Courageous Heart

Something Has Gone Badly Wrong With UK Equality Laws

2012-02-13T01:53:00.005+08:00

Church of England clergy challenge civil partnership stance

Published by BBC News on 2 February 2012.

Secretary general William Fittall wrote that no religious premises would be allowed to host the registration of civil partnerships without written permission from the general synod - the Church's governing body.

The government said no religious group would be forced to hold ceremonies.

However, the Church's stance angered pressure groups and gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell urged clergy to defy the ban, which he called "dictatorial and homophobic".

The government will open a consultation on the issue of same-sex marriages - as opposed to civil partnerships - in March.

A consultation on the subject by the Scottish government ended in December.

On Wednesday, more than 50 people protested outside York Minster at comments made by the Archbishop of York on same-sex marriage.

Dr John Sentamu had told the Daily Telegraph that marriage must be between a man and a woman, adding it was not "the role of the state to define what marriage is".

Civil partnerships give same-sex couples the right to the same legal treatment across a range of matters as married couples but the law does not allow such unions to be referred to as marriages.

Bideford Town Council prayers ruled unlawful

Published by BBC News on 10 February 2012.

Action was brought against Bideford Town Council by the National Secular Society (NSS) after atheist councillor Clive Bone complained.

Mr Justice Ouseley ruled the prayers were not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972.

However, he said prayers could be said as long as councillors were not formally summoned to attend.

The judgement was being seen as a test case which could affect local councils across England and Wales.

Mr Justice Ouseley ruled the prayers as practised by Bideford Town Council had been unlawful because there was no statutory power permitting them to continue.

The NSS, which said prayers had no place in "a secular environment concerned with civic business", argued the "inappropriate" ritual breached articles 9 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect an individual's right to freedom of conscience and not to face discrimination.

However, the case was not won on human rights grounds but on a point of statutory construction of local government legislation.

Christian guesthouse owners lose appeal over ban on gay guests

Published by The Telegraph on 10 February 2012.

The challenge by the Bulls, who run Chymorvah House in Marazion, Cornwall, was rejected by three judges in the Court of Appeal in London.

They had appealed against a conclusion by a judge at Bristol County Court that they acted unlawfully when they turned away Martyn Hall and his civil partner Steven Preddy in September 2008.

Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled in January last year that the Bulls had breached equality legislation and ordered them to pay the couple a total of £3,600 damages.

The appeal judges heard that the Bulls thought any sex outside marriage was a ''sin'', but denied they had discriminated against Mr Hall and Mr Preddy, from Bristol.

Today's ruling was given by Sir Andrew Morritt, Chancellor of the High Court, Lord Justice Hooper and Lady Justice Rafferty.

During the hearing of the appeal in November, James Dingemans QC, for the Bulls, argued that the couple were entitled to hold "outdated" religious beliefs.

He said the Bulls operated a policy directed towards sexual practice not sexual orientation and said they believed that permitting unmarried people - whether heterosexual or homosexual - to share a double bed involved them in "promoting a sin".

Mr Dingemans said the Bulls were not trying to undermine the rights of Mr Hall and Mr Preddy and judges had to carefully balance all human rights involved.

Robin Allen QC, for Mr Hall and Mr Preddy, argued that his clients had a "lawful civil partnership" and the guesthouse should have been "open" to them in the same way it was to heterosexual married couples.

The judges heard that the Bulls were being backed by the Christian Institute and Mr Hall and Mr Preddy by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

After the ruling, John Wadham, the Commission's group legal director, said: "I have genuine sympathy for Mr and Mrs Bull, as their beliefs are clearly strongly held. We believe that this case will help people to better understand the law around freedom of religion. When offering a service, people cannot use their beliefs - religious or otherwise - to discriminate against others."

"As the discrimination ruling has been upheld, Mr Preddy and Mr Hall are entitled to the compensation ordered by the county court. However, the Commission has no intention of enforcing its entitlement to legal costs."

Simon Calvert, of the the Christian Institute, which funded Mr and Mrs Bull's appeal, said: "Peter and Hazelmary have been penalised for their beliefs about marriage. Not everyone will agree with Peter and Hazelmary's beliefs, but a lot of people will think it is shame that the law doesn't let them live and work according to their own values under their own roof. Something has gone badly wrong with our equality laws when good, decent people like Peter and Hazelmary are penalised but extremist hate preachers are protected."

ALKITAB - 400th Anniversary Celebration‏

2012-02-02T19:49:00.004+08:00

Picture taken from Free Malaysia Today.

In the year 1612, the translation of the Gospel of Matthew in the Malay Language was published. This was a very historic and significant publication as it was the earliest translation of the Bible in a non-European language ever published. In celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the Alkitab, Seminari Theoloji Malaysia, together in partnership with Bible Society of Malaysia, warmly invite you to join us in a specially organised 2-day conference discussing the issues, difficulties, and complications involved in the translation and distribution of the Alkitab, and to celebrate God's faithfulness in preserving the Bible for us. Details of the 2-day event are as follow:

1) Academic Conference:

Date: 2 March 2012 (Friday)

Venue: Seminari Theoloji Malaysia, Seremban

Registration Fee: RM20.00

Time: 9.30am-430pm

2) Public Event Celebrating 400 Years of Alkitab

Date: 3 March 2012 (Saturday)

Venue: Trinity Methodist Church, 6, Jalan 5/37, Petaling Jaya

Registration Fee: RM20.00

Time: 9.30am-4.00pm

Presentations will be offered by an outstanding group of speakers and scholars:

Dr Daud Soesilo, United Bible Societies

Dr Ng Kam Weng, Kairos Research Centre

Rev Dr Simon Wong, Bible Society of Malaysia

Mr Lee Min Choon, Bible Society of Malaysia

There will be Special Chapel and Thanksgiving Services celebrating 400 years of the Alkitab, testimonies from the translators of Alkitab, and a special event honouring the translators of the Alkitab. There will also be exhibitions by the Bible Society of Malaysia and RBC Ministries highlighting resources using the Alkitab.

Please note that admission to the events is strictly by registration only. The closing date for registration is 29 February 2012. For further information, please refer to the promotional flyer detailing the events and the registration form.

Church Leaders Led Round The Bush Again

2012-01-06T17:35:00.003+08:00

Published by Malaysiakini on 5 January 2012. By Terence Netto.

Christian church leaders were once again led a merry dance around the bush when Prime Minister Najib Razak hosted a lunch for them yesterday.

The Najib administration, with 13 cabinet ministers including the deputy prime minister in attendance in an ostensible show of collegiality on matters affecting the community, gave vent to the usual saccharine assurances of solicitude for Christian concerns while leaving the deeper misgivings of the community unappeased.

The mainstream newspapers this morning gave the expected photo play to the occasion with accompanying articles that conveyed the point that Christian concerns were addressed by the PM’s assurances.

With a general election imminent, the objective of the lunch meeting was to assure Christian leaders and their followers that their concerns will not suffer from government neglect.

Najib assured them the government would consult with mission schools before deciding on the appointment of principals; that the teaching of the catechism of the faith would be allowed in mission schools after hours; and that tax exemption would be granted on monies raised by Christian charities.

None of these assurances is in any way new, though in recent instances, one or the other was honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Nothing of substance

Christian leaders who attended the meeting yesterday did not go in the hope of being reassured on matters they consider de rigueur; they had gone to raise concerns in which they had hoped to hear of decisive action taken to remove their tension-igniting causes.

A lunch meeting of church leaders with the PM in May last year was similarly laved in a public relations glow but issued in nothing of substance to tamp down growing tensions between Christians and the government.

In fact, last May’s meeting was followed by reports in Umno-supporting blogs and the Umno-owned newspaper, Utusan Malaysia, that Christian groups were plotting the dethronement of Islam as the official religion of the country.

Subsequent police investigations into the matter drew a blank. But reports of Christian proselytisation of Muslims did not abate.

Last August, Christian groups were reported by Jais (Selangor Islamic Affairs Department) to be attempting to convert Muslims through the provision of charity to poverty-stricken members of the faith.

Like the earlier reports of Christian plans to dethrone Islam, Muslim-led investigations did not unearth evidence in support of Christian proselytisation claims.

Anglican Bishop Ng Moon Hing, chairperson of the Christian Federation of Malaysia, had prepared a speech for delivery on the occasion of the PM’s hosting of the lunch yesterday.

He did not get to air it, for good reason.

The text alludes to matters - the need to build more places of worship, the need for burial grounds, the removal of a government ban on the use of the term ‘Allah’ in Christian publications, and the necessity of a ministry to handle matters concerning non-Muslim religions - that church leaders have raised in countless discussions with the authorities in the past, but with no discernible success.

The Muslim lady who spoke in church

There is mounting puzzlement in the Christian community as to why its leaders persist in believing that anything substantive would come from meetings between church leaders and Umno-BN top brass except as acknowledgment of the wisdom that it is better to “jaw-jaw” than to skulk in silence.

But this charade of periodic public expressions of Umno-BN solicitude for Christian concerns followed by covert indifference towards the same has disabused the Christian faithful of illusions their leaders may continue to suffer from as to the actual realities on the ground.

They know from long experience from which to distill an indisputable conclusion that Muslim leaders who think that they can run with the hares of inter-religious goodwill, when it suits them, and hunt with the hounds of Islamic supremacy, when that’s expedient, are not to be trusted.

They would prefer to place their trust in such Muslim leaders as the one who on Christmas Day, quietly slipped into a church in the Klang Valley and before the service started, was invited by the parish priest to briefly address the congregation.

She went up to the pulpit, wished the parishioners a blessed occasion, and spoke of what she intimated would be imminent deliverance of the country from the duplicity and chicanery of the powers-that-be.

Heartfelt applause resounded in the church as the tudung-wearing lady wafted out, like the angelic apparitions that greeted the shepherds two millennia ago on the birth of what Christians regard as the Prince of Peace.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 5 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak should respect the law and start removing rules and policies that have seen Christians being victimised by the bureaucracry, a national group representing over 90 per cent of churches said yesterday.

In a strongly-worded statement, the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) called on the prime minister to check the growing systematic religious attacks against Christians nationwide over the past one year.

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=25726%3Achristians-must-come-out-of-their-fog-beware-the-two-headed-political-snakes&Itemid=2

Prime Minister Najib Razak has just promised national Christian leaders 'full consultation' over missionary school heads and Bible knowledge classes as well as tax-exemption status for qualified Christian organizations. But his largesse was just a bid to repair relations between the federal government and the local church authorities.

The New Year message which was to be delivered by Bishop Datuk Ng Moon Hing, chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia, as an expression of CFM’s concerns to the Honourable Prime Minister of Malaysia at a lunch hosted by the Prime Minister on 4 January 2012. However, Bishop Datuk Ng was not given the opportunity to present this formally at the lunch.

Link here: http://www.themicahmandate.org/2012/01/cfm-concerns/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+micahmandate+%28The+Micah+Mandate+%3A+Mandat+Mikha%29

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T12:37:00.000+08:00

Picture taken from http://communityoflife.net/bel.html

For unto us a Child is born,

Unto us a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace.

There will be no end,

Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,

To order it and establish it with judgment and justice

From that time forward, even forever.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Isaiah 9:6-7 NKJV

Christopher Hitchens Has Died, Doug Wilson Reflects

2011-12-17T12:28:00.003+08:00

How to think about the death of the outspoken atheist.

Douglas Wilson | posted 12/16/2011 12:00AM

Photo by Peter King

Editor's Note: Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. A statement from Vanity Fair said that he died Thursday night at cancer center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer. CT asked Douglas Wilson to weigh in on the life and death of the prominent atheist. (The image on our homepage features Wilson, left, and Hitchens in a mock arm wrestling match.)

Christopher Hitchens was a celebrity intellectual, and, as such, the basic outlines of his life are generally well known. But for those just joining us, Christopher Hitchens was the older of two sons, born to Eric and Yvonne in April 1949. He discovered as a schoolboy that probing questions about the veracity of the Christian faith were part of a discussion that he "liked having." His younger brother, Peter, followed him in unbelief. But unlike Christopher, Peter publicly returned to the Church of England, the communion where they had both been baptized.

Christopher spent some time in the 1960s as a radical leftist, but of course that was what everybody was doing back then. Somehow Christopher managed to do this and march to a different drummer, doing his radical stint as part of a post–Trotskyite Luxemburgist sect. He graduated from Balliol at Oxford, and soon became established as a writer, the vocation of his life, one in which he excelled. As a writer and thinker, he was greatly influenced by (and wrote about) men like George Orwell and Thomas Jefferson, while as the same time reserving the right to attack any sacred cow of his choosing—and the more sacred, the better. He is widely known for his scathing attack on Mother Teresa, and when Jerry Falwell passed away, he spent a good deal of time on television chortling about it.

But this was all part of Christopher's very public rhetorical strategy, not a function of an inability to domesticate a surly temperament. He was actually an affable and pleasant dinner companion, and fully capable of being the perfect gentleman. He was fully aware of the authority an enfant terrible could have, provided he played his cards right, and this was a strategy that Hitchens employed very well indeed. One man who delivers a terrible insult is banned from television for life, and another man, who does the same thing, has people lining up with invitations and microphones. In case anyone is wondering, Christopher was that second man.

A defining characteristic of his life was a willingness to break with the last group he was identified with. Whenever Orwell's "smelly little orthodoxies" began to develop, Christopher would be down the road. One of his books was Letters to a Young Contrarian, and that wordcontrarian appears to describe Christopher's approach to the desirability of not quite fitting in. After the attacks of September 11, he surprised a number of people with his full-throated support of the Iraq war, and he became a vigorous defender of the Western response to what he identified as "fascism with an Islamic face." As a result, he soon became identified with neoconservatives (who also supported the war), but he vigorously denied being a conservative of any stripe. At the same time, he found himself on the same side of a significant issue with George W. Bush, for example, while his former fellow leftists were most emphatically not.

I came to know Christopher during the promotion tour for his atheist encyclical, God Is Not Great. True to form, Christopher did not want to write a book attacking God and his minions only to have the release be a wine and cheese party in Manhattan with a bunch of fellow unbelievers, where they could all laugh knowingly about the rubes and cornpones down in the Bible Belt. So he told his publicist that he wanted to debate with any and all comers, and in the course of promoting his book, he did exactly that. I believe his book tour began in Arkansas, and the range of his debate partners included Al Sharpton, Dinesh D'Souza, and numerous others. In response to this general defiance he delivered to the armies of Israel, my agent Aaron Rench contacted Christianity Today to see if they would be willing to host a written exchange. They were, and when Christopher was contacted, he quickly agreed as well. That online exchange attracted some attention, and the debate was made into a small book (Is Christianity Good for the World?). The short promotion tour for the release of thebook was a series of debates that Christopher and I held in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, which were filmed for the documentary Collision.

As a result of all this, we were thrown together in a number of situations. One time we shared a panel in Dallas, and I told the crowd there that if Christopher and I were not careful, we were in danger of becoming friends. During the time we spent together, he never said an unkind thing to me—except on stage, up in front of everybody. After doing this, he didn't wink at me, but he might as well have.

So we got on well with each other, because each of us knew where the other one stood. Eugene Genovese, before he became a believer, once commented on the tendency that some have to try to garner respect by giving away portions, big or small, of what they profess to believe. "If other religions offer equally valid ways to salvation and if Christianity itself may be understood solely as a code of morals and ethics, then we may as well all become Buddhists or, better, atheists. I intend no offense, but it takes one to know one. And when I read much Protestant theology and religious history today, I have the warm feeling that I am in the company of fellow unbelievers" (The Southern Front, pp. 9–10). Ironically, the branch of the faith most interested in getting the "cultured despisers" to pay us some respect is really not that effective, and this is a strategy that can frequently be found on the pointed end of its own petard. Respectability depends on not caring too much about respectability. Unbelievers can smell accommodation, and when someone like Christopher meets someone who actually believes all the articles in the Creed, including that part about Jesus coming back from the dead, it delights him. Here is someone actually willing to defend what is being attacked. Militant atheists are often exasperated with opponents whose strategy appears to be "surrender slowly."

G. K. Chesterton once pointed to the salutary effect that the great agnostics had on him—that effect being that of "arousing doubts deeper than their own." Christopher was an heir of the Enlightenment tradition, and would have felt right at home in the 18th-century salons of Paris. He wanted to carry on the grand tradition of doubting what had been inherited from Christendom, and to take great delight in doubting it. This worked well, or appeared to, for a time. But skepticism is a universal solvent, and once applied, it does not stop just because Christendom is gone. "I think, therefore I am. I think." We pulled out the stopper of faith, and the bathwater of reason appeared undisturbed for a time. But modernism slowly receded and now postmodernism is circling the drain. Our intelligentsia needs to figure out how to do more than sit in an empty tub and reminisce about the days when Voltaire knew how to keep the water hot.

Christopher knew that faithful Christians believe that it is appointed to man once to die, and after that the Judgment. He knew that we believe what Jesus taught about the reality of damnation. He also knew that we believe—for I told him—that in this life, the door of repentance is always open. A wise Puritan once noted what we learn from the last-minute conversion of the thief on the cross—one, that no one might despair, but only one, that no one might presume. We have no indication that Christopher ever called on the Lord before he died, and if he did not, then Scriptures plainly teach that he is lost forever. But we do have every indication that Christ died for sinners, men and women just like Christopher. We know that the Lord has more than once hired workers for his vineyard when the sun was almost down (Matt. 20:6).

We also know that Christopher was worried about this, and was afraid of letting down the infidel team. In a number of interviews during the course of his cancer treatments, he discussed the prospect of a "death bed" conversion, and it was clear that he was concerned about the prospect. But, he assured interviewers, if anything like that ever happened, we should all be certain that the cancer or the chemo orsomething had gotten to his brain. If he confessed faith, then he, the Christopher Hitchens that we all knew, should be counted as already dead. In short, he was preparing a narrative for us, just in case. But it is interesting that the narrative he prepped us with did not involve some ethically challenged evangelical nurses on the late shift who were ready to claim that they had heard him cry out to God, thus misrepresenting another great infidel into heaven. It has been done with Einstein, and with Darwin. Why not Hitchens? But Christopher actually prepared us by saying that if he said anything like this, then he did not know what he was saying.

This is interesting, not so much because of what it says about what he did or did not do as death approached him, and as he at the same time approached death. It is interesting because, when he gave these interviews, he was manifestly in his right mind, and the thought had clearly occurred to him that he might not feel in just a few months the way he did at present. The subject came up repeatedly, and was plainly a concern to him. Christopher Hitchens was baptized in his infancy, and his name means "Christ-bearer." This created an enormous burden that he tried to shake off his entire life. No creature can ever succeed in doing this. But sometimes, in the kindness of God, such failures can have a gracious twist at the end. We therefore commend Christopher to the Judge of the whole earth, who will certainly do right. Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-2011). R.I.P.

For Malaysian Christians, an Anxious Holiday Season

2011-12-13T16:36:00.004+08:00

By LIZ GOOCH. Published by The New York Times on 12 December 2011.

KUALA LUMPUR — Beneath windows framed with forest-green wreaths studded with red and gold baubles, worshipers at St. Mary’s Anglican Cathedral, one of the oldest churches in Malaysia, knelt and clasped their hands in prayer. As part of the Advent service, they celebrated a baptism and sang their way through a series of hymns including “Child in the Manger.”

But their voices masked the unease many Christians in Malaysia are feeling this season, following accusations that they are trying to “Christianize” this Muslim-majority country by converting Muslims, which is illegal.

“It’s unfortunate that the authorities don’t take the relevant action against those making such wild allegations,” said Bishop Jason Selvaraj, who led the service at St. Mary’s. “We are upset about that. There’s a sense of justice is not done. We have not done anything wrong.”

The Malaysian Constitution both guarantees freedom of religion and designates Islam as the official religion — ethnic Malays are automatically considered Muslims. While Muslims are free to proselytize to others, most states have laws that prohibit members of other religions from proselytizing to Muslims. In Selangor State, the penalties can include a year’s imprisonment and a fine of up to 10,000 ringgit, or almost $3,200.

While the central government’s Department of Islamic Development says no one has ever been formally charged with trying to convert Muslims, recent statements by Muslim politicians and groups promoting Islam have left many Christians, who make up just 9 percent of the population, feeling victimized. Many are convinced that they are being used as political pawns to win support among Muslim voters in advance of the next general election, widely expected to be held next year.

“I think Christians are generally feeling that there is kind of a Christian-bashing going on,” said the Rev. Thomas Philips, a Syrian Orthodox priest and vice president of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, a group that represents Protestant and Orthodox churches.

While Christians, for the most part, work and live peacefully alongside Muslims in Malaysia, several incidents have heightened tensions in recent years, including the firebombing of churches in 2010.

The latest round of religious tensions was set off in August, when Selangor religious officials interrupted a church dinner outside of Kuala Lumpur, saying they had information that these Christians were proselytizing to Muslims.

Although the sultan of Selangor eventually concluded that there was “insufficient” evidence to take further legal action, Muslim politicians and leaders of Himpun, a new organization that has pledged to protect Islam, have continued to charge that there is a plot by some opposition political parties and Christian organizations to “Christianize” the country.

On Nov. 29, Ahmad Maslan, a deputy minister from the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, the dominant party in the governing coalition, asserted that Islam would be “lost” if the opposition gained seats in the next election, according to a report by The Malaysian Insider, a news Web site.

“Say goodbye to Islam, because they are agents of Christianization,” he said, referring to the Democratic Action Party, a member of the opposition alliance.

The governing coalition, which has led Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957, suffered its biggest loss in the 2008 elections, losing its two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time. Some analysts say UMNO is trying to play on religious sensitivities to win back support from Malay Muslims.

Meanwhile, Himpun is planning a series of rallies around the country to “save and protect” Islam. The group, which held a rally in Kuala Lumpur in October that attracted 5,000 people, complains that the government is not enforcing laws that prohibit trying to convert Muslims.

“If we have a law which is not enforced, then it’s a mockery on the part of the religious authorities,” said Mohammad Azmi Abdul Hamid, Himpun’s chairman.

Christian leaders deny that they are part of a plot to “Christianize” the country. They say recent comments about “Christianization” by UMNO members indicate that the party is trying to shore up its support among Muslims, its traditional support base, before the election.

“The present climate and mood is more political than anything else,” said the Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of The Herald, the Roman Catholic Church’s weekly newspaper in Kuala Lumpur. Father Philips, who is also vice president of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism, said he believed that UMNO was seeking to portray itself as the “savior of Muslims.”

“They are thinking that it will unite the Muslims together, but I don’t think that any Malaysians buy it,” he said. “It’s a political game.”

Farish Ahmad Noor, a political science professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, agrees.

While Prime Minister Najib Razak has been seeking to present Malaysia as a moderate Muslim nation and has opened diplomatic relations with the Vatican and spearheaded a “1Malaysia” policy to promote national unity and inclusiveness, Mr. Farish said his efforts were being undermined by conservatives within his party who were trying to appeal to Muslims. These elements, he said, threatened to alienate non-Muslims affiliated with other parties in the governing coalition, which includes the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress.

“It may prove to be counterproductive in the long run,” Mr. Farish said.

“If this fringe in UMNO thinks this is the only way they can secure the Malay vote, they have to understand that the coalition as a whole has to secure the votes of as many Malaysians as they can, and that includes Christians.”

Mr. Farish said while groups like Himpun say they are independent, “in the minds of Malaysians they are seen as another front” for the governing coalition.

Ng Kam Weng, director of the Kairos Research Center, which studies issues related to Malaysian Christianity, said that UMNO politicians may also be trying to intimidate Christians who were becoming more politically active and playing a greater role in civil society groups.

He said churches were careful not to proselytize to Muslims precisely because this could provoke a “backlash from authorities.”

“I think if the Christian community is clear in its conscience that it has maintained its integrity in how it practices its faith, I suppose we trust in God that he will override human mischief,” he said.

Bishop Selvaraj said the recent controversies would not dampen celebrations at St. Mary’s in the days leading up to Christmas. He has discussed the allegations in his sermons and urged the congregation — Malaysians of Chinese and Indian ethnicity, Africans, Indonesians and Europeans — to pray for peace. He said he has been encouraged by messages of support from Muslim friends.

“The majority of Muslims are good people,” he said.

International Anti-Corruption Day 9 December 2011

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000+08:00

"On this International Anti-Corruption Day, let us pledge to do our part by cracking down on corruption, shaming those who practice it and engendering a culture that values ethical behaviour."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Message on International Anti-Corruption Day

Message of the Secretary-General for 2011

Corruption afflicts all countries, undermining social progress and breeding inequality and injustice.

When desperately needed development funds are stolen by corrupt individuals and institutions, poor and vulnerable people are robbed of the education, health care and other essential services.

Although the poor may be marginalized by corruption, they will not be silenced. In events across the Arab world and beyond this year, ordinary people have joined their voices in denouncing corruption and demanding that governments combat this crime against democracy. Their protests have triggered changes on the international scene that could barely have been imagined just months previously.

All of us have a responsibility to take action against the cancer of corruption.

The United Nations is helping countries combat corruption as part of our broader, system-wide campaign to help bolster democracy and good governance.

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption is a powerful tool in the fight. I urge all governments that have not yet ratified it to do so without delay. I also call on governments to include anti-corruption measures in all national programmes that support sustainable development.

The private sector, too, stands to gain enormously from effective action. Corruption distorts markets, increases costs for companies and ultimately punishes consumers. Companies can create a more transparent global economy through anti-corruption initiatives, including the work of the United Nations Global Compact.

On this International Anti-Corruption Day, let us pledge to do our part by cracking down on corruption, shaming those who practice it and engendering a culture that values ethical behaviour.

Resolution adopted by the General Assembly: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/58/4

Freedom carries responsibility

2011-11-30T14:32:00.004+08:00

Published by The Star Online on 30 November 2011.

DECEMBER 10 marks the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (UDHR).

The first Article of the Declaration contains the stirring proclamation that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.

Many important moral ideals can be derived from this simple but eloquent statement.

Universality: All human beings are entitled to some core human rights. These rights transcend time, territory, race, religion, colour, caste, creed, gender or nationality. Human rights represent universal standards for evaluating national laws and institutions.

Born free: Human rights are inherent. They belong to us by virtue of our birth as a human being. They do not depend on the existence of a state or a constitution. They enjoy authority superior to and independent of government.

Fundamental rights are individual as well as collective in their nature. They belong to human beings as individuals as well as to nations and human groups as collective entities.

Human rights are essential conditions for a free and democratic society. They are principles of liberty and justice without which a fair and enlightened system of government would be impossible.

Equality: Though inequalities are a fact of life, the law must hitch itself to stars. It must peg its provisions to ideals distilled from philosophy and morality.

The law must ban religious, racial, tribal and gender discrimination and call for equality before the law and equal protection of the law.

Indeed, over the last few centuries, the struggle for equality has reached many important milestones.

Religious persecution has been outlawed. Racial discrimination has collapsed in South Africa and the United States. Many strides have been made in gender equality.

However, other goals still beckon. Poverty is pervasive and remains the biggest threat to human dignity.

In the area of employment and work, hierarchies exist and glaring income disparities are widespread. Globalisation is creating vast disparities between the rich North and the impoverished South. Colonialism, built on a racist assumption of the superiority of some people over others, rears its ugly head again.

Rights and dignities: The UDHR talks of “dignity” and “rights”. Both are important but it is necessary to distinguish between the two.

A right is a legitimate authority to be, to do or to have. Most rights are necessary and supportable. But the exercise or abuse of some rights may be incompatible with the preservation of human dignity.

For instance, if a person by his/her own volition chooses to lead the life of a beggar and to sleep on the pavements or to become a sex worker, that may be his/her right. But it diminishes the worth and dignity of the human personality. For this reason many philosophers emphasise that dignity is more important than rights.

The notion of dignity implies that an individual owes a duty to himself not to compromise his self-esteem and destroy his worth.

Right to dignity also requires that the state must take vigorous affirmative action to preserve human dignity by eradicating poverty, starvation and illiteracy.

The state must be actively invol-ved in efforts to stamp out all legal, social, economic and cultural conditions (like caste system, female circumcision) that destroy human dignity.

Thus, slaves, sex workers, circus dwarfs, and surrogate mothers can be restrained by the law from sacrificing their dignity even if they have a personal right to compromise their rights.

Reason and conscience: In the pursuit of our rights and our vision of a good life, we must maintain a sense of balance, moderation and equilibrium. We must avoid the temptation to conform to non-conformity.

We must know when to say “no” to drugs, cigarettes, free sex and advertisements which tempt us to shop till we drop in an excessively consumerist society.

Rights must be exercised with responsibility. Responsibility is the inevitable consequence of freedom.

We must accept the limitations of our freedom. Freedom is not an end in itself. Freedom per se has no value. It is what freedom is for. It is the use to which it is put and the sense of responsibility with which it is exercised.

If liberty is exercised without concern for the consequences to oneself and to society, then the line between liberty and anarchy is crossed. P eople are not always right about the exercise of their rights.

Rights must go hand in hand with duties. Free speech, for example, carries with it a duty to listen.

Our personal rights carry with them duties to oneself, to one’s family, to one’s community, to one’s country and to the larger world we inhabit.

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefits received.

Unfortunately, too often duty is seen as the thing we expect from others.

Brotherhood: We should treat all other human beings as our brothers. We should give a little bit of ourselves, our time, talent and resources to others. We have a moral duty to help those less fortunate than us.

We should do to others what we wish to be done to us. In all areas of discord, we should put ourselves in the shoes of others, identify with their pain and problems and try to see issues through their eyes.

To be truly objective, we should be prepared to be subjective from another person’s point of view.

We should look for the best in others. We should avoid stereotypes and shun extremism. Extremism reflects awareness of only one narrow perspective.

The first function of freedom should be to free somebody else. We should protect and cherish not only our rights but the rights of others.

Regrettably this is not what happens around the world.

Decent human beings must stand up and be counted and struggle to throw off the chains that bind their fellow beings.

When that happens, when a just cause reaches its floodtide, whatever stands in the way falls before its overwhelming force.

There is in this world no such force as the force of a human being determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.

This is the lesson of history and the implicit message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM & Visiting Professor at USM.

Walk For Freedom 2011

2011-11-29T22:48:00.005+08:00

Lawyers end march, say to keep up pressure on assembly law

The Bar Council warned the Najib administration today it will “continue knocking on the doors of Parliament” if the Peaceful Assembly Bill is passed without public consultation.

Malaysian Bar President Lim Chee Wee urged the government to consider the council’s proposed alternative to the government’s original Bill, which he described as an “unjust law made in haste ... which will impose unreasonable and disproportionate fetters on freedom of assembly”.

“The Bar will continue knocking on the doors of Parliament if the Bill makes it to the statute books in its current form. We will not give up hope,” he vowed during a brief press conference in Parliament here.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/lawyers-end-march-say-to-keep-up-pressure-on-assembly-law

Bar Council presents alternative assembly bill

The Bar Council has made public its alternative to the controversial Peaceful Assembly Bill, saying it takes “significantly different approaches” from the one the Dewan Rakyat passed today.

The council said in a media statement that its draft, also called the Peaceful Assembly Bill, complied with international conventions. It gives every person, regardless of age, the right to assemble peacefully.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/11/29/bar-council-presents-alternative-assembly-bill/

More than 2,000 lawyers gather to protest Assembly Bill

More than 2,000 lawyers from the 14,000-strong Bar Council turned up for the much-anticipated protest despite the short notice given. They began begin their 2.5km 'Walk for Freedom' to Parliament at around 12.30pm.

On reaching the august House, president of the Bar Lim Chee Wee and 9 others were allowed into the lobby. They handed over a copy of the Bar's alternative Bill to Deputy Minister Liew Vui Kong, plus a letter reiterating their call to MPs to vote wisely on the Bill.

“We are not anti-government or pro-opposition. We are anti-injustice and anti-unconstitutionality. We are pro-justice and pro-rule of law. We have always worked closely with the government,” Lim said.

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=23657:more-than-2000-lawyers-gather-to-protest-assembly-bill-walk-to-begin-soon&Itemid=2

Lawyers march against Assembly Bill

More than 1,000 members of the Bar Council marched to the Dewan Rakyat today to protest the proposed the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011.

Led by their president Lim Chee Wee, they asked MPs not to pass the controversial Bill, claiming that it would curtail the right to peaceful assembly.

Lim said that Malaysia was founded on public demonstrations, citing founding father Onn Jaafar’s leading of the Malayan Union against the British.

He also pleaded to the MPs not to rid Malaysians the right to assemble peacefully “with the stroke of a pen”.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/11/29/lawyers-march-against-assembly-bill/

Malaysia passes ban on street protests

Malaysian and international rights groups describe it as repressive because it bans street rallies and imposes tough restrictions and penalties for demonstrators.

The law was announced only last week, and some critics say the vote was rushed without proper public consultation.

About 500 lawyers and their supporters marched to parliament hours before the vote, urging lawmakers to reject the bill and chanting "freedom to the people'' before police stopped most of them from entering the complex.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2011/11/201111299054994173.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_term=tweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount#.TtTR3pmqa6A.facebook

Malaysia’s ruling coalition advances ban on street protests criticized as repressive

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition says the Peaceful Assembly Act is intended to strike a balance between public order and the right to peaceful assembly. The act passed easily in Parliament’s lower house after the boycott, and the law is expected to be enforced after Parliament’s upper house, also dominated by the National Front coalition, approves it as early as next month.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/500-malaysian-lawyers-activists-stage-protest-march-against-govt-plan-to-ban-street-ralllies/2011/11/29/gIQA2il36N_story.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Opposition MPs walk out, refuse to vote on Peaceful Assembly Bill

Opposition MPs staged a walkout during the debate on the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 on Tuesday, claiming that the Government was rushing the bill through.

The entire bench stood and left the House at around 3pm after the Speaker allowed the debate to continue despite calls for it to be suspended and for the bill to be referred to a Parliamentary Select Committee.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/11/29/nation/20111129153616&sec=nation

Peaceful Assembly Bill passed

KUALA LUMPUR: The Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 was passed by Parliament Tuesday after six amendments were made to the bill.

The bill was passed with no dissenting votes after the Opposition refused to take part in the debate and staged a walkout.

The walk-out was staged before Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri tabled six amendments to the bill.

The bill was passed before Deputy Speaker Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.

Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia had allowed just three Opposition MPs to debate the proposed law.

The Opposition had asked for it to be retracted and put before a Parliamentary Select Committee for review.

The six changes include Sub-Clause 9 (1), where the 30-day notice period required to be given to the police was changed to 10 days.

Under Clause 12 (b), objections against a proposed assembly must be lodged with the police in writing within 48 hours, instead of five days.

For Clause 14, the change included the provision for police to give a reply to organisers within five days instead of 12.

In Clause 16(a), appeal against the rejection of an application or the exercise of police discretionary orders to organisers can be done within 48 hours of receipt, instead of four days while under Clause 16(b), the Home Minister is to answer any appeals within 48 hours of receipt instead of six days.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/11/29/nation/20111129164017&sec=nation

Hello MP, kami sedang perhatikan cara awak undi

Meminjam konsep bekas presiden Majlis Peguam, Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan yang mahu setiap ahli parlimen "bertanggungjawab kepada pengundi mereka", warga maya melancarkan kempen mengingatkan wakil rakyat mereka bahawa corak pengundian mereka berhubung rang undang-undang kontroversi itu akan juga ditentukan pada pilihan raya akan datang.

Melalui kempen yang dikenali sebagai '#HelloMP' warga maya memuat-naikkan gambar mereka memegang sehelai kertas dengan nama kawasan pilihan raya dan wakil rakyat, menggesa mereka menolak rang undang-undang itu di Facebook.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/182714

Govt paranoid, says Ambiga

BERSIH chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan claims the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 is a "paranoid" Bill.

Asked if the proposed legislation was a retaliation against Bersih 2.0, she said: "I do not know whether it is a direct retaliation.

"I think it is a paranoid Bill. I think the government seems to fear the idea of the rakyat expressing themselves."

Ambiga said this before the Bar Council organised walk from Lake Gardens to Parliament building yesterday.

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/86739-bar-courting-trouble

A Christian Response to Gay Bullying

2011-11-27T18:15:00.002+08:00

Published by Christianity Today on 12 October 2011.

A few weeks ago, Jamey Rodemeyer was found dead by his parents in their Buffalo, New York, home. But Rodemeyer’s death was different. The 14-year-old was one of many young people who have committed suicide over bullying and taunting over sexuality. Last year, Tyler Clementijumped off the George Washington Bridge in New York after a roommate secretly filmed him in a sexual encounter with another male student and posted it online. Asher Brown and Seth Walsh committed suicide after facing relentless taunting for being gay. And Sladjana Vidovicwas one of five students from an Ohio high school to commit suicide in the course of a year.

The suicides of teenagers due to bullying, especially over homosexuality, have led to an outcry in the media, fueling many efforts to fight bullying on all fronts. Ellen Degeneres has taken up the fight; nearly every week, it seems, the comedian tackles the subject on her show. Her website has a page devoted to fighting bullying in schools, including everything from celebrity videos about bullying to messages about the importance of equality in the fight against bullying. A few weeks ago, in an interview with Chaz Bono, she compared the outcry over his participation inDancing With the Stars to bullying that goes on in schools. Kids learn from their parents, Ellen said,

. . . until adults take responsibility for how we treat one another, until we see that we are doing the same thing we are asking kids not to do at school — politicians do it, adults do it — to say that he [Bono] is different and he is wrong and to make something of it, shame on us for doing that and being an example for kids.

After the suicides of Clementi, Brown, and Walsh, Degeneres posted a video in which she expressed grief and outrage that anyone would feel so alone that suicide seemed their only option. She said intolerance of homosexuality is the foundation for today’s bullying: “There are messages everywhere that validate this kind of bullying and taunting and we have to make it stop. We can’t let intolerance and ignorance take another kid’s life.” She concluded that “things will get easier, peoples’ minds will change, and you should be alive to see it.”

Degeneres’s comments give Christians much to think about. When any person commits suicide, it’s a tragedy, one Christians especially should grieve, given the person’s God-given dignity and irreplaceable presence in others’ lives. Bullying, taunting, and physical or emotional abuse is not to be tolerated by believers who see it happening, regardless of who is being bullied. Nevertheless, Ellen’s comments present some troubling assertions — namely, that bullying is simply any moral judgment about another person’s behavior.

It’s a fine line between bullying and tolerance, and Christians have made blunders on both sides. Some have seemed to put homosexuality into its own category of sinfulness, as if it takes a special kind of atonement to make clean. This has only added fuel to the pro-tolerance fire. In an effort to reverse these effects, some Christians have swung the pendulum too far, ignoring Scripture’s prohibitions against homosexual behavior in favor of a widely embracing, culturally acceptable sexual ethic.

Christians must bridge the gap between bullying and the cry for tolerance. We cannot turn a blind eye to sinful behavior of any sort, whether it’s homosexual behavior or hateful bullying. And we also must clearly define bullying, focusing on physical and verbal abuse rather than simple disagreement with another’s actions.

After Clementi’s death, Albert Mohler wrote an article lamenting that four young men had committed suicide in one month. He wrote, “Tyler joined Billy, Seth, and Asher as tragic evidence of the dangerous intersection of sexual confusion, hateful classmates, and the wide-open world of social media. These boys simply ran out of the emotional ability to face life, crushed by the burden of secrets and the bullying of their peers.” What was once a fight in the hallway or a rumor passed in a classroom note has become an online epidemic. A girl who sends a text message to a boy at school can be an internet sensation by the end of the day. A young man who has a sexual encounter with another young man can be broadcast unbeknownst to him by a cruel college roommate. This is a problem and a tragedy, especially when it leads to death.

Yet the answer is not a ceasefire on all moral pronouncements in the public square. Degeneres’s definition of bullying, like many in the LGBT community, assumes that if we simply normalize homosexuality, bullying over sexual orientation will cease. As Christians, it’s more complicated than that. In order to be faithful to what God says, we must resist the notion that “tolerance” will solve the bullying problem. Living outside God’s design for sexuality, no matter the specifics, has implications for this life and for eternity.

Christians should be the first to offer a healing hope for the victim of senseless bullying of any kind. As Mohler asked, “Was there no one to step between Tyler Clementi and that bridge? Was there no friend, classmate, or trusted adult who had the courage and compassion to reach into his life and offer hope?”

Yet as Christians, we must have the heart of Jesus, who was willing to do the unpopular in order to free them from eternal judgment for their sin. We must never resort to hateful tactics and unkind words to prove our point, simply mimicking the meanness that permeates our schools. When Christians offer a counter voice to the actions of their peers, maybe then will our bullied friends and neighbors see an alternative to the seeming only option of a desperate suicide.

Courtney Reissig is a pastor's wife and freelance writer/blogger. She has written for the Gospel Coalition's book review site, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. She blogs regularly at In View of God's Mercy.

The Rhetoric of Chastity: Making Abstinence Sexy

2011-11-23T20:31:00.002+08:00

Communications expert Christine Gardner reveals what makes abstinence campaigns work.

Evangelical abstinence campaigns have shifted their emphasis from "just say no" to sex before marriage to "just say yes"—within marriage, that is, says Christine Gardner. In Making Chastity Sexy (University of California Press), the Wheaton College communications professor examines the rhetoric of three evangelical abstinence organizations, comparing them with an abstinence campaign in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/AIDS is a common threat. Christianity Today online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey spoke with Gardner about the larger ideas communicated to young people in the campaign.

What did you find upon examining the language of the U.S. abstinence movement?

This is a study of rhetoric in the classical sense—the study of the art of persuasion, focusing on three very specific church-related evangelical campaigns. These groups are using a savvy rhetorical strategy: They are using sex to sell abstinence. They are using the very thing they are prohibiting to admonish young people to wait. They are saying, "If you are abstinent now, you will have amazing sex when you are married." The argument then becomes a promise of marriage.

What are the limitations of this approach?

Such campaigns don't address the challenges of singleness. Also, what if you are gay? What if you do get married, but sex isn't all it's cracked up to be? There are many challenges with this kind of strategy, as savvy and persuasive as it is.

Evangelicals are quite good at interacting with secular culture. We have a long history of adapting secular forms for religious ends. The language of self-gratification in "sexy abstinence" is showing the ability of evangelicals to speak the language of the culture.

But in doing so, are we actually transforming it?

You looked at how Africans view abstinence, saying they "saw their bodies as temples of the Lord and themselves as caretakers … a more deeply theological response."

I assumed that HIV/AIDS would be the big motivator for [African] young people to commit to abstinence. It is big, but I found this other undercurrent that was deeply theological. A leader of one of the programs told me that yes, they do talk about AIDS as a motivator for young people to commit to abstinence, but they noted that "you can get malaria and die, too." AIDS is not as much of a motivator as a Western researcher coming in would have assumed.

How do the American and African messages compare?

Americans have turned a prohibition into a more positive admonition. In this case, pleasing God is an end in itself. Pleasing God will have tangible benefits. In Kenya and Rwanda, it was more of a combination: "Avoid death. Avoid HIV/AIDS, and do it out of fear of God, because he wants you to do this."

'I'm concerned that we may be raising a generation of abstinent teens but setting them up for divorce.'—Christine Gardner

Also, in the places I visited in Africa, the condom is viewed as a medical device, a tool for saving lives. It is not viewed as a tool for promiscuity, as evangelicals in this country largely view it. The same little piece of latex is described so radically differently by evangelicals in two different cultural contexts.

How does Western rhetoric translate to the African context?

It offers an understanding of self and empowers young people, especially women, to respect their bodies. This is, of course, fabulous and indeed, very biblical. But the language of individualism and self-gratification can seep in and pose a problem.

You say that U.S. evangelicals are strange bedfellows with feminists when it comes to sexuality and reproduction.

The campaigns borrow an essentially feminist argument of "my body, myself" to encourage young people to take control of their bodies, to wait to have sex. In essence, evangelical campaigns say secular culture is telling young people that they have no choice but to have sex, that they are governed by their hormones. In contrast, evangelical campaigns tell young people, "You can control your body. You can choose to wait to have sex."

How do these campaigns deal with those who are no longer virgins?

They talk about "second virginity" or "renewed virginity," how a young person can make a decision from that day forward to remain abstinent until marriage. It's a rhetorical construction of virginity, but it's steeped in a theological understanding of God's forgiveness. Some would criticize that as a form of cheap grace, that you can go out and have sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend and then go to the abstinence event and renew your pledge. But the young people I talked to understand that there is no cheap grace. There is no get out of jail free card with these abstinence pledges. The young people who have broken their pledges carry heavy emotional burdens.

What are other ways the U.S. campaigns are successful?

Millions of young people have committed to abstinence since these campaigns began. Have some of the young people broken their pledges? Sure. But this isn't just a numbers game. These programs are successful because they are opening a space for the church to talk about sex. They are teaching both women and men a sense of respect for their physical bodies. We Christians are people of the Incarnation, and yet the physicality of the body scares us. These campaigns empower young people, especially women, to respect their bodies, to realize that they are worth waiting for.

What role do purity rings play in the campaigns?

The purity ring mimics the wedding ring, a physical manifestation of that pledge. One of the young people I interviewed talked about how if someone breaks his commitment, he is encouraged to flush the ring down the toilet in order to maintain the integrity of the symbolic power of the ring. It's a pledge to God, it's a pledge to one's future spouse, but it's also a pledge to a community of other abstinent teens.

What did you learn about the "fairy-tale narrative"?

Some of the campaigns use fairy tales about passive princesses and valiant knights to communicate traditional gender roles. When I looked closer, I found an interesting subversion: The princess, even though she seems to be inactively waiting for her prince, is pictured as actively choosing to adopt princess-like behavior. The dragon that the knights are supposed to slay in order to rescue the princess is really the dragon of their own sexual desires. The campaigns may not be as conservative as they think they are: the young men are impotent, enslaved by their own desires, while the young women are powerfully choosing princess-like behaviors.

What role does modest fashion play?

Modesty is not to be confused with meekness. The campaigns talk about modesty as a form of power. It is similar to the function of the hijab, or head covering, for Muslim women. The hijab forms a kind of community, a physical manifestation that joins women together. It also portrays women's power over men, because it suggests that if they were to reveal their bodies, men would be lusting after them. So if they veil their bodies, they maintain and conserve that power.

What did you find missing from the campaigns?

The campaigns largely avoid talk of sexuality as sacrifice or suffering. But of course it's not sexy to talk about sacrifice and suffering to young people who are raised in a sexualized culture. On the other hand, perhaps this is where the evangelical church is selling out too fast. Language of sacrifice and suffering can be transformative to those who know that sex sells everything from cars to deodorant and, now, abstinence. It's a new kind of asceticism for the generation that has it all.

Instead of trying to master the idioms of the day, we could emphasize the difference the gospel message makes. The gospel is radical enough all on its own, even without the music of Usher or Beyoncé in the background. It's truly an alternative lifestyle. I think that too could be very persuasive among our media-savvy young people. That language of sacrifice and suffering for the purpose of worship to God, and understanding our sexuality as a gift of God, is key.

How might this self-fulfillment language potentially impact a future marriage?

I'm concerned that we may be raising a generation of abstinent teens but setting them up for divorce. I don't think that you need to promise fabulous sex in marriage to make marriage winsome. If we are focusing on great sex in marriage as a reward for abstinence now, then when those young people marry and the sex isn't great—then what? I'm afraid we are making marriage all about sex. So if it's not that, then what is marriage?

You suggest that abstinence is part of a larger endeavor.

By daily acting on that commitment, young people understand through their bodies what it means to become more like Christ. It's essentially a call to holiness that the Scriptures give us. It's just like practicing scales on a piano if you want to become a concert pianist. It's practicing abstinence that allows young people to inhabit their faith commitments in practical and tangible ways.

The largest study and the most quoted critique is that these kinds of pledges only delay sexual debut by about 18 months. I wonder if a more richly theological undergirding to some of the programs could help lengthen those commitments. When the going gets rough, and there is no marriage partner on the horizon, and the abstinence pledge starts to grow cold and stale, what is going to be there for them? I hope that it's something more than a funny skit, a dramatic rock song, or a winsome testimony from a cute guy. I hope there is something deeper from God's Word that's going to stay with them.

The legal case of the snail found in ginger beer

2011-11-18T11:59:00.005+08:00

By Clive Coleman. Published by BBC on 20 November 2009.

How a case about a snail gave power to modern consumers and launched a million lawsuits.

This is the story of how our modern law of negligence came about all because of a fizzy drink.

And a mollusc from Paisley in Scotland.

The mollusc in question was a common snail that ended its days in a bottle of ginger beer. It made legal history in the 1932 case of Donoghue v Stevenson.

It begins on an unremarkable Sunday evening on 26th August 1928. May Donoghue, a shop assistant, met a friend at the Wellmeadow cafe in Paisley, near Glasgow.

Her unnamed friend ordered and paid for a pear and ice cream ginger beer 'float' for May.

When the ginger beer was poured into her glass, it was alleged the decomposing remains of a snail dropped out of the darkened, opaque bottle.

May complained of stomach pains, and a doctor diagnosed gastroenteritis and shock.

But if you are thinking McDonalds, hot cups of coffee and big bucks compensation, think again. This is 1928.

No legal redress

In those days, the common law only acknowledged a duty of care was owed to people harmed by the negligent acts of others in specific and limited circumstances.

For example, this was the case where a contract existed between the parties, or where a manufacturer was making something dangerous, or acting fraudulently.

As the law stood, May Donoghue could not take legal action over her snail.

As May's unnamed friend had paid for the drink, it meant May had not entered into a contract with the cafe owner.

Clearly, neither May nor her friend had a contract with the manufacturer of the ginger beer.

The latter had not committed fraud. And ginger beer could hardly be described as dangerous.

To the rescue came one doughty and determined solicitor called Walter Leechman, who took up May's case.

He had already brought two cases against another drinks manufacturer, AG Barr, alleging a dead mouse had been found in a bottle of their ginger beer.

Leechman had lost both cases, but he went ahead and issued May Donoghue's writ against David Stevenson, the manufacturer of the ginger beer.

The case went all the way to the highest court in the land. It was heard in the House of Lords on 10th December 1931, three years after May allegedly discovered the snail.

Women in the 1920s and 30s often met in cafes on their days off

Her counsel argued that a manufacturer who puts a product on the market in a form that does not allow the consumer to examine it before using it, is liable for any damage caused.

Remember May could not have examined her ginger beer before drinking it because the bottle was dark and opaque.

Lord Atkin of Aberdovey, one of the greatest judges of the twentieth century, was on the panel who heard the appeal.

'Love Thy Neighbour'

On 26th May 1932, he found in favour of May Donoghue and rose to give the leading judgment in the case.

"The rule that you are to love your neighbour becomes in law 'You must not injure your neighbour'; and the lawyer's question: 'Who is my neighbour?' receives a restricted reply.

"You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour."

And with those words the modern law of negligence was born.

Lord Atkin based his judgment on the Christian principle of 'loving thy neighbour', and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

This elastic term could now be applied to almost any relationship, in any circumstances.

A Good Samaritan

Among other areas, it covers personal injury, product liability, professional negligence on the part of doctors, architects and even lawyers themselves.

For many, Lord Atkin's judgment was a noble principle based upon the Gospel of Luke. For others, it went too far, giving birth to our modern compensation culture.

It has made many lawyers and insurance companies rich, but it has also seen the ill and injured compensated for losses caused by the negligent acts of others.

In the original case, David Stevenson died less than a year after the Law Lords' decision, and his estate settled May Donoghue's claim to the sum of £200.

But what, I hear you ask, of the snail itself?

Its claim to fame was that it launched a million lawsuits. And it gave power to the modern consumer.

Ginsters' snail

In 2008, 21-year-old Simon Enticknap from Basingstoke bit into a Ginsters chicken and mushroom slice and found….a snail.

Even though he avoided eating it, Ginsters apologized immediately, and sent £25 in compensation.

The speed of their response was down to the Paisley snail.

But to this day, no-one knows for sure if there ever really was a snail in May Donoghue's bottle of ginger beer.

It’s (Past) Time for a Charismatic Reformation

2011-11-14T12:04:00.002+08:00

Published by CharismaNews on 27 October 2011. By J. Lee Grady.

In honor of Reformation Day, here are some complaints I’m nailing on the Wittenberg door.

Long before there was an Occupy Wall Street, Martin Luther staged the most important protest in history. He was upset because Roman Catholic officials were promising people forgiveness or early escape from purgatory in exchange for money. So on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a long list of complaints on the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany.

Luther’s famous 95 theses were translated from Latin into German and spread abroad. Like a medieval Jeremiah, Luther dared to ask questions that had never been asked, and he challenged a pope who was supposedly infallible. Through this brave monk, the Holy Spirit sparked the Protestant Reformation and restored the doctrine of grace to a church that had become corrupt, religious, dysfunctional, political and spiritually dead.

I am no Luther, but I’ve grown increasingly aware that the so-called “Spirit-filled” church of today struggles with many of the same things the Catholic church faced in the 1500s. We don’t have “indulgences”—we have telethons. We don’t have popes—we have super-apostles. We don’t support an untouchable priesthood—we throw our money at celebrity evangelists who own fleets of private jets.

In honor of Reformation Day, I’m offering my own list of needed reforms in our movement. And since I can’t hammer these on the Wittenberg door, I’ll post them online. Feel free to nail them everywhere.

1. Let’s reform our theology. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is God and He is holy. He is not an “it.” He is not a blob, a force, or an innate power. We must stop manipulating Him, commanding Him and throwing Him around.

2. Let’s return to the Bible. The Word of God is the foundation for the Christian experience. Any dramatic experience, no matter how spiritual it seems, must be tested by the Word and the Holy Spirit’s discernment. Visions, dreams, prophecies and encounters with angels must be in line with Scripture. If we don’t test them we could end up spreading deception.

3. It’s time for personal responsibility. We charismatics must stop blaming everything on demons. People are usually the problem.

4. Stop playing games. Spiritual warfare is a reality, but we are not going to win the world to Jesus just by shouting at demonic principalities. We must pray, preach and persevere to see ultimate victory.

5. Stop the foolishness. People who hit, slap or push others during prayer should be asked to sit down until they learn gentleness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

6. End all spiritual extortion now. Christian television ministries must cease and desist from all manipulative fundraising tactics. We must stop giving platforms to ministers who make outlandish claims of supernatural financial returns, especially when Scripture is twisted, deadlines are imposed and the poor are exploited.

7. No more Lone Rangers. Those who claim to be ministers of God—whether they are traveling evangelists, local pastors or heads of ministries—must be accountable to other leaders. Any who refuse to submit their lives to godly discipline should be corrected.

8. Expose the creeps. Churches should start doing background checks on traveling ministers. Preachers who have been hiding criminal records, lying about their past marriages, preying on women or refusing to pay child support should be exposed as charlatans and shunned if they do not repent.

9. Stop faking the anointing. God is God, and He does not need our “help” to manifest Himself. That means we don’t sprinkle glitter on ourselves to suggest God’s glory is with us, hide fake jewels on the floor to prove we are anointed or pull chicken feathers out of our sleeves to pretend angels are in the room. This is lying to the Holy Spirit.

10. Let’s return to purity. We’ve had enough scandals. The charismatic church must develop a system for the restoration of fallen ministers. Those who fall morally can be restored, but they must be willing to submit to a process of healing rather than rushing immediately back into the pulpit.

11. We need humility. Ministers who demand celebrity treatment, require lavish salaries, insist on titles or exhibit aloofness from others are guilty of spiritual pride.

12. No more big shots. Apostles are the bondslaves of Christ, and should be the most impeccable models of humility. True apostles do not wield top-down, hierarchical authority over the church. They serve the church from the bottom up as true servants.

13. Never promote gifts at the expense of character. Those who operate in prophecy, healing and miracles must also exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. And while we continue to encourage the gift of tongues, let’s make sure we don’t treat it like some kind of badge of superiority. The world needs to see our love, not our glossolalia.

14. Hold the prophets accountable. Those who refuse to take responsibility for inaccurate statements should not be given platforms. And “prophets” who live immoral lives don’t deserve a public voice.

15. Let’s make the main thing the main thing. The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s anointing is to empower us to reach others. We are at a crossroads today: Either we continue off-course, entertained by our charismatic sideshows, or we throw ourselves into evangelism, church planting, missions, discipleship, and compassionate ministry that helps the poor and fights injustice. Churches that embrace this New Reformation will focus on God’s priorities.

J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady. He expounds on these topics in his 2010 book The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale (Chosen).

Britain, You Can Keep The Money.

2011-11-12T15:39:00.003+08:00

Published by The Guardian UK on 30 October 2011.

Countries that ban homosexuality risk losing aid, warns David Cameron

Britain has threatened countries that ban homosexuality with losing aid payments unless they reform, David Cameron has said.

But he conceded that "deep prejudices" in some countries meant the problem would persist for years.

The prime minister said he had raised the issue with leaders of some of the states involved when he attended the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Australia.

Britain was "putting the pressure on", he said. But it was not a problem that would be solved by the time Commonwealth leaders are next due to meet, in Sri Lanka in 2013.

Cameron warned Sri Lanka to improve its human rights record or face boycotts of the 2013 summit. He declined to discuss whether the UK could stay away but said he shared a "similar view" to that of the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, who has said he will not attend.

Ending bans on homosexuality was one of the recommendations of a highly critical internal report on the future relevance of the Commonwealth, written by experts from across the member nations.

"We are not just talking about it. We are also saying that British aid should have more strings attached," Cameron said on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show in an interview recorded at the summit in Perth.

"This is an issue where we are pushing for movement, we are prepared to put some money behind what we believe. But I'm afraid that you can't expect countries to change overnight.

"Britain is one of the premier aid givers in the world. We want to see countries that receive our aid adhering to proper human rights. We are saying that is one of the things that determines our aid policy, and there have been particularly bad examples where we have taken action."

Law Awareness Campaign

2011-11-11T14:28:00.002+08:00

Venue: Giant Plentong, Plentong, Johor Bahru, Johor

Date: 13 November 2011 (Sunday)

Time: 10 am to 6 pm

For enquiries, please contact:

LEGAL AID CENTRE

Pusot Bantuan Guamsn

Tingkat 5, Mahkamah Sesyen & Mqjistret

Jalan Ayer Molek, 80000 Johor Bahru.

Telephone: 07-2285698

Facsimile: 07-2269024

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender story

2011-11-07T12:58:00.003+08:00

Published by Free Malaysia Today on 7 November 2011.

From Nawawi Mohamad, via e-mail

While the Bar Council has defended the Merdeka Sexuality Festival, Ambiga Sreenevasan has supported it and the country’s number two cop had announced that it has been banned, many of us do not really know how difficult and how bad is it to be a LGBT.

Islam prohibits this kind of relationship between people of the same sex. However Islam does deal with individuals who face this kind problem in determining their gender. The point is Islam tackles the issue at its bud. Unfortunately the authorities have not really put a serious effort in solving the issues. But this is typical of the Umno-BN government; they never really resolve any issues.

The problem with the LGBT people is that their problems started from adolescence up to old age but the damage will also affect others from the start and continue even after their death simply because by having a group of LGBT in any community it adds to the already so many problems.

This way of life is not right. They have no moral right to exist in society simply because their way of life is immoral. The problem needs immediate and urgent attention by the relevant authorities before it is too late but. The problem needs to resolved humanely.

Growing up being different is not easy. Studies have shown that LGBT youth are at increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviour.

LGBT youths face an increased risk of violence, compared with other students. Violence can include behaviors such as bullying, teasing, harassment and physical assaults. This is especially true in schools where signs of weakness or difference attract bullies like moths to the flame.

Starting from this young age LGBT individuals face the ‘coming out problems; the process of acknowledging your own sexual orientation or gender identity, deciding whom to talk about it with and how you can do that. Coming out is in reality a process which occurs again and again throughout life for most LGBT individuals. Some will take their entire lives to just trying hard to be indentified and acknowledged by society. The not so long ago on the death of “Aleesha” proved the point.

As they grow up, they will faced with more difficulties. Multiple studies have established that homosexual conduct, especially among males, is considerably more hazardous to one’s health than a lifetime of chain smoking. While the medical consensus is that smoking knocks several years off an individual’s life expectancy, the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE) study found that homosexual conduct shortens the lifespan of “gays” by an astounding “8 to 20 years” – more than twice that of smoking. They are at a higher risk of getting AIDS and other sexual transmitted diseases. AIDS have been confirmed as a gay disease.

While some do have proper employment, many are not so fortunate. How can one have a successful education, with self-confidence when there are many problems other than that faced by a normal person? Due to this inherent disadvantage, the LGBT people will not be able to acquire the relevant qualifications and find it hard to find decent jobs thus many ended up in massage parlours or become sex workers, and adding to more negative things in their lives.

Studies comparing the normal women with the lesbian and bisexual women show that the latter have a higher risk of contracting uterine, breast, cervical, endometrial and ovarian cancers. They are less likely to become pregnant, thus do not benefit from the hormones released during pregnancy that protect against breast and ovarian cancers.

LGBT people will forever have relationship problem because of their stigma in society; they will always have difficulties in their ability to form and maintain wholesome relationships. They will also be faced with the nagging question whether or not their sexual behaviour is natural, compulsive or reactive.

They will keep wondering whether monogamy work would work because they have chosen this option. Despite the legitimacy given by some public figures, the happy front the LGBT people try to portray, their self-esteem will never be high, and they will always be looked down upon.

Those who are fortunate to be legally married will always want to have a complete life; have a family. The whole idea of having a family for the LGBT people is absurd. The child they brought up within their marriage will not be able to get a normal life like most of the kids. This is most unfair to the child who has no choice at all; things will just be imposed on the child.

The poor child will end up disillusioned and face much more challenging problems than the couple, all because of the lust and the self-interests of the parents. Their children will face serious problems as a result of the misguided sexual orientation of their parents as being normal.

LGBT people encounter the same range of traumatic events as heterosexual individuals. However, they may additionally come up against traumas specifically related to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Same-sex domestic violence will bring with it even more stigma and barriers to appropriate support. As of today there is no group of experienced people who know how to help them. They will automatically be neglected and left on their own. They could be rejected by society.

As they grow older things will not improve either. Towards the end they may regret for choosing that path. Being queer will end up facing queer things. As there has not been much research in determining the fate of these LGBT elderly, they will just have to face their problems on their own. They will always be regarded as low lives and deserve the consequences of their lust, stubbornness, arrogance and self interest.

By highlighting the problems faced by the LGBT people, I hope those who are considering to choose this path will think hard and think many times; it is not a correct path to choose neither will it be successful.

They can put the blame on society, but society has its own problems. On the other hand the government, religious authorities and groups who simply belittled this group of people need to prevent the problem from the start if not, nothing can be done now to reverse the fate of the LGBTs.

John Stott: Four Ways Christians Can Influence the World

2011-10-24T17:34:00.004+08:00

How we can be salt and light.

John R. W. Stott | posted 10/20/2011 10:15AM

Alienation was originally a Marxist word, and Karl Marx meant by it the alienation of the worker from the product of his labors. When what he produces is sold by the factory owner, he is alienated from the fruits of his work. But nowadays the word alienation has a much broader meaning of powerlessness. Whenever you feel politically or economically powerless, you are feeling alienated.

Jimmy Reid, the well-known Marxist counselor in Glasgow and leader of the Clydeside Ship Workers, when he was rector of Glasgow University, said, "Alienation is the cry of men who feel themselves to be the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. Alienation is the frustration of ordinary people who are excluded from the processes of decision-making." Have we any influence? Have we any power? That's the question.

The word influence can sometimes be used for a self-centered thirst for power, like in Dale Carnegie's famous book How to Make Friends and Influence People. But it can also be used in an unselfish way of the desire of Christians who refuse to acquiesce to the status quo, who are determined to see things changed in society and long to have some influence for Jesus Christ. Are we powerless? Is the quest for social change hopeless before we begin? Or can Christians exert some influence for Jesus Christ?

There is a great deal of pessimism around today that grips and even paralyzes people. They wring their hands in a holy kind of dismay. Society is rotten to the core, they say. Everything is hopeless; there is no hope but the return of Jesus Christ. As Edward Norman, dean of Peter-house in Cambridge, once said in a radio interview, "People are rubbish."

But people are not rubbish. People are men and women made in the image of God. Indeed they are fallen, but the image of God has not been destroyed. Are they capable of doing no good? The doctrine of total depravity, which means that every part of our human being has been tainted by the Fall, does not mean that we're incapable of doing any good. Jesus himself said that although you are evil, you are able to do good things and give good gifts to your children. Now, of course we believe in the Fall. We believe that when Christ comes again he is going to put things right. If you develop a Christian mind, you don't concentrate exclusively on the fall of man and the return of Christ. You also think about the creation and about the redemption through Jesus Christ. And we have to allow the creation to be, as it were, qualified by the Fall, and the Fall by the Redemption, and the Redemption by the Consummation. And the Christian mind thinks in terms of this total purpose of God, which includes the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption, and the Consummation.

If we are pessimists and think we are capable of doing nothing in human society today, I venture to say that we are theologically extremely unbalanced, if not actually heretical and harmful. It's ludicrous to say Christians can have no influence in society. It's biblically and historically mistaken. Christianity has had an enormous influence on society down through its long and checkered history. Look at this conclusion of Kenneth Latourette in his seven-volume work on the history of the expansion of Christianity:

No life ever lived on this planet has been so influential in the affairs of men like the life of Jesus Christ. From that brief life and its apparent frustration has flowed a more powerful force for the triumphant waging of man's long battle than any other ever known by the human race. By it millions have been lifted from illiteracy and ignorance and have been placed upon the road of growing intellectual freedom and control over the physical environment. It has done more to allay the physical ills of disease and famine than any other impulse known to man. It's emancipated millions from chattel slavery and millions of others from addiction to vice. It has protected tens of millions in exploitation by their fellows. It's been the most fruitful source of movement to lessen the horrors of war and to put the relations of men and nations on the basis of justice and of peace.

Christ and his church have had an enormous influence. And if only we were out and out for Jesus Christ in the fullness of our commitment, then we would have far more influence than we do.

So, away with pessimism, and away also with blind optimism, as if we thought utopia was around the corner. No, Christians are sober-minded, biblical realists, who have a balanced doctrine of creation for redemption and consummation. We are not powerless. I'm afraid what we are, rather, is often lazy and shortsighted and unbelieving and disobedient to the commission of Jesus.

Beyond Mere Survival

To many of us, the verses of Matthew 5 are becoming increasingly familiar. We see their great importance today, and we begin to look at them again. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims, in verse 13: "You are the salt of the earth." Verse 14: "You are the light of the world." Verse 16: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven" (ERV).

In both these metaphors of the salt and the light, Jesus teaches about the responsibility of Christians in a non-Christian, or sub-Christian, or post-Christian society. He emphasizes the difference between Christians and non-Christians, between the church and the world, and he emphasizes the influences Christians ought to have on the non-Christian environment. The distinction between the two is clear. The world, he says, is like rotting meat. But you are to be the world's salt. The world is like a dark night, but you are to be the world's light. This is the fundamental difference between the Christian and the non-Christian, the church and the world.

Then he goes on from the distinction to the influence. Like salt in putrefying meat, Christians are to hinder social decay. Like light in the prevailing darkness, Christians are to illumine society and show it a better way. It's very important to grasp these two stages in the teaching of Jesus. Most Christians accept that there is a distinction between the Christian and the non-Christian, between the church and the world. God's new society, the church, is as different from the old society as salt from rotting meat and as light from darkness.

But there are too many people who stop there; too many people whose whole preoccupation is with survival—that is, maintaining the distinction. The salt must retain its saltiness, they say. It must not become contaminated. The light must retain its brightness. It must not be smothered by the darkness. That is true. But that is merely survival. Salt and light are not just a bit different from their environment. They are to have a powerful influence on their environment. The salt is to be rubbed into the meat in order to stop the rot. The light is to shine into the darkness. It is to be set upon a lamp stand, and it is to give light to the environment. That is an influence on the environment quite different from mere survival.

Four Powers

What is the nature of this influence? Let me suggest to you a few ways in which we Christians have power.

First, there is power in prayer. I beg you not to dismiss this as a pious platitude. It isn't. There are some Christians who are such social activists that they never stop to pray. They are wrong, are they not? Prayer is an indispensable part of the Christian's life and of the church's life. And the church's first duty toward society and its leaders is to pray for them. "I urge, then, first of all," writes Paul in his first letter to Timothy, "that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness" (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

If there is more violence in the community than peace, more indecency than modesty, more oppression than justice, more secularism than godliness, is the reason that the church is not praying as it should? I believe that in our normal services, we should take with increasing seriousness the five or ten minutes of intercession in which, as a congregation, we bow down before God and bring to him the world and its leaders, and cry to him to intervene. And the same is true in our prayer gatherings, in our fellowship groups, and in our private prayers. I think most of us, myself included, are more parochial than global in our prayers. But are we not global Christians? Do we not share the global concerns of our global God? We should express these concerns in our prayers.

Second, there is the power of truth. All of us believe in the power of the truth of the gospel. We love to say, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16). We are convinced of the power of the gospel in evangelism—that it brings salvation and redemption to those who respond and believe in Jesus. But it isn't only the gospel that is powerful. All God's truth is powerful. God's truth of whatever kind is much more powerful than the Devil's lies. Do you believe that, or are you a pessimist? Do you think the Devil is stronger than God? Do you think lies are stronger than the truth? The Christian believes that truth is stronger than lies, and God is stronger than the Devil. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:8, "For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth." As John said in his prologue to the fourth gospel, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Of course it cannot; that light is the truth of God.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the legendary Soviet dissident, believed in the power of truth over lies. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, he gave a speech called "One Word of Truth." Writers, he says, "haven't got any rockets to blast off. We … don't even trundle the most insignificant auxiliary vehicle. We haven't got any military might. So what can literature do in the face of the merciless onslaught of open violence?" Solzhenitsyn doesn't say we haven't got any power. He says, "One word of truth outweighs the whole world." If anybody should believe that, it's Christians. It's true. Truth is much more powerful than bombs and tanks and weapons.

How are we going to see the power of truth at work? Persuasion by argument. Just as we need doctrinal apologists in evangelism to argue the truth of the gospel, so we need ethical apologists in social action to argue the truth and the goodness of the moral law of God. We need more Christian thinkers who will use their minds for Jesus Christ, who will speak and write and broadcast and televise in order to influence public opinion.

I'll give you one quick example. You cannot force people to go to church by legislation. You can't force them to rest on Sundays. Nor can we simply quote from the Bible as if that settles the matter. But we can put forward our best arguments. We can argue that, psychologically and physically, human beings need one day's rest in seven, and that socially it's good for families who are separated during the week to have a day together on Sunday. We can argue for legislation that protects workers from being compelled to work and encourages family life. In this example, we're neither imposing our Christian views, nor leaving non-Christians alone in their own views, nor quoting the Bible dogmatically. We are simply using every argument—physical, psychological, sociological—in order to commend the wisdom and truth of biblical teaching. Why? Because we believe in the power of truth.

If you doubt the power of secular forms of argument to illuminate biblical truth, then consider an article appearing in the American magazine Seventeen in 1977 called "The Case against Living Together." It's an interview with Nancy Moore Clatworthy, a sociologist at The Ohio State University. For ten years, Clatworthy had been studying the phenomenon of unmarried couples living together. When she began, she was predisposed towards the custom. "Young people," she said, "have told us it was quite wonderful." And she said she believed them. It seemed to her to be a sensible arrangement, a useful step in courtship in which couples get to know one another. But her research, involving the testing of hundreds of couples, married and unmarried, led her to change her mind. And she concluded that living together was not doing the things the couples expected it to do, especially with girls. She found them uptight, fearful, looking past the rhetoric to the possible pain and agony.

Clatworthy makes two points: In the areas of happiness, respect, and adjustment, "Couples who live together before they're married have more problems than couples who marry first." In every area, the couples who lived together before marriage disagreed more often than the couples who hadn't. Living together, she concludes, doesn't solve your problems.

Her second point was about commitment, the expectation a person has about the outcome of a relationship. Commitment is what makes marriage and living together work. But here's the problem: "Knowing that something is temporary, like living together unmarried, affects the degree of commitment to it. So unmarried couples are less than wholehearted in working to sustain and protect their relationship. And, consequently, 75 percent of them break up. And especially the girls are badly hurt." She concludes, "Statistically you are much better off marrying than living together, because for people who are in love, anything less than a full commitment is a cop-out."

Now, I don't think that Clatworthy is a Christian. Her appeal is not to the authority of Scripture but to the findings of sociology. And yet her sociological research vindicates the wisdom of Christian ethics as it applies to the institution of marriage. It reminds us that God's truth has power, in both its biblical and non-biblical guises.

Our third power as Christians is the power of example. Truth is powerful when it's argued. It's more powerful when it's exhibited. People need not only to understand the argument. They need to see the benefits of the argument with their own eyes. It's hard to exaggerate the power for good that a thoroughly Christian family can exert, for instance, in a public housing development. The whole community can see the husband and wife loving and honoring one another, devoted and faithful to one another, and finding fulfillment in one another. They see the children growing up in the security of a loving and disciplined home. They see a family not turned in on itself, but turned outward—entertaining strangers, welcoming, keeping an open home, seeking to get involved in the concerns of the community. One Christian nurse in a hospital; one Christian teacher in a school; one Christian in a shop, in a factory, or in an office—we will all make a difference, for good or for ill.

Christians are marked people. The world is watching. And God's major way of changing the old society is to implant within it his new society, with its different values, different standards, different joys, and different goals. Our hope is that the watching world will see these differences, and find them attractive, that they "may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).

Fourth, Christians have the power of group solidarity—the power of a dedicated minority. According to the American sociologist Robert Belair, at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, "We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a whole culture may be changed when two percent of its people have a new vision."

That was the way of Jesus. He began with a small group of only 12 dedicated people. Within a few years, Roman officials complained they were turning the world upside down. There is a great need for dedicated Christian groups committed to one another, committed to a vision of justice, committed to Christ; groups that will pray together, think together, formulate policies together, and get to work together in the community.

Do you want to see your national life made more pleasing to God? Do you have a vision of a new godliness, a new justice, a new freedom, a new righteousness, a new compassion? Do you wish to repent of sub-Christian pessimism? Will you reaffirm your confidence in the power of God, in the power of prayer, of truth, of example, of group commitment—and of the gospel? Let's offer ourselves to God, as instruments in his hands—as salt and light in the community. The church could have an enormous influence for good, in every nation on earth, if it would commit itself totally to Christ. Let's give ourselves to him, who gave himself for us.

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) was rector of All Souls Church in London, founder of Langham Partnership International, and the author of many books. This article is adapted from a sermon published on Christianity Today's sister website PreachingToday.com.

A stroke of searing pain

2011-10-24T14:48:00.003+08:00

Published by Free Malaysia Today. By Stephanie Sta Maria

| October 24, 2011

There are some wounds that time doesn’t heal. For these wounds the only balm is the ceasing of nightmares and the loose embrace of normality once again. But the passageway between darkness and light is never quite sealed.

Nom Khai, 26, has been traversing this passageway for the past three years. He lives mostly in the light these days but a single flashback can hurl him right back into the dark pool of pain and fear.

In October 2008, Nom Khai was en route to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to apply for his refugee card when he was stopped by police.

As a Myanmar refugee living in Malaysia for three years he was used to such occurrences and braced himself for yet another interrogation. If he was lucky he would be let off without being relieved of all his money this time.

Instead he was arrested and subsequently bundled off to a prison near Kuala Lumpur where he spent the next three months waiting to be told of his fate.

The news finally arrived and with it came the first arrow of fear. Nom Khai was to be transferred to a detention camp.

“I was taken to court where the judge passed a sentence I couldn’t understand,” he told FMT through a translator. “My translator told me it was a three-month jail term and one stroke of the cane.”

“I was scared but he tried to comfort me by saying that other detainees had received harsher punishments. What we weren’t told was the date and time of the caning.”

A typical Inmate Card provides the precise number of years and months of the penal sentence and the number of strokes but not when the sentence will be executed.

Mental torture

Caned inmates interviewed in a recent Amnesty International report, entitled “A Blow to Humanity: Torture by Judicial Caning in Malaysia”, described this indefinite period of waiting as “mental anguish” and “like waiting to be hanged”.

“At first I was calm until one of my cellmates was caned,” Nom Khai said. “I saw the pain he was in and at one point his wound was exposed. That’s when I began feeling really scared.”

“We were told that if we bribed the prison officials we wouldn’t be hit so hard. I think the fee was about RM300. I would have paid but I didn’t have any money.”

Caning officers receive regular salaries as prison officials and a bonus for each caning they perform based on the number of strokes. In 2005, the government raised that bonus from RM3 to RM10 per stroke.

Amnesty also learnt that caning officers exploit a loophole in the caning procedure whereby a stroke that misses is still counted as a stroke. For a bribe, some caning officers will agree to miss one.

But since inmates don’t know which caning officer will be assigned to them, other prison officials are used as middlemen.

Nom Khai was eventually told of his date and time of the caning a week ahead. As the day drew closer he cried himself to sleep.

“At 11am that morning 30 of us were called out and assigned numbers,” he recalled. “Mine was 12. Then we had to stand in a line outside the caning room.”

While waiting for their turn the inmates were ordered to strip and don a small loin cloth that covers the genitals but leaves the buttocks exposed. A doctor checked then checked their heart and blood pressure to certify their fitness to be caned.

“We weren’t told the reason for the examination,” Nom Khai said. “But no one was rejected.”

Completely immobilised

From the waiting area the sounds of the actual caning were clearly audible. Inmates have described it as the sound of fireworks exploding accompanied by screaming and crying.

“Boom boom boom!” Nom Khai said solemnly. His translator flinched. “Some inmates had to be carried out because they couldn’t walk or had fainted. I was finally called in at 1pm.”

Then he fell silent and stared at his hands. His subsequent narration of what took place in the caning area was succinct.

“My hands and feet were spread and tied to wooden bars. I couldn’t move. I heard the prison official shout out ‘one’ and then I felt the cane. I have never felt such pain before.”

The Amnesty report has chronicled the events from the waiting area to the caning area. According to the interviewees, when an inmate enters the caning area a prison officer reads the sentence aloud after which the inmate is forced to respond, “Terima kasih, tuan”.

The inmate is then taken to a scaffolding of an A-frame truss where his hands and legs are tied, a belt is fastened around his waist and an open panel is placed around his buttocks.

Inmates told Amnesty that the restraints rendered them completely immobilised and the resulting sense of powerlessness was terrifying. The report went on to describe the excruciating details of the caning.

“Once the inmate is secured a guard counts out the strokes. At each count the caning officer lifts his cane, takes a full-body twirl and lands the end of his cane directly on the victim’s buttocks,” the report said.

“The canes are over one metre long, 1.25cm in diameter and rinsed in saltwater so it is heavy. It travels up to 160 kilometres per hour to shred the victim’s naked skin, turn the fatty tissue into pulp and leave permanent scars that extend all the way to muscle fibres.”

Bucket of iodine

The report added that the impact of the caning causes the inmate to lose muscle control in the buttocks and at times even over his urinary and bowel functions. Nom Khai nodded silently when asked if this account was accurate.

“Before we left the area we had to bend over in front of a guard who dipped a paint brush in a bucket of iodine and brushed it over our wounds,” he said. “That was all the medical treatment we got.”

“I had to lie on my stomach for the first week and I was only able to sit after a few weeks. The scar is still visible and even now it hurts if I sit for too long.”

Since no special clothing is provided to the caned inmates, they cut out the seat of their pants to avoid the cloth from sticking to the wound.

Nom Khai was released four days after his caning and promptly sold to a syndicate in Thailand by, he alleged, Malaysian authorities. FMT was unable to verify this claim. But he returned to Malaysia within a week.

“I’m seeking asylum in the US,” he explained. “As soon as I am granted it, I will bring the rest of my family to Malaysia and we will leave together. I don’t want to live here anymore.”

Since his detention, Nom Khai has been arrested five more times but none resulted in another caning sentence. He continues to live in fear but insisted that he has no other choice.

“I left Myanmar because the junta took my father away and returned him with two broken legs,” he said. “Then the junta came for me, so I ran to Thailand and now I’m here. I’m the sole breadwinner and I’m earning more in Malaysia than I did in Thailand.”

“But it’s a difficult situation. If I return to Myanmar, I will surely be killed. If I remain in Malaysia, I am an illegal and the punishment for that is like a death sentence.”

*In 1996, amendments to the Immigration Act made caning mandatory for illegal entry and forging of immigration documents. In 2002, Parliament made immigration violations punishable by “whipping of not more than six strokes.”

Gathering of a Million Faithful 22 Oct 2011

2011-10-19T18:08:00.008+08:00

Muslim groups to flex muscle over alleged conversion attempts

A planned gathering of a million Muslims here to rally against Christians “challenging the sovereignty of Islam” this Saturday could raise religious tension that has intensified in recent months after alleged proselytising by Christians.

The Himpunan Sejuta Umat (Himpun), or Gathering of a Million Faithful, is being organised by various right-wing groups such as Perkasa with the backing of both Umno and PAS Youth in what appears to be a coming together of conservative Muslims.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/muslim-groups-to-flex-muscle-over-alleged-conversion-attempts/

Aziz Bari to be probed under Sedition Act, making a mockery of Najib's 'reforms'

In the wake of the Sultan's controversial decision which found no 'legal evidence' to punish Christians attending a dinner at the DUMC for trying to proselytize 12 Muslim guests, but yet insisted there were attempts to do, Aziz had commented the Sultan's move as "unconventional". He also said it was not wrong to criticise the Royalty.

The Jais-DUMC raid is widely perceived to be a Selangor Umno-instigated incident to drive Muslims against the Pakatan Rakyat state government ahead of general elections widely expected to be held early next year.

Umno-linked Muslim NGOs were quick to immediately arrange a Gathering of One Million Muslims rally to protest proselytizing, but the move upset Christians who said it only rubbed salt into the wound after the Sultan's accusations which they perceived to be unfair.

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=21418:aziz-bari-to-be-probed-under-sedition-act-making-a-mockery-of-najibs-reforms&Itemid=2

Christian leaders say Himpun’s fight ‘irrelevant’

Phillips, who is also the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) president, agreed the gathering could raise tempers and provoke religious tension between those of different faiths.

“We have a healthy, democratic society where everyone has a right to express their feelings but we need to be careful in what we say and do and our intentions must be made clear,” said the former Council of Churches Malaysia (CCM) president.

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/christian-leaders-say-himpuns-fight-irrelevant

'Negara Kristian': MP gesa permit Utusan digantung

Ahli parlimen Jelutong, Jeff Ooi menuntut kerajaan supaya menggantung permit penerbitan Utusan Malaysia yang didakwa menerbitkan berita palsu berhubung dakwaan rancangan penubuhan negara Kristian.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/179082

No risk of Christianisation, says Anwar

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) said today it will not support Saturday’s gathering of a million Muslims as Islam is not facing the threat of Christianisation.

Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim told a press conference today that there was no reason to fear the church as “we have all the power and laws to enhance the understanding of Islam but it has not been done” by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.

“Instead, those in power only inculcate fear. We have never believed that Islam is being threatened by Christianisation,” the PKR de fato leader said.

The Himpunan Sejuta Umat (Himpun) or Gathering of a Million Faithful, is organised by various right-wing religious groups calling for Muslims to rise up against the “challenge of Christianisation.”

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/no-threat-of-christianisation-says-anwar/

Himpunan Sejuta Umat’ diingat tidak menimbulkan ketegangan

PAS Selangor mengingatkan penganjur Perhimpunan Sejuta Umat (Himpun) supaya berhati-hati dengan acara tersebut dan tidak menimbulkan ketegangan antara agama di negeri itu.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/10/17/himpunan-sejuta-umat-diingat-tidak-menimbulkan-ketegangan/

Soi Lek: Anti-apostasy rally dangerous

Voicing his objection to the anti-apostasy public rally, MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek warned that racial and religious harmony can be easily destroyed.

He was referring to the Himpunan Sejuta Ummah (Gathering of a Million Muslims) to be held this Saturday in Shah Alam.

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/2011/10/19/mca-says-no-to-anti-apostasy-rally/

The time is… not yet? (The Problems and Peculiarities of Proselytization) - By Rev Eu Hong Seng

Today, while the United States has lost its “Triple A” rating, we the Church in Malaysia have been unceremoniously bestowed a “Triple A” quandary – we have had the Allah issue, then the Alkitab issue, and now the Apostasy issue.

The present crisis in Europe and the US mostly centres on economics and politics. I believe Malaysia is facing a similar crisis, except that religious strife has been a good cover-up for harder issues.

In December 1998, during the CFM’s annual Christmas function held at the Catholic Cardign House, I recall asking our then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed, if he felt there would ever come a time when Muslims could decide for themselves what to believe in. He quipped, “The time is … not yet.”

http://goodtimes.my/index.php/Politics-Government/the-time-is-not-yet-the-problems-and-peculiarities-of-proselytization.html

And this is Malaysia

A gathering dubbed Himpunan Sujuta Umat (Himpun), which aims to gather a million Muslims against alleged Christian proselytising, will be held at the Shah Alam Stadium on Saturday. That is the focus of the Malays, kaypoh into other people’s affairs. Now see what is happening all over the world, which the Malays do not seem to care about. And we want the Malays to progress like this?

http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/no-holds-barred/44257-and-this-is-malaysia

CLM Talk on "Journeying Together" (Recovery from Same Gender Attraction)

2011-10-05T10:51:00.006+08:00

Date: 12 November 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 9.30 am to 1 pm

Venue: Pusat Aktiviti Calvary, No. 20, Jalan PJU8/5G, Damansara Perdana, PJ.

Fee: RM40 per person (inclusive of materials and tea)

Tel: 03-7710 3360

Topics:

1) Same gender attraction - characteristics, issues & struggles.

2) How Support Group helps those seeking genuine change.

3) Process of journeying.

4) How can Christians respond and journey with those struggling.

Singapore under pressure to abolish security law

2011-09-20T10:39:00.003+08:00

By Agence France-Presse, Updated: 9/18/2011

Human rights and opposition groups say Singapore needs to keep up with the times and abolish the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial and is seen by critics as an instrument to stifle dissent.

In a surprise move, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said last week his government would scrap the ISA and ease other laws perceived as curbs on civil liberties, including protest rules and annual newspaper licensing.

But Singapore insists the ISA, which was used against leftists in the past and suspected Islamic extremists in recent years, remains relevant and maintains that media regulations are needed to preserve social cohesion.

The city-state's longest-held ISA detainee was Chia Thye Poh, a former Socialist Party MP who was held for 23 years from 1966 to 1989, followed by nine more years of effective house arrest.

Even now all protests outside a designated free-speech zone -- where speakers must register with authorities in advance -- still require a police permit in Singapore.

The ISA was originally designed to fight communist insurgents in the 1960s in British-ruled Malaya, which included modern-day Malaysia and Singapore.

Singapore became independent in 1965 after being ejected from the Malaysian federation, but both countries retained the ISA.

Najib said that after repealing the ISA, Malaysia will introduce new legislation retaining some preventive detention powers but for shorter periods and subject to more court oversight.

"In a way Najib is taking the cue from civil society groups in his country," said Sinapan Samydorai, director for Southeast Asian affairs at Think Centre, a Singapore-based political and civil rights campaign group.

"If Malaysia is opening up, then I think they are moving ahead. It's also time for Singapore to move ahead," he told AFP.

Singapore defends the ISA. Last week, authorities disclosed three suspected Islamist militants were being held under it after they were repatriated to the city-state.

Two belonged to the Southeast Asia-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network and the third is a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an armed group waging an insurgency in the southern Philippines.

In a statement on Friday, Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said the ISA had been used "sparingly" and was aimed at fighting "threats of subversion, racial and religious extremism... espionage and terrorism," not political dissent.

"No person has ever been detained only for their political beliefs," the ministry said, referring to criticism that the ISA was used in the past to detain government opponents and intimidate the population.

Samydorai said the results of parliamentary elections in May and the presidential poll in August, when the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) recorded its worst-ever showings, showed that Singaporeans, especially the young, want greater political freedom.

"Governments in Asia are realising that young people cannot tolerate non-democratic practices anymore," he said.

In May, the PAP lost an unprecedented six seats in the 87-member parliament and its share of the popular vote fell to 60 percent, its lowest in 52 years in power.

Three months later, the party's de-facto candidate in the four-man contest for the presidency -- the head of state -- won by a razor-thin margin after garnering just 35.2 percent of votes cast.

Government critics have been emboldened by the poll results and independent political websites are starting to buzz with calls for the ISA's abolition.

"Singapore will be making a quantum leap towards improving its human rights record if (the government) decides to imitate Malaysia in abolishing the ISA," wrote Ann Xavier in The Online Citizen.

"A first world country like Singapore should not be keeping third world laws to repress its political opponents."

According to critics, the ISA is not Singapore's only repressive legislation.

The mainstream media is tightly controlled, and opposition figures have on occasion been bankrupted in libel actions brought by senior government officials -- which bars them from being MPs or parliamentary candidates.

Chee Soon Juan, who is secretary general of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party and has been made insolvent for exactly that reason, said "times demand" that the ISA be abolished.

"Repressive laws that instil fear and stifle independent thinking have no place in the modern world," he told AFP.

Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam -- whose father and predecessor J.B. Jeyaretnam was also bankrupted in a defamation suit -- said the ISA should be replaced with laws to fight terrorism while safeguarding basic human rights.

Abolishing the ISA and related legislation was "long overdue", he said, calling for "the restoration of our fundamental constitutional rights to freedom of association and expression".

On The Eve Of Malaysia Day 16 September 2011

2011-09-15T23:56:00.005+08:00

Najib disappoints again: Glamour ISA announcements but little real change

Prime Minister Najib Razak's promise to repeal the Internal Security Act 1960 and several other oppressive laws were cautiously greeted by PKR leaders as a victory for the people, including the thousands of activists both local and foreign who fought through the decades for their removal.

However, they slammed Najib for trying to give a false impression to Malaysians that they could look forward to greater democracy, when effectively, there was little real change and a possibility that new laws made to replace the ISA could contain similarly oppressive clauses.

Najib announces repeal of ISA, three emergency declarations

Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced tonight the repeal of the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) and the three Emergency Declarations when both the Dewan Negara and Dewan Rakyat have their next sitting.

The prime minister said that new laws will be enacted to protect the peace, harmony and security of the country.

He also announced that the government will do away with annual printing and publishing permits with permits that can be cancelled if regulations are flouted.

Najib acknowledged in his address to the nation on the eve of Malaysia Day that the move to increase civil liberties was “risky, but we are doing this for our survival.”

“No individual will ever be detained simply due to political ideology,” he said in his speech that was broadcast live on all local television stations.

The move to scrap the law has been hailed by ex-ISA detainee and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng as “an epochal move.”

K'jaan mansuhkan ISA dan Akta Buang Negeri

"Sehubungan dengan itu lagi, kita tidak akan teragak-agak untuk meminda atau memansuhkan undang-undang yang tidak lagi relevan," tambahnya.

Kajian semula komprehensif itu akan melibatkan Akta Kediaman Terhad 1933 dan Akta Mesin Cetak dan Penerbitan 1984 di mana prinsip pembaharuan tahunan akan dihapuskan dan digantikan dengan pengeluaran lesen sehingga dibatalkan.

Kerajaan juga akan mengkaji semula seksyen 27 Akta Polis 1967 dengan mengambil kira peruntukan Perkara 10 Perlembagaan Persekutuan tentang kebebasan berhimpun dengan prinsip menentang sekeras-kerasnya demonstrasi jalanan.

Baca selanjutnya: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/175950

ISA abolished, host of changes promised

Najib said the parliamentary motion to lift the Emergency proclamations will be made under Clause 3, Article 150 of the Federal Constitution, and was in line with the people’s aspiration for Malaysia to be more open and its democracy, more dynamic.

“As many are aware, only the emergency proclamation made following the confrontation in 1964 had been implicitly revoked, while the other emergency proclamations are regarded to be in force until today,” he said.

He said, realising that Malaysia had changed over the years and in line with the people’s aspirations based on the universal philosophy on democracy, the government would table in the lower and upper houses of parliament for the three emergency proclamations to be revoked.

Clause 3, Article 150 of the Federal Constitution gives the power to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to revoke the emergency proclamations and ordinance, or these to be ineffective if decided by parliament.

Najib's Speech Could Open Door to Malaysia Reforms

Still, depending on how far Mr. Najib is prepared to go, Thursday's speech could go some way toward repairing the poisonous atmosphere in the country, and also help Mr. Najib ensure that he can make his own mark on determining the country's future direction.

"This really could be a turning point for Malaysia," Singapore Management University's Ms. Welsh said.

Sexual anarchy: The Kinsey legacy

2011-08-25T20:02:00.001+08:00

August 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Our children are under attack by an insidious and virulent enemy.

On August 17, 2011, more than 50 activists attended a conference for “minor-attracted adults,” i.e., pedophiles, which sought to eliminate the “stigma” attached to pedophilia and to redefine pedophilia as a normal “sexual orientation.” The United States Department of Justice has determined that 64 percent of forcible sodomy victims are boys under the age of 12 and that 58,200 children were kidnapped by non-family members in 1999.

So-called “experts” in the field of human sexuality claim that children are sexual not only from birth, but even in the womb and are willing participants in sexual acts with adults.

Children are encouraged to experiment with sex early and often and to engage in sex with members of the same-sex as well as the opposite sex. Sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers are at epidemic proportions, and new and sometimes fatal strands of diseases are being reported. More than 50,000 teens have contracted HIV which has advanced to full blown AIDS and by 1992 more than 7,000 boys and 1,500 girls have died from HIV/AIDS.

How did we get here? How do we stop the madness before we lose an entire generation?

The question of how we got here can be answered by two words: Alfred Kinsey. Even 55 years after his death, Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey continues to profoundly affect American culture. Two of his most ardent supporters, Dr. Carol Vance, Columbia University anthropologist and lesbian activist, and Dr. John Money, an “out” pedophile advocate and pioneer of transgender surgery at Johns Hopkins, have cogently summed up Dr. Kinsey’s legacy – a legacy they consider sexual “progress” but is in reality sexual anarchy.

Speaking at a 1998 Kinsey symposium of fellow sexologists at San Francisco State University, Dr. Vance said, “Biography is the battleground.”[1] Should Kinsey be discredited, she warned, “200 years of sexual progress can be undone.”

Dr. Vance’s statements echo comments made in 1981 by Dr. Money at the 5th World Congress of Sexology in Israel. They also agreed that the information contained in Table 34, below, and the other data chronicling Kinsey’s and his team’s widespread child abuse, described in detail in Kinsey’s 1948 study on male sexuality, would be the undoing of the “Pre and Post Kinsey eras” globally and in the USA.

In fact, Dr. John Bancroft, director of the Kinsey Institute said at the 1998 conference, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of Kinsey’s studies, that he “prayed” that a British television program, “Secret History: Kinsey Paedophiles,” would never be shown in the United States because the public would not understand the “science” involved in Kinsey’s publication of tables 30-34. He understood that should those tables be widely publicized in the United States, then the whole field of human sexuality and human sex education would be destroyed.

This field of human sexuality and human sex education and 200 years of “sexual progress” that these elite “scientists” were so worried would be destroyed is better described as sexual anarchy. This sexual anarchy that has given these scientists and their followers prestige, money, credibility and control over the deconstruction of the Judeo-Christian civil society was crafted by Dr. Kinsey.

A gall-wasp zoologist at Indiana University from 1920 to his death in 1956, Dr. Kinsey is most famous for his earth-shaking books, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)[2] and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953),[3] funded by Indiana University and the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Kinsey said that his mission was to eliminate the sexually “repressive” legal and behavioral legacy of Judeo Christianity. He claimed that this “repressive” sexual legacy was responsible for socio-sexual ills like divorce, rape, illegitimacy, venereal disease, juvenile delinquency, promiscuity, homosexuality, adultery, and child sexual abuse.

Furthermore, he argued that if we Americans would admit that we really were engaged in widespread licentious conduct, instead of hypocritically denying it, then these socio-sexual ills would be dramatically reduced.

In large measure, Dr. Kinsey’s mission has been accomplished, mostly posthumously, by his legion of true believers–elitists who have systematically brainwashed their fellow intellectual elites to adopt Kinsey’s pan-sexual secular worldview and jettison the Judeo Christian worldview upon which this country was founded and flourished.

The result of Dr. Kinsey’s mission has been totally antithetical to the utopia he predicted. Instead of reducing the socio-sexual ills that he claimed were rampant in pre-Kinsey America, the implementation of the Kinsey worldview has increased extant global sexual trauma while ushering in a host of new ills that are objectively defined as sexual anarchy. Like a cancer spreading throughout the body, sexual anarchy has spread throughout the fabric of society, affecting every aspect of American life and every man, woman and child.

According to the Rockefeller-funded Kinsey “study,” his “science” proved that humans had all along been copulating like insects or monkeys but systematically and hypocritically lying about their conduct. Adults claimed they were virgins, or maritally faithful, but, according to Kinsey, the truth was that most people were promiscuous and the widespread promiscuity had done no harm to the civil society.

Therefore, Kinsey said, all of the laws restraining sexual behavior–the laws that had favored and protected women, children and the family for generations –were simply old-fashioned leftovers from an uninformed and hypocritical era. Such sex laws were no longer valid in a “sexually enlightened and honest era.”

Enter “Kinsey’s pamphleteer,” Hugh Hefner and his Playboy magazine. At Kinsey’s urging, the country’s laws were gutted to resemble the free love, free life style Kinsey alleged Americans were living all along, and could finally live out with a free and open spirit–no more lies or pretense. Thus the 1955 American Law Institute Model Penal Code jettisoned the “common law” sexual standards that were based upon Biblical authority/precedent for “scientific law” based on Kinsey’s allegedly “objective data.”

The ALI recommended laws trivializing rape and allowing fornication, cohabitation, sodomy and adultery. Shortly thereafter, fornication, cohabitation and adultery were decriminalized so that they would become common, normal, and harmless, as Kinsey said they had been all along. In 1957, the United States Department of Defense used Kinsey and his team to conclude that homosexuals do not pose a security risk.

The ALI also recommended changing the definition of obscenity, which the Supreme Court did in 1960. That same year Kinsey’s claim that 10% to 37% of the male population is at least sometimes homosexual was used to promote “gay rights” in elite professions, e.g., medicine, psychiatry, social work, education, etc.

In 1961, Illinois became the first state to legalize heterosexual sodomy. In 1962 Ralph Slovenko wrote in the Vanderbilt Law Review that four or five year olds are provocateurs: “Even at the age of four or five, this seductiveness may be so powerful as to overwhelm the adult into committing the offense.”

That same year, the United States Supreme Court declared prayer in public schools unconstitutional[4] and the following year declared that Bible reading in public schools was unconstitutional.[5] The Judeo-Christian worldview was expunged from the classroom. Schools could no longer teach that fornication, adultery or cohabitation were illegal, nor could the health teachers imply that sex should be confined to marriage because that would reflect a “religious,” thus allegedly a non-scientific, worldview.

The only avenue remaining for the teaching of human reproduction was the “scientific,” i.e., Kinseyan, secular worldview.

By 1968 over 51,000 sex professionals had been trained by the unaccredited IASHS (Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality) to teach Kinseyan sexuality in schools and medical schools and to design school sex education curricula. In 1975, the IASHS began to accredit sex educators in “safe sex” through the Ph.D. level.

Contraception became a necessity in the face of the radical changes in the sexual landscape, and so it was legalized in 1965.[6]

TABLE 34, one of five tables documenting the Kinsey team’s child sexual abuse protocol in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948).

As evidence of lack of “consent” became the only criteria for sex crimes, alleged rape victims were commonly challenged as “liking” the rough sex and as consenting to the sexual activity. Prostitution and rape were increasingly referred to as “victimless crimes” in the courts and in the media.

Thus, the right to have sex for ‘fun’ and profit became the justification for a sex industry, inaugurated by Kinsey’s publicist, Hugh Hefner, that includes child and adult pornography, exhibitionism, prostitution and strip clubs, to name a few. That industry has grown to a multi-billion dollar market, giving its purveyors the resources and clout to negotiate grants to sexology research groups and organizations that create the sex education curricula for the nation’s schools, as well as access to lobbyists and, arguably, to state and federal legislators to continue to change the law to favor the sex industry’s interests.

Playboy, et. al also have funded Planned Parenthood, Sex Information & Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), the Kinsey Institute, and other “sexology” institutions. In 1967, Playboy provided the first of many grants to the ACLU to support drug use, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, school sex [mis]education and the elimination or reduction of sex offender penalties. Beginning in 1970, Playboy officially granted funds to NORML, the National Organization for the Repeal of Marijuana Laws.

The year 1969 brought about significant events related to the systematic effort to normalize homosexuality as championed by Kinsey 21 years earlier. The Gay Liberation Front was formed at the New York Alternative University. The American Sociological Association officially stated that homosexuality is normal, citing Kinsey’s “research.” The National Institutes of Mental Health Task Force on Homosexuality recommended legalizing private consensual homosexual acts (sodomy) citing to Kinsey’s “data.”[7] In 1972, the NIMH Task Force, led by Kinseyan disciples, urged that homosexuality be taught as a normal sexual variation in the nation’s schools.

“No fault” divorce was ushered in by California in 1970. By 1985, no fault divorce was the law in 49 states. This triggered a massive increase in the divorce rate and the impovertization of women and children, increasing the need for welfare and abortion, with the latter legalized in 1973.[8]

The absence of fathers in the home decreased the economic, social, emotional and spiritual home life, which triggered epidemic child sexual abuse, increased promiscuity, increased criminality–including rape and prostitution–increased venereal diseases and sterility in young women. With no father in the home, children were significantly more vulnerable to molestation by older children, which was redefined as “harmless” peer sex play by Kinsey. This “harmless” sex play led to increased rates of venereal disease, promiscuity, homosexual acting out and suicide.

These disorders then opened the door to additional, more virulent forms of mandated sex [mis]education couched as “pride” in one’s sexual “orientation,” anti-bullying, AIDS prevention and more instruction in “safe sex,” including mutual masturbation, oral and anal sodomy and viewing pornography.

By 1981 Dr. Mary Calderone, SIECUS president and past medical director of Planned Parenthood, took Kinsey one step further, asserting that children are sexual in the womb (Kinsey said children were sexual from birth).

Calderone announced that awareness of childhood sexuality was a primary goal of her organization. This set the “scientific” standard for distributing condoms to children nationwide. Therapeutic interventions were instituted to aid the now increasingly traumatized youth. Pharmocological intervention also increased, including mandated Hepatitis B vaccines for infants and HPV vaccines for elementary age children as STD “protections,” both of which were advocated in a 1977 “Child Rights” pedophile manifesto.

Hundreds of pages could be written on these issues and the additional fallout from Kinsey’s successful promiscuity propaganda that plummeted Reagan’s shining City on a Hill into a state of sexual anarchy.

We must focus now on how we stop the madness – not by ignoring the problem or by giving up in despair. God is on our side, just as He was on the side of those who founded this country. God used 56 God-fearing men to stand up to the largest imperial force in the free world and birth this great nation. He can use us to stand up against the current state of sexual anarchy, return this nation to our Judeo-Christian roots and rescue our children from the enemy who seeks to steal, kill and dstroy. As beneficiaries of God’s miraculous creation of these United States we cannot do anything less. Kinsey and his disciples at the Kinsey Institute have had more than 60 years to re-shape American culture. With Dr. Reisman’s decades of research we have the weapons to gain the upper hand, and we must band together to create the Judeo-Christian answer to the Kinsey Institute. We have the backing of the God of the universe. We can and must win this battle.

Somali mother's desperate fight to save her family

2011-08-02T20:27:00.005+08:00

Published by Mail Online on 1 August 2011. By Brian Carroll.

The Kenyan national newspaper, Daily Nation, summed it up in a lead editorial this week calling for ministerial resignations: ‘This tendency to attribute every misfortune to nature will be our downfall. We are not condemned by acts of God, but by gross mismanagement.’

The fleeing citizens of Somalia don’t even have a government to blame. Since 1991, when the first Somali refugees fled civil war and came to Dadaab, those who remained have been doomed to a dystopian nightmare, trapped between murderous militia on one side, and the onslaught of nature on the other.

A Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has been in place since 2006, but it scarcely controls a few neighbourhoods in the capital Mogadishu, a city now classified by the United Nations as the most dangerous on earth.

Somalia is the international community’s greatest failure. Experts report that a UN force of 22,500 soldiers would be required to suppress Al-Shabaab, and keep peace. Because of the United States’ €9 trillion debt and commitments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, there is no international will to invade Somalia.

Instead the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) needs €700million before December to stop deaths like Osman’s, after seven months of dry, harsh and unforgiving days.

How to donate: The Disasters Emergency Committee is an umbrella organisation for a number of leading British charities.

They include: ActionAid, Age UK, British Red Cross, Cafod, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Plan UK, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.

To make a donation call 0370 60 60 900 or text ‘CRISIS’ to 70000 to give £5. Alternatively, send a donation to PO Box 999, London, EC3A 3AA , visit www.dec.org.uk. or go to www.rescue-uk.org

Scorpenes graft: Official Secrets Act must make way for Freedom of Information

2011-07-31T16:14:00.004+08:00

Published by Malaysia Chronicle on 31 July 2011. By Maclean Patrick.

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act is indeed a step in the right way for a government to be transparent and accountable to the people it serves. It allows the people of a nation to have knowledge on the dealings of the government it has installed to look into its welfare.

Yet in Malaysia, the Official Secrets Act (OSA) may go head to head with the proposed FOI Act. The Official Secrets Act (OSA) passed in 1972 states, “any document specified in the schedule and any information and material relating thereto and includes any other official document, information, and material as may be classified as ‘Top Secret’, ‘Confidential’, ‘Secret’, or ‘Restricted’, as the case may be, by a minister, the Menteri Besar or Chief Minister of a state or such public officer appointed under section 2B”.

In 1983, a provision was added to the OSA that makes it an offense to not report anyone seeking official Information. If charged for not reporting foul play, the accused will face an $8600 fine and/or a 5-year prison sentence.

Under the OSA, the government can classify any document as “Secret” and this is a point of contention for the FOI Act. By implementing the FOI Act, the provision that allows this has to be removed and replaced with instead by a list of documents that can be classified secret.

The Schedule to the Act covers "Cabinet documents, records of decisions and deliberations including those of Cabinet committees", as well as similar documents for state executive councils. It also includes "documents concerning national security, defence and international relations"

Over the years the OSA has been used against bloggers, public documents such as toll concessionaires, water rates by a private water utility and a 433-page report of recommendations on how to fix the police force.

It is because the OSA is open to abuse by those in power, that it either has to be abolished or redesigned to allow for greater transparency and with a better classification to what can and cannot be considered state secret. With this the FOI Act can work, allowing the general public access to what and how the government is using public funds and to how the decisions came about.

http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=16811:scorpenes-graft-official-secrets-act-must-make-way-for-freedom-of-information&Itemid=2

John Stott Has Died

2011-07-30T21:09:00.004+08:00

John Stott died 27 July 2011 at 3:15 London time (about 9:15 a.m. CST), according to John Stott Ministries President Benjamin Homan. Homan said that Stott's death came after complications related to old age and that he has been in discomfort for the last several weeks.

"An evangelical is a plain, ordinary Christian," John Stott told Christianity Today in an October 2006 interview. From his conversion at Rugby secondary school in 1938 to his death in 2011 at 90 years old, Stott exemplified how extraordinary plain, ordinary Christianity can be. He was not known as an original thinker, nor did he seek to be. He always turned to the Bible for understanding, and his unforgettable gift was to penetrate and explain the Scriptures. As editor Kenneth Kantzer wrote in CT's pages in 1981, "When I hear him expound a text, invariably I exclaim to myself, 'That's exactly what it means! Why didn't I see it before?'"...

Stott was every inch an evangelical, but a reforming evangelical. He recognized that evangelicalism could and sometimes did sink down into mere piety, whereas the Bible spoke of a robust transformation of the world brought about by God's people engaged in mission. As a London pastor, Stott increasingly recognized the need for evangelicalism to reclaim its heritage of engagement with the social issues of the day.

As he told an interviewer years later, "In the early 1960s, I began to travel in the Third World, and I saw poverty in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as I had not seen it before. It became clear to me that it was utterly impossible to take that old view." The "old view" was that preaching was always a Christian's preeminent task, and that deeds of compassion were strictly secondary. As Stott probed the Scriptures, he came to believe that Jesus' Great Commission commanded Jesus' servants to carry on his entire mission, which included practical concern for life and health.

One of Stott's most significant works—and one that carried him far out of his own expertise—was the book Issues Facing Christians Today (1984), in which he attempted to address crucial concerns of contemporary society such as abortion, industrial relations, and human rights. Earlier he had written Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life (1972). In 1982, he helped to launch the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, which offered classes and lectures on a wide variety of topics relevant to life in modern society.

His greatest impact in the area of social concern came somewhat inadvertently. In 1974, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association convened an International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. About 2,500 members attended (in addition to 1,300 other participants). About half of the delegates and speakers came from Majority World countries. The gathering's wide representation resembled meetings of the World Council of Churches, but the excited atmosphere of unified mission was unprecedented. Many participants grasped for the first time the global dimensions of the evangelical church. Almost 30 years later, Philip Jenkins would write The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. But as David Jones, president of John Stott Ministries, says, at Lausanne, "Jenkins' book was there in the faces and minds of people. Lausanne showed the global church that we can work together."

CALLING FOR PUBLIC SUBMISSION OF EVIDENCE AND INFORMATION ON ALLEGATIONS OF VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS PRIOR TO AND DURING BERSIH RALLY

2011-07-25T10:58:00.004+08:00

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) has decided to conduct a Public Inquiry into allegations of violations of human rights, including, the use of excessive force by the authorities prior to and during the public assembly on 9 July 2011. The Panel of Inquiry will be chaired by the Commission’s Vice-Chairman Professor Datuk Dr Khaw Lake Tee and assisted by Commissioners Professor Datuk Dr Mahmood Zuhdi b. Abdul Majid and Mr Detta Samen.

The Commission calls for public submissions of evidence and information following the allegations of amongst others, use of excessive force by the authorities prior to and during the public assembly on 9 July 2011. Members of the public who had witnessed any acts or incidents relating to such allegations, or who believe that they may be able to give relevant information and/or documents and other evidence including video/photo recordings pertaining to these or other such allegations are invited to contact the Commission as soon as possible.

More info may be found here:

http://www.suhakam.org.my/c/document_library/get_file?p_l_id=35723&folderId=441003&name=DLFE-12503.pdf

Tributes pour in for Raja Aziz Addruse

2011-07-12T22:55:00.004+08:00

Published by The Malaysian Insider. By Clara Chooi.

KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 — Bar Council members are mourning the death of their former president Raja Aziz Addruse, describing the prominent lawyer as the “eminence grise” to the Malaysian Bar.

Wikipedia defines “eminence grise” or “grey eminence” as a French term for a highly-respected individual who was made famous for his past accomplishments and who today plays the role of a powerful adviser to those who have succeeded him.

Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee told reporters today that Raja Aziz, who died this afternoon after a long battle with cancer, had been a “fearless” man during his time and a “lawyer’s lawyer”.

“He was a leading advocate in the Malaysian Bar, a very active human rights lawyer and an inspiration to many young lawyers. We would like to convey ur deepest condolences to his family,” he said.

Council vice-president Christopher Leong said Raja Aziz (picture) had been a “leading light” in times of trouble, adding that the latter would have likely been at the forefront of the Bersih 2.0 rally last Saturday, if he had been well.

“If not for his recent illness, I can assure you that Raja Aziz himself would have been at the forefront, leading us or some of the contingent in monitoring the rally.

“He will be remembered for a very long time,” he said.

Council treasurer Steven Thiru hailed Raja Aziz as an icon to all up and coming lawyers in the country.

“The way he conducted himself in the court, the way he conducted himself outside the court... all of which are lessons to be learned.

“I will always remember him as the eminence grise to the Malaysian Bar, a lawyer set apart from other lawyers in the country,” he said.

Human Rights Society of Malaysia (Hakam) president Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, calling Raja Aziz by his nickname “Ungku”, said the latter’s work had defined the Bar in many ways.

“He was truly an inspiration and a friend to so many of us. With his passing, we have come to an end of an era. He will be sorely missed,” he said.

Raja Aziz, who died this afternoon at age 74, was the first to stay as the Bar Council’s president for three terms.

He has appeared before the courts in a variety of high-profile human rights and rule-of-law cases. He was the lead counsel for Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy I case in 1998 as well as the lead counsel for Chin Peng’s Homecoming case in 2007.

The senior constitutional lawyer had said on the last day of the 14th Malaysian Law Conference that the checks and balances that were in the 1957 constitution did not exist anymore.

Raja Aziz will be buried after Zohor tomorrow at 1pm at the Kiara Muslim Cemetery.

International News on Bersih 2.0

2011-07-12T22:27:00.003+08:00

Aljazeera: Malaysia cracks down on protesters

Police in Malaysia have fired tear gas and arrested more than 1,600 protesters in the biggest opposition-backed rally in years, demanding electoral reforms.

Organisers said up to 50,000 demonstrators massed across Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, but the police put the number at closer to 10,000.

Several senior opposition leaders were arrested in a clampdown called Operation Erase Bersih, referring to the Bersih coalition, the group that organised the rally.

According to reports those arrested included 16 children.

Ambiga Sreenavasan, head of the Bersih coalition, said that the suppression of the protests had "stirred a sense of outrage against the exhibition of raw power by our government".

The New York Times: Thousands of Malaysians Rally for Changes to Elections

MSN News: Bersih 2.0 rally for electoral reform

Guardian UK: Malaysia police detain hundreds at rally

BBC News: Malaysia: Police fire tear gas at banned

The Independent UK: Malaysia fires tear gas and arrests hundreds at protest

Aljazeera: In Pictures: Protests suppressed in Malaysia

The Telegraph UK: Malaysia police arrest 500 after street battles for electoral reform

Amnesty international: MALAYSIAN ACTIVISTS HELD IN SECRET DETENTION

The Wall Street Journal: Crackdown 2.0 in Malaysia