Category: faith

Presidential faith

It may not be important in your viewpoint – or it may be very important, but either way the AP asked each of the current presidential candidates about their faith.
AP asked candidates what their religion is, whether there is a particular church that they are a member of, and how often they attend services.
All the candidates say they’re Christian. Seven are Roman Catholic, three are Methodist, three are Baptist, one is Episcopalian, one is Presbyterian, one is Mormon, and one describes himself simply as Christian.
Can you guess which answer I like best?

From the DMN:

DEMOCRATS:

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden: Catholic, attends either St. Patrick’s or St. Joseph’s in Wilmington, Del., when his schedule permits.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: A “practicing Methodist who attends church as often as possible.”

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd: Catholic, attends in Washington, Connecticut and when traveling.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards: Methodist, is a member of the Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C., but is looking with his wife, Elizabeth, for a church near their new home in Chapel Hill.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Catholic, member St. Aloysius in Cleveland, attends “not often.”

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: Christian, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, attends services “frequently, when at home on Sundays.”

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: Catholic, attends St. Francis Cathedral Parish in Santa Fe, N.M., “on a fairly regular basis, and attends services on the road when possible.”

———

REPUBLICANS:

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback: Catholic. He attends two services on Sundays — Mass in the morning at Christ the King Catholic Church in Topeka and then services at Topeka Bible (Evangelical Christian) with his family. “He tries to go to daily Mass whenever he can, wherever he is. When in Washington, he attends St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill.”

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore: Methodist, a member of River Road Methodist, Richmond, Va., “attends his home church as often as his travel schedule allows.”

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: Catholic, “The mayor’s personal relationship with God is private and between him and God.”

California Rep. Duncan Hunter: Baptist, a member of Trinity Baptist Church in El Cajon, Calif., attends services almost every Sunday, but usually elsewhere because he’s often traveling.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: Southern Baptist, a member of the Church at Rock Creek in Little Rock, Ark., attends services “every Sunday he’s in town.”

Arizona Sen. John McCain: Episcopalian, but his four youngest children are Baptist and he attends the North Phoenix Baptist Church when he is home.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul: Baptist, a member of the First Baptist Church in Lakewood, Texas.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; attends services weekly at a Mormon temple in Belmont, Mass.

Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo: Presbyterian, member of the Cherry Hills Community Church in Highland, Colo., attends services “every week I am home.”

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson: Catholic, is a member of St. Peter’s in Madison, Wis., attends services weekly.

Sally gives her testimony at encounter


Sally gives her testimony at encounter
Originally uploaded by Jonathan D. Blundell.

Sally was back at church yesterday! Praise God. Three weeks after being sent into emergency surgery at Baylor Dallas for AMV and a blood clot, Sally gave her testimony at encounter yesterday.
I’ll post her testimony online as soon as we can get it uploaded.
Thanks so much for your prayers. Sally and her husband Jose are a living testimony of grace and God’s power.

Listen to Sally’s testimony

Vatican going green

Via DMN’s Religion Blog:

Solar panels – hundreds of them – are to be installed on one of the buildings. Here’s a story from Catholic News Service:

By CAROL GLATZ and ALICIA AMBROSIO
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY. Expanding its mission from saving souls to saving the planet, the Vatican is going green.

A giant rooftop garden of solar panels will be built next year on top of the Paul VI audience hall, creating enough electricity to heat, cool and light the entire building year-round.

“Solar energy will provide all the energy (the building) needs,” said the mastermind behind the environmentally friendly project, Pier Carlo Cuscianna, head of the Vatican’s department of technical services.

And that is only the beginning. Cuscianna told Catholic News Service May 24 that he had in mind other sites throughout Vatican City where solar panels could be installed, but that it was too early in the game to name names.

Even though Vatican City State is not a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, a binding international environmental pact to cut greenhouse gases, its inaugural solar project marks a major move in trying to reduce its own so-called carbon footprint, that is, the amount of carbon dioxide released through burning fossil fuels.

The carbon dioxide-slashing solar panels will be installed sometime in 2008 after prototypes, environmental impact reports and other studies have been completed, Cuscianna said.

In a May 23 article in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Cuscianna wrote that safeguarding the environment was “one of the most important challenges of our century.”

The Italian engineer said appeals by Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II to respect nature inspired him to help power the Vatican’s energy needs with renewable resources.

He recalled how, in his 2007 World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict warned of “the increasingly serious problem of energy supplies” that was leading to “an unprecedented race” for the earth’s resources.

Cuscianna also found inspiration from Pope John Paul’s 1990 peace message, dedicated in its entirety to the need to respect God’s creation.

“We cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past,” the pope wrote, calling for “a new ecological awareness” that leads to “concrete programs and initiatives.”

Cuscianna took the initiative and helped draw up and deliver to the Vatican governor’s office a feasibility study of going solar.

He said the Paul VI hall was chosen first for a number of reasons: Cooling and heating the large audience hall makes it one of the top energy guzzlers in the Vatican, and its roof was in need of repair.

When the project is finished, more than 1,000 solar panels will cover the football field-sized roof.

While not revealing how much the solar project will cost, Cuscianna said “it will pay for itself in a few years” from the savings on energy bills.

Whatever solar power the hall is not using will be funneled into the Vatican’s energy grid and benefit other energy needs, he said.

The solar rooftop garden is not the first environmental project the Vatican has undertaken. In 1999, as part of preparations for the jubilee year, the entire lighting system of St. Peter’s Basilica was upgraded to be low-impact. Strategically placed energy-saving light bulbs were installed inside and out, cutting the basilica’s energy consumption by an estimated 40 percent.

In 2000, the Vatican unveiled its own electric motor vehicle recharging station, where electric wheelchairs, scooters and cars could “tank up.”

Unfortunately, the idea of replacing polluting, gas-powered cars with a network of electric vehicles within the Vatican stalled. U.S. Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, the former archbishop of car-capital Detroit, had pushed for the cleaner switch while he was head of the commission that governs Vatican City State.

Pope John Paul, however, regularly used an electric car at Castel Gandolfo toward the end of his pontificate when he was no longer able to move easily around the grounds.

Cuscianna said the Vatican has a commission that studies environmental issues and potential eco-friendly practices. Programs facilitating recycling, composting and waste reduction have not yet been established.

An expansion of the Vatican’s use of renewable energy resources would not only reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, Cuscianna said, “it could be a condition that makes Vatican City more autonomous” and less dependent on Italy’s power grid.

With Italian news headlines warning of yet another sweltering summer and potential power brownouts and blackouts, greater energy autonomy for the Vatican through the sun sounds like a cool idea.

05/25/2007
Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic

Good news for Sally

Got a call from Jose tonight, the doctors have given Sally the OK to go home.
They are now just waiting for several machines to arrive at their house to aid Sally in her recovery.
In case you didn’t follow along, it was discovered on Mother’s Day that Sally had AVM and had to be rushed to Baylor Dallas and ended up having an emergency eight hour surgery to fix the blood vessels going to her brain as well as remove a blood clot that had formed.
After the surgery, the doctors said the surgery was a success but she would likely lose all eyesight in her left eye.
Two days later she was doing much better and seeing out of both eyes. But Monday of last week the doctors realized she was having trouble breathing and had to give her a tracheotomy to allow her to breathe after scar tissue formed in her throat from the vent she was on during and after surgery.
Now a little more than two weeks later, Sally is ready to come home. Praise God! She will likely need to have an additional surgery to remove the scar tissue, but the doctors are saying she might heal on her own without the surgery.
Her vision is still somewhat blurry but the doctors are now saying it will likely fully recover.
Another praise is that Jose and Sally have no health insurance – but according to Jose, praise God because someone through the hospital has promised the family they will take care of all the costs of the surgeries, hospital stay, medicines, machines and meds at home and anything Sally needs.
What an amazing God! What a way to make himself real to this family and our church.
What a mighty God we serve.
Please continue to keep the Perez family in your prayers. There are sure to be other needs as both Sally and Jose have been out of work the last two weeks.
Thanks again for all your prayers – God has heard them.

Beware of the Purpose Driven Church!

From the same folks that kicked Chuck Swindoll off the air…
comes a handy brochure you too can print and pass out to your friends, family members and fellow church goers: “Is Your Church Going Purpose Driven? How Can You Tell?”

The Purpose Driven Church books and most of the programs are published by Rupert Murdoch, who owns 175 newspapers worldwide, and a large percentage of the television and communications industry.
He also owns several magazines, some of which have been classified as pornographic.
Billions of dollars pour into the Purpose Driven Church movement. Dr. Warren has stated he intends to send one billion Christians into the world to bring in the “Kingdom of Heaven.” The entire movement appears cultish.

Here are some handy ways to tell if your church is joining the cult…

  1. Change in music to a contemporary rock style.
  2. Removal of hymn books; eliminating the choir.
  3. Replacement of organ and piano with heavy metal instruments.
  4. Repetitive singing of praise lyrics.
  5. Eliminating of business meetings, church committees, council of elders, board of deacons, etc.
  6. The pastor, or a new leader with a few assistants, usually four, takes charge of all church business.
  7. A repetitive 40–day Purpose Driven Church study program stressing psychological relationships with each other, the community, or the world, begins.
  8. Funded budgeted programs are abandoned, or ignored, with ambiguous financial reports made.
  9. Sunday morning, evening, and/or Wednesday prayer meetings are changed to other times; some may even be eliminated.
  10. Sunday School teachers are moved to different classes, or replaced by new teachers more sympathetic with the changes being implemented.
  11. The name “Sunday school” is dropped and classes are given new names.
  12. Crosses and other traditional Christian symbols may be moved from both the inside and outside of the church building. The pulpit may also be removed.
  13. In accordance with Dr. Warren’s instructions, new version Bibles are used; or only verses flashed on a screen are referenced during regular services.
  14. Purpose Driven Church films, purchased from Saddleback, precede or are used during regular services.
  15. The décor, including the carpets, may be changed to eliminate any resemblance to the former church.
  16. The word “church” is often taken from the name of the church, and the church may be called a “campus.” Denominational
    names may also be removed.

  17. An emphasis on more fun and party sessions for the youth.
  18. Elimination of altar calls or salvation invitations at the close of the services.
  19. The elimination of such words as “unsaved,” “lost,” “sin,” “Hell,” “Heaven,” and other gospel verities from the pastor’s
    messages.

  20. The reclassification of the saved and lost to the “churched” and “unchurched.”
  21. The marginalizing, or ostracizing, of all who are not avid promoters of the new Purpose Driven program.
  22. Closed meetings between the pastor or chosen staff members without any reports made to the general membership.
  23. Open hostility to members who do not openly embrace the new program, or who may have left for another church.

Geeze! I think encounter is 98% there!
But don’t worry. The brochure also has pointers on what to do if you’re church is becoming Purpose Driven.

If your church is in the initial stages of change (music or the first 40–day program), your church could be saved by
talking other church members, and with activist intervention by 10–20 percent of the membership. If nothing is done at this early stage, then by the time the program advances to step four, there is little that can be done except look for another church. Your church has been stolen and become a Purpose Driven entity in association with Saddleback Church of Orange County or Willow Creek of Chicago.
You must educate yourself, and others, so that you can mobilize the membership to effectively resist. “For God hath
not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).

I tell you what, if King James is good enough for Jesus and the disciples – it’s good enough for me.