My Internet has been down the last few days. Hence the lack of post. Now that it is back up, I have been zooming around the Internet. Here are some interesting things that I found.
Via LifeSiteNews.
A CWFA article about the need for parents of the opposite sex. Boys need moms, and girls need dads. (Amazing how God figured that out thousands of years before all this new research.) "[A] child's relationship with his or her parents is the single most important factor in predicting that child's long-term happiness, adjustment, development, educational attainment, and success."
They also led me to this little article which made me hopping mad. The article itself is good. It refutes a study claiming that virginity pledgers and non-pledgers are equally likely to have sex before marriage. The article points out that to make the study get those results the non-pledgers were all deemed equally devout in their religion. "What Dr. Healy was getting at is that the pledge itself is not what distinguishes these kids from most other teenagers. The real difference is their more conservative and religious home and social environment." (Who would've thought?) Yet all the MSM had to say was that parents that thought teens could make it to the marriage bed virgins were totally out of touch. That's odd. My husband and I somehow managed it.
And from the homeschool e-mail list I am on . . .
The publishing industry is scrambling to see how a child product safety law (passed in August) will effect them. The law will go into effect on Feb. 10th. I get the knee-jerk reaction against the lead in Chinese products in 2008, but how about a little clarity and common sense from our law-makers. "The fast-approaching deadline and the threat of fines ($100,000 per violation) mean the industry is struggling to comply with the Act even without complete answers. Most of the major publishing houses have legal staff working on the issue fulltime, have done or are doing the required testing and labeling (as best as they can, given the uncertainty and cost) and are ready to provide the paperwork. Many smaller publishers, however, may not be ready in time." Further down the article states, "Perhaps the most confusing issue facing retailers and publishers is what to do with old inventory once February arrives. The safety guidelines are retroactive and therefore include all products on store shelves on February 10, not just books manufactured or shipped as of that date. " Good grief. I feel for these publishers. Especially the mom and pop ones.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Encouraging Survey
LifeSiteNews released the results of a nation-wide survey commissioned by Catholic bishops. The results are encouraging.
The survey of 2,341 adults, conducted online December 10-12, also found that laws limiting or regulating abortion enjoyed support as high as 95 percent among those expressing support or opposition to the six kinds of laws examined in the survey:
- 95 percent favor laws ensuring that abortions be performed only by licensed physicians
- 88 percent favor informed consent laws (i.e., that require abortion providers to inform women of potential risks to their physical and psychological health and about alternatives to abortion)
- 76 percent favor laws that protect doctors and nurses from being forced to perform or refer for abortions against their will
- 73 percent favor laws that require giving parents the chance to be involved in their minor daughter's abortion decision
- 68 percent favor laws against partial-birth abortion (i.e., aborting a child already partially delivered from the mother), and
- 63 percent favor laws preventing the use of taxpayer funds for abortions.
"Support for these measures cuts across 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' positions. Over a third (35 percent) of the small minority who said abortion should be legal for any reason throughout pregnancy nevertheless supported three or more of the six laws presented," McQuade said.
The survey of 2,341 adults, conducted online December 10-12, also found that laws limiting or regulating abortion enjoyed support as high as 95 percent among those expressing support or opposition to the six kinds of laws examined in the survey:
- 95 percent favor laws ensuring that abortions be performed only by licensed physicians
- 88 percent favor informed consent laws (i.e., that require abortion providers to inform women of potential risks to their physical and psychological health and about alternatives to abortion)
- 76 percent favor laws that protect doctors and nurses from being forced to perform or refer for abortions against their will
- 73 percent favor laws that require giving parents the chance to be involved in their minor daughter's abortion decision
- 68 percent favor laws against partial-birth abortion (i.e., aborting a child already partially delivered from the mother), and
- 63 percent favor laws preventing the use of taxpayer funds for abortions.
"Support for these measures cuts across 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' positions. Over a third (35 percent) of the small minority who said abortion should be legal for any reason throughout pregnancy nevertheless supported three or more of the six laws presented," McQuade said.
Monday, January 5, 2009
A Nation Abandoned
A friend recently loaned us a CD of a sermon by John MacArthur. The title of the sermon is "A Nation Abandoned by God". You can click here to read the transcript. It was one of the most thought provoking sermons I have listened to in a long time.
The basic concept is this: God has abandoned America. We can see this because a description of an abandoned nation is given in Romans chapter 1. I won't go into all of the connections he makes. You should really read the transcript.
I do want to post a quote of the next to the last paragraph which is Mr. MacArthur's advice on what we should be doing about it.
God only wants one thing out of a nation. Listen and believe this book. I really get grieved even when I hear evangelical people in the media and the public eye kind of equivocating about the clarity of the gospel. It's all we've got. Or about the clarity of what Scripture says. Your prayer and mine has to be that God would raise up faithful preachers and people who would proclaim His Word across this land. Pray for this generation of young men that God will call and shape and send, pray for pastors everywhere. Pray for lay people, for Christians to be bold. There's only one solution and that's the truth...the truth by which God saves, by which God sanctifies, and if this nation will respond and listen to His truth, God will open the flood gates. We might be the greatest recovery story in history. But there's no other way than that people listen to Me and walk in My ways. It's not going to happen if there's a famine of the hearing of the Word of God. Pray that the Word, as Paul said, would have free course and that it would run with all its power across this land. With all its beauty and magnificence, all its power and grace, that people would hear and believe and be saved and be obedient, all that to the glory of God. I don't know what God's plan is, I just see here what His heart is. "O, that My people would listen to Me," that's the heart of God.
After listening to it this sermon, my husband and I were discussing the pattern in Judges: discipline, repentance, heroic civil magistrate (Gideon, Samson, etc.). Then I started thinking, "God raised up the excellent civil magistrate to rescue the people from their own demise not because the people found and voted on him/her but because they repented. Hearts across the nation of Israel turned to God. They changed their ways. They asked for His intervention. Then He raised up a leader."
Food for thought.
The basic concept is this: God has abandoned America. We can see this because a description of an abandoned nation is given in Romans chapter 1. I won't go into all of the connections he makes. You should really read the transcript.
I do want to post a quote of the next to the last paragraph which is Mr. MacArthur's advice on what we should be doing about it.
God only wants one thing out of a nation. Listen and believe this book. I really get grieved even when I hear evangelical people in the media and the public eye kind of equivocating about the clarity of the gospel. It's all we've got. Or about the clarity of what Scripture says. Your prayer and mine has to be that God would raise up faithful preachers and people who would proclaim His Word across this land. Pray for this generation of young men that God will call and shape and send, pray for pastors everywhere. Pray for lay people, for Christians to be bold. There's only one solution and that's the truth...the truth by which God saves, by which God sanctifies, and if this nation will respond and listen to His truth, God will open the flood gates. We might be the greatest recovery story in history. But there's no other way than that people listen to Me and walk in My ways. It's not going to happen if there's a famine of the hearing of the Word of God. Pray that the Word, as Paul said, would have free course and that it would run with all its power across this land. With all its beauty and magnificence, all its power and grace, that people would hear and believe and be saved and be obedient, all that to the glory of God. I don't know what God's plan is, I just see here what His heart is. "O, that My people would listen to Me," that's the heart of God.
After listening to it this sermon, my husband and I were discussing the pattern in Judges: discipline, repentance, heroic civil magistrate (Gideon, Samson, etc.). Then I started thinking, "God raised up the excellent civil magistrate to rescue the people from their own demise not because the people found and voted on him/her but because they repented. Hearts across the nation of Israel turned to God. They changed their ways. They asked for His intervention. Then He raised up a leader."
Food for thought.
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