Police Chaplains in Charlotte advised to leave Jesus out of prayers from now on.

TOP COP SAYS CHRIST HAS NO PLACE IN PRAYERS AT PUBLIC EVENTS ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.

Jun 20, 2012

By Todd Starnes
For the past seven years Pastor Terry Sartain has ministered to police officers and their families in Charlotte, N.C. Whenever the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. invited him to deliver an invocation, he prayed in “the name of Jesus.”
But not anymore.
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Volunteer chaplains in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. will no longer be allowed to invoke the name of Jesus in prayers at public events held on government property.
Major John Diggs, who oversees the chaplain program, told television station WSOC that the policy is a “matter of respecting that people may have different faiths and that it is not aimed at any one religion or denomination.”
Sartain, the pastor of Horizon Christian Fellowship, told Fox News Radio he was scheduled to give an invocation at a promotion ceremony. Before the event, he received a telephone call from his superior major.
“I was told chaplains can no longer invoke the name of Jesus on government property,” Sartain said. “(He said) if I could refrain from that during the invocation he would appreciate that.”
Sartain said he was surprised by the telephone call. The pastor said he’s prayed “consistently” in the name of Jesus at past police department events without any issues.
“I’m very sad about it,” he said. “I’m a pastor and Jesus is the only thing I have to offer to bless people – his life and his person.”
“It brings about a very real concern about where we are heading as a nation,” he said. “I serve a God who loves people unconditionally, who died for their sins on the cross, who wants to reconcile himself to them and love them where they are at – and now I’m told I can’t bless people as a result of that.”
The police department said he could still pray – just not to Jesus.
So to whom was the Christian minister supposed to pray?
“That was my question,” Sartain said. “If I’m going to pray – what should I pray?”
He said the police department wanted him to deliver a “secular prayer.”
“Even when I wasn’t a Christian – in my past – I didn’t even know what a secular prayer was,” he said. “Why even pray if it’s to the one who’s in the room? That could be anybody.”
Sartain said the new policy has put him in a difficult spot.
“You don’t want to compromise your faith,” he said. ‘At the same time you want to honor those who are in charge over you.”
So Sartain asked the police department to withdraw his name from consideration for future public prayers.
“I didn’t really need to do that as a chaplain,” he said of the public prayers. “I still wanted to have the influence with the police officers and their families.”
At least some people in the Charlotte area support the decision to remove the “Jesus-centric” prayers.
“It’s past time when they should’ve made a policy,” ACLU member Jim Gronquist told WSOC. “It’s improper to mix up religion with the function of state agents, and as long as they’re state agents, they should not be able to do that.”
Sartain said it’s apparent that “Christians for the most part are targeted in these days that we exist in.”
“As Christians in the United States of America – what we are saying as believers – is we want the same rights and privileges as everybody else,” he said. “Let the playing field remain level.”
Todd is the author of “Dispatches From Bitter America.” Here’s what Sarah Palin said about the book: “It’s especially relevant because Todd lays out in detail the Obama Administration’s war on religious liberty…Todd sheds light on this and other “fundamental transformation” acts using homespun humor and Twainesque irony.” Click here to get your copy!

ABC censors "Praise You, Father God! Praise You Jesus!" from Wallenda's comments over Niagra on wire.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 By Martin Barillas   ABC news is being accused of intentionally omitting pious words from the mouth of high-wire walker Nik Wallenda, who managed to walk suspended above Niagara Falls on June 15. During his stunt, Wallenda was on a microphone to provide audio for ABC’s live program special "Megastunts: Highwire Over Niagara Falls."   Wallenda is now the first person to walk across Niagara Falls on high wire. As he walked precariously above the raging falls, he frequently mentioned God and Jesus. For example, he stated “Praise You, Father God! Praise You Jesus!" An  ABC News live blog written up by Ali Gazan, however, made no mention or acknowledgement of the high-flying Wallenda’s invocations of the All Mighty. Gazan's blog posted updates starting at 9:00 PM EST on June 15 with a countdown before the tightrope master began his journey.  The blog ended at around 11:00 PM. During the posts, journalist Gazan wrote updates on what was taking place and quoted Wallenda and others. One of his updates did say that Wallenda’s family was praying for Nik. Comments left on the blog showed noted disappointment with the omission of Wallenda’s religious statements. For example, a commenter identified as ‘Country Girl’ wrote, "How come this blog leaves out the part about him praising Jesus? All the details are complete, except this is noticeably left out. Are you that uncomfortable typing the name of Christ?" Speaking at a press conference, Wallenda said "Faith plays a huge role in what I do. I believe that God has opened many doors for me in my life and this is one of them," who added "Praise God here I am in one piece." Wallenda spoke of his purpose for taking the risky walk across the Falls. "To inspire people around the world that again the impossible is not so impossible if you set your mind to it and reach for your goals." Spero News editor Martin Barillas is a former US diplomat, who also worked as a democracy advocate and election observer in Latin America. He is also a freelance translator. 0digg 10 Filed under politics, entertainment, religion, religion, christianity, us, media, entertainment

Peru rebels abduct children for fighting, breeding -- say WHAT?

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In this photo taken Tuesday, April 17, 2012, Martin Quispe Palomino, also known as "Comrade Gabriel," center, a member of the Shining Path rebel force, talks with a group of journalist in Alto Laguna, Peru. Comrade Gabriel is the youngest of the three Quispe Palomino brothers who command about 500 combatants of a retooled and well-disciplined new Shining Path that has taken firm root in the worldís leading cocaine-producing valley. (AP Photo/La Republica Newspaper, Luis Saldana)

By Kelly Hearn / THE WASHINGTON TIMES

June 20, 2012

In April, a band of rebels, which witnesses said included fighters as young as 13, kidnapped and later released of 40 workers at natural gas company in a jungle hamlet in Peru’s central Amazon.
The brazen raid, the first of its kind in years, prompted a crackdown by state forces in Peru’s deadly Apurimac and Ene River Valleys, known as the VRAE, where half the country’s cocaine is produced.
The raid also has generated more evidence against the notorious terrorist group, which waged an ideological war against the state in the 1980s and 1990s and continues to convert children as young as 7 into combatants and impregnate captured adolescents in order to sustain their ranks.
“We must save these children from the terrorists,” Oscar Valdes, president of Peru’s council of ministers, said shortly after the raid.
Mr. Valdes called on nongovernmental organizations to help bring an end to the group’s recruitment.
Teresa Carpio, director of the Peruvian branch of the international advocacy group Save the Children, said the Peruvian government has not provided estimates on how many children the group is holding. But based on journalists’ accounts, she said, an estimated 80 minors are being detained inside a 12,000-square-mile swath of remote jungle.
Young children indoctrinated
Ms. Carpio said the scale of the problem in Peru pales in comparison with regions such as Africa, but it stands out for another reason.
“The case here in Peru is different from Africa because the Shining Path are using children starting at the ages of 4, 5 and 6,” she said.
A Peruvian television station, Canal N, recently broadcast video of child combatants thought to have been taken in 2010. It shows small children marching through the high jungles, some with machine guns, others with cargo.
Some footage shows soldiers, including some who appear to be preteens, in military formation with AK-47 assault rifles. Children are shown studying communist propaganda. In one shot of a jungle encampment, toddlers are clearly visible.
According to media reports and testimony of children who escaped, the group begins a Marxist education as early as age 2. By 5, many are sent to a military camp. They enter training to become snipers by 11, and the “little pioneers” become full-fledged combatants by 13.
Officials say the children also serve as human shields to prevent airborne strikes from military helicopters.
An additional problem, officials say, is that young captives freed from remote jungle encampments must be resocialized because they have grown up knowing only their captors.
Adolescent females are forced to bear children. In 2011, Peruvian forces rescued a 19-year-old woman and her baby son. She said she was kidnapped when she was 9 years old and forced to have a child.
In April, a pregnant teenager said she was forced to work in jungle cocaine laboratories.
Recent events have opened painful memories. The Shining Path is infamous for its barbaric treatment of children. The Peruvian government’s Commission on Truth and Reconciliation has documented evidence that rebels tortured minors to strike fear in villages and sometimes killed them to prevent them from being recruited into the Peruvian army.
Peruvian prosecutor Julio Galindo recently recalled that one of the Shining Path’s worst massacres, in the state of Ayacucho in April 1983, involved the killings of 69 villagers who opposed their struggle. A quarter of those, he said, were children.
All in the family
Many of the minors under the Shining Path’s control today are said to be children or grandchildren of the group’s founders. Much of what is known about them comes from a handful of interviews given to journalists in recent years and from testimonies by captured rebels or their victims who escaped.
In 2010, police arrested Victor Quispe Zaga, the eldest son of Victor Quispe Palomino, a Shining Path leader. He left the rebels after learning that his father had killed his mother. The younger Quispe told authorities of growing up in horrible conditions that compelled him to undergo ideological and military training starting at age 5.
Other minors being held are thought to be Ashaninka native children kidnapped from marginalized jungle communities in the VRAE, which often lack even the most basic government services.
In April, Save the Children and another Peruvian rights group, known as Iprodes, formally requested that the government arrest the rebel group’s remaining leaders specifically on charges related to their mistreatment of children.
“No one in Peru, none of the Shining Path leaders, has been charged specifically with the forced recruitment of children,” Ms. Carpio said.
Peru is a signatory to international conventions that give authorities legal grounds for prosecuting those accused of using children as soldiers, said Fabian Novak Talavera, of Peru’s Catholic University, a researcher on child combatants.
One Peruvian congressman is pushing a modification to Peru’s anti-terrorism legislation to specifically deal with the issue.
 Proposed legislation would punish violators
Congressman Octavio Salazar has proposed legislation that would impose a minimum 25-year sentence on anyone who captures minors for the purposes of arming and educating them in terrorist practices. Mr. Salazar said he plans to submit a document to congressional leadership this week asking for an urgent debate on his proposal.
“If passed, it will be the first law of its kind in Peru,” he said.
Analysts say the U.S. government has taken no stance on the issue. Ms. Carpio of Save the Children said that when she worked at Amnesty International, she was contacted by a U.S. Embassy official and asked about human rights relating to children.
“But I’ve had no contact with anyone from the embassy on the matter of child soldiers, nor have I heard of any memorandums between the U.S. and Peru,” she said. “They’ve said nothing despite the fact that our proclamations have been all over the international media lately.”
The U.S. Embassy in Peru declined to comment.

God at Work -- Two-Thirds of U.S. Pregnancies Now End With Birth of a Baby!

REPORT SHOWS BOUNCE IN BOUNCING BABIES IN U.S.!

 By Cheryl Wetzstein The Washington Times Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Two-thirds of U.S. pregnancies now end with the birth of a baby, a significantly higher rate than in 1990, when abortions were one-third more common than now, says a federal report on pregnancy rates and outcomes.

In 2008 - the latest year for these data - more than 6.5 million pregnancies were reported. Of these, 4.2 million, or 65 percent, resulted in live births, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) said in its report released Wednesday.
The remaining third of pregnancies were almost evenly split between abortion and fetal loss, with 1.2 million pregnancies, or about 18 percent, ending intentionally and an additional 1.1 million, or 17 percent, ending in miscarriage or stillbirth.
The 2008 figures are quite different from 1990, when 61 percent of pregnancies went to term, 15 percent were lost and 24 percent ended in abortion.
Besides showing that abortion is continuing to wane as an outcome of pregnancy, the 2008 figures point to a gradual increase in fetal loss - “which is one of those tricky areas” to assess, said Stephanie J. Ventura, lead author of the NCHS report.
One explanation for increases in fetal loss could be that more pregnancies are identified earlier, which would allow for more early-term miscarriages to be identified as well, said Ms. Ventura. Also, since the risks for miscarriage and stillbirth rise with a woman’s age. The overall trend toward later-in-life pregnancies may be playing a role, too.
Pregnancy rates for women in their early 20s “declined to the lowest level in more than three decades,” the report said. Also, women in their early 30s continued to have higher pregnancy rates than women age 18 or 19, a dramatic reversal that started around 2002.
A major highlight of the report is the record-low pregnancy rate for teens.
The 2008 rate of 69.8 pregnancies per 1,000 15- to 19-year-olds is the lowest since 1976. Teen pregnancy rates have trended down for all ages and for all racial and ethnic groups.
This decline is “one of the nation’s great success stories of the past two decades,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
Moreover, teen pregnancy rates should continue to fall because teen birthrates between 2008 and 2010 have continued to drop, he said. Teen abortion rates have not gone up, which means teens are doing “what everyone had hoped for,” Mr. Albert said - actively preventing pregnancy.
Other highlights of the NCHS report, “Estimated Pregnancy Rates and Rates of Pregnancy Outcomes for the United States, 1990-2008”:
• The 2008 U.S. pregnancy rate was 105.5 pregnancies per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44.
• Among teens, 754,000 pregnancies were reported in 2008. About 58 percent of these pregnancies ended in live births, while 26 percent ended in abortions and the rest in fetal loss.
• The pregnancy rate for young teens reached a record low in 2008, with 1.4 pregnancies per 1,000 girls 15 and younger. Of the estimated 14,000 pregnancies in 2008 in this group, 6,000 ended in live births, 6,000 were aborted and 2,000 ended in fetal loss.
• Pregnancy rates for both married women and unmarried women were fairly stable, with 116.2 pregnancies per 1,000 married women, and 96.2 pregnancies per 1,000 unmarried women. However, 84 percent of abortions in 2008 were to unmarried women.

© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

NC congressman seeks investigation of forest fire.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones contacts U.S. Forest Service for action in Croatan fire.

  Walter B. Jones

Submitted by Chris Phillips on Tue, 06/19/2012 
 

NEW BERN, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina congressman is seeking an investigation into the fire that's burned more than 21,000 acres in a national forest.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones wrote the supervisor of the U.S. Forest Service in North Carolina asking for an investigation of the prescribed burn that led to the fire in the Croatan National Forest.

The Forest Service did a prescribed burn in the 160,000-acre forest last week. Jones says he's concerned that the fire is hurting tourism and public health.

Smoke from the blaze has prompted the state Division of Air Quality to issue a Code Red advisory for portions of Craven, Jones and Pamlico counties, and a Code Orange warning for Beaufort, Craven, Hyde, Jones, Martin, Pamlico, Pitt, Jones and Washington counties.

Despite Attempts to Explain it Away, Human Life Begins at Conception -- Not Birth!

Recommended by Linda Storey Gelbhaar via Heather Harrison

Steven Ertelt | WASHINGTON, DC | LIFENEWS.COM | 6/16/08 9:00 AM
by Paul A. Byrne, M.D.
June 16, 2008

LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Paul A. Byrne, a Neonatologist, is Director of Neonatology and Director of Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Oregon, Ohio. Dr. Byrne is also a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics University of Toledo College of Medicine and the past-President of the Catholic Medical Association. Opinion and editorial articles like this one do not necessarily reflect the views of LifeNews.com.


A proposed amendment to the state constitution of Colorado states, "The terms ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization." This is not quite true. Life on earth for every person begins with conception. (The words "human person" and "human being" are always interchangeable.)

How did this misconception get started? Perhaps it was several years ago, when the word "pre-embryo" was misapplied to development from the zygote (one cell stage) to implantation in the uterus. In reality, facts about conception do not change by inventing a new word like "pre-embryo," or by giving a false meaning to conception and even by trying to protect life by using a word like fertilization.

To counteract false proposals such as "pre-embryo," some have responded by changing the words to indicate that a new human life begins at fertilization. This is not accurate. Fertilization refers to a process of making a thing fertile, as what happens to a non-fertile hen’s egg when a rooster is in a barnyard. This activity initiates a new chicken. Fertilization is a biological term that can be applied to reproduction of beasts that can indicate a new individual beast.

Evolutionists claim that human beings evolve from beasts. There has never been a human person evolved from any beast. Evolution from lower forms is bothersome and false. Is it modern evolutionism to claim the IVF test-tube-product to be a person?

Life for every person begins with creation by the Creator. (Cf. CCC, 327; 296.) The reference to creation is prior to time. Life is the substantial fact of the existence in time. Human time begins with Adam and Eve. The living person is visible. The soul is the life of the person. It cannot be seen because it is spiritual.

Not long ago a magazine article wrongly stated:
"Life is a continuous thread connecting each generation to the next. A new human person appears on this thread at fertilization because at that point a new organism with unique DNA comes into existence."
While the author can make this case for beasts and brutes, the physical actions and activities of reproduction in beasts are different from creation and procreation of the human person.

The person is created; the body is formed using the sperm and egg. The person created is first visible or manifest as a zygote. The zygote within the body of his/her mother has immediate effect on the mother manifest by Early Pregnancy Factor (EPF). EPF is made by the embryo but found in the mother’s blood already when there are only two cells. Thus, we can know that this new person is present within the body of his/her mother immediately after conception. Every person since Adam and Eve, including Jesus, has lived within the body of his/her mother.

Zygote is the name given to the one-cell stage of many species of organisms. Embryo is applied to the stage of development between zygote and fetus for many types of organisms — e.g., chicken, mouse, etc. The nomenclature of zygote and embryo has no meaning about species, type, or kind of organism.

The person on earth is always a spiritual-corporeal (soul-body) unity. The human person is unique (separate), irrepeatable (one of a kind), made in the Image (substance) and Likeness (nature) of God. The human person is an individual substance of a nature rational. Human life cannot exist in animals or plants, nor can it be grasped in terms of merely biological categories. The life (soul) is in all cells, tissues, organs, and systems of the living person on earth. When cells, tissues, and/or organs are separated, there can be activity of the individual cells, tissues and organs.

The power to begin life is not in the sperm and/or ovum. Only God can create a person. With the concurrence of God, the body is formed by taking up, allotting, and aligning the needed components of the sperm and egg. Life is the substantial fact of the soul-body unity manifest already in the zygote. The formation of the body at the instant of conception manifests the person created by God. "The body and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine" (Pope John Paul II Feb 20, 1980).

Those who claim that a person begins at fertilization are not using the correct term or referring to the correct process. Sperm and ovum have the activities of individual cells, but they cannot be a cause of liberty or a rational soul. Fertilization is a physiological activity in beasts and plants, but this is not enough to understand human creation and procreation. A dictionary can help:
"Fertile" comes from the Latin, fertilis, to bear, produce. Fertilization: 1. The act or process of rendering fertile. 2. The process by which the pollen renders the ovule fertile. 3. The act or processing of fecundating the ovum. Fertilization can properly be applied to reproduction in plants and animals. This is in contrast to the word "conception," which brings in something more than simply physical, e.g., idea, notion, spiritual, soul.
"Conception" comes from the Latin, Concepcio, Conceptus, from concipio, ~con, and copio, I receive, I bring together. 1. The act of conceiving; the first formation of the embryo. 2. The state of being conceived. 3. The formation in the mind of an image, idea, or notion.
To use the word "fertilization" to describe the beginning of a human being is neither precise nor proper. Conception is precise and proper to describe that the life of a person is now manifest in the conceptus, known in Comparative Embryology as the zygote.

We know from experience, precision, and accuracy that once the zygote is present within the body of his/her mother, it can be factually known that this person has newly arrived and is manifested. This is prior to implantation; conception ought not to be falsely labeled as implantation.

Procreation is a special word with precise signification and reference to the human person’s generation. We don’t know exactly how creation happened. We do know that God is Almighty and God creates from nothing in a non-extended instant. These words are not adequate to describe these mysteries. When the body is formed, time for that person on earth begins. Conception is the beginning manifestation of life on earth for a person with soul, intellect, will, and body. God, the Creator, creates life from no prior existence. Without God, no human person is created. No person since Adam and Eve, including Jesus and His Blessed Mother, has arrived on earth at any place other than within the body of his or her mother.

Abortion (including abortifacients), human embryo research, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, and mixed-species chimeras involve specific claims as to when the life of a human person begins. But this question is not merely scientific because it deals with more than only sperm, ovum, etc. Science deals with empirical facts. Science is certain and evident knowledge of things through their proximate causes. The scientist knows, as to existence, that a living human organism exists when the zygote is recognized. But as to the existence of the human person or the human soul, science alone cannot judge. It cannot establish personhood unless it understands something beyond scientific research, because the zygote is a manifestation of a unique and irrepeatable person created by God in His Image (spiritual soul) and Likeness (nature).

"In vitro fertilization" uses the term "fertilization" to describe the bringing together of sperm and egg. Sperms are obtained by evil means (masturbation), and eggs are obtained via chemical and physical mutilation of the body of a woman. The activity of sperm is to fuse with an ovum. After fusion, the cell produced has DNA and chromosomes that are unique and different from the cells of both mother and father. Cell division follows, but without the body of a mother, these cell divisions are quite limited, cease, and disintegrate. With cryopreservation, cell division can be stopped temporarily, but to develop further, a mother is necessary.

[N]ow the mode of origin is not the same in all things, but in each thing is adapted to the nature thereof; animated things being produced in one way, and inanimated in another; animals in one way, plants in another (Summa, P.1, Q. 93, a. 5).
God, who is an Omnipotent Spirit, creates the human person with a rational soul immediately. Only Omnipotence can create spirit, a non-material soul, a person endowed with liberty. With the concurrence of God, the human body is formed from the material sperm and ovum. The reality of the person is evident by the visibility of the body. The soul is the life. We see life in the living person; we do not see the soul. When the formed body is present, the scientist and embryologist can then, and only then, know that the person exists. Creation is the mystery. Once alive, there is much to learn about the human person, who is for eternity.

Certainly, those responsible for the amendment to the Colorado Constitution are to be commended for doing everything they know to do to protect the life of the person from its first manifestation on earth. Those who label embryos in test tubes as persons are telling us we need to protect these "embryos." Yes, we need to protect and preserve life of every human being (person) from its conception to its natural end.

The final answer to the question of when life of a person on earth begins is from God revealed through revelation in sacred scriptures and the authoritative teaching of the Church as found in The Bible and tradition:

Psalms 139:13 — "Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb."


Jeremiah 1:5 — "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you."


Job 33:4 — "For the spirit of God has made me, the breath of the almighty keeps me alive."


Psalms 139:15 — "When I was made in secret, when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth." (The depths of the earth: figurative language for "The womb" — stressing not so much the darkness of the place as the hidden, mysterious nature of the operations that occur there.)


Isaiah 44:2 — "Thus says the Lord who made you, your help, who formed you from the womb:"


Isaiah 44:24 — "Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, who formed you from the womb: I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens; when I spread out the earth, who was with me?"


Isaiah 45:12. — "I made the earth, I created man [hominem] upon it. [Super eam-before all].