Freedom or Faith? Religion, Death or Life?

Did you know that it is Clergy Appreciation Month? I am praying for my sisters and brothers who faithfully proclaim the WORD of God every Sunday, and for every one of them who do so under threat of death, persecution, prison, and personal attack. Will you join me?

Bush: It’s just too hard to go to church 

– – – – Going to church is hard.

Every week they expect you to be there Saturday night or Sunday morning for sometimes up to three hours.

It’s unreasonable.

We’re busy people. We work hard during the week.

All of the great movies are released on the weekends and now there are football games. They only play for about four months. Of course, then there is basketball and we like to take it easy in the summers.

People need their “me” time.

It’s just too hard to go to church.

Americans are so spoiled that they don’t even have the ability to envision how good they really have it. Freedom is assumed. Our problems are luxuries to other people.

In Iran right now, a Christian pastor faces execution by hanging for refusing to recant his faith. He has been convicted of apostasy — a total departure from one’s religion. He was raised by Muslim parents and converted to Christianity at the age of 19. The age of understanding for Muslims is considered to be 15. So he was an official Muslim for 4 years, thus converting to Christianity is apostasy.

He is guilty. But no one should ever be charged for religious beliefs.

Christianity is not tolerated in Iran. Those who share Christian beliefs there do so by meeting in “churches” in each other’s homes. Most often, those meetings are kept private for obvious reasons.

Yousef Nadarkhani led a group of about 400 people.

“The judge kept asking my client to say, ‘I have renounced Christianity and I recognize Islam as rescinder of all

Popes Warning for Vigilance Reminder of Nazism?

Image via Wikipedia

Associated Press

Pope warns Germans not to ignore religion

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON , 09.22.11, 01:48 PM EDT

BERLIN — Pope Benedict XVI addressed Germany’s parliament from the historic Reichstag building Thursday, warning that politicians must not sacrifice ethics for power and evoking the Nazi excesses of his homeland as a lesson in history.Amid scattered protests outside and a boycott by some lawmakers, Benedict began his first state visit to Germany in a bid to stem the tide of Catholics leaving the church while acknowledging the damage caused by the clerical sex abuse scandal.

The pope spoke for 20 minutes in the Reichstag, which was torched in 1933 in an incident used by Hitler to strengthen his grip on power.

“We Germans know from our own experience” what happens when power is corrupted, Benedict said, describing Nazis as a “highly organized band of robbers, capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss.”

But he said even under the Nazi dictatorship resistance movements stuck to their beliefs at a great risk, “thereby doing a great service to justice and to humanity as a whole.”

He also urged all Germans not to ignore religion.

“Even today, there is ultimately nothing else we could wish for but a listening heart – the capacity to discern between good and evil, and thus to establish true law, to serve justice and peace,” he said.

Benedict also voiced strong support for Germany’s ecological movement, calling it “a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside.”

After the speech, he met with a 15-member Jewish delegation, noting that it was in Berlin that the annihilation of European Jews was organized.

“The supposedly `almighty’ Adolf Hitler was a pagan idol, who wanted to take the place of the biblical God,” Benedict said according to a prepared text.

The Bavarian-born pontiff was met on a red carpet at Berlin’s Tegel airport by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff at the start of his four-day visit. He greeted members of the German Catholic Church, and accepted a bouquet from children waiting with small yellow-and-white Vatican flags.

About 20 protesters stood outside the airport, holding banners with slogans like “Against anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia” and “My body, my choice.”

The Vatican’s views on contraception, the role of women, homosexuality and its handling of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Germany last year are seen by many in Germany as outdated.

About 100 lawmakers from opposition parties boycotted the pope’s appearance, claiming it violated the church-state separation. But Benedict looked out on a mostly full house as guests occupied the empty seats and finished his speech to a standing ovation.

Police estimated only “several thousand” protesters showed up at the capital’s Potsdamer Platz, far fewer than organizers had predicted. Some 6,000 officers were on duty throughout the city. In a rally during the pope’s speech, protesters held signs with slogans like “Not welcome.”

“Today is a good day to be visible,” Maria Pflugradt, a 22-year-old student from Cottbus told The Associated Press. “Not only because he is against homosexuals, but also because the church has made far too many mistakes in the last centuries.”

In parliament, Speaker Norbert Lammert welcomed the pope, noting that the last time there was a pontiff of German origin Germany didn’t yet even exist as a state.

“Germany is a country that over centuries was strongly marked by religion and religious wars,” Lammert said. “A country whose Christian traditions of belief also influence the constitution

Church Receives two Fake Money Orders in Offering plate

By Maria Lockwood, Superior Telegram

The last place parishioners of Faith United Methodist Church expected to find bogus money was in the offering plate. But during a July 24 worship service in Billings Park, someone dropped not one but two fake money orders in the plate.

“It kind of boggles my mind,” said Joel Certa-Werner, church pastor.

Each of the counterfeit money orders was for just under $1,000. No name was listed in either the “to” or “from”

The River

A group of people are standing at a river bank and suddenly hear the cries of a baby.

Shocked, they see an infant floating–drowning–in the water. One person immediately dives in to rescue the child. But as this is going on, yet another baby comes floating down the river, and then another! People continue to jump in to save the babies and then see that one person has started to run away from the group still on shore.

Accusingly they shout, “Where are you going?”

The response: “I’m going upstream to stop whoever’s throwing babies into the river!”

Where are you in this story? Standing on the riverbank? Jumping in to save the drowning babies? Or running upstream to stop the person throwing the babies into the river?

We are all in one place or another and we can all make a difference when we work together!