NOTHING IS IRRELEVANT: February 2012

Thursday, 16 February 2012

News to Know: Your body is now an FDA regulated drug/ FBI on Twitter/ Wolfman hunted

AMERICAN TOTALITARIANISM:

U.S. Government to mine social media to prevent "terrorism" & "uprisings"

FDA claims that your body is a drug and they have the authority to regulate it

99 Years of Evil: Celebrating the 16th Amendment

AMERICAN PERSECUTION:

Michigan city faces more penalties for arresting Christians

BRITISH TOTALITARIANISM:

Last free Brit hunted by cops "for his own good"

STAND FOR LIBERTY - Read and sign the Manhattan Declaration HERE.

You can also sign their petition against the Obama administration's overt attack on religious freedom HERE.

If you aren't familiar with the Manhattan Declaration, take a look. Join the movement!

Saturday, 11 February 2012

Persecution Update 10 Feb 2012

VOM-USA Prayer Update for February 10, 2012

PAGE SOURCE

Laos--Village Leaders Retract Demands
Source: VOM Contacts

Proverbs 15:1-2
A soft answer turns away wrath,
But a harsh word stirs up anger.
The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly,
But the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness.

A pastor's wise words turned away the demands of a village leader in Laos recently. On Nov. 21, 2011, seven village officials demanded that a pastor and his church members sign documents promising they would stop witnessing. The church members refused to sign, explaining that to do so would be a betrayal of God's teachings. The village head continued to pressure them, saying, "Christians are not good people. They do not drink, smoke or participate in the important [village] occasions." The pastor finally agreed to sign the documents under the condition that he receive copies to show Lao Communist party officials, the governor and leaders of his church denomination. The village leaders then immediately backed off of their demands. Our VOM contact wrote, "The Christians in this village are poor and uneducated people, but the Holy Spirit puts the words in their hearts to say!" Thank God for these faithful villagers, and pray that they will remain strong in the face of harassment from local officials.

Pakistan--Evangelist Faces Harassment and Spiritual Attack
Sources: VOM Contacts

Acts 1:8
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

A VOM-supported evangelist in the Afghan-Pakistan border region reports that he is being harassed by a local Muslim leader and is also under attack by spiritual forces. After a recent Christmas service that was attended by a few Muslims, the evangelist received a letter warning him that his congregation was not respecting the Muslim call to prayer. Police have monitored the evangelist's activities, and the local mullah has told his audience that Christian activities "must be stopped." The evangelist says the region historically has been difficult for mission workers and that he is affected spiritually when he goes on prayer walks. Pray that God will grant supernatural strength to this brother and his church.

Azerbaijan--New Laws Further Restrict Religious Freedom
Sources: Forum 18 News, VOM Canada

1 Timothy 2:1-4
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Under new amendments to Azerbaijan's Criminal and Administrative Codes, anyone who distributes religious materials that haven't been through state censorship may be imprisoned for two to five years or fined the equivalent of nine years' salary. President Ilham Aliyev signed the amendments into law on Dec. 12, 2011, the latest in a series of increasingly restrictive legislative actions by the government. In July 2011, amendments introduced new controls on religious education among other restrictions. In December 2010, fines for illegal religious activity under the Administrative Code were greatly increased, and in 2009, the Religion Law was twice amended to restrict rights and freedoms related to religion. Pray that President Aliyev will stop enacting laws that restrict the religious freedoms of his people, and pray that believers in Azerbaijan will continue to be bold in sharing their faith.

Page borrowed from the VOM.

Thursday, 9 February 2012

Shyness and Grieving are Mental Illnesses?

Fox released this story today, which says that under the new revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a large number of things never thought to be mental illnesses will be classified as such. For instance, shyness and even grief may be considered mental illnesses. Perhaps what is more dangerous is the fact that it will "medicalize criminality," which means that rather than being treated as bad people, criminals will be considered mentally ill. In other words, criminals will not be able to be held accountable for their actions--human responsibility will be removed. Therefore, evil behavior is not due to any moral corruption, but to physiological malfunction. If we make mental illness the rule rather than the exception in explaining crime, we fling open wide a door to allow any unpopular behavior to be classified as evidence of mental illness. As the article explains,

"At the other end of the spectrum, the new DSM, due out next year, could give medical diagnoses for serial rapists and sex abusers - under labels like "paraphilic coercive disorder" - and may allow offenders to escape prison by providing what could be seen as an excuse for their behavior, they added."

Consider the political benefits of redefining certain behaviors and attitudes. With a tweak of definition, whole sectors of society could easily be marginalized and discredited. Those who raise moral challenges become blank-phobic (pick your poison) or suffer from a Diversity Resistance Disorder (or how about Ego-Moral Monochromatic Obsessivism? That has a nice ring to it). Those who challenge pet government policies suffer from an anti-social defiant disorder or from a kind of religious mania.

In any case, as usual, G.K. Chesterton saw this danger at the start of the 20th century. In fact, his novel, The Ball and the Cross (written in 1906, I believe), is built upon this very theme of madness as a means to power. In The Ball and the Cross, two Scotsmen, a staunch Atheist and a staunch Roman Catholic, want nothing more than to settle their religious differences. The establishment (both the medical and political), however, considers their behavior to be an expression of a religious mania. By the end of the novel, both the Atheist and the Roman Catholic find themselves in an asylum simply because they take religion seriously--the Atheist thinks it a serious error, and the Catholic a serious truth. In any case, Chesterton does demonstrate, however unlikely his story may be, that whoever controls the definition of madness controls the whole of society. (Put the book on your summer reading list; it's worth reading several times.)

If ideas are worth fighting for, so are the words we use to express ideas. And if words are worth a battle, so are their definitions. This battle is one that I hope the revised DSM loses, and loses badly.