US Military Burns Afgan Bibles
Topic: Anti-Christian
US Christian troops in Afganistan have been found to be experiencing revival, and giving out Afgan language Bibles as gifts to Afgans.  See video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVGmbzDLq5c

In order to appease Afgan Muslim leaders, it is now reported that the US military has burned these Bibles:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090505/ts_nm/us_afghanistan_
proselytising;_ylt=Ahl8DCO3lM3DojkVq8sJHwd34T0D

Think about it:  it is politically correct now to burn Bibles, and our government entities are doing it.  Shades of Nazism!

A Liberal Demagogues Prophecy
Topic: Anti-Christian
Rick Herrick, author of The Case Against Evangelical Christianity, published "I'm Sick of Pastors with Big Mouths," in the Houston Chronicle, March 30, 2008, pp. E1, 5, in which he says that Bible prophets were usually wrong, and preachers are "arrogant" to claim to speak for God.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5658805.html

My reply, which I sent to the Chronicle:

Rick Herrick has Bible problems.  He only believes select parts of it, and does not understand Bible prophecy.

Take his hyperbolic conclusion that the Prophets "were wrong with most of their predictions."  He adduces the example of Isaiah 19, in which Egypt is to be conquered, and "the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians" (v. 23).  Indeed, Assyria was conquered and incorporated into Babylon, which later joined Persia, and eventually conquered Egypt.  Then Alexander's conquests led to the founding of Alexandria, the size and splendor of which was second only to Rome, and in which the Jews prospered and multiplied.

Were that not fulfillment enough, the culmination of the submission of the Nations awaits the coming of the Messiah, to orthodox Christians his "Second Coming," to establish his Kingdom on Earth.

This Millennial Kingdom ought not be confused, as is Herrick, with the Kingdom of God (in Matthew, "heaven") foretold in the Gospels and Epistles.  Jesus told his interrogators that the kingdom of which He spoke was "not of this world" (John 18:36).  His kingdom was already unfolding, as in the parables of Matthew 13 (mustard seed, leaven, hidden treasure, pearl of great price), and was already "in the midst" (Luke 17:21) of those who believed.

Christ's kingdom came to fruition with the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus had said "dwells with you, and shall be in you" (John 14:17), and was inaugurated at Pentecost (Acts 2).

Bible prophecy is a glass half full -- not mostly empty, as Herrick purports.  Given the supernatural, it can all come true; to deniers, it is all personal opinion.

The Old Testament prophet whose prophecies did not come true was to be killed.  In this Age of Grace, thankfully, "all" who are spiritual "may prophesy one by one" and "let the others judge," while recognizing that "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Corinthians 14:29, 31, 32).

One who errs may rightfully be corrected, if honestly mistaken, and censured if malicious -- but no one needs to die.

--Rev. Paul Hughes, M.Div., author of Christ in Us: the Exalted Christ and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit (2006).

CO Court Denies Jury Right to Bible
Topic: Anti-Christian

Robert Harlan raped and murdered Rhonda Maloney, a waitress, in 1994.  In 2005, his death sentence was thrown out by the Colorado Supreme Court because jurors had used Bible passages to help determine their sentence.

The Court, in doing so, has:

1.  Denied the jury the right to use primary documents relative to the historical development of law to inform their decision.

2.  Violated jurors' First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion by denying the use of Scripture to inform their decision.

3.  Denied the jury's right to make a free decision in good conscience, without undue external interference.

Note:

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here" (Patrick Henry, 1765).

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions . . . upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God" (James Madison, 1778).

"In contemplating the political institutions of the U.S., if we were to remove the Bible from schools, I lament that we would be wasting so much time and money punishing crimes and would be taking so little pains to prevent them" (Benjamin Rush, Educational Policy Papers, 1791).

"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all of our civil constitutions and laws . . . .  All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible" (Noah Webster, "History of the United States," 1832).

"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind.  It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian" (U.S. Supreme Court, 1892).

[Reference:  "Bible Use Voids Death Sentence," from unnamed wire reports, in Houston Chronicle, March 30, 2005, p. A4.]
__________________________________________
©2005 Paul A. Hughes

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