It turns out that the man who made that reportedly salacious movie about Mohammed, The Innocence of Muslims, that has set the Middle East on fire is NOT Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American with 200 Jewish investors, as he claimed. That was a fake identity for a convicted scam artist named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a Coptic Christian. The Copts are already cruelly persecuted in Egypt, so this won’t help them. via US Identifies Anti-Muslim Filmmaker Blamed for Attacks « CBS DC…. Read more
Bringing woolly mammoths back from extinction
September 14, 2012 By Gene Veith
38 Comments
As you may know, frozen woolly mammoths have been discovered in ice formations, more or less intact, since the 18th century. So why not clone some, bringing them back from extinction? A Russian university says scientists have discovered frozen woolly mammoth fragments that may contain living cells deep in Siberia, bringing closer the possibility of cloning the extinct animal. The North-Eastern Federal University said in a statement on Tuesday that an international team had discovered mammoth hair, soft tissues and… Read more
The new 9/11 attack in Libya
September 13, 2012 By Gene Veith
220 Comments
The U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was killed, along with three other Americans, when Islamists fired rocket grenadees at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Mobs were protesting an American-made movie ostensibly funded by Jewish militants entitled Innocence of Muslims, which depicts Mohammad and portrays him (some say pornographically) as a sexual predator. (All that had been released was a YouTube trailer, since taken down. See this on questions about the filmmaker.) Officials are saying, however, that the… Read more
Bob Dylan is back
September 13, 2012 By Gene Veith
42 Comments
Bob Dylan has a new album, Tempest, and it sounds really, really good. From Washington Post music critic Chris Richards: For his 35th studio album, “Tempest,” Bob Dylan wanted to write religious songs and ended up hopping a freight train to the apocalypse. Couching images of end-times America in old-time American melodies, the 71-year-old has delivered his most compelling release in more than a decade. That’s faint praise for anyone who gave up on Dylan after the Carter administration, sure,… Read more
Democrats running as if Mitt Romney were president
September 13, 2012 By Gene Veith
36 Comments
The Democratic National Convention was full of angst about how “middle class” Americans are having such a hard time, how “the system is rigged against them” (as Elizabeth Warren put it), how the rich control everything, and other evocations of national misery. But if things are so bad and electing Obama will solve the problems, why hasn’t he done anything about them so far? As someone has noted, the Democrats are sounding like they are running against an incumbent President… Read more
“I will show you my faith by my works”
September 12, 2012 By Gene Veith
107 Comments
More from Sunday’s sermon, in which Pastor Douthwaite also picked up on the Epistle reading, James 2:1-10: What James said: I will show you my faith by my works does not mean that I will show you that I believe by what I do – it means that I will show you what I believe by what I do. For everyone believes something. Even Atheists. They believe there is no God and that belief shows in what they do -… Read more
Look who’s waging the culture war
September 12, 2012 By Gene Veith
46 Comments
Christian conservatives and Republicans in general have been criticized for waging the so-called “culture wars,” making political issues out of abortion, gay marriage, and other divisive moral issues. But now it’s the Democrats who are raising those divisive issues. At the Republican National Convention, hardly anything was said about abortion or gay marriage. But at the Democratic National Convention, speakers wouldn’t shut up about the goodness of abortion and gay marriage. It sounds like both sides believe being pro-life and… Read more
Chicago teachers’ strike
September 12, 2012 By Gene Veith
54 Comments
Chicago teachers are on strike, even though they are among the highest paid in the country and they were offered a 16% raise. But they don’t want to be held accountable for their effectiveness: For the first time in a quarter century, Chicago teachers walked out of the classroom Monday, taking a bitter contract dispute over evaluations and job security to the streets of the nation’s third-largest city — and to a national audience — less than a week after… Read more
Iranian pastor under death sentence freed
September 12, 2012 By Gene Veith
4 Comments
That Iranian pastor who had been sentenced to death in Iran (we blogged about him here and here) has been freed after three years in prison: Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has been released from prison in Iran, where he has been held for almost three years on charges of apostasy from Islam, as well as evangelizing. On its website, “Present Truth Ministries” quotes a Luther-like Nardakhani in court: “During one hearing he was told to recant and he responded, ‘You ask… Read more
What Christ’s miracles mean
September 11, 2012 By Gene Veith
6 Comments
We had an illuminating sermon from Pastor Douthwaite last Sunday on Mark 7:31-37, in which Jesus touches the ears and the tongue of the deaf mute and tells him “ephphata”; that is, “be opened.” Jesus’ miracles are not simply signs of who He is – God in the flesh and so signs of His divinity and power – but even more importantly, they are signs of what He has come to do for you. Yes, for you and me, for… Read more
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