Love Is Not All You Need For A Civil Society

[From article]
As an attorney who has dabbled in family law, and a former prosecutor, it often strikes me that this ditty doesn’t apply to a substantial chunk of people in the U.S. In fact, America as a nation doesn’t seem all that enamored with the idea of love anymore -- at least not the highest form of love, that which sustains marriage and families.
For those who might think otherwise, I’d suggest they look at the latest numbers regarding marriage and family. Both institutions remain in serious decline: The percentage of married households in the U.S. has now dipped to an all-time low. (2010 was the first year in our history that fewer than half of all households were married households.) And the rate of newly formed marriages has hovered near its all-time low for several years. America doesn’t seem to care much for children anymore, either. Our birth rate has also hovered near an all-time low for several years. Four out of every ten of those record-low births are out-of-wedlock -- and one in three children grows up in a household without a father.
[. . .]
And here’s the problem. We can’t have it both ways. Granted, many factors have contributed to the decline of marriage and family in the U.S, but one underlying factor is frequently overlooked: America’s obsession with pleasurable indulgence. Marriage and family will inevitably decline in a society of too many self-absorbed pleasure junkies, which is basically what we’ve become.
The selfless, sacrificial love that’s necessary to sustain marriage and families involves doing the difficult -- whether one feels like it or not: foregoing one’s self-interest for others; compromising with others; and putting children's interests ahead of one’s own. But pleasure junkies have conditioned themselves to do the opposite. They’re accustomed to doing the easy things (e.g. overeating, overspending, smoking, viewing pornography), and focusing on themselves, rather than doing difficult things for others or for a greater common good.
[. . .]
Unfortunately, our overindulgence in pleasure doesn’t stop at eating, drinking, and spending. Millions are battling substance abuse and/or alcoholism. Millions more struggle with smoking, gambling, hard and soft-core pornography, video games, prescription drugs, and other addictive products and behaviors.
Many people fail to connect the dots between our addiction to pleasure on the one hand, and the decline of American marriage and family on the other. But the connection is real. Commonsense tells us so. Before the No Pain, No Gain mantra seized the world of personal fitness, my folks used to counsel me with a similar adage: Little Effort, Little Results. The phrase was commonplace during my teen and young adulthood years, and it wasn't restricted to my school or work life. It applied to my personal life as well.
[. . .]
When it came to marriage and family, my parents thankfully didn’t preach much; instead they taught by example. I watched them do the difficult things necessary to make their marriage work.
[. . .]
Good parents know that raising children requires tremendous self-giving and sacrifice. There’s less sleep, flexibility, time, money, and energy to do just about everything a couple wants to do for themselves.
Indulgence in pleasure takes very little willpower. A lack of willpower to do what’s difficult, and focus on self, are hardly the habits one can afford to bring into long-term relationships, particularly marriage and family relations. Like eating a good diet, exercise, or saving money -- marriage and family involve persistent effort and sacrifice. Nowadays, large numbers of Americans seem ill-prepared to undergo this sacrifice and effort.
[. . .]
Many if not most of America’s ongoing ills can be tied to the decline of marriage and family: poverty, dependency, welfare, crime -- insolvency of Social Security and Medicare due to low birth rates. If Americans continue their attachment to doing the easy things for themselves, and don’t reclaim the mantle of effort and sacrifice for others in relationships, then marriage and family will continue to weaken, and that once great civilization, America, will continue to weaken along with them.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/americas_addiction_to_pleasure_harms_marriage_and_family.html

April 19, 2016
America’s Addiction to Pleasure Harms Marriage and Family
By J.G. Maggio

Europe Will Soon Have More Muslims Than Christians

Speaking at a hearing into the Brussels attacks, Koen Geens said the European Community may not realise Muslims will soon outnumber Christians 'but this is the reality' 

Getty Images
[From article]
Muslims will soon outnumber Christians in Europe, a Belgian minister has claimed.
Speaking at a hearing into the Brussels attacks, Koen Geens said the European Community may not realise it “but this is the reality”.
His comments were followed by Belgian deputy prime minister Jan Jambon warning against Europeans “making an enemy of Islam” describing it as “the worst thing we can do”.
Speaking at the EU Parliament, Mr Geens said: “In Europe, very shortly we’re soon going to have more practising Muslims than practising Christians.”
“That is not because there are too many Muslims, it is because Christian are generally less practising¿ Europe does not realise this, but this is the reality.
Mr Jambon then added: “I’ve said a thousand times, the worst thing we can do is to make an enemy of Islam. That is the very worst thing we could do.
[. . .]
Elsewhere in his speech, Mr Geens said: “terrorists are using Viber, WhatsApp, Twitter, Skype or Facebook to communicate with each other."
He told EU lawmakers that in the past governments could rely on telecommunications operators to cooperate with investigators, but that social media firms haven't been as forthcoming.
Mr Geens said "communication with these providers is far from optimal, and that has been a major obstacle for the investigations."
He said "the EU needs to step in urgently to coordinate national responses and a discussion with providers."

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/7106420/Europe-to-very-soon-have-more-Muslims-than-Christians-Belgian-minister-warns-against-making-an-enemy-of-Islam-at-Brussels-attacks-hearing.html

Europe will 'soon have more Muslims than Christians': Belgium warns against 'making an enemy of Islam' at Brussels attacks hearing
April 26, 2016
Minister Koen Geens said Europe 'may not realise this but this is the reality’

Decline of Christianity Drives Decline of Europe and The United States

[From article]
“The vast majority of leading conservative writers … have a secular outlook on life. … They are unaware of the disaster that godlessness in the West has led to.”
These secular conservatives may think that “America can survive the death of God and religion,” writes Prager, but they are wrong.
And, indeed, the last half-century seems to bear him out.
A people’s religion, their faith, creates their culture, and their culture creates their civilization. And when faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people begin to die.
[. . .]
Today, no great Western nation has a birthrate that will prevent the extinction of its native-born. By century’s end, other peoples and other cultures will have largely repopulated the Old Continent.
European Man seems destined to end like the 10 lost tribes of Israel — overrun, assimilated and disappeared.
And while the European peoples — Russians, Germans, Brits, Balts — shrink in number, the U.N. estimates that the population of Africa will double in 34 years to well over 2 billion people.
[. . .]



As G. K. Chesterton wrote, when men cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, they believe in anything.
As European elites ceased to believe in Christianity, they began to convert to ideologies, to what Dr. Russell Kirk called “secular religions.”
For a time, these secular religions — Marxism-Leninism, fascism, Nazism — captured the hearts and minds of millions. But almost all were among the gods that failed in the 20th century.
Now Western Man embraces the newer religions: egalitarianism, democratism, capitalism, feminism, One Worldism, environmentalism.
These, too, give meaning to the lives of millions, but these, too, are inadequate substitutes for the faith that created the West.
For they lack what Christianity gave man — a cause not only to live for, and die for, but a moral code to live by, with the promise that, at the end a life so lived, would come eternal life. Islam, too, holds out that promise.
Secularism, however, has nothing on offer to match that hope.
[. . .]



When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the West embraced Christianity as a faith superior to all others, as its founder was the Son of God, the West went on to create modern civilization, and then went out and conquered most of the known world.
The truths America has taught the world, of an inherent human dignity and worth, and inviolable human rights, are traceable to a Christianity that teaches that every person is a child of God.
Today, however, with Christianity virtually dead in Europe and slowly dying in America, Western culture grows debased and decadent, and Western civilization is in visible decline.
[. . .]
When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the West embraced Christianity as a faith superior to all others, as its founder was the Son of God, the West went on to create modern civilization, and then went out and conquered most of the known world.
The truths America has taught the world, of an inherent human dignity and worth, and inviolable human rights, are traceable to a Christianity that teaches that every person is a child of God.
Today, however, with Christianity virtually dead in Europe and slowly dying in America, Western culture grows debased and decadent, and Western civilization is in visible decline.
[. . .]



Vladimir Putin, who witnessed the death of Marxism-Leninism up close, appears to understand the cruciality of Christianity to Mother Russia, and seeks to revive the Orthodox Church and write its moral code back into Russian law.
[. . .]
With Christianity excommunicated from her schools and public life for two generations, and Old and New Testament teachings rejected as a basis of law, we have witnessed a startlingly steep social decline.
Since the 1960s, America has set new records for abortions, violent crimes, incarcerations, drug consumption. While HIV/AIDS did not appear until the 1980s, hundreds of thousands have perished from it, and millions now suffer from it and related diseases.
Forty percent of U.S. births are out of wedlock. For Hispanics, the illegitimacy rate is over 50 percent; for African-Americans, it’s over 70 percent.
Test scores of U.S. high school students fall annually and approach parity with Third World countries.
Suicide is a rising cause of death for middle-aged whites.
[. . .]


C.S. Lewis

“How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure,” wrote Samuel Johnson.
Secular conservatives may have remedies for some of America’s maladies. But, as Johnson observed, no secular politics can cure the sickness of the soul of the West — a lost faith that appears irretrievable.
http://buchanan.org/blog/if-god-is-dead-125152

If God Is Dead…
Monday - April 25, 2016 at 9:00 pm
Patrick J. Buchanan

Palestinian Muslims Continue Destroying Christian Churches

Hamas has destroyed the ruins of an 1800-year-old Byzantine church that was recently unearthed in Gaza City.

[From article]

For Palestinian Christians, the destruction of the ancient Byzantine church ruins is yet a further attempt by Palestinian Muslim leaders to efface both Christian history and signs of any Christian presence in the West Bank and Gaza, under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. A growing number of Christians feel they are being systematically targeted by both the PA and Hamas for being Christians.
Bulldozers were used to destroy some of the church artifacts; some Palestinian Christians accused both Hamas and the PA of copying ISIS tactics to demolish historic sites.
"Where are the heads of the churches in Jerusalem and the world?... Where are the Vatican and UNESCO? Where are the leaders and politicians who talk, talk, talk about national unity and the preservation of holy sites? Or is this a collective conspiracy to end our existence and history in the East?" — Sami Khalil, a Christian from the West Bank city of Nablus.
The plight of Palestinian Christians does not interest the international community. That is because Israel cannot be blamed for demolishing the antiquities. If the current policy against Christians persists, the day will come when no Christians will be left in Bethlehem.

[. . .]

The ruins of the 1800-year-old church were discovered in Palestine Square, in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, where Hamas is planning to build a shopping mall. The dramaticdiscovery of the antiquities did not seem to leave an impression on the construction workers, who removed artifacts and continued with their work at the site.
Defying belief, bulldozers were used to destroy some of the church artifacts, drawing sharp criticism from Palestinian Christians, some of whom rushed to accuse both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) of copying ISIS tactics to demolish historic sites.
For Palestinian Christians, the destruction of the church ruins is yet a further attempt by Palestinian Muslim leaders to efface both Christian history and signs of any Christian presence in the Palestinian territories.
[. . .]
Hamas claims that it does not have the resources to preserve the ancient site of the church. Preserving the Christian site, they say, would require millions of dollars and hundreds of workers at a time when the Islamist movement is facing a financial crisis due to the ongoing "blockade" on the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Authority, for its part, maintains that, as it is not in control of the Gaza Strip, the destruction of antiquities is out of its hands. Still, the PA leadership in the West Bank has not come out publicly against the demolition. This is the same PA that promotes a stabbing and car-ramming "intifada" for the Jews' "desecrating" the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by touring the Temple Mount under police protection.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7832/palestinians-christian-history

Palestinians: Erasing Christian History
by Khaled Abu Toameh
April 12, 2016 at 5:00 am

War On Christianity In The United States

[From article]
The secular extremism characterizing much of the contemporary political scene sometimes makes it hard to realize Christianity was once the primary motivating force behind the great human rights movements of America.
Men and women of faith fought for decades to achieve victory over the great human rights issue of the 19th century -- freeing the slaves. The issue of slavery had festered from the time of its introduction into the colonies in 1619. It would be Pennsylvanian Quakers, who believed in the inner light of conscience, who filed the first formal protest against slavery in 1688.
[. . .]
The roots of that great reform movement as well as many of the continuing reform movements of the 19th and 20th centuries -- including the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s -- were profoundly Christian.
[. . .]
The radical fringe of the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s coincided and was parallel with the Civil Rights movement, gradually poisoning and then determining to kill outright the Christian religious conscience that was and still is the backbone of reform in America. The radicals behind the sexual revolution substituted in the place of Christian conscience answerable to God a militant view of self-determination that held to no god but the inner god of human will and power.
[. . .]
In an astonishing perversion of the Quaker idea of the inner voice of conscience answerable to God, the inner voice of the individual human being was determined to be infallible in matters of sex and practice -- “If it feels good; do it.”
[. . .]



Over a period of a few decades, activists for the LGBT movement transitioned steadily from their initial demands for equal protection under the law to demands for gay marriage, to denaturing the very construct of humanity by insisting on a gender free society, to promoting the right to force society at large to accept as infallible an individual’s ability to discern and to declare one’s self to be whatever sex one chooses.
To put it another way, the LGBT agenda will brook no contradiction from the rest of us mere mortals to argue about the inerrant inner light of the gods and goddesses who declare themselves to have divine ability to transform themselves into any sex they wish to be. The “right” to be or not to be man or woman resulted in the fanatical demand that bathrooms must be retrofitted to conform to “gender free” standards, meaning that in practice either sex could use public facilities as they wished, including those who are physically men but believe themselves to be women.
But even victories in the bathroom bill fights have not been enough for radicals. Encouraged by the recent decision of the Supreme Court ratifying a pillar of the LGBT movement; namely, the constitutional “right” of same sex couples to marry, the movement has set its sights on destroying Christianity itself. By insisting that no minister or priest can refuse to marry gay couples, and by asserting no organization or institution, including churches, can refuse to hire people diametrically opposed to Christian beliefs, the LGBT movement reveals itself to be a cult radically and viciously antithetical to Christianity.
And, yes, it is a cult.
A basic definition of a cult is an organization whose beliefs are so far separated from the real world, that if society were to incorporate those beliefs, it too, would go mad. Therefore, insane beliefs completely divorced from the ground of being can only be established by force of law and strategies utilizing persecution aimed at eventual elimination of entities in opposition to those beliefs.
The result is that open war has been declared on Christianity in America.
For proof of that war, we need only to look at the mad consequences we now observe in Georgia, where the governor of that state has vetoed a bill that would have offered absolutely minimal protection to ministers and churches. World Magazine reports:
“Claiming the bill would ‘give rise to state-sanctioned discrimination,’ Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal today vetoed a law that would have provided legal protection for pastors, faith-based organizations, and business owners who, in good conscience, refused to service gay weddings. The veto leaves Georgians with no statewide religious liberty protection and vulnerable to lawsuits over belief in the biblical definition of marriage.”
Apparently completely ignorant of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s clear statement of religious protection, the governor added: “In light of our history, I find it ironic that today some in the religious community feel it necessary to ask government to confer upon them certain rights and protections.”
Let that sink in.



In an era in which our Secretary of State has finally admitted genocide is being committed against unprotected Christians in the Middle East, the governor of Georgia says religious communities don’t need the government to confer rights and protections on people of faith.
Irony of ironies, Nathan Deal is a Southern Baptist -- a Southern Baptist who just gave over his own denomination to corporations for thirty pieces of silver. That his own church holds such retrograde and discriminatory positions as marriage being a covenant between a man and a woman and that the scriptures hold very pronounced views on sexual behavior seem to come as a surprise to Governor Deal.
But they do not surprise Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Seminary, and stalwart defender of orthodox Christian views on the sexes and marriage. One wonders if Deal -- what a perfect name -- is prepared to see Dr. Mohler sued and hauled away to jail for advocacy of orthodox Christian doctrine concerning marriage and sexual mores.
Certainly Deal’s capitulation to corporations and the LGBT radicals helps explain why a plurality of Georgian evangelicals, among them Southern Baptists, voted for shameless secularist Donald Trump. Apparently neither Deal nor the plurality of so-called evangelicals think faith and Christian doctrine have anything to say about the character of candidates who wish to lead a nation or about radical policies antithetical to and aimed directly at Christians.
The leftist rage directed at American Christians should come as no particular surprise.
Historically, the Left has always sought to eviscerate and even to eliminate Christianity. The all-out assault on Christians in America by the Left resembles the wars socialism and communism waged against Christianity, the most obvious example being is the attempt of the communist Soviet Union to bury Russian Orthodoxy.
A less noted example, yet a clear provider of an almost exact pattern of what is happening here in the U.S., is the persecution of Mexican Roman Catholics by radical socialists during the Cristero war of the 1920s. During that war, Mexican socialists sought to eliminate Christianity from Mexico, which at the time was 95% Catholic.
For over 70 years, from about 1917 onwards, the Roman Catholic Church was actually outlawed. It was not allowed to own property, run parochial schools or convents or monasteries. Foreign priests were deported, and many native priests killed outright. The Church was not allowed to defend itself publicly or in the courts.
As Catholic Gene writes:
[The Church] was hardly allowed to exist. According to historian Jim Tuck, “This was not separation of church and state: it was complete subordination of church to state”.
“It was not until 1992 that the Church was restored as a legal entity in Mexico. During the period of the strictest enforcement of these draconian laws beginning with the rule of President Calles in the late 1920s, Mexicans were often imprisoned for wearing religious items, saying “Adios” in public (which literally means “with God”), or even questioning the laws. Public worship was a crime punishable by hanging or firing squad.”
The Mexican Constitution of 1917 included the following restrictions on Catholics:
“According to the religious liberties established under article 24, educational services shall be secular and, therefore, free of any religious orientation. The educational services shall be based on scientific progress and shall fight against ignorance, ignorance's effects, servitudes, fanaticism and prejudice… All religious associations organized according to article 130 and its derived legislation, shall be authorized to acquire, possess or manage just the necessary assets to achieve their objectives... The rules established at this article are guided by the historical principle according to which the State and the churches are separated entities from each other. Churches and religious congregations shall be organized under the law.”
The new constitution obligated the registration of all churches, declared all priests and ministers were ineligible to hold state office; and stated they could not advocate on behalf of any political parties or candidates. The State would regulate the number of priests in designated regions and no priests could wear religious garb in public. Nor could religious ceremonies be conducted outdoors without strict regulation by the State.
One needs only to read the restrictions of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 to recognize a similar pattern of persecution and restrictions against churches and people of faith in the United States, land of the free.
In retrospect Christians, at least partially, have only themselves to blame, as they have yielded time and again to state intrusions and restrictions with only sporadic guerilla warfare. On the whole, Christians have reacted to anti-Christian decrees and restrictions such as the SCOTUS decree on abortion, the elimination of Christianity from public schools, and the muzzling of priests and pastors concerning politics by retreating into a subculture.
As the attacks ratchet up, Christians urgently need to understand continued capitulation to the demands of the radicals who are pushing for the fringe demands of the LGBT movement means the death of religious freedom in America. It also means a cult’s radical doctrines replace Christian mores.

 

Are Christians in America prepared to see their pastors sued and/or sent to jail, their children continued to be subject to indoctrination in public schools, their state and federal governments continue to kowtow to extremists determined to eradicate the influence of religion; the free exercise of religion in the public square eliminated; Christians consigned to what would essentially be a caste system, with people of faith considered untouchables who are not worthy of public office or even employment?
If they are not prepared to strongly confront a cult’s takeover of America’s governments, churches, and major institutions; if they wish to see Christianity once again regain its status as a major influence for societal reform; if they want to once again see Christianity as salt and light in the society in which they live, they have no choice but to stand and fight.
Otherwise, the Church in America will die.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/killing_christianity_in_america.html

April 3, 2016
Killing Christianity in America
By Fay Voshell

Defining American Greatness

[From article]
The key question before us is determining what we mean by greatness. There are those who associate greatness with bigness, power, or quantity. Thus, America is great because of her vast size, massive economic production or unmatched military might. These can truly be characteristics of great nations but they are not what make a nation great.
There are others who believe the foundation of our greatness is based on the many opportunities to enjoy life in America. They point to our American way of life in which people are encouraged to enjoy life to its fullest. Still others interpret greatness as the freedom to do whatever one pleases. All these goals often reflect legitimate self-interest, but do not necessarily confer greatness upon a nation.
If our greatness is measured by money, pleasure or self-aggrandizement, then our striving for greatness, no matter how vigorous, will inevitably fall short. For the greatness of nations is not found in things, quantities, or delights, but in the character of its people.
Indeed, true greatness -- that which endures the test of time -- is born of a willingness to go beyond the common and ordinary. It calls us to excel, to take heroic action and to serve causes that take us beyond ourselves. It asks us to resist the temptation to sink into soft mediocrity.
America is great because there have always been, and still are, those who are willing to take up the challenges of going beyond the easy and comfortable. As long as such Americans may be found at all levels in society, we will continue to be great.
And so I believe America is great because there still exists dedicated fathers and loving mothers who sacrifice together to give their children strong character and instill in them the difference between right and wrong.
[. . .]
As long as honor holds a place in our hearts, we will produce heroes with the courage to fight for what we know to be true and right. We will even have those who will make the sublime sacrifice of offering their lives for their country.
America will be great as long as we strive to be truly good. True goodness means placing God in the center of society, holding to His commandments as the rule of life and defending this higher law in the public square. We can be great -- and expect God’s blessing -- only if we remain faithful to a God that is almighty and great.
[. . .]



However, the number of these Americans is fast dwindling as everything is being swept away by the frenetic intemperance of a society that thrives on instant gratification and spectacle. They are replaced by gaggles of shallow people, devoid of honor and character, who seek only to turn life into a huge carnival of fun and delights.
In these perilous times, many caricatures of greatness appear. The rule of honor is usurped by the rule of money. Greatness comes to signify vulgar displays of wealth, pleasure and power. A “great” person is one who does whatever it takes to keep the grand party going. Tragically, it can even mean severing our link with God when it obstructs the easy pursuit of whatever.
[. . .]
The questions that need to be addressed today are not those of taxes, jobs, economy or benefits. Although they are all important issues, they can more easily be resolved when sanity returns to the nation. We now enter a critical time when we must choose the path of true greatness over false, honor over money, God over the world. If we ardently desire a return to order, then we must be convinced that America can only be great if she is good and Godly. What will decide America’s future will be what has always decide her future -- the character of her people.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/what_it_means_for_america_to_be_great.html

April 3, 2016
What It Means for America to Be Great
By John Horvat II

Evaluating Religious Doctrine, The Nature of God

[From article]
The recent flap at Wheaton College, an Evangelical college near Chicago, caused by Dr. Larcyia Hawkins donning a Muslim hijab to stand in religious solidarity with Muslims ‘because Christians and Muslims believe in the same God,’ touched off a spate of opinion pieces on whether or not Hawkins is correct. Some supported her contention and some did not. Reader comments after most of these essays were split as well, but the majority clearly supported the ‘no we don’t worship the same God’ position.
[. . .]



The opinions offered in the ‘no we don’t’ essays, are based on the theology that Christians worship a loving, merciful but just triune God of reason -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, while Muslims pray to a demanding and unreasonable God who condones murdering nonbelievers, honor killing, polygamy, and keeping women subservient and uneducated, etc. The Muslim God is clearly not the same God that is worshipped by Christians.
If the doctrine of monotheism is correct, the ‘yes we do’ arguments goes, then there is only one true God. As such, all monotheistic religions are worshipping this same God, even though each religion may have a different name for God and a different understanding of the nature of God. Additionally, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all worship the God of Abraham initially revealed in the Old Testament. They part company when it comes to discerning the nature of God and exactly what He expects of us.

[. . .]
Both sides in this argument have valid points. Assuming the God of Abraham is the one true God and Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the God of Abraham, they all do worship the same God. But since Muslims have a vastly different understanding of the nature of God, as ’revealed’ by Muhammed, they are, in effect, worshiping a different God.
[. . .]
Both sides in this argument have valid points. Assuming the God of Abraham is the one true God and Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the God of Abraham, they all do worship the same God. But since Muslims have a vastly different understanding of the nature of God, as ’revealed’ by Muhammed, they are, in effect, worshiping a different God.
[. . .]



The newest craze is a rising segment of the population who say they are “spiritual but not religious.” Belonging to an “organized religion” is just not their cup of tea, so instead they belong to “the Church of me” where they get to decide all by themselves how they should worship God, how they should live their lives, what God expects of them, what is true and what is false, what is moral and what is not, and so on. No question about it – it’s a lot easier to make up your own rules as you go along and just follow your own conscience.
[. . .]
So I encourage people to thoroughly explore the doctrines of their own and other religions, including examining the pros and cons on the various doctrinal differences (the apologetics offered by theologians of each religion), before settling on a system of beliefs.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/debating_the_nature_of_god.html

January 3, 2016
Debating the Nature of God
By Gene Van Son

Contrary To Misguided Journalists, Religious and Political Leaders, Islam is Not a Religion As Christianity Is

[From article]
“I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here … and … around the world, that there is a ‘clash of civilizations.'”
So said Hillary Clinton in Saturday night’s New Hampshire debate.
Yet, that phrase was not popularized by Donald Trump, but by Harvard’s famed Samuel Huntington. His “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” has been described by Zbigniew Brzezinski as providing “quintessential insights necessary for a broad understanding of world affairs in our time.”
That Clinton is unaware of the thesis, or dismisses it, does not speak well of the depth of her understanding of our world.
[. . .]



Did the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor, 9/11, have nothing to do with the Islamic faith?
Did Fort Hood and the San Bernardino massacres, the London subway bombings and the killings at Charlie Hebdo, as well as the slaughter at the Bataclan in Paris, have nothing to do with Islam?
Does the lengthening list of atrocities by terrorist cells of ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaida, al-Shabaab and the Nusra Front have nothing to do with Islam? Is it really illiberal to inquire “into the religious opinions” of those who perpetrate these atrocities? Or is it suicidal not to?
There has arisen a legitimate question as to whether Islamism can coexist peacefully with, or within, a post-Christian secular West.
[. . .]
As of 1960, the Great Wave of immigration into the United States from Southern and Eastern Europe had been halted for 35 years.
And the children of these millions had been largely assimilated and Americanized.
Yet, 50 years after the Turkish gastarbeiters were brought in the millions into Germany, and Algerians and other North Africans were brought into France, no such wholesale assimilation had taken place.
Why not? Why are there still large, indigestible communities in France where French citizens do not venture and French police are ever on alert?
[. . .]



Iran holds presidential elections every four years, but is a Shiite theocracy where the Ayatollah is a virtual dictator. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni kingdom and home to Wahhabism, a Sunni form of puritanism.
Those ruling regimes are rooted in Islam.
[. . .]
Where Islam is the ruling faith, the Quran is secular law.
[. . .]
Historically, Christianity came to dominate the Roman Empire through preaching, teaching, example and martyrdom. Islam used the sword to conquer the Middle and Near East, North Africa and Spain in a single century, until stopped at Poitiers by Charles Martel.
And this is today’s crucial distinction: Islam is not simply a religion of 1.6 billion people, it is also a political ideology for ruling nations and, one day, the world.

http://buchanan.org/blog/islam-and-the-west-an-irreconcilable-conflict-124463

Islam and the West: An Irreconcilable Conflict?
Monday - December 21, 2015 at 10:11 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Eliminating Differences For Diversity's Sake, Do Atheists Have God-given Rights?

Leading the war on religion, atheists do not believe in God, the source of inalienable rights. How and why do they claim constitutionally guaranteed rights if they negate the source of those rights? In the name of tolerance this author suggests merging all holidays together which is the opposite of diversity, conformity. What happened to respect for differences?



http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20151213/NEWS/151218699

Faith in Action column: What's in a holiday greeting?
By Rev. Irene Monroe
Posted Dec. 13, 2015 at 8:35 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Baptist Minster Promotes Elite Values, Ridicules Donald Trump

[From article]
It took a billionaire living the glamorous New York City life to exhibit real Christian courage by going against every elite group in the nation, every media outlet, every well-heeled donor, to defend America from destruction by immigration.
[. . .]
Sometimes the country needs a man.
The idea that Christians are supposed to be milquetoasts is liberal propaganda. Ask the money-changers how meek Jesus was. (Not the Clintons; I mean the other money-changers.) God commanded the Israelites to go to certain cities and kill “every living thing.” As I recall, the Crusaders were a little rough around the edges.
[. . .]
Trump’s personal style is denounced by the Piety Police with smug certitude, to showcase their superior moral understanding.
[. . .]
Trump’s a Christian. This is a Christian country. How about helping keep it that way?
[. . .]



This is an election about saving the concept of America, the last hope for Christianity on the planet.
A country in which partial birth abortions are freely available, but children can’t hold hands and pray in school, is not a country where Christians are winning.
What difference does it make where a candidate stands on abortion or gay marriage, when a few more years of our current immigration flow will mean no Republican can ever be elected president again and nine Ruth Bader Ginsburgs will sit on the Supreme Court?
Unless Americans stop being outvoted by foreigners, Christians — as well as libertarians, neoconservatives, fiscal conservatives and moderate Democrats — have no hope of winning anything, anywhere, anytime. The last Christian country on Earth will be no more.
[. . .]
Even after Trump rocketed to the lead with his immigration policies, the media still refuse to discuss the issue. The demand for ever-more poverty-stricken immigrants from primitive cultures has gone beyond cheap labor and has become a mass hysteria.
[. . .]
Donald Trump actually is an elite, but he doesn’t care what his friends on Fifth Avenue think of him.
Some Christians want proof that a candidate has memorized Bible verses. I want a candidate who lives by this verse: “So do not be afraid of them.”

http://humanevents.com/2015/10/28/the-meek-shall-inherit-the-earth-but-they-shouldnt-be-president/?utm_source=coulterdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, But They Shouldn’t Be President

Ann Coulter
Wednesday Oct 28, 2015 4:14 PM

Why Do People Fear Being Called Muslim?

[From article]
There was a Seinfeld episode where Jerry repeatedly denied being gay but was quick to add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." This sitcom episode is being repeated, with Obama replacing Jerry and Islam replacing homosexuality.
Obama says he's not a Muslim. Fine. But if there's nothing wrong with being Muslim, what's the problem with people who erroneously say he is?
[. . .]
The real secret is not that Obama fears being called a Muslim. It's not about that at all.
It's really about Obama fearing being called overly sympathetic to Muslims. That's why so many people think he's Muslim: because his words and actions support Muslims, especially the radical kind.
[list included of White House actions that indicate support for Muslims over Americans and Christians, and Jews]
It's actually irrelevant, and unprovable, whether Obama is Muslim or not. But what is relevant, and what is obvious, is that he is more sympathetic to radical Islam than he is to the national security interests of the United States. That's what Obama is afraid of when people call him a Muslim.
Unfortunately, most candidates are afraid to talk about this, as they are afraid to talk about many things. But Donald Trump came out today and said outright that Obama is waging a war against Christianity. If you think about the Christians who are fined or jailed for their beliefs on gay marriage, and businesses who are fined for not paying for their employees' abortions, you will realize that Trump is right.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/09/if_theres_nothing_wrong_with_being_muslim_why_is_obama_so_upset.html

September 20, 2015
If there's nothing wrong with being Muslim, why is Obama so upset?
By Ed Straker

United States Is A Nation Based On Judeo Christian Values

[From article]
When I heard that Obama had let in 280,000 Muslims into the United States in the last year alone, I didn't think refugees. I thought population transfer. At that rate, Muslims, already a sizeable presence in places like Dearborn, Michigan and Paterson, NJ, will create metropolitan caliphates all across the US before long.
Which started me thinking: is it important for America to be still a Judeo-Christian nation? Our founding was not based on the teachings of the Koran. Sharia law was not embedded in our Constitution. The basis of our Constitution, as well as the Declaration of Independence, is Judeo-Christian values. That means a respect for private property, individual liberties, freedom of choice, and above all, religious tolerance.
[. . .]
We have no state religion which forces people to believe anything, and we do not kill people who fail to believe in any particular religion.
Because we have equality of the sexes, and respect for the individual, women can work if they choose and wear whatever they like.
[. . .]
Private property rights provide more protection for the individual, and the rule of law provides stability that enables millions of people to seek better lives.
Sadly, the free market barely exists in most Muslim countries, keeping millions in poverty. Incitement is the rule, whether it is incitement against Jews, or Christians, or even different kinds of Muslims.
[. . .]
We have seen the results in Europe, the no-go zones in Great Britain, the hunting down of Jews in France, the assassination of politicians in the Netherlands and cartoonists in Denmark. We have already seen a number engage in terrorism here in America, like the Boston bombers. If we are to continue being an open, tolerant nation, is that compatible with admitting large numbers of Muslims? If not, why won't any candidate speak out on that?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/09/is_it_important_for_america_to_be_a_judeochristian_nation.html

September 16, 2015
Is it important for America to be a Judeo-Christian nation?
By Ed Straker

Religions Matter, Depending Upon The Religion, More Media Double Standards

Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis

[From article]
Two current cases may help clarify the issue of the degree to which religious conviction exempts a person from performing job duties. The New York Times and the rest of the national media are giving front page treatment to Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky county clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples on religious grounds. For them, the story is one of religious bias from the hateful right standing in the way of human happiness.
The other story is receiving less national attention. Melissa Nann Burke of the Detroit News reports:
A Muslim-American group plans Tuesday to file a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against ExpressJet Airlines for allegedly failing to accommodate a Metro Detroit-area Muslim flight attendant who objects to serving alcohol based on her religious beliefs.

[. . .]
Religious convictions should not be used to change the nature of the job that the incumbent, after all, sought. We have the liberty to worship as we wish, as we have the liberty to seek employment consistent with our religion. I do not think we have the liberty to impose our religionon others, including our employers.
I am as appalled as anyone at the sloppy reasoning used by a Supreme Court majority to impose same sex marriage on the country. But the way our system is structured, the duties of a county clerk now include issuing marriage licenses. So, too, the duties a flight attendant include serving alcoholic drinks.
If we establish as a general principle that people can redefine their jobs depending on religious conviction, then we invite chaos. Carly Fiorina, who has run a global technology company employing all sorts of people, handled this question very well,

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/09/religious_liberty_the_kentucky_county_clerk_and_the_muslim_flight_attendant.html

September 2, 2015
Religious liberty: The Kentucky county clerk and the Muslim flight attendant
By Thomas Lifson

Scrutinizing The Immigration Debate

[From article]
The Refugee Crisis™ debate is framed as a battle between compassionate liberals responding to desperate pleas and coin-counting, callous, conservative reactionaries. But charitable motives animate the Left little, if at all. Liberals are notoriously tightfisted with (their own) charitable dollars; even more to the point, when a shipload of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution wanted safe haven in the US, leftist icon FDR turned it away. It’s one of those curious coincidences in history that the Left’s attitude toward refugees changed precisely when leftists discovered they could import voters who would empower them.
And does attaching something as a rider — citizenship — to charity aid the cause of charity? Are people more or less likely to offer charity to a person if the act begins and ends with charity, or if they must grant the individual some decision-making power in their home as well? That’s a package deal only a masochist could love.
So there’s an easy way to uncover liberals’ true motivations and whether they’re serious about charity for refugees. Make a simple offer: you’ll give bona fide refugees safe haven, and you’ll do your best to ensure they’re treated well. But there’s no citizenship. Ever. And they’ll be expected to eventually return to their homelands. See if the leftists bite…anything but your extended hand.
[. . .]



On the one hand, liberals sometimes point out that despite doom-and-gloom prognostication, we live in the most “peaceful era in human history.” And they cite statistics backing up the assertion. On the other, they claim we must suddenly accommodate endless troves of “refugees” fleeing persecution.
[. . .]
We’re told that prosperous countries have a moral responsibility to the world’s poorer nations. So why then are wealthy Asian Tigers never asked to absorb any “refugees”? Japan, in fact, has virtually no immigration whatsoever despite having an extremely low birthrate and shrinking population. Moreover, since many refugees are Muslim, why aren’t Saudi Arabia, Qatar, The United Arab Emirates and the other oil-rich Arab nations taking them in? Wouldn’t it seem a natural fit? (Then they could stop importing the Filipinos and others they use for domestic help.) Maybe they know something we don’t.
[. . .]



There undoubtedly are people in this world facing serious persecution. As to this, the West in general and the Obama administration in particular have done nothing to aid, for instance, the Christians being slaughtered in Muslim lands.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/immigration_the_refugee_scam.html

August 27, 2015
Immigration: The Refugee Scam
By Selwyn Duke

New York Times Joins Extremist Leftists Promoting, Publishing Propaganda, Demonizing Western Religions

On Monday, the Times published an image of Niki Johnson's "Eggs Benedict," a portrait of Pope Benedict XVI fashioned entirely out of condoms. (Screenshot)

[From article]
For The New York Times, deciding which images are too offensive for publication is a tricky business.
On Monday, the paper published an image of Niki Johnson's "Eggs Benedict," a portrait of Pope Benedict XVI fashioned entirely out of condoms.
The artwork is "not hate-based," the Milwaukee artist told the Times, but is meant only to "critique" Benedict's views on sex and contraception "while raising awareness about public health."
"What I want to do is really destigmatize the condom, normalize it," she told the newspaper. "I've watched kids and parents talk about condoms. It opens a door to talking about what those things are and what they do."
The Times' decision to run an image of "Eggs Benedict" comes just five months after it opted not to show Charlie Hebdo's infamously provocative artwork.
The newspaper's executive editor, Dean Baquet, said in public statements at the time that the French satirical magazine's cartoons were simply too offensive for publication.

[. . .]

For the Times, there's no comparison between "Eggs Benedict" and Charlie Hebdo's controversial Muhammed artwork.
[. . .]
An official with the Milwaukee Art Museum, which will soon display Johnson's portrait, told the Times he hopes the condom-laden image will "bring not only controversy, but room for conversation about the underlying discussion the artist intended as well as regarding the role of art in public discussion."
The Times' Corbett told the Examiner, "I don't think these situations – the Milwaukee artwork and the various Muhammad caricatures – are really equivalent. For one thing, many people might disagree, but museum officials clearly consider this Johnson piece to be a significant artwork."
[. . .]
The Times has been criticized in the past for having an apparently inconsistent policy when it comes to publishing controversial – and even offensive – images.
In 1999, for example, the Times published Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary," a painting of Christ's mother fashioned entirely out of feces and adorned with cutouts of genitalia from pornographic magazines.
In 2005, 2006 and 2010, the Times republished anti-Semitic cartoons in full.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/new-york-times-bans-charlie-hebdo-cartoons-but-runs-condom-pope-image/article/2567282

New York Times bans Charlie Hebdo cartoons, but runs 'condom pope' image
BY T. BECKET ADAMS

JUNE 29, 2015 | 6:00 PM

American Pastor Beaten In Iranian Prison

"Pray For Pastor Saeed Abedini," Facebook

[From article]
American pastor Saeed Abedini was beaten in his Iranian prison the day after his wife testified before Congress trying to secure his release.
What do you think?
Abedini was assaulted Wednesday June 3 by a fellow inmate at Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison, where he is serving an eight-year sentence for preaching to Iranian Christians, which the Iranian government claims undermined that country’s national security. Abedini has been in captivity since 2012.
What do you think?
Abedini suffered two black eyes among other injuries, according to his American legal representative, the American Center for Law and Justice. Abedini’s reading table was also destroyed by fellow prisoners.
What do you think?
Abedini was beaten in his prison near the northern Iranian city of Karaj just one day after his wife Nagmeh Abedini testified before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where she appealed for help on behalf of her two children with the incarcerated Christian pastor.
What do you think?

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/11/american-pastor-beaten-in-iranian-prison/

American Pastor BEATEN In Iranian Prison
PATRICK HOWLEY
4:12 PM 06/11/2015

Increasing Attacks on Christianity

[From article]
Many liberals took gleeful notice. The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Mark Tooley noted, “Secularists and their fellow travelers are ecstatic. The secular utopia about which John Lennon crooned is impending. Christianity is finally dying!”



[. . .]
The denominations that have lost the most “near Christians” are Catholic and Mainline Protestant. According to the Washington Times, “for every person who joined the Roman Catholic Church, six others were departing.” Additionally, in the last 50 years, the proportion of Americans belonging to one of the “Seven Sisters of Mainline Protestantism” has plummeted from one in six to one in sixteen.
From the Anglicans at Jamestown, to the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and the Puritans at Massachusetts Bay, virtually all of the Mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. can trace their roots to those who literally founded America.
[. . .]
Many of the first colleges and universities in the U.S. were founded by Mainline churches. What’s more, eight of the first fourteen U.S. Presidents were Episcopalian. The spiritual and political roots of America are deeply embedded in Mainline Protestantism.
[. . .]



Of course, it would be the denominations most infected with liberalism (Is there anything liberalism can’t corrupt?) that have seen the most decline.
[. . .]
In other words, in a tragic attempt to make themselves “relevant,” such men and women rejected virtually every tenet of the Christian faith, all the while still calling themselves “Christians.”
Unsurprisingly, it’s heretics such as these who’ve overseen such a precipitous decline in their denominations. After all, who wants to attend a church that rejects the supernatural and offers little more than worn-out platitudes and self-help advice? Who wants to attend a church that doesn’t talk about the forgiveness of sin (much less the existence of sin) and the hope of eternal life? Instead of pointing people to eternal truths, these liberal congregations have concerned themselves with “social activism.”
[. . .]



sadly many Catholics have been all too willing to use big government activism as a substitute for charity.
Sister Prejean is a great illustration of why the Catholic Church in the U.S. is in steep decline. Just as with its promotion of government healthcare, or a litany of other programs that push state paternalism over personal responsibility, for decades now the American Catholic Church has shown “indifference” toward eternity and judgement. Thus, anyone fervently seeking the truth on such matters is drawn elsewhere.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/05/how_to_kill_christianity.html

May 19, 2015
How to Kill Christianity
By Trevor Thomas

Islam, Judaism and Christianity

[From article]
the Koran re-wrote many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible in the spirit of Islam’s doctrine that Muslims are Allah’s true chosen people. The early Christians left Jewish Scripture intact; the Muslims did not. Christianity wanted to hold onto Jewishness to a degree; Muslims dismissed it as a pack of lies.
Moreover, in plagiarizing the Jewish Bible instead of adding to it -- which makes of the Koran a form of copyright infringement or intellectual property theft -- Muslims claim that the discrepancies between the two versions are the result of the Jews’ theft of the Koran. And never mind that the God of Israel bestowed upon the Israelites the Five Books of Moses in the year 1313 b.c.e. and the Koran dates to the late 7th and early 8th centuries c.e., almost two thousand years later. When a Muslim is confronted with the contradictory narratives of the same incidents, he answers that Musa (the Arabic mispronunciation of the Hebrew name Mosheh) brought the Koran down from Mt. Sinai but the perfidious Jews then re-wrote it and called it their Torah until Muhammad came along and restored the original text. In Islam’s moral universe, the Torah is a stolen, plagiarized version of the Koran (which tracks with the contemporary charge that the Jews also stole the Promised Land from the “Palestinians.”)
[. . .]
And as for the third cliché, viz. the Arabs as Semites too: no, they are Hamites. Yes, Muhammad was an Arab descended from Ishmael, one of Abraham’s eight biological sons, but Judaism also makes clear that Ishmael was not his father’s spiritual heir. Ishmael is even expelled (Genesis 21:9) from his father’s tents for being a “wild ass of a man” (16:12). His expulsion at age sixteen or seventeen came about when he jealously mocked his little half-brother Isaac at the latter’s weaning party -- whose wise and perceptive mother Sarah, who had watched Ishmael grow up, realized he was capable of murdering her son.
Furthermore, Abraham and Sarah were descendants of Shem, son of Noah (whence the word “Semite”) but Ishmael was not. While many nations hold that a son inherits his nationality from his father, the Jews do not. For them, it passes through the mother. Thus because Ishmael’s mother Hagar was an Egyptian, and Egypt was one of the four sons of Noah’s other son Ham, so Ishmael was a Hamite.
[. . .]
Indeed, to this day, sexually speaking, an abyss separates contemporary Judeo-Christian society from Islamic, and that is most apparent in the Judeo-Christian insistence on monogamy versus Islam’s polygamy. It is part of the Western respect for women, versus Islam’s abuse of them. (Feminists in the West can complain all they want about men, but compared to the life of women in Islam, they are living in paradise.)
Osama bin Ladin’s father sired children with fifty-six separate females. Ibn Saud, the tribal chieftain who founded the Saudi Arabia where he grew up, produced today’s four thousand princes who monopolize that country’s wealth and vie among themselves for power. Polygamy famously leads to rivalry among wives, among mothers fighting for their sons, and among half-brothers. One could make the case that Islam’s attitudes toward women are at the root of its many social pathologies and why it does not belong in America.
American culture also enshrines Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death”; the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia engraved with the Bible’s Hebrew phrase marking the Jubilee Year, “Proclaim liberty throughout the Land.”
By contrast, Islam is no friend of liberty. It means “submission,” and when a Muslim prays, he assumes the position of a slave, face to the floor. There are fifty-six officially Muslim states, most of them dictatorships and not one is a liberal democracy that any red-blooded American man or woman would want to live in.
Until Islam reforms itself or is forced to reform, it cannot be regarded as consistent with American values.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/05/islam_and_the_great_religions.html

May 17, 2015
Islam and the 'Great Religions'
By Sha'i ben-Tekoa

Las Vegas and Christian Biblical Values

[From article]
Almost all of the declared and undeclared Republican candidates for 2016 could be found this weekend at one of two events, or both.
The first was organized by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, and held in Point of Grace Church in Waukee.
Dominated by Evangelical Christians, who were 60 percent of Republican caucus-goers in 2008 and 2012, the Point of Grace Church event drew no fewer than nine Republican hopefuls.
Ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum, past winners of the Iowa caucuses, were there. So, too, were Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Scott Walter. Cruz and Walker are sons of Christian preachers.
All nine GOP hopefuls espoused Judeo-Christian values, and all nine pledged unyielding opposition to same-sex marriage.
“At a forum before evangelical Christians,” wrote The New York Times, “the Republican candidates told a cheering crowd that the fight over same-sex marriage would not end with a Supreme Court decision.
[. . .]
Having amassed a fortune of $29 billion from gambling dens in Macau and Vegas, the 81-year-old Adelson is among the richest men on earth. The event was the annual conclave of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
In Vegas, The Washington Post reports, “a crop of White House aspirants sought to outdo each other in opposition” to the Iran nuclear deal. “Ted Cruz declared that he ‘intends to do everything possible to stop a bad Iran deal.’ … Indiana Gov. Mike Pence pledged that ‘Israel’s enemies are our enemies. Israel’s cause is our cause.'”
Now, there is no conflict between being pro-Israel and anti-same-sex marriage. Yet there is still something jarring here.
[. . .]
In this tale of two cities this weekend, Waukee and Vegas, we may be witnessing a shift in moral power in the Grand Old Party.
[. . .]
Is the triumph of Vegas values over Biblical values inevitable?

http://buchanan.org/blog/biblical-values-or-vegas-values-15928

Biblical Values — or Vegas Values?
Tuesday - April 28, 2015 at 12:01 am
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Public Schools Being Used For Propaganda

[From article]
The taxpayer-funded assignment requires students to “pretend you are” a “Muslim male/female in U.S.” and “give 3 examples of what you do daily for your religion and any struggles you face.”
The assignment requires an essay of five paragraphs in length (“intro, 3 body paragraphs, closing”).
Keep in mind we’ve been doing work and watching documentaries that have the facts needed to write the essay,” Urban, the teacher adds. The two asterisks are hers.
At least some parents of students in Urban’s Union Grove High class are unhappy about the assignment.
[. . .]
Almost exactly two years ago, the Union Grove school district was in the news for another questionable assignment.
The April 2013 assignment involved a crossword puzzle teaching eighth graders that conservatives are a bunch of authoritarian, oppressive thugs.
Conservatism, according to the public school assignment, is “the political belief of preserving traditional moral values by restricting personal freedoms and encouraging prosperity through economic freedom.”
Public High School Assignment: ‘Pretend You Are Muslim’ And Consider ‘Struggles You Face’

http://pamelageller.com/2015/04/public-high-school-assignment-pretend-you-are-muslim-and-consider-struggles-you-face.html/

Public High School Assignment: ‘Pretend You Are Muslim’ And Consider ‘Struggles You Face’
By Pamela Geller
on April 15, 2015