Christian Socialists ClaimThat God Has Turned Left

No God hasn’t “turned left,” but then, the Progressives have already redefined God in their own image with their endless heresies.

You can expect this kind of statement from the UK’s lefty Guardian, but reading the following article is very informative because it’s about the phenomenal growth of the left in Christian Evangelical churches in America. Here are some excerpts from God moves to the left

“America's evangelical Christians are anti-gay, pro-gun, keen on capital punishment and obsessed with lower taxes. And, of course, they all vote Republican. At least, that's what vicar Giles Fraser thought - until he went to meet them . . .”

“In the US , the Christian left has a more consistently evangelical DNA. Its great saint is Martin Luther King, and its signature tune is social activism. It's a religion of huge rhetorical power, managing to bring together the Bible's vision for a new social order as well as its call for individual transformation. Here, for example, is classic preaching from Baptist minister Tony Campolo, something of a guru to the new left-leaning evangelicals: "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. . ."

"This election many conservative Christians are waking up to the fact that they have got absolutely zip out of their misadventure in Republican party politics. For all Bush's praise-the-Lord bravado, he has done nothing to change the laws on abortion and nothing to make gay marriage illegal. Disadvantaged churchgoers in the cornfields and ever-ailing rust belt have been had, voting against their economic interests to give tax breaks to billionaires. All Bush has done is associate their name with an unpopular war and a reputation for shrill and heartless moralising.

This may be why, according to the Christian Barna Research Group, a third of young evangelicals now claim to be embarrassed about being believers. "They're tired of the hard-edged politics that the Christian right has practised in the last couple of generations," says John Green from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life "They see all this, all this anger, without a lot to show for it." No surprise then that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been dropping to their knees and taking to the pulpit to claim full electoral advantage of this disillusionment. And although many Christians will still be voting for Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, in many ways he is a throwback. Huge numbers have been persuaded that Obama or Clinton are the future of Christian America. . ."

"The face of US Christianity is changing. The old generation of leaders are dying off or getting past it: Falwell went to meet his maker earlier this year (and I reckon he had some explaining to do), and the equally unpleasant Pat Robertson (the guy who called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez) is pushing 80. These people were a big deal politically. Robertson made a bid for the presidency in 1988 and actually polled ahead of Bush in the Iowa primary. But they are yesterday's men. The new breed of mega-church pastor is cut from a very different cloth. . ."

To Learn More about the Progressive Left’s “progress” in America’s Christian churches and in the UK, here is a link list to previous posts:

Obama’s Afro-Centric Church: A Non-Negotiable Commitment to Africa
United Nations Entrenched Within Most Christian Denominations
Obama’s Marxist Liberation Theology Church
National Council of Churches Supports the U.N
What Obama's Church Preaches
Christians Fight Leftists With Blogroll
CNN: Are All God’s Warriors Equivalent?
Is Your Church a Secret Sanctuary?
The Battle for American Unity
Your Mainline Christmas Sermon: Immigration and Social Justice
Pledging Your Moral Stand for Immigrants Rights
ACLU Monitoring School Handouts
Islamic law Invades Church of England School!

Join the Christians Against Leftist Heresy blogroll sponsored by Faultline USA

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Christians Fight Leftists With Blogroll

Yesterday Faultline USA launched a new public blogroll, Christians Against Leftist Heresy. The blogroll is already a big success and is growing hourly. Many thanks to Texas Fred’s for his help in creating this blogroll, and to Renee Taylor of American Truckers at War for the creation of the graphics.

I’ve been asked if you have to be a Christian to join the blogroll. My answer is “No, of course you don’t have to be a Christian to support traditional American Judeo-Christian values!” Regardless of your faith perspective, your voice is important and we welcome your views .

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If you are a member of a Christian church anywhere in the western world, you may be aware of the growing threat from within – “Marxist” or Leftist Christianity. No denomination has been left untouched. The threat has been growing for many years but has now reached a critical point!

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Fautline USA has posted a continuing series of articles concerning the epidemic leftist takeover of many venerable old Christian denominations – especially those denominations under the sway of the National Council of Churches.

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For background please read the criticism of Pledging Your Moral Stand for Immigrants Rights

Links to previous articles are provided at the end of that article.

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Here’s how to join the Blogroll.

Go to Christians Against Leftist Heresy and follow the simple directions to add the code to your sidebar. After you have successfully added the code to your sidebar, e-mail Faultline USA at faultlineusa(at)yahoo(dot)com. Be sure to include a link to your blog.

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Christian
Marxist

Tags: religion, christianity, bible, jesus, church, god, faith, spirituality, theology, christ, communist, democrat, socialism, politics, left , blogging, news, weblog, blog, internet.

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CNN: Are All God’s Warriors Equivalent?

This is a continuing series of articles concerning the left’s attack on traditional American cultural values. Regardless of how you feel about religion, you have to admit that the left has been fairly successful in its attempts to infiltrate many of our cherished institutions – including our religious institutions. What the left can’t infiltrate, they are willing to mock and to marginalize by attempting to engender fear primarily against Christians and Jews.

Now that bastion of leftist ideology, CNN, has managed to lump Christian and Jewish conservatives into the same “warrior” pot with Islamists.

This is an excerpt from last Thursday’s article, “Is Your Church a Secret Sanctuary?”

. . .The growth of leftist Christianity within Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism, and even among Evangelical Christians, is a frightening phenomena that has received scant attention. Last week’s news of the arrest and deportation of the Sanctuary movement’s spokesperson, Elvira Arellano, highlights not only the strength of the left within urban churches, but Marxist Christianity (or Liberation Theology) is a fast-growing evolution of heretical Christianity effecting every little congregation is the U.S. . .

Here are some excerpts from reviews of CNN’s latest special, God’s Warriors:

“CNN’s Master Plan: Part One” by By Phyllis Chesler

. . . After watching Amanpour’s segment on the Jews, I was disheartened and outraged. How long will people have to suffer Big Lies on our screens and be forced to react defensively, only after the fact? How much Saudi money might really be involved in CNN’s series? In addition to bin Talal, we do know that the Saudis have been buying up shares in the Western media, (UPI for example), influencing curriculum on campuses, and in some instances, buying certain journalists outright. (There is a scandal about this still under wraps in Europe right now. Stay tuned for an update). . .

Amanpour is worse than all the others (writers mainly) who have been blasting Judaism and Christianity but mainly in order to be able to also blast, but in a lesser way, Islam. The thesis is that we are all guilty, all to blame, that each religion is clannish, “different,” its texts support violence, its extreme followers are but a handful, nothing for the world to worry about.

These are all false assumptions and outright lies.

From Camera

CNN's "God's Warriors," hosted by Christiane Amanpour, is a three-part series intended to examine the growing role of religious fundamentalism in today's world. Unfortunately, the first program in the series, "God's Jewish Warriors," is one of the most grossly distorted programs to appear on mainstream American television in many years. It is false in its basic premise, established in the opening scene in which Jewish (and Christian) religious fervency is equated with that of Muslims heard endorsing "martyrdom," or suicide-killing. . . .

From Yid With Lid

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs calls Christiane Amanpour -Christiane I'm-a-whore. After the past week I would suggest to Pamela that her description doesn't go far enough in describing the CNN "reporter." She created a three part series "God's Warriors"which was supposed to examine three different religions and their relationship with Israel and she managed to attack Israel with each one.

I wonder what her motivation was---a gift for her Muslim father, . . .

By the end of her third and final segment we are meant to fear and loathe the Christian conservative right far more than we are meant to fear or loathe Amanpour's Amadinejad whom --incredibly--she never accuses of funding Hezbollah's terrorist work abroad. . .

From an article on History News Network by Timothy R. Furnish (He is the proprietor of http://www.mahdiwatch.org/.)

On Thursday, August 23, CNN went after “God’s Christian Warriors.” Let me state at the outset, in the name of full disclosure, that while I am a rather conservative Christian, I am in no way, shape or form an evangelical or “fundamentalist” Christian (yes, my liberal readers, there IS a difference).

Amanpour began by observing that “religion has exploded as a political force” in the last 30 years but blames it on the Religious Right: “[Jerry] Falwell thrust religion into politics.” Has Christiane, or any producer or editor at CNN, never had a class in American history? Religion has been part and parcel of American politics going back to the founding of the Republic, as Jon Meacham demonstrates in his recent book American Gospel. Many Americans who don’t work at CNN know that the 19th century fight to emancipate black American slaves was led by the churches. And even within Amanpour’s lifetime, we have had the example of the civil rights struggle—incubated in black and white churches and led, more often than not, by ministers. How she gets away with stating on TV that Falwell religionized politics is beyond me. . .

Why does CNN seem obsessed with equating Christian fundamentalists with Muslim ones? Despite some surface simlarities, the two are quite different. But for CNN, as for much of the mainstream media, ANY strong religious belief is ipso facto frightening and irrational.

From an article from >Documentary Videos by Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center

A day prior to the airing of Christiane Amanpour's six-hour CNN documentary entitled God's Warriors, I was one of four clergymen to be a guest on Larry King Live to discuss the issue of fundamentalism in today's world. The interview on Larry King was pre-recorded in mid-July and none of the participants had seen the six-hour documentary because it was still being edited. Now that I have seen it, I sent the following critique to the producers of God's Warriors. . . .

An article from B’NAI ELIM by Michael Devolin, B'nai Elim Canada

. . I'm sure CNN is so very proud of Amanpour's anti-Israel, anti-Judaism diatribe. Of course, her "moral equivalency" is standard for CNN and their self-aggrandizing, cowardly journalists. Heaven forbid they should point out that Jews do not blow themselves up in German and Austrian restaurants for the sins of the Holocaust and the Crusades. Heaven forbid they should reveal, as did Ayaan Hirsi Ali in her book Infidel, that "Violent jihad is a historical constant in Islam." Heaven forbid they should expose the fact that Muslim zealots in the 21st century behead journalists and aid-workers simply because those journalists and aid-workers are Christians and Jews and therefore do not measure up to the Prophet Mohammed and the glory of the Koran. CNN and their effete journalists like Christiane Amanpour (all her war correspondence notwithstanding) are incapable of making such veridical contradistinctions simply because they have long ago made the obsequious choice to feed the masses with palatable slander, even though the masses, as history has so often exposed, often howl for anti-Jewish slander.

Cheat-Seeking Missiles says:

Christiane Amanpour, that pinnacle of tolerance and objectivity, is going to spend three nights this week looking at what she calls God's Warriors. No, not the jihadists who are killing thousands of innocents every year -- although they are in the six-hour special -- but also "God's Jewish warriors" and "God's Christian warriors."She uses those phrases throughout the preview clips, and it's disgusting. There's hardly a Christian alive who would call an abortion clinic bomber "God's warrior," nor do Jews use "Jewish warrior" to describe the few in Israeli society who resort to a little terrorism in the face of an overwhelming terrorist threat. . .

God’s Warriors

CNN



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Is Your Church a Secret Sanctuary?

Disclaimer: This article does not discount the faith of those true pacifists who have plumbed the depths of their Christian conscience and ardently believe that there is no such thing as a just war, or that no person should ever be turned away regardless of individual circumstances.

The growth of leftist Christianity within Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism, and even among Evangelical Christians, is a frightening phenomena that has received scant attention. Last week’s news of the arrest and deportation of the Sanctuary movement’s spokesperson, Elvira Arellano, highlights not only the strength of the left within urban churches, but Marxist Christianity (or Liberation Theology) is a fast-growing evolution of heretical Christianity effecting every little congregation is the U.S.

Elvira Arellano became the face behind the nation's immigration debate when she sought refuge from immigration authorities in a Chicago church a year ago.
U.S. immigration officials had ordered her deportation for working at O'Hare International Airport using a false Social Security number.
But Arellano holed up for a year in the Chicago sanctuary so she wouldn't be separated from her 8-year-old U.S. citizen son.

Many traditional American’s have failed to realize the actual links between today’s political movements and our churches. Many of these links come through denominational sponsored charitable networks and coalitions such as the National Council of Churches.

The National Council of Churches Supports the U.N. . . .It's not as simple as the NCC agreeing with your philosophy...it's the matter of a percentage of the funds you give to your church being sent to the headquarters of your denomination and from there, likely, a donation made to the NCC. These figures are difficult to confirm, but the National Council of Churches must be funded in some manner. On the positive side, family.org reports that donations from mainstream churches have significantly declined, but have been replaced with funds from political-action groups - and numerous qualify as "far-left" activism.

Some political movements have made genuine progress for humanity in this country. One example comes from the Black church in America. There is no doubt that the civil rights movement would have gone nowhere if it were not for the political activism within the Black churches in America. The strength of the Black churches in America is evidenced by the fact that until recently almost every Black politician who managed to gain national recognition had a Rev. next to his/her name.

It would be a grave mistake to discount the growing political activism and influence the leftist church is exerting on the questions of warfare and of immigration. The New Sanctuary movement is already becoming entrenched within many Christian denominations. This is an excerpt from their web page:

The New Sanctuary Movement is a coalition of interfaith religious leaders and participating congregations, called by our faith to respond actively and publicly to the suffering of our immigrant brothers and sisters residing in the United States. . . .

Called by faith to respond . . .

Unfortunately, there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing who masquerade as Christians within denominational leadership, and these Marxists have found the key to manipulating the church faithful into funding those groups that foster attacks on the sovereignty of these United States.

The left is gaining converts daily by an appeal to a false Christian guilt that would equate law-breakers who leave their country to improve their economic condition with slavery or with political refugees who are facing torture, death, or genocide within their home nations. Here’s an example of the sweetly twisted rhetoric:

"The Gospel message calls us to welcome the stranger and to stand in solidarity with the least of these," said Chett Pritchett, Wesley Theological Seminary student. "It's not a political issue, it is a Christian issue." . . .

Make no mistake. This IS a political issue!!!

Nowhere do any of these open border Marxist activists mention our Christian duty to protect, to defend, or to preserve our nation against an invasion of people that come here illegally flaunting our laws with no intention of assimilation and who would destroy the very fabric of our nation. No where do these open border activists mention that it is every Christian’s duty to protect the future of their country for their children. Nowhere do these leftists mention the long-standing traditional Christian understanding of just warfare as they sabotage the war in Iraq.

How do the leftist Christians manage to out trump years of Christian tradition? The first step (begun many years ago) is to promote the “social gospel” which emphasizes social justice and at the same time denigrates individualism. Christians are urged to think with a group mind in terms of “community” rather than individual moral choice or even individual salvation. Jesus is portrayed as a revolutionary freedom-fighter. Aggression against the enemy is only fostered if it is the undefined “oppressed people” seeking justice against any form of established government anywhere. It is a revolutionary gospel that hides its true objectives from the church faithful and couches its opposition to Christian tradition in the gentlest religious imagery. Popular in Latin America, Liberation Theology foments world-wide revolutions with the final objective – world-wide Marxist Christianity.

Independent congregations are not as at risk of succumbing to the New Sanctuary Movement as are the denominations. If you are a member of an old venerable Christian denomination the odds are about 99.9% that the movement for sanctuary is well under the control of the growing number of leftist leaders within your denomination’s headquarters and, of course, within the hallowed halls of university seminaries.

Here is a partial list of participating denominations from the New Sanctuary Movement’s web page:

Denominational/Interdenominational National Leadership Present: Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, United Methodist, Union of Reform Judaism, Interfaith Worker Justice. Additional religious traditions: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, American Friends Service Committee, Evangelical Christian, Muslim, Sikh

For those who would like to explore the traditional perspective on just warfare obtain this book.

The Virtue of War: Reclaiming the Classic Christian Traditions East & West

Here’s an excerpt from a review:

The preeminence of pacifism within the Church as the proper reaction to military conflict is so established within contemporary Christianity that it is sometimes forgotten that this has not been the historic Christian position. Orthodox theologians Alexander F. C. Webster and Darrell Cole remind us of this fact in The Virtue of War, an important apologia for the Christian tradition of the just war. . . The most renowned figures in both Catholicism (St. Ambrose, St. Augustine of Hippo, St Thomas Aquinas) and Protestantism (Martin Luther, John Calvin) all supported the idea of the just war although their presentations and arguments may have varied in approach. . .

Here’s an excerpt from another review of the above book by James V. Schall, S.J. , a professor in the government department at Georgetown University. His latest book is "Roman Catholic Political Philosophy" (Lexington).

The occasion of this book is, no doubt, the aftermath of September 11 and the need to see the proportions of a new kind of war in our time, a new kind that is a very old kind. With the paradox that "war is a virtue" or a "positive good," the authors force us to look again at actions designed to face evils that few are willing to meet because they cannot understand how doing anything effective can be just. This book is another way of looking at the problem, an ancient way, as it turns out.

It should be noted that defending our country against those who would destroy it (from within or without) falls within the theology of Just Warfare!

Some short excerpts from related articles worth reading:

The Battle for American Unity: . . In the last century, many Christian churches began to focus on inclusiveness and Christian unity became the primary core value. Divisive moral issues were ignored or downplayed. Individual behaviors were never judged. Emphasis was always placed on God’s forgiving love rather than on individual accountability to God.

Your Mainline Christmas Sermon: . . . Just as few Americans are very much aware of the growing influence of Islamofascism on American politics, even fewer Americans are aware of the Marxist trends (born of Liberation Theology) that are fast overcoming mainline denominations and informing new ministers in mainline Protestantism! Catholics and Evangelicals are not immune to this growing trend either.

United Nations Entrenched Within Most Christian Denominations: . . There are over 100,000 local congregations and 45 million Christians supporting the above goals – and most of these Christians don’t even know what they are supporting or that much of their money is going to tax-exempt leftist foundations!!!

Obama’s Liberation Theology Church “. . .The black Christ is he who threatens the structure of evil as seen in white society, rebelling against it, thereby becoming the embodiment of what the black community knows that it must become. . .”

What other’s are saying:

The New Sanctuary Movement is a religious and political network of radical left congregations who claim America’s immigration laws are immoral and — like slavery and Jim Crow laws — should be repealed. . .

Read Whom would Jesus bomb? By Roger W. Gardner

Although I love this very accurate quote from the Vanishing American, I completely disagree with the conclusion .

Certainly the liberalized caricature of Christianity, which is only a shadow of the real Christianity in actual fact, is a religion which would command the West to sacrifice itself for the sake of the 'wretched of the earth.' This version of Christianity preaches guilt for our success and material prosperity, and guilt-trips us into giving away what we have to the victims, and sharing all our possessions with them, including our country. Unfortunately this version of Christianity is growing in numbers of adherents; many formerly conservative denominations and churches are being pulled into the vortex of leftist Christianity by liberal clerics and preachers masquerading as traditional Christians, and many formerly conservative Christians are being led by these pied pipers where they would not formerly have gone, into the globalist, universalist system.

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email stiknstein-at-gmail-dot-com and let us know at what level you would like to participate.


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The Battle for American Unity

There are many who cite quotations concerning “A Nation Divided” but I believe that Abraham Lincoln said it best, primarily because he understood the battle. His last sentence is the key to the question of National Unity.
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A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

Lincoln's 'House-Divided' Speech in Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858.

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Today many of us are disillusioned with our own two-party system. We are angered at the failures of both the Democrats and the Republicans. And most of all, many of us are longing for national unity.

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Unity is vital to the strength and health of any nation but false unity, based on little more than gathering large numbers of the disillusioned, is bound to fail. When the core values of the large majority of Americans are in direct opposition, attempts at false unity can only do one thing and that is to ignore those core values altogether by concentrating on those issues where some consensus can be found. It might work for a while but eventually it fails.

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Let me make an analogy to religion. We’ve always been taught that mixing religion and politics is a dangerous pursuit, but one of the first things I learned in seminary was that religion and politics are never far apart.

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In the last century, many Christian churches began to focus on inclusiveness and Christian unity became the primary core value. Divisive moral issues were ignored or downplayed. Individual behaviors were never judged. Emphasis was always placed on God’s forgiving love rather than on individual accountability to God. Thousands of sermons were given about how Jesus loved and kept company with sinners. Few of those sermons ever pointed out that Jesus always gave these parting words to the repentant sinner, “Go and sin no more.” Eventually even the word “sin”, became replaced with more gentle words such as “failings.

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The irony of false Christian unity is plain to see. Those Christian churches that placed unity above everything , including adherence to Christian tradition and the Ten Commandments, have been losing membership for many years. Many old denominations are about to become extinct. Why?

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Well, it would seem that those individuals whose core Christian values were strong enough sought out churches that were not afraid to proclaim and to uphold those values. On the other hand, those who valued unity above all else felt no loyalty to a church that proclaimed little more than ill-defined non-judgmental sweetness and light. They became what is known as “cafeteria Christians” and their tastes were as shallow and as fickle as their faith.

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Please feel free to apply the above analogy to politics and political parties.

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Right Truth posted that Unity08, the online third party that wants to find bi-partisan candidates to support for the presidential ticket, “has launched a unique online study that allows you to rank the presidential candidates and the issues facing the country.”

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According to Unity08 (emphasis mine),

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The latest GWU Battleground Poll (from Lake Research and the Tarrance Group) tells us lots that we've heard before: 70% of the people think the country is on the wrong track; 57% disapprove of the job the Republican president is doing; 52% disapprove of the job the Democrats are doing in Congress

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But they went further. Asked which of these qualities is the most important in a Member of Congress, 32% said "strength of values and convictions" and twice as many, 64%, said "willingness to find practical workable solutions." 93% said Washington lawmakers put partisan politics ahead of the people, and an astonishing 71% say that of their very own Member of Congress.

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No wonder that a plurality of Americans felt that in the future their children will be "worse off" than they are right now. That is an amazing finding in a country where our optimism is supposed to be the hallmark

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What it says is that the people don't expect the politicians in either party to lead. That leaves it up to the people. Only the people can lead us out of this mess, starting now, starting here – literally, starting here, at Unity08.com. This is your site. This is your country. . .

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Now the pollsters themselves (Republican Brian Tringali of the Tarrance Group and Democrat Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners), provided the analysis of the results. I believe, however, that the analysis just might be a bit faulty or at best, spun. Perhaps Tringali and Lake are now part of the Unity 08 movement? Perhaps not, but one thing is for sure. This was a poll by and for bi-partisans.

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According to the Washington Post, in quoting from and discussing this bi-partisan Battleground Poll, America is a “Pessimism Nation.” Here’s an excerp.

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It's a warning to all the candidates that they have to straddle these two worlds: effectiveness and not being an insider, she (Lake) said. . .

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Really? I don’t buy it. The Unity08 folks would love nothing better than to pull off the voting strength from the two major parties. If 32% of those polled want "strength of values and convictions," they aren’t about to jump ship into a watery feel-good ill-defined third party pool. And those 64%, who seek a "willingness to find practical workable solutions,” may find that our nation’s diametrically opposed core values make those solutions difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

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We are in a battle and yes it is a culture war. There are those who deny the war and there are those who want peace and unity at any price. But when 70% of the people polled think the country is on the wrong track, that’s cause for optimism because that means change will come! And change will come from those who hold together and are willing to stand their ground for America’s core values and principles.

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Continuing with the WP article . . .

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Tringali said he and Lake were equally struck by the pessimism they found about the future. A plurality (38 percent) believe their children will be worse off in the future and only a third said they "think their own children will be better off than they are right now -- a drop of 7 points since January."

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Tringali noted in his analysis of the findings that it would be "hard to overemphasize" what a sea change this represents in the attitudes of a country that long has prided itself on its optimism.

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More surprising is where the pessimism is most intense: among white Americans rather than African Americans or Latinos. Tringali said pluralities of African Americans and Latinos believe their children will be better off than they are. Only 29 percent of whites believe that will be the case; 38 percent believe their children will be worse off. . .

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So for all those disillusioned pessimists who feel that Unity is more important than any other value, Unity08 might just be their cup of tea. As for me, I’ll stand with those strong conservatives who are willing to fight the battle to defend our traditional American values .

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Remember Lincoln’s words because National unity comes with a steep price tag. Before we jump onto the Unity bandwagon, we must continue our battle to define, to preserve, and to defend our Nation’s core values, because eventually , “It will become all one thing or all the other”.

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Click to vote here:

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Eminent Domain, Obama, and the little guy

Yesterday three minor news stories came together into one story, and then the story really got interesting. Hang in there and read on. Don’t you want to find out why Obama positioned himself in alignment with the rotation of the earth?

(1) Congress was opened for the first time by a Hindu prayer. The Hindu cleric’s prayer to open Congress was disrupted by some Christians. Read three different takes on this from Christian Newswire, Religion Clause, and the lefty Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

(2) Eminent Domain Reform was introduced in U.S. House of Representatives. The Castle Coalition reported yesterday that Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) introduced the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2007 to stop taxpayer funding of eminent domain abuse. . . “It prevents Americans’ federal tax dollars from being used to kick them off their land for private development, while allowing federal money for traditional public uses like roads and post offices. ” According to Steven Anderson, director of the Castle Coalition, “Unsurprisingly, tax-hungry governments and land-hungry developers prey on those that are less likely to be able to defend themselves. It is vital that the federal government stop subsidizing this blatant abuse of power.”

Eminent Domain reform is desperately needed following the disastrous Kelo vs the City of New London Supreme Court ruling. This reform should have broad bi-partisan support. Lefty groups, however, are a bit too fond of portraying the “little guy” as an inner city minority or a member of a “marginalized” group. In fact, the little guy is just as likely to be a farmer or rancher who will lose family land to the NAFTA highway, to some kind of questionable “city” government, or to big money private development.

Read about the consequences of Kelo vs City of New London. “In Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court held that anyone’s home or business can be taken if the government thinks someone else can make more money with the land. The floodgates to eminent domain abuse have busted open. However, there is a silver lining.” Also read The Impact of the Kelo Decision from reason.org.

(3) An Iowa farmer is being threatened with Eminent Domain by the Maharishi Vedic City. Bob Palm and his two brothers have 149 acres of farmland that has been in their family for 115 years. After the Palm brothers announced plans to raise hogs on the farm, the Maharishi Vedic City became upset because the city does not allow the sale of any non-organically raised product (that means only vegetarian). The city offered to buy the farm to build a park after appraising the farm’s value at $2,675 per acre. The Palms refused to sell and the “peace-loving” cult threatened to bring Eminent Domain proceedings. Currently they are at a standoff.

I am really curious. Isn’t this America, the land of the free and home of the brave? How did Maharishi Vedic City become a genuine city in Iowa? Aren’t all American cities held to some basic standards of freedom of diversity? Apparently not so! In Maharishi Vedic City no one is allowed to sell non-organic products. The city is vegetarian. The official language is Hindu Sanskrit. Need I go on? So how can this so-called American city even be considered a real city much less bring Eminent Domain proceedings against a neighbor?

For some history on the Utopian, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and his Transcendental Meditation cult read Heaven on Earth .

Living in the hope of spending the afterlife in heaven is a definite waste of the glorious gift of human life. So every individual must try to create a heavenly environment on earth, and one Hindu spiritual leader thinks it's very much possible to build heaven on earth!
He is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi — the notable Vedic teacher and celebrated guru of transcendental meditation, and the vital force behind such Vedic institutions as the Maharishi University of Management and the Maharishi International University.

According to a 2000 article by Rick Ross it’s all about big money and politics:

Today, amazingly, the Maharishi is still purveying bliss - only to the gentry, not below stairs. He has become a fashion icon. His sly smile no longer looks down from a thousand college notice boards, but he is the pin-up of politicians, accountants, doctors, businessmen and journalists. In this era of anxiety, his New Age message is the antidote to executive stress.

What is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Natural Law party?

According to the Natural Law Party (U.S.) "50-Point Action Plan to Revitalize America," "there are simple, humane, cost-effective, scientifically proven solutions to all of America’s problems. The Natural Law Party was founded to implement these solutions immediately in government." The discussion of their actual policy in their printed material and web site, while quite lofty, is extremely vague. Nowhere in the literature they mail to prospective members do they mention that all of these "solutions" are based on products of one controversial group. But in actuality the Natural Law Party is a global "political" front -- with organizations in 80 countries -- for the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. The Maharishi is a Hindu monk who began teaching TM in the 1950s. The public best knows him for his association with the Beatles, who learned TM from him in the late 1960s. It's interesting to note that in 1957, the Maharishi claimed he would bring the world to enlightenment within 10 years -- and would then retire to the caves of the Himalayas to spend the remainder of his days in quiet meditation. Yet, today he governs a world-wide spiritual empire worth over $3.5 billion dollars.More details and source documents.
Return to top.

Also read Secrets of the Natural Law Party. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter Unnatural FAQs:

. . .Since the 1970s, the Maharishi has touted TM as a secular form of meditation that does not conflict with any religion, philosophy, or governmental system. But in fact, insiders report that TM is secretly a very fundamental form of Hinduism. According to former Maharishi International University professor Anthony D. DeNaro, the Maharishi once snapped, "When America is ready for Hinduism, I will tell them." The Maharishi incorporated his original movement as a religious organization with himself as its "spiritual head." He has said that he chooses the names of Hindu gods as mantras for his followers. Four U.S. courts have found that TM is religious or a religion. . . .

All the more reason why this city isn’t an American city and should not have the power of Eminent Domain!

Obama woos Vedic City, folks! Also see Politico Blog. Here’s an excerpt from with bold added by me.

FAIRFIELD, Iowa-Sen. Barack Obama drew his heartiest welcome of a two-day swing through Iowa in the state's capital of inner peace. . .Obama had positioned himself in alignment with the rotation of the earth, in accordance with the teachings of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose followers moved en masse to this small Iowa city more than 30 years ago.The Maharishi’s transcendental meditators, along with vacationing pilgrims from the East Coast, turned out in large numbers in the town’s traditional green square to hear the Illinois senator deliver his stump speech on the night of July 3-more people, Fairfield’s sheriff said, than had come out to greet a sitting president.“I saw him and I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is somebody who could lead us into a new era,’” said Nancy Watkins, an international student adviser at the Maharishi University of Management.

A liberal’s take on the event. Here’s an excerpt. Highlights added by the liberal:

Meditating Iowans At Peace With Obama CBS News, NY turned out in large numbers in the town’s traditional green square to hear the Illinois senator deliver his stump speech on the night of July 3 — more people, Fairfield’s sheriff said, than had come out to greet a sitting president. ..... "Somehow we have lost the capacity to recognize ourselves in each other,"” Obama said, to an intently nodding crowd of at least 1,000. "You know, people talk a lot about the federal deficit, but one of the things that I always talk about is …an empathy deficit," he continued, to applause. ...... Obama spoke as Washington wallows in a summer of intense conflict. Subpoenas are flying from the Hill to the White House. ..... In some of his speeches, he didn't even mention President Bush. ..... This is a central gamble of Obama's campaign for President. The loudest voices in the Democratic Party — from Chairman Howard Dean to former Sen. John Edwards and Sen. Hillary Clinton — have been sounding steady notes of confrontation with the White House. Clinton and Edwards argue that they will win the partisan wars. ..... Obama argues that the country, and even partisans, are tired of partisan warfare. .... a suburb — the fist new city incorporated in Iowa in decades — called Maharishi Vedic City, in which all buildings face East.

Now I wonder if the crowd was nodding in agreement with Obama or just head-bobbing in transcendental meditation? No matter. It sure looks like Obama won’t be visiting any farmers facing Eminent Domain these days, now does it? Obama’s got more bread to butter and he knows exactly where to find it!

H/T to Iowa Voice “Gurus Love Obama” (from someone living in the midst of these folks) . . .

Oh, by the way…you know what that “Yoga flying” really is? They cross their legs, go into a “trance” (some “herbs” might be involved, if you get my drift), and then proceed to hop/bounce around a gymnasium. They barely get a few inches off the floor, yet they think they’re actually flying. And that’s just stage 1! Pure freakin’ nutjobs.

So if they want to be supportive of Obama, more power to ‘em. But I’ll just bet you won’t see any “Endorsed by The Maharishi University” on any campaign flyers anytime soon.

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Your Mainline Christmas Sermon: Immigration and Social Justice

In a letter to members it was pointed out by Roy Beck, Executive Director of NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, and recipient of the first United Methodist Communicator of the Year award as Associate Editor of the United Methodist Reporter, that many religious leaders will use their microphones and pulpits to advocate for open borders and for the “rights” of illegal immigrants, “to decry the raids and to equate illegal aliens with Mary and Joseph and their newborn babe.”

It is a shame that the religious leadership would not be standing beside us and against outlaw businesses' efforts drive down the incomes of working-class Americans and their families. But to have so many standing on the side of the economic oppressors is truly disheartening.

I completely concur with Beck’s statements. I know well of what he speaks. I earned my Masters in Theology from a highly esteemed liberal Protestant seminary not long ago. Every attempt to indoctrinate me in the ways of socialistic-style social justice failed miserably. Fortunately, I already had a strong background in traditional Christian theology, an understanding of what it means to be an American, and enough years of experience not to be easily intimidated.

Before I entered the seminary, I was somewhat politically naive. That changed rapidly as I learned that theology and politics are intimately linked. For years mainline seminaries have functioned as the religious arm of the far left progressives. Admission of any conservative political bent is literally the kiss of death. No doubt there are many closet conservative professors who would not long survive if their personal politics were known. Students hoping for plumb assignments following ordination are well-aware of which sides their daily bread is buttered.

Just as few Americans are very much aware of the growing influence of Islamofascism on American politics, even fewer Americans are aware of the Marxist trends (born of Liberation Theology) that are fast overcoming mainline denominations and informing new ministers in mainline Protestantism! Catholics and Evangelicals are not immune to this growing trend either.

Read Roy Beck's response printed in the liberal protestant (pro-amnesty) Christian Century Magazine.

Here’s an excerpt:

But Mr. Ufford-Chase’s approach to handling the illegal immigration problem in this country displays the huge blind-side that most mainline church national leaders have on the immigration issue by promoting the idea that illegal immigration is a victimless crime. While focusing on poor people in other countries who wish to break the law to get into this one, he ignores poor people and lower-middle-class people in this country for whom immigration laws are most clearly designed. The Supreme Court in the past has ruled that the chief reason for our immigration laws is to protect workers. Mr. Ufford-Chase does mention the issue of job displacement and quickly dismisses it. And then he brings up the issue of wage depression and speaks admiringly of Fed Chairman Greenspan’s suggestion that we should have high immigration in order to hold down wages. I frankly am amazed to see Mr. Ufford-Chase think that is a worthy aim. . .

In covering and commenting on the immigration issue, you should at the least consider that in the last public act of her illustrious life of public service, Barbara Jordan led a bi-partisan national commission that concluded that illegal immigration should be eliminated to the extent possible and that legal immigration should be dramatically reduced in numbers. The reason, Jordan said, was that the numerical level of immigration is so high that it serves as a tool of economic injustice against the most vulnerable members of our community. (bold emphasis added)

Beck gives us all some good advice. Don’t let this kind of sermon go unchallenged! Speak to your minister, or if you feel too shy to speak directly, “write a short note and drop it in the offering plate or comments basket in the foyer.”

Bring it up as a discussion issue in Sunday school class!

If you are deeply concerned about illegal immigration, join NumbersUSA

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