Blogging Events

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Lots of links today...and one of them is no longer active (well, it didn't take long for that censorship to happen...

In the Christian Sphere

A Biblical Case for Civil Disobedience & the Right Use of Romans 13 - James White

"Yet unqualified Christian obedience to government cannot be taught from texts which explicitly limit the boundaries of government authority and the extent of our submission.  God Himself clearly restricts the role of government, not giving it unlimited authority: it acts “for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right” (1 Pet. 2:14).  When rulers reverse that, as often happens, by praising evildoers and punishing those who do right, they violate their delegated, God-given authority and transgress their divinely established boundaries and assigned jurisdiction.  "

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...continue reading →

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Side note: Today would have been my dad's 86th birthday and he's been in heaven a bit over four years, but many times I just want to pick up the phone and hear his voice.

Now...

Christian Reading Habits

Reading Out of Love For Others - Tim Challies - Good thoughts and as I'm thinking about books for the Reading Challenge, I'm thinking about this also.

Politics (The Corruption of President Biden)

Labor Pick Paid Biden-Linked Firm Tens of Thousands Prior to Nomination This is a bit confusing, but there's an end to that ball of string.

The Culture Wars

Biden's Culture War Aggression

"TLDR version": If Biden wanted "unity", he wouldn't have turned the "on a scale of 1 - 10" dial up to 12 on "the culture war" (that's in quotes because that's the term that Sullivan used)"

And another from the Heritage Foundation

Boys who identify as girls must be allowed to compete in the girls' athletic competitions, men who identify as women must be allowed in women-only spaces, healthcare plans must pay for gender-transition procedures, and doctors and hospitals must perform them.

Sounds unifying, right?

In reality, it spells the end of girls' and women's sports as we know them. And, of course, no child should be told the lie that they're "trapped in the wrong body", and adults should not pump them full of puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones.

What’s the real evidence for 2020 Election Fraud?

There are seven points, and this conclusion

This isn’t an exhaustive survey of fraud evidence in the 2020 presidential race. For example I didn’t even include affidavits from witnesses seeing fraud in Wisconsin or Nevada. Nor did I even go through the Navaro Report or many of the claims listed on HeresTheEvidence.com.

But what I’ve seen is more than enough to convince me that Biden will not be a legitimately elected president when sworn in this Wednesday.

NOTE:  I disagree with the statement that President Trump would have won...but I do believe that there were enough irregularities to raise an alarm and all irregularities should be investigated (whether or not it would have changed the outcome) in order to have fair and honest elections in the future.

And...Policy Changes

Biden Appears To Signal Shift On Israel After Claiming In Speech That He Would ‘Repair Our Alliances’

“The change in title marks a significant shift in policy toward Israel,” The Washington Free Beacon reported. “The United States has for decades declined to take a policy position on the West Bank and Gaza territories, maintaining the Israelis and the Palestinians must decide in negotiations how the areas will be split up for a future Palestinian state. By including Gaza and the West Bank in the ambassador’s portfolio, the Biden administration appears to be determining that neither area is part of Israel—a move that is certain to rile Israeli leaders,” the outlet continued. “The incoming administration’s move also signals that it will elevate the next ambassador’s role to include conducting direct diplomacy with Palestinian leaders, including in the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas terror group maintains control. This is the only ambassador tasked with conducting diplomacy in a region controlled by a U.S.-designated terror group.”

‘Incredibly Troubling,’ ‘Deeply Disturbed’: Canadian Lawmakers React To Biden Energy Policy

This is a gut punch for the Canadian and Alberta economies. Sadly, it is an insult directed at the United States' most important ally and trading partner," Kenny told a news conference, according to Reuters.

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lunes linkage is a weekly post that I'm resurrecting in my latest attempt at restarting the blog. The title stuck from when I was taking Spanish classes and every Monday (lunes) would list all the tabs that were open on my computer

The Annual Book Reading Challenge

Politichicks on "the Great Reset"

Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum launched the initiative by proposing wealth taxes, additional regulations, and massive Green New Deal government programs. He said, “Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed.” “In short,” he wrote,” we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

How Far will Democrats go to loosen election procedures in order to ensure continual victory?

A person doesn’t even have to believe that such fraud did occur to realize how dangerous such a situation is. I am deeply disturbed that our media (a big part of the problem anyway) has no interest in fairly reporting on the allegations of fraud, and that our judiciary is punting. But I’m afraid that’s what we’re facing.

On President-elect Biden's Health and Human Services nominee, Xavier Becerra (from the National Catholic Register...and analysis from Get Religion.)

On Monday, President-elect Joe Biden tapped California attorney general Xavier Becerra to head the Department of Health and Human Services. If appointed, Becerra will lead an agency that has been at the epicenter of the “culture wars” in the U.S.—and many Catholic groups will now be bracing for those fights to intensify.

Becerra’s record in California shows that he, perhaps more than any other state attorney general, has been willing to wield the power of the state to enforce pro-abortion policies against religious and pro-life groups.

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"lunes linkage" is a collection of links, articles, etc. (anything) I've found interesting and might want to come back to.

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What Christianity Alone Offers Transgender Persons

The article is good and worth reading, but this line stuck out at me:

Creation isn’t right. The physical world has been “subjected to futility,” to frustration. It doesn’t work properly. It’s out of joint. It has been subjected to this frustration by God. The Bible’s wider narrative explains this. God cursed the ground as a judgment on human sin (Gen. 3:17). In other words, the world isn’t right as both a consequence and a demonstration of the fact that we’re not right.

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Campfire Blanket Scarf

Campfire Blanket Scarf - lunes linkage

Or maybe just a blanket 😉

This will be a good choice when I have spun all the alpaca fiber into yarn.

This piece will be easy and fast to knit, and it is just the sort of thing I like to curl up in when it's chilly, either indoors or out.

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California Could Learn From Puerto Rico Raising Minimum Wage

According to National Review, the impact on American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands was devastating. After only three of the ten scheduled minimum-wage increases after 2006, American Samoa’s overall employment dropped 30 percent — a 58 percent crash in for the critically important tuna-canning industry. Real GDP fell by 10 percent.

But that was much better than their Northern Mariana Islands neighbors, where employment had plunged by 35 percent, and real per capita GDP off by 23 percent.

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That's all for now (Tuesday)

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Lunes Linkage is the occasional Monday post linking to articles I have run across and found interesting...

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Here's one from a while ago (April) - Trump is a Fool.

Donald Trump is a fool—not because he is wrong about so many things, but because he is right about a few others. The fool is not only one who speaks nonsense, but one who speaks sense on the topic no one else will touch. He is the court jester pointing out the king’s failings. Were any sane man to make the same statements, he’d be put on a pole. But the fool, amid a general stream of nonsense, is able to touch on the rare uncomfortable truth.

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A possible treatment for the gene that I carry, and that affects my son,

Patients with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a rare genetic mitochondrial disease that leads to vision loss, show sustained improvement in a follow-up to a Phase 1/2 clinical trial with GenSight Biologics’ therapy candidate GS010.

Patients recruited to the study had been diagnosed with LHON for approximately six years. After 78 weeks of follow-up, promising results were reported, with improved vision in the eye that was treated.

LHON is inherited through the maternal mitochondrial genes. It causes degeneration of retinal ganglion cells, a specific type of neurons in the retina. This condition begins with blurring and clouding, generally in a person’s teens or 20s.

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In the spirit of Christmas season, I want to be charitable to President-elect Donald Trump and express my thanks for his success in 2016.

While there still remains plenty of cause for concern, the continued boldness, energy, and vigor exhibited by the Trump transition team is giving me real hope and excitement. Here are 10 reasons this conservative is having a merrier Christmas season thanks to Donald Trump.

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At the heart of Christianity and the gospel is the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from the “Word becoming flesh” (John 1:14) and the incarnate Son of God living and dying in our place as our Savior, there is no salvation. Apart from the coming of the eternal Son, his taking on human nature and acting as our covenant representative, there is no hope for the world.

It is appropriate at Christmas to think more deeply about the incarnation. Here are 10 things we should grasp.

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Another from a while ago - courtesy Doug WIlson (there's a lot of political incorrectness, but good information.)

The Scars on Your Forearms -

Show me your forearms. Unless there are scars all over them, then I honestly don’t want to hear your views of the inadequacy of these cultural clashes (Gal. 6:17). When the barbarians are throwing their scaling ladders against the city walls, if the only defenders at the top of those walls are Chick Fil A employees in paper hats and hot grease from the deep fryer, and rednecks with their beards and shotguns, and nobody at all there from Red Brick Memorial Reformed, Rev. Forsythe P. Snodgrass, D.Min, minister, then let us be frank. We shouldn’t blame the folks who are there.

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Reading Challenge: now reading

A book on Christian Living:  The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (Tim Challies)

a biography: Crazy Horse and Custer (Stephen Ambrose)

A Classic Novel: Pilgrim's Progress (John Bunyan)

Off-plan: The Hammer of God (Bo Giertz)

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Wow, a month into 2015 already!   I've got a few links this week, so...

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"From bombings to bubblehead income: The diversity of persecution in new testament perspective"

According to the New Testament, persecution occurs in various forms — from beatings (Acts 5:40), stonings (Acts 7), and imprisonment (Acts 16) to insults (Matthew 5:11), slander (Acts 14:2), and lies (Luke 26:59). The New Testament does not define persecution by the kind of action taken against Christians. Rather, the New Testament defines persecution by the nature of the hostility. Simply put, the New Testament labels any hostile action against Christ or his righteousness a form of persecution.

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I follow a ministry called "Trash Mountain" - and they're starting an aquaponics project!  (I have a mini aquaponics set on my desk, where I grow peace lilies and green onions, and where the "four horsemen of the aquapocalypse" live.)

“Teaching people how to provide food for their community is sustainable poverty alleviation,” Gibson said. “It brings dignity and hope to the community. To modify an old adage, if you give a man a fish, he can eat for a day, but if you teach him to run aquaponics, he can feed his entire community.”

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LGBT groups says "No compromise."

This "compromise" is a poison pill that the LGBT civil rights movement must never accept. We can never allow "because Jesus" to become a legally protected excuse to discriminate against LGBT folks in the public square.

Liberty for me, but not for thee...AKA "you will celebrate the gay."

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"Save the Earth, Don't Give Birth"

just...ewww.

 

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"Just Getting a Drink"

Beyond the basic rules of the game, the blue shirts had only two requirements. The first was that they needed to be allowed to ref the game as well as play it, and the second requirement was that if anybody on the red team questioned any call, it was an automatic technical, and they had to go sit on the racist bench, or on the misogynist bench, depending on which eyebrow they had raised in protest.

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"The Heresy of Worshiptainment"

(this is wonderful!)

HALLOWEDNESS, NOT SHALLOWNESS

Like Tozer, we should be concerned that so many people in our churches want to be entertained while they worship. We should be concerned when we no longer recognize the difference between the two. And we should be concerned by the growing belief that adding more entertainment value to worship is necessary for the church to accomplish its mission.

I may stand alone, but it grieves me when I see worship services characterized more by props, performances, and pep rally atmospheres than by any sense of divine sacredness; and hallowedness giving way to shallowness.

This is not about worship styles. The issue is not traditional versus contemporary versus blended worship. It’s not about organ versus worship band. That discussion misses the point completely. This is about the heart and focus and intent of worship. The real issues, for me, are these:

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GetReligion.com on "Kellerism" - once i trained myself to look for these things, they become obvious.

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on gay "marriage"

Now, slowly yet undeniably, evangelicals are changing their minds.

Well, sure.  All you have to do is broaden the term "evangelical" until it's meaningless, then everything changes.

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Books to read since...forever.

I'll put them on my list...because...classics.

And (these are "new" fiction...I'll add these because...brain candy.

and another list...

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Why I’ve Stopped Singing in Your Church

Wonderful!
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'“Islamophobia,” which, like “homophobia,” is a way to pathologize those who disagree with a dominant narrative'