Post 187--Media SOS

Yes, I'm back.  This time I was off to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for two weeks,  where the core of my in-law family lives. Not only did I meet Fran, my wife, there at Calvin College, but so did our three kids meet their spouses there.  Educational incest, you say?  Perhaps, but it put us all on a good course, at least, economically and, to a certain degree,  worldviewishly as well. Well, whatever....  It's the place where I would like to see my cremains strewn over its pond, since that place is the navel of our small clan.  Not sure it will happen.  Okay, back to the blog business.  A short one today. A cry for help from Religion News Service under the caption "Sunday Morning Editor's Note."  Again, it's American but affects us Canadians as much as it does them.  Here's the editor's plea to all of us:

This week I’d like to ask for your help, and I promise it doesn’t involve money. I was at the Online News Association annual conference last week and one thing that was patently clear was the monopolistic power Facebook and Google now wield in the news business. They get to distribute news for free, while they have decimated ad revenues for the creators of news content. As digital media strategist Heidi N. Moore recently lamented in the Columbia Journalism Review, "Facebook and Google collect 99 percent of all digital-advertising revenue growth in the U.S., leaving only crumbs for media companies."  So here’s my ask. Don’t let Facebook and Google decide what news you get — which they do based on data you’ve most likely given them unwittingly, through your browsing history and other information they can track. Instead, be an active news reader. Put a little extra effort into getting your daily fix. Go directly to your favorite publications’ home pages. Bookmark a few of them, and when you want to know what’s happening in the world, make it a habit of checking them first. And I hope, of course, that RNS will be one of them. I promised it wouldn't cost anything, and it might just help ensure the viability of the news industry that is so essential to democracy.  I suggest you read Moore's lament mentioned above.  Tomorrow is Canadian Thanksgiving Day. I wish you all a time brimming with gratitude for all the things God has given us here in Canada--or, at least, most of us, though perhaps a declining number?  The thing I appreciate the most is our orderly way of living. Compared to an absolute ideal, we probably have a long way to go, but in contrast to where our new neighbours, the refugees, come from, we live in heaven. Just ask them!  Have a thankful one!

Post 171--Use of Bible Censored in Alberta Christian School!

Throughout this blog, I have talked about the creeping restrictions on expressions of the Christian faith in Canada. While freedom of WORSHIP has not been curtailed, though that cannot be far behind, freedom of RELIGION is another matter.  Freedom of worship, if very narrowly defined, takes place in Church, but freedom of religion takes place throughout our culture, in both private and public places--in the market place as it has come to be called. It is this religion thing that is under fire.  

It mostly happens under the radar, for the mainline media do not concern themselves with it. So it happens with very few people noticing. As a result when someone does notice and makes it public, she will be sidelined as a "r

adical" who does not deserve our attention and is berated even by such respected journalists as Andrew Coyne, whom, I hasten to say, I enjoy reading--without always agreeing.

It is not always brave individuals like Ezra Levant who monitor such situations; some church organizations do as well, among them the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) and non-church Christian organizations like the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA). You've met both of these organizations in this blog and no doubt will again.  

Today's report comes from Levant. It's heading reads:

"A school board in Alberta has LITERALLY BANNED PASSAGES FROM THE BIBLE."

The Cornerstone Christian Academy in Alberta is exactly what it says it is — a Christian school. Just like Alberta has Jewish schools and Muslim schools too. But the head of the government school board that oversees Cornerstone, a woman named Lauri Skori, has literally ordered the school to stop teaching passages in the Bible that she personally disagrees with. I know this sounds crazy. But it’s true. For example, Skori has ordered the school to stop teaching a line from 1 Corinthians, because she finds it “offensive": It’s shocking, but it’s not surprising. Christianity has been driven out of the public square everywhere in Canada. But surely this is a new low — Christianity is actually being banned in a Christian school. Government bureaucrats would never dream of telling Muslim schools they couldn’t teach passages from the Koran — even ones that call for the murder of infidels and apostates. But banning the Bible is now official school board policy. And, not surprisingly, the media and the political class are silent. Even supposedly Christian or conservative politicians are keeping their heads down — they don’t want to be attacked by the leftist mob at the CBC. Well, we’ve found one honest man — John Carpay, from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. He’s agreed to take the case of Cornerstone Christian Academy. He’s written a scorching 8-page legal letter to the school board pointing out how what they’re doing is illegal — it’s unconstitutional. You can read that letter here. But they seem to be digging in their heels. And why not? No-one is coming to the aid of the school. Well, that’s where you and I come in. As you can see in my interview with John (at the end of the video here), I’ve promised to help him raise up to $5,000 to help pay for his team of three lawyers to fight for the school’s freedom of religion, against government censors. I’ve agreed to chip in the first $50 myself. If you agree that this case is outrageous, please join with me in helping to chip in to John’s legal defence fund, by clicking here.

Post 150--The 149 Story Continued

The time between this and the previous post is a lot longer than intended. This time it is not an excuse such as being too busy or traveling. The problem was a technical one with this blog as a whole that I, try as I may, was not able to overcome. I needed a techie to get back on the road. I did find a techie soon enough, but he was not able to come until just two days ago. So, I'm back.  Please welcome me!

The material in this post was supposed to have been placed only one day after no. 149. It was actually written that day. Thus it reads that way as well. It is the next day's development of the March for Life. 

It is time I make something clear. This post along with 149 may give you the impression that I am a conservative and a supporter of Trump and his ilk. People assume that a pro-lifer must be conservative, right?  The same if you say something positive about Trump.  When on top of all that you include a negative reference to liberals, well, then you've clinched it: you're a true blue conservative.  

Well, I'm not. But neither am I a liberal. I am a Christian with a different frame of reference. I support some conservative issues as well as some liberal ones. I disagree with many conservative issues as well as many liberal ones. Being associated with conservatism embarrasses me to no end as a Christian, for conservatism embraces so many causes I could not possibly support. Same for liberalism. This is the reason it may seem that I sometimes jump the fence between the two sides. I am neither; I have my own "side."  So, I don't jump fences! It's almost like "A plague on both of you," but Christians don't wish a plague on anyone. Hence, I won't go there. 

Alright, having made that clear--at least, I hope I have!--let's get back to the topic of 149.  In the next post I will move on again.

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This is the same writer of 149:  Kristan Hawkins--

If there's one thing I took away from yesterday's March for Life, it's that the hundreds of thousands of young people who showed up are ready and willing to get to work to abolish abortion.

You and I already know that this generation of young people is the Pro-Life Generation. In fact, polls show that a majority of Millennials support severely restricting or banning abortion!

But despite the media's narrative that young people are lazy and just want to be coddled, the more than 1,800 young people that showed up ready to get to work at today's SFLA East Coast National Conference (and the 500 more that showed up last Sunday at our West Coast National Conference) have proven that narrative couldn't be more wrong!  

These young women and men are determined to win the battles ahead of us in the next few weeks: to defund Planned Parenthood, confirm a pro-life U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and abolish abortion in our lifetime.

I'm so grateful for the support we have received from you to be able to put on the nation's largest pro-life conference.

We're providing so many valuable resources for these young people to go out and make a pro-life impact in their community, and we couldn't have done it without your support.

Today, students are learning the best messaging to reach their peers on the life issue.  They're learning what rights they have -- this is critical as we see more and more high school and college campuses cracking down on "free speech" (i.e. everyone who has a different opinion than the left-wing college administrators).

Students at our national conference are also learning how to help women in crisis by working with their local pregnancy center and taking part in SFLA's Pregnant on Campus Initiative.

For Life,
Kristan Hawkins
President, Students for Life of America

P.S.  President Trump and Vice President Pence have forced the media to take notice of our March for Life.  Yesterday, SFLA was featured in at least 18 different news articles or interviews from Fox & Friends to CBS News, The Weekly Standard, TIME, and even NPR!
P.P.S.  This morning, I'll be on MSBNC to debate a former Clinton staffer and Planned Parenthood executive, so please keep me in your prayers!

Post 76—Stories of Persecution

A number of posts ago, I promised I would occasionally include stories about the persecution suffered by Christians. Those who study that scientifically, mostly Christians, tell us that Christianity is the most persecuted of all religions today.

There are several reasons for this situation. One is that oppressive governments of various stripes fear Christians as potential rivals. 

Another reason is that established religions and ideologies get nervous and jealous when another religion in their neighbourhood expands—and the later is the case with Christianity in many places. For example, China is expected soon to become the country with the largest Christian population. According to some estimates, there are already 100 million Christians in the country, which compares with 87 million members of the Chinese Communist Party (Barnabas Prayer, September 16, 2015).  That, no doubt, is a major reason for Chinese persecution and harassment of Christians, along with their residual Communist heritage. 

A third reason is ruthless ambitions and militant interpretation of some religions, as, e.g. ISIS, Boko Haram in Nigeria and, increasingly, Hindu nationalists in India.  Often behind such persecution is a long history of western colonialism / imperialism and its subtle attempt to impose secularism that has finally come home to roost.

Today’s stories are taken from Barnabas Prayer  (Sept/ Oct., 2015).  For Barnabas itself, see < barnabasaid.org >.

Many Christians in Tanzania are facing serious harassment for trying to engage in the butchery trade, which Muslims seek to control absolutely. There is no Tanzanian law against slaughtering pigs and selling pork (a forbidden meat according to Islamic law), but when Muslims complain, the authorities will often respond as if the Christians were doing something illegal.  In Kigoma, five Christians were arrested in June just for being found in possession of pork meat.  Tanzanian Muslims often claim that only they have the right to slaughter animals for meat, although this is not the case according to Tanzanian law. Yet, in Geita, on May 18, a Christian was arrested just for engaging in butchery work, and in Kagera, a man was offered the choice of paying a fine or going to jail for killing his own cow, eating part of it and selling the rest (September 8, 2015).  I am going to discuss parallel Nigerian situations like this one in the next post to show you that,  as exotic as this sounds to a Canadian, in communities with powerful Muslims this is a common situation.

According to reports, ISIS trains boys aged 8-15 how to kill. They are taught to shoot at close range and made to behead plastic dolls with swords so that they will be able to behead infidels (i.e., mostly Christians). Some of the children have been captured by ISIS. Others are lured to join it with sweets, toys and money, and then turned into killers and suicide bombers (October 17, 2015).

Two Syrian Christian families who sought asylum in Sweden have been persecuted by Syrian Muslims sharing the same communal asylum house and forced to move out. The Muslims banned the Christians from using the communal areas of the house, which accommodated around 890 asylum seekers, and made them hide their crosses. Pray that the Swedish authorities will have wisdom in the arrangements they make and will not unwittingly cause further distress or danger to Christians who have made their way there seeking peace and freedom (September 4, 2015).

Our next story is a prayer:  Almighty God, we pray to you for the many Iraqi Christian women and girls captured by ISIS and sold as slaves. We pray for the Yazidi and other non-Muslim women also sold into slavery by ISIS… who organize the slave-markets and even offered female slaves as prizes in a Qur’an-memorizing competition in June (October 18, 2015).

Tens of thousands of Burundian Christian women and children have fled political violence in their homeland since April to seek refuge in neighbouring Tanzania. The camp facilities are overflowing and there are severe shortages of food and shelter. At the time of writing 55,000 were sleeping in the open air. There is normally a rainy season in November-December, which will make life even worse for those who have no shelter. Tanzanian churches are striving to bring aid to the refugees, but are very poor themselves and had little to share with others. Ask…the Lord to meet the needs of the refugees, who are arriving at the rate of 2500 a day (October 28, 2015)!

In North Korea, Christianity is seen as the foremost threat to the ideology of Juche--total dependence on the ruling Kim family and the state. It is estimated that 100,000 Christians are incarcerated in labour camps, only because of their love for the Lord, clothed in rags, hungry and malnourished, beaten and abused. “But God also comforted me and brought a secret fellowship into existence, says Hae-Woo, one survivor of the labour camps. “Every Sunday we would gather in the toilets and pray (October 29, 2015).

Barnabas Aid reports that “the existential threat to the Christian presence in the Middle East is now being recognized as a cause for concern even by the secular Western media.”  It passes on to us a NY Times reported in July that two-thirds of Iraqi Christians have fled since 2003; a third of Syrian Christians have fled since 2011; the Lebanese Christian population dropped from 78% to 34% during the last century (September 1, 2015).  Their report on the Christian population is horrible, but the new recognition by the press is a rare piece of good news. Similar encouraging trends are in evidence by the fact that both Canadian and American governments have established offices to monitor religious freedom around the world.

I suspect that many Western secularists cannot understand why these Christians are so stubborn in their faith. Why not just change to the majority faith?  What’s the big deal?  Well, these people are often born again and have experienced and met the living Saviour. They are not about to trade Him in for some mythical fanciful idolatry, whether state religion, pagan religion or for the current world’s crop of the most haughty religions, namely Islam and secularism. 

In addition, not all self-declared Christians are born again or are even Christian. Some are adherents to forms of Christianity, including the citizens of “Christendom,” that have in effect become tribal religions that are tied up so closely with their identity that they cannot imagine letting it go for another identity, even under pressure.  Jesus told Nicodemus, a leader among the Jews of his days, that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you must be born again. Calling Abraham your father is no guarantee. I am happy that I am not responsible for ferreting all this out!  

But if you call yourself a Christian and insist on acting like one, no matter where or what kind, you are potentially subject to persecution, whether physical or legal or in some form of discrimination or all of these.  Even in the so-called “tolerant” but secular West.  

Post 74--Refugees: Ezra Levant's Take

Ezra Levant does not sweep sensitive or unpopular news under the carpet. Instead, he accuses main stream media of doing so. He distributes hard news that most people don’t like to hear, for it upsets them. Personally, I want to hear both the soft and the hard, the main stream and “the other,” such as Levant’s. Perhaps by Levant’s standards, the previous two posts about refugees were relatively soft, easy to read and to digest. Even though there might have been some surprises and certainly some reasons for serious disconcertion, those posts would not keep you awake at night. And they might even be true! Who can tell when it comes to media, whether soft or hard.

But today, it’s hard stuff, right from Levant’s computer heart, stuff that is almost sure to upset you. But you need to hear it. Putting your head in the sand may help you sleep, but it won’t help us get our refugee policies right. And getting them right is crucial for the future of our nation and of the Western world as a whole. So, here I share a Levant post with you—from the other side, if you like. I’m getting away easy today, since I blatantly copy his. I believe that in so doing, I am advancing the cause he is advancing—as well as that of the entire country, rightly conceived. 

Okay, here goes: POLL: 31% of Syrian migrants support ISIS terrorists (Ezra Levant (ezra@therebel.media). Justin Trudeau says he’s going to import 25,000 Syrian migrants by Christmas. That’s six or seven weeks from now. How is he going to do security checks on 25,000 people, coming from a terrorist no-man’s-land, in seven weeks? Remember, this is the same Liberal Party that doesn’t even think you should have to show picture ID, or take off your niqab, to vote. Trudeau has no clue how to screen for terrorists. But what about Syrian migrants who haven’t committed violence — but who support terrorism, and sharia law, and extremism? What about them?

 It’s a serious problem: an opinion poll of 900 Syrian migrants shows that nearly a third of Syrian “refugees” support terrorist groups. The poll, taken last year by the Arab Centre for Research and Public Policy Studies, shows that 31% of Syrian migrants in refugee camps in the region do not want the Islamic State to be defeated. They’re cheering for the terrorists. So, out of 25,000 Syrian refugees Trudeau wants to bring in, 7,500 could be ISIS supporters.

 It gets worse. In that same survey, only 10% of Syrian migrants say radical Islam is a serious problem. But 41% say America or the Jews are. Great: so we’ll be importing thousands of bigots, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists. You simply have to watch my video report on these Syrian migrants, by clicking here. I guarantee you won’t hear a peep about this by any mainstream media outlet.

 Yours truly,
 Ezra Levant

 P.S. Be sure to forward this e-mail with your friends and share www.TheTruthAboutRefugees.com as your Facebook status.

 P.P.S. I know for a fact no other Canadian media are reporting the truth about Trudeau’s rush to bring in 25,000 risky Syrian migrants. Please help us continue our investigative journalism by contributing to our viewer-supported journalism, here.

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So, Trudeau II and his cabinet have some serious sorting out to do if they are going to stick to their promise—or is it threat?) to bring in 25,000 of these refugees into Canada before end 2015. Though I am as eager to help genuine refugees as anyone and have as much compassion for them, realism tells me the Government should not even try to meet that quota and keep that promise. Really, it is more a threat than a promise. Trudeau may be ready, but I doubt that the country would be if they were to know the entire truth of the situation. Bring in as many as possible by that time, but only after proper check outs. Perhaps I should not treat this as a serious issue and regard it only as just another cheap campaign promise. I hope so.