http://somalisforjesus.blogspot.com/2009/01/mansur-mohamed-sfj-martyr-of-year-2009.html

If you censor comments to your posts, what is it exactly that you’re afraid of?

The Ordination of Homosexuals

The specific issue of homosexuality first arose as several presbyteries (regional governing bodies within presbyterian churches) requested guidance from the General Assembly on ordaining avowed practicing homosexuals. In 1976, a General Assembly said:

“. . . it would at the present time be injudicious, if not improper, for a presbytery to ordain to the professional ministry of the gospel a person who is an avowed practicing homosexual . . .”(7) This particular General Assembly also “. . . direct[ed] that a task force be established . . . to study these issues . . .”(8) The 1978 General Assembly received the report of this task force and declared in its definitive guidance: “That unrepentant homosexual practice does not accord with the requirements for ordination…”(9) set forth in the church’s constitution.

In 1993, the General Assembly adopted the recommendation of its Advisory Committee on the Constitution which stated that:

“. . . current constitutional law in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is that self-affirming, practicing homosexual persons may not be ordained as ministers of the Word and Sacrament, elders, or deacons.”(10)

In 1997, the approval by a majority of presbyteries of an amendment to the Book of Order known as “Amendment B” (now section G-6.0106b) makes constitutional the following language:

Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

Carol Brooks

If you had a problem with any of the organs that you mentioned- lungs, kidneys, liver, brain - would you hire some one to talk to them in order to affect a cure? These are organic organs that can respond to medication and, in extreme instances, surgery. Christians are not prohibited from seeking such care when the need arises. What you call the “mind” is also referred to as the “heart” from which springs the thoughts and intents of man, and God tells us that it is exceedingly wicked (Jer 17:9), and we know why this is so. Our thoughts are wicked not because of something called a “mind” that is sick; we have evil imaginations because we are sinners.

Psychology represents a multitude of philosophies and methods derived from the hearts of sinners, and the best that they can accomplish is to help a sinner live an orderly sinful life. For the unredeemed, unrepentant sinner this is the best that he can hope for: as smooth a ride as possible on the way to Hell. That is the only power in psychotherapy, and it is not for the Christian.

Instead, we are admonished to:

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. (Col 2:8)

The word “spoil” here means to rob or take for plunder you, and your faith and hope in Christ, so that you will be brought into the bondage or subservience to these men and their ideas for your life.

Our behavior should be this:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (2Co 10:5)

Which means, basically, this:

“Every power of thought in the pagan world; all the systems of philosophy and all forms of opinion among people; all the purposes of the soul; all the powers of reason, memory, judgment, fancy in an individual, were all to come under the laws of Christ, All doctrines were to be in accordance with his will; philosophy should no longer control them, but they should be subject to the will of Christ. All the plans of life should be controlled by the will of Christ, and formed and executed under his control - as captives are led by a conqueror. All the emotions and feelings of the heart should be controlled by him, and led by him as a captive is led by a victor …. The strongholds of philosophy, paganism, and sin should be demolished, and all the opinions, plans, and purposes of the world should become subject to the all-conquering Redeemer.” [Barnes]

I hope this helped,

David

On behalf of the American Association of Christian Counsellors and its 7000 members, maybe you should rethink yoru stance, just a little.

David T

Any religious organization may celebrate a National Day of Prayer, and certainly would not be expected to do so in a way that departed from their various traditions and doctrines.

The article you shared, “Holy Wars: Evangelicals Attempt to Exclude Non-Christians From National Day of Prayer” (Mother Jones) supplies some facts on the NDP, but makes an error in surmising that “it was meant to encourage Americans of all faiths to pray with one another in whatever way felt best to them. It would be an ecumenical celebration of faith that would draw people together in common religious and spiritual contemplation.”

It was intended to encourage all Americans to pray in accordance with their various faiths, but not for them to join to together in an ecumenical prayer service. To suggest this is to go beyond the scope to the proclamation, to ignore demographics of the nation in the 1950’s, and fail to see political maneuvers for what they are.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/04/8056_religious_right.html

Your comment was held for moderation because it contained excessive links. This criterion exists to avoid, among other things, “article dropping.” As I think you’ll admit, the brevity of your comment and the attachment of three article links qualifies as dropping, and is not substantive commentary in this forum.

I did, however, “have a look” at your articles. After examining your overall position, I decided I would post your links.

My reason is twofold: while I will reply to your point on lists and groups, I will also engage in some dropping of my own, and having taken yours patiently I put you on your honor to take my droppage as well. It comes in a form of ad hominem, but it is not an attack on your character. It is more an analysis of the human condition:

As to the dissenters’ list - Groups of any kind can certainly be discounted. All the signatories dissenting from the theory of evolution may not all practice in the particular field of science closest to the specialty (you might assert this nullifies them because they don’t really understand what they claim to dissent form). Conversely, those “Christian leaders” who reject the biblical account of creation, as you point out in one of your articles, are not representative of the Bible-believing Christians (you chose to use the term “rank and file” for the latter, but this does not accurately place the dichotomy).

We could, in turn, just as easily strengthen what these groups imply by noting that not all the Darwinian dissenters are at liberty to sign with the others, and not all the religious leaders who share the same inkling of the biblical dissenters have yet had the opportunity to meet with them.

I think you will agree that in the end, the discussion will come down to two things: what are the two claims being made, and how are they supported.

Upon reasonable examination, the evidence introduced does not support the theory of evolution, and often discredits it. Upon reasonable examination, the Bible claims to be the word of God, and the text not only supports that, it also supports an immediate creation of man in a period of time found in one day.

What we both have before us to weigh are two accounts: the Holy Bible, and the Darwinian bible. They make contradictory claims, and are mutually exclusive. One of them is wrong.

Now, I am going to get personal -

I want you to do something, I want you to get up and go look in the mirror-take a close look at your self right in the face, than eye-to-eye tell yourself you have no reason for being here, that you’re an accident and that there is nothing important about you except what you personally think about yourself, and what you’ve convinced others to think.

Now, go back to your work, to what you’re defending. At the end of the day, be honest with yourself: how does it feel?

I am going to pray that you feel miserable.

Give us enough time, that’s right, and us Christians will get sentimental on you. You’d probably say that now we are not sticking to the facts, but these are the facts. The most important facts.

I’m sentimental over you because I’m overcome with the strongest sentiment there is. It is the love of God that saved me by the substitution of His Son in my place for my sins so that I could be saved, saved from the penalty I disserve, saved from hell. Saved from the body of this death, and you can be saved from the body of your death too.

There is something about that look in the mirror you took that is bothering you, and I can tell you what it is. It is conflict. You caught a glimpse of something and it made you a little angry at the thought of being a passing fancy. You glimpsed the ideal, and you just can’t settle on the idea that something so marvelous is destined to just hit the dirt, and that’s it.

Well, your sneaking suspicion is right on the money. You’re alive in that body, and when it hits the dirt you’ll still be alive. You’re going to live forever; you are a spiritual being.

You knew as much all along, you knew you were valuable, there were times you amazed yourself, and there were moments you thought you were fantastic. But we both know the other moments. We do bad things. We call them mistakes, but that’s not always true. We do bad things on purpose, and we mean to do them.

You have eased your conscious in the past with the aura of non-responsibility to be found in a blind process of eating, making waste, and dying, but now you know it is an un-natural process you’ve selected to explain what you saw in the mirror, and you’ve selected it because there’s nobody behind it. If there is no one there, then there is no one you are accountable to. If there is no one you are accountable to, you’ve done nothing wrong.

I think you might pride yourself as an evidence man, so I will provide you with some of the testimonial variety:

I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (Joh 8:24)

If your body hits the dirt, and your sin is still on it; it means you have rejected God’s salvation. In simpler terms, it means you are calling God a liar. Now, you might go on to make some cogent arguments on other topics, and even mightily convince yourself, and have those moments of feeling fantastic again, but remember the conflict.

Now, think of the conflict this way: we are separated from God by our sins which are stuck on us; we can’t wash them away (you’ll notice we can’t even forget them). Now ask yourself to interpret this evidence:

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. (1Co 15:17).

I know that you can make something out of this. You’ve had practice in extrapolating as an evolution man. In fact, the theory is an extrapolation, and you know this is no attack on your argument. It can’t be proved by the scientific method of proving, so you must be adept at squeezing things, and making inferences. Put a little pressure on the verse up there.

You can be out of your sins by putting your faith in Jesus Christ. That is a process of accepting what He did for you when He paid your penalty by dying in your place. Of course, you wanting to accept that means you are repentant.

Now take this press, and see if we’re together on this, the death of one man, while it may be easy enough to prove, may not be important.

Now we’re at another one of those claims again. This one is that Jesus rose from the dead.

Not only does that make His death important, it’s what makes your death important. Jesus rose from the dead because Death had no claim on Him. It couldn’t hold Him, he had no sin. He came down here to take on a tent of human flesh and sacrifice a perfect man so that as many as believe may be perfected; ransomed from death.

But we still die? Yes, and in another treatment I would explain why we are to be thankful for that, but here is germane to the topic at hand something of death we must expose.

There is a big lie commonly believed in the world, and in most of the scientific community as well (here I am not speaking of the theory of evolution). This lie is gleaned from the expression “you only live once,” form which is accepted the implication you only die once. This is not true for those who die in their sins.

All of those who die in their sins are going to be resurrected from the dead to stand before God at a special judgment. Those who have not accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior will not be found to have their names written in the Book of Life, and they will once again experience the sting of being separated from their body and then cast into the lake of fire prepared for Satan and his fallen angels to spend eternity. That is the second death.[1]

It’s not just hit the dirt, and it’s over with. In perspective, it could be said that your first death is only the beginning. You, the evidence man, are getting closer to that beginning every day. How much time have you spent examining the claims of the resurrection? Not on the subject evolution vs. creation? It supersedes them. If Jesus got out of the tomb, everything He said is true: meaning the Bible is true, and God is true. After you successfully solve that one, the apparent discrepancy of ‘biological life-to-geological time-to-creation account details’ is on the scale of sophomoric in resolution.

Notes:

1.
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
(Rev 20:11)

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
(Rev 20:12)

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
(Rev 20:13)

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
(Rev 20:14)

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
(Rev 20:15)

Thank you for taking the time to comment, and for the resource reference.

Thank you for taking the time to comment, I refer you, Sir, to the link in this article at “pagan religion” (paragraph one) to “Climate Change: No Need to Combat Global Warming - Stand Against False Gospel” for a comprehensive treatment of this pagan religion and why and how it is taking over the SBC.

You have raised a few points. While time will not permit me to respond to all of them, I would like to address one. I would like to encourage you to think more highly of yourself. If a charge of medical malpractice were to be brought to trial, there is no doubt that expert testimony would be supplied by both the prosecution and the defense. These experts would have those initials behind their names, like the ones you have so much respect and admiration for, and they would be accepted by the court to testify as to their expert opinion on the matter before them. There is also no doubt that the testimony of these same expert witnesses would exactly contradict each other. Fortunately for the defendant (or unfortunately, depending on the weight of the evidence), the verdict will not be decided by the experts, but by twelve men and women know as the jury. Now, there are a few reasons why potential jurors are turned away during the jury selection process, but none are disqualified for the sole reason of lacking initials as an addendum to their name. The twelve men and women who will finally decide on the veracity of the experts will be men and women just like your self.

I wanted to get back to you and thank you for taking the time to comment, and express my joy at your understanding being opened to learn the truth about Teletherapists. It is my prayer that what the enemy has intended for your trouble has been turned to your good by causing you to find help in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, even Christians are going to have trouble

There several reasons for our having trouble (and trouble comes in marriage, careers, and of course in people); we act or make decisions out of God’s will for our life, our enemy the Devil comes against us, or we are tired for the purpose of purifying. This is why we must stay in His word; our warefare is not carnal, it is spiritual, and our victory comes, in part, by maintaining our spiritual perspective. These few scriptures sum up so much in so few words towards edification, and with ever lasting victory on the horizon:

1Pe 1:3-9 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (4) To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, (5) Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (6) Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: (7) That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (8) Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: (9) Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

May God richly bless you with all that you need to overcome through His Son Jesus, and may his peace and grace be on you as you seek his face and follow Him in the faith. I want you to know that you may email me any time with any questions you have. It would be my blessing to be a small part in God’s victory for you,

David

Bloomberg reports: “Specialists in epidemiology and environmental health are already in the area to collect samples of the supposed meteorite for analysis.”

And: “Blood tests are being carried out on most of the patients of determine what they’re suffering from.”

And: people were also affected by “skin lesions.”

These statements were attributed to the Peruvian ministry website.

Thank you for taking the time to provide this guest commentary, and elaborating on your remarks as reported in the source news article. As for the accuracy and reliability of climate models, as your host, I am pleased to give you the last word here.

David

While certainly the models used to predict future climate are not perfect (nor does anybody claim them to be), they do all consistently predict significant atmospheric warming. Precipitation patterns are currently more difficult to predict for a given specific region. However, there is nothing inconsistent between the observed trends in Lake Superior (lower water levels and higher water temperatures) and the current state of global climate modeling.

My comment, with regards to not knowing what will happen, was in reference to biogeochemical cycles in the lake, not the physical response, which are much better understood.

You are absolutely right about the RRC’s authorship of pogroms, and furthermore the Spanish expulsion of 1492, and their active role in planning and participating with the Nazis in the killing fields of Croatia and elsewhere during WWII, to name a few of their atrocities. My omission of RCC authorship was in part due to the brevity and subject of this News item, but it was nonetheless an oversight and I am grateful for you calling it to my attention (and thank you for the link).

For more on this subject:

The Spanish Expulsion

The Jewish Ghetto

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/mine/timeline.htm

Thank you for you fine commentary, and for the resources. I’m looking forward to the reading,

David

While God only knows where we are on His prophetic timescale, the
multidimensional beings we call fallen angels view prophetically significant
events with great interest. They will attempt to anticipate these events to
further their deceptive purposes in their futile war against God.

Jesus said in discussing prophetic events in Matthew 24:24 "For there shall
arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders;
insomuch that, if [it were] possible, they shall deceive the very elect." (KJV)

While there are many deception types in this world, the use of the
"Extraterrestrial" by the evil ones is a particularly complex one, wrought with
signs and wonders, and poised to deceive many, especially those in religious
circles. Through mass media and literature, people have been pushed into an
ideology to accept these beings are simply biological creatures from another
planetary system. They may not realize that these beings are discussed in the
Bible, are multidimensional, are capable of  biological manipulation, and
present themselves as various guises to suit their deception.
For more in depth study refer to these articles:

God vs. High Technology Weapons

UFO over Chicago Airport - Prophetic Deception Closer?

The Various Sides of ET Deception

The “ET” Deception of World Peace
Chuck
Missler’s Study: Aliens and Nephilim

I dont know if you know the origins of this phrase but the original meaning is quite crude and base.

God Bless,

John