Poll: How did you feel about Rick Warren’s prayer at President Obama’s Inauguration?

How did you feel about Rick Warren’s prayer at President Obama’s Inauguration?

Please let Christian and American know what you thought about Pastor Warren’s inaugural prayer by either leaving a comment below or by participating in our poll. If you didn’t hear the prayer, you can read the officially transcribed text of the prayer at the bottom of this post.

After you make your selection, PLEASE CLICK THE “Confirmation” BUTTON THE OPTIONS TO ENSURE THAT YOUR VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED AND TALLIED.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you, it all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory. History is your story.

The Scripture tells us Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one. And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now today we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time. We celebrate a hinge-point of history with the inauguration of our first African-American president of the United States.

We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership.

And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in Heaven.

Give to our new president, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race or religion or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all.

When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the Earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us.

And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all.

May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day all nations and all people will stand accountable before you.

We now commit our new president and his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus, Jesus (hay-SOOS), who taught us to pray, Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

               

Carl Djerassi, inventor of birth controll, pill condemns it

Eighty five year old Carl Djerassi the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill now says that his co-creation has led to a “demographic catastrophe.”

In an article published by the Vatican this week, the head of the world’s Catholic doctors broadened the attack on the pill, claiming it had also brought “devastating ecological effects” by releasing into the environment “tonnes of hormones” that had impaired male fertility, The Taiwan Times says.

The assault began with a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard by Carl Djerassi. The Austrian chemist was one of three whose formulation of the synthetic progestogen Norethisterone marked a key step toward the earliest oral contraceptive pill.

Djerassi outlined the “horror scenario” that occurred because of the population imbalance, for which his invention was partly to blame. He said that in most of Europe there was now “no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction.” He said: “This divide in Catholic Austria, a country which has on average 1.4 children per family, is now complete.”

He described families who had decided against reproduction as “wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it.”

The fall in the birth rate, he said, was an “epidemic” far worse, but given less attention, than obesity. Young Austrians, he said, were committing national suicide if they failed to procreate. And if it were not possible to reverse the population decline they would have to understand the necessity of an “intelligent immigration policy.”

The head of Austria’s Catholics, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, told an interviewer that the Vatican had forecast 40 years ago that the pill would lead to a dramatic fall in the birth rate in the west.

“Somebody above suspicion like Carl Djerassi … is saying that each family has to produce three children to maintain population levels, but we’re far away from that,” he said.

Schonborn told Austrian TV that when he first read Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical condemning artificial contraception he viewed it negatively as a “cold shower.” But he said he had altered his views as, over time, it had proved “prophetic.”

Read the whole thing from CathNews.

SOURCE

Catholic Church renews its attack on contraceptive pill (Taipei Times)

Medical Association points out prophetic nature of Humanae Vitae (Catholic News Agency)

Hat tip: Clint Rain

               

Charting a New Course in the New Year

“Out with the old, in with the new!”

Rarely have those words been uttered with more enthusiasm than at the beginning of 2009.

2008 was an historic and unsettling year.  Our economy imploded, the President abandoned free market principles “in order to save the free market system,” and government assumed an unprecedented role in financing our economy.  Business magnates, from bankers to automakers, pleaded for a bailout—and got one from Uncle Sugar.  Gas prices took a roller coaster ride, soaring, then plunging in the second half of the year.  Political and celebrity scandals abounded, from John Edwards’ and Eliot Spitzer’s infidelities to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s pay to play scandal to Britney Spear’s meltdown and resurgence.  Things were so chaotic on the domestic front that some almost forgot that there was a war going on.  Not surprisingly, Americans voted for “change” and elected their first African-American as President.  The Democrats took control of both houses of Congress and Republicans were kicked to the curb.

But rather than dwell on the best and worst of 2008, it may be a better use of our time to look ahead to what’s in store for our country in the new year.

The dawning of a new year is always an exciting time.  We celebrate it by popping corks on champagne bottles, lighting sparklers, and watching the big ball drop in Times Square.  We get together with friends and loved ones and count down the hours, minutes, and seconds until the new year.  The celebration is important, for the advent of a new year is a symbol of what is to come, of new beginnings, resolutions, renewal, and the hopes of all to be better and to live better in the year to come.

This new year provides us with a new opportunity to improve on the sorry state of politics and the economy in our country.  Our culture’s character was on display during 2008.  We paid a high price for the lack of it and we have a chance for reform in 2009.

The new year provides us with the opportunity to reinstitute the notions of virtue and moderation as important guideposts in the conduct of our business and financial affairs.  For far too long, the marketplace has been viewed as a virtue-free zone—a place were “self-interest” operated free of moral restraints.  This attitude has turned something good (a free market economy) into a system where the interests of others were irrelevant to our economic decision making.  As a result, radical self interest and unrestrained greed characterized many of our transactions.  The housing debacle provides a good example.  Home buyers bought more house than they could afford, unhesitatingly misrepresenting their financial capacity to repay their loans.  Lenders encouraged irresponsible loans in exchange for handsome up front fees because they expected to pass the risk to downstream institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who, in turn, packaged the bad loans as securities and sold them to investors who were looking for unprecedented returns.  All the way along the line, the participants were looking out only for themselves.  They were unconcerned for the welfare of any other party to the transaction.  This lack of virtue and restraint was commonplace in the broader markets and resulted in a financial meltdown, the likes of which haven’t been seen since The Great Depression.

Aristotle showed great insight into the nature of man when he said, “The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.”  This moderation (or restraint) which is necessary for a flourishing free market economy has been virtually absent in the business practices which led to our current economic calamity.  All of us would do well to adopt it in the new year.

How often have we been tempted to buy something we couldn’t afford?  To keep up with the Joneses?  To regard entertainment as more important than responsible behavior?  The new year provides us with an opportunity to reclaim financial responsibility not only for our own interests, but also for the interests of others.  Perhaps we will once again realize that our financial decisions impact others, that personal responsibility is good for all people, ourselves included, and that thrift and savings do not merit scorn and derision.

What has been true in the economic arena has been no less true in the political arena.  Virtue and moderation have been anything but the hallmarks of American political behavior in the last year.  A spirit of hyper partisanship has fostered a continuation of the politics of personal destruction.  The smallest amount of blood in the water resulted in a veritable feeding frenzy as each party sought to capitalize on the political peccadilloes of their opponents.  The conduct of Ted Stevens, William Jefferson, and Rod Blagojevich were emblematic of public servants who had lost their way and put their own interests ahead of the interests of their constituents.  Hopefully, the excesses of the last year will point out the need for a recovery of virtue and moderation in the political arena in the coming new year.

Indeed, this new year presents all of us with the opportunity for the renewal of virtue and restraint in our political and economic affairs.  Two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul exhorted his co-worker Titus: “Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.” (Titus 3:1-2 NIV)  Paul’s advice is as good now as it was then.  We will all do well to take his instruction to heart and to pursue these virtues in every dimension of our lives in this coming new year.

Ken Connor is an attorney and co-author of “Sinful Silence: When Christians Neglect Their Civic Duty”  He is also Chairman of the Center for a Just Society. For more articles and resources from Mr. Connor and the Center for a Just Society, go to www.centerforajustsociety.org.

               

Year End Review of American Christianity

2008 is over.

The most important event on the religious landscape of America was the presidential election. The Democratic party reinvented itself as “religious” and the Republicans lassoed former Baptist minister and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Mormon governor Mitt Romney stepped up the plate, as well. John McCain suffered a slight setback for snuggling too close to John Hagee, a card-carrying anti-Catholic. McCain then chose Sarah Palin, an Pentecostalesque evangelical who was denounced as a “creationist” and “fundamentalist”. Who can forget the Saturday Night Live skits mocking Palin.

Then there were the Pastor Rick Warren interviews, which were very civilized and enlightening–perhaps the highlight of the entire campaign. Barack Obama shocked everyone by saying that decisions over abortion and the moment with life begins were “above his pay grade.”

We elected Barack Obama, a professed Christian whom a majority of practicing Christians voted against. Barack Obama’s greatest moment of unpopularity centered around his pastor Jeremiah Wright’s racist comments about Whites, Jews, and the infamous “God damn America” sermon. Obama promised America that he had not heard the Reverend Wright say anything prejudicial in his twenty years of attending Wright’s Trinity United Church in Chicago. Obama withdrew his membership at Trinity United and the rest is history. Obama won the election but Proposition 8 passed in California with the support of Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons.

Pope Benedict XVI made his first visit to the United States and celebrated Holy Mass in Washington, D.C. and New York City where he visited Ground Zero. Most notably, the Holy Father met with victims of priestly sexual abuse and offered apologies.

As a former Anglican clergyman, I followed with great interest the crisis in the Anglican Communion and the related fallout in America’s branch-the Episcopal Church USA. After a meeting in Jerusalem, conservatives around the globe rallied together in their affirmation that homosexuality is a grave sin and contrary to the Sacred Scriptures. In the meantime the American Episcopal denomination continues to fracture and splinter. Perhaps 2009 will see the formation of a new denomination.

Did I miss anything? If so leave a comment.

               

Catholic monarch stripped of veto power over euthanasia

This is very interesting. The Grand Duke of Luxembourg is about to lose his veto power because he has threatened a bill legalizing euthanasia.

“Grand Duke of Luxembourg Will Lose His Veto”

Luxembourg’s parliament looks ready to strip the Grand Duke of his last lawmaking power as a controversy over euthanasia comes to a head. One of Europe’s last royals with political sway may lose his formal veto by taking a stand against a law legalizing euthanasia.

The Grand Duke of Luxembourg, who has said he would interfere with a decision by parliament, will likely be stripped of his veto in a historic decision after a heated showdown over a bill to legalize euthanasia.

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg protested the bill and threatened to kill it next week by refusing to sign it into law.

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg will refuse to sign a euthanasia law for “reasons of conscience.”

Since parliament is expected to pass the bill, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said the Grande Duke has overstepped his role. Juncker personally opposes the euthanasia bill but says he will propose a change to the constitution to deny the Grand Duke his veto. His role by the end of 2008 could be reduced to rubber-stamping parliamentary decisions, instead of deciding whether to approve them.

“That means he will only technically enact laws,” Juncker said, according to Reuters.

The euthanasia bill passed a first vote by parliament in February. It looks set to pass a second and final vote next week, but the Catholic Grand Duke announced on Tuesday — in a closed-door meeting with leaders of Juncker’s ruling Christian Socialists — that he would refuse to enact the law.

His position tipped the tiny nation into the worst constitutional crisis in its history. The Luxembourg royal house has tried to block a decision by parliament only once before, when the Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide refused to sign an education bill in 1912.

“I understand the Grand Duke’s problems of conscience,” said Juncker, “but I believe that if the parliament votes in a law, it must be brought into force.”

The euthanasia bill has been controversial since 2001. It would let patients with “grave and incurable” conditions die at the hands of a doctor if they ask repeatedly to be euthanized and earn the consent of two doctors and a panel of experts. Medical and physician groups have opposed the bill, though, and so have many citizens of this traditionally Catholic nation.

It follows similar laws in the Netherlands and Belgium, where King Baudouin — Henri’s uncle — abdicated for a day in 1990 to avoid signing a Belgian abortion law. The current Belgian king, Albert II, has signed Belgium’s recent euthanasia and homosexual-marriage laws over his private Catholic beliefs.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a constitutional monarchy, and the Grand Duke is its head of state. He has indicated that he won’t stand in the way of any change to the constitution.”

The full article can be found at: Spiegel Online.

               

Perspectives on Rick Warren and Barack Obama

Rick Warren is losing respect from Evangelicals and Barack Obama is losing respect from the Left.

Recent headlines from Real Clear Politics:

Will the Warren Risk Be Worth It? – E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
The Saddling of Rick Warren – Debra Saunders, SF Chronicle
Warren is Obama’s Booker T. Washington – DeWayne Wickham, USA Today

               

Death of a Statesman – John Dingell

When Democrat Henry Waxman of California launched his bid to oust fellow Democrat John Dingell from his chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Hill watchers in the know made two observations: First, they knew Waxman had the votes in his caucus because, like a good attorney, the politically astute Californian would never pose the question if he didn’t already know the answer.  Second, it signaled the beginning of the end of seniority in the House of Representatives.

John Dingell, born in 1926 and first elected to the House in 1955, is the closest thing to a statesman in a body whose membership runs for re-election every two years.  His 27 terms as a representative have earned him the distinction of being the Dean of the House – its most senior member.  Seniority means everything in the House – at least it did until Henry Waxman (a 17 termer himself) upset the applecart.  Seniority determines a member’s office, his seat at the committee, and is, in general, an indication of clout.

Unfortunately for Chairman Dingell, he is a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Detroit Democrat in Nancy Pelosi’s House.  This sort of dissent, it appears, will no longer be tolerated in the 111th Congress.  House Republicans view Chairman Dingell as someone they can work with.  Under his control, the Energy and Commerce Committee – which oversees 60% of all legislation – passed Republican bills and accepted Republican changes to Democratic iniatives.  Contrast this record of bi-partisanship with Chairman Waxman’s two years of impish delight in raking Bush Administration wrongdoers over the proverbial coals in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Waxman, who represents Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Malibu, is expected to wield the Energy and Commerce Committee’s gavel as a club, bashing any opposition to liberal agendas perpetrated by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.  Dingell’s ouster is a disappointment to many Americans who hoped the Democrats would govern from the center.  In fact, one high-ranking Republican called Dingell’s defeat a “body blow” to working families.

               

Obama skips church, heads to gym

From Politico: By JONATHAN MARTIN & CAROL E. LEE | 11/23/08 3:41 PM EST

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to attend church services since winning the White House earlier this month, a departure from the example of his two immediate predecessors.

On the three Sundays since his election, Obama has instead used his free time to get in workouts at a Chicago gym.

Asked about the president-elect’s decision to not attend church, a transition aide noted that the Obamas valued their faith experience in Chicago but were concerned about the impact their large retinue may have on other parishioners.

“Because they have a great deal of respect for places of worship, they do not want to draw unwelcome or inappropriate attention to a church not used to the attention their attendance would draw,” said the aide.

Both President-elect George W. Bush and President-elect Bill Clinton managed to attend church in the weeks after they were elected.

Read full article from Politico by clicking here.

               

Debt is slavery

The Gross National Debt of the United States:

Above is the National Debt of the United States of America. Every Senator, Congressman, and President should have this is as the screensaver on his or her computer.

Things for us to remember:

Precious treasure remains in a wise man’s dwelling,
but a foolish man devours it. (Proverbs 21:20 )

The rich rules over the poor,
and the borrower is the slave of the lender. (Proverbs 22:7)

               

Newt Gingrich to become Catholic

Newt Gingrich is preparing to enter the Catholic Church at Easter of 2009.

               

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