URGENT PRAYER REQUEST- Update on Kenneth Bae: "US Ready to Bargain with N. Korea for Bae's Release,"- CBNNews.com, Aug 14, 2013 http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/August/S-Ready-to-Bargain-with-N-Korea-for-Baes-Release/ - The United States is willing to engage North Korea to secure the release of imprisoned American Christian Kenneth Bae. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the United States is "willing to consider a number of different options" to bring him home.In a video recently released by a North Korean newspaper, Bae requested the United States send a high-ranking official to North Korea to seek his pardon. It is unclear if he spoke of his own volition in the video. Bae, 45, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for sharing his faith. He suffers health problems such as diabetes and is currently hospitalized.[PRAY for 1) God's healing of and presence with Pastor Bae, 2) His earliest release by the North Korean government, and 3) God's comfort for his family and friends.]
“Abandoned” For Christ" - Graham Calls On White House To Support Abedini - By Dr. Tom Askew, Aug.8, http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/opinion
Franklin Graham is the latest to join the chorus of voices calling for U.S. State Department and White House officials to take a more vocal role in protesting the Iranian imprisonment of American pastor Saeed Abedini. September 26 will mark the one year anniversary of Abedini’s imprisonment for allegedly “endangering the national security” of Iran.
Graham pointed out that, in contrast to Iranian accusations, “Pastor Saeed was in Iran trying to help children. With the permission of Iran’s government, he was working to build an orphanage. But his humanitarian mission led to an arrest on bogus charges and nearly a year of inhumane treatment, simply because he loves Jesus Christ.”...
Behind the scenes, more than 600,000 people around the world have signed a petition sponsored by ACLJ in support of pastor Abedini. A concerted movement this past May brought together Christians from many nations to set aside Pentecost to pray for Abedini. On June 13, demonstrations were held at Iranian embassies in at least six countries to protest Abedini’s treatment. And, on July 29, Arizona Republican Representative Trent Franks spoke on the floor of the House to urge other Congressmen to join him in “adopting” Pastor Abedini through the bipartisan Defending Freedoms Project.
Saeed’s response…and yours - Through his family living in Iran, Pastor Abedini has been made aware of these efforts on his behalf, and is grateful. “I heard that the persecution, my arrest and imprisonment has united churches from different denominations, from different cities and countries. That the churches have united together in prayer to put one request (my freedom) on one day (Pentecost) before God,” he wrote in a letter.
The story of Saeed Abedini, the jihad against Syrian Christians, the attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, and the ongoing desecration of churches in Nigeria and India should cause every American to reflect on the blessings of freedom still enjoyed in this nation.
PRAY: - For comfort and peace for Saeed’s wife and children here in the U.S.
- For a strong witness and testimony from Pastor Abedini in the prison where God has placed him
- For Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ
- BOLDly (Beside Our Leaders Daily) for leadership from the White House and State Department in defending the freedoms of Abedini and other Americans
Go to SaveSaeed.org to sign a petition over 600,000 others asking for his immediate release.
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"The New Great American Divide," -by MIKE GONZALEZ, August 28, 2013 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_new_great_american_divide_UPEFbcBFF3JioOP1nx0LIM?roi=echo3-16718065190-14427641-9f3be98000251b5e7205c1171a17ec41&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Here’s one thing that’s not getting a lot of attention this week as we mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington: a growing social and economic division that’s hurting minorities. This divide that has more to do with education, values and morals, the cohesion of the family, determination and work ethic than with notions of race that biologists always discounted anyway. These attributes do not respect skin color.
Mind you, our nation has gone a long way toward meeting the central demand in Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Today we do judge people much more by the content of their character than by the color of their skin. This is an unalloyed good, one we should celebrate.
Set against that this grim fact: Social and economic mobility is stickier today for those starting at the bottom than any time in recent memory. The reasons, however, have more to do with class than with race. Class is the new race.
First a word about definitions: Inequality and economic mobility are related but not the same. We can argue all day whether a fair system increases or reduces inequality. Yet most people along the political spectrum agree that a society is better off when mobility reflects talent. The only people who object to meritocratic mobility are those who are both privileged and untalented.
Yet a major study from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project (which tracks what others have observed) tells us that Americans are more likely than not to stay roughly within the economic segments in which they were raised. This is true at the top, but especially true, and most alarming, for those at the bottom. People raised by parents in the lowest fifth of income are 43 percent likely to stay there; another 27 percent will only move up to the second-lowest fifth. Only 4 percent of those raised at the bottom make it to the top fifth. Many other institutions are looking at the issue of mobility. At The Heritage Foundation we have Stuart Butler, who heads a task force on promoting mobility. The American Enterprise Institute’s Charles Murray is a pioneer on this issue; Robert Putnam at Harvard is also focusing on these worrying trends.
What they’re all finding is that America now has a hardening class system – something more in line with what we think of in Latin America and Europe, not what we think of ourselves. And our situation indeed is different. Unlike in those countries, where government helps the well-born and connected remain entrenched in their privilege, here the government works at the other end: It helps keep people at the bottom trapped there.
Butler lays part of the blame on the 1960s-vintage Great Society programs that began growing the scope of government. The intent was to create a needed safety net for people in dire poverty, but the programs contributed to destroying the human and social capital that people need to build financial capital. Adding to this is the breakdown of our public schools and the collapse of the once-pervasive culture of savings.
As Butler wrote for National Affairs earlier this year, “The programs’ design created perverse incentives, actually discouraging people from taking jobs or getting married—thereby accelerating the disintegration (and discouraging the formation) of married households among the poor.” African-Americans and Hispanics, the intended “beneficiaries” of such programs, have suffered most from the unintended consequences: Their out-of-wedlock-birthrates are now, respectively, 72 percent and 53 percent.
But as Murray’s masterpiece “Coming Apart” showed last year, there are no race barriers at either end of the economic spectrum. Working-class, non-Hispanic whites are also falling victim to the vicious circle of government dependency and family breakup.
We’ve made great advances against racial discrimination in the past half century. Government-ordained racism — the laws that generally went under the heading of “Jim Crow” — has completely stopped, a huge advance we now take for granted. Americans are also much more tolerant of each other than they were before the Civil Rights Movement. (The only exception being schools that practice “affirmative action” and admit people based on race or ethnicity.)
As we mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s speech, however, we should note the sad irony of this state of affairs. Instead, we will talk about issues pertinent to a half century ago.
Mike Gonzalez is VP of communications at The Heritage Foundation and a member of its mobility task force. He’s writing a book on Hispanics and mobility.
"I Have a Dream - Who Inspired Martin Luther King, Jr.?,"- by: John Stonestreet;| Breakpoint.org, August 28, 2013 http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-archive/entry/13/23192?spMailingID=6839915&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=85774008&spReportId=ODU3NzQwMDgS1
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