More on Day of Silence / Day of Truth

The Danbury News-Times weighs in on the free speech controversy at Danbury High:

The Day of Silence promotes a safe and nonjudgmental environment for students, particularly those who may be gay, lesbian or struggling with their sexual identity. The Day of Silence was part of Peace Week at the school, an annual event that includes a day for random acts of kindness and another for giving others compliments.

The Youth Alive Club, though, wanted to observe a national Day of Truth with the speaker who believes that gays need to change what she considers sinful behavior.

Peace Week? Who could disagree with that? At least they didn't put Day of Truth in quotes.

The subtitle of the editorial reads, "Decisions should not be based on threat of lawsuit." I agree.

The problem is that this is not what happened. The subtitle would have better read, "Public schools need to stop violating the First Amendment rights of citizens and stop forcing them to run to Federal court to have their rights upheld, especially when the law is so clear."

Anyone in Connecticut with children in a public high school needs to ask their children about the amount of time that is spent on activities such as Peace Weeks, Days of Silence, and various skits, plays, films and other similar vehicles designed to being about the politicization of youth rather than their education, and the quasi-criminalization of alternate viewpoints.

On the other hand, since some schools are apparently giving kids "gag orders" not to tell their parents about the homosexual indoctrination they are receiving, it may not do any good.

How many people are actually gay?

The objectivity of government reporting is called into question by a study suggesting that the percentage of homosexuals in the population is overstated and does not take into account the fact that homosexuality is strongly linked to an early death. You may need some understanding of statistical analysis for this one, but go here for the report.

Who would have an interest in not telling the public:

a. That there aren't nearly as many homosexuals as people are being told; and
b. That homosexuals die substantially earlier than other people?

Some strong language from the report:

If the prevalence of homosexuality diminishes with age, eliminating older adults from sexuality surveys tends to conceal this diminution and to increase the apparent fraction of homosexuals. Furthermore, if the prevalence of homosexuals declines because of the early death of those engaging in same-sex sex, and if the practice of homosexuality were to be directly tied to a foreshortening of life, contemporary public health cannon [sic] would dictate condemnation and discrimination against such behavior (e.g., consider the parallel of smoking).

New churches added to the Connecticut Church Map

We've added some new churches to the Connecticut Church Map, which remains the most popular page on our website. Here they are:

Fairfield: Church of the Apostles

Glastonbury: NewLife Christian Fellowship

Storrs: Arise! Christian Community

To suggest a church to add to the map, write us at info@prayct.org!

Notes from home and beyond

A great piece on changed lives at the Bridgeport Rescue Mission from the Connecticut Post...

With help from TIME magazine, Bible classes are springing up all over the place. Who'd have guessed?

Race and risk-taking among Connecticut teens...

While many Connecticut school enrollments are soaring (Greenwich, Danbury), The New York Times says one district is shrinking and shrinking...

Why do people change churches anyway? Here's why...

Can't handle YouTube or Google Video? Now there's God Tube!

Christian Events in Connecticut this Week

The following events are coming up this week... for more details please visit the Connecticut Christian Events Calendar!

Wednesday, April 11:
School of the Spirit with Pastor Jan Nel (Darien - St. Paul's Church)

Thursday, April 12:
Regional Prayer Meeting (New Haven)

Friday, April 13:
NCS Men's Breakfast with Guest Speaker, Allan Houston (Stamford)
Sozo Cafe Friday Night Jam (Hamden)

Saturday, April 14:
Statewide Intercessors Gathering (Kensington - Wellspring Church)
House of Grace Community Coffee House (Milford)

He is Risen!

Wishing you all a wonderful Easter season. We'll catch up with you next week!

More on honking for Christ

More and more media outlets are picking up the Naugatuck Honking for Christ story. Here's NPR with an audio file.

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Evangelical, Easter, Naugatuck, news, society

Danbury High School allows "Day of Truth" activities, countering "Day of Silence"

The Alliance Defense Fund reports that Danbury High School will permit a student to participate in Day of Truth activities after first denying her that right. The Day of Truth is designed to let Christian students prevent an alternate viewpoint to the pro-homosexual Day of Silence. From ADF's press release:

After receiving a letter from attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, the principal of Danbury High School agreed Wednesday to allow a student to promote and participate in the Day of Truth after first having prohibited the student from doing so. The school officially endorses the Day of Silence, an event promoting the homosexual agenda, but had thwarted student Rosemary Shakro’s attempts to promote the Day of Truth by inviting a speaker to a club meeting and posting signs announcing the event.

“Christian students should be allowed to express their viewpoint just like any other student,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The Day of Truth is an opportunity for Christian students to respectfully present a different viewpoint than students participating in the Day of Silence. Allowing students to have a Day of Silence without allowing students to have a Day of Truth limits free speech and the free exchange of ideas.”

“We are pleased that we had the opportunity to explain the law so that the school could do the right thing and respect the First Amendment rights of this student and any other students that wish to observe the Day of Truth. We hope other schools will follow this example for their students,” Bowman added.

Shakro wished to invite a guest speaker to her “Youth Alive” after-school club meeting this Thursday as part of activities leading up to the Day of Truth. The school has allowed other clubs, such as the Gay-Straight Alliance, to have outside guests speak at school assemblies and club meetings. However, the school’s principal, who prohibited a speaker for last year’s Day of Truth, prohibited this year’s speaker as well, saying that the Day of Truth is too “controversial” and “counteractive.” The principal had also claimed that “anti-homosexual” speech is prohibited at the school and that the presentation could cause contention among students.

To see the letter sent by the ADF to Danbury High School, click here.

See the full story from ADF here.

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Evangelical, Catholic, religion, faith, law, society, First Amendment, school, education, Day of Silence, Day of Truth, Danbury

God is stubborn

God stubbornly refuses to leave the scene. And, as we are reminded this week, has proved very hard to kill indeed.

Here's a wonderful CNN interview with Dr. Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the Director of the National Human Genome Project. Well worth your time to read how this medical doctor and physical chemist found faith and not fuzzy faith either - faith in Jesus Christ. A few pieces:

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?"

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible....

....Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

Tags: Christianity, Christian, Evangelical, apologetics, science, faith, religion, God, Jesus, Bible, spirituality

Honking for Christ - a message of religious intolerance?

This one has been spread around a bit... Civil strife on Rubber Avenue in Naugatuck as a photo store owner has a sign urging people beep their horns for Christ. The neighboring tattoo store counters by having people beep for Satan. It's all too much noise for the town fathers, who tell them to stop.

Here's the Courant/AP story. Channel 8 sent Sara Welch out to do a story here.

This is a fun sort of news story, especially at this time of year, but it raises larger issues. Here's what I mean: although Channel 8 made the gentleman sound reasonable, in a country where Christianity is the religion of most citizens, can't we even enjoy Easter Week without listening to this sort of nonsense from the tattoo shop owner?

Claudette Soden, owner of Photos Onto DVD, had put similar signs up at Christmas when her business was at a different location and said she was continuing that tradition at Easter.

By Tuesday, [tattoo store owner Phil] Young's sign was gone. Soden was refusing to remove hers.

"Easter has not passed yet," she said.

Young, who did not respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment, has said he viewed Soden's message as a sign of religious intolerance for non-Christians.

So now a sign that says "Beep for Christ" during Easter Week is a message of religious intolerance? Where did Mr. Young learn this idea and master this rhetoric?

It's instructive and frightening to watch Americans and Europeans spout this stuff all the time while bending over backwards to promote preferential treatment for Islamic radicals and homosexual activists. Now they're even casting Christian terrorists as the villains in school terror drills. We are being trained slowly but surely to view any expression of Christian faith as illegitimate in a pluralistic society, when in fact it is Christianity that makes possible the existence of a society allowing other faiths to exist and be practiced without consequence.

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Evangelical, Easter, Naugatuck, news, society

Jesus The Messiah

This week we'll focus on things that are a bit more eternal...

I hope you know this already, but if not let me clear the air. "Christ" was not Jesus' last name. In fact, Christ isn't even a name at all; it's actually a title. It's a Greek word meaning The Anointed One. It's the Greek translation of the Hebrew word moshiach, from which we get our English word "Messiah."

So when you say Jesus Christ (or, better yet, Jesus the Christ), you're really saying Jesus the Messiah, or Jesus the Anointed One.

OK, then, what does it mean to be the Anointed One? Anointed by whom?

In ancient Israel, people were anointed by religious leaders, sometimes by prophets, to signify that the Spirit of God had come upon them to mark them and enable them for a specific task. Kings were among those anointed by prophets to show that they had been chosen by Israel's God to rule His people. Within the Hebrew Scriptures were prophecies of a great king - a great anointed one or Messiah who would rule all the nations and bring salvation to all who would trust in Him.

In the 61st Chapter of the Book of Isaiah, we read this prophecy of the Messiah:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound...

In the Gospels, Jesus claimed to be the fulfillment of these words - to be the one anointed to do those very things. Proof of the truth of His claims, as well as proof of the truth of the integrity of the Bible as the Word of God, can be found through the study of what is called "Messianic prophecy." These are the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures which foretold the mission and the identity of the Messiah.

Was Jesus the Messiah? Christians of course say that He was and is. Most Jews throughout history have said "no," although many have also said "yes."

Are you interested in seeing some of these Messianic prophecies? There are many places on the Web to research these matters, but here's a good starting place, at the Bible.org website.

Tags: Christianity, Christian, Evangelical, God, Jesus, Bible, faith, religion, spirituality, Easter

The weakness of arguments against Christ and His Resurrection

With Americans becoming more Biblically illiterate year by year, it's more important than ever to be assured of what we believe and why we believe it.

Recently I've noticed some Google video ads which promote atheistic and anti-Christian material. Atheist websites are popping up like mushrooms. Some of what's there is laughable and contains arguments which could easily defeated by people possessing even a small degree of Biblical knowledge. But such is the poor state of religious education that people cannot even discern when they are being handed a ridiculous argument as opposed to one worthy of an intelligent response or debate.

With Easter coming up, a good start towards re-fortifying your faith or helping someone else to believe is this article by John Piper entitled "Eight Reasons Why I Believe That Jesus Rose from the Dead."

And don't be afraid of any of the arguments of supposedly learned skeptics. The Church of God is an old anvil that has worn out many hammers, and for good reason.

Tags: Christian, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality, Faith, God, Jesus, Bible, atheism, Evangelical

Blumnethal stands with Berlin against "adult" business

Good news as Attorney General stands with the City of Berlin against the "adult" franchise called VIP. From the New Britain Herald:

Blumenthal called the case significant because it threatens not only Berlin, but also towns and cities statewide that have enacted similar ordinances involving sexually oriented businesses. Those municipalities include Ansonia, Branford, Bristol, Cromwell, Ellington, Enfield, Fairfield, Griswold, Hartford, Mansfield, Meriden, Rocky Hill, Seymour, Southington, South Windsor, West Hartford and Wethersfield.

In an amicus brief filed in U.S. District Court, Blumenthal said courts across the nation - including the U.S. Supreme Court - have upheld ordinances regulating sexually oriented businesses based on evidence of their adverse secondary effects.

Blumenthal said the adverse effects of sexually oriented businesses are well documented, showing increased crime, especially sex-related crimes, reduced property values, the deterioration of neighboring businesses and a lower quality of life for residents in the surrounding area.

"Berlin is the battleground, a test case for town authority statewide to regulate such businesses within their borders," Blumenthal said. "Across the state, cities and towns face proliferating sexually oriented businesses, including adult bookstores, adult theaters, massage parlors and facilities featuring live nude entertainment.

"In every town and every fight involving these businesses, the goal is the same: to protect citizens from the adverse secondary effects of sexually oriented businesses, including increased crime, lowered property values and a deterioration of the neighborhood," he said.

We applaud Mr. Blumenthal's efforts. And you upstaters - pray and work to get all those billboards down, too!

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Berlin, news, society

When they will not endure sound doctrine...

The Rector of Christ Church in Watertown, CT, the Rev. Allyn Benedict, writes to his parish about what things have come to in the Connecticut Diocese of the Episcopal Church, and by extension, in the Episcopal Church as a whole.

This is the truth of life in the Diocese of Connecticut: no person can make it through the ordination process in Connecticut who holds to the theology which has been embraced by the Episcopal Church and all Anglicans (until relatively recently), indeed by all Christian Churches throughout the history of the faith. Not one priest in the Connecticut Six churches could be ordained in this diocese today. Every one of us would be [is] considered as unfit for ordination because of our theology.

Of course, one may believe whatever one wants in Connecticut. One may even believe as St. Matthew, St Mark, St Luke, St. John, St. Paul, St. James, St. Peter, St. Jude and, yes, as Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker believed. But only in private. A ministry based on the apostolic faith once received cannot be lived out in the Diocese of Connecticut with integrity without its being perceived and responded to as a threat to the Episcopal authority of its bishop and named as part of a personal conspiracy against him.

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Episcopal, Anglican, news, society

Same-sex marriage hearing draws supporters and foes

Here's an interesting story from the Courant on yesterday's legislative hearings... interesting because of the relatively large amount of space given to pro-family forces.

Here's one that's more friendly to same-sex marriage from the Connecticut Post.

The New London Day went with a short AP piece that featured this piece of logic from Anne Stanback of Love Makes A Family:

“I don't know many married couples who would trade in their marriage for a civil union..."

Well, of course not, but what does that prove? I don't know many couples who want their 8-year-old children to learn about sodomy but that doesn't seem to stop anyone these days.

Please pray that Governor Rell will not shrink back from her pledge to veto any same-sex marriage bill.

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Evangelical, marriage, family, news, society

Christian Events in Connecticut This Week

Dennis Cramer

The following events are coming up this week... for more details please visit the Connecticut Christian Events Calendar!

Friday, March 30 - Saturday, March 31:
Advanced School of Prophecy with Dennis Cramer
(West Haven - Gateway Christian Fellowship)

Saturday, March 31
Energize! Concert, Featuring Salvador
(Danbury - Danbury High School)

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, West Haven, Danbury, events, Evangelical, church, music

Ten reasons why is there so much fatherlessness

Is there any mystery as to why there is more fatherlessness today?

State Senator Gary LeBeau, Democrat of East Hartford, has submitted a bill "asking the state to investigate the causes and potential remedies of fatherless families in Connecticut." In his press release, the Senator said this:

"I've been a public school teacher since 1971, and over that time I've seen a greater and greater percentage of kids coming from families with no father in the home," Sen. LeBeau said. "I want to know what, if anything, Connecticut can do about that, and determine what, if anything, the state may accidentally be doing to either encourage or support fatherless families. Maybe this is just about irresponsibility and selfishness, and maybe there's as much sociology here as there is public policy. But if there's something structural that can be fixed that will encourage men to stay with their children, we should do that. Kids need that."

While I'm heartened by this (see here for facts on the toll fatherlessness takes in the US) I'm also mystified. It's good that politicians are looking at this problem, but can they really be in the dark about the causes of fatherless families? Perhaps phrasing things this way will allow some folks in the Legislature to have political cover when they uncover startling truths about family life that have been known for, oh, 3500 years.

Here's my short and not exhaustive list of ten things which increase fatherlessness in society:

1. no-fault divorce
2. excessive female autonomy at the expense of the male in child-rearing, as exemplified in the area of abortion
3. the existence of abortion itself, which devalues life
4. the rise of cohabitation
5. the glamorization of single motherhood
   
6. the sexual revolution's terrible effect of amplifying male irresponsibility in general
   
7. heavy tax burdens
8. the drug epidemic
9. the proliferation of pornography
10. constant drumbeat of anti-male propaganda throughout society, as exemplified in a host of commercials portraying stupid men
    

What will the Connecticut Legislature say when they climb this mountain of wisdom and find out that the answers they seek are being put out there every day by the Family Institute of Connecticut and others viewed as reactionaries, "theocrats," and "Christofascists?"

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Evangelical, marriage, family, society, law, abortion, men, women

ABC analyzes speaking in tongues tonight

If you're up late, ABC's Nightline will run a story tonight (11:35 PM) on speaking in tongues. Interestingly, the practice of tongues has been in the news a bit lately, after the New York Times ran a piece on new scientific research revealing brain scans of tongues-speakers engaged in the activity. Tonight it's ABC's turn.

In earlier studies, [University of Pennsylvania researcher Dr. Andrew Newberg] looked at what happens in the brains of Buddhist monks meditating and Franciscan nuns praying. The results were quite different from what happens in the brains of people speaking in tongues, whose brains, he found, went quiet in the frontal lobe -- the part of the brain right behind the forehead that's considered the brain's control center.

The Voice of God?

"When they are actually engaged in this whole very intense spiritual practice … their frontal lobes tend to go down in activity. … It is very consistent with the kind of experience they have, because they say that they're not in charge. [They say] it's the voice of God, it's the spirit of God that is moving through them," said Newberg.

"Whatever is coming out of their mouth is not what they are purposefully or willfully trying to do. And that's in fairly stark contrast to the people who are -- like the Buddhist and Franciscan nuns -- in prayer, because they are very intensely focused and in those individuals the frontal lobes actually increase activity."

Read the rest here.

Get your VCRs and Tivos ready... looks interesting!

Tags: Connecticut, Christianity, Christian, Evangelical, Charismatic, Pentecostal, God, religion, faith, spirituality, theology, society

More on terrorism against children

As a follow-up to our post on the possibility of Beslan-style attacks in the US, Investor's Business Daily has run a sobering editorial which highlights the need for continued vigilance in prayer.

It's a grim picture. But don't think for a moment that al-Qaida is above targeting school children. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in his Gitmo confession that while he may not like killing kids, they're fair game in jihad. He claims U.S. forces bombed and killed the children of bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, and arrested and "abused" his own children.

These people have nothing better to do than sit around and think of ways to kill us and our most precious resource, our children. They have many helpers placed inside U.S. cities who canvass targets and perform other logistics for such attacks. And these people will stop at nothing to pull them off. They're just waiting for the right time, when our guard is down.

These are all matters the public would like to forget and that much of the media seems to have already forgotten. Read the rest here.

Tags: Christianity, Christian, Connecticut, terror, Islam, news, society

Is yoga appropriate for public schools - or is it religion?

Is yoga appropriate for public schools? Can it be separated from its Hindu religious roots?

Some Connecticut schools promote it now as just one more beneficial form of exercise.

Here's a look at how some non-Hindus, both Christians and Muslims, view yoga in India, where yoga's connection to Hindu worship is more out in the open:

[Gospel for Asia] leaders in the state sent a memo to all staff members in the area telling them not to send their children to school, because they would have to participate in the program that included Surya Namaskar, a Hindu form of sun god worship.

Surya Namaskar is known popularly in English as the Sun Salutation, a basic posture in yoga.

If people in India know this series of bodily postures is a form of worship, why don't we? And does it still matter to people?

Tags: Connecticut, Christian, Christianity, Hinduism, religion, spirituality, yoga, Stamford, India, Islam