| 1. Where is the United States in Prophecy? A New Moral Code For The United States
American society has become more intrigued by moral issues in recent years, as evidenced by the fact that 55% of adults discuss moral issues with others during a typical week. But a nationwide survey by The Barna Group indicates that Americans have also redefined what it means to do the right thing in their own lives. Researchers asked adults which, if any, of eight behaviors with moral overtones they had engaged in during the past week. The behaviors included exposure to pornography, using profanity in public, gambling, gossiping, engaging in sexual intercourse with someone to whom they were not married, retaliating against someone, getting drunk, and lying. A majority of adults had engaged in at least one of those eight behaviors during the past week. According to George Barna, who directed the survey, the results reflect a significant shift in American life. "We are witnessing the development and acceptance of a new moral code in America," said the researcher and author, who has been surveying national trends in faith and morality for more than a quarter-century. "Mosaics have had little exposure to traditional moral teaching and limited accountability for such behavior. The moral code began to disintegrate when the generation before them - the Baby Busters - pushed the limits that had been challenged by their parents - the Baby Boomers. The result is that without much fanfare or visible leadership, the U.S. has created a moral system based on convenience, feelings, and selfishness. "The consistent deterioration of the Bible as the source of moral truth has led to a nation where people have become independent judges of right and wrong, basing their choices on feelings and circumstances. It is not likely that America will return to a more traditional moral code until the nation experiences significant pain from its moral choices." ................ read more New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers
A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday. The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations. As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks. Congress overhauled the federal wiretapping law in July, for instance, and President Bush issued an executive order this month ratifying new roles for intelligence agencies. Other pending changes would also authorize greater sharing of intelligence information with the local police, a major push in the last seven years............ read more America's demonization next step in New World Order?
After the recent Georgian incursion into South Ossetia, discussion has been rampant regarding America's influence and dominance on the world scene. The United States is going to - and to a degree already is - be held up as an example of why "global mechanisms" and a "world structure" need to be in place to prevent such actions as the invasion of Iraq and U.S. support of Georgian forces in the invasion of South Ossetia. We've been presented with a problem, now globalist think tanks and organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations will provide us with a solution. National sovereignty has no place in this era, so we're told. We must "share power". Former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has stated that he sees the U.S. led Iraq war as an example of the need for a "new world order" to manage the globe. Turkish President Abdullah Gul has made similar statements recently in response to the Georgia-Russia conflict. As the AFP reports, "Turkish President Abdullah Gul predicted "a new world order" of joint international action, in an interview published in the U.K. on Saturday. He added that the conflict in Georgia shows the U.S. can no longer shape global politics on its own, and that it should start sharing power with other nations."........... read more
2. Israel - God's Timepiece Israel and Iran: the Armageddon scenario
It is becoming increasingly likely that Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities in the next few months. Indeed, over the past few weeks, signs of an impending strike have been widely reported, with the Israeli government itself fuelling much of the speculation. While much of the recent media commentary has revolved around the question of whether Israel has the military capability to undertake such a difficult mission, this emphasis misses the larger point, which is that an Israeli strike may set off a chain reaction that could prove difficult to control. Assuming that the Israeli Air Force attacks -- regardless of whether or not the raid is successful -- the Iranian response will be the key to determining how serious the crisis becomes. Thus, how Tehran retaliates will result in either a tense -- but ultimately limited -- crisis, one where threats will be issued and warnings made but military action will be measured and somewhat predictable, or conversely, in a rapidly escalating crisis that might threaten the stability of the entire region, and may result in the total devastation of some states............... read more Dangerous Ground - US to guarantee treaty dividing Jerusalem
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, completing a visit to the region today, has been pressing Israel to sign a document by the end of the year that would divide Jerusalem by offering the Palestinians a state in Israel's capital city as well as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to top diplomatic sources involved in the talks. The Israeli team, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has been negotiating the division of Jerusalem – despite claims to the contrary – but would rather conclude an agreement on paper by the end of the year that would give the Palestinians a state in the West Bank, Gaza and some Israeli territory, leaving conclusions on Jerusalem for a later date, the informed diplomatic sources told WND. The sources said the Palestinian team has been pushing to conclude a deal by January on all core issues, including Jerusalem, and has been petitioning the U.S. to pressure Israel into signing an agreement on paper that offers the Palestinians eastern Jerusalem. Rice, the sources said, has asked Israeli leaders to bend to what the U.S. refers to as a "compromise position," concluding an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of the year that guarantees sections of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. But Israel would not be required to withdraw from Jerusalem for a period of one to five years. The diplomatic sources said the plan is that once an Israeli-Palestinian deal is reached on paper by January, Bush would issue an official letter guaranteeing that the U.S. supports the conclusions of the document. Any Israeli-Palestinian paper agreement is to finalize a process that began at last November's U.S. backed Annapolis conference, which seeks to create a Palestinian state, at least on paper, before Bush leaves office............... read more Hizbullah-Iran-Syria-Lebanon Axis Tightens
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned this week that his terrorist army is much stronger than before the Second Lebanon War and can destroy Israel. He issued the threat at a Boy Scout ceremony as a response to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remark last week that "if Lebanon becomes a Hizbullah state, then we won't have any restrictions" in striking the country. The Prime Minister claimed that during the last war, Israel did not use all of its firepower because the enemy was Hizbullah and not its host country Lebanon. The flurry of threats and warnings came two days after a report in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera that three Hizbullah leaders visited Russia in July to clinch a deal involving the purchase of anti-tank missiles and air-defense systems. Israel disclosed evidence during the Second Lebanon War that Hizbullah used advanced Russian anti-tank missiles smuggled from Syria, in violation of previous international agreements. Nasrallah said, in a speech televised by the Hizbullah-backed Al Manar satellite network, that his arsenal of weapons is so great that "the Zionists will think not one thousand times but tens of thousands of times before they attack Lebanon." ............. read more Getting the World to Hate Israel
As part of evaluating the competitive landscape of the popularity of nations, in a process referred to in marketing circles as "place branding", Israel, to no one's great surprise, comes up short in brand likeability, ranking last out of 35 nations included in an August 2006 survey conducted by nation-branding expert Simon Anholt. How could this have happened to a country that is the Middle East's only thriving democracy and that enjoys a remarkably robust economy which has spawned some 1,000 startup high-tech companies, for example, second only to the US? How, in short, would you go about making the world hate Israel? This is how you would accomplish that objective if you were an enemy of Israel: You use the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to repeatedly demonize and delegitimize Israel, making it a pariah in the world community and issuing an edict that equates Zionism with racism. In 2006-07, if you are the Human Rights Council, you pass one hundred percent of your condemnatory resolutions against Israel. You inculcate Palestinian children, nearly from birth, with seething, blind, unrelenting and obsessive hatred of Jews and the "Zionist regime," so that kindergarteners graduate while toting plastic AK-47s and dedicate their lives to jihad, while older children are recruited to hide explosives on their bodies to transform themselves into shahids - a new generation of kindling for radical Islam's cult of death. When Israel launches a military strike against nests of terrorists or in response to ceaseless rocket barrages, you term their response "disproportionate," another escalation in the "cycle of violence," a violation of human rights. You fund Middle Eastern Studies centers on university campuses and use them as anti-Israel, anti-American "think tanks" where scholarship is tainted with ideology and singularly focused on the Palestinian cause. You fund the active and vocal Muslim Students Association on campuses across the US that hold "Israel Apartheid Week" and "Holocaust in the Holy Land" festivals at which propaganda, Jew-hatred, apologies for terrorism and further demonizing of Israel take place. In the Arab world, you play fast and loose with history in your attempt to create a historical narrative conforming to your own political agenda, erasing any link between Palestine and the Jews. Though Jerusalem is mentioned not once in the Koran and over 669 times in the Jewish Bible, you claim that Jerusalem is now the "third holiest site to Muslims," that, as Yasser Arafat announced at Camp David in 2000, the Temple Mount was never a Jewish site, that Jews now "occupy" Muslim lands.. ............... read more Dominos anyone?
Russia's invasion of Georgia is exposing many aspects of the international system that the US-led West has studiously ignored since the fall of the Soviet Union. One old truth that deserves attention is that the domino-theory of international relations remains true. That theory asserts that events in one arena will foment similar events in other arenas. Great powers are not the only ones that can cause dominos to fall. Small states can as well. Israel's actions make this point clearly. Israel's refusal to acknowledge the interconnectedness of international events impacts events throughout the region. The US's strategic myopia affects events throughout the world. Recent occurrences in Pakistan bear this out. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks the US has ignored the domestic situation in Pakistan. First it placed all its faith in Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to act as its ally. Washington ignored Musharraf's refusal to purge the Pakistani military and powerful Inter Service Intelligence agency of its strong jihadist elements that collaborated with al Qaida and the Taliban and provided them safe haven and allowed them to take control over the provinces bordering Afghanistan. Then, in an about face, last year Washington attempted to advance its program of democratization of the Islamic world by pressuring Musharraf to allow open elections to Pakistan's parliament. Unfortunately, the US failed to notice that the supposedly democratic contending parties all hate America and oppose taking any action against the Taliban and al Qaida. Now that the anti-Western, "democratic" forces that the US has unleashed have forced Musharraf from power, the US has no allies at all in Pakistan's political and military-intelligence power structures with whom to collaborate in fighting the Taliban and al Qaida. Even more disturbingly, the US has no one it can trust to ensure that jihadist forces do not gain access to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal................ read more Jews in the Temple Area: A "Mount"-ing Controversy
Several of Israel’s leading rabbis have fired the latest shot in one of modern Israel’s longest-running halachic disputes—whether a Jew may enter the Temple Mount nowadays. Rabbis Ovadia Yosef, Shalom Elyashiv and Chaim Kanievsky recently sent a letter to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich, the rabbi in charge of the Western Wall area, asking him to repeat a 40-year-old decree prohibiting Jews from entering the Temple Mount. The decree was originally signed by most leading rabbis upon the Mount’s capture by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. The Temple Mount is the area upon which both Holy Temples stood, in which the priests offered sacrifices, and where thrice-yearly convocations of the whole nation of Israel took place during the festivals of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Weeks) and Sukkot (Tabernacles). In the center of the Temple complex stood a Holy of Holies that guarded the Holy Ark—once containing the original Tablets of the Law given to Moses by G-d at Mt. Sinai—and the Foundation Stone for the creation of the universe. That spot is the holiest point in the world and the place that the High Priest entered only once a year to offer the most important atonement sacrifice of the year. The modern debate centers on whether or not there is enough information from classical rabbinical sources to identify the location of the Holy of Holies, as well as the layout of the Temple, which articulated specific areas accessible to different categories of Jews. The biblical prohibition against a person entering an area in the Temple complex forbidden to him carries with it the severe Divine penalty of karet............... read more Training Kids for Terror
For most kids, summer is a time for vacation, a break from the classroom, homework and tests, time to have fun with family and friends. But in the Gaza Strip, that's not the case. Here thousands of Palestinian children participating in summer camp programs are being trained to be future terrorists. This summer, the temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which began June 19, has not only provided a time for Hamas to regroup, but also allowed more time to recruit a new wave of kids to become the fighters of the future. In Gaza's summer camps, children learn that Jews are to be hated and killed. CBN News spoke with Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, an organization that monitors Palestinian culture, including schools and summer camps, to understand, among other things, how the children are being raised. "There are a couple of levels to turning an innocent child into a terrorist," Marcus said "The first one is pumping him up with hatred. The second one is training him with weaponry so that he will feel empowered. You put that together with the weaponry and when he grows older, he will be a terrorist," he said. While the US is pushing hard for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, in Hamas-run Gaza, they're preparing for one state -- Palestine -- minus Israel. And they're raising the next generation to believe they can make that vision reality. .............. read more
3. A Revived Roman Empire? Europe of the future: Germany shrinks, France grows, but UK population booms
Britain will overtake Germany and France to become the biggest country in the EU in 50 years' time, according to population projections unveiled yesterday. A survey of demographic trends finds Britain's positive birth rate contrasting strongly with most other large countries in Europe. The impact of population shrinkage, coupled with the ageing of key European societies, spells big problems for pensions, health and welfare systems across much of the union, says the report, published by Eurostat, the statistical service of the European commission. But Britain, it says, is likely to suffer less because of its strong population growth and the younger average age of British society. Immigration is singled out as the sole mitigating factor, seen as crucial to maintaining population growth. But the report says this probably will not be enough to reverse the trend of population decline in many countries. The survey predicts that Britain's population by 2060 will increase by 25% from the current figure of just over 61 million to almost 77 million. Germany is the biggest country in the EU, with more than 82 million people, but it is likely to shed almost 12 million by 2060, says the report. The widely praised family policies and support of working women in France means that the French population will rise to almost 72 million by 2060. With the British birth rate now at its highest in a generation - 1.91 children per woman according to the Office for National Statistics last week - the UK has less to fear about any "generation wars" brought on by the "demographic timebomb" of ageing and shrinking populations where those in work cannot support the pension needs of retired citizens................. read more Javier Solana to step in as mediator/trustee for Israeli-Palestinian peace accord?
Some diplomatic movement has returned to the Middle East. Under American supervision, Israelis and Palestinians have been negotiating again since the end of 2007. Israel's outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who lead the talks, are both aware of the contours of a possible, mutually acceptable agreement, and they seem to have come closer with regard to some of the particularly difficult so-called final-status issues. Nonetheless, even under the most positive scenario, the best one could expect is a further narrowing of the gaps. A comprehensive agreement that would sort out such complex issues as the future of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, future borders between Israel and Palestine, or infrastructural links between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, will not be reached within only a couple of months. And neither Israel's prime minister nor the Palestinian president would today have the authority and the necessary majorities to ratify, let alone to implement a peace agreement. The current U.S. administration will cease to play its role after the November elections; many of its representatives will by then be looking for new jobs. The new U.S. president will first have to get his senior officials confirmed by Congress, and a foreign policy review, before he begins any major policy initiative. As a result, we should expect a time-out for any active American involvement in the Middle East peace process between the end of this year and at least March or April 2009. Herein lays Europe's challenge. As an active partner in the so-called Middle East Quartet with the United States, Russia and the United Nations, the EU has helped to bring about the current talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The EU must now prepare itself to keep the process alive from the end of this year through to next spring. Considering such a task we also have to be aware of the particular structures of the Union. The Union, through its Council of Foreign Ministers, should as soon as possible give a mandate to Javier Solana, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU, to make himself available, with the approval of Israel, the Palestinians, and the current U.S. administration, as a temporary mediator for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from the end of the year. The EU can act as a temporary trustee for the process, thereby preventing it from breaking down and, given its knowledge of the regional situation, help the parties to find practical solutions for some of the most complicated final-status questions - for example, the political division of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states - only to hand back the process and the role of external guidance to Washington once the new administration there is ready for it................. read more
4. The Gog/Magog War Will economic blockade of Iran be the first step to conflict?
The media has long been talking about the use of the Iranian nuclear program as a bargaining chip in Russian-U.S. relations. The proposed deal is as follows: the United States leaves Georgia to Russia, and in exchange Russia allows it to lead Iran like a lamb to the slaughter. To all intents and purposes, Georgia's adventure in South Ossetia should have dismissed this option, but the suspicions of an exchange have become even stronger. However, it is not clear how justified they are. The Egyptian Middle East Times reported that having completed exercises simulating the blockade of the Iranian coast, the joint U.S., British, and French fleet is already moving to the Persian Gulf. The fleet includes three carrier groups, the first led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt with 80 aircraft, the second by the USS Ronald Reagan, and the third by the USS Iwo Jima. All in all, more than 40 naval units, including aircraft-carriers, cruisers, and submarines, some of which carry nuclear weapons, will gather off the Iranian shores. This situation is hardly normal, though the United States regularly concentrates excessive numbers of naval units in the Persian Gulf. The Middle East Times wrote that Kuwait has already introduced a program of action in the event of war. For the most part, experts are talking about two explanations. Under the first one, the United States and its allies are getting ready to blockade Iran. They want to shut down the Persian Gulf, through which Iran receives 40% of its fuel, and to prevent the Iranian navy from sinking oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz in case of a blockade. The second theory is that the huge naval presence is intended to support Israeli air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The first looks more plausible for the moment................. read more
5. Apostate Christianity Survey: Christian Women Report Sexual Misconduct at Church
More than a quarter of Christian women have experienced sexual harassment and of those, one fourth said it happened in a church or ministry setting, a new study shows. Self-described "active Christian women" who were surveyed last fall reported personally encountering sexually inappropriate behavior mainly in a non-ministry setting, but up to 25 percent of the employed women said they experienced such behavior in a ministry setting. In a ministry setting, 25 percent of the surveyed women said they personally experienced gender discrimination; 19 percent reported demeaning comments; 18 percent reported suggestive jokes; 16 percent said they experienced glances with sexual overtones; 15 percent reported touching or sexual contact; and 14 percent said they experienced a hostile environment. Such behaviors as suggestive jokes should not be taken lightly, one minister says. "There is a lot of inappropriate 'conversation' being tolerated by women so as not to antagonize men in their workplaces," said Joy Thornburg Melton, an ordained minister and attorney who currently serves in the United Methodist Church................ read more
7. Increase in Knowledge/New Technologies Kidnapping fears in Mexico lead many to microchip implants
Wealthy Mexicans, terrified of soaring kidnapping rates, are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them tied up in a safe house or stuffed in the trunk of a car. Kidnapping jumped almost 40 percent between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico according to official statistics. Mexico ranks with conflict zones like Iraq and Colombia as among the worst countries for abductions. More middle-class people also are also seeking out the tiny chip designed by Xega, a Mexican security firm whose sales jumped 13 percent this year. The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients' bodies with a syringe. A transmitter then sends signals via satellite to pinpoint the location of a person in distress. Cristina, 28, who did not want to give her last name, was implanted along with seven other members of her family last year as a "preventive measure." "It's not like we are wealthy people, but they'll kidnap you for a watch ... Everyone is living in fear," she said....................... read more Human exoskeleton suit helps paralyzed people walk
Paralyzed for the past 20 years, former Israeli paratrooper Radi Kaiof now walks down the street with a dim mechanical hum. That is the sound of an electronic exoskeleton moving the 41-year-old's legs and propelling him forward -- with a proud expression on his face -- as passersby stare in surprise. "I never dreamed I would walk again. After I was wounded, I forgot what it's like," said Kaiof, who was injured while serving in the Israeli military in 1988. "Only when standing up can I feel how tall I really am and speak to people eye to eye, not from below." The device, called ReWalk, is the brainchild of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies, a small Israeli high-tech company. Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by comic hero Iron Man, ReWalk helps paraplegics -- people paralyzed below the waist -- to stand, walk and climb stairs. The system, which requires crutches to help with balance, consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a back pack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries. The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band -- stand, sit, walk, descend or climb -- and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion. "It raises people out of their wheelchair and lets them stand up straight," Goffer said........................ read more Intel & Transformers - more than meets the eye
If you've been comforting yourself with the thought that Megatron can't take over the world and turn us into slaves to his robotic whims because he doesn't exist, you may want to have a word or two with the CTO of Intel, Justin Rattner. Why? Because he spent his keynote address at last week's Intel Developer Forum telling a terrified audience that Intel is already at work creating intelligent robots that can change their shape. Talking last Thursday, Rattner unveiled his plan to use Intel's vast technological empire to create real-life Decepticons: He explained that Intel researchers are working to figure out how to harness millions of miniature robots, called catoms, so they could function as shape-shifting swarms. "What if those machines had a small amount of intelligence, and they could assemble themselves into various shapes and were capable of movement or locomotion?" he said. "If you had enough of them, you could create arbitrary shapes and have the assembly of machines that could take on any form and move in arbitrary ways." The basic idea is that the catoms, which one day should be about the size of a grain of sand, could be manipulated with electromagnetic forces to cling together in various 3D forms. Rattner said that Intel has been expanding on research work done by Seth Goldstein, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University. "We're actually doing it for real," Rattner said. He added that Intel started "at the macro scale," with catoms that were "inches across." The robots had microprocessors associated with them and could attract or repel one another via electromagnetism or the use of electrostatic charges, according to Rattner. "It's programmable matter," he said. Sure, it's programmable now, but just wait - All it takes is one of those things to get exposed to the All-Spark, and then... well, you know what's about to happen........................ read more How RFID Tags Could Be Used to Track Unsuspecting People
If you live in a state bordering Canada or Mexico, you may soon be given an opportunity to carry a very high tech item: a remotely readable driver’s license. Designed to identify U.S. citizens as they approach the nation’s borders, the cards are being promoted by the Department of Homeland Security as a way to save time and simplify border crossings. But if you care about your safety and privacy as much as convenience, you might want to think twice before signing up. The new licenses come equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that can be read right through a wallet, pocket or purse from as far away as 30 feet. Each tag incorporates a tiny microchip encoded with a unique identification number. As the bearer approaches a border station, radio energy broadcast by a reader device is picked up by an antenna connected to the chip, causing it to emit the ID number. By the time the license holder reaches the border agent, the number has already been fed into a Homeland Security database, and the traveler’s photograph and other details are displayed on the agent’s screen. Although such “enhanced” driver’s licenses remain voluntary in the states that offer them, privacy and security experts are concerned that those who sign up for the cards are unaware of the risk: anyone with a readily available reader device—unscrupulous marketers, government agents, stalkers, thieves and just plain snoops—can also access the data on the licenses to remotely track people without their knowledge or consent. What is more, once the tag’s ID number is associated with an individual’s identity—for example, when the person carrying the license makes a credit-card transaction—the radio tag becomes a proxy for that individual. And the driver’s licenses are just the latest addition to a growing array of “tagged” items that consumers might be wearing or carrying around, such as transit and toll passes, office key cards, school IDs, “contactless” credit cards, clothing, phones and even groceries....................... read more
8. Christian Worldview/Issues Israel to Display the Dead Sea Scrolls on the Internet
In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet. Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact. The 2,000-year-old scrolls, found in the late 1940s in caves near the Dead Sea east of Jerusalem, contain the earliest known copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible (missing only the Book of Esther), as well as apocryphal texts and descriptions of rituals of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus. The texts, most of them on parchment but some on papyrus, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. The scrolls’ contemporary history has been something of a tortured one because they are among the most important sources of information on Jewish and early Christian life. After their initial discovery they were tightly held by a small circle of scholars. In the last 20 years access has improved significantly, and in 2001 they were published in their entirety. But debate over them seems only to grow. ............. read more UK - Women Leaving Church For Witchcraft - Wicca
The report claims more than 50,000 women a year have deserted their congregations over the past two decades because they feel the church is not relevant to their lives. It says that instead young women are becoming attracted to the pagan religion Wicca, where females play a central role, which has grown in popularity after being featured positively in films, TV shows and books. The study comes amid ongoing controversy over the role of women in all Christian denominations. Last month its governing body voted to allow women to become bishops for the first time, having admitted them to the priesthood in 1994, but traditionalist bishops have warned that hundreds of clergy and parishes will leave if the move goes ahead as planned. The report's author, Dr Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby, said: "In short, women are abandoning the church. "Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Women's ordination, as priests and now bishops, has dominated debate and headlines – but while looking at women in the pulpit we have taken our eyes off the pews, where a shift with more consequences for the church's survival is underway."............. read more Now on the Hallmark aisle: Gay marriage cards
Most states don't recognize gay marriage -- but now Hallmark does. The nation's largest greeting card company is rolling out same-sex wedding cards -- featuring two tuxedos, overlapping hearts or intertwined flowers, with best wishes inside. "Two hearts. One promise," one says. Hallmark added the cards after California joined Massachusetts as the only U.S. states with legal gay marriage. A handful of other states have recognized same-sex civil unions. The language inside the cards is neutral, with no mention of wedding or marriage, making them also suitable for a commitment ceremony. Hallmark says the move is a response to consumer demand, not any political pressure. "It's our goal to be as relevant as possible to as many people as we can," Hallmark spokeswoman Sarah Gronberg Kolell said. Hallmark's largest competitor, American Greetings Corp., has no plans to enter the market, saying its current offerings are general enough to speak to a lot of different relationships. Hallmark started offering "coming out" cards last year, and the four designs of same-sex marriage cards are being gradually released this summer and will be widely available by next year. No sales figures were available yet. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates that more than 85,000 same-sex couples in the United States have entered into a legal relationship since 1997, when Hawaii started offering some legal benefits to same-sex partners. It estimates nearly 120,000 more couples will marry in California during the next three years -- and that means millions of potential dollars for all sorts of wedding-industry businesses............ read more Clarity of New Chronological Bible at Question
A new Bible that arranges Scripture according to when the events occurred – as opposed to when it was written – has stirred debate in the Christian blogosphere on whether the chronological ordering leads to clarity or confusion. Bible publishing giant Thomas Nelson is set to debut the Chronological Study Bible next month, marketing the book as the "only study Bible that presents the text of the New King James Version in chronological order." In the edition, well-known books in the Bible like the Gospels, Psalms and the Epistles of Apostle Paul are chopped up and re-woven with other texts to fit the historical timeline. The accounts of Jesus' life as detailed in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are combined into one narrative based on the order of events found in Mark. Psalm 51 is lifted out from the longest book in the Bible and placed after the story of King David and Bathsheba. But some Christians see a dead end to this journey. "It bothers me when bad historical criticism trumps narrative structure," writes one blogger by the name of Drew. "It’s primarily a set of theological texts that have historical significance, not a set of historical texts that have theological significance.” Re-working the text "removes the significance of the authorship through that process of transmission," he added. Many biblical scholars find the project interesting but hold reservations. "I do think you do lose something when you start demolishing any book of the Bible," said Richard Hess, professor of Old Testament at Denver Seminary in Colorado, according to The Tennessean. "You lose the literary and theological context."........... read more
9. Other World Events To Watch Missing Radioactive Material: Who is taking it - and should we be worried?
Since the end of the cold war, the United Nations has logged more than 800 incidents in which radioactive material has gone missing, often from poorly guarded sites. Who is taking it - and should we be worried? There is no question that the threat of nuclear terrorism is real. As long ago as 1998, Osama bin Laden declared it was a religious duty to acquire nuclear weapons "to terrorize the enemies of God". Just days before the September 11 attacks in 2001, the al-Qaida leader met a Pakistani delegation, including two retired nuclear scientists, in Kandahar. According to accounts of that meeting, Bin Laden expressed keen interest in how to build a bomb and was told it was technically quite simple - acquiring the fissile material was the main obstacle. ............. read more |
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