A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:
Future Shape of Church – Ecumenical Matters
Parchment and Pen – When God Does Not Show Up
Center for Law and Religion – Can the State Order a Church to “De-Baptize” Someone?
Chelliah Laity – Bishops Accused of Not Being So Christian
Slate – That’s Obama’s Jobs Plan?
MercatorNet – Will the “Great Satan” strike a deal with Iran?
I seem to be encountering a growing misconception that the Christian “obsession” with the evils of abortion is a modern construct. Here’s an example of such thinking:
….the Catholic church has decided to make abortion its cause célèbre in its battle for social and moral relevance.
I’d like to point anybody labouring under this misconception to a blog entitled: Early Christians on Abortion, which features just one post majoring on Jewish and early Christian thought relating to abortion.
The blog post leads with:
I’ll also present ancient Jewish and Christian witnesses testifying to the anti-abortion, anti-contraception and anti-infanticide position of the Church through the ages. Prepare for a very long post.
And this post is very long as there is a vast amount of information pertaining to an anti-abortion stance emanating from the ancient Christian and Jewish thinkers.
I leave it to you to hop over and read in order to educate yourselves.
Great post by the Grain of Sand on the modern tyranny of niceness, which is in the same spirit as a fab little article on ‘niceness’ by the Anchoress – Elizabeth Scalia – entitled: The Shushing Tyranny of “Be Nice!”
I am not a nice person. I have no wish to be a nice person. The next person who tells me that the world would be a better place if we were all just a little bit nicer to each other is liable to get a punch in the snoot.
If there is one engine which is relentlessly driving Western civilisation to destruction it is the monstrous tyranny of niceness.
There is a move by the ‘Index on Censorship’ which should be supported by all thinking people, especially thinking Christians, which leaves out progressives. The ‘Index’ has called for the removal of the word ‘insulting’ from the Public Order Act on the basis that the word’s inclusion in legislation has “a corrosive effect on free speech” in the UK.
At present Section 5 of the Public Order Act imposes criminal penalties for using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress.
This should be opposed vigorously and not just because it leaves Christians wide open to charges that we have ‘insulted’ any particular group who take umbrage when we don’t give wholehearted approval to their particular depravity. It should be opposed by all thinking people on the simple grounds that some people, movements and ideas need to be insulted.
As from 30th April this year, nestled amongst adverts featuring sweet meerkats and tasty morsels from M&S, we will be treated with adverts from abortion clinics.
Of course, the new rules issued by the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) and The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) are couched in friendly terminology, as according to them, this is really just advertising: “Post-Conception Advice Services (PCAS)”. Now doesn’t that sound better than advertising “Abortion Services”.
We’re duly reassured that PCAS is all about offering a wide range of services such as: Advice on health and well-being, provision of ultrasound services and so on. Well what decent person would argue against advertising these innocuous sounding services?
We’re assured of sensitive treatment of the subject and appropriate scheduling.
Of course, the crux of these new rules is to remove the prohibition on commercial PCAS advertising on TV and Radio. Welcome to our living rooms Marie Stopes and British Pregnancy Advisory Services.
And let’s be brutally honest for one moment. Organisations such as Marie Stopes and British Pregnancy Advisory Services may well camouflage themselves, but when we boil it down, they are in the business of abortion, evidenced by the fact that they are Britain’s biggest abortion lobbyists.
And let me reveal the really sinister anomaly in these new rules.
Those PCAS groups that do not refer women to abortion services, i.e. pro-life groups, must declare this fact in their adverts; however, those groups that do refer women for abortion, do not have to declare this fact, and further, they are under no obligation to declare a financial interest in women opting for termination!
How sinister is that? And this particular rule is devised under the concept of transparency. How ironic is that?
These new rules are also being legitimised in that commercial pro-life pregnancy services will now be able to advertise also. One problem with that, there are no commercial pro-life pregnancy groups in the UK. They’re all not-for-profit and so will never be able to afford to advertise on TV and radio in the same way as the hugely wealthy abortion providers.
These adverts will be subject to the rules in the Code requiring advertisements not to be harmful, offensive or misleading.
Well, I certainly think abortion is rather harmful to the baby. I find the prospect of abortion providers advertising on TV and radio offensive. And the legitimisation and desensitisation which comes through advertising on mainstream TV and radio is certainly misleading.
Interesting development. I wonder if we’ll eventually see the day when Christians are prosecuted under these laws. For a little background on this law, click here.
Three Muslim men have been found guilty of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation after distributing a leaflet that said Islam called for anyone caught committing homosexuality to be executed.
Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed handed out the pamphlet, called The Death Penalty?, which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.
Today at Derby Crown Court they were convicted by a jury of distributing threatening written material intending to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation in the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010.
This story is absolutely disgraceful and thoroughly disturbing. Thankfully sense prevailed in the appeals court.
But worryingly, as PsychCentral commented:
Here’s the real kicker though… This is just the one story we know about because the records — which are usually sealed — were unsealed on appeal. In most state cases where this sort of thing is decided, you’ll never hear about it.
It goes on every day in the U.S., hundreds of times a year.
Very scary!
Scotland’s largest health board has been taken to court by Catholic staff who claim conscientious objections over abortion procedures were disregarded.
Midwifery sisters Mary Doogan, 57, and Concepta Wood, 51, say being forced to supervise staff taking part in abortions violates their human rights.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde claims conscientious objections do not give them the right to refuse such duties.
The hearing, at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, continues.
Ms Doogan and Mrs Wood sought during a grievance procedure to have confirmation that they were not required to delegate, supervise or support staff in the participation and care of patients through “the processes of medical termination of pregnancy and feticide”.
Dr Jim West alerts us to “Sanctity of Life Day” in the US:
So, many Churches across the SBC will be thinking about the value of human life and the holocaust called abortion.
In America – on average – there are 1,210,000 abortions performed annually. That means that in less than a decade more people are killed than perished in the Holocaust. It also means that in just a few years we kill more children than have been killed in every war we have ever fought, combined.
I know this is obvious to say, but I’m no biologist, neuroscientist, or what have you, and so please forgive my ignorance. I’m looking for your input.
I know from my reading that some serious metal illnesses are suspected to be the result of a shrunken hippocampus.
It would seem that a drug has just entered human trials which promises to re-grow that part of the brain.
The ethical problem is that the biotech company involved appears to have used aborted fetal cell in their research.
Of course, the prospect of a curative medicine in relation to mental illness excites me tremendously. And I confess, I did muse unto myself that the aborted fetus was going to die anyway and so why not bring some positive out of the situation.
I know I should consider this attitude with revulsion; however, does the prospect of curing mental illness and hopefully developing an adult stem-cell approach legitimise this? Or not?
I totally support the campaign against the proposed cuts in Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and will break the habit of a lifetime and link to an important document held on the Ekklesia website:
A Report on the proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance (PDF)
Chelliah Laity tells us of a vigil outside Parliament tomorrow.
Here are some other Ekklesia links:
Boris Johnson attacks government on Disability Living Allowance
Disabled people say that government welfare reforms are a ‘sham’
‘Spartacus report’ on disability takes Internet by storm
Disabled activists pause because of illness, but campaign goes on
They always attack the weakest in society…..
