‘Gay’ anti-bully activist ‘savages’ Christians

Homosexual activist Dan Savage, recently invited to be the keynote speaker at a high school anti-bullying conference in Seattle, Wash., promptly used his podium to bash Christians so severely, droves of the students fled the auditorium, some say victims of bullying themselves.

The National High School Journalism Convention, hosted jointly by the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association, was supposed to give aspiring students exposure to professional journalism workshops designed to make the journalists of tomorrow the best that they can be.

One such workshop, featuring Savage, was billed in the convention program as a discussion on how to properly report on bullying.

“Student journalists cover a world where bullying, harassment and hazing are part of their experience,” says the workshop description in part.

Instead, when Savage took to the microphone, the real life exposure to bullying became all too real for the young high school students.

Savage launched into an attack on the Bible, saying, “People often point out that they can’t help it. They can’t help with the anti-gay bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans, that being gay is wrong.

“We can learn to ignore the bulls— in the Bible about gay people,” he pronounced, “the same way we have learned to ignore the bulls— in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bulls— in the Bible about all sorts of things.”

In this video of the speech below, students can be seen streaming out a few at a time, but begin to leave in groups when Savage continues to blast the Bible as “a radically pro-slavery document.”

While the promoters of the conference that booked Savage billed his address by saying, “Savage is also a syndicated advice columnist. With his frank, funny advice on sex and relationships, he creates a safe space for all audiences to honestly discuss ‘taboo’ topics,” it was evident that many in the audience failed to feel safe.

While much of his audience walked out on him, Savage continued the Christian-bashing by lamenting the fact that the Apostle Paul didn’t tell a Christian slave owner “not” to own slaves, just “how” to own them.

While proclaiming that the Word of God is flawed on issues of slavery, and “got it wrong” on “the easiest moral question humanity has ever faced”, he assured his audience that the Bible is also 100 percent wrong on human sexuality and alluded to the retreating students as “pansy a–es.”

As WND has previously reported, Dan Savage is widely known as a radical, homosexual activist, who created a obscene site that redefines Rick Santorum’s last name as the byproduct of anal sex.

While Savage promotes his video sharing site, “It Gets Better,” aimed at helping homosexual teens survive bullying, but as Fox News wrote, “For some … students, they felt like the anti-bullying activist was in fact the bully.”

WND has reported on other instances of Savage’s obscene tirades:

• Savage said on HBO that he “wished all Republicans were f—ing dead.” (He later apologized.)
• Savage created “Santorum.com” and “SpreadingSantorum.com,” redefining Santorum’s surname as follows: “San-TOR-um, n. The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”
• When Americans for Truth CEO Peter LaBarbera asked Savage to take down “Santorum.com,” Savage replied, “I’m asking Peter LaBarbera to go f— himself.”

At the Seattle conference, Savage also turned his remarks to the country’s Republicans. He described the Old Testament custom of stoning a girl on her wedding night if she’s discovered not to be a virgin and wondered if the GOP would try to pass a similar law in the U.S.

Savage then announced that he was done “beating up the Bible”, and referred to those that left as “pansy a—es,” and told someone to “tell the guys in the hall they can come back in now.”

Responding to feedback from convention attendees, the organizers issued a statement informing people that they were well aware of the viewpoints Savage has publicly made, saying in part to Fox News, “Yet Savage has appeared regularly in the news media, so we were familiar with his general background and the broad range of viewpoints he has made publicly.”

The closest they appeared to come to an apology for featuring the activist speaker was for them to say, “we wish he had stayed more on target for the audience of teen journalists.”

While the statement addresses peoples concerns about the attendees that were “hurt” by the Savage speech, and assures them that it is never the organizers intent for anyone to be “hurt” by a speaker, it then admonishes the young journalists by reminding them that they should “be able to listen to speech that offends you.”

Anyone wishing to see the video that written about in the above story, click on the link below, and you will be able to see the video.

http://www.wnd.com/2012/04/gay-anti-bully-activist-savages-christians/?cat_orig=us

BBC Plans 2-Hour Live Broadcast From Abortion Clinic By Alex Murashko

Growing negative reaction to the BBC’s plan to broadcast one of its Radio 5 Live shows from an abortion clinic is coming from pro-life groups in the United States as well as Europe.

During the two-hour live show hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, women who have chosen to have an abortion and some clinic staff members will be interviewed, according to The Independent, a London-based paper.

The show’s location has yet to be announced and critics say the show is basically “free advertising” for pro-abortion groups.

“Broadcasting from an abortion clinic is, once again, proof that the abortion industry is willing to exploit vulnerable women facing life and death decisions,” responded Heartbeat International in a statement given to The Christian Post by the group’s U.S. spokesperson Thursday. “Some of these women may come to regret their decision to abort, an ordeal that may be exacerbated by having their stories broadcast to a worldwide audience by the BBC.”

The Independent reported that the pro-life charity group LIFE said: “Let’s not be fooled. This program would promote the clinics and the abortion industry at a time when it is reeling from recent allegations of improper conduct.

“As if it is not enough that the industry is now being allowed to advertise abortions as a product, here comes the BBC with some free advertising.”

The BBC says that Derbyshire’s program from the clinic and its coverage later that day will be “robust and challenging and will offer an opportunity for both sides to discuss their views.”

“What we want to do is to talk to everybody involved who works in a clinic – the receptionist, the doctors, the consultants, the counselors, and, if patients agree, we will talk to them,” Derbyshire told the Independent.

The paper is also reporting that surprise inspections done last month by the health department revealed alleged unlawful activity at dozens of abortion clinics.

The inspections revealed that doctors had falsified abortion consent forms, according to local news reports. Doctors were allegedly pre-signing the forms without meeting the women requesting abortions or reviewing their medical notes.

An undercover investigation by The Daily Telegraph in February showed that women were being granted abortions after explaining to doctors that their baby is the “wrong sex.”

“No woman should feel so alone, coerced or hopeless that she ends her child’s life through abortion,” Heartbeat International stated. “Women need emotional support and practical help during an unexpected pregnancy.

“Women also deserve the truth about the risks that can accompany aborting a baby. Abortion clinics often leave out the facts of human development and health consequences of abortion, putting abortion profits above what’s really best for women and their babies.”

Heartbeat International told CP that the organization works to reach and rescue as many lives as possible around the world.

“Our Christ-centered pregnancy centers accomplish this by restoring dignity to women who have been exploited, abandoned, objectified and traumatized. Heartbeat affiliated pregnancy centers help women to recognize the inestimable value of their children and to overcome the obstacles to marriage, adoption, or single parenthood so they can welcome each new life.”

On the Web: http://www.heartbeatinternational.org/

http://www.christianpost.com/news/bbc-plans-2-hour-live-broadcast-from-abortion-clinic-73963/

‘Bounty’ on Tim Tebow’s Virginity a Form of Prostitution? By Jeff Schapiro

The New Orleans Saints bounty scandal is currently being dealt with by NFL officials, and already another bounty has been issued: $1 million in exchange for proof that Tim Tebow is no longer a virgin.

A controversial website that helps married individuals have affairs, AshleyMadison.com, is offering $1 million to the woman who can prove she has been sexually involved with the New York Jets‘ quarterback.

“I personally thought it was a very offensive publicity stunt…And I think that not only is it insulting to highlight Tim in that way, but I think it’s insulting to all the people who hold to the same conviction that Tim would have,” Esther Fleece, a Focus on the Family spokesperson, told The Christian Post on Wednesday.

Fleece says she first read about the bounty among other sports-related stories on the Internet. But it’s not a sports story, she says, and it is unfair for the media to ask questions about a football player’s sexuality when it has nothing to do with the game or his career.

A press release from Ashley Madison claims that “Tebow has been using his infamy from this year’s football season to get some ladies in the sack.” The company is now seeking proof of its claim by accepting photographs, videos, DNA samples or sworn affidavits from the mothers of the women who claim to have had a sexual encounter with Tebow.

The now 24-year-old Tebow was first asked whether or not he was a virgin at an SEC Media Day press conference three years ago. He said that he was, and it appears that he now has a $1 million target on his back as a result.

“I think there are many people that hold Tim’s view on purity and on abstinence, the difference is we’re not being asked that with a public platform,” said Fleece. “I think it takes an even stronger person to be able to handle the criticism and mocking when you’re in the spotlight like Tim is.”

She believes that, as a result of the Ashley Madison offer, women will begin trying to seduce Tebow in order to get the money. People are often outraged when they hear that politicians have had extramarital affairs, she says, but they should be equally upset over what the company is asking women to do through this offer.

“It’s very serious what Ashley Madison is charging females to do, and I think it’s a form of prostituting themselves,” Fleece said.

She says today’s American culture is “sexually hypercharged,” and those who hold to high standards of purity need to be sure to support one another.

“It’s not surprising, but it’s disheartening, and I certainly would like to see Christians hold to a higher standard and support those who do hold to a higher standard.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/bounty-on-tim-tebows-virginity-a-form-of-prostitution-73888/

Interview With Director of ‘Jesus Was a Commie’ Film By Jeff Schapiro

“Communism” is an ugly word in the United States and has been closely associated if not altogether defined by fascist leaders like Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. But actor and filmmaker Matthew Modine says there is another leader who was a communist but isn’t like the others: Jesus.

“I think that you could define [Jesus] as a Utopian communist, where people would work together to solve our problems,” Modine told The Christian Post on Wednesday.

His film, “Jesus Was A Commie,” is a 15-minute narration in which Modine appeals to people everywhere to cooperate with one another as they address political, religious and environmental issues around the world.

“According to the Bible, Jesus and his followers chose to own nothing, and shared their belongings. There were no needy people among them. Those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, put it at the Apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. By this definition, Jesus and his followers were communists,” he says in the film.

Modine told CP that he isn’t a Christian, but is “spiritual” and is open to the ideas and philosophies of a number of religious teachers. He said that the “common thread” that he finds between people like Ghandi, Buddha, Jesus and even Martin Luther King Jr. is love and forgiveness.

“The film is not so much about Jesus or communism, but it’s about cooperation,” he said.

When asked why he made the film, he says he doesn’t attribute his inspiration to any one event but rather a lifetime’s worth of experience and watching the world change around him.

“The simply answer…was from a lifetime of living and seeing how the United States, in particular, has changed in my lifetime: the divisiveness that exists in the country, the hypocrisy that I find in most religions, the animosity that exists rather than the openness of love,” he said.

Modine believes the world is at a major tipping point because of issues like climate change, overuse of natural resources and a rapid increase in the human population. These things need to be addressed, he says, or there could be a “horrible kind of apocalyptic ending” to human history.

“Our responsibility for the sustainability of our planet is up to us. It’s up to each of us to cooperate with one another and to find peaceable solutions to the problems that we face,” he said.

“Jesus Was a Commie” has been shown internationally in Germany, Italy and Canada, and Modine says people in those countries don’t doubt that Jesus was a communist, but they are curious to know what Americans think about the film. When Americans think of communism they think of “fascistic dictators” who were “responsible for the deaths of millions of people,” he says, when they should be thinking about the Utopia imagined by Karl Marx.

There is little doubt that the title of the film may turn some people off to it before they even watch it, but Modine says the skeptics should give it a chance.

“What I will say, without exception, is the people that were offended by the title were the most positively affected having seen the film. The film reminds them to open their hearts, to open their eyes, and to see the world with the kind of teachings that the parables of Jesus shared.”

As an actor, Modine has appeared in the movie “Full Metal Jacket,” the television series “Weeds” and also plays a role in the upcoming Batman film, “The Dark Knight Rises.”

On Thursday evening, “Jesus Was A Commie” kicks off the Connecticut Film Festival, and Modine’s other short films “Somebody,” “I Think I Thought” and “To Kill an American” will also be shown.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-with-director-of-jesus-was-a-commie-film-73939/

Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

One afternoon I stopped by the bank to make a few deposits. I was in a rush and needed to get in and out as soon as possible. I had places to go and things I had to do. I picked the worst possible time of day and the worst day of the week to do my banking. But I had been out of town and needed to catch up on errands before the weekend began.

There was only one teller working and the line was about fifteen people deep. After waiting patiently, I got close to the front of the line. Looking back at the dozen or so people who had entered the line after me, I was relieved that the wait was almost over. Unfortunately, the elderly woman who was making a deposit was requiring a lot more assistance than the others who had gone before her.

She must have been 85 years old. She held a cane in one hand and wore a thick pair of glasses that were visible only after she peeled away her sunglasses. They were the kind of sunglasses that fit over her regular glasses and were big enough to block harmful rays from even the nastiest of solar eclipses. They were the kind that retirees used to wear to watch shuttle launches in south Florida. The kind people older people wear when they are consumed by practicality and no longer care as much about fashion.

When she was finally finished with her transaction, she started to make small talk with the teller behind the counter. She did not seem to notice that there were so many people in line behind her. The teller smiled and nodded at everything she said. The old lady told her she reminded her of her daughter. Then she asked the teller whether she had children. She just kept making conversation while the young woman behind the counter provided her with full and undivided attention. She seemed to feel sorry for her. It was as if she appreciated sitting where she was rather than occupying the elderly woman’s shoes.

But there was a younger man in the line who did not feel the same sympathy for the old woman. He glared impatiently at the teller as if to say that she should tell the elderly woman she was holding up the line. He even held out one of his hands and waved at the teller. He was signaling that he had been waiting long enough and that it was time his needs were met. But the teller kept nodding politely and giving the elderly woman her undivided attention.

Someone should have said something to the younger man who was so impatient. He should have understood why the elderly woman was clinging on to the conversation with the young teller. It was probably more than a reminder of her children. More likely, it was a reminder that she had not seen them or talked to them in quite some time.

As soon as she finished talking to the teller, the elderly woman walked out of the bank and headed across the parking lot towards her car. She was walking slowly and labored with every step as she leaned upon her cane for support. She had no one to help her. No husband. No son. No daughter. There was nothing to lean on but a cane.

The younger man who had been so impatient with her needed to hear my pastor talk about the time our church went caroling at the old folks’ home about a year and a half ago. He needed to hear the stories of the elderly people whose lives had been enriched by hearing songs sung to them by people who had never met them before. He needed to hear that elderly people are a treasure and not an inconvenience.

Of course, my pastor was not there to tell him. But I was in the bank that day. In case you haven’t figured it out, the impatient man in the line was me.

I should have dropped what I was doing and given the woman a hand as she made her way across the parking lot. I should have made plans to go back to the retirement home to spend a few hours of visitation. Like you, I probably won’t make it back until Christmas. I have places to go and things I have to do.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2012/04/27/elderly_woman_behind_the_counter_in_a_small_town/page/full/

The Daily Spurgeon: Where can I find God?

The Daily Spurgeon: Where can I find God?.

Chuck Colson: The Great Encourager (OneNewsNow.com)

Chuck Colson: The Great Encourager (OneNewsNow.com).

What You Will Get

What You Will Get.

The Good Old Days

“You have forsaken your first love.” Revelation 2:4

I must confess: I’m a romantic at heart, which means I love to hear stories of how people met and fell in love. What’s more, I love to hear stories of how they stay in love! Unfortunately, you don’t see too many 50th wedding anniversary celebrations these days.

Take Barb and Bob, for instance. Barb was a beauty queen who caught the eye of Bob, a talented athlete. It was love at first sight and romance at its best. Bob took great pride in his home and marriage, reveling in the fact that he was free to be a success in his profession because of his wife’s good work at home. She kept house, chauffeured the children, cooked, and accompanied him to social events.  Without realizing it, however, Bob was shifting from a vibrant relationship with his wife to a complacent involvement with the “institution of marriage” and the organization called home. The intimacy of their love for each other was fading, until one night Bob confessed that he had in fact lost his love for Barb.

If we’re not careful, the same shift over time can happen in our relationship with Jesus. It’s fresh and exciting at first, but after a while we find ourselves more into the “routines” of Christianity than into the Redeemer Himself. You know the routines—the things we started doing out of love for Jesus that now are done simply out of habit or, worse, guilt. Routines of teaching, Bible reading, prayer, witnessing, counseling, missions, note taking, conferences, and camps are all admirable; yet they can become dry habits if they are merely rituals without relationship.

In Revelation 2:1-29, Jesus is concerned about this slide from relationship to ritual in the lives of his followers at Ephesus. He notes that they are doing all the right things for the wrong reasons. They have, according to Jesus, lost their first love. But they had not simply lost it; our text says that they had abandoned it. Evidently, after falling in love with Jesus, their lives became distracted by the lesser things of this world, and “Jesus” became just another thing in their day-timer as they ticked off their to-do lists. Maybe you can identify.

So how do we keep that from happening? Here’s what Jesus tells the Ephesians to do: Repent! As He put it: “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:5). Jesus knows that duty without devotion is a mundane low-level experience compared to the heights of doing things that flow out of a heart that loves Him.

So He lovingly calls us to repent. Repentance literally means to turn around and go in the opposite direction. Thinking of your devotions and prayer life as a time of personal interaction with Jesus, of serving Him in your church as an act of worship to Him, of giving because you love Him, and of obeying because He is a leader you want to follow are all the kinds of change in attitudes that will recapture your first love for Jesus.

There are some things in life that we can never get back: our youth, the thrill of our first kiss, or our carefree college days. But doing all that we do because we love Jesus is a joy that can be reclaimed.

If you’re talking about loving Jesus the way you used to, then let’s hear it for the “good old days”!

YOUR JOURNEY…

• Stop and evaluate your relationship with Jesus.  Would you categorize your Christian experience as “duty without devotion,” or do you cultivate genuine, heartfelt love for Him?
• What are the “systems” that, while good in and of themselves, could cause a subtle shift in your devotion to Jesus?
• If someone were to ask you about the “good old days” with Jesus, how would you respond? If you have never experienced that type of relationship with Him, it’s not too late! See Personal Relationship with God to help you get started.
• http://getmorestrength.org/daily/the-good-old-days/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GetMoreStrength+%28Strength+For+The+Journey%29

The Great Refusal

They gave him wine to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink–Mat 27:34

The One Cup Jesus Refused to Drink

It was a kindly provision of the Jews to give an opiate to the condemned. They found their warrant in the page of the Old Testament. Anesthetics in these earlier days were, of course, very far from perfect. There was no method of mitigating pain save by some dulling or stupefying drug. And it was such a draught that was offered to the Lord when He reached the place appointed for His death. This was fittingly the ministry of women. There was a guild of ladies who charged themselves with that. They bought the ingredients and mingled them, and had them ready for the unhappy criminal. And no one who witnessed the scene ever forgot how, when the draught was handed to the Lord, He quietly and deliberately refused it. He took it, and He tasted it. He was always courteous to the kind. He recognised the compassion that inspired it, and to the compassionate He was ever gracious. Then, having tasted it, and having thanked them, He quite deliberately returned the cup. It was the one cup which He refused to drink. Can we understand that swift declination? Can we fathom the reasons of refusal? The answer brings us to the heart of things.

Had He Drunk It He Would Have Marred the Crowning Service of His Life

One thinks, for instance, how the drinking of that draught would have marred the crowning service of His life. The Cross was the crowning service of His life. There is a way of thinking of the death of Jesus as if it were the tragic end of a high story. There are those who take it as the pitiable opposite of all the rich and popular activities of Galilee. But never, through the whole New Testament, is there even a hint of such a view as that–the Cross is the crowning service of His life. Christ deliberately chose that by which He was to be remembered. It was the hour when everything burst into a flame. It gathered up into one splendid action all the redeeming labours of His days. All He had come to do–all He had lived for–all His work as prophet, priest, teacher and king–was crowned in the last service of the Cross. Now, when a man is facing noble service, does he drug his faculties with opiates? Does the surgeon take a drug before the operation? Does the captain do it when the storm is threatening? For such hours, the crowning hours of service, when tremendous demands are going to be imposed, a man must be at his clearest and his best. Had His work been over, our Lord might have drunk that draught. He might have argued that nothing mattered now. That swift refusal, as with a flash of light, reveals the Master’s outlook on His death. It was no tragic and pitiable end, to be got through with the minimum of suffering. It was a service to be wrought with His whole being.             Akin to that is the great thought that our blessed Lord died of His own will. “No man taketh it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself” (Joh 10:18). No beast in the sacrificial rites of Judaism ever died of its own will. It was dragged to the altar, struggling and reluctant. It died because other hands were gripping it. And the infinite value of the death of Jesus lay in its being a voluntary sacrifice–I come to do Thy will, O God. Now the singular power of opiates is this, that they interfere with the freedom of the will. Under their influence we are no longer free. We pass under the dominance of others. We are not controlled nor directed from within when the drug has poured its poison through the veins; we are controlled and directed from without. No longer are we self-determined, nor do we act because we will to act. We have yielded up the mastery of life; we have rendered our personality to others. And that was the one thing our Master could not do if, in the perfect freedom of His love, He was to lay His life down of Himself. So He took the cup, and tasted it, for He was always courteous to the kindly–and then, deliberately, He refused it.

How Much We Would Have Lost Had He Drunk the Cup

One thinks again how much we should have lost had the Lord drunk of that stupefying draught. We should have lost some of the sweetest passages of Scripture. We should never have heard that wonderful prayer for pardon, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” We should never have known His filial care for Mary, “Woman, behold thy son.” We should never have had the ringing, glad assurance wherewith He cried in a loud voice, “It is finished”–the greatest word in the whole of human history. What multitudes have been rescued from despair by the story of the penitent thief, saved and blessed at the eleventh hour, when it seemed too late even for heaven’s mercy? Yet of that penitent thief we never should have heard, nor of his cry, nor of the Lord’s “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise,” had He drunk of that stupefying drug. A poorer Bible and a poorer Christendom–was our Lord conscious of all that? I do not know; the Scripture does not tell us. No man can fathom the consciousness of Jesus. I only know we should have lost forever the seven words upon the Cross, had He not refused to drink the offered draught.

He Wanted to be Our Brother in Suffering

One wonders, too, if in that great refusal our Lord was not thinking of His own. For in spite of all the advances of our knowledge, suffering is still terribly real. There was a friend of my boyhood’s home who suffered from an excruciating trouble. He was a genuinely Christian man, who had been active in the service of the Kingdom. And when friends stooped down to catch what he was whispering as he lay at last upon his bed of agony, what they heard was, “He suffered more for me.” Was our Lord thinking of that follower when He came to Golgotha that day? Did He resolve that He would be a Brother, down to the very depths of human agony? It would be so like Him if that were in His heart when–facing the untold agony of Calvary–He refused to drink the wine mingled with gall.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/george-h-morrison-devotional-sermons-devotional.shtml