to them being brought up by a Christian.
She says: "He continually intimidated and harassed me and hired someone to beat me in the street. Wherever we went there would always be a car following us and watching us."
Her son yielded to pressure and went to live with his dad. "He only stayed one night," says Yasmin, "as his dad told him that he had arranged for someone to kill me and was pressing my son for details of the layout of our home - where the alarm was and where I slept."
Yasmin went into hiding with her son and took out an injunction against her husband. The harassment stopped, but that was not the end of the trouble.
"Everyone in the local Muslim community knew I was a Christian and didn’t want to know me. People would cross the street rather than greet me and often spat in my face. They tried to pressure me to leave town. But I had already been chased out of one town so I was determined not to let them intimidate me."
Yasmin is now working to support other Muslim background believers who are experiencing the same pressures and persecution.
She adds: "One of the most difficult things about becoming a Christian from a Muslim background is losing your family. There are such tight family networks in our communities. If someone becomes a Christian then they are considered to bring shame on the whole family and the only response is to cut them out of the family."
Some Muslim background believers in the UK lose their homes, possessions and even custody of their children – a picture replicated in many nations around the world, where former Muslims may even lose their lives for changing their faith.
Release International’s patron, Bishop Michael Nazir Ali has also been under police protection after receiving death-threats for expressing his concerns about some aspects of Islam in Britain. He endured similar threats in his homeland Pakistan, but never expected the same thing to happen in the UK.
Bishop Nazir-Ali said: "The story of the church is a story of persecution. The blood of the martyrs has been, and is, and will be the seed of the church."
Release International’s CEO Andy Dipper said: "Release has seen many such cases around the world. Now these things are beginning to happen in the UK.
"Converts from a Muslim background may be traumatised, having faced intense pressure, threats, blackmail and the loss of their families and homes. They often have to cope with either secrecy or intimidation, and may need emotional and spiritual counselling.
"These new Christians may have material needs, such as for shelter, food and clothing. We need to be hands-on in our help and to open the doors of our homes. We also need to equip and train more churches here in Britain in how they can best support new church members from a Muslim background."
Through its international network of missions Release International supports Christians imprisoned for their faith and their families in 30 nations. It supports church workers, pastors and their families, and provides training, Bibles, Christian literature and broadcasts. Release International is a member of the UK organisations Global Connections, the Evangelical Alliance and the Micah Network.
Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.
If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.
The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.
It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.
Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.
Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.
“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.
Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.
The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.
How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.
Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.
“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”
Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.
Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.
A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal. He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity.
It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.
When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.
Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.
In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.
The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.
To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.
Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”
To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.
He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.
“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”
Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.
Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.
Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”
Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation” and Mr. Knohl’s analysis deserved serious attention. “Here we have a real stone with a real text,” he said. “This is truly significant.”
Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.
But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.
“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”
A New Day for Anglicanism
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/404804.aspx
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Revival in the Anglican Church? The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which met in Jerusalem last week, revealed that a new day has arisen for the global Anglican Communion.
Twelve hundred top orthodox leaders, representing millions of evangelical Anglicans worldwide, met on a pilgrimage seeking the Lord for the future of the Global Anglican Church --seeking a response to the "Anglican Crisis."
What is the Anglican Crisis?
Over the past decade, the words "gay marriage" and "same sex blessing" have been at the forefront of liberal Anglican theological discussion in North America. And while media coverage and the North American Anglican liberal majority have attempted to make homosexuality the central issue of progressive Anglicanism, orthodox Anglicans have stepped forward to clarify that it is the authority of scripture, and faithfulness to Jesus, that is the heart of the issue.
The "Anglican Crisis" is primarily a Western/North American crisis. The region represents the minority of the global Anglican Communion, but they have still had the power to tamper with ancient Anglican doctrine. When the Archbishop of Canterbury failed to respond to rampant defiant and disobedient practices of the West, foundation-shaking rumblings were sent across the global Communion.
In a press release on Christmas 2007, orthodox bishops and clergy, representing 30 million of the 55 million Anglicans worldwide, released the statement announcing the Global Anglican Future Conference: A Gospel of Power and Transformation.
While some have been hostile to the assembly of these pilgrims due to the fact that the conference was established as an alternative to the Lambeth Conference (a meeting of bishops every 10 years, which has governed the decisions of the Anglican Church for the past 300 years), many others were encouraged that the unity and voice of the orthodox majority finally came to life in the city of their Savior.
Why Jerusalem?
Bishop Robert Duncan, moderator of the Common Cause North America, opened the pre-conference event with an address called Anglicanism Come of Age: A Post-Colonial and Global Communion for the the 21st Century.
"We have come to reclaim our roots," he said. "We want to tell story clearly in our time, without loss or compromise in translation or transmission…without individually or corporately getting in the way of the story."
Jerusalem is the place where the new covenant story began. Where the Messiah came to give his life for Jew and gentile, where the Holy Spirit empowered the first disciples, where the Good News of Jesus went out to the nations.
Coming to Jerusalem represents for GAFCON pilgrims a return to the foot of the cross where Jesus offered grace and redemption to all people.
Implications for Mainstream Christianity in North America
The ears of evangelical Christians in North America are perking up to this movement because the crisis at hand is not exclusively Anglican. It is one that confronts the entire North American post-modern Church.
In the words of Archbishop Peter Jensen speaking to Christianity Today, "The convulsions which are striking Anglicans, if they have not reached your mainstream denomination, will do so without a doubt." "…This is an absolutely essential effort for us, for every evangelical no matter how pure a denomination they may think they occupy."
Where to Go from Here
Now that GAFCON's final statement has been released, North American reps feel that they can finally move forward. In a phone interview with CBN News, Bishop Don Harvey, moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada, spoke about the emotional intensity and the ups and downs of the past four years in Canada. He said the road has been difficult, but that "We have come out of this with our heads up high…now knowing that all we have invested has been worth it."
In the same spirit, the Venerable Charlie Masters, general secretary of the Common Cause North America, spoke with CBN News and confessed the same feelings of affirmation and even relief. He said that when the first draft of the GAFCON statement was read aloud, "the feeling in the hall was electric with excitement and clapping."
With a tired voice Masters described the difficult uphill journey that led them to this gathering in Jerusalem and that unexpected tears had caught him off guard at the release of the statement. He said "all we had been praying and longing for had been validated." His joy stemmed from the fact that the statement flowed directly from the Gospel.
The Global Anglican Future Conference: A Gospel of Power and Transformation, has called their church to just that. While liberal Anglicanism beckons "come as you are, and stay as you are," orthodox Anglicans have remained faithful to what they have been calling "the old, old story," to the Jesus who beckons "come as you are and be transformed and healed by the power of the Holy Spirit."
GAFCON in Jerusalem represents a significant awakening and softening of hearts in the Anglican Communion. It is not a schism, but a call to reformation; not a political power struggle with Lambeth, but a humble submission to Jesus and the scriptures.
Is revival coming to the Anglican Communion? Quite possibly.
U.S. Military Chief: Attack on Iran Would Stress U.S. Forces
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/iran_military_attack/2008/07/07/110614.html
PENTAGON — The top U.S. military officer says more diplomacy is needed to convince Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, because any military strike would have unforeseeable consequences and could end up putting considerable stress on U.S. forces.
At a news conference, Admiral Mike Mullen refused to reveal any substance from his recent meetings in Israel, which came shortly after Israeli forces had conducted an extensive exercise that many interpreted as preparation for an air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. But Admiral Mullen warned that any "destabilizing acts" could have unpredictable consequences, and it would be difficult for the United States to respond.
"Opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us," said Admiral Mullen. "That doesn't mean we don't have capacity or reserve. But that would really be very challenging and also the consequences of that, sometimes, are very difficult to predict."
The admiral says that is why he prefers the current U.S. and international policy of trying to convince Iranian leaders to abandon their nuclear weapons program through a package of incentives and punishments.
Admiral Mullen, who is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke just a few days after news organizations quoted an unnamed senior defense official as saying there is increased likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iran before the end of the year. The official was quoted as saying Israel believes if it waits any longer, Iran will have a nuclear weapon or a sophisticated air defense system, or both. Admiral Mullen says Israel has predicted faster Iranian progress than American analysts have.
Admiral Mullen was asked whether there is "a high stakes bluffing game" going on.
"It is high stakes, it's no question, in this part of the world," he said. "And I guess I'd just leave it at that."
Admiral Mullen also endorsed comments earlier Wednesday by the U.S. Naval commander in the Middle East. Admiral Kevin Cosgriff said the United States will not allow Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, as Iran has threatened to do if it is attacked. Admiral Mullen said Iran has the ability to create a "hazard" in the Straits, but not to sustain it against U.S. forces.
Palestinian President Abbas in Syria to Discuss Middle East Peace, Strife Among Palestinian Factions
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-06-voa36.cfm
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, met in Damascus Sunday to discuss the Middle East peace process and efforts to reconcile Palestinian factions.
But Mr. Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeina ruled out any meeting between the Palestinian president and his chief rival - the leader of the militant Hamas group, Khaled Meshaal.
A Hamas official criticized the decision and said it shows that the Palestinian leader is complying with what the official called the American stance that rejects a dialogue.
Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip a year ago during deadly fighting with Fatah forces loyal to Mr. Abbas.
Sunday's meeting comes as Syria and Israel are holding indirect peace talks via Turkish mediators after an eight-year break.
None of the parties released details about what was discussed in negotiations last week in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
The talks center on the fate of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war.
Syria demands that Israel withdraw fully from the Golan. Israeli leaders have not said if they will agree to such a move, but have spoken of the need to make tough concessions.
Joint Chiefs Chairman: Iraq Security Best in Years
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/iraq_security_/2008/07/07/110613.html
BAGHDAD — Iraq appears on track to establishing sustainable security — a key step toward withdrawing U.S. troops — the top U.S. military officer said Monday after visiting the newly quiet Sadr City section of the capital.
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that important elements of a solution to the Iraqi war — including reduced levels of sectarian violence, political reconciliation and stronger Iraqi forces — are coming into view more than five years after the U.S. invasion.
He repeatedly stressed, however, that the improvements are fragile and could still be reversed.
Mullen's assessment was notably upbeat and comes as the last of five Army brigades sent to Iraq in 2007 as reinforcements amid escalating sectarian conflict and rising death tolls is heading home.
"From all I see, the security conditions are holding, the level of violence is down; we're down to a level that we haven't seen in over four years," Mullen said on his fourth visit to Iraq since becoming Joint Chiefs chairman last October. "That, then, ties into decisions to be made later this year about the level of forces. So I hope we can continue the drawdown" after a late-summer pause, he added.
There are now about 145,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak last year of nearly 170,000.
Pressed to say how much longer it might take to reach a conclusion about the permanence of the security gains, Mullen declined to be pinned down.
"I really need to spend more time with the commanders here to get their current assessment of where we are," he said. "I don't think there's going to be a clear milepost that says, 'Hey, we're there.'"
Mullen said he planned to meet later this week with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, as well as Ryan Crocker, the top U.S. diplomat. Petraeus told Congress in May that he might be able to recommend further troop reductions this fall, after he makes a fresh assessment in late summer.
He flew by helicopter to Sadr City after arriving in the capital on an overnight flight from Washington. He visited U.S. troops at a coalition observation post and strolled through a market in Sadr City.
"We saw extraordinary progress there," he said. "A few months ago no one could go into Sadr City. I was able to walk openly down a street that until recently was extremely unsafe, and I'm encouraged by that."
He also described Sadr City as an area that until very recently was "a big question mark" for U.S. aims.
"That question has been in part answered," he said, implying the outlook for a positive outcome. "Continued progress will produce a more complete answer down the road."
More broadly, Mullen said progress in Iraq has been remarkable over the past six to 12 months.
"Should that continue for another six to nine to 12 months, certainly we would be in a position to make some decisions based on that. Whether, at that point in time, it would be sustainable or irreversible is something that I think we have to try to figure out."
He cautioned, without being specific, that "there are events which could change that" brighter outlook.
Mullen arrived with a small group of National Football League players, executives and cheerleaders as part of a United Services Organization contingent to entertain the troops. Drew Brees, quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, and Osi Umenyiora, a star defensive lineman for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants, shook hands with hundreds of troops, signed autographs and toss around a few footballs in 110 degree heat.
Al-Maliki Wants Short-Term U.S. Agreement
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/404825.aspx
CBNNews.com - ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- Iraq has proposed a short-term memorandum of understanding with the United States rather than trying to hammer through a formal agreement on the presence of U.S. forces, the country's prime minister said Monday.
The Iraqi government proposed the memorandum after widespread Iraqi opposition to United States demands emerged during talks on a more formal Status of Forces Agreement. Some type of agreement is needed to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at year's end.
The proposed memorandum includes a formula for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, al-Maliki told several Arab ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates during a meeting Monday.
"The goal is to end the presence" of foreign troops, said al-Maliki.
The prime minister provided no details on the formula. But his national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the government was proposing a timetable that would be conditioned on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security.
President Bush opposes a timetable for troop withdrawal.
By transitioning to a less formal memorandum and including a withdrawal formula, al-Maliki may have an easier time getting support from Iraqi lawmakers. They had been concerned about the original negotiation's impact on Iraqi sovereignty.
Al-Maliki has promised in the past to submit a formal agreement with the U.S. to parliament for approval. But the government indicated Monday it may not do so with the memorandum.
"It is up to the Cabinet whether to approve it or sign on it, without going back to the parliament," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told the AP.
Less than three weeks ago, al-Maliki said negotiations with the U.S. over the agreement were deadlocked. But Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after returning from high-level meetings in Washington that the U.S. had made several serious concessions and a deal was "almost finalized."
At the same time, however, Zebari said that if the two sides could not agree, Iraq would either have to seek an extension of the U.N. mandate or pursue the type of memorandum of understanding that al-Maliki announced Monday.
The contentious issues are U.S. authority to carry out military operations in Iraq and arrest the country's citizens, plus legal immunity for private contractors and control of Iraqi air space.
Zebari said the U.S. had agreed to drop immunity for private contractors and give up control of Iraqi air space if the Iraqis guaranteed they could protect the country's skies with their limited air force.
But those concessions, which were never confirmed by the U.S., were apparently not enough to cement a formal agreement, leading Iraq to pursue the memorandum announced Monday.
The Iraqi government's decision to push the U.S. for a less formal agreement comes at a time when the government feels increasingly confident about its authority and improved stability in the country.
Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level in four years. The change has been driven by the 2007 buildup of American forces, the Sunni tribal revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and al-Maliki's crackdowns against Shiite militias and Sunni extremists, among other factors.
Despite the gains, frequent attacks continue.
On Monday, a roadside bomb near a dress shop in Baqouba killed one woman and injured 14 other people, police said. Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, and the surrounding Diyala province remain one of the country's most violent regions.
Bomber Kills 40+ in Indian Embassy Attack
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/404736.aspx
CBNNews.com - KABUL, Afghanistan -- A car bomb ripped through the front wall of the Indian Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, killing 41 people in what appeared to be the deadliest attack in Afghanistan's capital since the fall of the Taliban, officials said.
The massive explosion detonated by a suicide bomber damaged two embassy vehicles entering the compound, near where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas.
The embassy is located on a busy, tree-lined street near Afghanistan's Interior Ministry in the city center. Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast, and smoldering ruins covered the street. The explosion rattled much of the Afghan capital.
"Several shopkeepers have died. I have seen shopkeepers under the rubble," said Ghulam Dastagir, a shopkeeper who was wounded in the blast.
Najib Nikzad, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the blast killed 40 people. Earlier, Abdullah Fahim, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, said the explosion killed at least 28 people and wounded 141, but an update of the number of injured was not immediately available. The Interior Ministry said six police officers and three embassy guards were among those killed.
In Delhi, India's foreign minister said four Indians, including the military attache, were killed in the attack.
The explosion appeared to be the deadliest attack in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. It was the deadliest in Afghanistan since a suicide bomber killed more than 100 people at a dog fighting competition in Kandahar province in February.
Shortly after the attack, a woman ran out of a Kabul hospital screaming, crying and hitting her face with both of her hands. Her two children, a girl named Lima and a boy named Mirwais, had been killed.
"Oh my God!" the woman screamed. "They are both dead."
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing and said it was carried out by militants trying to rupture the friendship between Afghanistan and India.
The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, hinted that the attack was carried out with help from Pakistan's intelligence service, saying that "terrorists have carried out this attack in coordination and consultation with some of the active intelligence circles in the region."
In Delhi, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said the attack would not deter the mission from "fulfilling our commitments to the government and people of Afghanistan." The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said Pakistan condemned the attack and terrorism in all forms.
Afghanistan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta visited the embassy shortly after the attack, ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmed Baheen said.
"India and Afghanistan have a deep relationship between each other. Such attacks of the enemy will not harm our relations," Spanta told the embassy staff, according to Baheen.
The Indian ambassador and his deputy were not inside the embassy at the time of the blast, Baheen said.
Militants have frequently attacked Indian offices and projects around Afghanistan since launching an insurgency after the ouster of the Taliban at the end of the 2001. Many Taliban militants have roots in Pakistan, which has long had a troubled relationship with India.
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the Islamic militia was supported by Pakistan, India's arch-rival. Pakistan today remains wary of strengthening ties between Afghanistan and India.
The United Nations' envoy to Afghanistan said that "in no culture, no country, and no religion is there any excuse or justification for such acts."
"The total disregard for innocent lives is staggering and those behind this must be held responsible," the envoy, Kai Eide, said.
The U.N. sent an e-mail to its staff advising them to stay off Kabul's roads because of reports that a second suicide car bomber was in the city.
The embassy attack was the sixth suicide bombing in Kabul this year. Insurgent violence has killed more than 2,200 people - mostly militants - in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count of official figures.
The embassy in the last several days had beefed up security by installing large, dirt-filled blast walls often used by military forces.
While Afghanistan has seen increasing violence in recent months, Kabul has been largely spared the random bomb attacks that Taliban militants use in their fight against Afghan and international troops.
In September 2006, a suicide bomber near the gates of the Interior Ministry killed 12 people and wounded 42 others. After that blast, additional guards and barriers were posted on the street.
In two separate bombings Monday against police convoys in the country's south, seven officers were killed and 10 others were wounded, officials said.
In Uruzgan province, a roadside bomb killed four police on patrol and wounded seven others, said provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat.
In the Zhari district of Kandahar, another roadside blast killed three officers and wounded three others, said district chief Niyaz Mohammad Sarhadi.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force, meanwhile, said one of its soldiers died in an attack in the south on Sunday.
Bush: Medvedev Is a 'Smart Guy'
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/404730.aspx
CBNNews.com - TOYAKO, Japan - President Bush and new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stood united Monday on issues like Iran and North Korea. But for all their handshakes and smiles, it is clear that thorny issues like missile defense are in a holding pattern until a new U.S. president takes office.
In their first sit down as heads of state, Bush called Medvedev a "smart" guy who is well versed in foreign policy. Medvedev casually referred to Bush as "George."
Yet they inched no closer on the missile defense issue during their more than hour-long discussion on the sidelines of a summit here.
A Kremlin aide described the private meeting as open and constructive, but "at times critical."
The public comments by the two presidents only glossed over Russia's anger over missile defense. And they both brushed off the fact that their official relationship will expire in fewer than 200 days when the Bush presidency ends.
"We will build on the relationship with the new American administration," said Medvedev. "But we still have six months with the effective administration and we'll try to intensify our dialogue with this administration."
The Russian leader said he and Bush agreed on curtailing the nuclear weapon capability of Iran and North Korea.
"But then certainly there are others with respect to European affairs and missile defense where we have differences," Medvedev said. "We would like to agree on these matters, as well, and we also feel very comfortable in our dealings with George."
Like former Russian President Vladimir Putin, still the top powerbroker in Moscow, Medvedev remains critical of the West, in particular the United States. He has shown no sign of softening opposition to U.S. plans for missile defense facilities in Europe or to NATO's promise to eventually invite Georgia and Ukraine in.
Personal relations between the two appear warm, but Bush didn't go as far as to repeat what he said about Putin when he first met him in June 2001. Then, Bush said he looked into Putin's eyes and "was able to get a sense of his soul."
"I'm not going to sit here and psychoanalyze the man, but I will tell you that he's very comfortable, he's confident, and that I believe that when he tells me something, he means it," Bush said.
Opposite Ends of Political Lives
The two, however, are at opposite ends of their political lives. Bush is on his way out and Medvedev just took office in May. This is Bush's eighth and final G-8. This is Medvedev's freshman year at the summit.
"I reminded him that yes I'm leaving, but not until six months, and I'm sprinting to the finish," Bush said. "So we can get a lot done together, and you know there are a lot of important issues like Iran. There's an area where Russia and the United States have worked closely in the past and will continue to work closely to convince the regime to give up its desire to enrich uranium."
Fight against International Terrorism
The two leaders, who also are also are united in their fight against international terrorism and want to see a Middle East peace accord and a future for Afghanistan, talked on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations. Japan is hosting the event at a heavily guarded luxury resort atop Poromoi Mountain in Hokkaido, an island in northern Japan.
From there, visitors normally can see the doughnut-shaped Lake Toya, formed in a crater of a collapsed volcano. Not Monday. Sheets of rain pelted the scenic mountain and the weather offered a metaphor for the contentious U.S.-Russia discussions on missile defense: Fogged in.
American Missiles Bases in Poland
U.S. and Polish officials are negotiating to base American missiles in Poland for a future missile shield against Iran. Still, there is no guarantee the shield will ever be built or would work as advertised. Negotiations over the 10 missile interceptors are proving more contentious than the U.S. had anticipated.
The site would be linked to a missile-tracking radar that Washington wants to place in the Czech Republic. The Czech government has agreed in principle to the plan, but parliament's approval is still needed.
Russia's Threats
Russia is staunchly against the U.S. plans, arguing that U.S. military installations in former Soviet satellites so close to its borders would pose a threat Russian security. Moscow has threatened to aim its own missiles at any eventual base in Poland or the Czech Republic.
The U.S. maintains that the plan poses no threat to the Kremlin's vast nuclear arsenal.
After the talks, a Kremlin aide accentuated the positive in U.S.-Russian relations, but said Bush and Medvedev made no progress on the missile-defense issue -- the major point of disagreement between them.
Sergei Prikhodko said the talks were "exclusively well-intentioned, constructive, and open, but at times critical."
Prikhodko said Russia is not yet satisfied with transparency measures the United States has offered to take to ease Moscow's concerns the system would be aimed at weakening Russia's defenses.
Lithuania Next Choice
Medvedev also expressed serious concern about media reports that the U.S. has discussed the possibility of deploying interceptors in Lithuania, if its first choice of basing them in Poland doesn't work out.
"This is absolutely unacceptable for the Russian Federation," Prikhodko said of the Lithuanian plan.
House Church in Baiyin, Gansu Province Persecuted; Five People Placed Under Administrative Detention
http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion07363.shtml
GANSU, China, (christiansunite.com) -- China Aid Association has learned that on the afternoon of June 24, 2008, several police officials went to a meeting site of a house church at Honghui Coal Mine in Pingchuan District, Baiyin City, Gansu Province.
They detained Mr. Wang Fayun, a co-worker in charge of this gathering site and two female members who were practicing on the piano. News came on the second day that Brother Wang was placed under 10 days of administrative detention and the two sisters were placed under three days of administrative detention.
On the afternoon of June 25, officials detained two more members, Mr .Chen and his wife, at the same gathering site. Like the other detainees, Chen and his wife were sentenced to 10 days of administrative detention and fined 1,000 Yuan. When contacted Gansu authorities issued the following statement concerning the case:
"These people are suspected of engaging in cult activities and undermining public security. According to our information, this church is a house church based on a pure belief and has had public gatherings for three years in the local area."
Across China, authorities continue to defy the law in similar ways and label their victims with groundless charges. We implore brothers and sisters to pray for the innocent Christians of ours. China Aid Association appeals at the same time to the relevant authorities in Gansu to release these innocent Christians immediately and assume the responsibility of state compensation for the losses they have suffered.
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