Just to be clear, this is what Barack Obama, the most likely Democrat nominee for president, sees as a key issue in this election. He is very clear on where he stands. He is pro abortion. His reaction to a Supreme Court ruling upholding a ban on partial-birth abortions? “It is time for a different attitude on the Supreme Court. It is time to turn the page and write a new chapter.”
HT: Justin Taylor
Last week I posted about the tragedy in Myanmar and how, although reported on the by the media regularly, we tend to turn away from tragedies that occur out of our comfort area. Well, it’s still there and it still a major tragedy. I posted a link the American Red Cross, but there are several organizations out there reaching out to people who are needy.
One such organization is a Michigan-based group called Christian Freedom International. This group’s mission is based on Hebrews 13:3, which says: “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.” Thousands upon thousands in Myanmar have been affected by the effects or Cyclone Nargis. Among those are the Karen Christians. Even among the suffering, these are singled out. This from CFI:
Residents in the Irawaddy Delta, which bore the brunt of the cyclone that tore through the country on May 3, 2008, are now claiming that the Burmese military is diverting aid from areas heavily populated by ethnic Karen villagers — a claim consistent with the government’s longstanding history of discriminatory practices against the Karen, the largest and mostly Christian minority ethnic group in the country.
So, for those who call themselves Christians, how does that make you feel? Bad? Uneasy? Something? How do you explain it to your children? Do you? Maybe there’s more you could do. Perhaps you might show them that a little sacrifice for the good of the body is really not a sacrifice but a way to honor God.
You want more examples? Perhaps you may want to consider the Macedonians from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (II Cor. 2:1,2 and 8 ) when he was taking aid to the starving believers in Jerusalem:
We want you to know brethren about the grace of God which has been shown in the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of liberality on their part . . . I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine.
OK, you get the point. Go here to Christian Freedom International and see what you can do.
Last weekend, Cyclone Nargis raged through Myanmar, causing widespread damage and killing at least 22,000. Twice as many people are missing. Let that sink in. 22,000 people. Gone. And, there are thousands more who have not been found yet. From the Associated Press comes a report from Yangon, Myanmar:
Hungry crowds of survivors stormed the few shops that opened in Myanmar’s stricken Irrawaddy delta, where food and international aid has been scarce since a devastating cyclone killed more than 22,000 people, the U.N. said Wednesday.
Corpses floated in salty flood waters and witnesses said survivors tried desperately to reach dry ground on boats using blankets as sails. The U.N. said some 1 million people were homeless in the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma.
“Basically the entire lower delta region is under water,” said Richard Horsey, Bangkok-based spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid.
“Teams are talking about bodies floating around in the water,” he said. This is “a major, major disaster we’re dealing with.”
Suffering is all around us. We can’t escape it. But we try hard. After all, I had a good night’s rest, woke up to see my family and live comfortably in a nice house. In my local paper, Myanmar is a place far away, buried on page 8. The message is clear: If it doesn’t happen in my back yard, it is filed way back somewhere in that category of tragedies that happen to people I don’t really know. Besides, we have problems of our own. We aren’t making money as fast as we used to be. It costs more money to put gas in our cars. Our lives are not as comfortable as they could be.
We all are happy to thank God for our blessings. But God did not bless us to live more comfortable lives. We are blessed so that we may bring more glory to His name and show that we live for him and not for our own comfort. Sometimes I need to ask myself, “Would I trust God as much if I didn’t have food, clothing, a house, my health?”
I came across this from John Piper about ways to react to the tragedy in Myanmar. These are all good things to consider. For a great meditation on why God allows suffering of this, or any, magnitude, read this. The point is, we can’t ignore suffering. See it, react and tremble before God.
Here’s one way to help right now: The American Red Cross
This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day, and we will take time out to honor the people who mean so much in our lives.
And while we will spend a lot of money and energy honoring our mothers, there will be those who will have great discomfort on this day. Some will be reminded that they had children and instead chose to end their lives through abortion. But we know that God is merciful and that there is forgiveness of sin and there can be restoration to those who come to him through Christ. After all, we are all tainted before him.
The picture included in this post is of Trig Paxson Van Palin, whose mother Sarah will be especially happy on this Mother’s Day. You see, Trig was born April 18 to Sarah and her husband Todd. Besides being a beautiful baby boy, he was also born with with an extra chromosome, which means he has Down syndrome. Albert Mohler picks up the story
The Palins never considered aborting the baby. That means that Trig Palin is now is a very rare group of very special children, because it is now believed that the vast majority of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth are being aborted.
Modern diagnostic tests are driving a “search and destroy mission” to eliminate babies judged to be inferior, disabled, or deformed. Some experts now believe that up to 90 percent of all pregnancies diagnosed as having a likelihood of Down syndrome end in abortion.
Back in 2005, ethicist George Neumayr commented: “Each year in America fewer and fewer disabled infants are born. The reason is eugenic abortion. Doctors and their patients use prenatal technology to screen unborn children for disabilities, then they use that information to abort a high percentage of them. Without much scrutiny or debate, a eugenics designed to weed out the disabled has become commonplace.”
These kind of stories catch my attention because, first of all, I do not want to see any child’s life ended through abortion. Secondly, in my own family we have been blessed with a special child with Down syndrome. People like the Palins and my brother-in-law and his wife are heroes to me because they stand in the face of what our society tells us is right — that these children have a life that is not worth living.
So, be thankful for your mother and love this coming Sunday. But also love those around you. People who have made mistakes and now regret them. People who don’t understand but still need love. People who are living difficult lives but who are witnesses that God is great and we are all needy people.
This is a little late to the game, but I was reading a post over at the Boundless blog and I thought I’d give my two cents.
My kids watch television and much of that is the Disney Channel. I will say right now that it is not the best model for how kids should live their lives, and my kids know I think this way. I see children who are deceitful, disrespectful, lovers of the world and generally bratty. I am not entertained by children who think they are adults and scheme to get their way.
Contrast what you see today with a show like “Leave it to Beaver.” Is it outdated? Perhaps. But, you know what, it is also more honest because children talk and act like children and there is more of a true sense that children recognize what a family should be like. It doesn’t feel as manipulative as practically every show on the Disney Channel (or Nickelodeon, for that matter) does.
So, long introduction aside, we are now hearing all this buzz about a photo shoot that Miley Cyrus, star of “Hannah Montana,” did for Vanity Fair magazine. It’s racy and she admits it and is now telling everyone who’ll hear her how embarrassed she is about the whole thing. Her parents are upset and saying that she was used by Vanity Fair and the photographer.
Miley’s dad is Billy Ray Cyrus, the guy who sang “Achy Breaky Heart” back in the early 1990s and is now playing her dad on the TV show. This is where it gets uncomfortable. It is so easy to sit here and criticize him for letting this happen, but the truth is that Billy and Miley didn’t get here by accident. They kept creeping closer and closer until what would seem like a leap was just a little step. Hopefully, the shock of all this will keep them from going farther.
Is it wrong for a girl to bare her back? Well, let me ask this: For what reason did the phrase “come hither glance” come into use? Is this modesty at all? Is the point of our faith in Jesus Christ to look as much like the world so that we would be totally indistinguishable to anyone looking on? You may disagree with me, but if so, chew on those questions first and then let me know how you’d answer. Perhaps Miley is “confessing” how much the world looks attractive to her right now. The good thing is that at least there is a part of her that recognizes that and is responding.
Update: Read this post for more about how our culture looks at our daughters before you just shrug off the above as prudishness.
To go a little different route, here’s an article I came across today from the National Review Online detailing the lengths groups which claim to be civil rights advocates will go to curtail views that are different from theirs.
The subject of the article is the battle to redefine marriage in California. While the state has already passed legislation defining marriage as between one man and one woman, opponents have enlisted the courts to overturn the law. A new measure is now being placed on the ballots by way of petition. This has led to vigorous opposition:
This, in turn, led to an increasingly desperate and hostile attempt to block the efforts of petition-gatherers. Brian Brown, the director of NOM who has moved back to California (where he was raised) to help the campaign, explains that a group called Equality for All reports more than 1,000 volunteers (some from out of state) for their “Decline to Sign” campaign, while there are only about 200 petition-gatherers working in the state.
The anti-amendment group solicits reports of petition-gatherers’ whereabouts, and then sends volunteers to where the gatherers are working. These volunteers are ostensibly persuading voters that the amendment is a bad idea. Brown notes, however, that they are beginning to document reports of petition-gatherers being physically blocked, yelled at, and intimidated. These complaints have become frequent. Brown admits that the day and night efforts to keep voters from getting an amendment on the ballot have made the process more difficult.
Interference with signature-gathering is illegal in California. As Gallagher points out, there is a sad irony in “civil-rights” organizations trying to prevent Californians from exercising one of their most basic rights.
To read the entire article, go here.
We’re entering another new era at my job. In my mind, we’re a step closer to ushering out the newspaper as a vital part of your morning.
For almost the past 12 years, we’ve been putting news on a Web site. It’s a great thing, you can get just about all the news from your newspaper for (whispering) FREE! Pros: It’s cheaper, you don’t get ink-stained hands, you don’t have to follow jumps. Cons: You can’t divide up the paper if more than one person wants to look at it (unless you own more than one computer, I suppose), some things don’t translate as well on the Web (sports agate, for one) without heavy HTML editing, you can’t wrap fish or line bird cages with online news.
During this time, we’ve done better and poorer with our news publishing. There were times in the late 90s and early 00s where we’d get news on the site in a quick fashion, thanks to the efforts of our Web editor at the time. More recently, though, we’ve been publishing on it like we do with newsprint: on a strict schedule that goes against the whole idea of the Web.
That’s why I’m excited to see our paper move to some software called Zope, which allows easier loading of content and in numerous contexts. We will be relaunching our Web site later this month, and I think it will be a lot better. For one, we will be more inclined to put stories on it throughout the day rather than at the end of the evening, simply because it will be easier. In fact, in testing I’ve been able to load stories from the comfort of my own home. To me, it’s just another step closer to closing the chapter on the paper news product and ushering in more fully the digital news product. In the not too distant future we will talk about how quaint it was to read our news from paper when we can have it on our computer or phone or whatever we’ll use.
Keep your eyes on our site in the next few weeks. It will be a million times better.
Today is Martin Luther King Day. We should all think about what this day means because, in the words of John Piper: None of us is without need for help in the purification of our hearts in the way we feel and think about other ethnic groups.
Here is some background and the text of the speech.
Rockstanding 
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