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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

President Trump Nominates the 'Best Judge' for the American People | CBN.com

President Trump Nominates the 'Best Judge' for the American People | CBN.com

Rising tensions in Kosovo could serve as early test of US-Russia relations under Trump - News - Stripes

Rising tensions in Kosovo could serve as early test of US-Russia relations under Trump - News - Stripes

JUST IN: Pentagon Reports Iran Just Attacked America...But Accidentally Hit Saudi Arabia Instead - Conservative Daily Post

JUST IN: Pentagon Reports Iran Just Attacked America...But Accidentally Hit Saudi Arabia Instead - Conservative Daily Post

After receiving a slew of death threats, Kellyanne Conway forced to accept Secret Service protection

After receiving a slew of death threats, Kellyanne Conway forced to accept Secret Service protection

Trump's pick to lead VA isn't a veteran. Does that matter?

Trump's pick to lead VA isn't a veteran. Does that matter?



Trump's pick to lead VA isn't a veteran. Does that matter?

January 31, 2017 (Photo Credit: Evan Vucci/AP)
For the last 94 years, every permanent or acting head of the U.S. veterans benefits bureaucracy has served in the military. But that is expected change in coming days.

President Donald Trump’s pick for the next Veterans Affairs Secretary, Dr. David Shulkin, is poised to become the first non-veteran to assume that post, a tradition-breaking move that has produced surprisingly little controversy within the military community.

The 57-year-old physician’s father was an Army psychiatrist and his mother an Army psychotherapist. He grew up on a military base in Illinois. He has served as VA Under Secretary for Health since June 2015, and still sees veteran patients in an effort to stay in contact with the front lines of department services.

He’s earned praise from veterans groups as a reformer who knows the system, and is expected to face little opposition at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday afternoon.

But unlike his 26 predecessors, Shulkin never spent time in the ranks, a fact that leaves him with significant challenges as he prepares to oversee the 365,000-employee, $177-billion department.

“Every previous secretary, whether they were actually qualified or not, started the job from a position of trust because they were veterans,” said Bill Rausch, an Army veteran and executive director of Got Your 6. “The thought is that since they were vets, they’d understand veterans needs.”

A membership poll released by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America showed some concern among members about his lack of military experience, with 40 percent of respondents saying they’d prefer a veteran for the post. More than half of those surveyed said having health care management experience was a critical resume line for the next secretary.

"(The issue is) especially important for many, given the secretary's role is also to serve as the nation's leading advocate for veterans,” said Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of IAVA. “He also serves as a role model to many veterans nationwide striving to succeed. It's up to Dr. Shulkin to explain to folks not yet convinced why he is qualified to be the first non-veteran secretary in history.”
Former VA Secretary Bob McDonald, an Army vet who also served as CEO of Procter & Gamble, said in an interview with Military Times in December that his military experience was invaluable in leading a bureaucracy that currently serves nearly 9 million veterans.  

“Almost all veterans, whether in combat or not, have been in extreme situations,” he said. “What that does, it creates a camaraderie and bonding that you can’t duplicate. I tried for years to duplicate that camaraderie in business that you get automatically in the military.”  

Most of the biggest veterans groups didn’t note his lack of military experience in their endorsements of his nomination, though many did publicly encourage Trump to continue the tradition before Shulkin’s name was announced.

Officials at Association of the United States Navy were one of the few to publicly endorse a non-veteran for the post when they threw support in early December behind former House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., for secretary.

“To treat a veteran, you don’t have to be a veteran,” said retired Rear Adm. Garry Hall, executive director of the association. “It comes down to the compassion you have.

“Being a veteran, that’s a great criteria. But it’s not the only selling point. We liked Miller because he knew the system and showed he wanted to make positive change, and we feel the same way about Shulkin.”

Rausch said his group also backed Shulkin because they see him as an extraordinary candidate despite the lack of a military background. “His experience, his business acumen justifies this exception.” 

For his part, Trump has not made any mention of the tradition-breaking nature of Shulkin’s nomination. He has praised the pick as “an incredibly gifted doctor who is using his elite talents for medicine to care for our heroes, and Americans can have faith he will get the job done right.”

In his confirmation for the top VA health job in May 2015, Shulkin acknowledged his lack of military service but said his upbringing and family connections have given him a strong connection to the veterans’ community. He said the 2014 wait times scandal “was difficult for me to have watched from the sidelines” given his knowledge of the systems and the individuals being hurt.

He’ll have a chance to talk about those connections again Wednesday afternoon, when the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee holds his confirmation hearing for the top VA post.


 
Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com. 

17 Jewish Centers Were Just Evacuated Across The Country After Neo-Nazi Bomb Threats

17 Jewish Centers Were Just Evacuated Across The Country After Neo-Nazi Bomb Threats

A Lack of Compassion in India: 'World's Largest Democracy' Clamps Down on Christians

A Lack of Compassion in India: 'World's Largest Democracy' Clamps Down on Christians

A Lack of Compassion in India: 'World's Largest Democracy' Clamps Down on Christians

Eric Metaxas BreakPoint | Monday, January 30, 2017
A Lack of Compassion in India: 'World's Largest Democracy' Clamps Down on Christians

A LACK OF COMPASSION IN INDIA: 'WORLD'S LARGEST DEMOCRACY' CLAMPS DOWN ON CHRISTIANS


BreakPoint.org
On January 13th, Compassion International told the sponsors of 130,000 Indian children that, barring an unlikely turn of events, it would cease operations in India in mid-March.
The announcement came a year after the Indian government told the organization that “it could no longer receive funding from outside the subcontinent.”
While the news dismayed Compassion’s donors, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to those familiar with the deteriorating state of religious freedom in India.
Compassion’s announcement comes shortly after Open Doors International released its “World Watchlist,” which ranked the worst countries in which to be a Christian.
North Korea, of course, ranked first again. The next twelve countries are either overwhelmingly Muslim or, like Nigeria, are suffering from an Islamist insurgency—in this case, Boko Haram—that targets Christians.
Then at #15, just behind Saudi Arabia, is India. Why? India is neither Islamic nor a repressive dictatorship like North Korea or China.
David Curry, the CEO of Open Doors, told Morgan Lee and Mark Galli of Christianity Today that the situation in India reflects the rise of what he calls “ethnic nationalism,” in which what it means to be an Indian is defined in religious—in this case, Hindu—terms. An Indian who is a Christian or, for that matter, a Muslim, is regarded as less than truly Indian, because Hinduism is at the heart of what it means to be an Indian.
This ideology goes by the name “Hindutva,” which literally means “Hinduness.” It’s an ideology that belies the western image of India as a land of Gandhi, gurus, and nonviolence. There’s nothing peaceful or tolerant about Hindutva. On the contrary, the man who assassinated Gandhi was an adherent of Hindutva and felt that Gandhi had betrayed the Hindu community.
The current ruling party in India, the BJP, is ideologically committed to the idea of Hindutva. As Vice News put it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in addition to being implicated in the 2002 massacre of 2,000 Muslims while governor of Gujarat, has also been “accused of promoting India's majority religion of Hinduism to the detriment of Christianity, Islam, and other faiths.”
The ruling party’s commitment to Hindu supremacy is perhaps best reflected in the various laws prohibiting religion conversion that I told you about on BreakPoint a year ago. Six Indian states have enacted laws in the past several years that effectively ban conversions from Hinduism to Christianity or to Islam.
This is the political and cultural context in which Compassion’s decision must be seen. The Indian government knows that the money coming from outside of India is highly unlikely to be replaced by donations from within India.
It also knows that it can use all the help it can get: 44% of Indian children under five are underweight and 72% of its infants suffer from anemia.
So why block Compassion International? Because nationalism in the form of Hindutva trumps helping malnourished children.
What can we do about it? The good news is that, unlike North Korea or Somalia, we do have some political leverage. India wants to increase its annual trade with the USA five-fold “over the near term.” Christians should let the Trump administration know that such increases must be accompanied by a greater respect for religious freedom on the subcontinent.
And of course we should pray. Curry told Christianity Today that he would feel “much better” if he felt that the “American church” was “at least praying” for persecuted believers.
At least, indeed.

BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
Eric Metaxas is a co-host of BreakPoint Radio and a best-selling author whose biographies, children's books, and popular apologetics have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Publication dateJanuary 30, 2017

TRUMP’S NEW SCOTUS JUSTICE IS… | TruthMonitor.com | News, Politics, Entertainment, Opinion and Videos

TRUMP’S NEW SCOTUS JUSTICE IS… | TruthMonitor.com | News, Politics, Entertainment, Opinion and Videos

Scarborough: Obama's Statement on Trump's Travel Ban 'Self-Righteous'

Scarborough: Obama's Statement on Trump's Travel Ban 'Self-Righteous'

Trump to Add CIA Director to National Security Council Amid Backlash

Trump to Add CIA Director to National Security Council Amid Backlash

Spicer to Kristen Welker: NBC's Reporting Based on 'False' NYT Reporting

Spicer to Kristen Welker: NBC's Reporting Based on 'False' NYT Reporting

DeVos Clears Committee With Zero Democratic Votes

DeVos Clears Committee With Zero Democratic Votes

VIDEO: Deadly 'suicide boat' attack on Saudi warship by Iran-backed Houthi fighters - The Geller Report

VIDEO: Deadly 'suicide boat' attack on Saudi warship by Iran-backed Houthi fighters - The Geller Report

VIDEO: Deadly ‘suicide boat’ attack on Saudi warship by Iran-backed Houthi fighters

5
Iran, newly enriched and armed by the Obama administration, is declaring war on America’s allies. Iran unleashed. The Houthis are Iranian-backed jihadis.
More of Obama’s brilliant legacy.

DEADLY ‘SUICIDE BOAT’ ATTACK ON SAUDI WARSHIP NEAR YEMEN CLAIMED BY HOUTHI FIGHTERS

SAUDI ARABIA’S STATE NEWS AGENCY SAYS HOUTHIS USED SUICIDE BOATS WHICH CAUSED THE EXPLOSION ON THE SHIP.
By Fiona Landers, Sky News, January 31, 2017:
Fighters from Yemen’s Houthi movement have reportedly crashed suicide boats into a Saudi warship, killing two people.
Video Player
00:00
07:56

The Saudi state news agency, SPA, said the vessels hit the ship off the western coast of Yemen on Monday, causing an explosion that killed two crew members and injured three others.A statement from the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, reported by the agency, said the Saudi frigate “came under attack from three suicide boats belonging to the Houthi militias”.The Houthi movement’s official news channel, al-Masira, contradicted this, quoting a military source as saying the explosion was caused by a guided missile they fired.
A man rides a motorbike past a house destroyed during recent battles between Houthi fighters and pro-government fighters in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen November 18, 2016. REUTERS/Anees Mahyoub – RTX2UBIS
A house destroyed during battles between Houthi rebels and pro-government fighters in Taiz
Separately, the Houthis said they launched a ballistic missile at the coalition’s base island of Zuqar, between Yemen and Eritrea, on Tuesday morning, also according to al-Masira.
It is not yet known if there were any casualties.
The Houthi movement – which champions Yemen’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority – is engaged in conflict with coalition troops and pro-government fighters, who are trying to advance northward to stop them taking control of Red Sea ports.
The conflict in Yemen began when the Shia Houthis, supported by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and allies, seized the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014, overthrowing Saudi-backed President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government.
A Saudi-led coalition of mostly Gulf Arab nations then launched a military campaign against the Iran-backed rebels in March 2015.
The United Nations estimates thousands of civilians have been killed since airstrikes began.
In December the Prime Minister of the rebel Houthi government accused the UK of war crimes for sending arms to Saudi Arabia.
Later that month British Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon told Parliament that a “limited number” of BL-755 cluster bombs, exported from Britain in the 1980s, had been used by the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen conflict.
Saudi Arabia said it would not use the bombs in Yemen any more.
The Saudi-led coalition warned the attack on its warship would “impact international navigation and the flow of humanitarian assistance to the port for Yemeni citizens”.

TRUNEWS Trump White House Update: 01/31/17

TRUNEWS Trump White House Update: 01/31/17

TRUNEWS Trump White House Update: 01/31/17

January 31, 2017





This is the January 31st Trump White House press update reported through TRUNEWS correspondent Edward Szall



(VERO BEACH, FLA) Week two of the Make America Great Again administration is in full swing, and President Trump has decided for today to be his call for action for increasing U.S. cyber security.



SCHEDULE

8:30AM - The President received his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office



9:00AM - The President and the Vice President met with representatives from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in the Oval Office.



Representatives present included:



Mr. Robert A. Bradway, Amgen; PhRMA Board of Directors

Mr. Joaquin Duato, Worldwide Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson; PhRMA Board of Directors

Mr. Kenneth C. Frazier, Merck; PhRMA Federal Committee

Mr. Robert J. Hugin, Celgene; PhRMA Public Affairs Committee

Mr. Joseph Jimenez, Novartis; PhRMA Board of Directors

Mr. David A. Ricks, Eli Lilly

Mr. Stephen J. Ubl, PhRMA

Chairman Greg Walden (OR-02), U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce

President Trump focused on the need to bring down drug costs, but promised to reduce regulations. He encouraged the companies present to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.



POTUS said:



“We're going to be cutting regulations at a level nobody's ever seen before. And we're going to have tremendous protection for the people, maybe more protection. I'll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market. that includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare, which is what's happening. But we can increase competition and bidding wars, big time. So what I want, we have to get lower prices, we have to get even better innovation and I want you to move your companies back into the United States. And I want you to manufacture in the United States. We're going to be lowering taxes, we're going to be getting rid of regulations that are unnecessary.”



10:30AM - The President met with Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus in the Oval Office



12:30PM - The President is set to have lunch with Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the Presidential Dining Room



12:45PM - The Vice President participates in the Senate Republican Policy Lunch, followed by private meetings with individual lawmakers on Capitol Hill



2:00PM - The President will hold a listening session with cyber security experts in the Roosevelt Room



3:15PM - The President signs an Executive Order from the Oval Office. The order will be in relation to increasing cyber security.



According to a pool report on pre-briefing from White House officials, President Trump’s order will make each cabinet official responsible for securing information and data in his or her agency. The order will also assign the Office of Management and Budget to look at broader government-wide security and prepare for an upgrade of federal systems and direct the United States to be committed to working to ensure networks it does not control including the Internet and the electrical system, are protected and that the government prepares for the possibility they are compromised.



The executive order further directs the secretary of Homeland Security and other agency heads to engage with the owners and operators of the most essential of critical infrastructure entities. The goal of this engagement is to develop ways to protect the entities from catastrophic cyber incidents and respond to those incidents that nevertheless do occur.



It also directs the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense among other related agencies to take a number of initial steps to advance the cyber security of our nation's critical infrastructure, consider ways of deterring adversaries, and to promote and open, valuable internet.



8:00PM - The President will announce his nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States from the East Room



This will be given during prime time, and likely streamed through Facebook Live. The tweet announcing this move was sent out during the prime block of the morning news cycle.

The next TRUNEWS Trump transition press update will be on Facebook Live at 11:30 EST on February 1st, 2017, and this report will be published around 1:00 PM EST.



Please share this with your friends and family and all questions and feedback are greatly encouraged.



- See more at: http://www.trunews.com/article/trunews-trump-white-house-update-01-31-17#sthash.XY6JAVeI.dpuf

Obama admin removed protected rights of patient consent under common rule law

Obama admin removed protected rights of patient consent under common rule law

Why Is Iran Part of the Ban? | The American Conservative

Why Is Iran Part of the Ban? | The American Conservative

Noah Millman

Why Is Iran Part of the Ban?

By NOAH MILLMAN • January 31, 2017, 1:30 PM

 



dovla982 / Shutterstock

There are many things that could be said about Trump’s travel ban, and most of them have already been said in multiple venues, including by TAC‘s own Daniel Larison. I just want to highlight again one item: nearly half of those affected by the ban come from Iran, a country that is not experiencing Islamist violence, that is not producing large numbers of refugees, and from which we have no particular reason to suspect terrorists might be planning to sneak into America.



I can think of legitimate reasons why Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan were not included (all major regional allies whose cooperation we need), as well as Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and Russia (at that point, you might as well ban the world), all of which have produced home-grown Islamist terrorists who might travel to America — or already have. Those reasons do tend to undermine the argument that, even if it had been rolled out in a more prudent and less gratuitously-cruel manner, the ban was a sensible way to protect American security — but let’s grant that being extra cautious about people coming from a war zone isn’t obviously crazy, and that we should be able to argue like civilized people about how to balance helping people facing death versus protecting ourselves from wolves who may be hiding among the sheep.



But it seems to me that anyone arguing with a straight face that the ban was about protecting America from terrorists should be arguing — among other things — that Iran doesn’t belong on the list. Yet this is the only mention of Iran in David French’s defense of Trump’s order (which is probably the best defense I’ve read so far):



[T]he order imposes a temporary, 90-day ban on people entering the U.S. from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. These are countries either torn apart by jihadist violence or under the control of hostile, jihadist governments.



That’s it. Iran is a “hostile, jihadist government” so we should presume all Iranians are a security risk.



This is why I’m going to continue to assume that a primary reason for the ban in the first place was to provoke Iranian retaliation, with the ultimate goal that poisoned relations will eventually provide a pretext for war.



Regular readers know I was very clear in calling out the Democratic candidate’s enthusiasm for conflict with Iran. I have zero reason to trust that this administration is any less enthused, and I interpret their actions accordingly.



 Tagged Iran, immigration, Daniel Larison, Islamism, Donald Trump, refugees, travel ban, David French.

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You Don’t Kill the Scapegoat | The American Conservative

You Don’t Kill the Scapegoat | The American Conservative

You Don’t Kill the Scapegoat

By NOAH MILLMAN • January 31, 2017, 2:55 PM

 



Nina Skarga / Shutterstock

I haven’t read any Réne Girard since college, but I remember the experience, and so I was interested to hear that my colleague Rod Dreher has been reading him lately. Among other things, it provides me an opportunity to trot out an old hobby horse of mine: our common misunderstanding of the scapegoat ritual.



In common parlance, a “scapegoat” is an entity that takes the blame for problems that are not truly of their making. By giving the community a target on which to vent its rage and violence, the scapegoat unites the remainder of the community and makes it possible to endure through whatever problems the scapegoat was blamed for.



But as the name clearly implies, the scapegoat isn’t destroyed — it escapes. And, indeed, in the original Israelite ritual from which we get the concept, there are two goats chosen: one for the Lord and one for Azazel. But it’s the Lord’s goat that is killed. The scapegoat is sent off into the wilderness.



See?



Leviticus 16:7.         Aaron shall take the two he-goats and let them stand before the LORD at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting;



16:8.         and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the LORD and the other marked for Azazel.



16:9.         Aaron shall bring forward the goat designated by lot for the LORD, which he is to offer as a sin offering;



16:10.     while the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be left standing alive before the LORD, to make expiation with it and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel.



16:11.     Aaron shall then offer his bull of sin offering, to make expiation for himself and his household. He shall slaughter his bull of sin offering,



16:12.     and he shall take a panful of glowing coals scooped from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of finely ground aromatic incense, and bring this behind the curtain.



16:13.     He shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD, so that the cloud from the incense screens the cover that is over [the Ark of] the Pact, lest he die.



16:14.     He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger over the cover on the east side; and in front of the cover he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.



16:15.     He shall then slaughter the people’s goat of sin offering, bring its blood behind the curtain, and do with its blood as he has done with the blood of the bull: he shall sprinkle it over the cover and in front of the cover.



16:16.     Thus he shall purge the Shrine of the uncleanness and transgression of the Israelites, whatever their sins; and he shall do the same for the Tent of Meeting, which abides with them in the midst of their uncleanness.



16:17.     When he goes in to make expiation in the Shrine, nobody else shall be in the Tent of Meeting until he comes out.



When he has made expiation for himself and his household, and for the whole congregation of Israel,



16:18.     he shall go out to the altar that is before the LORD and purge it: he shall take some of



the blood of the bull and of the goat and apply it to each of the horns of the altar;



16:19.     and the rest of the blood he shall sprinkle on it with his finger seven times. Thus he shall cleanse it of the uncleanness of the Israelites and consecrate it.



16:20.     When he has finished purging the Shrine, the Tent of Meeting, and the altar, the live goat shall be brought forward.



16:21.     Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off to the wilderness through a designated man.



16:22.     Thus the goat shall carry on it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.



The scapegoat is not the object of communal violence, so that violence cannot be providing a kind of redemptive communal release of tension.



Moreover, if sacrifice is about the release of these communal tensions, then how does one explain thanksgiving sacrifices, which are also blood offerings? The most extensive sacrifices outlined in the biblical text are those for Pentecost, a harvest festival of thanksgiving.



My read on the meaning of biblical blood sacrifice is different from Girard’s. Blood, as the carrier of life, is a powerful substance. That power can be harnessed — to transfer the residue of transgression from one entity to another, for example — but it needs to be treated with the proper respect, particularly respect for its origins: with God. This is explicitly laid out in Genesis 9:4-5.



In the earlier stages of Israelite religion, all killing of animals took the form of a sacrifice — without performing a sacrifice, you couldn’t eat meat. (This is the subtext of Saul’s transgression in 1 Samuel 13.) Sacrifice was a way of making the killing ok — because it meant returning the life to God. In other words, sacrifice wasn’t something you resorted to when the prohibitions failed — it was part of the system of prohibitions: a way of saying, you can only kill if you follow the prescribed rituals.



This is why, once ritual sacrifice was centralized, such that it was no longer practical to say that you can only eat meat after performing a sacrifice, the law had to change. In Deuteronomy, it says that if you slaughter an animal, you have to pour the blood on the ground and declare its return to God. Because you could no longer perform the sacrifice at home anymore, you couldn’t use the power of the blood. But you still needed to remove the blood in a ritualistic manner that made it clear that you respected the life that was being taken, and returned that life to its source.



Moreover, this prohibition was sufficiently strong that it even lasted into the early years of Christianity, vis Acts 15:20. The gentiles didn’t need to take on the bulk of the food-related prohibitions of Judaism when they converted — but they did need to abstain from blood.



So what’s the scapegoat about?



The scapegoat ritual is about cleaning the filter. The scapegoat is indeed removed from the community, but it doesn’t take the blame for transgressions — it takes the toxicity that  transgressions leave behind. This is not a ritual act of violence, any more than trash pickup is a ritual act of theft. It’s more comparable to cleansing the house of chametz during Passover than it is to “The Wicker Man.”



Next week maybe I’ll explain how everybody misunderstands Genesis 22:13.



 Tagged Rod Dreher, atonement, scapegoat, Rene Girard, sacrifice, ritual.

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TOZER DEVOTIONAL Tue, January 31, 2017

TOZER DEVOTIONAL

Tue, January 31, 2017
Where Truth Leads Us
The world is full of seekers, true enough, and they gravitate quite naturally toward the church. Seekers after peace of mind are plentiful enough to keep the printing presses busy; seekers after physical health are always with us in sufficient numbers to make our leading faith healers comfortably rich; seekers after success and safety are legion, as our popular religious leaders know too well. But real seekers after truth are almost as rare as albino deer. And here is why: Truth is a glorious but hard master. It makes moral demands upon us. It claims the sovereign right to control us, to strip us, even to slay us as it chooses. Truth will never stoop to be a servant but requires that all men serve it. It never flatters men and never compromises with them. It demands all or nothing and refuses to be used or patronized. It will be all in all or it will withdraw into silence. It was Christ who capitalized truth and revealed that it was not an it at all but a Being with all the attributes of personality. I am the Truth, He said, and followed truth straight to the cross. The truth seeker must follow Him there; and that is the reason few men seek truth.

Verse
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;
Romans 8:5-6

Thought
Seeing truth means following Christ who is the Truth. Inevitably Christ leads us to the cross, our cross-saying no to the sinful nature so as to live in accordance with the indwelling Spirit.

Prayer
Lord, saying no to desires of the sinful nature seems to close the door on so many self-pleasing pleasures. Yet it opens to me the Spirit-controlled life, living the truth.

Monday, January 30, 2017

JUST IN: California No Longer Looking To Secede...Now Moving To Split Into 2 DIFFERENT States - Conservative Daily Post

JUST IN: California No Longer Looking To Secede...Now Moving To Split Into 2 DIFFERENT States - Conservative Daily Post

JUST IN: Judge Who Banned Trump's Executive Order Just Revealed As Clinton And Obama Rat - Conservative Daily Post

JUST IN: Judge Who Banned Trump's Executive Order Just Revealed As Clinton And Obama Rat - Conservative Daily Post

Rebuilding the Walls - Dr. Alan Cairns Sermon

WATCH: Powerful Video Shows How Christians REALLY Feel About Refugees – Faithwire

WATCH: Powerful Video Shows How Christians REALLY Feel About Refugees – Faithwire

WATCH: Powerful Video Shows How Christians REALLY Feel About Refugees

This.
This.
Christians are now being blamed for Trump’s executive order on refugees, with scores of people taking to social media to blast them as hypocrites who ‘don’t care’ about others. The exact opposite is true, and the example you’re about to see proves it.
Somehow, in the midst of heated political and media debate over President Trump’s executive order halting the flow of immigrants from several nations, American Christians have found themselves in the crosshairs.
A Facebook post gone viral admonished Christians to repent if they went to church on Sunday and enjoyed worship – because refugees are suffering elsewhere in the world. The admonishment was paired with this photo:
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The post unleashed a flurry of attacks on Christians for being hypocrites, uncaring, and so forth. The attack is a non sequitur, having virtually no basis in reality.
Christians are among the most active on the front lines trying to help refugees, participating in unheralded ministries that have been active long before it suddenly became vogue to care about people fleeing in the Middle East.
For example, take one small group of families from a large church in Texas. When a Sudanese refugee showed up with her two small children – and pregnant – she was terrified. Her husband was stuck in a refugee camp without permission to travel. Alone and nowhere to go, she was taken in by Christians.
No headlines. No signs at the airport. Just a group of people living outside themselves, thinking of others first.
The refugee – Dyan – waited four years in that camp before finally getting permission to travel to America. Last time he saw his wife, she was pregnant. He’d never met his now 3-year-old son.
All the while, American Christians were the ones helping this family get by and survive until they were finally reunited late last yer.
And what an incredible moment it was – There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Watch:
Websites and commentators trying to make a name for themselves know that bashing Christians is a profitable market to leap headfirst into. It gives them a villain to blame for the ills of the world, sets themselves up to be the hero to take them down, and it’s also handy knowing the media generally shares similar disdain for Christians and will often echo an attack levied against them.
Christians are not perfect. They’ll be the first to admit that. But they are frequently leading the charge on issues like this – precisely because that Christian faith many despise compels them to do so.
The publisher of this beautiful video, Robert Fuqua, shared some background:
This video represents the next chapter in the now near four-year-old story of our church’s ministry to refugees in a North Fort Worth complex. A ministry that began with two of our elder wives, Mary Claire and Molly coming alongside the Sudanese woman in this video, now has over a hundred vetted volunteers serving the diaspora in our region. And, hundreds more participating annually in coat drives, back pack drives, and many opportunities through the year to engage with these families around food and fun.
For me, this video is a testament to what can happen when God’s people respond in simple, yet sacrificial obedience to God’s call on the Church, His Bride, to engage and embrace people of all tongues and tribes.
Fuqua added some more details you may have missed the first time watching the video:
There are nuances in this video most people will miss that to me signal the fingerprint of God. One of them for me is the advertising display hanging over the baggage carousel in the background of the shot when Dyan embraces his wife for the first time in four years. Though many ads were looping endlessly on that monitor, at that very moment the ad read, “Where Dreams take their Course”. Another special moment for me was when Dyan dropped to the floor overwhelmed in gratitude toward God, and my camera POV inadvertently became the POV of his three children, at times framed by the side of his son’s head. In the background of that shot you see Mary Claire and Molly’s husbands with their four sons, American playmates of Dyan’s children, transfixed on the miracle for which they themselves prayed these past years.
A reminder that no matter how ugly the political debate gets, we can always

Dan Andros
Follower of Christ, husband, dad. Managing Editor at Faithwire.com, former Head Writer for @glennbeck. #6DaysInIraq Opinions are Ted's, not my own.