#1665 (7/30) PRO-LIFE SAT: "After They Applauded Woman Bragging About Her Abortion How Can Any Christian Vote Democrat?"

"AFTER THEY APPLAUD A WOMAN BRAGGING ABOUT HER ABORTION, CAN ANY CHRISTIAN VOTE DEMOCRAT?" - Micaiah Bilger, July 28, 2016| http://www.lifenews.com/2016/07/28/after-they-applauded-woman-bragging-about-her-abortion-how-can-any-christian-vote-democrat/

This week, popular conservative blogger Matt Walsh tackled the question of whether Christians can vote Democrat because of the party’s increasing devotion to the abortion industry.Writing for The Blaze, Walsh penned an open letter to a reader who said she is a Christian and a Democrat. He responded to her by pointing out how the Democratic Party has changed in recent years. The party is now adopting and openly flaunting anti-Christian positions, especially on abortion.

Walsh pointed to the Democratic National Convention as evidence: "On Tuesday night, the DNC trotted the CEO of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, up to the podium to deliver a 15-minute sales pitch for abortion. The next night, after the sales pitch, the president of the National Abortion Rights Action League strode confidently onto the stage to give a sort of client testimonial. Not only does she run the abortion industry’s propaganda machine, but she is, as she happily professed, a satisfied abortion customer. She bragged about her abortion, explaining that she had to kill her child because he would have been too inconvenient at the time. The crowd roared with applause.
Literally cheering for abortions. That is the modern Democrat Party."

"… Would Jesus be in that crowd applauding as a mother boasts of killing her child? Would Jesus nod approvingly at politicians who take money from families and use it to fund an industry that slaughters a million kids a year? Is Jesus pro-abortion? Can you be pro-abortion while at the same time believing in and trusting Him?" Later, he continued: "You tell me — no, tell Him– how you can remain a Christian after insisting that He was, in His earliest moments on Earth, an unhuman puddle of disposable material. Just be careful and consider that you’re much better off committing heresy against Planned Parenthood than against the Almighty God."

"If the point needs to be driven home any harder, remember that Jesus told us on multiple occasions that whatever we do to the least of these, we do to Him (Matthew 25:40). If we feed or clothe the vulnerable and the helpless, we feed and clothe Him. But what if we rip them apart, limb from limb, and toss them in the dumpster? I suppose then we’ve ripped Christ apart and tossed Him in a dumpster. And what if we vote for politicians who will passionately protect the right to rip babies apart, and who promise to fund the practice and make it more accessible across the country? Well, according to Christ, we’ve voted for politicians who passionately protect the right to rip Him apart, and who promise to fund this brutal sacrilege and make it more accessible across the country. And what if we support a political party that makes this one of the foundational tenets of its platform? You get the idea."

Though a minor point in his letter, Walsh also brought up how older Democrats often are not aware of how extreme the party has become. It’s an important point, but it is arguable that it’s not just older Democrats who are unaware.

Until recently, the Democratic Party has done its best to hide just how extreme and out of touch its position on abortion is. For many years, pro-abortion politicians like Hillary Clinton hid behind the rhetoric that abortions should be “safe, legal and rare.” They knew that most Americans oppose most abortions and are morally troubled by them. And they won votes by painting themselves as moderates on the issue. But the Democratic Party is not hiding its allegiances to the abortion industry any more, and Christian voters need know the truth.

The Democratic Party is now not only celebrating the legal killing of unborn babies at its conventions, it’s also pushing to force taxpayers to pay for them. Its platform also supports legalized abortion on demand for any reason up until birth.

Outreach must be done to educate the uninformed Christian voters, those who still wrongly believe that the Democratic Party is moderate or even pro-life on abortion. Some Democrats, like the group Democrats for Life, are fighting to change the party and take it back to the days when it welcomed those who defended the unborn. But more needs to be done.

There are 1.1 million unborn babies every year who are being legally aborted in the U.S., and many of their mothers are being physically and emotionally injured by the profit-driven abortion industry. The Democratic Party wants to expand abortions even more and force taxpayers to pay for them. 

As Walsh argued, Christians must step up against the horrific injustice of abortion and defend vulnerable, innocent unborn babies, as Jesus taught. And one of the best ways they can start is by educating their friends about the Democratic Party’s radical position on abortion.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

"Hillary Clinton Promotes Free Abortions: 'Let’s Go Out There and Make It Happen'"- Steven Ertelt, JUL 28, 2016; http://www.lifenews.com/2016/07/28/hillary-clinton-promotes-free-abortions-lets-go-out-there-and-make-it-happen/
"Tim Kaine Flip-Flops Again: He Won’t Stop Hillary Clinton From Pushing for Free Abortions" - Steven Ertelt, JUL 28, 2016;
http://www.lifenews.com/2016/07/28/tim-kaine-flip-flops-again-he-wont-stop-hillary-clinton-from-pushing-for-free-abortions/

#1664 (7/29) "The History of the United States, as Told by Young Democrats"

"THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, AS TOLD  BY YOUNG DEMOCRATS" -  Katrina Trinko / July 28, 2016 / http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/28/the-history-of-the-united-states-as-told-by-young-democrats/ [AS I SEE IT: If the views of these young people are at all representative of a significant part of the next generation who lead America, we have much to be concerned about the future of our country. And to think, they get their "brains washed" by academics whose fees end up leaving so many in great debt after they are "educated." Smart. - Stan]

A protester expresses herself outside the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. (Photo: Christopher Occhicone/Zuma Press/Newscom)

PHILADELPHIA—Young Democrats appear to be part of the coalition championing that dictum from William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

I expected the youth caucus meeting at the Democratic National Convention, which I attended Wednesday, to focus almost entirely on current liberal concerns such as student loans, jobs, LGBT issues, and climate change. (Given the near absolute lack of mentions of terrorism on the convention’s main stage, I wasn’t so naïve that I expected any talk about the Islamic State terrorists or national security.)

But this was no MSNBC event, and far from leaning forward, two of the three participants on a panel went on extended diatribes about the United States’ history to a room with enough empty chairs to satisfy an army of Clint Eastwoods. Sitting about half a mile from Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed, I got a whirlwind course in Liberal History 101.

“We understand that we have never had a fully participatory democracy,” said Catalina Velasquez. “We understand that democracy, the way it’s defined in the United States, has been about contracting, disenfranchising. The more we disenfranchise, the better. And we are tired of it.” Velasquez is the director of Young People For, a group that declares on its website that it is “taking a stand for progressive values.” Earlier in the event, Velasquez got enthusiastic applause after boasts of being “undocumented and unafraid” and “transgender and unashamed.”

Nor was the earlier statement the sum of Velasquez’s criticisms about the United States.“We are really looking introspectively about how this country came about,” Velasquez said. “This country’s built off the backs of native, indigenous people, the genocide of such. This country’s built off the backs of black people … this country is built on the backs of immigrant labor.”Velasquez added: "And we are tired, and we are tired because history continues to repeat itself over and over again. We are not seeing the change and we are being told to wait. And we don’t want to wait. We’re ready and we’re coming." Velasquez then proceeded to tick off how long it had taken different groups to be able to vote in the United States. “And some of us who are undocumented, let’s not forget, are still fighting for suffrage rights.”

A protester flashes the peace sign to police officers across a barrier fence at the Democratic National Convention. (Photo: Christopher Occhicone/ZumaPress/Newscom)

Curiously—or perhaps not curiously, given that Eleanor Roosevelt is still enough in the good graces of the left to be given an enthusiastic shoutout by Meryl Streep on the convention’s main stage—there was no mention of the Japanese being thrown into internment camps by Franklin Roosevelt. At any rate, I’m under no illusion that the history of the United States is free from injustice, immorality, and bad decisions.

But what was striking about the account Velasquez gave was, by my memory, the complete absence of any mention of the strikingly great parts of our country’s history. (And of course, the view that somebody who came to the United States illegally should not only be entitled to live here, but also to vote.) It was unmentioned how the U.S. championed freedom, how our Founding Fathers created a government system that sought both to avoid mob rule and to push citizens to truly govern themselves, to have a government of, by, and for the people, and to have a founding document that recognized the equality of men. There was no discussion of how the United States had promoted freedom abroad, and had helped other nations with both financial resources and our soldiers’ lives.  There was no consideration of how many immigrants had fled lands where opportunity was limited and found the United States to be a place where they and their children and their children’s children could truly live the American dream.

While Velasquez focused on the more distant past, another panelist offered a narrative (equally depressing) about the past few decades. Nelini Stamp, who describes herself as an “organizer,” “agitator,” and “believer in community centered liberation” in her Twitter bio, detailed her views on past presidents: "Our parents saw [Ronald] Reagan, saw what happened, and then when … [Bill] Clinton gets elected, and everybody’s like ‘Oh, we’re here, this is amazing.’ And then we had  [George W.] Bush. Eight years of Bush. And we went to war. We started to prioritize Washington [over] … Main Street. In 2008, we bailed out the banks instead of breaking them apart and they stole 60 percent of the wealth of African-American communities."

But don’t think Stamp’s dislike of the banks bailout means she has any empathy for or interest in exploring the views of the tea party: "A lot of folks thought … Obama gets elected, we kind of packed up. We were like ‘Oh, black president, yes, like I’m so happy.’ And then the tea party came along. And a lot of people thought we were this post-racial society and the tea party came along, and … white supremacy starts to become on the rise. “If we don’t have a black liberation, black movement in this country … we won’t get anything accomplished,” Stamp added. ...

Stamp also grounded her call to young adults in her historical perspective. “We are the warriors and … the visionaries of the Great Society that people talked about in the past, of that New Deal that went unpromised for communities of color,” she said. “So I think that the reason we’re going through this is because it’s just history leading up to this moment where we need to take it.”

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors.

"At Party’s Convention, Democrats Reflect on the Liberal Revolution That Split Them" - Josh Siegel / July 28, 2016; http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/28/at-partys-convention-democrats-reflect-on-the-liberal-revolution-that-split-them/
"ISIS or Climate Change: Which Worries Democrats More?" - Kelsey Harkness / July 28, 2016; http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/28/isis-or-climate-change-which-worries-democrats-more/?

#1663 (7/28) "Undercover Filmmaker Who Exposed Planned Parenthood Calls His Case a ‘Huge Win’ for Journalists"

"UNDERCOVER FILMMAKER WHO EXPOSED PLANNED PARENTHOOD CALLS HIS CASE A "HUGE  WIN" FOR JOURNALISTS" - Leah Jessen / July 26, 2016 / http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/26/undercover-filmmaker-who-exposed-planned-parenthood-calls-his-case-a-huge-win-for-journalists/? [AS I SEE IT: Surprise! Surprise! I don't know about you, but I didn't hear a single mention of this news by the mainstream press. Of course, if the ruling by the judge had gone the other way, you can be sure we would have heard much about it as it would have cast a bad life on pro-life efforts. And of course this pro-life victory would contrast with the VERY pro-abortion platform of the Democratic Party now having their national convention. Just more evidence the media chooses to report news that favors their view on the issues. - Stan]

A Texas district attorney’s office dismissed charges against David Daleiden, project lead at the Center for Medical Progress. (Photo: Stringer/Reuters /Newscom)

Two undercover filmmakers whose videos exposed abortion provider Planned Parenthood won’t face criminal charges after all. Instead, they’re hailing the news as a First Amendment victory for citizen journalists.

On Tuesday, the Harris County district attorney’s office dismissed all charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. The duo worked undercover to produce a series of videos alleging Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the sale of unborn baby body parts. Federal law makes it illegal to sell human fetal tissue for a profit.

Daleiden, project lead at the Center for Medical Progress, and Merritt were indicted by the Houston-based grand jury in January for using false government identification during their undercover investigation. Daleiden was also indicted for “intentionally and knowingly” offering to buy human organs. The two faced up to 20 years in prison, LifeSiteNews reported.

Daleiden, 27, called the charges against himself and Merritt, 62, “bogus” and “politically motivated.” He said the dismissal of charges “is a resounding vindication of the First Amendment rights of all citizen journalists, and also a clear warning to any of Planned Parenthood’s political cronies who would attack whistleblowers to protect Planned Parenthood from scrutiny.”

“Planned Parenthood did wrong here, not David Daleiden,” said Peter Breen, Daleiden’s attorney. Breen said Daleiden used “standard undercover journalism techniques” and followed applicable laws. He also called it “a huge win for the First Amendment rights of undercover journalists.”

"Daleiden shone a spotlight on the darkness that is the abortion industry and faced unrelenting personal attacks as a result." —Roger Severino @Heritage For the investigation, Daleiden set up a fake biomedical research company, Biomax Procurement Services. Daleiden and Merritt falsified California driver’s licenses to match their undercover identity.

After a string of the undercover videos were released last summer by the Center for Medical Progress, federal and state investigations, as well as a nationwide effort to defund Planned Parenthood of taxpayer funding, ensued.

Planned Parenthood has claimed no wrongdoing. Earlier this year, the Houston grand jury declined to charge the nation’s largest abortion provider. Pro-life activists had revealed a potential conflict of interest between the district attorney’s office and Planned Parenthood. Operation Rescue found that a prosecutor in the office also serves on Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s board of directors.

In his statement, Daleiden said: "Planned Parenthood tried to collude with public officials to manipulate the legal process to their own benefit, and they failed. A year after the release of the undercover videos, the ongoing nationwide investigation of Planned Parenthood by the House Select Investigative Panel makes clear that Planned Parenthood is the guilty party in the harvesting and trafficking of baby body parts for profit."

“The dismissal of these charges is just more evidence that they should not have been brought in the first place,” said Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “The bias and misconduct of the prosecutor was evidenced by her turning over the undercover videos to Planned Parenthood, which was supposed to be the target of the investigation,” von Spakovsky added. “Instead, the prosecutor apparently violated grand jury secrecy rules and coordinated with Planned Parenthood to target the undercover journalists who had exposed Planned Parenthood’s wrongdoing.”

Planned Parenthood has said the Center for Medical Progress videos are part of an “elaborate, illegal conspiracy in order to block women’s access to safe and legal abortion.” “Relying on old tactics, anti-abortion activists have leveled a new series of false claims against Planned Parenthood since July 2015,” Planned Parenthood’s website says. “Using heavily edited videos, extremists made now widely discredited and debunked accusations about our practices to facilitate fetal tissue donation at a small number of Planned Parenthood health centers.”

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, calls Daleiden a “hero.” “Planned Parenthood needs to be held accountable for their horrendous business practices of betraying their clients and selling their babies piece-by-piece for profit,” Hawkins said in a prepared statement.

Planned Parenthood called the Center for Medical Progress’ work and congressional investigations into their organization a “smear campaign.”

“Daleiden shone a spotlight on the darkness that is the abortion industry and faced unrelenting personal attacks as a result,” said Roger Severino, director for the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. “Now that the misguided prosecution against him has failed, the focus should go back to where it always belonged, on defunding Planned Parenthood and ending the unconscionable practice of buying and selling of aborted baby parts.”

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

Leah Jessen is a news reporter for The Daily Signal and graduate of The Heritage Foundation's Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Leah.

#1662 (7/27) "Is There a Europe Without Christianity?- A CONTINENTAL DIVIDE"

"Is There a Europe without Christianity?- A CONTINENTAL DIVIDE" - By: John Stonestreet|Breakpoint.org: April 29, 2016;

http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/29218

What we think of as Europe is pretty easy to define these days. But it wasn’t always so, and it may not be for long.

Is Europe a continent? This is not a trick question. Geographers and historians aren’t quite sure. Not for reasons having to do with “political correctness” or other ideological controversies, but because of geography. With the other six continents—Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, North America, and South America—it’s fairly simple to tell where they begin and end. But the same can’t be said of Europe. As Wikipedia tells us, “the borders of Europe . . . are arbitrary.”

Yet as Wikipedia also tells us, the definition of a continent, especially Europe, also includes “cultural and political” elements. And as a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly told readers, in Europe’s case, “culture” until recently meant Christianity.

In the article, provocatively entitled “How Islam Created Europe,” Robert D. Kaplan tells readers that in Greek and Roman times, “Europe” referred to the “world surrounding the Mediterranean.” In fact, the mythological character Europa, from whom we get the word “Europe,” was a Phoenician woman from what is now Israel and Lebanon. In this understanding, “Europe” included places like North Africa, but not what’s now Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

What changed this definition was the spread of Islam across North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, what is known as the Levant. Islamic civilization, especially when its forces were turned back by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours in 732, gave people all across Christian Europe something to define themselves against.

As the expression “Christian Europe” suggests, over time Europeans came to see themselves as part of a larger entity that was, like the Islamic world, defined in religious terms. Kaplan quotes the 1957 book, “Europe: The Emergence of an Idea,” which tells readers that “European unity began with the concept . . . of a Christendom in ‘inevitable opposition’ to Islam.”

The most famous example of this “inevitable opposition” is, of course, the Crusades. While the Crusades are endlessly debated, one thing about them isn’t: The European forces saw themselves primarily as a force of Christians, which was their shared identity and basis for unity.
Christianity was the source of the “cultural and political” elements that make Europe a continent and not simply a glorified peninsula at the end of the Eurasian landmass.

And that prompts the obvious question: What do you call Europe without Christianity? Kaplan’s answer, in keeping with his 2012 book, “The Revenge of Geography,” is that “classical geography is organically reasserting itself . . . [reuniting] the Mediterranean Basin, including North Africa and the Levant, with Europe.” That reunification is being hastened, of course, by waves of hundreds of thousands of Syrian and African migrants, who by the way, “have no desire to be Christian.” This phenomenon threatens “to undermine the fragile social peace” as well as undermine the modern European project.

If so, it’s a self-inflicted wound. European elites have long worked overtime to downplay their Christian heritage, and have “used idealistic rhetoric to deny the forces of religion and ethnicity.” The most famous example of this was the preamble to the EU’s constitution, which omitted any mention of Christianity as a source of Europe’s “values.”

This is, historically-speaking, nonsense. It’s also self-destructive since, because, as Kaplan tells us, Christianity is one of the forces “that provided European states with their own internal cohesion.” Without Christianity, Europe is hobbled in its attempts to resist the “reassertion of classical geography.” In other words, if Europe is eventually “islamicized,” as many predict, it will only be because it was first “de-Christianized.”

[bold and itlaics emphasis mine]

"How Islam Created Europe" - Robert D. Kaplan | The Atlantic | May 2016; http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/how-islam-created-europe/476388/
The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success
- Rodney Stark | Random House Trade | October 2006
God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis- Philip Jenkins | Oxford University Press, USA | April 2009

#1661 (7/26) "The Late, Great Democratic Party"

"THE LATE, GREAT DEMOCRATIC PARTY" - Stephen Moore |Jul 26, 2016; http://townhall.com/columnists/stephenmoore/2016/07/26/the-late-great-democratic-party-n2197887

This week, the Democrats officially appoint the battered Hillary Clinton to be torchbearer of the party. She has slouched to the finish line. She is tired and the country is tired of her. Sorry, Democrats, no do-overs. You're stuck with her.

But it isn't just Clinton who is out of touch and in tragic decline. It's the whole Democratic Party. My friends at the American Enterprise Institute reported last week that the Democratic platform is silent on economic growth. Maybe that is because across the country during the past eight years of Obamanomics, economic growth has been silent.

This is an exaggeration, of course, but not much of one. We have had 2 percent growth under Obama, but that's an economy treading water. It's sister-kissing growth that, yes, has thankfully kept us out of recession, but doesn't lead to much, if any, rise in living standards. Just as Obama refuses to utter the words "Islamic terrorism," now the whole party can't seem to bring itself to endorse "economic growth." For the left, growth isn't really the goal. They want redistribution of wealth.
The language of a party platform doesn't matter much, if at all. But if you're not for growth, you probably aren't going to produce it, just as if you're not even trying to get in shape, it's a good bet you're not going to shed those extra 16 pounds.

Amazingly, the last great growth hawk of the Democratic Party of modern times, John F. Kennedy, ran against Republican Richard Nixon in 1960 on the issue of the "growth deficit." The economy in the 1950s was fairly prosperous, much more so than over the last eight years. But JFK said we can "do bettah" and convinced Americans we could see much faster wage gains with greater opportunities. Through tax cuts and free trade, the JFK era sparked growth rates of 4, 5 and even 6 percent in the go-go '60s until LBJ crashed the economy with New Deal welfare statism.

Now we have this weird austerity-worship that has taken over the party. The rich and businesses are portrayed as scalpers and scoundrels. And employers are exploiters in the "you didn't build that" mindset. Radical environmentalists, a bedrock of the party, are anti-growth and believe that when people get richer, it's worse for the planet. (They should go live in India or Mexico City and see how well the environment is doing there.) They ridicule what they call "growth-mania" on the right. Human economic activity, they warn, is causing catastrophic global warming.

Perhaps this explains the litany of economic failures during the Obama years. We have had $8 trillion of new debt; minimum-wage increases; Obamacare; an $800 billion stimulus plan (with "shovel-ready" projects); tax increases on the rich; more than $100 billion in green energy subsidies; auto company and union pension bailouts; re-regulation of the financial industry and banks; and a Federal Reserve that has manufactured near zero short-term interest rates for seven years with up to $4 trillion of bond acquisitions. ? All of these were designed primarily to redistribute income, so is it a shock that they haven't produced growth?

Poor Hillary Clinton has the unenviable task of persuading Americans to open up wide and swallow four more years of this swill.

Here's a question that Donald Trump and Mike Pence should be asking every day: What would Clinton offer that is any different? She is promising minimum-wage increases, tax hikes on the rich and more infrastructure spending. This is new? This is change?

The left's defense of growth anemia is that 2 percent growth is the new normal, so get used to it. Obama's first economic guru, Larry Summers, calls this secular stagnation that is here to stay. This past week at a Politico economic forum I made the claim that we could have 4 percent growth easily, and the jaws of the media dropped in collective disbelief, as if I suggested that we could suspend the laws of gravity.

Actually, 4 percent growth isn't that hard to achieve. A pro-America energy production policy, including putting coal back in business, could produce $150 billion more output each year. Another percentage ?point of growth could come from tax reform with reductions in business taxes to spur investment and hiring, according to the folks at the Tax Foundation.

But Democrats will never get us there, because they aren't even trying. They will celebrate 2 percent growth -- the weakest recovery in half a century -- as a glittering achievement. The party that once stood with the working class now says Americans have to work more and settle for less? That's not just wrong; it's sad.

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#1660 (7/25) "No Coup for Christians in Turkey"

"NO COUP FOR CHRISTIANS IN TURKEY" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, July 19, 2016;

https://www.frcaction.org/get.cfm?"i=WA16G21&f=WU16G06 [AS I SEE IT: Please pray that the efforts of friends of mine who've been ministering there for  many years and that of others may hot be hampered as a result of the newest government crackdown. Pray that the  gospel will continue to be freely presented and many will turn to Christ. - Stan]

The [recent] failed coup attempt against the government of Turkish President Recip Erdogan will have several negative effects and consequences for the people of Turkey. Erdogan appears likely to increase his suppression of civil liberties which began as Prime Minister in 2003 and continued in 2014 when he was elected the 12th President of Turkey. Jailing judges and other officials in the judicial system has been routine for Erdogan. Journalists and media personalities have also been imprisoned in record numbers, and since the failed attempt last week to topple his regime he has arrested and incarcerated over six-thousand military and police who are believed to be complicit in the attempted coup. Today we learned through a media report that the Ministry of Education fired 15,200 people and the Board of Higher Education has requested the resignation of 1,577 university deans, akin to dismissing them.

What should be of concern to all are the implications for the future of the Christians (and other minorities) in Turkey. Given Turkey’s history of genocide against the Armenian Christians between 1915-1923 (an atrocity which Pope Francis recently recognized), with an estimated death toll of 1.5 million, the 120,000 Christians now living in Turkey are most certainly concerned.

Fast forward to the modern era, and we observe that the persecution and even killing of Christians in Turkey continues. Just under a decade ago, several Christians were lured into a house and horrifically tortured and slaughtered. The accused have more recently walked free due to a change in laws governing the detention of suspects. Elsewhere, churches have been shut down. According to one recent report, “the Christian minority in Turkey suffer discrimination, slander, personal attacks and attacks against churches on a daily basis.”

In May of this year, a suicide bomber killed five people in a Christian village near what may be the oldest church in the world, St. Mary Church, in southeastern Turkey. An Islamic group protested the celebration of Christmas and the New Year last year while threatening the Christian minority with death. Beatings and verbal assaults were common during this holiday period. Several deaths of known and respected Christians, including a priest and a Christian journalist have been reported during the time that Erdogan has been in power.

Most disturbing, however, is the fact that the Turkish National Security Council determined and announced that Christian missionary activities are one of the nation’s major security problems. With that level of animus toward Christians, there can be little doubt that the Christian community in Turkey is experiencing a great deal of angst and uncertainty as they see President Erdogan consolidating his power in the country.

Erdogan is an Islamist first, and as such, his theology is not favorable to or very tolerant of Christians. He has been accused of harassing Christian communities. If Turkey moves now to a more radical Islamic influence in their society (whether or not under the guise of addressing the attempted coup), Christians will likely be in the cross hairs. Persecution can occur in many forms. Even if the government does not take overt steps against Christians, a toxic cultural climate nurtured by unchecked radical, Islamist ideology can have devastating consequences for Christians. We need only look at Pakistan to see the effects of such a situation.

Thus, in Turkey, President Erdogan bears the responsibility of ensuring that his government does not further (nor stand by and watch) the persecution of Christians or any other minorities who need protection. We must pray fervently that this does not happen and that the few Christians left in Turkey will be allowed to worship openly in a country where Christianity has an incredible history.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

#1659 (7/24) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "I Envy Kevin"

"I ENVY KEVIN" -  From MikeysFunnies.com - July 8, 2016 [AS I SEE IT: This is one of those tug-at-your-heart kind of essays that made me stop and wonder about the things that steal the joy from my life and keeps me tied down with the non-essentials. May we each remember to rest in the peace and joy that is surely meant to infuse the life our gracious God has blessed us with. It's not based on having "stuff" or things always working out as we'd like. It's simply trusting that He is truly in control and that knowing Him is enough blessing to fill any day. - Stan]

I envy Kevin. My brother Kevin thinks God lives under his bed. At least that's what I heard him say one night. He was praying out loud in his dark bedroom, and I stopped outside his closed door to listen. "Are you there, God?" he said. "Where are you? Oh, I see. Under the bed." I giggled softly and tiptoed off to my own room. 

Kevin's unique perspectives are often a source of amusement. But that night something else lingered long after the humor. I realized for the first time the very different world Kevin lives in. He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled as a result of difficulties during labor. Apart from his size (6-foot-2), there are few ways in which he is an adult. He reasons and communicates with the capabilities of a 7-year-old, and he always will. He will probably always believe that God lives under his bed, that Santa Claus is the one who fills the space under our tree every Christmas and that airplanes stay up in the sky because angels carry them.

I remember wondering if Kevin realizes he is different. Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life? Up before dawn each day, off to work at a workshop for the disabled, home to walk our cocker spaniel, return to eat his favorite macaroni-and-cheese for dinner, and later to bed. The only variation in the entire scheme are laundry, when he hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with her newborn child. He does not seem dissatisfied. He lopes out to the bus every morning at 7:05, eager for a day of simple work. He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the stove before dinner, and he stays up late twice a week to gather our dirty laundry for his next day's laundry chores. And Saturdays-oh, the bliss of Saturdays! That's the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a soft drink, watch the planes land, and speculate loudly on the destination of each passenger inside. "That one's goin' to Chi-car-go!" Kevin shouts as he claps his hands. His anticipation is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday nights! 

And so goes his world of daily rituals and weekend field trips. He doesn't know what it means to be discontent. His life is simple. He will never know the entanglements of wealth or power, and he does not care what brand of clothing he wears or what kind of food he eats. His needs have always been met, and he never worries that one day they may not be. His hands are diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he is working. When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the carpet, his heart is completely in it. He does not shrink from a job when it is begun, and he does not leave a job until it is finished. But when his tasks are done, Kevin knows how to relax. He is not obsessed with his work or the work of others. His heart is pure. He still believes everyone tells the truth, promises must be kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize instead of argue. Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin is not afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry or sorry. 

He is always transparent, always sincere. And he trusts God. Not confined by intellectual reasoning, when he comes to Christ, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God - to really be friends with Him in a way that is difficult for an "educated"person to grasp. God seems like his closest companion. In my moments of doubt and frustrations with my Christianity, I envy the security Kevin has in his simple faith. It is then that I am most willing to admit that he has some divine knowledge that rises above my mortal questions. It is then I realize that perhaps he is not the one with the handicap - I am. My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances - they all become disabilities when I do not trust them to God's care. Who knows if Kevin comprehends things I can never learn? After all, he has spent his whole life in that kind of innocence, praying after dark and soaking up the goodness and love of God. 

And one day, when the mysteries of heaven are opened, and we are all amazed at how close God really is to our hearts, I'll realize that God heard the simple prayers of a boy who believed that God lived under his bed. Kevin won't be surprised at all! 

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]