THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
But on Tuesday, Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way, released an article decrying David Benham as an “anti-gay, anti-choice extremist.” It noted that the Benham brothers are the sons of Flip Benham, the director of the pro-life group Operation Save America, and that David led the Charlotte 7:14 prayer rally in 2012 outside of the Democratic National Convention.
Benham, who is the founder of Cities4Life with his wife Lori, was also denounced by Right Wing Watch for being involved in sidewalk ministry outside of area abortion facilities. The organization likewise quoted from Benham surrounding his beliefs in biblical marriage and his support of North Carolina’s constitutional marriage amendment. VIDEO:
BENHAMS SPEAK OUT
America : HGTV cancels Benham Brothers show because of their Christian Values (May 10, 2014):
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems,” Obama told the audience at the Ohio State commencement ceremony. “They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices”.
Obama went on to imply that “individual ambition” was a negative concept before adding, “We don’t think the government is the source of all our problems”.
That strikes a somewhat different tone to one of Obama’s predecessors, Ronald Reagan, who repeatedly gave speeches warning that “government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem”.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Ex-Mormons across the country are decrying Liberty University’s decision to feature Glenn Beck at their recent convocation ceremony, who invoked the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and referenced LDS doctrine before the thousands of students in attendance.
“I am Mormon and share your faith,” the outspoken conservative talk show host asserted during his spiritually-mixed charge to students, as he stood in front of a large banner bearing the university’s motto, “Training Champions for Christ.”
As previously reported, Beck was introduced by President Jerry Falwell, who noted that the university presented the political commentator with an honorary doctorate in 2010 as he likewise addressed the students during that time. Beck then took the podium to applause and cheers, explaining that he believed he was given a message from God that day to share with the students.
“Are you willing to give your life?” Beck asked fervently. “What are you willing to do? What is it that means something to you?”
“Days before Joseph Smith was martyred he was taken out by the sheriff; they tried to tar and feather him several times,” he explained. “The last time they took him, they said, ‘You owe $25.’ He said, ‘No, I don’t owe a man anything.’ They said, ‘No, you stole a stove’—one of the most ridiculous charges I’ve ever heard.”
“At that time, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch,” Beck continued, displaying the relic that he said belonged to Smith, considered a prophet of God in Mormonism. “He gave it to the sheriff and said, ‘I owe no man nothing.’ They let him go. They killed him, but on the warrant for his arrest, he wrote on the back of his warrant to his people, ‘Put down your guns. No matter what happens, put down your guns. Put down your guns and trust in the Lord.’”
He then compared Smith’s story to the challenges that Liberty students may face in the days ahead.
“You are going to be pushed and challenged every step of the way,” Beck said. “What is it that you truly believe?”
Later in his message, the Mormon talk show host told the students that “no one in the Grand Councils” sent them to earth just to make a living. Beck was referring to the Mormon belief that human souls pre-existed in heaven, and that a gathering of heavenly beings known as the Grand Councils, send certain individuals to earth to accomplish a special purpose.
“You didn’t come down for a job. You came to this university maybe thinking, ‘I have to have an education to get a job.’ You need this education from Liberty University because of your only true job, the purpose you were sent here for,” he said.
Beck’s comments were met with cheers and applause during several points in his speech, and was given a standing ovation by many in attendance upon his conclusion.
Decker
But those who have come out of the Mormon religion are expressing dismay at why Liberty University—considered the nation’s largest Christian university—provided Glenn Beck a platform, which he used to preach Mormon doctrine.
“[I]t exceeds my capacity to understand how one of the great Christian universities with a steadfast commitment of ‘Training Champions for Christ’ could invite an elite cultist to stand before its entire student body and give them spiritual instructions for life,” Ed Decker, former longtime Mormon and founder of the ex-Mormon ministry Saints Alive, wrote in an article provided to Christian News Network.
“Is it that, as educated as they seem, they just don’t know that Mormons worship an exalted man/god, serve a different Christ, offer a different salvation, stand on the foundation of false prophets and seek to earn their own godhoods?” he asked.
“It’s completely outrageous for Liberty and Jerry Falwell Jr. to bring Glenn Beck in [and allow him] to spew his false and blasphemous doctrine, which is an affront to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to shape these young, eager minds in a way that distorts the gospel,” added Tricia Erickson, daughter of a former Mormon bishop and author of Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters?
“It’s wrong,” she continued. “It’s like me opening my front door and saying to a Muslim, ‘Come on in. If they like what you have to say, it’s up to them. They can decide; you can just preach to them.”‘
Decker noted that although Beck excelled at his oration skills, quoted Scripture and was generally well-received by the audience, his presentation of Mormon doctrine was troubling.
“Beck talked about what a great man Joseph Smith was. He talked about his dying a martyr for Christ, dying for his faith,” he said. “[B]ut he also ignored the historical fact that Smith wasn’t quite as innocent as Beck claimed. He was in jail for leading his militia into town and destroying a newspaper press and burning the place down. He didn’t like what the paper had said about his many well-known adulteries.”
“Beck told the gathering that Smith told his followers in a note to lay down their arms and act in peace,” he said. “He forgot to mention Smith’s loaded pistol or the gunfight [where he killed two people].”
Decker said that he also took note of Beck’s reference to the Mormon doctrine of the “Grand Councils.”
“He forgot to talk about his heavenly mother who gave birth to us as spirit beings there before we were sent to earth,” he outlined. “Mormons are told that they are a special people, chosen by God for such a time as this. Beck offered that same word to his audience.”
Erickson
Erickson agreed.
“Mormons believe that when they die, that they become gods and get their own planet. And then, the man calls the woman onto his planet by her secret name that is given to her only in the secret Mormon ceremonies, which puts him in charge of her salvation,” she explained. “[T]hen they have spirit babies and and populate their planet. And their spirit babies pop down into our baby’s bodies here on Earth to walk out their eternal progression to godhood.”
She stated that false religion should be exposed, not given an appearance of credibility.
“If you’re a parent, certainly you’re not going to have someone come into your home [and be] around your children that is going to distort their judgment of Christianity, and that’s going to tell them things that are blasphemous to a living God and pose them as the truth,” Erickson said. “At universities, we as adults have to protect our youth. These are going to be our future leaders.”
“[Liberty University has] allowed Glenn Beck to come in and basically distort the gospel of Jesus Christ by the comments that he made. We don’t know if these students have enough discernment to know that it was a distortion of the truth because he’s posing as an angel of light,” she lamented. “He’s posing as a Christian.”
From Fox News, Glenn Beck, and Alex Jones to prominent politicians and political donors, and to the The John Birch Society and “Patriot” groups, the SPLC’s half-baked campaign takes aim at vast swaths of the opposition to Common Core. (Contrary to most Americans, SPLC uses the term “Patriot” as an attack rather than a compliment). The outfit acknowledges that there are “legitimate” concerns about the scheme being foisted on more than 40 states by billionaire Bill Gates and his allies in the White House. However, it claims that much of the criticism is actually based on “propaganda” put out by “extremists.”
It is clear from the report that the opposition is making big gains. Indeed, U.S. Program boss Allan Golston with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which bankrolls Planned Parenthood, the United Nations, population control, and Common Core, made that explicit in comments to the SPLC. “It’s causing political leaders to question this, with hearings across the country,” Golston complained, referring to the efforts of critics. “There are indications some political leaders are feeling pressure to back away from Common Core.” It was not immediately clear why the Gates foundation would oppose questions or public hearings into national education standards being foisted on tens of millions of children.
The SPLC report, packed with factual errors and paranoid conspiracy theories bordering on delusions, follows another recent document from the organization blasting critics of the United Nations “sustainability” plot Agenda 21 using similar hysteria. Like its previous report, though, it appears that the latest bizarre screed has largely fallen on deaf ears as the discredited Alabama-based group increasingly fades into irrelevance. Other than a handful of leftist blogs and this report, it appears that the SPLC’s attacks have gone virtually unnoticed in the press thus far.
One of the most ludicrous conspiracy theories throughout the latest SPLC rant is the suggestion that opposition to Common Core is somehow being orchestrated by a vast right-wing conspiracy opposed to all government education. Considering the outrage among parents, government-school teachers, Democrats, educators, and even labor unions, though, the claim is so preposterous it’s hard to believe such a claim would even be made — much less taken seriously. Ironically, the Chicago Teachers Union joined New York State’s educators’ union in opposing the "deeply flawed" Common Core on the same day the SPLC report was released.
Indeed, pro-public-school educators from across the political spectrum have become some of the fiercest critics in the battle against Common Core. “Never have I found myself finding so much common ground with people who call themselves conservative and libertarians — we all agreed public schools were going to be ruined by this,” Fordham University Professor Dr. Mark Naison, who leads an alliance of tens of thousands of teachers opposed to Common Core, told The New American. “This really represents the worst fantasies of both the Right and Left coming true: Big Government and Big Corporations imposing this terrible, untested, expensive plan using intimidation and bullying.”
For the SPLC, however, there is a sinister agenda behind much of the opposition to Common Core — an insidious secret plot to abolish all government education. Lamenting the fact that polls show less than one third of Americans have confidence in public education, the report quotes a few statements by critics of government schooling and links them to the industrialist Koch brothers in concocting a vast conspiracy among “the most ardent on the radical right” whose supposed “real purpose is to destroy public schools.” (For perspective, "radical right" to the SPLC includes, for example, support for traditional marriage, and so, would have included Obama just a few years ago).
The acrobatics in “logic” evident throughout the whole report are stunning. Incredibly, the SPLC also tries to imply that because a higher proportion of minorities go to government school than whites, criticism of Common Core must be at least partly due to racism. The half-baked insinuations are hardly new. In fact, SPLC spokesman Mark Potok was recently ridiculed on national television after suggesting that more than half of whites had “anti-black” attitudes.
Throughout the report, the SPLC also parrots debunked lies in a bid to build support for Common Core. For example, it labels as a “myth” the notion that the national standards will dictate curricula. Perhaps Bill Gates, who spent an estimated $2 billion to finance Common Core, never got that memo. In a 2009 speech at the National Conference of State Legislators, Gates celebrated the adoption of his standards as encouraging. “But identifying common standards is not enough,” he said. “We’ll know we’ve succeeded when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards.”
Ironically, the SPLC also blasts political leaders for seeking to end federal involvement in and support for the scheme. “Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has joined with seven other senators, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, to sponsor legislation prohibiting federal financing for any Common Core component,” the report complains. If there is nothing federal about it, why is the federal government funding Common Core components in the first place? The SPLC does not say.
“The disinformation campaign is being driven by the likes of Fox News, the John Birch Society, Tea Party factions, and the Christian Right,” the SPLC report claims without ever specifically identifying or disproving any alleged “disinformation” put out by any of its targets. “National think tanks and advocacy groups associated with the Koch brothers, whose father was a founding Birch member, have taken up the cause.”
Indeed, throughout the report, the SPLC takes special aim at one of its favorite targets, The John Birch Society — “Chief among the Patriot groups,” it says — often parroting talking points that have been thoroughly debunked for months. As just one example among many, the 40-page document claims that “the JBS’s American Opinion Foundation is paying travel expenses for alleged education experts to testify against the Common Core in states like Wisconsin that have held investigative hearings on the standards.”
The SPLC also takes aim at an article in The New American published in March entitled “Common Core and UN Agenda 21: Mass Producing Green Global Serfs.” While the SPLC report never points to any actual problem with the article, it omits the key quotes, perhaps expecting that nobody will check them out. In the article, though, Obama’s Department of Education boss Arne Duncan is quoted telling a “sustainability summit” that his department “is taking a leadership role in the work of educating the next generation of green citizens.”
In a separate speech to UNESCO, Duncan boasted of the administration’s cooperation with the UN agency and promised more to come, even quoting Nelson Mandela on using education as a “weapon” to “change” the world. “We must advance the sustainability movement through education,” Duncan also said in a speech posted right on the Education Department’s website. Instead of actually dealing with the facts contained in the TNA article, the SPLC simply claims the “allegations are impossible to refute” because they apparently rely on “wild conjecture, leaps of logic and supposed documents that have nothing do with the Common Core.” The article is linked here for anyone who cares to check the facts themselves.
Art Thompson, the CEO of JBS, responded to the SPLC report in a statement to The New American. “The report against The John Birch Society and others in opposition to Common Core is a masterpiece of hiding the full story of what is involved in Common Core,” he explained. “It is revealing that they include so many people of influence and expertise that oppose it. On the other hand, they do not include the fact that even some teachers’ unions have come out against it. The work of the anti-Common Core organizations must be taking a toll on the success of a campaign that was essentially a stealth operation before its exposure by so many people, originally independent of one another but who have now come together to fight for the future of our children.”
The SPLC also takes aim at the American Opinion Foundation’s Freedom Project Education program, an online K-12 school offering Common Core-free classical education with Judeo-Christian values. FPE Academic Director Dr. Duke Pesta, a university professor who has spoken to tens of thousands of concerned Americans about the standards at speeches nationwide, also comes under attack for pointing out the agenda behind the nationalization of education. Again, the SPLC report never actually disputes any of the facts Pesta has highlighted in his speeches, which have also been viewed hundreds of thousands or even millions of times online.
On Wednesday, Sen. Cruz released his fourth Legal Limit report on the Obama Administration’s executive overreaches. In this report, Sen. Cruz documents 76 instances of lawlessness and other abuses of power.
“The pattern of lawlessness by this Administration should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology,” said Sen. Cruz. “Rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. No one—and especially not the president—is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ Rather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce.”
THE LEGAL LIMIT REPORT NO. 4: THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S ABUSE OF POWER
May 7, 2014
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(202) 228-7561
WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released his fourth report on the Obama Administration’s executive overreaches. In this report, Sen. Cruz documents 76 instances of lawlessness and other abuses of power.
“The pattern of lawlessness by this Administration should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology,” said Sen. Cruz. “Rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. No one—and especially not the president—is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ Rather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce.”
In The Legal Limit Report No. 4 Sen. Cruz catalogues abuses of power, including:
The Administration’s disregard for current drug, immigration, welfare, and marriage laws.
The White House’s false portrayal about events in Benghazi.
The exemptions, waivers, and delays associated with the implementation of Obamacare.
The mission of the program, according to a post on the Hanover County web page, is to “reduce crime and the fear of crime in houses of worship and areas frequented by the faith community as well as provide for emergency preparedness partnership initiatives. We provide education and partnership opportunities to our faith community in an effort to recognize crime risks, train them to accurately report crimes, and be better prepared in the event of an emergency.”
The White House tweeted out an image of Barack Obama depicted as a king from Game of Thrones, a gag that cuts a little too close to the bone for some critics given Obama’s lust for executive power.
Following Obama’s joke during his White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech about forcing through more executive orders, the administration sent out the image to coincide with last week’s Game of Thrones episode.
In the picture, Obama sits upon the ‘Iron Throne’, a term that also refers to the monarchy that rules the Seven Kingdoms in the hit HBO series. According to one description, “the throne was forged from the 1,000 swords that had been surrendered to Aegon in the War of Conquest by the lords who had offered their fealty”.
Former King Joeffrey’s crossbow also sits on the coffee table while Obama holds a crown in his hands.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., May 8, 2014 – Both chambers of the Missouri legislature have passed a bill to end the state’s involvement in the Common Core educational standards. One final committee approval is required before sending the bill to the Governor’s desk for a signature.
House Bill 1490 (HB1490) passed through the state senate on May 1 by a 24-8 margin. It had previously passed the house by a 132-19 vote. Since the Senate version differed from the House version, the House had an opportunity to accept the amendments offered by the Senate, but refused. That sends the bill to a joint conference committee, with members of both chambers, to work out the differences in the bill and finalized the version going to the governor.
A spokesman for Rep. Bahr, the bill’s chief sponsor, said, “The conference was requested by the floor leader since the house passed a four page bill and the senate sent back a 44 page version. He did not feel like there would be enough time for all 150 house reps to pour over all of the new information in the bill to pass it speedily and also doing their duty.”
The amendments do not stop the bill from taking important steps to re-establish local control of education and end involvement with Common Core in the state. HB1490 states that “[each] local school board shall be responsible for the approval and adoption of curriculum used by the school district.” It also would sanction “work groups composed of education professionals to develop and recommend academic performance standards” which would ultimately be used to replace Common Core by the 2016-2017 school year.
The reasoning behind the delay in scrapping Common Core is to smooth the transition back to a normal curriculum. This would give the schools enough time to jettison the Common Core standards that have been foisted upon them without any undue harm being done to the development of students.
“The goal is to give the schools that have invested a lot of time preparing for what Governor Nixon obligated them to a graceful way out, while stopping CC in the long run,” Ron Calzone of Missouri First said about the legislation.
Missouri is leading the resistance to Common Core, unlike other states such as Indiana, which passed a bill to “opt-out” of the Core, while implementing a state requirement to use virtually the same federal standards in order to continue receiving federal funding. Largely unbeknownst to the American public, Common Core gives the feds the power to collect all kinds of data from children including Social Security numbers, blood type, records of school attendance, supposed learning disabilities, religious affiliation, disciplinary records, parents’ income information. The curriculum also eschews classic literature in favor of drab, government technical manuals.
For Missouri: Take action today to make sure that HB1490 remains a strong rebuke against Common Core by clicking HERE.
For Other States: Check our Tracking and Action Center to see if your state has taken action against Common Core. If they haven’t, contact your state legislators and demand that they introduce legislation similar to HB1490. You can find your legislator’s contact information by clicking HERE.
In her opening statement, Judge Jeanine Pirro eviscerates Barack Obama for his total lack of leadership and concern over responding to the Benghazi attack.
*Jeanine Ferris Pirro (born June 2, 1951) is a former prosecutor, judge, and elected official from the state of New York, who is currently a legal analyst and television personality. Pirro is the host of Fox News Channel's reality legal show Justice with Judge Jeanine which premiered in January 2011. She is also a contributor on other Fox News shows and NBC's Today. She previously hosted a television court program, Judge Jeanine Pirro, later known simply as Judge Pirro.
A Republican from Westchester County, Pirro served as a county court judge before serving as the elected District Attorney of Westchester County for 12 years. As a district attorney she gained considerable visibility, especially in cases regarding domestic abuse and crimes against the elderly. She was the first female judge on the Westchester County Court bench. Pirro was the Republican nominee for New York State Attorney General in 2006, losing to Democrat Andrew Cuomo (a fellow Albany Law alumnus). She previously sought the nominations of her party for the offices of New York State Lieutenant Governor and United States Senator. *Wikipedia
