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Lawmakers Demand Army Apologize for Anti-Christian Briefing

Photo Credit: RedState

At least a dozen members of Congress have signed a letter demanding the Secretary of the Army rescind and apologize for a briefing that labeled Evangelical Christians and Catholics as religious extremist groups, sources on Capitol Hill tell me.

“This is astonishing and offensive,” read a draft of the letter written by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO). “We call on you to rescind this briefing and apologize for its content and set the record straight on the Army’s view on these faith groups by providing a balanced briefing on religious extremism.”

Lamborn is referring to an Army training session conducted last year that featured a presentation listing Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of extremism – alongside Al Qaeda and Hamas.

Army spokesman George Wright later said it was an isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army. And the slide, he said, was not produced by the Army nor did it reflect their policy or doctrine.

“To say that Evangelicals or Catholics are somehow in the same league with Al Qaeda or the KKK is outrageous,” Lamborn told me.

Read more from this story HERE.

Catholic University Won't Allow Catholic Students to Form Catholic Group

Photo Credit: SCUMATT

Roman Catholic, Jesuit-affiliated Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington has refused to recognize the Knights of Columbus as an official student group because — wait for it — the Knights of Columbus is a Catholic organization.

Gonzaga administrators notified the students who had sought the school’s official seal of approval last month, reports The Cardinal Newman Society’s Catholic Education Daily.

“The Knights of Columbus, by their very nature, is a men’s organization in which only Catholics may participate via membership,” reads a letter written by Sue Weitz, vice president for student life. “These criteria are inconsistent with the policy and practice of student organization recognition at Gonzaga University.”

Right here seems like a sufficiently good place to observe that Gonzaga is under the umbrella of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) — a men’s organization in which only Catholic men may participate via membership.

Anyway, Weitz’s letter went on to explain that she feels “strongly” about Gonzaga’s “commitment to non-discrimination and inclusivity” and is troubled by the fact that “all members of a student Knights of Columbus group must be Catholic.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Krauthammer: Gay Marriage Cases May Presage ‘Assault On Religion’

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Inside Washington,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer said the two gay marriage cases currently before the Supreme Court could lead to an all-out assault on religion in the United States…

“It gets really sticky,” Krauthammer said. “If the court were to decide that to deny same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, then you got Georgetown University – a Jesuit university [that offers] married student housing. It’s a Catholic University. So [when] it says it’s only going to allow heterosexuals, it will get sued. This will become an assault on religion. And the religions, which I think are sincere in their beliefs, are going to be under assault and under attack.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Time Magazine: Your Child’s Religion May Be ‘Mental Illness’

Photo Credit: WND

According to an article published this week on Time magazine’s website, your child’s “fastidiousness to religious practices” may be a sign of mental illness.

“Religion can be a source of comfort that improves well-being,” begins the article by author Francine Russo. “But some kinds of religiosity could be a sign of deeper mental health issues.”

In the article titled “Can Your Child Be Too Religious?” Russo continues, “If your child is immersed in scripture after school and prays regularly throughout the day, you may breathe a sigh of relief. She’s such a good girl. … Or maybe not. Your child’s devotion may be a great thing, but there are some kids whose religious observances require a deeper look. For these children, an overzealous practice of their family faith – or even another faith – may be a sign of an underlying mental health issue.”

The article explains therapists report seeing children and teens who dive into excessive religiosity as an unhealthy coping mechanism, a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, that’s “no more spiritual than fanatical hand washing.”

The article describes a type of OCD called scrupulosity, where children “obsessively worry that they have committed blasphemy, been impure or otherwise sinned” and warns against religious delusions or hallucinations that parents may be less attuned to “when it occurs under the guise of faith.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Heads Roll As The Religion Of “Turn The Other Cheek,” Meets The Religion Of “Peace”

Photo Credit: Irish CentralThe latest casualty in the war against Christianity, is a Tanzanian pastor who lost his head to an outraged Muslim mob. The incensed mob was demanding all non-halal butcher shops and especially pork butchery, be forbidden

A spokesman said a group of youths believed to be Muslim, assaulted several Christians, including a butcher shop owner, using sticks and machetes. During the confrontation Pastor Mathayo Kachili, of the local Assembly of God Church, was beheaded.

Besides the Pastors beheading, several other people were injured critically during the incident and taken to the local hospital in Buseresere for treatment.

Christians in a small village in southern Egypt are rebuilding their lives and homes after hundreds of Muslims rampaged through their community firebombing houses and businesses, over rumors of a romantic relationship between a Christian and a Muslim.

In Nigeria, Boko Haram, a group seeking to impose Islamic law on the country, picked out Christians in a small village, gathered them in a group before massacring them. 15 people died in the attack; many had had their throats slit.

These are not isolated incidents as Muslim extremists attack other religions wherever the two meet, but Christianity seems to be singled out.

According to a report named Christiana-phobia, by the think tank Civitas: The “lion’s share” of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith. Between half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or have been killed in the past century.

“There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands,” it claims.

Violent oppression of Christians has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations, especially in Africa and the Middle East. In some countries it is government sanctioned violence that burns down churches and imprisons parishioners.

In others countries, groups and vigilantes take matters into their hands by murdering Christians and driving them out of regions they have called home for centuries.

One Christian pastor in an affected country described the situation this way: “On the Christian side, strong emphasis is placed on the teaching of Christian love, patience, mercy and forbearance. But in such a situation one wonders what the future of Christianity and of the nation as a whole can be.”

“Muslims believe that if they die in the course of a Holy War (or Jihad) they will go directly to heaven. We are dealing with a religious philosophy where war is a must! The whole weight of the challenge is now on our shoulders. Who can tell how successfully we will respond?”

It seems, the Christian philosophy of turning the other cheek, is on the road to running out of cheeks to turn, in Muslim dominated countries. It seems when it comes to tolerating other religions, the religion of “peace” isn’t so peaceful.

Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

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No End To ObamaCare’s Hostility Towards Religion

photo credit: fibonacci blueThe Obama administration is trying to convince us it has softened its contraceptive mandate, partly in an effort to calm opposition from the religious community. But the threat to religious liberty is as virulent as ever.

The administration has not budged on its plan to require that female workers and college students have free access to “reproductive services,” including sterilization procedures, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs.

And religious organizations still will pay, albeit indirectly, for the services the government is mandating. Further, thousands of private companies will be forced to pay directly for practices they abhor, in clear violation of their religious liberty.

This is not an acceptable “accommodation,” as the administration argues. Under the rule proposed on Friday, most religiously-affiliated organizations can apply to be exempt from the ObamaCare mandate.

Initially, the administration proposed exempting only churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship. But after 44 lawsuits were filed across the country by and on behalf of nonexempt hospitals, colleges, charitable organizations and others, the administration relaxed the definition in its new proposal.

Read more from this story HERE.

Amish Leader Gets 15 Years For Beard Attacks (+video)

A leader of a breakaway Amish community in rural eastern Ohio was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for forcibly cutting the beards and hair of community members.

Samuel Mullet Sr., 67, and 15 followers were found guilty last year in connection with what authorities said were the religiously motivated attacks on several fellow Amish people. Mullet and others were convicted of conspiracy to violate a federal hate-crime law.

Prosecutors said the followers, at Mullet’s instruction, shaved the beards and cut the hair of Amish people who had left his group over various religious disagreements.
Five attacks happened in four eastern Ohio counties between September and November 2011.

Four of the followers were sentenced to seven years in prison, three were handed five-year sentences, two were sentenced to two years and six were sentenced to a year and a day, according to the Justice Department.

Read more from this story HERE.

“Religiously Unaffiliated” Numbers of Americans Exploding

The fastest growing “religious” group in America is made up of people with no religion at all, according to a Pew survey showing that one in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion.

The number of these Americans has grown by 25% just in the past five years, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The survey found that the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing even faster among younger Americans.

Thirty-three million Americans now have no religious affiliation, with 13 million in that group identifying as either atheist or agnostic, according to the new survey.

Pew found that those who are religiously unaffiliated are strikingly less religious than the public at large. They attend church infrequently, if at all, are largely not seeking out religion and say that the lack of it in their lives is of little importance.

Read more from this story HERE.

In God America Must Trust

Photo credit: kevin dooley

Once upon a time, in what now seems like a far-distant land, a young President inspired America with the words: “Ask not, what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

Today, despite the fact that their country is rapidly approaching $16 trillion in debt, there are millions of Americans wondering when they are going to get “their fair share” of what their country “owes them”. Thanks to continued distortion and misrepresentation of the facts by those in whom they have misplaced their trust, these Americans are clueless to the reality that the “hope and change” they were promised will never materialize, never come to fruition.

Not one single time in the history of human civilization has a nation taxed and spent its way into prosperity. That today so many Americans continue to believe they are “entitled” to “their fair share of free stuff” proves that P.T. Barnum was right many times over.

Americans have watched a “progressive” big government take over the banking industry, use taxpayer funds to purchase auto companies, seize control of the healthcare system, waste hundreds and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on failed “green energy” “investments” and usurp the student loan process. While this was taking place, the nation plunged deeper into debt, had its credit rating downgraded, suffered continued job losses, experienced stubbornly high unemployment, stagnant economic growth, higher food prices, rising energy costs, the abandonment of border security, a reduction in national security and growing disrespect for America on the international stage.

How did America get from where it was in 1960 to where it is now?

America’s Founding Fathers have been discredited and disrespected, its Constitution has been assaulted and ignored, and most importantly, reverence and respect for God is no longer viewed as a national necessity.

America is the land of Liberty, E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust. If Americans are to continue to hold the truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, Americans must return to reliance upon their Creator. America must restore being one nation, under God.

Americans need to overcome the wrongheaded notion that “progressive” big government will endow them with anything but a future of slavery to a tyrannical State.

America’s Founding Fathers fought a war for freedom from this form of slavery. They risked everything that they had. They risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. And while doing so, they established the idea that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

That is not freedom from religion. That is freedom of religion. It states that America will never be a theocracy.

George Washington, historically remembered as the father of his country said: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

We know the names and faces of the famous Founders. But many anonymous Patriot souls died in that fight against tyranny so that future generations could enjoy the fruits of their struggle.

A new generation of Americans must now declare to themselves, their fellow Americans and to the world that they would rather die free than live as a slave to “progressive” big government. That they will exercise their right to worship as they see fit, and defend the right of every other American to do likewise.

Another inspiring President once said: “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

Video: Obama needs to walk around DC once in a while

In this short Stoplight commentary, Stuart Shepard takes us along for a walk in the nation’s capital and explains how Obama completely misunderstands our nation’s religious history.

 

Photo credit:  Rob Shenk