Considerettes

Today is the “Day of Truth”.

Christian students at more than 700 high schools across the nation will join today in an event to counter homosexual activism.

The number of participants in the “Day of Truth” has doubled over last year, according to the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is sponsoring the event.

ADF President, CEO, and General Counsel Alan Sears sees the “Day of Truth” as an opportunity to express a different perspective than the “Day of Silence,” promoted by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educational Network\.

Participating students wear T-shirts and hand out cards with the following text:

I am speaking the Truth to break the silence. Silence isn’t freedom. It’s a constraint. Truth tolerates open discussion, because the Truth emerges when healthy discourse is allowed. By proclaiming the Truth in love, hurts will be halted, hearts will be healed, and lives will be saved.

And that is what we need, regardless of the issue; the Truth.

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Doesn’t this school system have anything better to do with its time and money?

After seven years, a court case involving a kindergartner’s drawing of Jesus for a class assignment in the Baldwinsville school district will go to trial in federal court in Syracuse.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear the Baldwinsville school district’s request to have the case thrown out.

Now a federal judge in Syracuse will have to decide whether the district censored a Christian perspective, said Mathew Staver, attorney for the now sixth-grader Antonio Peck and his mother, JoAnne. He called it good news for Peck and other children in the nation.

“It’s huge because if (the decision) had gone the other way it would allow teachers and school officials to treat religious perspectives like they’re unwelcome,” Staver said.

The details of the “offense” are an example of political correctness and sensitivity training run amok.

In June 1999, Antonio Peck was told to create a poster about the environment. Peck drew a picture depicting Jesus praying and two children kneeling before a rock with the word “savior” on it. The words “The only way to save our world” were across the top, according to earlier reports. Peck was told by his kindergarten teacher Susan Weichert to redo the assignment.

He did.

The new drawing had people recycling and throwing away trash, as well as a robed man kneeling with his hands outstretched toward the sky.

The district displayed it along with 80 others in McNamara Elementary School’s cafeteria, Staver said. But the picture was folded, hiding the robed man, presumed to be Jesus.

“It makes someone like Antonio feel like he’s unwelcome, like his faith is wrong,” Staver said.

This was a kindergartner’s picture, for goodness sake. The supposed “tolerance” of other views in the school system has reached a new low, and keeps digging with each passing appeal. The school system will simply not allow religion to be tolerated.

Staver said the family ultimately wants the school district to adopt a policy that states “whenever students respond to class assignments they should be able to present religious perspectives,” Staver said.

“They have refused to do so,” he said.

Is it any wonder so many religious families opt to homeschool?

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out. Comments welcome.)

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I’m thrilled.

President Bush on Wednesday named conservative commentator Tony Snow as White House press secretary, putting a new face on a troubled administration.

Snow, a Fox news pundit and former speechwriter in the White House under Bush’s father, replaced Scott McClellan who resigned in a personnel shuffle intended to re-energize the White House and lift the president’s record-low approval ratings.

I think Snow’s engaging manner will be a breath of fresh air after a number of press secretaries, from both parties, that have been tiresome to watch (though Ari Fleischer was a little better).

And if putting a Fox News contributor on the White House staff somehow “proves” that Fox is in the hip pocket of this administration, what did the hiring of George Stephanopoulos by ABC “prove” about ABC? Just askin’.

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The ACLU has lost another Ten Commandments display ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union suffered another defeat in its quest to bar the Ten Commandments from the public square today as the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a display of the Decalogue in Kentucky is constitutional.

In the case ACLU of Kentucky v. Mercer County, Kentucky, the court voted 9-5 to uphold the Foundations of American Law and Government display at the county courthouse.

The display includes the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Charta, the Star-Spangled Banner, the National Motto, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, and a picture of Lady Justice.

These kinds of lawsuits should be considered frivolous at this point. The Supreme Court was pretty clear that the Ten Commandments, as part of an overall historical display, isn’t a problem. The only reason the ACLU could possibly be continuing this sort of harassment is to drain defendants’ money, and hope that such a drain will cause others to cave who would otherwise prevail in court. It’s not about (and I don’t think it was ever about) what’s constitutional and what isn’t. It’s been about who the ACLU can scare into compliance.

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Bad news for Democrats.

Consumers shrugged off higher gasoline prices in April and sent a widely watched barometer of consumer confidence to its highest level in almost four years, a private research group said Tuesday.

Relying solely on a single economic factor to win elections for you is a losing strategy. Glad to see that people aren’t (yet) forgetting that there’s more to the economy than the price at the pump.

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Are you OK with Iran having nuclear technology? Do you believe that they’ll act responsibly with it?

If so, does this modify your attitude?

The remarks on sharing nuclear technology by Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, came as he met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

“Iran’s nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country. … The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists,” Khamenei told al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir said last month that his impoverished, wartorn country was considering trying to create a nuclear program to generate electrical power.

Such a transfer of technology would be legal as long as it is between signatory-states to the nonproliferation treaty, and as long as the IAEA was informed.

But do you think that Iran, on an IAEA-dissing binge lately, breaking their current treaties, and considering leaving the Nonproliferation Treaty, will care whether or not such a transfer would be legal? All of a sudden, trusting Iran means trusting by extension anyone they might deem worthy of nukes.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out and Blogger News Network. Comments welcome.)

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If it was proposed that the United States reduce the following pollutants (based on 1970 levels)…

• Carbon monoxide by half
• Particulate emissions by 80%
• Sulfur dioxide emissions by half
• and virtually eliminate lead emissions

…would you consider that a reasonable proposal and ask the government to sign it? If we didn’t sign it, would you consider it proof that we don’t care about the environment? Do you believe that the free market or our own legislation couldn’t possibly do this without an international treaty?

You’d be surprised. That’s exactly what we have done, all without the Kyoto Protocol. The Wall St. Journal covered
the “Index of Leading Environmental Indicators”, which is published annually around Earth Day and it has its own web site as well.

The WSJ reminds us that the dire predictions of today are coming from the same people and groups that have a poor track record.

This year, for example, Vanity Fair has inaugurated an “Earth Issue,” comprising 246 glossy, non-recycled pages of fashion ads, celebrity worship and environmental apocalypse. Highlights include computer-generated images of New York City underwater and the Washington mall as one big reflecting pool. The magazine also includes a breathless essay by U.S. environmental conscience-in-chief Al Gore. The message is that we are headed for an environmental catastrophe of the first order, and only drastic changes to the way we live can possibly prevent it.

If arguments were won through the use of italics, Mr. Gore would prevail in a knockout. But as Mr. Hayward notes in his “Index,” the environmental movement as a whole has developed a credibility problem since the first Earth Day 36 years ago. In the 1970s, prominent greens were issuing dire predictions about mass starvation, overpopulation and–of all things–global cooling. Since then, population-growth estimates have come way down, biotechnology advances have found ways to feed more people than the doomsayers believed possible, and the global-cooling crisis has become the global-warming crisis without missing a beat.

The democratic process, the free market and scientific advancement really don’t get enough credit in all of this. Treaties from on high that try to micromanage the process are a type of environmental socialism that has been shown not to work so many times in other ares of human behavior.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger New Network and Redstate.)

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At about the same time that the movie “The Da Vinci Code” comes out, Dr. James Kennedy’s TV special called “The Da Vinci Delusion” will hit local television. Check out the site to find out where and when it will be broadcast in your area.

I heard about this from the April 20th podcast of Active Christian Media, hosted by Stacy L. Harp. It’s truly amazing the fully-discredited lies that this book, and thus this movie, will present as “fact”. Listen to the podcast for some of the more blatant examples. If you don’t want to deal with all the podcast logistics, you can just click on the link that plays the show by itself. However, if you do have “podcatcher” software (lots of free ones out there, not just iTunes), I recommend subscribing to this show.

UPDATE: Stacy has more details in her latest post on Blogger New Network.

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Today’s Odd “Considerettes” Search Phrase - was dr. who at the white house today (#1! at Ask.com)

If so, then we really have been visited by aliens!

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I was wrong. Let’s make sure we state that first.

Almost 2 years ago, I went on the record in predicting that Al Franken’s show on Air America wouldn’t last 2 years. Well, it’s still around. The network has managed to weather poor ratings, financial troubles, and a full-blown financial scandal. It’s had some help from big money backers (instead of listeners), an HBO special for some nice PR, and a media that has trumpeted its successes and muted its problems. Air American and Al Franken got by with a little (or a lotta) help from their friends.

I tried to find a recent comparison of Air America and the Salem Radio Network. SRN has a couple of slates of hosts; one for specifically Christian stations, and one for the general market with right-of-center hosts. The latest information I could find was from, of all places, Mother Jones magazine from last December.

Today Salem is the second-fastest-growing radio chain in the nation. The left—which for years dismissed evangelical activists as out-of-touch zealots—has nothing on the radio dial even close to Salem’s reach and influence. Air America is broadcast on 70 stations and owns none. Salem owns 103 stations in the nation’s largest markets and broadcasts to more than 1,900 affiliates. It owns radio stations in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta. In fact, it doesn’t own just one station in those markets. It owns two—sometimes more. In Los Angeles it owns four. In Honolulu it owns seven. It also owns 62 websites and a magazine publishing division.

Now, SRN’s been around a pretty long time, but they only recently had a full day’s worth of talk radio programming. Bill Bennett’s show, for example, started around the same time as Al Franken’s. And yet a year ago, Bennett was the 25th biggest talk show in the country, and none of the Air America hosts beat him. I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that the trend has continued, but can’t find stats online at the moment. (Perhaps when the official 2 year anniversary of AAR arrives on May 1.)

In any event, while I was wrong with my prediction, I’m crying all the way to the radio. Them I’m smiling.

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A briefing was held recently dealing with the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship. This is a short declaration on the matter of caring for the environment in light of the love of God and the liberty He gives us, while considering sound science, sound economics and the needs of the poor. From Amy Ridenour’s National Center blog:

Before a packed audience today on Capitol Hill, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA), along with the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty and the Institute on Religion and Democracy held a lunch briefing at which top theologians and policy experts articulated a vision of Biblical stewardship based upon the Cornwall Declaration.

The title of the briefing was: “Pulpits, Pews and Environmental Policy: How the Cornwall Declaration is helping define the mandate of Biblical stewardship.”

If this sounds like an ECI redux, there are some differences.

Speaking about the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI), a statement signed by some members of the evangelical community that promotes the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming, Beisner said “[We] disagree with their assessment of the scientific evidence of the extent of human contribution to global warming, their prediction of the impact of climate change on human communities and the rest of the ecosystem, and their prescription of major reduction of carbon dioxide emissions as a solution to the alleged problem. The ECI does not specify how much emission reduction is needed to achieve its goals [to counteract global warming]. [This is] to ignore one of the most important aspects of the climatology debate: How much benefit would be gained at what cost to the global economy. And the global economy is not just an economist abstraction. It is real people who depend on that economy for jobs, income and the food, clothing, shelter, transportation and all other goods that they need.”

Sometimes, considering cold economic facts is just as much good stewardship as reducing car emissions or turning off the lights.

I will say this in criticism of the briefing. They’re a bit too critical of the ECI.

Paul Driessen, senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, admonished celebrities, media and wayward religious leaders who are “twisting common definitions of ethics, morality, social responsibility and compassion for the poor to justify global warming agendas.”

I respect, and in some cases know, some of the signers of the ECI, and I really don’t think they’re deliberately trying to twist words or have some overarching global warming agenda. Some may, but those I know don’t, best I can tell. Now, I think the ECI may play into the hands of those with such an agenda, giving them a supposed common cause with evangelicals, but I don’t think that was the intent.

While that part was a little much, Driessen goes on to give some criticism I tend to agree with.

Driessen also noted, “It is often the very policies they promote that actually represent the greatest threats to the world’s poor. Over two billion of the world’s people still do not have electricity for lights and refrigeration in their homes, for hospitals and clinics, for schools, shops, offices and factories, for wastewater treatment and other modern technologies that we often take for granted,” he said. “And yet these poor countries are told they mustn’t build coal or gas-fired electrical power plants, because First World countries are concerned about global warming.”

Sometimes, turning on the lights is just as much good stewardship as reducing car emissions.

The over 1000 signers of this declaration include a number of people I respect, just as I respect a number of ECI signers. The Cornwall Declaration, however, includes more than just evangelicals. There are Jewish and Catholic as well as Protestant signers. Sometimes, gathering a group like this together leads to a least-common-denominator, watered down mission, but so far it doesn’t appear that way.

This Cornwall Declaration is definitely worth a look.

See also: Cybercast News Service report.

UPDATE: Jordan Ballor of the Acton Institute has an excellect comparison of the two tacts taken by the ECI and the Cornwall Declaration. His article is “Preserved Garden or Productive City? Two Competing Views of Stewardship”.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger News Network and Redstate. Comments welcome.)

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The Carnival of Homeschooling is up.

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Mark Steyn’s latest is a must-read. It’s about how Iran got where it is today and what it may mean if it does go nuclear. It’s rather long but full of historical lessons on what worked, and what didn’t (most notably appeasement), in the past and how to apply it to the present situation. If Western powers are kowtowed when Muslim extremists burn buildings, imagine how timid they’ll be when those folks have a nuke available to them (marked “from Iran with love”). And, as his history lessons show, this antagonism on the part of Iran didn’t suddenly begin when Bush sat down in the Oval Office; they’ve got a long tradition of it. Steyn is under no delusion that dealing with Iran now will be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but dealing with it later will be nigh well impossible.

This short take doesn’t do it the least bit of justice, so I recommend sitting back and taking in the whole thing.

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In its never-ending quest to become the supreme oxymoron, the United Nations has in the past had its Human Rights Commission chaired by the countries with the worst violations of human rights. The next step in that quest is this.

Under threat of United Nations Security Council sanctions for its own nuclear program, Iran has been elected to a vice-chair position on the U.N. Disarmament Commission, whose mission includes preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

The commission’s deliberations began last Monday and are scheduled to continue until April 28. On the first day of the commission meeting, Iran along with Uruguay and Chile was elected as one of three vice-chairs.

It happened on the same day that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised his people “good news” about the country’s nuclear program.

The following day, Iran announced that it had managed to enrich uranium, a key ingredient in the production of a nuclear bomb.

So Iran gets to help make the rules regarding nuclear arms. Amazingly, Iran was voted into this position, unlike the HRC where countries take turns being the head honcho round-robin style. At least the UN had a little fig leaf to work with there, but this time the emperor really is naked.

Some people think we just need to clothe the emperor properly, i.e. fix the problems with the UN. The real problem, however, is the emperor himself who continues to defend his wardrobe malfunctions. It’s time to start over.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger News Network and Redstate. Comments welcome.)

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My sister and her husband hosted a Seder Supper last Thursday. I’ve attended a number of these in the past. It is amazing how so many of the portions of the Seder point to Jesus. But there was a little preliminary item that a friend of theirs presented before the Seder that I want to write about this time. This friend gave us his “Reader’s Digest” version of how he came up with the date of the Last Supper, Jesus’ last Seder, which was interesting, but more interesting to me was the information that was presented as an aside on the way to his finding.

In the book of Matthew we find a lineage of Jesus, going back through his father Joseph. In verse 6 we see that Joseph was a descendant of King David (and hence his requirement to go to Bethlehem during the census called when Mary was pregnant with Jesus). Through this we see that Jesus was indeed heir to the throne of David, one of the requirements of the Messiah. However, there a hitch in this lineage. In verse 11 we find that the lineage goes through Jeconiah aka Jehoiachin, and therein lies a problem.

Back in the book of Jeremiah (chapter 22, verse 24-40) God passes judgement on Jehoiachin, prompting an exile to Babylon. But that’s not all. In verse 30, God specifically tells Jehoiachin that his lineage on the throne is done.

This is what the LORD says:
“Record this man as if childless,
a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper,
none will sit on the throne of David
or rule anymore in Judah.”

Thus none of his descendants will take that throne anymore, as though he were childless. But if Jesus is his descendant, doesn’t that therefore void His claim to that throne.

Normally, yes. However, God’s amazing plan for Jesus gave Him that right anyway. In the book of Luke, we find Jesus’ lineage through Mary.

[Quick aside: Each of the 4 Gospel writers emphasized a different aspect of Jesus. In Matthew, He is King. In Mark, He is Servant. In Luke, He is Man. In John, He is God. A King and a Man have official lineages, but a servant nor God do not. Interesting. Additionally, the lineages, as we’ll see in a bit, fit with the portrayal of Jesus in those books.]

This lineage also passes through King David (verse 31), but through a different son. In Matthew, it goes through David’s son Solomon, who was David’s actual successor to the throne, though it was not a legal succession. Since Solomon’s mother was Bathsheba (I Chronicles 3:5), she convinced David to name Solomon as the heir instead of the legal heir, the older son Nathan. And who do we find in Jesus’ lineage on Mary’s side? Nathan.

Thus, Jesus has both the royal and legal right to claim the throne of David, and also breaking the curse on the royal line since He can claim legal right. It’s just one more of those amazing “coincidences” that God works out to show those who are watching that He’s in control. Prophesy is fulfilled, not just in and of itself, but in a way that that is both elegant and meaningful. I’m sure some readers have heard this before, but it was new to me (or perhaps I just remembered it this time–the handout helped) and I wanted to pass it along.

Happy belated Easter.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out. Comments welcome.)

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