The Gospel According to Sojourners: The Theory of Revolution

I want to introduce you to someone I have written about briefly in the past regarding his politics and his spirituality. If anyone had told me that at some point in the near future, this man’s brand of politics and theology would make inroads into an evangelical church in my own backyard with an outreach to 30,000+ youth, I would not have believed it. Furthermore, if anyone would have told me that his worldview would, within 3 short years hence, resonate within Calvary Chapel in any form, I would likely have had a heart incident of unnamed variety and severity.

 

It’s grievous enough to regard trends today in the evangelical church along the lines of liberal theology and social justice, but at this point we must ask ourselves, is anyone immune to the gale force winds of change blowing through the church? Apparently not, as we wake up to the news this week that North Coast Calvary Chapel will host Palestinian Christian Sami Awad and Lynn Hybels this Sunday on Mothers’ Day. Why should this be so alarming to many, and heartstopping even, in the Calvary Chapel movement?  Concerns are flying today on many fronts, as they should be, because of CC’s history of strong support for Israel, Awad’s politics, and Lynne Hybels’ involvement with all the above. Her connections to Wallis and her politics are the knot that ties all this together. The broader picture is the entire Willow Creek/Saddleback church model, if you want to pull up to hover at about 10,000 feet or thereabouts without getting dizzy.

 

Back in 2010, a local church in Northeast Wisconsin invited Jim Wallis, known Marxist and liberal theologian, to keynote a huge Christian music fest geared to thousands of our kids. When we at Calvary Chapel of Appleton heard about this, we immediately wrote to every evangelical church in the state, educating, warning, and encouraging everyone within earshot to do their homework on Mr. Wallis and his brand of “Christianity”. Our warning bell went far and wide and many thanked us for standing up for truth in this area. Below you can read the results of my research then and how it still applies to today, only in spades. My prayer is that those who need to know what the church is up against today will take to heart our warning and use our research to bring clarity to what is at this point an unfortunate “breach” in discernment for at least one Calvary Chapel. Here is the entire article that went viral back in 2010, in its entirety. I am grieved to the core that I have to resurrect it for such a time as this, but so be it:

 

I want to introduce you to someone I briefly mentioned in 2 earlier prophecy updates, regarding trends today in the evangelical church. I would say that this person is one of the top “change agents” today, and the timing of his surge in popularity is very interesting, considering

1) the ideology of our current administration,  2) the advance of liberal theology via the emerging church and church growth movements, and 3)the current state of doctrinal apostasy the church finds itself in today. Are all these connected? Through this man, they are indeed

 

Now, I take no pleasure in going after the rising stars of the church movement of the hour, and to be honest, just reading about their exploits and agenda tends to steal my peace. My experience has been, however, that unbiblical trends in the church tend to snowball, producing even worse trends; that each heretical book or teaching that comes along seems to lead to a worse one down the road; the bible says in 2Timothy 3:13 that in the last days, “evil men and seducers (imposters) shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived”, suggesting to me a progressive pattern of deception  that we really need to stay on top of.

 

So, I feel compelled to bring you this information so that you will be better equipped to discern and observe a progression that I have been following for a long time, and that you would understand how people like this man want to influence your kids and your thinking about what our worldview as believers should be.

 

There is so much information overload out there, that unless you knew the proverbial frog before he jumped into the proverbial pot, you might be overwhelmed in keeping up, and so  I am going to take a few minutes to help you sort out the latest trend blowing through the church.

 

For those who remember the old “Dragnet” TV show, allow me to “reinvent” Joe Friday: “The story you are about to hear is true. None of the names have been changed – and the only thing I’m interested in protecting is the gospel of Jesus Christ”.  Let’s dive in.

 

Jim Wallis will be one of the keynote speakers at Lifest this July. (Lifest is a large music fest that takes place in Oshkosh, Wisconsin every summer, featuring the latest artists from the Christian community, as well as various speakers. On it’s own website, it says it expects up to 70,000 attendees over the course of the  weekend, which in this area, covers a considerable section of the population.)

 

If we are going to do any critical thinking at all on this subject, we really need to get a kodak moment of “the big picture”.

So, in my desire to be thorough on this subject, I read nearly 50 different articles about him and his activities over the last 4 decades, by many different writers -some by himself and his associates, others by both Christian and secular observers. I also read his book, The Great Awakening, because I  don’t want anyone who might be in the sound of my voice to think that I have not taken the time myself to get inside our subject’s head. In reality, anyone with internet access could probably have all the info they need on him within 10 minutes – he is not shy about his agenda.

So who is Jim Wallis?

For nearly 40 years, he has expressed himself through an organization called, “Sojourners”. He was raised in an evangelical family in Detroit, and attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity school, but his radical political views made it impossible for him to finish there. [1]

 

At that time, he also founded an anti-capitalist magazine called, “The Post-American” in which he called for the redistribution of wealth and an economy managed by the government. He also experimented for a season with communal living in search of a utopian lifestyle.

 

In 1975, he moved his work to WashingtonDC and renamed it Sojourners. He wasn’t just against the Vietnam war, he rejoiced in America’s defeat there – there is a big difference – showing his leftist sympathies by publicly criticizing the Vietnamese and Hmong refugees who fled that communist regime (we called them “boat people” back then), by claiming they were leaving to support their consumer habit in other lands…that being greedy capitalists made it just too hard to live under a dictatorship. [2] Where is the “liberal compassion” in those sentiments?

He supported the Sandinista Communists in their attempt to take over Nicaragua in the 80s, actively participating in resistance against the American military – AND working side by side in this cause with none other than Jeremiah Wright, the radical anti-American Chicago preacher who was our president’s pastor for 20 years.

 

Wallis also supported the FMLN, a communist terror group from El Salvador itching to spread their Marxist revolution throughout South America. The word “traitor” does come to mind at this point. [3]

 

In 1983, the organization, “Accuracy in Media” published a lengthy book on the far left policies of Wallis and his organization, documenting 53 political positions of Sojourners on such issues as Israel’s right to exist, terrorism, socialism, capitalism, human rights, etc  – and compared their positions on these subjects with those of the Soviet Union. In all 53 position statements, it was found that Sojourners’ views were completely in line with the views of hardline Soviets.

 

Joan Harris, who did the reporting on this, observed, “Sojourners never criticizes a Marxist state. The US and the West are the only violators of human rights to them because they are capitalist. Marxists, by Sojourners’ own definition, cannot violate human rights.”  Wallis calls himself a “Progressive” – but keep in mind that “progressive” is as far left as you can go politically without actually taking a right turn in the process.[4]

 

Wallis believes that Castro’s Cuba, Chavez’s Venezuela, and Ortega’s Nicaragua are the Marxist paradises the US should emulate. It is not extreme at all to say, that one of his goals is the end of the US as we have known it — “Post-Americanism” finally realized. So, after being arrested by the US government 22 times in 40 years, where has he soft-landed? As spiritual advisor to President Obama.[5] Now, with the help of our own government, he hopes to turn mere ideology into policy. He is a living, breathing advocate for total government control, complete socialism, or “totalitarian socialism”.

 

Wallis has known Obama for over 20 years, and during the “Reverend Wright” damage control days, he was right there advising him on how to spin it, and helping him draft many “faith based initiatives”, to make the far left appear to have some form of religion, to sell the church the idea that here is a spiritual alternative to the now defunct Religious Right, which Wallis eulogizes endlessly in his book.

 

So, in light of all this, allow me to ask a question at this point: why is this man speaking at a local Christian festival aimed primarily at our youth?

 

In their own words, Sojourners’ Mission statement is this: “founded in 1971, our mission is to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church and the world.”

 

What this is Social Justice that is supposed to transform our churches, even us as individuals? Doesn’t the Holy Spirit do the transforming work in all things? The dictionary defines it as, “The equitable distribution of advantages, assets, and benefits among all members of a society.” Without turning this into political science 101, I’ll keep it simple by saying that this is also the definition for “social-ism”: a  government-controlled economy and the redistribution of wealth.

 

If you were of the impression that social justice is simply caring for the disadvantaged, then you need to upgrade your thinking on it or you will risk being deceived by today’s definition of the term. After all, who among us who claims to know God would ever be against reaching out to the poor and alleviating suffering however we could?  Case in point, Haiti. A healthy church will naturally care for “the least of these”. But Wallis takes any collective sense of moral responsibility we may have for the disadvantaged and redefines and manipulates it for his own agenda.

 

This is the manipulation, and this is important – keep this in mind when you watch the extreme changes going on in our country today – Wallis’ Social Justice turns all the political hot button issues of the day into moral issues with a divine, biblical mandate. Everything from the economy, jobs and education, to healthcare, global warming, race issues and immigration – now carries with it the moral imperative of fairness, equity, and validity – and that mindset is responsible for our current administration’s frenzy to push through legislation on all the above.

 

And if you question this new global village moral imperative, I have no doubt your Christianity will be called into question as well at some point. This “new morality” is radically changing our country as we speak, and has been for some time via organizations like ACORN.  But you might be asking, what does this have to do with the church?

 

Social Justice turns on something called  the Social Gospel. What is the Social Gospel? And did Glenn Beck realize he was signing up for an endless war of words with Wallis when he recently called him on his evil mix of Marxism and the bible?

 

Here’s the comment that got Glenn into hot water with Wallis last month:  “This (social justice) is a complete per-version of the gospel…I beg you, look for the words, ‘social justice’ on your church’s website. If you find it, run as fast as you can”. [6] Now, Glenn and I part ways quite a bit theologically, but I have to give him credit for seeing this new religion of works and collective guilt and collective-ism for what it is. He is one of the few who actually does.

 

The roots of the social gospel go back to the 19th and 20th centuries. That was when many Protestant denominations took on liberal theology, which includes  the post-millennial view that Jesus cannot return until mankind has brought justice to the earth by ridding itself of all social evils. At that time slavery, temperance, women’s rights, child labor, and equity for the working stiffs who were caught in the industrial revolution’s 12 hour work days were the new causes of the liberal churches.

 

Wallis believes he was born in the wrong century and says so in his book – and is longing for those early days of social justice awareness, or ‘Great Awakenings’ as they were called – and puts them on a par with true Holy Spirit – led revivals;  hence the name of his book, “The Great Awakening”- the one he is calling for today.

 

TA McMahon, in his article called, “The Shameful Social Gospel”, warns of a gospel that is being tinkered with by some who call themselves evangelicals but in reality are ashamed of the true gospel, presenting one to the world that is more palatable, political, and ecumenical. This has been the primary gospel of the mainline Protestant denominations throughout the 20th century, and still is today. It’s popularity rose and fell with the times; if you are old enough you experienced a wave of it during the civil rights era of Martin Luther King and Vietnam. Just listen to the oldies channel long enough, and you will hear of the many social and moral causes of the ‘60s.

 

Heretic Emergent guru Brian McLaren says this: I think our future will require us to join humbly and charitably with people of other faiths – Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and secularists in pursuit of peace, environmental stewardship and justice for all people, things that matter greatly to the heart of God.” TA says this: “No, what matters to the heart of God is that all should come to repentance and believe the true Gospel. God’s Word gives no commission to the church to fix the problems of the world.” [7]

 

Rick Warren took the social gospel to new levels, by hobnobbing with world leaders and presenting his global PEACE plan to mobilize churches to address poverty and disease and telling us not to bother with prophecy. Remember too, when Rick Warren interviewed the 2008 Presidential candidates? Ever wonder how he got that job? I sure have. Now Jim Wallis is carrying this very same agenda to the highest levels of our government as an appointee of the president.

 

Wallis’ has also found a kindred spirit in Willow Creek. Pastor Bill Hybels’ wife Lynne is a major contributor to Sojourner’s. Willow Creek offers classes on social justice. The Willow Creek Association offers churches of any denomination anywhere an opportunity to align themselves with their main campus for a yearly fee, giving those churches access to their annual summits, leadership training and sermon ideas – in effect creating a denomination via the back door. They claim there are 13,000 Willow Creek Association member churches throughout the world. Do the math on this one – look at the potential influence a Jim Wallis could have on the church if even half of them choose to emulate Willow Creek in their growing emphasis on the social gospel?

 

There is a movie coming out soon entitled, “With God on Our Side”. I want to pre-warn you about this film – Jan Markell (www.olivetreeviews.org) tells us that “it is aimed at changing the end-time views of evangelicals and the theology that says the Jews are God’s chosen people and have a divine right to the land.”

 

The producer of this film announces that there is “a biblical alternative for Christians who want to love and support Israel – a “new” theology that doesn’t favor one people group over another but instead promotes peace and reconciliation for both Jew and Palestinian” instead of endless Middle East violence.

 

The only problem with that pie-in-the-sky thinking, is that the Palestinian leadership does not WANT peace with Israel. They want a one-state solution, they want the destruction of Israel. The film’s  message to evangelicals is that the US’ old pro-Israel foreign policy was based on end-time theology and has created great suffering among the Palestinians. But today’s more socially aware and compassionate Christians will reject that old policy and realize that the Palestinians are the victim group most in need of Christian compassion. Wallis, McLaren and Campolo are promoting the film. I tell you all this because when you hear about this movie, which you likely will, in light of our subject here, you will be able to cut through the propaganda and see it for what it is, another vehicle for social justice – social gospel indoctrination, and an unbiblical spin on the clear teachings about Israel presented throughout the Scriptures.

 

Now, Marxism is nothing new to this old world and will pass away. What Wallis is promoting is nothing new either.  But let’s take the wood, hay, and stubble of Wallis’ dry old social justice gospel and throw some last days fuel on it: like the Emergent church’s mix of Catholicism and liberal Protestantism; add Rick Warren’s global PEACE plan, and Willow Creek’s annual leadership summits featuring speakers like Bono, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Tony Blair and Rick Warren, and before long things are burning out of control in the church. Throw in the fact that the forward to Wallis’ book is written by Jimmy Carter, an anti-Israel leftist; other endorsers are Bill Hybels, Bono, and Brian McLaren, who is also on the Sojourners’ board of directors and a regular contributor on it’s blog, and a picture of a last days lukewarm church really comes into focus.

 

Let’s look at some current quotes by Wallis on key biblical issues to give you a fuller picture of this man. Remember, he calls himself an evangelical pastor.

 

On being born again: Jesus proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand…He is saying that a whole new order is about to enter history, and if you want to be a part of it, you will need a change so fundamental that the Gospel of John would later refer to it as a “new birth”. Being born again was not meant to be a private religious experience that is hard to communicate…but rather the prerequisite for joining a new and very public movement – the Jesus and kingdom of God movement.”

The Great Awakening, p.60

 

On Israel: “The completely one-sided support for Israel from conservative evangelicals rests on 2 things: one, a very dubious interpretation (and I’m being generous here) of biblical prophecy…in which the modern state of Israel is still equated with the Old Testament notion of ‘God’s Chosen People’, and a complete  denial of the existence of Palestinian Christians.”

Jim Wallis, “Politics Pushes Uneven Policies”,

September 17, 2007

 

On Gay Rights: ”Abomination is a pretty strong word…there is a debate and questions over the meaning of the word “abomination.”(Referring to Leviticus 18:22)

As heard on Moody Christian Radio Network, in Chicago, Feb.19, 2008, when asked about government sanctions on civil unions for gays.

www.americansfortruth.com

 

On the Kingdom: “The kingdom of God, which Jesus came to inaugurate, is meant to create an alternate reality in this world, and ultimately to transform the kingdoms of this world” The Great Awakening, p. 56

 

On Repentance: “We are all familiar with the famous pop culture image of a street evangelist holding up a sign reading, “Repent, for the end is near!” But repentance is…often misunderstood. This week, one could imagine a group of pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams holding up a sign on Wall Street for the titans of the financial industry to see, reading, “Repent, or the end could be near again….let’s have some sermons on the repentance of Wall Street.” (read that, “capitalism” – ed. – Wall St. Repent, by Jim Wallis, 4.29.10

 

Sojourners On Bible Prophecy: “It’s all too easy to make fun of the extreme examples of prophecy belief that we encounter on bumper stickers and best-seller lists. When people talk breathlessly of the dangers of Universal Product Codes and automated teller machines as signs of the impending Tribulation, giggles and head shaking are hard to repress…when we ridicule apocalyptic interpretations of bar codes and the European Common Market, we are …properly rejecting an interpretive method that (suggests a) correspondence between biblical events and symbols, and our own lives. Ought Revelation to be included within the family of Christian texts, or should it be thrown on the fire of apocalyptic excesses? “

Wes Howard-Brook, “Apocalypse Soon? Sojourners January 1999

 

On the Imminent Return of Jesus:

Not a word could I find on our blessed hope. But then, I don’t see any kind of genuine hope in anything he espouses, nor do I get a hint of a biblical relationship with God. If we are not going to be fruit inspectors on this guy, then the church is totally abdicating its responsibility regarding truth. Period.

 

Equating biblical care of the downtrodden with the welfare state is rapidly changing the face of the evangelical church. This “pseudo-Christian” morality-based religion for the last days is infiltrating every corner of American society and the church seems to have either lost the will to identify and counteract it’s influence, or feels so guilty about it’s mega-excesses that it is operating out of a sense of works not in keeping with repentance. Wallis’ book is the most preachy, shaming, finger-pointing rant I have ever read; I suppose in the absence of Christ’s righteousness in a person’s life, all that’s left is self-righteousness, which utterly lacks the sweet savor of having been in the presence of Jesus.

 

But I believe this is a preview of an even deeper level of apostasy, a marriage of religion and politics that will ultimately come together under the dictatorial reign of Antichrist, who “causeth all, both small and great,  rich and poor, free and slave…” to receive his mark – is this the “level playing field” Wallis and others are working toward? If that’s true, then this is deception of the highest possible caliber, and I find it thoroughly sobering in light of the lateness of the hour.

So, just how late is it?

 

Allow me to ask one more time, why is this man a keynote speaker at a huge local Christian festival aimed primarily at our youth?

 

Some closing comments: Social reformers deceptively blur the lines between two kingdoms, seeking to turn houses of worship into distribution centers for their causes. What they choose to ignore is that all the ills of society are merely symptoms – the root cause is sin. They reject the cure for sin through the cross of Christ and instead treat symptoms – but in removing the cross, they are conveniently free to affirm anyone’s beliefs, and the result is a broad road, inclusive global social justice revolution, or what I call, “The Theory of Revolution”. We have been watching this take place right under the church’s nose for the last few years, and it’s becoming clearer by the day who is aligning themselves with whom, and what kind of agenda is being promoted.

 

Wallis says in his book that the majority of his audience is under 30 and half of those are under 25. He speaks frequently at major universities, some secular, and more and more at conservative Christian colleges. This is how it was done back in the 60s when Wallis was young; today’s liberal thinkers got their worldview from the counterculture agendas of America’s universities. But lest you think Wallis himself is just another counterculture hippie type out there on the fringes of the establishment –

 

Note this picture: it is similar to the first picture I showed of him, but on this one, you can actually read the logo in the background: “World Economic Forum”. This is the annual invitation-only event in Davos Switzerland that brings together the world’s most influential politicians and economists as they work to bring the world under a global authority.

Consider also, that Sojourners’ receives a portion of its considerable funding from the Open Society Institute,[8] this is billionaire leftist George Soros’ organization. In  my next update we will look much closer at him and other revolutionaries like him, so stay tuned for that.

 

Also, back in 2007, the National Association of Evangelicals hosted a dinner gathering called, “A Global Leaders Forum”. That alone should raise a red flag. The keynote: Ban Ki Moon, current head of the UN. What is he doing at the NAE event, you ask yourself? (Every Christian should be asking themselves about this.)  Wallis himself says of the event, that some Christians today, those who read books like “Left Behind”, might say he had dinner with the Antichrist (that night).

 

He goes on to say: “Last night, the supposed Antichrist was listening to gospel music, speaking of his own faith, quoting scripture, celebrating a new alliance with “the evangelical church” on the critical issues of poverty and global warming, and bringing the conservative Christian crowd to its feet in smiling agreement with the UN secretary’s agenda. Indeed, leader after Christian leader insisted this was a biblical agenda.[9]

 

I don’t know about you, but in light of the times, that sends a bit of a chill up my spine. How gullible can one be, who hears the head of the UN quote a bible verse and then jumps to the outrageous conclusion that the UN has a biblical agenda? To me this defies comprehension but then so much today does, and this of course is the heart of deception.

 

My challenge is this: to those who may receive this information, to be open and teachable regarding the times. The bible commands us to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints! This applies to all who call themselves believers, not just a few.

 

Now is not the time to hang on to any “sacred cows” of personality but to be so in love with truth in our innermost being that nothing matters except to make sure we are on the side of truth. After all, if there is no such thing as absolute truth, is such a thing as a lie? If we don’t know the real thing, how can we spot a counterfeit?

 

It is our prayer that the Lord would direct and guide you regarding this matter and all matters of faith, earnestly seeking His mind and heart in all things as laid out in the Word.

 

Mary Danielsen

Calvary Chapel of Appleton, Wisconsin

cchapel@ccappleton.org

www.thethings2come.org

 



[2] http://www.traditionalvalues.org/pdf_files/jim_wallis.pdf

[3] ibid

[4] ibid

[5] Frontpage Magazine, March 17, 2009. http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34385

[6]  http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/37852/

[7] The Shameful Social Gospel, TA McMahon. http://www.thebereancall.org/node/7062

[8] http://theothermccain.com/2010/03/13/surprise-sandinista-stooge-jim-wallis-endorses-socialist-obamacare-bill/

[9] Dinner with the Antichrist” by Jim Wallis.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/10/dinner-with-the-antichrist-by.html

Posted in Spirit of the Age | Tagged | 4 Comments

Do You Hear the Sirens?

By Tim Cameron


 

“A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself,
but the simple pass on and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3).

Last Wednesday night at 2:30 a.m. in the Ozarks of Missouri, I was stirred awake by a loud crack of thunder. Looking out from our bedroom window, I could see the rain was moving sideways. I ran and turned on the TV to see that our area was under a tornado warning. My heart raced realizing that I had slept through any warnings that might have been given.

The next morning talking with other local friends we all asked the same question, “Did you hear the sirens?”

In the Ozarks, in tornado alley, we take this time of season seriously.

Two years ago this May…

On May 22, 2011, I stood outside getting ready to go to a friend’s house for dinner and said, “I better call my parents and ask if it’s okay for the kids to stay at their house, just in case.”

The reason? My parents have a storm shelter and the clouds in the sky to the west of us looked very OMINOUS. It was 4:30 in the afternoon when I dropped off our three kids and headed to our friend’s house.

We were all eating and talking when I quickly glanced at the radar on my phone and my friend saw my countenance! “Something wrong?”

“You should see the radar,” I replied. “It looks TERRIBLE, and man, it’s right on top of Joplin!”

My friends’ wife hurried and turned on the TV in the other room, and all of our phones were buzzing with text: “Home depot in Joplin got hit, Walmart too!” It was very sobering and all of our “watching and praying” eyes were lifted-up. We all prayed and then my wife and I made a mad dash toward my parent’s house to be near our kids.

In the next few hours after having watched the storm lift and pass over our area, we would learn that one of the deadliest storms in recent American history had just taken place and many lives were lost and countless others would NEVER be the same.

Many stories came forth from those who heard the warnings and believed them, and ran for shelter, but at the same time there are stories of those who turned a deaf ear, “Heard them all my life,” they said and just kept grilling burgers. “I heard the sirens, but they go off a lot around here this time of year.”

And of course we also heard the devastating stories of those who even heard the warnings but were not in a “safe place” to weather the storm and lost their lives. Some were even snatched out of loved ones arms. It was gut wrenching and I pray as you continue to read that this disaster can be used as a major wake-up call to those who have been blinded to something even more ominous!

You see, many people died, but some were prepared to die. They had taken shelter from an eternal storm by placing their faith in Jesus Christ and even though their carnal man perished, they did NOT truly die. For in an instant, the moment their bodies were struck by that devastating F5 tornado, because they belong to God, their souls were transported into the very Presence of Almighty God, to an eternal home and destiny which they would now in no way would want to come back from.

On the other hand, there are those who were not prepared for that tornado or more important?for that which comes after. The Bible says it is appointed unto all people to die and then at the Great White Throne judgment they will stand before God as Judge.

During this horrendous tornado, a local doctor reported hearing people, “wail and scream” inside the twister and how it haunted him. But what is even more daunting is that there are those who are even now wailing and screaming from a storm that will NEVER STOP because after being propelled through that tornado, out of a Home Depot or Walmart, they arrived in hell. After the 1000-year Millennium they will stand in God’s courtroom, stand before Him because they refused to believe in Him and refused to take shelter in Him. They will hear a terrible decree, “Depart from Me I know You Not.”

Those who rejected the free gift of salvation offered through Jesus Christ are now in HELL with NO HOPE, no chance to escape. They will stand before the Lord at the Great White Throne judgment and sentenced to an eternity in the lake of fire.

But if you are reading this you still have hope.

Yet, here is the deal: There is a storm brewing of biblical proportions and it’s even at the door.

You have to have eyes to see and you have to have ears to hear.

The radar is screaming for you to: PLEASE TAKE SHELTER.

In God’s Word He foretold of a time such as this, and said when you see certain things, to “take shelter!” What are those certain things? Here are just a few:

1. Israel is being pressured on every side to “divide their land.”

2. When love waxes cold, when the love of pleasure is greater than love for God.

3. When children are rebellious to parents.

4.When global economies shake, when knowledge increases and people travel rapidly “to and fro.”

For thousands of years, mankind traveled by horse but in the last century we’ve seen travel go to where you can ship anything worldwide in three days (Federal Express). You can talk instantaneously to others anywhere via text, instant messenger, and email. Just as Daniel forewarned: When you see these things, it’s like an ominous storm warning shouting something very terrifying: “The Day of the Lord is at hand.”

“Look! The Lord’s anger bursts out like a storm, a whirlwind that swirls down on the heads of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not diminish until it has finished all he has planned. In the days to come you will understand all this very clearly” (Jeremiah 23:19-20).

We are approaching a time of God’s undeniable wrath being poured out upon this place we’ve called home and He in mercy is warning all who will listen.

Look with open eyes and pay attention. Governments are advocating the killing of babies that survive abortion, after the fact! Now that is criminal enough in light of the fact that it pulls our heartstrings with, “That is a baby!” But also remember, these lives are God’s handiwork which is being destroyed?murdered. He authored those lives. To kill those babies is to point your finger in God’s chest saying, “Not your will God, but ours be done.”

The current Gosnell abortion trial is a mockery to a Holy God of how ridiculously insensitive the world has become to the slaughter of life. Ray Comfort’s 180Movie (linked below) should be shown in every assembly in this nation, and on that issue alone there should be a clarion call to prayer and intercession for the deepest of repentance.

I suggest for everyone to read the book of Habakkuk and realize God is no respecter of persons and the very thing He allowed to happen to Israel is playing out right before our eyes?as evil and wicked people are reaping a perilous harvest. I tremble in what I’m seeing take place and how rapidly it’s all happening.

Do you not pay attention to those who are planning YOUR VERY OWN DESTRUCTION?

The Jihadists?the Muslim Brotherhood, are screaming, “Americans MUST die.” Even now these enemies are working around the clock to see that this is accomplished through their planning of tremendous violence, and demanding Sharia law (slavery).

We have entire nations to reference for what looks like the ravages of radical Islamists, demanding submission as they train little kids to strap bombs to them selves and walk into crowds and blow themselves up. Even now they are planning massive attacks on the place we have called home (USA). They do this believing they are under a “divine” mandate to usher in their messiah by way of “chaos.”

These radicals have erected training facilities all over the United States and yet most people are sleeping right through it: “Eating, drinking and being merry,” NOT paying attention to the fact that governments are enabling this ascension by providing billions of dollars, F16s and high-powered weapons with no background checks required. Handing out visas and free entrance into this country via special exemptions. In relation to a stormy night, your TV should be blaring with a: BREAKING ALERT.

“As it was in the days of Noah” and “as it was in the days of Lot so shall it be.”

“Gay Christians?”

An NBA player comes out of the “closet” and is esteemed as a public hero and interviewed. “What was the response to the ESPN analyst who took a “homophobic” stance that you can’t be gay and also say that you are a “Christian? The analyst was ridiculed!

Presidents and celebrities jumped on the bandwagon, gloating how “times have evolved” into an age of tolerance and acceptance.

The kicker of these so-called “gay Christians” is that they are the only group claiming to follow Christ and continue to hang onto their sin. There is no other group who claims proudly to be an adulterous Christian, a fornicating Christian, a lying Christian, a gambling Christian, or a murdering Christian. They all would add the word “repentant;” a “repentant” adulterer, a “repentant” fornicator, etc.

Every true born-again believer does wrestle with their carnal sin-nature having to take up their own cross dying daily to self, but would never subscribe to hanging onto sin?which caused Jesus to die on the cross. If the Holy Spirit is living in a person, that person will be at war with the sin nature. The Spirit of God would be pruning, rooting out and tearing down everything exalting itself against the knowledge of God. Christian means to be (“Christ like”).

To say being a gay is “Christ like” is tragically trendy and becoming politically correct, BUT the Bible is the only measure and it still says that it’s an abomination (perversion) to the very purpose for which man was created. We ALL were born wrong the first time, we all have a sin nature and that is why Jesus said we must be “born again!”

Yet, godless lawlessness is screaming:

“TURN OFF THE LIGHT!”

Alarmingly, the Pentagon has issued a warning that any one sharing the gospel in military service could face court martial. Sadly, many churches don’t need to be, they have taken the gospel out all by themselves, choosing to appease mankind with soothsaying messages of peace and safety at a time when there will be no peace and there will be no safety apart from the gospel.

There is a STORM-WARNING, but we’re having a picnic anyway?

So many pulpits have tickling ears at a time when pastors should be in the deepest travail crying out for people to, “Make ready!”

To me it would be like someone watching the news and hearing that an F5 Tornado or hurricane, volcano or earthquake is getting ready to happen but instead of crying out they are planning a picnic. Seriously, get a picture of that: You are sitting in your house, The TV blares a siren, “A SEVERE WEATHER REPORT.” A tornado warning has been spotted on the ground and it’s headed right toward your town, but at the same time you’re getting a call from a local pastor or church member talking about having a picnic as if all is well when you know its not.

The prophet Jeremiah showed us that there is a dividing line drawn — that God becomes very angry with those who claim to speak for Him and yet aren’t sharing what He would be saying!

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said, “You shall have peace”; and to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, “No evil shall come upon you.” (Jeremiah 23:16-17)

That is happening all over this planet. And it’s being done “in Jesus’ Name.” Pulpits are using the spotlight given them NOT to point to the only hope for such a stormy time but rather using Jesus’ Name to spotlight themselves to make money and build buildings and ministries that are going to be consumed by fire?

I’m convinced there would be a tremendous harvest in churches if pastors would repent and start preaching the true gospel to their “seeker friendly” attendees who’ve been falsely led through a, “repeat after me” mantra instead of being told they need to “repent or perish.” But sadly they plagiarize from the latest “trendy best seller” to fleece their way up the blasphemous chain of “churchianity,” instead of getting on their faces before a Holy God and saying, “What do you want to say today?” That should be a warning to us all, to be about our Father’s business.

Not to earn salvation but because of what Jesus already accomplished on our behalf. To be a true follower of Jesus Christ in this stormy hour is growing in cost. Hatred is boiling. We (true Christians) are becoming the scourge of the earth. You can plan for your best life now if you want to, but based on God’s holy Word, I read that this planet is way more like the Titanic and we are commissioned to get people to life boats, not build a better world but help rescue those who are His. I have said this before but I will say it again. “As it was in the days of Noah.” Noah did NOT change his world, he didn’t win his culture and he didn’t try to be culturally relevant. He just faithfully believed God and built an ark for the saving of souls.

Please hear the heart of this message. It is not to condemn, but to stir an urgency to sound the alarm to your friends and family while there is still time.

The storm clouds are ominous, I tell you.

Are you prepared? Have you taken shelter?

Hate has replaced love. The love of self has replaced God. “Whatever makes you feel good, just do it.” Run up credit cards, who cares that the debtor is enslaved to the lender? Even now our nation in America is selling its individual citizens into debt slavery by destroying our national sovereignty through spending not billions but trillions — and yet the masses of kool-aid drinkers are trusting that these blind “leaders” (guides) know where they are going?

We have a president who has told Israel to give up land for peace, referring to the 1967 borders as the starting point of negotiations striving for a “two state solution.” The New pope agrees and he too is making a push for PEACE. He is asking for all faiths to unite so we can all COEXIST. Yet, war is growing more and more imminent in the Middle East. Iran is approaching the “red line” and Syria has begun using chemical weapons. This world is growing darker and darker.

PLEASE TAKE SHELTER!

In Joplin, the warnings went out and many heard and believed. They ran and hid in a safe place.

That is what I’m about to ask you to do.

You see, you can scoff at what I’m saying and say: “I’ve heard this all my life,” and as one lady testified in Joplin, “I’ve heard tornado warnings all my life.”

They mocked Noah.

Thousands of people mocked Noah to their very end, and you can too! You can mock the warnings of this time. You can say, “Ah, the government will ‘fix it’ or ‘we’ve seen this before.’”

OR you can take a serious and sober look at all the many things that have taken place in recent days, months and years and say, “Maybe I need to wake-up” to what is happening and TAKE SHELTER.

Did you know what a Tsunami was seven, eight or even ten years ago, before the Asian Pacific Tsunami in which over 250,000 people died? And YET that storm will pale in comparison to a time that the Bible says, “Unless God shortens the days no flesh will survive.”

What must you do to be safe from the wrath to come? What is the wrath to come?

When I turn on my TV and a storm warning has been issued, there will be a scrolling message that tells me what to expect: Strong winds in excess of 100 mph, golf ball sized hail, dangerous lightning.

What can you expect? What should be scrolling at the bottom of your monitorright now?

1. Ninety to, one hundred pound, hailstones (Revelation 16:16-20).

2. A great earthquake, leaving NO ISLANDS on earth also, taking down every mountain on earth.

3. 1/3 of the earth is burned up, 1/3 of trees, and all the grass (Revelation 8:7).

4. 1/3 of the sea is turned into blood (Revelation 8:8-9).

5. The Abyss (bottomless pit) opens and locust-like scorpion creatures arise (Revelation 9:2-3).

6. Evil angels released to kill 1/3 of mankind (Revelation 9).
7. Painful sores break out on people that have taken the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 16).
8. The sun will scorch people with fire (Revelation 16).

And even worse: That which will never end: Lost souls being cast into a lake of fire.

Stop and think.

Please!

Knowing the terror of the Lord, I beg.

Right now if a tornado warning was sounding and you “believed it” you would run to shelter.

How can we do that in relation to the choice we must make in this life: “Repent or Perish?”

Get on your knees and confess your faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Believe that He is your only hope, that He is your Lord and Savior and confess that publicly, following Him. He is your storm shelter and He will be your refuge.

If you do that, I have great news:

You will NOT die but you will have everlasting life.

Will you hurry up and “Take Shelter?” Do you hear the sirens?

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Another Middle East War is Round the Corner – Israel Threatens Lebanon and Syria

Another Middle East War is Round the Corner. Israel Threatens Lebanon and Syria

middleeastmap

Israel has recently intensified air force flights over Lebanon. It gives rise to suspicions it may preparing for sizable offensive air operations against Hezbollah or Syria, or both, as Islamists advance into southern Syria close to the occupied zone in the Golan Heights. Israel is concerned that the situation could enable jihadists in Syria or Hezbollah in Lebanon to acquire weapons from the Syrian government inventory, whether chemical or conventional. The Jan. 30 airstrike was a message that Israel is watching closely and ready to deliver a blow. 

On March 24 an Israeli vehicle was struck by gunfire across the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli army responded with a Tamuz guided missile hitting a Syrian military post. Technically Israel has been at war with Syria since 1967, the Golan Heights has been mostly quiet since then. Now Israel is carefully watching the violence from the sidelines. It has returned fire on several occasions. Most of the cases have apparently been accidental, but there has been a response.

By the end of March the fighting within Syria has reached all the way to Israel’s borders. Syrian army and rebel forces fought for control over the village of Moshav Alonei Habashan, situated only half a mile from the border.

Rebel forces have recently kidnapped 21 U.N. peacekeepers, holding them for three days in the village to release them unharmed later. But the 40-year mission has hit a snag. Several countries have already withdrawn their troops and others may follow, leaving the area beyond the UN surveillance.

Israel is preoccupied with the possibility the government or, what is very more likely, the rebels would get hold of and use chemical weapons. There is a grave concern over the possibility that, one way or another, Hezbollah may get hold of them too. Israel has publicly warned that it would take military action to prevent the chemical weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon or «global jihadists» fighting inside Syria. Israeli military intelligence satellites are reported to monitor the area for possible convoys delivering weapons.

On January 30 Israel mounted an airstrike. Reportedly the target was a weapons convoy leaving a Syrian army depot near the Lebanese border. Just a few hours earlier Israeli jets had attacked Syrian «scientific research center» north-west of Damascus.

Syria

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah II have held secret talks in Amman to discuss Syria’s potential use of chemical weapons, Al Quds Al-Arabi reported on December 27, 2012. Israeli media quoted unnamed officials who confirmed the reports. Jordan and Egypt are the only countries in the region to have signed a peace agreement with Israel. The accord between the two nations means that they often discuss security issues affecting the region, although these are usually announced publicly. The United States has previously said that any use of such weapons by Syria’s security forces against the civilian population would constitute a «red line» and could provoke an international military action. Somehow it never mentioned the possibility of provocation by rebels.

The U.S. has been arming rebel forces in Syria and may be helping train them in Jordan. Now some of those same groups are threatening to invade Israel. The powerful jihadist groups, particularly the al-Nusra Front, are pushing into southern Syria, where they face Israel across the 1973 war cease-fire line on the Golan.

In February Israel has deployed a third Iron Dome missile defense system near its northern borders with Syria and Lebanon. The Iron Dome systems have been deployed alongside a U.S. – supplied Patriot battery, which has been stationed in the north for years.

Lebanon

The Israeli military is gearing up for the next battle against a familiar foe: Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. After battling Hezbollah to a stalemate in 2006, the Israeli military says it has learned key lessons and this time around is prepared to inflict heavy damage on the group. The Israel-Lebanon border has remained largely quiet since then. But while the truce has been largely observed, Israel says Hezbollah has added to its arsenal tens of thousands of rockets and missiles capable of striking virtually anywhere in the Jewish state. Israeli military officials frequently say it is only a matter of time before the combat actions erupt. The fall of the Syrian leader or an expected Israel strike against Iran, the Hezbollah’s main patron, could spark another full-fledged war. A longtime ally of the Assad’s government, Hezbollah is concerned about being cut off from Iran and its arms supply line if the Damascus regime falls. Iranian Revolutionary Guards play an important role in the decision-making body of the organization – the Shura Council. The terrorist group says it will never recognize Israel or make peace with it. A Jan. 30 airstrike, supposedly Against a Hezbollah arms convoy, indicated how jumpy the Israelis are getting about Iran’s support for Syria or Hezbollah.

The overwhelmingly Sunni Free Syrian Army (FSA) threatens to strike at the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon after the Iranian-backed movement sought to extend its control of Syrian territory along the border. The Hezbollah’s push on the border may have grave implications. Some sources say the organization had deployed 1,000 fighters, partly to relieve Syrian troops needed to block rebel advances in the north. Hezbollah has sought to expand the control over some 20 Shiite villages on the Syrian side of the border by seizing nearby Sunni villages where the FSA’s formations are deployed. That would spark a sharp escalation of the Syrian conflict and ignite broader Sunni-Shiite violence in Lebanon. Hezbollah is widely believed to have substantial forces in Syria fighting alongside the Syria’s military. To complicate matters further, Hezbollah today is a member of the Lebanese government, which has publicly backed its continued military buildup. This despite the fact that numerous UN Security Council resolutions and Lebanon’s own Taif accord call for the radical Shiite group and all other militias in the country to be disarmed.

True, Hezbollah is preoccupied with its own domestic problems and the precarious position of its Syrian ally; it may have no desire to reignite hostilities. But the Syrian civil war, as well as Israel’s tensions with Iran, could easily upset the fragile balance. Today the Israeli military possesses sophisticated real-time intelligence and upgraded drones. For any potential land operation, it has fortified its Merkava armored personnel vehicles, activated a new tank-defense that can shoot down anti-tank rockets and recently deployed Iron Dome, a rocket defense system that shot down hundreds of rockets during a recent round of fighting against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Egypt

Meanwhile, Egypt’s military caretaker government has already demonstrated less concern in monitoring terrorist activity in the Sinai, as well as along its porous border with Israel. Egyptian officials have slowed down progress on the completion of a wall to stop underground weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza. The vacuum in Egyptian security services has led to increased cooperation between the Moslem Brotherhood and Hamas.

Attacks against Egyptian police units by Palestinian groups and a local branch of al-Qaeda have been intensifying since Mubarak’s overthrow. Most of the attacks have occurred in the mountains of central Sinai and have been carried out by Palestinian armed groups and al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula. Sinai appears to be out of security control, some say Egypt is more dangerous to Israel than Iran. Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman confirmed this point of view on April 23, 2012 during a visit to Baku, Azerbaijan. Last year Egypt withdrew its ambassador to Tel Aviv as relations between the two governments grow increasingly strained. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula a «kind of Wild West». Netanyahu is accusing Iran of contributing to that increased unrest in the region. Israeli troops are not permitted to enter the Sinai Peninsula under a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. If Egypt were to break the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Israel may move to take the Sinai because it was given to Egypt in return for peace. If the peace treaty is canceled by the Egyptians, there might be a justification for Israel to take the Sinai over to create a buffer zone.

Iran

It is entirely possible the June 2013 presidential election will provoke a repeat of the street battles and civil unrest that, for a moment in the summer of 2009, appeared to be close to toppling the revolutionary regime. The example of the Arab spring revolts may now inspire even greater internal resistance. This in turn could lead the regime to blame foreign meddling, as it has in the past, and lash out abroad. If Syria succumbs to the pressure from western-backed rebels, then Iran may feel that it is next on the regime-change agenda. Assad’s departure would undermine Iranian influence in Lebanon, where it is closely allied with the dominant Shia Hezbollah. It would also have negative practical implications for Iran’s alliance with Hamas in Gaza – where the Palestinians’ stand-off with Israel is another potent war-trigger – and for its efforts to supersede Egypt and Turkey as the region’s leading power. The fall of Assad in Syria could prove to be a very dangerous moment across the Middle East. Rather than wait for an inevitable Israeli-US strike, Tehran could decide to retaliate first once it has nothing to lose.

Russia’s view of Middle East trends

Meeting top Russian diplomats in July 2012, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that certain countries will do anything to retain the influence they have become accustomed to in the Arab world. He stressed that western nations often adopt a one-sided policy in Arab affairs that violates international law. «We must do everything in our power to coerce the opposing forces in the Syrian conflict into coming to a peaceful solution», underlined the Russian President. Citing the importance of an active dialogue in Syria, he said «this is, of course, a more complicated and delicate task than just barreling in with military intervention». Putin added that only a diplomatic solution could lead to long-term peace and stability in the region.

On December 2012 Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov delivered a speech at a foreign policy council meeting to outline the Russia’s vision of the situation in the region, especially in Syria. He stressed Russia’s opposition to «advancing democracy through iron and blood just does not work». According to the top diplomat «In most cases it produces the opposite reaction» and leads to «the strengthening of extremists and repressive forces, decreasing the chances of real democratic change», Lavrov said. «This has been made clear in recent months – the past year-and-a-half», he added. Lavrov recalled the results of past attempts to use force by avoiding the UN Security Council, and expressed concern that some states are trying to make the «Libyan model a precedent. «What is worrying is that at times of crises one is tempted to resort to military methods. Some of our partners find these methods suitable», Lavrov said. «No-one knows in the end what will happen in the Middle East, including Syria», he said.

* * *

Is it true that the only thing left to ponder is who is going to ignite the next war in the Middle East, and when? Will Israel resort to preemption? It is that by rendering support to rag-tag patchwork grouping of Syrian rebels, the West drives Israel to the wall. Israel had lived for many years outside of immediate danger from the Syrian border, the UN broken truce had been observed. There had been no talk of chemical weapons getting into wrong hands and used against Israel. It’s the Syrian opposition who makes the situation so unstable. The West supported the opposition against pro-Western Mubarak. Now there is no more peace in Sinai like it used to be for so many years. By supporting opposition everywhere the Arab Spring spreads, the West has contributed into making Israel face threats from all sides again.

It’s not that the actors strive for the scenario to become a reality, but it could be sparked against their will by the events in Syria or the dexterity of policy conducted by those who stubbornly support the Syrian opposition they know so little about. The spark may lead to a major trouble that would have a lot of adverse consequences, like aggravating the Middle East disarray, cause severe global economic turmoil and increased political volatility worldwide.

The US Middle East policy is acquiring the traits of a comprehensive plan aimed at destabilization of the geopolitically supersensitive region altering the borders of the states. The population of Israel may be sacrificed to implement it…

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Judge strikes restrictions on “morning-after” pill

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make the “morning-after” emergency contraception pill available without a prescription to all girls of reproductive age.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in Brooklyn, New York, comes in a lawsuit brought by reproductive-rights groups that had sought to remove age and other restrictions on emergency contraception.

Currently, only women age 17 or older can obtain emergency contraception pills without a prescription. Point-of-sale restrictions require that all women present identification to a pharmacist before obtaining the drug.

In his ruling, Korman said the FDA’s rejection of requests to remove age restrictions to obtain the pill had been “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, hailed the ruling. “Women all over the country will no longer face arbitrary delays and barriers just to get emergency contraception,” she said.

FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson declined to comment on the ruling, saying it was an ongoing legal matter.

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The Death of the Family

Gay marriage? It came up at dinner Down Under this time last year, and the prominent Aussie politician on my right said matter-of-factly, “It’s not about expanding marriage, it’s about destroying marriage.”

That would be the most obvious explanation as to why the same societal groups who assured us in the Seventies that marriage was either (a) a “meaningless piece of paper” or (b) institutionalized rape are now insisting it’s a universal human right. They’ve figured out what, say, terrorist-turned-educator Bill Ayers did — that, when it comes to destroying core civilizational institutions, trying to blow them up is less effective than hollowing them out from within.

On the other hand, there are those who argue it’s a victory for the powerful undertow of bourgeois values over the surface ripples of sexual transgressiveness: Gays will now be as drearily suburban as the rest of us. A couple of years back, I saw a picture in the paper of two chubby old queens tying the knot at City Hall in Vancouver, and the thought occurred that Western liberalism had finally succeeded in boring all the fun out of homosexuality.

Which of these alternative scenarios — the demolition of marriage or the taming of the gay — will come to pass? Most likely, both. In the upper echelons of society, our elites practice what they don’t preach. Scrupulously nonjudgmental about everything except traditional Christian morality, they nevertheless lead lives in which, as Charles Murray documents in his book Coming Apart, marriage is still expected to be a lifelong commitment. It is easy to see moneyed gay newlyweds moving into such enclaves, and making a go of it. As the Most Reverend Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said just before his enthronement the other day, “You see gay relationships that are just stunning in the quality of the relationship.” “Stunning”: What a fabulous endorsement! But, amongst the type of gay couple that gets to dine with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s probably right.

Lower down the socioeconomic scale, the quality gets more variable. One reason why conservative appeals to protect the sacred procreative essence of marriage have gone nowhere is because Americans are rapidly joining the Scandinavians in doing most of their procreating without benefit of clergy. Seventy percent of black babies are born out of wedlock, so are 53 percent of Hispanics (the “natural conservative constituency” du jour, according to every lavishly remunerated Republican consultant), and 70 percent of the offspring of poor white women. Over half the babies born to mothers under 30 are now “illegitimate” (to use a quaintly judgmental formulation). For the first three-and-a-half centuries of American settlement the bastardy rate (to be even quainter) was a flat line in the basement of the graph, stuck at 2 or 3 percent all the way to the eve of the Sixties. Today over 40 percent of American births are “non-marital,” which is significantly higher than Canada or Germany. “Stunning” upscale gays will join what’s left of the American family holed up in a chichi Green Zone, while beyond the perimeter the vast mounds of human rubble pile up remorselessly. The conservative defense of marriage rings hollow because for millions of families across this land the American marriage is hollow.

If the Right’s case has been disfigured by delusion, the Left’s has been marked by a pitiful parochialism. At the Supreme Court this week, Ted Olson, the former solicitor general, was one of many to invoke comparisons with Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case that struck down laws prohibiting interracial marriage. But such laws were never more than a localized American perversion of marriage. In almost all other common-law jurisdictions, from the British West Indies to Australia, there was no such prohibition. Indeed, under the Raj, it’s estimated that one in three British men in the Indian subcontinent took a local wife. “Miscegenation” is a 19th-century American neologism. When the Supreme Court struck down laws on interracial marriage, it was not embarking on a wild unprecedented experiment but merely restoring the United States to the community of civilized nations within its own legal tradition. Ted Olson is a smart guy, but he sounded like Mary-Kate and Ashley’s third twin in his happy-face banalities last week.

Yet, beyond the Court, liberal appeals to “fairness” are always the easiest to make. Because, for too much of its history, this country was disfigured by halfwit rules about who can sit where on public transportation and at lunch counters, the default position of most Americans today is that everyone should have the right to sit anywhere: If a man self-identifies as a woman and wants to sit on the ladies’ toilet, where’s the harm? If a woman wants to be a soldier and sit in a foxhole in the Hindu Kush, sure, let her. If a mediocre high-school student wants to sit in a college class, that’s only fair. American “rights” have taken on the same vapid character as grade-school sports: Everyone must be allowed to participate, and everyone is entitled to the same participation ribbon.
Underneath all this apparent “fairness” is a lot of unfairness. Entire new categories of crime have arisen in the wake of familial collapse, like the legions of adolescent daughters abused by Mom’s latest live-in boyfriend. Millions of children are now raised in transient households that make not just economic opportunity but even elementary character-formation all but impossible. In the absence of an agreed moral language to address this brave new world, Americans retreat to comforting euphemisms like “blended families,” notwithstanding that the familial Cuisinart seems to atomize at least as often as it blends.

Meanwhile, social mobility declines: Doctors who once married their nurses now marry their fellow doctors; lawyers who once married their secretaries now contract with fellow super-lawyers, like dynastic unions in medieval Europe. Underneath the self-insulating elite, millions of Americans are downwardly mobile: The family farmers and mill workers, the pioneers who hacked their way into the wilderness and built a township, could afford marriage and children; indeed, it was an economic benefit. For their descendants doing minimum-wage service jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology, functioning families are a tougher act, and children an economic burden. The gays looked at contemporary marriage and called the traditionalists’ bluff.

Modern Family works well on TV, less so in the rusting double-wides of decrepit mill towns where, very quickly, the accumulated social capital of two centuries is drained, and too much is too wrecked. In Europe, where dependency, decadence, and demographic decline are extinguishing some of the oldest nations on earth, a successor population is already in place in the restive Muslim housing projects. With their vibrant multicultural attitudes to feminism and homosexuality, there might even be a great sitcom in it: Pre-Modern Family — and, ultimately, post-Modern.

“Fiscal conservatives” recoil from this kind of talk like homophobes at a bathhouse: The sooner some judge somewhere takes gay marriage off the table the sooner the right can go back to talking about debt and Obamacare without being dismissed as uptight theocratic bigots. But it doesn’t work like that. Most of the social liberalism comes with quite a price tag. The most reliable constituency for Big Government is single women, for whom the state is a girl’s best friend, the sugar daddy whose checks never bounce. A society in which a majority of births are out of wedlock cannot be other than a Big Government welfare society. Ruining a nation’s finances is one thing; debauching its human capital is far harder to fix.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2013 Mark Steyn

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‘JESUS DIDN’T KNOW EVERYTHING’

These heretics need to read 2Peter 2:1. That ’bout says it all. This man is no Christian.

Any any atonement deniers our there – McLaren, Bell, et al, this goes for you too.

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Exclusive: Joseph Farah warns of pastors ‘who are wolves in sheep’s clothing’

author-imageby JOSEPH FARAH Email Archive

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his latest, “The Tea Party Manifesto,” and his classic, “Taking America Back,” now in its third edition and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market dailies.

What do you say about a “pastor” who claims Jesus didn’t know everything?

I would say there are some “pastors” in this country who are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

I would say this is an example of what we read in the Bible about men doing whatever is right in their own eyes without concern for God’s clear teachings.

I would say we are living in an age of rampant apostasy.

I’m talking specifically about Rev. Oliver White, who appeared this week on Sean Hannity’s radio show to defend same-sex marriage as biblical.

“I don’t disagree with Jesus Christ, but if Jesus were alive today he would be inclined to say, ‘I didn’t know it all,’” said at one point in the interview with Hannity and Terrence Jeffrey.

There are several astonishing things about this statement:

  • Christians believe Jesus is alive today. Without that belief, the Christian faith is meaningless. He was resurrected from death, which He conquered, and sits at the right hand of the Father. Our hope as believers is that we sit with Him.
  • Christians believe Jesus was God incarnate. The Gospel of John says, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Since God is all-knowing, omniscient and omnipresent and the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, it’s blasphemy to suggest Jesus didn’t know everything.
  • To suggest Jesus didn’t understand marriage is equally absurd, given He defined it the same way it was defined in Genesis: In Matthew 19:4-6, He said: “Have you not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
  • Furthermore, His disciples were even more specific, explaining in Romans 1:26-27, “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.”
  • Way back in Leviticus 18:22, the Bible tells us: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

So now we have people calling themselves “men of God” denying all that God told us about sexual behavior and relationships.

This is not loving one’s neighbor, as White suggests. This is the opposite of love. It is leading them away from God – telling them what they want to hear, refusing to counsel them on what God says.

Here’s what Jesus Himself said about such men on Matthew 7: 14-23: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.  Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

No wonder our society is lost today when men in collars pretending to be representing the Word and Spirit of God deny both.

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The Trans-Pacific Slam Job

The Trans-Pacific Slam Job

Posted on:

Saturday, January 19th 2013 at 5:00 am

Written By:

Scott Tips, JD

The Trans-Pacific Slam Job

©2012 Scott C. Tips

Do you remember when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) were proposed and passed?  (Well, CAFTA didn’t really pass, except through legislative trickery.)  Promises were made about the abundant benefits that would fall into the laps of its signatories, but especially into the lap of the United States.  None of those promises were ever kept, except to the large corporations in partnership with their government concubines.

And “Free Trade” as a name in those agreements’ titles?  That was a misnomer if there ever was one.  Those incredibly lengthy documents were all about “Managed Trade” and not the free market.  If they had truly been about free trade, then it would have taken one-page, maybe two (for the signatures) to set forth the parties’ agreement: “All tariffs and trade barriers between and among the signatory parties are hereby eliminated.”  So, the Agreements are nothing but a costly joke and a way to usher into our lives a soul-numbing harmonization that already is reducing our freedoms into dim memories and pat slogans of patriotism.

Now arrives yet another insult to our freedoms – the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which some are already describing as “NAFTA on steroids.”  The TPP, as it is called, is a very-secretive, multi-national trade agreement currently being negotiated among eleven different Pacific-Rim countries and pushed by both Republicans and Democrats.  In its fourteenth round of negotiations – which just finished in Leesburg, Virginia, as you read these words – the parties hope to make wide-ranging changes to all parties’ laws, rules, and regulations. (See http://www.ustr.gov/tpp)

Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, the United States, and recent newcomers Mexico and Canada (since June 2012) are the negotiating partners.  China is a noticeable absence, but the office of the United States Trade Representative has announced that it hopes that 40% of the World’s population will eventually be covered by this Agreement.  In the same way that the European Union sprang from the loins of the European Economic Community (another free-trade partnership), I see the TPP as the real debut of the global World Government for which some have been so fervently working.

Secrecy Par Excellence

The TPP is so secretive that even Senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate committee charged with jurisdiction over “trade” agreements like the TPP, has been blocked from reviewing the United States’ own negotiating proposals. Yet, 600 corporate representatives – excuse me, lobbyists – have full access to TPP documents and a special role in negotiations for the United States, let alone all of those other lobbyists acting with the other participating countries.

When you consider that even the World Trade Organization allows its own negotiating texts to be issued to the public, this secrecy is rather strange.  Stranger still is that the parties to the TPP have agreed that they will not make public any of their negotiating texts until four years after the deal has been concluded or abandoned!

Couple this secrecy with the feeble coverage by the mainstream press and you have the typical recipe for disastrous surprises for the citizens of these eleven countries as their own laws and customs are overturned.

Here’s the Rub

So what will this “trade” agreement do?  Well, since it is so secret, we don’t really know the full extent of what good or harm it will do.  But, some parts of the texts have leaked out and they are not pretty.

There are 26 chapters to the Agreement; but, unsurprisingly, only two of them deal with trade matters.  The rest – the 24 other chapters – are a wish-list of the Elite. So, calling this Agreement a “trade agreement” is like calling an automobile a radio. As Lori Wallach wrote in her article, “NAFTA on Steroids,” “Think of the TPP as a stealthy delivery mechanism for policies that could not survive public scrutiny.”

From what we do know, the TPP threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property laws into its partner countries and rewrite international rules for their enforcement. Leaked drafts of the Agreement reveal the negotiators’ plans to limit freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, as well as cripple individuals’ abilities to innovate. This includes making copyright infringement a criminal offense! (See the February 2011 draft Chapter on Intellectual-Property Rights at http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/tpp-10feb2011-us-text-ipr-chapter.pdf)

And according to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), “the U.S. is asking countries to create new, enhanced and longer patent and data monopoly protections for multinational pharmaceutical companies so they can keep competitors out of the market and charge higher prices for longer.”  Again, texts are not fully available, so we cannot confirm all of these statements.

Yet, it is clear that in another chapter of the agreement, an expansion of NAFTA’s nasty corporate tribunals is planned.  These tribunals have been used under NAFTA to adjudicate “trade” disputes and strike down public-interest legislation. TPP would create a three-person tribunal of attorneys to adjudicate legal disputes concerning governmental laws, rules, and regulations that do not comply with the terms of the TPP.  And in an amazing conflict of interest, these very same attorney-judges would be permitted to switch sides in other cases and represent the plaintiff corporations!

It is guaranteed that in this Agreement there are other outrageous intrusions upon our substantive and procedural freedoms, ready to be sprung at the appropriate time. Fortunately, although the United States and other countries are in a strong push to complete this Agreement, it has not yet been finalized.  This is mainly because of Australia’s objections to TPP’s faux-court system and New Zealand’s complaints about the overriding of its own drug-pricing policies.

What Can Be Done

If we wait until after the Agreement is signed, then the likelihood of any of us being able to change the Agreement will be next to nothing. And if the passage of NAFTA and CAFTA is any indicator of the future, then we can surely expect more lies, threats, and outright chicanery when the TPP comes up for a vote.  Still, spreading the word about the Trans-Pacific Partnership is imperative, as is contacting your Federal legislators to demand accountability. The more light that is shined on the TPP and the more of a stink that is made about it, the better the chances that it will be exposed as the fraud it is and defeated.

Some clever people have even offered a reward for the full negotiating text of the TPP. (See http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1439/content_item/freetpp)  That is a good start, which I fully support. We need all of the action that we can muster on this assault, because this time they are going for the golden ring – the golden ring that is intended for our noses and with which they expect to lead us around. We cannot allow that to ever happen.

 

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SIX WAYS PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY IS DESTROYING CHRISTIANITY

Jesus is So Cool

First they asked you to think outside the box of Truth; now they’re asking you to stop speaking Truth altogether.  The Progressive wing of the Church has been able to grow and thrive, thanks in part to the re-surging Emergent movement that has long been taking the doctrines of Christianity apart.

Here’s how  contributor to the extreme leftist publication Huffington Post (a site from which I share frequently about the activities of the Christian Left), is trying to re-shape the Bride of Christ into the harlot of Babylon.  How influential is this guy? Steve is celebrated as the “Voice of the SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious),” as well as author, speaker, thought leader and spiritual teacher.  His latest article is getting thunderous applause. Gird your loins:

6 Things Christians Should Just Stop Saying

It is time.

No, it is past time.

Christians must stop saying the following things.

1. The Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God.

It isn’t inerrant and not likely even in the “original manuscripts.” But then, I cannot say that with absolute certainty, anymore than anyone else can either.

Why? Because no such “original” manuscripts even exists. That’s like saying, “We believe there are aliens on other planets!”

Good for you. Now, prove it.

As we have it, no matter what translation you favor, the Bible is replete with errors. To pretend otherwise is your right. To say otherwise is a lie. You are entitled to your opinions, your assumptions, even your beliefs. What you are not entitled to is a misrepresentation of the facts.

A corollary to this that Christians should stop saying is this:

2. We just believe the Bible.

That, too, is false. What you really believe is your interpretation of the Bible. And the last I checked, the history of the Christian church is the history of disagreement over “interpretation.” How else do you explain the scores of denominations within Christianity alone? It would be patently more honest of Christians to say, “The following represents our understanding and interpretation of the Scriptures, but we are also aware there are many equally sincere Christians who interpret the Scriptures differently from us.”

A third thing Christians should stop saying:

3. Jesus is the only way to heaven.

What you are really saying is, “The way we interpret John 14:6 is that Jesus was clearly drawing a line in the sand and telling his hearers and the world: ‘If you do not believe in Me, you won’t go to the Father when you die.’”

For this, I refer back to No. 2 above: what you and your group of believers reallymean to say is, “It is our interpretation of John 14:6 that Jesus is saying that He is the only way to heaven.”

There are scores of Christians, however, and I am one of them, who do not interpret Jesus’ words in John 14 the same way. Just because I do not makes me no less Christian than you are. So stop drawing lines in the sand, please, between equally sincere followers of Jesus.

When I read the 14th chapter of John, I see a context that yields an alternative reading of the text. Instead of Jesus starting some new religion here and saying, “OK, fellas, I’m going to go away soon” — referring to his death — “but, before I go, you should know that where I’m going you, and others who believe just like you, will one day be, too — that is, of course, if they believe like you believe that I am the only way to heaven. That is to say, if the people around you and who come after you don’t believe that I am the only way to heaven, then, of course, they’ll have to go to hell. Is all that clear?”

I offer an alternative interpretation: When Jesus spoke to them about leaving them, they were understandably shaken.

How could they not be? After all, they had left everything to follow him. Now, just a year, or two, or three years later, Jesus is saying he’s getting ready to leave them?

But, of course, they’re upset. So Thomas, speaking on behalf of the others, asks, “But where are you going and why can’t we go with you? Furthermore, how will we know the way?”

Jesus responds in tender, reassuring ways. Sensing the fragility of their faith, seeing the anxiety on their faces, he reassures them that, in God’s house are many rooms, “mansions” or places. Yes, He’s going away but where He’s going they, too, will go. Just as He has led them this far, He will lead them further still (and what follows in the latter part of John 14 is the beautiful reassurance of the on-going presence of God in the Holy Spirit).

So, for me personally, and many other Christians, too, Jesus is no more pointing to himself as the “one-and-only-way” to God than Thomas is expressing in his question concern for Hindus, Muslims or Buddhists and whether they’ll go to heaven? I can assure you that Thomas, and the others, were only concerned about themselves. And yet, even at that point, Jesus is tender in His care of them and seeks to reassure them that, just as He and the Father were one, and just as they had trusted the things He had been saying to them during his time with them, so they could trust him and what he was saying at this time, too. Yes, he was leaving them. But no, they would not be left alone. Where he was, they would be. He had shown them the way to the Father. But, even after He’s gone from them, they will know the way then, too. The Comforter would guide them.

And so, the Church is here today. But not because Christians declare, “There is no way to go to heaven if you don’t believe in Jesus.” The Church is here today because when people do trust the things Jesus said about HImself, about HIs relationship to the Father…when people believe and so live the teachings of Jesus they, too, are changed — they, too, become “new creations in Christ,” as Saint Paul put it (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Now, I took longer with this one thing Christians need to stop saying because many Christians seem stuck here, thinking that there’s only one way to interpret Jesus’ words about being the way. It is my hope these Christians will know there are equally sincere Christians like myself and others who do not believe Jesus was drawing a line in the sand between him and some new religion he was creating and all the other religions of the world.

Again, it’s your right to “believe” or, more accurately, interpret Scripture as you wish. You do not, however, have permission to arrogantly assume your way of interpreting the words of Jesus are the only way to understand His words. Last I checked, no one’s interpretation of anything is infallible. Not yours. Not mine.

A fourth thing Christians need to stop saying:

4. The rapture of Jesus is imminent.

Again, if you want to believe in some secret rapture of Christians from the earth just before the Tribulation, if you want to believe in and carry around in your hip pocket detailed charts and graphs of how its all going to happen, then so be it. But do the rest of us a favor and stop saying so in public.

So far, your record of correctly predicting the future earns a flunking grade. And I and scores of other Christians are frankly tired of apologizing for your arrogant — and so far, absolutely wrong — predictions as to when it’ll happen.

My recommendation? Burn up your charts and go live like Christ. Quit masking your real fears by calling them faith. It isn’t faith that leads you to sell all you have, give the proceeds to some wacko, and go camp out on Mount Horeb as you await the rapture. It’s stupidity instead. It’s embarrassing, too. It makes thoughtful Christians have to apologize to the world and explain that we’re not all off-our-rockers, at least, not yet, anyway. So, please, please. If you want to believe in the charts that Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye and other “get-rich-off-the-stupidity-of-Christians” have duped scores into believing, then have at it. Just stay out of the news please! Go quietly to your campsites and do your waiting.:

5. Homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle and it is a sin against God.

This one issue, my friend, is on the outs. If you don’t know that, you are more blind than the Republicans were in the last election. They misinterpreted the political environment and so completely blew it when it came to getting their candidate elected. And you, my friend, are misinterpreting the moral, spiritual and religious environment — and the changes that are coming.

My son said it well the other day. We were discussing homosexuality and same-sex marriage and he observed, “Dad, it’s your generation that’s hung up on these issues. Once you guys get out of the way and the younger generation moves into the decision-making arena, these issues will disappear. The day will come when, just as slavery is unthinkable in our consciousness today, it will be equally unthinkable to deny anyone the right to be who they are or the right to same-sex marriage.”

You can still revere the Bible, my friend, but move beyond the prejudice of Paul or anyone else. You don’t need to make Saint Paul infallible to treat the Bible as important.

Finally, please, please Christians stop insisting that…

6. The earth is less than 10,000 years old.

If you want to believe that Genesis is a scientific description of the origins of the universe, then have at it. Just stop insisting that those myths be taught in our public schools. You do no service to the Bible nor to the morality of this country by demanding school administrators include textbooks that teach that nonsense or by demanding courts hang the Ten Commandments on chamber walls or classroom walls.

If this democracy is going to survive, get over your silly, misinformed notions that our forefathers were all Bible-believing, Bible thumping, Genesis-affirming Christians who came to this country to establish your kind of Christian nation and then expect everyone else to conform to your misguided assumptions.

Whew! I feel better. Thanks for letting me get a few things off my chest.

Now, there is one thing I think all Christians, including me, should remember — no, should practice (and we should practice this between ourselves first, too) — and that is the one simple thing Jesus once said would be the one-and-only thing the world would know us by…

Not our beliefs.
Not our doctrines.
Not our denomination’s distinctions.
Not even our declarations.

Jesus said, “They will know you are my disciples by your love” (John 13:35).

When we love, what more needs to be said?

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Israel’s Insightful Cynicism

By Robert D. Kaplan
Chief Geopolitical Analyst

Israel is in the process of watching a peace treaty unravel. I don’t mean the one with Egypt, but the one with Syria. No, I’m not crazy. Since Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy in 1974, the Israelis have had a de facto peace agreement of sorts with the al Assad family. After all, there were clear red lines that both sides knew they shouldn’t cross, as well as reasonable predictability on both sides. Forget about the uplifting rhetoric, the requirement to exchange ambassadors and the other public policy frills that normally define peace treaties. What counts in this case is that both sides observed limits and constraints, so that the contested border between them was secure. Even better, because there was no formal peace agreement in writing, neither side had to make inconvenient public and strategic concessions. Israel did not have to give up the Golan Heights, for example. And if Syria stepped over a red line in Lebanon, or say, sought a nuclear capacity as it did, Israel was free to punish it through targeted military strikes. There was usefully no peace treaty that Israel would have had to violate.

Of course, the Syrians built up a chemical arsenal and invited the Iranians all over their country and Lebanon. But no formal treaty in the real world — given the nature of the Syrian regime — would likely have prevented those things. In an imperfect world of naked power, the al Assads were at least tolerable. Moreover, they represented a minority sect, which prevented Syria from becoming a larger and much more powerful version of radical, Sunni Arab Gaza. In February 1993 in The Atlantic Monthly, I told readers that Syria was not a state but a writhing underworld of sectarian and ethnic divides and that the al Assads might exit the stage through an Alawite mini-state in the northwest of their country that could be quietly supported by the Israeli security services. That may yet come to pass.
Israeli political leaders may periodically tell the media that Bashar al Assad’s days are numbered, but that does not necessarily mean Israelis themselves believe that is an altogether good scenario. Indeed, I strongly suspect that, for example, when the Israelis and the Russians meet, they have much in common regarding Syria. Russia is supporting the al Assad regime through arms transfers by sea and through Iraq and Iran. Israelis may see some benefits in this. Russian President Vladimir Putin may actually enjoy his meetings with Israelis — who likely don’t lecture him about human rights and the evils of the al Assad regime the way the Americans do.
True, a post-al Assad Syria may undermine Iranian influence in the Levant, which would be a great benefit to Israel, as well as to the United States. On the other hand, a post-al Assad Syria will probably be an anarchic mess in which the Iranians will skillfully back proxy guerrilla groups and still be able to move weapons around. Again, al Assad is the devil you know. And the fact that he is no longer, functionally speaking, the president of Syria but, rather, the country’s leading warlord, presents challenges that Israelis would prefer not to face.
What about Hezbollah, in this admittedly cynical Israeli view? Hezbollah is not a strategic threat to Israel. Hezbollah fighters are not about to march en masse over the border into Haifa and Tiberias. Anti-missile systems like Iron Dome and David’s Sling could reasonably contain the military threat from the north. Then there are Israel’s bomb shelters — a one-time only expense. Hezbollah, moreover, needs Israel. For without a powerful Israel, Hezbollah would be robbed of the existential adversary that provides Hezbollah with its immense prestige in the Lebanese political universe, making Hezbollah so much more than just another Shiite group battling Sunnis.
Israel’s war against Hezbollah in 2006 is known as a disaster. But it did have its positive side effects: Israel has had seven years of relative peace on its northern border, even as the war usefully exposed many inadequacies in the Israeli military and reserve system that had been building for years and were henceforth decisively repaired, making Israel stronger as a consequence.
Threats abound, truly. The collapse of the al Assad regime may lead to a weapons free-for-all — just like in post-Gadhafi Libya — that might force Israel to “mow the lawn” again in southern Lebanon. As for Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic and capable Hezbollah leader, maybe he, too, is the devil you know, informally obeying red lines with Israel since 2006. Nasrallah appears to be less extreme than his deputy, Naim Qassim, who would take over if Nasrallah were ever assassinated by the Israelis, unless the Sunnis in a Lebanon and Syria thrown into utter, post-al Assad chaos assassinate him sooner.
Then there is Gaza: once again, like southern Lebanon, “mow the lawn” once or twice a decade, though this might be harder in a post-Arab Spring geopolitical environment because of the greater danger of unhinging Israeli-Egyptian relations. Still, in Gaza there is no existential threat, nor a real solution, regardless of what the diplomats say. Idealists in the West talk about peace; realists inside Israel talk about spacing out limited wars by enough years so that Israeli society can continue to thrive in the meantime. As one highly placed Israeli security analyst explained to me, the East Coast of the United States and the Caribbean have periodic hurricanes. After each one, people rebuild, even as they are aware that a decade or so down the road there will be another hurricane. Israel’s wars are like that, he said.
Presently a real underlying worry for Israel appears to be Jordan. Yes, King Abdullah has so far expertly manipulated the growing unrest there, but to speculate about the collapse of the Hashemite dynasty is only prudent. More anarchy. More reason to heed Ariel Sharon’s analysis of four decades ago to the effect that Jordan is the real Palestinian state, more so than the West Bank. And because Jordan and Saudi Arabia could conceivably unravel in coming decades, maybe Israel should seek to avoid attacking Iran — which along with Israel is the only real state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Iranian Plateau. Iran may have a repulsive regime, but its society is probably healthier than most in the Arab world. So there is some hope.
You get the picture. Israel had a convenient situation for decades, surrounded as it was by stable Arab dictatorships. Israel could promote itself as the region’s only real democracy, even as it quietly depended on the likes of Hosni Mubarak, the al Assad clan and the Hashemites to ensure order and more-or-less few surprises. Now dictators are falling and anarchy is on the rise. Fighting state armies of the kind that the Arab dictators built in wars in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 was simpler compared totoday’s wars: Because the Arabs never really believed in their dysfunctional states, they didn’t always fight very well in state-organized formations. But sub-state militaries like Hezbollah and Hamas have been more of a challenge. In the old days, Israel could destroy an Egyptian air force on the ground and solve its security dilemma in the south. Nowadays, to repeat, there are no solutions for Israel: only sub-state adversaries that hide among civilian concentrations in order to attack your own civilian concentrations. No peace ever, therefore, just periodic wars, hopefully spaced-out.
The Middle East today has turned out perfectly if you are a Jewish West Bank settler. The divisions within Palestinian ranks, coupled with the increasing anarchy of the Arab world, mean the opportunities for territorial concessions on Israel’s part have diminished. In fact, Israel’s only option may be more unilateral withdrawals. That is probably the only thing the settlers have to worry about.
But the Zionist dream lives on. Jerusalem and much of the rest of Israel are thriving. Light rail and pedestrian walkways make Jerusalem more vibrant than ever. The Arabs in the Old City survive well — under the circumstances, that is — on the “Jewish” side of the “fence,” where the standard of living and quality of life is so much better than on the Arab side. The “fence” is both a monstrosity in abstract moralistic terms and a practical solution in an age of repeated diplomatic failure and fewer and fewer diplomatic opportunities. From 28 percent of the gross domestic product in the mid-1970s, Israeli military spending is down to between 6 and 8 percent of the country’s GDP. Life is good in Israel. The unemployment rate is lower than in the United States and Europe, despite high housing costs and the need for reform in health care and education. One could argue that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — so vilified in the West — has not handled the economy altogether badly.
But what about idealism? What about a better, more humane Middle East? What about the wise and talented statesmen who periodically see opportunities where others see none? What about slowing down Israel’s drift to a quasi-Apartheid society, characterized by Israeli domination of the more numerous Arabs and something certainly not in Israel’s interest? These are all real things to constantly keep in mind and to struggle for. But the Levant remains a zero-sum struggle for physical survival. So it is a place where there will always be benefits to dealing with strong dictators. Given their geographical circumstances, Israelis can be forgiven their cynicism.

Read more: Israel’s Insightful Cynicism | Stratfor

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Cyprus bail-out: savers will be raided to save euro in future crises, says eurozone chief

by Bruno Waterfield

Savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe’s single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced.

The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.

The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, told the FT and Reuters that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.

“If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?’,” he said.

“If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders.”

Ditching a three-year-old policy of protecting senior bondholders and large depositors, over €100,000, in banks, Mr Dijsselbloem argued that the lack of market contagion surrounding Cyprus showed that private investors could now be hit to pay for bad banking debts.

“If we want to have a healthy, sound financial sector, the only way is to say, ‘Look, there where you take on the risks, you must deal with them, and if you can’t deal with them, then you shouldn’t have taken them on,'” he said.

“The consequences may be that it’s the end of story, and that is an approach that I think, now that we are out of the heat of the crisis, we should take.”

The announcement is highly significant as it signals the mothballing of the euro’s €700bn bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which Spain and Ireland wants to be used to recapitalise their troubled banks.

“We should aim at a situation where we will never need to even consider direct recapitalisation,” he said.

“If we have even more instruments in terms of bail-in and how far we can go on bail-in, the need for direct recap will become smaller and smaller.”

The eurozone had been planning to roll out the ESM as a “big bazooka” in mid-2014 that could help save banks and prevent financial turmoil in countries such Spain or Italy, a development that has been delayed by German resistance.

Mr Dijesselbloem’s comments will alarm countries like Ireland and Spain that had been hoping to access the ESM in order to restructure banks without killing off their financial sector by inflicting huge losses on investors.

“I think the approach needs to be, let’s deal with the banks within the banks first, before looking at public money or any other instrument coming from the public side,” he said.

“Banks should basically be able to save themselves, or at least restructure or recapitalise themselves as far as possible.”

In a note published on Monday following the Cyprus bailout deal, Barclays warned that “the decision to bail in senior bank debt and large depositors will likely have a price impact on equity and credit instruments of those euro area banks that are perceived as the weakest”.

Mr Dijsselbloem acknowledged that “there is still nervousness” but claimed that any jitters on financial markets caused by the new approach would be a good thing because it would raise the cost of borrowing for unsound banks, an argument unlikely to win friend in Madrid or Rome.

“If I finance a bank and I know if the bank will get in trouble, I will be hit and I will lose money, I will put a price on that,” he said.

“I think it is a sound economic principle. And having cheap money because the risk will be covered by the government, and I will always get my money back, is not leading to the right decisions in the financial sector.”

Last night, the Dutch finance minister tried to row back from his comments by insisting that “Cyprus is a specific case”.

“Macro-economic adjustment programmes are tailor-made to the situation of the country concerned and no models or templates are used,” he said.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades admitted the eurozone bailout deal he struck in Brussels on Monday was painful but said Cyprus could now make a fresh start after having come a “breath away” from collapse. He also said there would be a criminal investigation into the crisis.

Banks in Cyprus will remain closed until Thursday, the nation’s central bank announced. It had said earlier that banks would reopen today after a week-long shutdown, except for Laiki and Bank of Cyprus.

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