ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)– A Pakistani court will hear the appeal of a Pakistani woman who has been “languishing in prison since 2009” after she was sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy against Islam, amid hope her conviction may be overturned, advocacy officials involved in the case told BosNewsLife Saturday, March 15.

Asia Bibi’s appeal was due to be heard Monday, March 17, “by a double bench at the Lahore High Court”, confirmed Nasir Saeed, the Britain-based director of the Center for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS).

CLAAS Pakistan Director Joseph Francis said he was “hopeful” that “if there is no pressure on the judges by the extremists and the case is handled with care, consideration, and due diligence with the judges being left free to take their decision, her conviction will be overturned.”

Bibi has always denied that she defiled the name of the prophet Mohammed during an argument with Muslim co-workers while working in the fields, according to CLAAS, which says it supports Christians “persecuted for their faith in Pakistan.”

However a court convicted the 45-year-old mother-of-five and sentenced her to death in 2010, in a case
that attracted national and international attention.

POLITICIANS KILLED

Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, and the former governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Salmaan Taseer, were both killed in separate incidents in 2011, after openly condemning the controversial blasphemy legislation and expressing support for Bibi.

The jailed bodyguard who publicly said he shot and killed the governor, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, is considered a hero of Islam by his supporters, Christians say.

CLAAS-UK Director Saeed acknowledged it will not easy for the judges “as it is a very high profile case and the whole world will be watching.”

However, “I pray that God will fill the hearts of the judges with boldness and courage and not allow fear to rule.”

He said he hopes the court would “follow the international norms and keep only justice in the forefront when reaching a decision.” Saeed said he requested the “worldwide Church of Jesus Christ to unite [and] remember the judges and lawyers in their prayers, asking that justice is done.”

http://www.christiansincrisis.net/latest-news/2530-china-wenxi-li-uses-prison-time-to-advance-the-gospel.html

China (MNN) — A man imprisoned for his faith in China is bringing fellow inmates to Christ. According to Voice of the Martyrs USA, Chinese courts gave Wenxi Li a two-year prison term last summer for trying to set up a Christian bookstore.

His family recently shared an update with VOM, saying Li has been sharing the Gospel with fellow prisoners. As a result, several have put their faith in Christ.

Pray that these new believers will grow in their knowledge of Christ. Pray that God will use Li to disciple the new believers.

Before his arrest, Wenxi Li worked at a Christian bookstore in Beijing. In 2012, Li traveled to Shanxi province to help local Christians open a new book store in the capital city of Taiyuan. But police raided the new business, Enyu Bookstore, and confiscated $6,000 worth of books that Li had brought with him from Beijing.

When Li was asked to come retrieve the confiscated literature, they immediately arrested him upon arrival and put him in jail. Li was reportedly denied bail because of the seriousness of his “crime.”

Cai Hong Li, Wenxi Li’s wife, tells VOM that after the police arrested her husband, they told her it was became Wenxi Li was involved in an “illegal business.” However, the bookstore at which he worked has a legal license to operate, and Li wasn’t involved in managing the business.

“[Wenxi was] just sent to find a rental place for a new store,” Cai Hong Li told VOM.

Since Wenxi’s arrest, Cai Hong Li and their two children have been harassed by an

Global Rise in Use of Blasphemy Law: U.S. Report

Asif Hassan—AFP
Pakistan jails the most citizens in the world over allegedly attacking religion.

Governments around the world are increasingly invoking blasphemy laws, with Pakistan by far the country that jails the most citizens for allegedly attacking religion, a U.S. report said Thursday.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government advisory panel, voiced fear that the rise in laws banning blasphemy was leading to punishment of people who merely express different religious views or who have been falsely accused. The report found Pakistan used its controversial law at a level “incomparable” to anywhere else, listing 14 people on death row and 19 others serving life sentences for alleged blasphemy against Islam.

Pakistan has never carried out the death penalty for blasphemy, but the report charged that the law—and the lack of procedural safeguards—has contributed to an alarming number of mob attacks and vigilante violence against minorities.

Egypt has seen a rise in use of such laws since the 2011 overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak, the report said. Citing local activists, the report found blasphemy cases involved 63 people in 2011 and 2012 and disproportionately targeted the Christian minority.

The U.S. commission opposes blasphemy laws, saying they “protect beliefs over individuals.”

“This trend of greater usage of blasphemy laws will surely lead to increased violations of the freedoms of religion and expression,” said Knox Thames, the commission’s director of policy and research. “Governments will jail people, and extremists may kill others in the defense of undefined notions of religious sentiment,” he said, calling blasphemy laws “inherently problematic.”

Blasphemy is a sensitive issue for many Muslims, whose religion forbids images of Islam’s Prophet. Violent protests erupted in the Islamic world after Danish cartoons and later a low-budget film depicted blasphemous images. Pakistan in the past has urged the United Nations to make blasphemy an internationally recognized offense, arguing that insults against Islam’s Prophet are intolerable.

The commission report also highlighted Bangladesh’s arrests of three self-professed atheists last year and said Indonesia has arrested more than 120 people since 2003 for blasphemy, although they generally have not been prosecuted.

While blasphemy cases took place mostly in the Islamic world, the commission noted that Russia last year enacted a blasphemy law after punk band Pussy Riot put on a performance critical of President Vladimir Putin inside a cathedral. The report also pointed to Greece, where a man was arrested in 2012 for blasphemy after mocking a late Orthodox monk on Facebook.

Pope Francis has suggested that the Vatican could support gay civil unions in the future, according to one of the church’s most senior cardinals.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan said that the pontiff wants the Catholic Church to study same-sex unions, ‘rather than condemn them’.

Cardinal Dolan told American television that Francis wants church leaders to ‘look into it and see the reasons that have driven them.’

‘It wasn’t as if he came out and approved them,’ Dolan told NBC on Sunday. ‘He said, “Rather than quickly condemn them, let’s just ask the questions as to why that has appealed to certain people.”’

In an interview to mark his first year in the church’s top job, Pope Francis last week reaffirmed the Vatican’s opposition to gay marriage but indicated that some types of civil unions could be acceptable to the church.

The Pope restated the church’s teaching that ‘marriage is between a man and a woman,’ but added ‘We have to look at different cases and evaluate them in their variety.

Some countries justify civil unions as a way to provide the same economic and legal rights to cohabitating couples as those who are married, the Pope said in the interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then Jorge Maria Bergoglio was one of the leaders of the Catholic Church’s public charge against legalising same-sex marriage in Argentina. He called the proposed legislation ‘a destructive attack on God’s plan’.

But behind closed doors the Argentine archbishop is said to have supported civil unions for same-sex couples.

Former theology professor and gay rights activist Marcelo Marquez said: ‘He told me “I’m in favour of gay rights and in any case, I also favour civil unions for homosexuals, but I believe that Argentina is not yet ready for a gay marriage law”.’

But Francis’ comments are the first time that a Pope has indicated even tentative acceptance of civil unions, according to Vatican watchers.

Archbishop Dolan said his own view was that gay unions could ‘water down’ the symbolic meaning of traditional marriage.

‘It’s not something that’s just a religious, sacramental concern,’ Dolan said. ‘It’s also the building block of society and culture. So it belongs to culture. And if we water down that sacred meaning of marriage in any way, I worry that not only the church would suffer, I worry that culture and society would.’

Since being elected Pope last year Francis has softened the tone coming out of Rome. He told journalists that he would not ‘judge’ gays and lesbians including gay priests saying, ‘If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?’

In recognition for the perceived change in stance Francis appeared on the cover of gay magazine The Advocate as their person of the year.

The new policy, issued by NHS England to all health authorities, states that GP practices must train a “lead” member of staff to recognise patients who could become or have become linked to terror groups.

Under the new rules, if a GP practice fails to send a member of staff on the “Prevent” counter terrorism course, part of their funding will be cut.

The policy, outlined in a letter from NHS England to all clinical commissioning groups, which buy health services, has outraged GP leaders.

It is effectively asking GPs to be a government intelligence agency

Dr Maureen Baker, chairwoman of the Royal College of General Practitioners

Doctors have also warned that it could threaten patient trust if doctors are being asked to report back to the authorities.

Dr Maureen Baker, chairwoman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: “This seems to be a totally inappropriate use of GP time which could be better spent looking after patients.

“It is completely disproportionate and a poor use of GP resources and time. It is effectively asking GPs to be a government intelligence agency.”

An NHS England spokesman said: “Work on the Prevent strategy is being incorporated into NHS England’s mainstream safeguarding work.

“We are assisted by people who have the specific expertise to help us do this and they lead on training, supporting and clinical practice development of existing safeguarding leads, managers and frontline staff.”

1 ¶ For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Psalm 39 7 thru 13

7 ¶ And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.
8 Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish.
9 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.
10 Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
12 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
13 O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.

It’s Called Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome, and Yes It’s Real

By Reba Riley

If there’s one thing I know the power of, it’s a name.

For the better part of a decade I suffered from a chronic mystery illness that was attacking me from the inside out. Countless doctors and specialists couldn’t diagnose me, couldn’t give me a name for what was happening. They told me it was all in my head — that I could pull myself out of it if I just tried harder.

I believed them.

Debilitating fatigue and pain became a way of life. My physical distress was second only to the mental torture that went like this, “I am doing this to myself. I do not have an actual medical condition. These symptoms are not real. There is nothing wrong with me.”

But there was something wrong with me. After eight years of sickness, a doctor handed me a slip of paper. On the paper was the name of the disease I had been fighting; the disease that had been fighting me.

I wept with joy. (Which confused my poor doctor more than a little bit.)

I had a name. The symptoms were real. I did have a medical condition. I was not doing it to myself.

Because of the name, I found out I was not alone; there were thousands of other people dealing with the very same condition. Because of the name, I discovered community, support, resources, and treatment. Because of the name, I recovered.

Because of the name, fatigue and pain are no longer a way of life for me.

Which is why I am giving a name to a spiritual condition that is even more real and more dangerous than the disease that robbed me of my physical health for many years:

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome.

PTCS presents as a severe, negative — almost allergic — reaction to inflexible doctrine, outright abuse of spiritual power, dogma and (often) praise bands and preachers. Internal symptoms include but are not limited to: withdrawal from all things religious, failure to believe in anything, depression, anxiety, anger, grief, loss of identity, despair, moral confusion, and, most notably, the loss of desire/inability to darken the door of a place of worship.

The physical symptoms of PTCS — which may or may not be present — include: cold sweats, hives, nausea, vomiting, sexual dysfunction, sleep disturbance, rashes, heart palpitations, increased blood pressure — oh, to heck with it. The symptoms are as varied as the people who suffer them.

There are degrees of PTCS — maybe you can still walk into a church, maybe you can’t, maybe you take the long way on the highway to avoid the sight of a steeple, maybe you’re even standing in the pulpit. But the one thing we all have in common is that we crash into religion when we go looking for God.

And the crashing has left us with spiritual whiplash, broken bones, bruises, welts and lacerations. It has left us feeling alone and scared and suffering. It has left us with a boatload of internal and external symptoms the persons of spiritual authority tell us are all in our heads and would go away if we just had more faith.

Don’t believe them.

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome is not in your head, and you are not alone.

When I tackled my own case of PTCS and blogged about it (http://thirtybythirty.com/), I received story after story — in person and via email and snail mail—from people who were suffering from PTCS. Our stories may be different, but the result is the same: we yearn for God without being bound by dogma and subject to spiritual abuse.

Though I wish I could give you an answer of how to recover from PTCS in 800 words or less, I can’t. (It took me a year and a crazy journey through thirty religions to recover from my own case of PTCS.) Each journey back to spiritual health is as unique as the person taking it.

But what I can do is hand you this virtual slip of paper stating the condition you’ve been fighting — the condition that’s been fighting you. I can tell you there are thousands, maybe even millions of us. I can tell you that I recovered, that healing is available, that God will meet you wherever you are or aren’t.

But most of all, I can tell you a name. Sometimes a name is halfway to healing.

The Holy Father told the audience at Kenneth Copeland Ministries that he was speaking to them ‘heartfully’ as a ‘brother’ and that the ‘tears of love’ will help unite Christians.

by CNA/EWTN NEWS

– Shutterstock

FORT WORTH, Texas — Pope Francis sent a video message to a gathering of U.S. Pentecostal leaders, voicing his “yearning” that separation between Catholics and other Christians may end.

“We have a lot of cultural riches and religious riches. And we have diverse traditions,” he said. “But we have to encounter one another as brothers.”

“Let’s give each other a spiritual embrace and let God complete the work that he has begun,” he said, adding that “the miracle of unity has begun.”

The Pope quoted a character from Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed, who says, “I’ve never seen God begin a miracle without him finishing it well.”

“He will complete this miracle of unity,” the Holy Father said.

Pope Francis’ message was delivered to a meeting of the Fort Worth, Texas-based Kenneth Copeland Ministries by Pentecostal Bishop Tony Palmer, who had recorded it on an iPhone in a Jan. 14 meeting with the Holy Father. Palmer knew Pope Francis from his time in Argentina, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. The video was later uploaded to YouTube.

The Pope described Palmer as “my brother,” saying the two have been “friends for years.”

His message began in English, but then switched to Italian, telling his audience he would speak “heartfully” about “the language of the heart.”

He said this language has “a simple grammar,” with two rules: “Love God above all, and love the other because he is your brother and sister.”

“I am speaking to you as a brother … with joy and yearning,” the Pope continued.

“It gives me joy that you have come together to worship Jesus Christ the only Lord and to pray to the Father and to receive the Spirit,” he said. “This brings me joy because we can see that God is working all over the world.”

“We are kind of … permit me to say, separated,” the Pope said.

“It’s sin that has separated us, all our sins, the misunderstandings throughout history. It has been a long road of sins that we all shared in. Who is to blame?”

“We all share the blame,” Pope Francis said. “We have all sinned. There is only one blameless: the Lord.”

He voiced his hope that this separation between Christians ends and that communion be restored.

“Let us allow our yearning to grow. Because this will propel us to find each other, to embrace one another and, together, to worship Jesus Christ as the only Lord of history,” the Pope said.

At one point, the Holy Father referenced the Old Testament story of Joseph, saying Christians must “cry together” as Joseph did with his brothers.

“These tears will unite us, the tears of love,” he said.

Mutual Prayers

Pope Francis asked the Pentecostals for their prayers and promised to pray for them.

“I ask you to bless me, and I bless you. From brother to brother, I embrace you. Thank you,” he said.

At the end of Pope Francis’ message, the audience gave the Pope a standing ovation, and Pentecostal minister Kenneth Copeland encouraged the audience to respond to the Pope’s words.

“Come on, the man asked us to pray for him,” Copeland said with enthusiasm.

“Oh Father … we answer his request,” Copeland prayed. “And since we know not how to pray for him as we ought, other than to agree with him in his quest and his heart for the unity of the body of Christ … we come together in the unity of our faith. Halleluiah!”

He said the congregation prayed for the Pope “in the Spirit” and received “words that are not our own.”

Copeland and the congregation then began to speak in tongues.

Friendship With the Pope

Before the video, Bishop Palmer spoke of his relationship with the Catholic Church and with Pope Francis. He said he considered Pope Francis one of his three “spiritual fathers.” The two studied together and met often.

He recounted that Pope Francis called him just after Christmas 2013 and invited him to Rome.

“I said to him, ‘Pope Francis, I can’t believe that you’re phoning me. I don’t know how to react to you,” Palmer told the congregation. “I said, ‘You’re the Pope of the universal Church … 1.2 billion people. And I’m just an everyday clergyman doing his bit for the kingdom.”

He said the Pope assured him, “We are brothers. Nothing will change our friendship.”

The two met Jan. 14 and “made a covenant to work for unity for the Church.”

Though Palmer was eager to have Pope Francis make a video, he did not voice the suggestion. Rather, the Pope suggested it.

“This is history: that we’ve got a pope who recognizes us as brothers and sisters, speaks to us as brothers and sisters and has sent us a message,” Palmer said.

The Pentecostal bishop also discussed the need for Christian unity.

“I’ve come to understand that diversity is Divine. It is division that is diabolic,” he said, saying that Christian unity is “the basis of our credibility.”

Bishop Palmer cited the 1999 “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” between the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, saying it “brought an end to the protest” of the Protestant Reformation.

He called on Protestant evangelical leaders to sign the agreement, also reciting Jesus’ prayer that his disciples “may be one.”

By Ted on March 7, 2014 in General

http://shoebat.com/?p=48100&preview=true

Exclusive
By The Persecuted Christian and Theodore Shoebat

It was said that Cain lived his life as a wandering vagabond, but now we see the saints, traveling from city to city, treading upon the earth, walking on the path of uncertainty, not knowing to where Providence will lead them, without the much desired knowledge as to when the torment will cease, and the road to bliss discovered under the dark clouds of fate.

They run from the rapacious hands of wicked men; they flee to one place, and then to another city of capricious hope, and when they receive the morose and indefatigable hatred of the heathen, they flee “into another” (Matthew 10:23), without knowing as to when the sharp stones of the sons of Belial will appear to pierce the holy temples of the Holy Spirit.

Such is the existence of the Christian, whose days are just as precarious as the waves of mankind’s journey to life’s end, ascending up to the realms of vain hopes and the dimmed twilight of humanity’s night sky of ceaseless darkness, descending to the never ending waters of capricious miseries, and then transcending to the terrifying and still state of quiet despair, in the unstable seas of the purest evils.

Our contact from Syria, The Persecuted Christian, has lived in this life of uncertainty. Both his father and sister were brutally executed in the bloody Massacre of Dweir after refusing to convert to Islam. The Persecuted Christian himself went to Saudi Arabia, and when the government was getting more suppressive, we rescued The Persecuted Christian and settled him in the UK.

But The Persecuted Christian’s aunt, Nazmt Toume, fled the village of Dweir after the jihadists attacked, and resided in the Arman District, and just a day ago, she was martyred, and with the shedding of her blood, she now experiences the eternal bliss of Paradise.

She was residing in the village of Arman in Syria; the Muslim jihadists launched two rockets into the area, and one of them landed right where Nazmt was standing. Right at the moment when the rocket exploded, a car bomb erupted on the spot where the rocket landed, and she received the burning impact of the two weapons of Cain.

Her legs were severed from her body, and she bled to death.

Actual photograph of Nazmt Toume

We are working tirelessly to rescue Christians in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and other lands where the sword of Islam has been unsheathed, and Christians like Nazmt Toume, are being killed, raped, kidnapped, and tormented every single day. Rescue Christians is now working on the ground in Syria and Iraq as we are partners with Sister Hatune Dogan who already has saved thousands of Christians from death. We can save and protect many more Christians in Syria and Iraq with your help.

Sister Hatune has been awarded the Order of Merit by the German Government for her work (equivalent to Congressional Medal of Honor). Please click here to partner with us to save thousands more from the Islamic oppressors. All donations are fully Tax deductible.

Nazmt Toume’s nephew, The Persecuted Christian, who we rescued from the clutches of Saudi Arabia, the Whore of Babylon, is now very active in providing us with stories of Christian persecution in Syria, and knows innumerable Christian families in Syria.

He wrote his impactful sentiments of the deepest lamentation over the murder of his dear aunt, in these words:

Some people can’t speak about it, where does it go? The body remembers everything. Excessive amounts of time and energy are spent trying to remember conversations we once had, to create the statements that were never voiced, or to imagine reactions never received. These are heavy bricks to carry for endless days, months, or even years.

Did anyone hear the song of death? I hear it every day in Syria; I hear it sang by my beloveds, the death ghost is chasing them everywhere, saints are followed by demons. Resting in heaven, peacefully easing my mind but with conflicting thoughts that often leave much pain in a heart filled with agonies following their martyrdom.

She missed them; she missed her brother and her niece and it was her time to leave. She left quickly without a goodbye; she left with no remembered sigh. It can be more challenging to remember so-pleasant memories of the time you had with your family and relatives who passed away, while the clock is ticking hours and days to receive the shocking waves. Today my aunt passed away and May God rest her soul in heaven to light the way.

Most Death incidents help us mourn the loss of a loved one, how to cope with yearning, how to adapt to the emptiness following the death of someone so significant in your life that the mere thought of living without them feels incredibly overwhelming and incapacitating.


I realized I saw her face today
In the sparkle of the morning sun.
And then I heard the angel say
“Her work on earth is done
I thought that she had left us
For the stars so far above.
And then I heard the angel say
“She left you with her love.
I thought that I would miss her
And never find my way.
And then I heard the angel say
“She’s resting with your father and sister away”

And now we see the state of the Christian’s existence, ever watchful for the coming light of hope’s dawn, and ever knowing on the perpetual darkness that lies before his eyes. As Our Lord tells us,


Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. (Luke 13:24)

Observe that He says strive, which is quite significant; for it indicates that the life of the Christian is one of endurance, and not of comfort. Therefore, the life of a Christian is one of suffering. As Our Lord declares:


ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. (Matthew 10:22)

Life is a journey to a place where there is no end, where there is no journey. The process of the journey is worthy of the runner, who sprints through the lingering labyrinth of the race till the line of victory is met with the burning feet of the holy warrior, who strives to the narrow path that leads to everlasting life.

Will you, dear reader, run this difficult race with us, and rescue the persecuted Christians who are enduring through the narrow path? Will you run this arduous race with them? Or will you put your talent under the ground and do nothing. Will you watch your brethren lay dying and suffering on the road of tyranny, and be as the priest who, when he saw the tormented man lying alone on the lonely earth, “passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:31)? Or will you be as the Samaritan who, “when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him” (Luke 10:33-34)?

The choice is yours, to do the work of God or the work of the callous priest. Which one will you be? Please have pity on the oppressed Christians, and give what you can to deliver them from this suffering.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/03/03/poll-70-percent-of-us-millennials-say-religious-groups-alienating-youth/
March 3, 2014 11:07 AM

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Nearly one-third of Millennials who have left their childhood religion cited anti-gay teachings as a major factor, with 70 percent of young Americans agreeing that religious groups are alienating their generation.

A new survey of more than 4,500 respondents from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) shows a dramatic shift – and widening gap — in Americans’ views on gay marriage and religion. Support for same-sex marriage jumped 21 percent in the past decade, with 53 percent of those surveyed backing gay marriage.

But the most significant support of same-sex marriage comes from Millennials (ages 18 to 33), with 69 percent backing marriage between gay and lesbian couples. Millennials report a nearly 20-point gap between the views of their families and the views of their friends regarding gay marriage.

Support for gay marriage shows a massive generation gap between the Millennials and the only 37 percent of the “Silent Generation” (ages 68 and older) who show support on the controversial issue. The survey also showed a widening gap between Democrats and Republicans regarding same-sex marriage. Sixty-four percent of Democrats (64 percent) and 57 percent of independents said they support gay marriage, compared to only 34 percent of Republicans.

And Millenials reported that negative church teachings and other organized religions’ views on LGBT issues has played a role in their rejection of their respective childhood faith.

“While many churches and people in the pews have been moving away from their opposition to LGBT rights over the last decade, this new research provides further evidence that negative teachings on this issue have hurt churches’ ability to attract and retain young people,” said PRRI CEO Dr. Robert P. Jones. “Nearly one-third of Millennials who left their childhood religion say unfavorable church teachings about or treatment of gay and lesbian people played a significant role in their decision to head for the exit.”

Among Millennials who no longer identify with the religion in which they were raised, 31 percent say that negative teachings about, or treatment of, gay and lesbian people was either a somewhat important (17 percent) or very important (14 percent) factor in their disaffiliation from organized religion.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans were far more likely than other Americans to report leaving religious life – 37 percent of LGBT Americans are now unaffiliated.

A 2012 Pew Research Center poll found that one-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in the survey’s history.

In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated increased from just over 15 percent to just under 20 percent of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6 percent of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14 percent).

Researchers cited the “friends and family” effect of having close friends and family who are gay as one major factor behind growing support behind LGBT issues.

“Few changes over the last 20 years have had a more profound effect on support for same-sex marriage than the increasing number of people who now have a gay friend or family member,” noted Daniel Cox, PRRI Research Director. “The number of Americans who have a close friend or family member who is gay or lesbian has increased by a factor of three over the last two decades, from 22 percent in 1993 to 65 percent today.”

– Benjamin Fearnow

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/netanel-milesyepez/the-end-of-religion_b_4874864.html

Religion as we have known it is breaking down. The evidence is everywhere we look. It is in the despicable rhetoric and violence of politically-oriented religious extremists, far and near. It is in the scandals and abuses plaguing our current ecclesiastical structures. It is in the surface tension between the “religious right” and modern culture, in the growing indifference of that culture to religion and its occasional disgust with it. And yet, I want to make it really clear: It is not religion itself that is so evidently coming apart in all of these examples; it is an old and outworn idea of religion as an-end-in-itself, as an idol that has — for far too long — been mistaken for its maker and its goal. It is that idol which is now being broken. No, religion will go on; it is how we relate to it that will change, and must change if we are to reclaim its genuine usefulness to us.

Over a century ago, the Russian philosopher, P. D. Ouspensky, explored the symbolism of “The Tower” in the Tarot deck as an important metaphor for religion. The tower, he said, was begun in a time before memory, as a monument to the sacred, a reminder of the true tower in each of us, its every level representing a level to be climbed on the inside. But even before the foundations were fully laid, some of the builders began to “believe in the tower of stone they had built,” and to teach others to believe in the same. To them, the tower was itself sacred, and they soon tried to control access to all its doors and windows, and to occupy the summit and the very “rights to heaven,” as they saw it. They even began to fight over these rights in their confusion. Thus, of all the people of the earth, the worshippers of the tower were the most surprised when heaven spoke from beyond its walls in the form of a lightning bolt, sending its priests sprawling to the ground where they lay helpless amid the rubble. Now, says Ouspensky, all who look on its ruin and see its broken summit — open to heaven as it always should have been — know not to believe in the tower.[1]

As the metaphor suggests, the real issue is one of remembering the original function of the tower, of maintaining one’s awareness of the true meaning and purpose of religion, i.e., that it is a reminder of the sacred. The problem is, it is just so easy for us to forget that religion is not itself sacred, but merely a vessel for the sacred. Although, truth be told, I wonder how many people ever made the distinction in the first place. I don’t think I would be going out on a limb to say that religion is not well understood in our culture. Often, it is assumed to be “right” and “necessary” by the religious, or “backward” and “unnecessary” by the secular; but how many people really know anything about it in itself, about its function, or how it works? How many people, religious or secular, can actually give a working definition of religion? Perhaps if we really knew something about the true end of religion, we might better understand why religion as we have known it is currently breaking down, and more importantly, get a glimpse of what is currently evolving — namely, the religion of spirituality.

But let me back up a step and propose a working definition of religion:
Religion is a sociological construct meant to take us back to the primary experience from which it arose; it enshrines an ideal and provides one with a structured approach to spiritual awakening.

That is to say, religion is what follows in the wake of the spiritual luminary’s breakthrough experience; it is what happens after Muhammad receives his revelation, or the Buddha his awakening; it is what their disciples cobble together from reports of those experiences, using them to make a ‘map’ to lead themselves and others back to the source experience. As the Buddha himself taught: religion is like a raft one makes and uses to cross a river; once you are on the other side, you needn’t to carry it around on your back![2] Religion is just a means to an end, not the end itself.

We must always remember then that the map is not the sacred territory; it must be used by us (though with its original purpose in mind) and not the other way around. As the brilliant Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi once put it (while commenting on the abuses of various religious extremists), “Good religion puts itself in the service of God; bad religion puts God in the service of religion.”[3] It is the latter that usually has us so upset with religion, that causes us to question its foundations, and which is the cause of all that seems to be breaking down in religion. But this is religion misused and misconstrued. It is a false religion that puts the sacred in its own service. False religion is to true religion what the cancerous cell is to the healthy cell. It is this imposter that provokes our most vehement objections, and which now has us looking up at a broken tower and boldly declaring, “A new day for spirituality!” (while we wave goodbye to the “old-time religion”).
(This is part one of a three-part series of articles on The Religion of Spirituality. The second part will be called, “Spiritual and Religious.”)

References:

1. P. D. Ouspensky, The Symbolism of the Tarot: Philosophy of Occultism in Pictures and Numbers, tr. A. L. Pogossky, New York: Dover Publications, 1976: 48-49.

2. “The Raft Simile” in the Pali Alagaddupama Sutta.

3. Heard directly from Schachter-Shalomi after he gave a Yom Kippur sermon at Makom Ohr Shalom in Los Angeles, California, in which he used this formulation for the first time, ca. 2009.

It seems to appear that this Tuesday may well be a catalyst that throws the world into the proverbial abyss.
Many talking heads are talking about the financial collapse of the US starting on that day, which in turn will collapse the rest of the global economy.

Only our GOD for certain though.
We do know from Scripture that perilous times will come, we know of wars and disease, of hunger and death.
All of these things have been occurring throughout history so to say these particular events signify the Second Coming may be a bit presumptous; but we do know history does repeat itsself.
That being said, if the date setters are correct then stay tuned because it will get interesting very quickly.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2014-02-26/us-and-its-allies-had-contact-bin-laden-and-911-hijackers-many-times-911

The report that the FBI had a human resource in direct contact with Bin Laden in 1993 – and covered it up and hid it from the 9/11 Commission and Congress – is newsworthy. See this Washington Times report and NBC News coverage.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg:
Top American officials admit that the U.S. armed and supported Bin Laden and the other Mujahadin – which later morphed into Al Qaeda – in the 1970s, in order to fight the Soviets
The mainstream French paper Le Figaro alleged that the CIA met with Bin Laden himself 2 months before 9/11
According to the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, an FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. And see this Newsweek article and this New York Times report
According to the large French newspaper Le Monde, the intelligence services of America’s close ally France and of other governments had infiltrated the highest levels of Al-Qaeda’s camps, and actually listened to the hijackers’ debates about which airlines’ planes should be hijacked, and allied intelligence services also intercepted phone conversations between Al-Qaeda members regarding the attacks
According to reports from Bloomberg, an ABC News investigative reporter and others, one of the main trainers of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda worked at various times for the CIA, FBI and Green Berets
A high-level military intelligence officer says that his unit – tasked with tracking Bin Laden prior to 9/11 – was pulled off the task, and their warnings that the World Trade Center and Pentagon were being targeted were ignored
Several key employees for the defense department say that the government covered up their testimony about tracking Mohammed Atta before 9/11
The National Security Agency and the FBI were each independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind’s phone calls
According to various sources, on the day before 9/11, the mastermind told the lead hijacker “tomorrow is zero hour” and gave final approval for the attacks. The NSA intercepted the message that day and the FBI was likely also monitoring the mastermind’s phone calls
Shortly before 9/11, the NSA also intercepted multiple phone calls to the United States from Bin Laden’s chief of operations
The CIA and the NSA had been intercepting phone calls by the hijackers for years (see also this)
According to the Sunday Herald, two days before 9/11, Bin Laden called his stepmother and told her “In two days, you’re going to hear big news and you’re not going to hear from me for a while.” U.S. officials later told CNN that “in recent years they’ve been able to monitor some of bin Laden’s telephone communications with his [step]mother. Bin Laden at the time was using a satellite telephone, and the signals were intercepted and sometimes recorded.” Indeed, before 9/11, to impress important visitors, NSA analysts would occasionally play audio tapes of bin Laden talking to his stepmother.
And according to CBS News, at 9:53 a.m on 9/11, just 15 minutes after the hijacked plane had hit the Pentagon, “the National Security Agency, which monitors communications worldwide, intercepted a phone call from one of Osama bin Laden’s operatives in Afghanistan to a phone number in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia”, and secretary of Defense Rumsfeld learned about the intercepted phone call in real-time (if the NSA monitored and transcribed phone calls in real-time on 9/11, that implies that it did so in the months leading up to 9/11 as well)

Indeed, former counter-terrorism boss Richard Clarke theorizes that top CIA brass tried to recruit the hijackers and turn them to our side, but were unsuccessful. And – when they realized had failed – they covered up their tracks so that the FBI would not investigate their illegal CIA activities , “malfeasance and misfeasance”, on U.S. soil.

And former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds – deemed credible by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups – alleges that the U.S. worked with Bin Laden right up to 9/11 … and for months afterwards.

Whether or not she’s right, it’s indisputable that 9/11 was entirely foreseeable … as was Al Qaeda flying airplanes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

As is the fact that the U.S. has backed the world’s most dangerous and radical Muslim terrorists for decades.