ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A student barred from starting a student pro-life club on a high school campus will no longer be denied official recognition. In response to a lawsuit filed by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys, the School Board of Stafford County will permit student pro-life clubs at high schools in the district, and the clubs will receive the same rights, benefits, and privileges as other clubs.
Teachings questioned: Lyndon Lamborn, whose personal research led him to question Mormon church teachings, is livid that a letter is being read at ward meetings today announcing his excommunication.
But everything changed in early 2005. Lamborn, an engineer employed at Boeing in Mesa for nearly 25 years, was asked by a work colleague about the wives of church founder Joseph Smith. She had read “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith” by John Krakauer and asked Lamborn if what she had read was accurate.
Smith, the first LDS prophet and president, had at least 33 wives by many accounts.
“Well, I had no knowledge of multiple wives, so I did some research, including using the church’s own genealogical Web site, familysearch.org,” Lamborn said.
He found the information concurred with the book. “Nonmembers seemed to know more about the personal life of Joseph Smith than me,” he said.
An Eritrean Christian man recently died after spending four-and-a-half years in jail for his participation in a banned protestant church, reported a persecution watchdog group.
Eritrean Christian Dies for Refusing to Renounce Faith | Christianpost.com
About That Eighth Commandment
For some, my identification of "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" as the eighth commandment will be a bit jarring.
There has long been a slight difference of interpretation as to what the ten commandments in Exodus 20 are. Lutherans have always rendered them in this way. (The explanations you'll find at the link are from Martin Luther's Small Catechism.)posted by Mark Daniels @ 12:00 AM 0 comments
40-Days to Servanthood: Day 18
Don’t overlook the service of guarding others’ reputations.
In Medieval times, a woman visited a monk. He was a man admired for giving holy, sensible advice. The woman realized, she said, that she had become a terrible gossip, the purveyor of hurtful words. What should she do? The monk told her to go through the village and bag all the goose feathers she found. Then, she should lay a feather at the doorstep of every person about whom she had gossiped. After that, she should return to the monk.
The woman dutifully did what the monk directed her to do and returned to him. The monk said, "That's wonderful. Now go back to each of those doorsteps and collect the goose feathers you left behind. Then, come back here." When the woman returned for yet another visit to the monk, she reported that all the feathers had been blown away by the wind.
"That’s the point, of course," the monk told her. "We can be forgiven the sin of gossiping about others. If you repent for it, God surely will forgive you. Those you have violated may do the same. But no matter whether you are forgiven or not, the damage will have been done. Gossip spreads as though carried aloft by the wind and you can't bring it back."
The eighth commandment tells us, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” In his explanation of it in The Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes, “We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way.” Refraining from lying about our neighbor is just the beginning of God’s intentions in this commandment. He intends for us to be guardians of others’ reputations.
Servants of the God we know in Jesus Christ look for ways to build up others’ reputations and to help them be understood and appreciated even when we may disagree with them.
Don’t overlook the service of guarding others’ reputations.
Bible Passage to Ponder: “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone” (Titus 3:1-2).
UPDATE: Thanks to Bruce Armstrong at Ordinary Everyday Christian for once more linking to this series!
ANOTHER UPDATE: Thanks also to Matt Brown of Good Brownie for mentioning this series.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Best of the God Blogs has recommended this series, making special mention of this post and this one. Thanks so much!Labels: servanthood
Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels: 03/19/2006 - 03/26/2006
The Red Sea is parting again, but this time Moses doesn’t have a hand in it.
Satellite images show that the Arabian tectonic plate and the African plate are moving away from each other, stretching the Earth's crust and widening the southern end of the Red Sea, scientists reported in this week's issue of journal Nature.
Last September, a series of earthquakes started splitting the planet's surface along a 37-mile section of the East African Rift in Afar, Ethiopia.
Collapse of the Infrastructure along the Dead Sea Shores
Collapse of the Infrastructure along the Dead Sea Shores
In the last decade, hundreds of sinkholes have developed along the shores of the Dead Sea. These constitute a danger to life and property, disrupt the ongoing life in the area, and hurt development and construction. The Geological Survey and the Geophysical Institute are carrying out a joint comprehensive study aimed at understanding the geological mechanisms operating in the subsurface that are responsible for the formation of the sinkholes on the surface. Integrating field studies, aerial photographs and the data obtained from the subsurface, enable proposing a hydrogeological model for the formation of the sinkholes.
Because of the extent of the phenomenon and its destructive effect, the project focuses on methodical definition and mapping of the hazardous areas and in implementing a series of experiments (including boreholes, pumping water, hydrological observations and monitoring). Several boreholes have been drilled and a first draft of a hazard map has been prepared. Near future work includes defining the hydraulic parameters in the system as a first stage in developing preventive measures for curbing the processes.
The discovery by Tel Aviv University scientists that a major earthquake (over 7 on the Richter scale) took place on the Golan Heights in the year 749 CE - and none of similar magnitude in some 975 years - means the area is long overdue for another one. So say the TAU geologists and archeologists who published their findings in Seismology Research Letters released to the press on Sunday.
749 CE Golan quake shows another is overdue | Jerusalem Post
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in the people's minds." -- Samuel Adams,
Satellite images show that the Arabian tectonic plate and the African plate are moving away from each other, stretching the Earth's crust and widening the southern end of the Red Sea, scientists reported in this week's issue of journal Nature.
Last September, a series of earthquakes started splitting the planet's surface along a 37-mile section of the East African Rift in Afar, Ethiopia.
read more > The Red Sea Parts Again | LiveScience
"White evangelicals are typically analyzed as a group, but an examination of the younger generation (those ages 18-29) provides evidence that white evangelicals may be undergoing some significant political changes. An analysis of surveys conducted between 2001 and 2007 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press suggests that younger white evangelicals have become increasingly dissatisfied with Bush and are moving away from the GOP. The question is whether these changes will result in a shift in white evangelical votes in 2008 and beyond."
For the rest of the story--> Pew Forum: Young White Evangelicals: Less Republican, Still Conservative
Grund Comment: Ain't that the truth.... Read what was said here--> http://grundzusammen.blogspot.com/2007/08/yes-late-great-usa.html
See all the videos--> Shawns Video
