Translate

Friday, September 30, 2016

THE SELF-ENTITLEMENT OF JOYCE MEYER'S THEOLOGY~SHE OPENS "REVIVAL" WITH SEX JOKE

images
meyer_tweet
THE SELF-ENTITLEMENT 
OF JOYCE MEYER'S THEOLOGY
BY RICHARD HAAS
SEE: http://pulpitandpen.org/2016/09/30/the-self-entitlement-of-joyce-meyers-theology/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Just earlier this month on September 13th, Joyce Meyer released her new book entitled “Seize The Day.” As it seems to be the case more and more every form of a distributor that can distribute anything seemingly “Christian” is jumping on the bandwagon of this nomenclature of sub-Christian literate.
Over the past couple of week’s Joyce Meyer has been releasing tweets on Twitter to draw attention to the publication of her book. She has been promoting her book with colorful, but often inaccurate statements.  One of those more theologically inept utterances was tweeted out on September 22nd. The shallowness of these 140 words pulls back the curtain and allows us to see one of the biggest lies in the Word of Faith theology and the movement itself — Self-Entitlement.
Teaching such as found above by Joyce Meyer in her tweet are sadly becoming more numerous by the day.  These statements by these false proclaimers of twisted truth, who worship a god, not of the Bible need to be exposed for what they are.  It is not only the tweets put out by false teachers like Joyce Meyer but her books that do extensive damage by deceiving countless numbers of people into thinking that they are following the God of the Bible, but in reality, they are following a God of their making.
As gathered from the above screenshot of Joyce Meyer’s “#SeizeTheDay” tweet we can see that it is problematic at best and heretical at worst. The meaning behind this tweet is duplicitous in its representation of God. The meaning behind this statement is simple. Joyce Meyer’s message takes and elevates man above God. It is this premise of self-entitlement puts God in the position of owning man something for man following God. In the simplest terms, it comes down to a mentality of “God owes us.”
This self-indulgent attitude towards our position before God is contrary to Scripture. We are told in Scripture (Matthew 5:12) our reward is eternal, not earthly. We are not told to “have what belongs to me as a child of God!” It is that very principle that undermines who we are in Christ. This self-indulgent attitude is a very commonly taught misconception among Word of Faith teachers and followers, the elevation of man’s position above that of Christ and even God. The Bible clearly states the opposite of what is taught by people such as Joyce Meyer. We better understand where we stand before Christ and God when we look at these verses, 1 Corinthians 7:22Ephesians 6:6; and 2 Timothy 2:24. It is made evident in these verses that we are “bond servants to Christ.” The biblical position of man in relationship to Christ is quite different than that of the position held by Word of Faith teachers.
While Word of Faith teachers like Joyce Meyer promotes a man-centered theology that concentrates on the fulfillment of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  Biblical theology proclaims our need for a Savior and the need for our self-actualization to be found in not choosing an attitude of self-entitlement, but in on of humbleness towards our Lord and Savior. Those who understand their position before Christ rightly know that we are “slaves” to Him who has saved us. We realize that we are owed nothing here on earth, that our greatest “entitlement” here on earth is to pick up our Cross and follow Him daily.
See also:


FRENCH JEWS FLEE TO ISRAEL IN RECORD NUMBERS TO ESCAPE RISING ANTI SEMITISM IN EUROPE

FRENCH JEWS FLEE TO ISRAEL IN RECORD NUMBERS TO ESCAPE RISING 

Published on May 30, 2016
France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, estimated at 500,000 to 600,000 people, and a growing number of them have effectively become internal refugees. People like Alain Benhamou, who decided to move from his home of 40 years after his second break-in, are fleeing insecurity and seeking protection in numbers in an atmosphere they say is increasingly hostile, and often expressed in relation to conflict in the Middle East.

Why 10,000 French Jews Will Move to Israel This Year
                                 

Jews Flee to Israel After French Attacks
                                 

TRUMP SUPPORTERS VIOLENTLY ASSAULTED NATIONWIDE

TRUMP SUPPORTERS VIOLENTLY ASSAULTED NATIONWIDE
Published on Sep 29, 2016
Trump Supporters are being violently attacked across the US by the so called "tolerant" left. 
REPORT BY MARGARET HOWELL OF INFOWARS

Thursday, September 29, 2016

HILLARY'S CRONY STOOGE COMEY: CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION OF FBI CONTINUES TO DISAPPOINT

CO-CONSPIRATORS
FBI's Comey: Hillary Crony
Fronts For DOJ's Loretta Lynch 
Published on Sep 29, 2016
James Comey was called before Congress again today in the face of continuing cover-ups and suspicious granting of immunity. He told the committee to stop calling him “a weasel” as he continues to prevaricate about Hillary’s felonies. We look at his ties to Hillary, and his politicization of the FBI as another Clinton surrogate uses the hearing to push for an FBI investigation of Roger Stone’s activities as a journalist.
Trey Gowdy Finds Out Department Of Justice Has Been Covering Up Hillary Clinton's Lies
Trey Gowdy Wants To Ask FBI Director James Comey If Justice Is Still Blind
Gohmert RIPS Comey: You Gave Immunity To People Who Could Have Made Your Case!

Breaking: Jason Chaffetz Proves Cheryl Mills Lied To FBI About Clintons Private Server



MICHAEL SAVAGE CENSORED AS POPE CALLS JOURNALISTS "TERRORISTS"

MICHAEL SAVAGE CENSORED AS POPE CALLS JOURNALISTS "TERRORISTS"
Published on Sep 29, 2016
Michael Savage & Alex Jones spoke 2 weeks ago about the coming censorship and 2 days ago we saw it in action as Savage had his show shut down when he began talking about Hillary’s health. But he’s not alone. Donald Trump Jr.’s social media post was censored over “copyright” 10 days after it caused a stir. And the Pope has labelled as “terrorism’ any journalism he subjectively labels as “gossip” or “rumor” (think “conspiracy theories” or “deplorable”).
SAVAGE INTERVIEWED BY ALEX JONES

TIMELY REMINDER: ALLEGED BILL CLINTON RAPE VICTIM RESPONDS TO CHELSEA: “YOUR FATHER IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR”

TOO BAD THAT EXPOSING THE CLINTONS' EVIL & CORRUPTION 
IS A PAINFUL "DISTRACTION"
$850,000 SETTLEMENT WITH RAPE VICTIM BRINGS THEM TO TEARS, BUT NOT THE RAPE
PLAYING THE VICTIMS 
IS TYPICAL DEMOCRAT FORM
CHELSEA IDENTIFIES CLINTON FAMILY WITH MINORITIES ALLEGEDLY ABUSED BY TRUMP
Alleged Bill Clinton Rape Victim Responds to Chelsea: "Your Father is a Sexual Predator"
ALLEGED BILL CLINTON RAPE VICTIM RESPONDS TO CHELSEA: 
“YOUR FATHER IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR”

Juanita Broaddrick: "Your parents are not good people"

BY PAUL JOSEPH WATSON
SEE: http://www.infowars.com/alleged-bill-clinton-rape-victim-responds-to-chelsea-your-father-is-a-sexual-predator/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Alleged Bill Clinton rape victim Juanita Broaddrick reacted to Chelsea Clinton’s complaint about people attacking her family by reminding Chelsea that her father is a “sexual predator”.
After Donald Trump took the high road by refusing to bring up the plethora of sexual abuse accusations against Bill Clinton during Monday night’s debate with Hillary, Chelsea Clinton used an interview with Cosmopolitan as an opportunity to play the victim.
“Candidly, I don’t remember a time in my life when my parents and my family weren’t being attacked, and so it just sort of seems to be in that tradition, unfortunately. And what I find most troubling by far are … Trump’s continued, relentless attacks on whole swaths of our country and even our global community: women, Muslims, Americans with disabilities, a Gold Star family. I mean, that, to me, is far more troubling than whatever his most recent screed against my mom or my family [is],” she said.
Broaddrick responded to Chelsea’s lament that she couldn’t remember a time when her parents weren’t under attack with a terse rebuttal.
“There’s a very good reason for this – your parents are not good people,” tweeted Broaddrick.
“Your father was, and probably still is, a sexual predator. Your mother has always lied and covered up for him,” she added.
“I say again “I was 35 when Bill Clinton Raped me and Hillary tried to silence me. I am now 73. It never goes away”.
“The truth is what has brought the attacks on your family and you are smart enough to know that by now,” she concluded.
Broaddrick (pictured above) alleged that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her during an April 1978 incident that took place in a room at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas.
During the assault, Broaddrick claims Clinton bit down on her lip, causing her to bleed.
She also alleges that Hillary Clinton later approached her at a Clinton fundraiser and subtly threatened her to keep quiet about the attack.
Bill Clinton denies the allegations and refuses to comment on them. In his book, No One Left to Lie To, acclaimed author Christopher Hitchens documents how Broaddrick’s claim is credible and has many similarities with Paula Jones’ later allegation of sexual assault against Bill Clinton.
Clinton eventually agreed to pay Jones an out of court settlement of $850,000.
________________________________________________
Bill Clinton 'rape' accuser Juanita Broaddrick lashes out at Chelsea Clinton 
Published on Sep 29, 2016
A former Arkansas nursing home administrator who has accused Bill Clinton of raping her nearly 40 years ago lashed out at Chelsea Clinton on Wednesday for minimizing her father Bill's past sex scandals.
'Your father was, and probably still is, a sexual predator. Your mother has always lied and covered up for him,' Juanita Broaddrick wrote on Twitter.

Bill Clinton Rape Victim Juanita Broaddrick Fears For Her Life
Published on Aug 25, 2016
During the half hour interview Josh Sigurdson conducted with Juanita Broaddrick who was brutally raped by Bill Clinton during his time as attorney general in Arkansas as well as threatened subsequently by Hillary Clinton, Juanita admitted that she does indeed fear for her life and her safety. So much so that she is selling her home so she can build on her son's property to stay close to others.
She says living alone frightens her, especially with her name in the media so much and the potential the Clintons have if Hillary Clinton becomes president.
In the 90s, Clinton enemies dropped like flies. The list is extensive and Larry Nichols backs up much of it. Recently, once again, countless Clinton enemies are ending up dead under extremely mysterious circumstances. Many freak accidents as well as point blank murders have happened in recent months. 7 people who either worked with the Clintons at the DNC, served lawsuits against them or were due to testify against them have ended up dead over the summer season this election year.
After a while it's unreasonable NOT to question such a large number of freak accidents.
We wish Juanita Broaddrick all the best. She's a very kind woman with a record of doing great things for those that need it the most. On top of that she's a proud grandmother and a vigilant voice.

You can find our FULL interview with Juanita Broaddrick on our channel!

Video edited by Josh Sigurdson

Featuring:
Juanita Broaddrick
Josh Sigurdson

Graphics by Josh Sigurdson
Visit us at www.WorldAlternativeMedia.com



MAKING DOCTORS KILL: THE TYRANNY OF STATE ENFORCED EUTHANASIA

MAKING DOCTORS KILL: THE TYRANNY OF STATE ENFORCED EUTHANASIA 
BY DR. DUKE PESTA
SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/24137-making-doctors-kill-the-tyranny-of-state-enforced-euthanasiarepublished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

The Greek physician Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460-370 B.C.) is known today as the Father of Western medicine. His own writings and teachings — shrouded in the mists of history — can be synthesized in the subsequent research and practices of the Hippocratic School, which revolutionized and professionalized the study of medicine in ancient Greece, charting a course that doctors have followed for more than 2,000 years. In the Hippocratic Corpus — a collection of 70 or so medical works collected or collated in Alexandria in the 3rd century B.C. — can be found the Hippocratic Oath, a vow made to the gods to observe ethical standards in the pursuit and application of medical science. Modernized versions of the oath, stripped of religious sentiment, are still adhered to by medical practitioners across the globe. And though the phrase “first do no harm” does not always appear as such in modern versions of the oath, injunctions for doctors to “reject harm or mischief,” or to “not harm the patient” have always been part of the Hippocratic mandate. The first obligation of the physician is to cause no unnecessary damage or suffering. Yet some doctors now cause lethal damage to end suffering — viewing their actions as “mercy killing.”
“Euthanasia” is also a Greek word, meaning “good death.” In its ancient contexts, the word meant simply dying peacefully, as in its earliest recorded use, in Suetonius’ biography of Augustus, where the emperor died serenely, achieving the “euthanasia” he desired. In the 17th century, Francis Bacon became the first philosopher to use the term in a medical context, suggesting the responsibility of physicians to relieve physical suffering as much as possible during the process of death. Today “euthanasia” has come to take on many meanings and associations, from the cultural and theological to the philosophical and juridical. Legislatively and politically, especially across the Western world, the word has come to mean the deliberate cessation of a human life by a physician at the request of his or her patient. For the past decade, euthanasia has been among the most researched topics in modern bioethics, with most studies calling for greater freedom for patients to request and doctors to practice euthanasia. Ominously, the debate over euthanasia is increasingly divorced from moral considerations and co-opted by legislatures and governmental committees, paving the way for a new type of tyranny that strips away the rights of individual conscience in the pursuit of death on demand. Doctors, pharmacists, and institutions are now increasingly being forced against their will to help kill people. The results of this legislative overreach carry staggering consequences for liberty, individualism, and self-determination.
Oh, Canada! How the Right to Die Became a Mandate to Kill
In Canada prior to 2015, active euthanasia (intentionally killing a person to ease pain and suffering) was illegal, while passive euthanasia (removing or withholding life-sustaining support or nourishment) was both legal and common. In March 2014, Winnipeg Tory MP Steven Fletcher introduced two influential pieces of legislation. The first allows doctors to help patients end their lives in restricted circumstances. For instance, the individual must be of “sound mind,” and possessing “an illness, disability, or disease that causes physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable to that person and that cannot be alleviated by any medical treatment acceptable to that person.” The other bill, predictably, calls for the creation of a “commission” to monitor the system. Most remarkable is the first measure, which includes the possibility of doctor-assisted suicide for non-life threatening psychological disorders that are deemed unbearable by the individual. Equally eye-popping is the suggestion that doctor-assisted suicide is feasible for patients who reject medical treatments that they deem not “acceptable.”
In June 2014, the National Assembly of Quebec passed Bill 52 — the “Dying with Dignity” law — which enabled terminally ill patients to have medical assistance in dying. The bill was modeled after loosely defined, long-standing European laws that authorized physician-assisted suicide in a wide range of instances that went beyond the terminally ill. At the time, a 2014 poll found that 84 percent of Canadians supported the idea that a doctor “should be able to help someone end their [sic] life if the person is a competent adult who is terminally ill, suffering unbearably and repeatedly asks for assistance to die.” Then, on February 6, 2015, the Canadian Supreme Court unanimously overturned even the minor limits on doctor-assisted suicide that the National Assembly had built into the law — creating out of thin air the Charter right to death in the face of a very broad definition of illness — and ruling that the law should be amended to permit doctors to assist suicides in certain “situations.”  The rub came — as it always does — in trying to define, let alone legislate, those “situations” that allow physicians to participate in euthanizing their patients. As a safeguard, the government tried to be more specific about when physician-assisted suicide might be allowed to occur, adding the idea that a patient’s death must be “foreseeable” to justify recourse to physician assistance. Thin gruel, as far as limitations go — indeed all deaths are “foreseeable” in the sense that they are inevitable. But even such weak efforts at setting boundaries were too much for a Court of Appeals in Alberta, which struck down the provision, voting 3-0 that a woman with a non-terminal disorder has a constitutional right to assistance in dying. Canada’s The Globe and Mail reported:
The proposed new law … was not directly at issue before the Alberta Court of Appeal. But its substance was very much before the court in the case of E.F., a 58-year-old with a diagnosis of “severe conversion disorder” — formerly known as “hysteria” — which means she has severely disabling neurological problems with no physical explanation for them.
In a similar case challenging the government’s position, Grace Pastine, a lawyer with the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, denounced the law as “unconstitutional,” arguing that it “deliberately excludes a class of people: those who are suffering with no immediate end in sight.... How can we now turn away and ignore their pleas?”
According to the Alberta court’s ruling, the government’s position was out of step with the Supreme Court’s actual intent in establishing a constitutional right to an assisted death for mentally competent adults suffering from a “grievous and irremediable” condition. The decision — made possible by the Supreme Court’s own ill-conceived and hastily rendered verdict — now puts the government and its commissions at odds with judges, the courts granting greater and greater latitude for doctors to euthanize their patients, even for non-terminal complaints. The Alberta decision asserts:
As Canada fairly conceded, the language of the declaration itself is broad and rights based. Nowhere in the descriptive language is the right to physician-assisted death expressly limited only to those who are terminally ill or near the end of life. Canada accepts that a dictionary definition of “grievous and irremediable” medical condition could include conditions that are not life-threatening or terminal.
Wesley Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a contributor to National Review, sums up the consequences: “So, there you have it. Judges have decided that there is a ‘right’ to death on demand if one has a diagnosed condition the patient believes warrants her or his killing. Even weak political attempts to make the radical euthanasia license seem a bit limited are more than the culture of death, once unleashed, can handle. Democratic processes be damned.”
In very short order, the Pandora’s box that was the Supreme Court ruling unleashed a rash of consequences, not all of them unintended. To call such arguments a slippery slope is surely an understatement, as evidenced by the avalanche of challenges, accommodations, and mandates that are undercutting restrictions on when and how Canadian doctors may assist patients in dying. As Smith puts it, “Assisted suicide advocates pretend it is about terminal illness as a political expedience.... The need for euthanasia advocates’ deploying this tactic was obliterated in Canada when the Supreme Court conjured a right to be lethally injected if one has a medically diagnosed illness causing irremediable suffering — as defined by the patient. That goes way beyond a terminal illness, perhaps to the mentally ill (as allowed in Belgium and the Netherlands). Now, euthanasia advocates, freed from having to persuade the public, have revealed their true goals, pushing for the most radical and broad license to be killed in the world.”
In Quebec — where the progressive push to broaden right-to-die legislation in Canada is strongest — the province’s health minister is now compelling dissenting physicians and medical personnel to participate in euthanasia, whether such procedures violate individual conscience or not. McGill University Health Centre has been forced to repeal its long-standing refusal to allow euthanasia within the confines of the palliative care clinic — even though euthanasia is permitted elsewhere in the Health Centre. Physicians and nurses devoted to alleviating suffering for the dying must now participate in euthanizing those patients, if called upon to do so.The Montreal Gazette reported the change in policy, as overseen by Health Minister Gaétan Barrette:
“This morning, I met with Mr. (Normand) Rinfret and he told me that as of this very moment, the policy has been repealed,” Barrette said, referring to the MUHC’s executive director. “As we speak today, no patient can be transferred out of the palliative care unit at the MUHC, and medical aid in dying will be made available in the unit itself.”
Dr. Manuel Borod, director of the Division of Supportive and Palliative Care Programs at the MUHC, argued that according to the World Health Organization, palliative care “does not hasten death” and that MUHC’s policy of prohibiting euthanasia within the confines of the palliative care clinic “did not seem unreasonable when we were creating our policy that a patient on a palliative care unit within an institution could be transferred to another room.” Barrette, who claims it is within his power to force the hospital to change policy, called the ban on euthanasia in the palliative care clinic “totally illegal” because hospital personnel cannot decide which departments may offer medical aid to die.
So eager is Minister Barrette to implement physician-assisted suicide on demand that he waived the prescribed waiting period between requests to die and the administering of the lethal injection. CBC News explained:
The federal assisted-dying law requires a 10-day delay between a patient’s request for doctor-assisted death and the administration of the procedure. Quebec’s law doesn’t stipulate a waiting period before a doctor-assisted death is administered, though patients have typically received the procedure within 48 to 72 hours. “They changed the law by simply sending out a letter,” said [Véronique] Hivon, who is among five candidates campaigning to become the new [Parti Québécois] leader.
The imposition of waiting periods, offering time for reflection and consultation, is designed to protect patients against abuse and inefficiency in seeking assisted suicide. Waiting periods also provide time to evaluate alternatives and make sure the process is transparent and necessary. In Barrette’s Quebec, the “right to die” supersedes such oversight concerns, and the administration of lethal drugs becomes no different than any other routine procedure.
In many ways, radical Quebec is the California of Canada — and what transpires there soon casts a shadow across the country (and perhaps the continent). Following Quebec’s lead, Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons has required all Ontario doctors to participate in euthanizing their patients, by extension, if not by direct action. According to their policy statement, “Medical Assistance in Dying,” the college — which is Ontario’s official provincial medical organization — stipulates, “Where a physician declines to provide medical assistance in dying for reasons of conscience or religion, the physician must do so in a manner that respects patient dignity. Physicians must not impede access to medical assistance in dying, even if it conflicts with their conscience or religious beliefs.” (Emphasis added.) Further, when “a physician declines to provide medical assistance in dying for reasons of conscience or religion, the physician must not abandon the patient. An effective referral must be provided. An effective referral means a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician, nurse practitioner or agency. The referral must be made in a timely manner to allow the patient to access medical assistance in dying.” An “effective” referral, of course, is one that results in the patient’s speedy termination, even if — as we have seen — it is a non-terminal patient who must be referred. The irony that the referral must be made “in good faith” is clearly lost on technocrats who systematically seek to prohibit faith-based objections to euthanasia in any and all circumstances.
To the surprise of no one, now that Canada has ceded the Charter right to die — no questions asked, no conscientious dissent allowed, and with virtually no discretionary period — other non-governmental and non-medical organizations are pushing the envelope even further. According a Canadian Press report, the Canadian Bar Association is urging the federal government to “expand its restrictive new law on assisted dying, allowing mature minors, people suffering strictly from psychological illness and those diagnosed with competence-eroding conditions like dementia to get medical help to end their suffering.” And who exactly will get to decide what constitutes a “mature” minor? How can we be sure that people with dementia and diminished competence possess the ability to actually choose euthanasia? The answer, of course, is that government panels will end up making those decisions, regardless of the wishes of spouses, parents, or even physicians.
EU-thanasia: Europe and the Culture of Death
As suggested above, the swift move toward death on demand in Canada — and increasingly the United States — has its origins in Europe, especially Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian nations. Belgium and the Netherlands in particular are expanding the reach of physician-assisted suicide under the broad ideological banner of social justice, allowing, in some instances, psychiatric patients to end their lives with the assistance of a physician or even a mental health “expert.” In a recent study, researchers examined online case summaries posted before 2015 from Dutch euthanasia review committees, including 66 summaries of psychiatric euthanasia occurring between 2011-2014. Reuters reports on the findings: “Overall, about a third of the people helped to end their lives were age 70 years or older, 44 percent were between ages 50 and 70 and about a quarter were 30 to 50 years old. Seventy percent were women.” Fifty-five percent of these physician-assisted suicides were diagnosed with depression, with others experiencing such treatable conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, eating disorders, and even prolonged grief: “About a quarter of patients’ suicides were assisted by psychiatrists, and about one in five patients were treated by unfamiliar doctors — the majority from a mobile assisted suicide clinic funded by a Dutch right to die organization.”
Alarmingly, about 10 percent of these patients received no outside treatment or diagnoses from psychiatrists, and about 25 percent of cases involved disagreement among various doctors treating the patients. According to an accompanying editorial from Dr. Paul Applebaum, this research raises “serious concerns about the implementation of physician-assisted dying for psychiatric patients.” Applebaum noted that more than half of these cases also possessed personality disorders, questioning the “stability of the expressed desires to die.” And as Wesley Smith points out, the Netherlands “is following Belgium by conjoining euthanasia with organ harvesting, raising the prospect that the mentally ill will come to see their deaths as having greater value than their lives.”
Further, the Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) is now urging members to assist “anyone” in committing suicide by starvation. Their document “Caring for People Who Choose Not to Eat or Drink so as to Hasten the End of Life” argues: “Consciously choosing not to eat and drink to hasten the end of life is a choice each and everyone can and may make for themselves. Consciously choosing not to eat and drink is comparable to refusing a treatment which will result in death. This is not regarded as suicide but rather as the patient exercising their right of self-determination, particularly the right to refuse care.” There is no mandate or even guidance requiring patients to meet with physicians or mental health experts before making the fatal choice. Doctors no longer have an obligation to prevent suicide — let alone the option to intervene — but must assist or quickly refer the patient to physicians who will help carry out the patient’s wishes.
The extent to which the Dutch have normalized physician-assisted suicide is foregrounded in the recent lethal injection of a woman in her 20s. The woman, who was sexually abused as a child, was euthanized after doctors and psychiatrists decided her post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments were incurable. According to the Daily Mail, the termination of life proceeded “despite improvements in the woman’s psychological condition after intensive therapy two years ago, and even though doctors in the Netherlands accept that a demand for death from a psychiatric patient may be no more than a cry for help.” Not surprisingly, the relative ease in acquiring consent to euthanasia and the speedy dispatch of lethal drugs have made Belgium and the Netherlands tourist spots for euthanasia enthusiasts. The International Business Times reported, “Tourists are flocking to Brussels to get a lethal dose. Doctors at hospitals and clinics at Belgium’s capital are seeing an increase in number of euthanasia tourists who are travelling from across the world to their accident and emergency rooms.... In 2015, a whopping 2,023 people were medically killed in Belgium. The number has more than doubled in five years.”
America Alone: Can States Protect Rights of Conscience and Religious Liberty?
As the popularity of death on demand makes its way across America — California recently joined four other states in legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill, mentally competent patients — a host of moral and ethical questions remains. The relatively new experiments with right-to-die legislation in Canada and Europe confirm that helping the terminally ill die during the last stages of their diseases is just the tip of the iceberg. Doctors are rapidly losing the right of conscience, as the Hippocratic Oath is turned upside down.
Still, there is hope that America can temper the ghoulish zeal of activists, legislatures, and misguided civil-liberties groups. Recently, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that there is no state constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide. Reacting to California’s new legislation, hospitals in Santa Barbara and Palm Springs have “declined to participate in all activities” pertaining to the new law. And the Los Angeles Times reported, “Medical leaders at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena voted … for the facility’s hundreds of doctors and affiliated personnel to opt out of California’s assisted suicide law.... If the proposed amendment to the hospital’s medical rules is approved by the board of directors … Huntington will become one of the largest non-religious medical institutions statewide to turn its back on a law that Gov. Jerry Brown called ‘a comfort’ to anyone ‘dying in prolonged and excruciating pain.’”
It goes without saying that the threat to religious liberty facing our Christian hospitals and clinics is daunting. If there is no freedom of dissent, no ability for doctors, caregivers, and hospice workers to refuse to participate, there certainly is no mercy in mercy killing.

OBAMA'S EDUCATION SECRETARY "CONCERNED" ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING

_MG_6327.jpg
OBAMA'S EDUCATION SECRETARY "CONCERNED" ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING
BY ALEX NEWMAN
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

The opening shot in a widely anticipated establishment crackdown on educational freedom may have been fired last week. Speaking at a breakfast with reporters, Obama's controversial Education Secretary, pro-Common Core activist John King (shown), said he was “concerned” that some home-educated children were not getting the “breadth of instructional experience” they would get at a traditional school. While the senior Obama bureaucrat acknowledged that many homeschool families are doing it well, he also repeated the debunked smear that homeschooled children lack opportunities for socialization. Experts and critics, though, promptly lambasted King for his naive or malicious comments, suggesting that, if anything, he ought to be far more concerned about children in public schools. Some experts even offered to help educate Obama's education chief on the issue.  
Secretary King's controversial remarks about home education were made during an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. While the Monitor's website did not report about the home-education comments, several other outlets, including Politico, did so. According to Politico, King said he was “concerned” that homeschooled students are not “getting the range of options that are good for all kids.” He also claimed to worry that “students who are homeschooled are not getting kind of the rapid instructional experience they would get in school,” unless parents are “very intentional about it.” He said the “school experience” includes building relationships with “peers, teachers and mentors,” something that he claimed was “difficult to achieve in homeschooling unless parents focus on it.”
More of his anti-homeschooling comments were reported by the Washington Examiner. “I worry that in a lot of cases students who are homeschooled are not getting the kind of the breadth of instruction experience they would get in school, they're also not getting the opportunity to build relationships with peers unless their parents are very intentional about it,” King was quoted as saying in response to a question about home education. “And they're often not getting those relationships with teachers and mentors other than their parents. I do worry whether home school students are getting the range of opportunities we hope for for all kids.”
Despite his supposed concerns, King did concede that he was aware of some homeschooling families who were “doing it incredibly well.” He also said he knew of home-educated students in college who had “very tremendous academic success.” Also, he noted that research showed homeschooling was growing in popularity. Estimates suggest as many as four percent of American children are homeschooled. The number is estimated at close to 2.5 million. For now, at least, King even acknowledged that education decisions are a matter for families to decide. “Obviously, it’s up to families if they want to take a homeschool approach,” he was quoted as saying in media reports. Legally, that is, of course, true — thanks to the hard work of many activists, lawyers, and parents, homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. It is also increasingly mainstream.  
While homeschooling experts and advocates appreciated that King was willing to acknowledge many facts about the success and popularity of home education, they also expressed concerns about King's supposed concerns. One of the leading experts in the field, President Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., of the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), countered much of the narrative pushed by King. In an interview with The New American, Ray explained that home-educated students actually have far more options than children in traditional schools.
“What he is saying is just factually incorrect,” Ray said. He pointed to all the options homeschooling families have, including home-education co-ops created by parents to join forces, free and paid tutoring services, mentorships, classes at local libraries, “everything imaginable.”
“It's just not true,” said Ray in response to a question about whether socialization options were more limited for home-educated children. “But even if it were true, why is he [Secretary King] worried about it when we know from 30 years of research that homeschoolers do significantly better academically and socially than those in institutional schools?” Indeed, Ray, who also serves as editor-in-chief of the academic refereed journal Home School Researcher, said there was massive amounts of evidence showing that homeschoolers perform better on essentially every metric — a fact that is increasingly being recognized across America and around the world, and certainly by colleges that are actively recruiting homeschoolers.
There are two possibilities to explain King's dim view of the options available to home-educated children, Ray said. “His comments are based on either a very minimal and skewed understanding of home education, or he is purposely not learning about homeschooling and misrepresenting what happens in homeschooling,” the researcher explained in a phone interview. “And I'm trying to be generous here. The reality is, if you're in public school, in elementary school, you basically get the same teacher every day for the whole year. In middle school, you get different teachers for a little while each day, and you generally do not develop deep relationships with those teachers.”
By contrast, with home education, the possibilities for children and relationships with adults and other children are basically endless. “Most homeschooled parents have their children engaged with a variety of adults — scouts, sports, soccer teams, co-ops, and on and on,” Dr. Ray continued. “It's a rare homeschooled student that doesn't have interactions with a broad range of adults and children. King's also implying that students need to be with 28 other children of their age all day to grow up to be good adults. That is simply untrue.”
Indeed, King omits the fact that the modern understanding of “school” is a relatively recent phenomenon. “He just slapped in the face the large majority of Americans who lived in this country from colonial times up until about 1900,” Ray explained about King's comments. “It was not until then that most of them were in institutional schools for several hours a day for most months. Institutional schooling for the masses was not the norm until 1900 or even later. So he's just ignoring history. He is ignoring the reality of history in America — we had creators, inventors, artists, authors, homemakers, businessmen and women, farmers, and all kinds of successful people socially, emotionally, and intellectually without the institutional schools that he seems to be promoting.”
Perhaps more importantly, even the briefest examination of the federal government's own data shows that, if anything, King ought to be much more concerned about the victims of government education. One in five do not graduate high-school. Less than a third of students in eighth grade can read proficiently, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In places such as Washington, D.C., more than two-thirds of residents over the age of 15 — virtually all of them victims of expensive government schools — are functionally illiterate, according to a State Education Agency report. Decades ago, the National Commission on Excellence in Education noted that if a foreign power had imposed the education regime then exiting in the United States, Americans might have considered it an “act of war.” It is even worse today.  
And yet, King claims to be worried about the one group of students — homeschooled children — that is consistently at the top of the charts socially and academically. According to NHERI, home-educated students typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on the government's own standardized tests. And they save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars per year doing it.      
Ray also touched on the absurdity of it all. “His comments, his veiled worries, raise the question: Compared to homeschooling, is he happy with the illiteracy rate coming out of schools, the drug abuse rates, the suicide rates, the rate at which public school students vote, and are interested in learning and reading real books?” Ray wondered. “If he's not happy with most of that — and I'm guessing he's not — what is his point in bringing up a tiny minority of homeschoolers who he thinks might not be doing very well.”
“Furthermore, is he implying that, if that tiny minority of homeschoolers were put in public schools, the public schools guarantee that they would do better?” Ray asked. “I face that in court all the time as an expert witness — the idea that if a child is below average on something, that he or she would be better in a public school. It's simply not true.”
The data backs him up. “We have over 30 years of research showing that homeschoolers do better socially and academically,” Ray said. “Look at how public school students are faring — not very well. Even if somebody wanted to argue that homeschoolers should be more controlled by government, there's no evidence that more regulation improves outcomes. This kind of commenting is really irresponsible. It feeds into the idea that if only government would get more involved and control private schooling, such as Catholic schools, agnostic independent schools, and homeschooling, they could guarantee that all the children could do well academically and socially. That's very misleading.”
Other experts also slammed King's remarks. “While Secretary King had some good things to say about homeschooling, I’m disappointed that his comments imply that public schoolers have a wider range of options in education, which is simply not true,” said Home School Legal Defense Association co-founder and Chairman Michael Farris. “Homeschoolers are far outperforming their public schooled peers, largely due to the fact that parents know what works best for their child instead of implementing an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach that Secretary King appears to favor.” HSLDA said it reached out to King in an effort to introduce him to homeschool leaders, parents, and students. 
Whether King's attack is the opening salvo in an upcoming coordinated attack on homeschooling remains to be seen. What is clear, though, is that homeschoolers are doing far better than government-schooled children on every objective metric — and that is probably what has King and others more concerned than anything else. Fortunately, home educators have become an immensely influential political force in recent years and decades. And so, any effort to curtail educational freedom and rights is likely to be met with massive, organized, and fierce resistance.
Instead of being “concerned” about the best educated young Americans, there are many real, legitimate concerns. A far more important concern, for example, is that an unconstitutional bureaucracy is trying to hijack control of education in America from parents and local communities — further damaging millions of kids in the process. Another real concern is that, as this writer and veteran educator Dr. Sam Blumenfeld show in their book Crimes of the Educators, government “education” is permanently handicapping millions of young Americans, including through the use of ineffective “reading” methods debunked as quackery in the 1800s.
With all those real concerns, again, King has no business being “concerned” about home educators. Congress should do its duty by defunding and abolishing the unconstitutional Department of Education he leads as soon as possible. 
Related articles: