Tag Archives: Christian

News

Christian couple barred from having foster children

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The UK Daily Mail reports on a Christian couple that has been banned from having foster children as a result of anti-Christian policies passed by the secular-left UK Labour Party. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The couple in the High Court test case, Eunice and Owen Johns, said Derby City Council’s fostering panel rejected them as carers because they would never tell children a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable.

Mrs Johns said: ‘The council said: “Do you know, you would have to tell them that it’s OK to be homosexual?”

‘But I said I couldn’t do that because my Christian beliefs won’t let me. Morally, I couldn’t do that. Spiritually I couldn’t do that.’

The Pentecostal Christian couple from Derby, who have fostered almost 20 children, are not homophobic, according to the Christian Legal Centre, which has taken up their case.

But they are against sex before marriage and do not recognise as marriage civil partnerships between gay couples.

Their beliefs are at odds with Derby City Council’s equality policy, which was drawn up under the terms of the Sexual Orientation Act brought in by Labour.

The Christian Legal Centre, which campaigns for religious freedoms, said in a statement: ‘The case will decide whether the Johns will be able to foster without compromising their beliefs.

‘The implications are huge. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of Christian foster carers and adoptive parents hangs in the balance.

‘It may not be long before local authorities decide that Christians cannot look after some of the most vulnerable children in our society, simply because they disapprove of homosexuality.’

This reminds me of how gay activist groups banned Catholic adoption agencies for insisting that children be placed with a mother and a father. Clergy may face prosecution for refusing to perform same-sex marriages. Similarly, leftists insist that doctors and nurses be forced to perform abortions against their consciences. And of course, the left regularly tries to silence Christians from talking about their faith in public, because talk of “morals” and “truth” offends leftists – it makes them feel bad, and that means everyone has to shut up and pretend to be atheists like them. Where can you see thorough, consistent atheism on display? Well, North Korea and Zimbabwe, of course.

Here’s another story I found at the Blog Prof. Michigan teacher bullies students into accepting gay agenda on “anti-bullying” day.

Excerpt:

Unionized teacher hacks sure have a funny way of educating their captive audience on national ” Anti-Bullying Day.” One teacher – Jay McDowell of Howell Schools who is also the local teachers union head – took it upon himself to make sure each and every one of his students endorsed homosexuality. When two students did not, he unilaterally suspended them from his class.

YOUR public schools in action. You pay for them. See, only certain students deserve bullying protection – certainly not the Christian students.

Where will this end? Well, I would expect that private schools and homeschooling will be be abolished and if any child expresses any preference for traditional marriage or protection for unborn children, then that child will be seized by the state and placed in a boarding school, or perhaps a more liberal household.

Commentary

Can a person be a Christian and yet still do bad things?

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I sometimes write posts about atheists and say that they will have difficulty grounding the minimal requirements of morality if the universe is an accident and they are just lumps of matter. To show how this works out, I like to cite famous atheists who also managed to get political power, and then point out how they treated other people. I then say that doing bad things is not really wrong on atheism, since morality is really based on doing whatever you feel like that makes you feel good and that your peers will approve of. And if you want to do something they won’t approve of, you can still do it, as long as no one ever finds out.

Atheist readers sometimes object that Christians can behave just as badly as atheists.

But consider this post from Retha’s English-language blog. (She’s from South Africa)

Excerpt:

However you choose to define Christian, the definition most certainly is not “anyone who calls himself a Christian, is a Christian.” We don’t use that definition for anything else. We don’t believe that everyone who calls themselves “honest” are. We don’t believe that everyone who calls themselves “not overweight” are not. You cannot be a king, or a genius, or a dog, or a tall person, by calling yourself that. (If it worked that way, it would have been a very strong temptation to call myself drop-dead gorgeous.)

Simple word etymology is more useful: Christian has the root word Christ and the suffix –ian. A Christian is a Christ-following/ Christ-imitating person. Who is meant when we speak of Christ? He is the Jesus described in the New Testament, as described there.To be a Christ-ian, you need to follow/ imitate Jesus as he is painted in the Bible. That is where He is painted as the Christ.

There’s a lot of wisdom in those two paragraphs.

I think it’s possible for someone to call himself a Christian and yet to do bad things. Christians aren’t perfect. Even when they know what they ought to do, they struggle to do it. The dividing line here is that a real Christian is never going to call sin anything other than sin. They aren’t going to try to defend it. (Although I always try to explain what leads me to sin if anyone asks – which is not the same as rationalizing, it’s just explaining). Someone who claims to be a Christian and yet does things that Bible forbids without any shame or regret is not a Christian. If that person responds to being judged by denying that what they are doing is wrong, or by attacking the Bible’s authority on moral issues, then that person is not a Christian.

If the person is saying “don’t judge me”, or “the Bible doesn’t say that”, or “the Bible was written by men“, or “the Bible was written a long time ago”, or “I believe in a God of love”, or “you’re intolerant”, or “I was born as a pickpocket”, or “I have the bank-robbing gene”, or “that’s your truth”, or “that’s just your interpretation”, or “if God loved me, he would give me a Mercedez Benz”, then you are probably not dealing with a Christian, whatever they claim to be. Lots of people claim to be Christians but don’t follow Christ. An we shouldn’t believe that someone who tries to argue that abortion is consistent with the Bible is an authentic Christian, for example. The Bible forbids pre-marital sex and murder.

I sometimes struggle with going to church, because I can’t stand being around happy, singing people (unless they know apologetics, in which case I can). But you would never hear me say that going to church was wrong, or that I was morally justified in avoiding church. Instead, I would say I was wrong not to go to church regularly, but that I hadn’t found a church that made me feel comfortable yet.

Videos

Is Barack Obama a Christian? Are Democrats the party of atheism?

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Watch this video of a Democrat member of Congress and see what Democrats think of God.

Is that typical for Democrats? I think so.

What about Barack Obama? Does Barack Obama believe in God? Is Barack Obama a Christian?

I don’t think that he does believe in God – at least he seems to not want to acknowledge it in public.

I actually think he is an atheist. And Ann Coulter agrees with me. She thinks that all liberals are atheists.

Here is a helpful video showing Barack Obama’s view on whether faith in Christ is necessary for salvation.

He doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only path to salvation, which I think is required to be an authentic Christian.

Here is a series of 7 videos examining whether Barack Obama is a Christian. (The link has transcripts to each clip)

I really don’t care whether he is a Christian or not with respect to being the President, but I do care that people know his view of Christian doctrine.