I always knew that the Netherlands was a liberal Mecca, but this latest event wins the prize. I'm sorry to say it, but they are now reaping what they have sown over the last 30 years.

This article is from the Center for Arizona Policy, written by Cathy Herrod:

Dutch Court Approves Pedophile Party

 

Yesterday a court in the Netherlands gave the go-ahead for pedophiles to create their own political party. The Brotherly Love, Freedom, and Diversity Party aims to lower the age of consent for sexual relations from age 16 to age 12, and to legalize both bestiality and child pornography. Even the Dutch people, who live in perhaps the most socially liberal country on earth, are shocked, and an astounding 82 percent of the people object to the existence of the party. But their resistance to this begs the question, “Just where do you draw the line?” The Netherlands has tolerated casual drug use for at least 30 years, has grown comfortable with both physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia over the past twenty years, and has lived with same-sex marriage look-alikes for the past five years.

 

What is the lesson for us? When a nation starts to give ground on any moral issues, it quickly gives up the right to object to anything. The Dutch should not be surprised at what is happening in their country, but there is still time to keep this moral drift from taking place in Arizona and in the United States. Now, more than ever, is the time to fight for marriage, family and the sanctity of life.

 

I can't believe they are shocked.  They thought they could have their cake and eat it too, I suppose.  Well, surprise!  It doesn't work that way.

This sort of thing happens all the time here in the US on the parenting front: parents give in and say, "Okay, you can drink, but only at home, and you can have parties here with your friends." where does it end?  Teens will push the boundaries, go partying elsewhere, try illegal drugs, experiment sexually, join a gang, maybe be arrested, go to jail, or worse, kill others or be killed, and then those parents sit back and wonder what went wrong...

I guess all we can do is pray that God will cause them to finally see the light.

My good buddy, Ann, sent me this e-mail this morning, which comes from the American Family Association.  I figure it's okay to reprint it because they specifically ask to forward the message:

MPAA places Christianity in same category as sex, violence & profanity

Be sure to forward this to your friends and family!

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is now warning parents of movies which contain a reference to the Christian faith, equating Christianity as being on the same level as sex, violence and profanity when it comes to objectionable material.

The MPAA is controlled by Hollywood moguls known for their bitter opposition to Christianity.

A new family film featuring miracles and a pro-God theme has earned a PG rating because it would offend non-believers. The MPAA refuses to give movies which promote the homosexual lifestyle a similar warning. In other words, the MPAA now warns parents if a movie has Christianity presented in a positive manner, but refuses to warn them if homosexuality is presented in a positive manner.

Facing the Giants is the story of a Christian high school football coach who uses his undying faith to battle the giants of fear and failure. Due to the Christian content, the MPAA rated it PG, placing it in the same offensive category as sex, violence and profanity. 

Click Here to read a good Scripps Howard News Service article about this issue.

The plot includes several prayers being answered, a medical miracle, and a mystic who delivers a message from God. The scene which MPAA found most offensive was a discussion between the football coach and a boy named Matt. The coach says the boy needs to stop bad-mouthing his father and get right with God.

The boy replies: "You really believe in all that honoring God and following Jesus stuff? Well, I ain't trying to be disrespectful, but not everybody believes in that."

The coach responds: "Matt, nobody's forcing anything on you. Following Jesus Christ is the decision that you're going to have to make for yourself. You may not want to accept it, because it will change your life. You will never be the same."

That, says the MPAA, is very objectionable and parents need to be warned.

If you think our efforts are worthy, would you please support us with a small gift? Thank you for caring enough to get involved.

Sincerely,

Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

P.S. Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends! The MPAA needs to hear from Christians!

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I  am going to make it a point to go see this movie if it comes to our town!

I was cruising a few blogs I like to visit, and I came across a horrifying article on Confessor's blog about the latest in sleazy barbie dolls...it seems that there is a competition of sorts to see which doll maker can make their dolls more trashy. 

They've had the Bratz line of dolls on the market for quite a while, so, not to be outdone, Barbie wants to get in on the act.  They have a Pinup Girl series coming out soon, and to top those two, the other big toymaker was thinking of modeling dolls after the ultra-super-sleazy musical (and I use that term loosely) group, The Pu**ycat Dolls (the S's cause the blog system to edit).   Thank the Lord, it looks like they have stopped those plans.

Out of something awful, came a link I'd like to share:  The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhoood.  I haven't read a whole lot of their material on the web, so I can't say I wholeheartedly recommend them, but what I have read, I like so far.  They were the group, along with Dads And Daughters, who stopped production plans of these trashy dolls.

Here's their PR blurb:

Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood (formerly Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children) is a national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration. We support the rights of children to grow up – and the rights of parents to raise them – without being undermined by rampant consumerism.  CCFC is headquartered at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston.

I suppose nothing is sacred any longer.  I have never been a big fan of comic books, and now I like them even less.  Parents, put on your official Activist hats, please.

DC Comics is ready to bring back Batwoman, and she's coming out of the closet.  I am not going to link to the article, because I don't want anyone reading this to have to be subjected to the disgusting advertisements that surround the text.   I will give proper credit as to where I found it--you can go to the DC Comics website, and read their news links. 

This one comes from Out.com.  That's right.

Batwoman Comes Out!

I will, however, give you the link where you can contact DC Comics to let them know your opinion:  Click Here. 

Never let it be said that all I do, or we as homeschoolers do, is bash the public school system.  Come on, I only do that 95% of the time!

There's a public school History teacher in Phoenix who seems to have gotten something right.  She has her school kids interview veterans, the interviews get written into personal stories, and those get put into a book, and it's all part of the Veterans History Project.  Of course, I have to get a little dig in here:  She and the class do this project outside of the regular curriculum.  I'm sure they spend the rest of their time learning how to write letters to Congress and the President about how we should get out of Iraq. 

Did I just say that? 

Anyway, if you know any veterans of foreign wars, especially the ones who are getting up there in years, it would be an amazing thing to have your kids do an interview and get their stories recorded for future generations.  For a lot of these brave men, this is the first time they have spent time telling these stories in a long time, or ever.  It is definitely a worthy project.

Check it out!!

I didn't quite think I would be writing a book when I started with this post, sorry!     I guess I had a lot to say, so here goes:

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I have been reading the debate regarding the Southern Baptist resolution that is to be brought up at this year's convention.  There is some spirited debate going on over at Spunky's place, and I got some good perspective and a link to this article about the convention from Gena's blog, and Steve has been commenting on his blog, too.

I have been posting a tidbit here and there as comments, but I think I need to get my thoughts all together in one place on this.  Our family is Baptist, and our previous church belongs to the SBC.  Currently, we live in a pretty small community (about 8,000), and our current (plain old) Baptist church probably has about 250 members.  Before we moved, however, we were in a metropolis of about 1 million, and belonged to a SBC Mega-Church with about 8000 members.  So, I have both perspectives going. 

The Mega-Church is run like a corporation.  It has to be, it is just too large to be run any other way.  But you'd never know it on Sunday morning.  The church is broken down into many small groups in order to form communities, and it works very well.  We belonged to one of these groups, and everyone's spiritual, emotional, and physical needs were always met by the loving members of this group.  The pastor does not pander to his listeners.  He tells it like it is.  He's not a feel-good pastor, who tells people what they want to hear, and he's not a fire-and-brimstone pastor who tells everyone they're going to hell.  He just opens up the Bible and teaches the Truth of the Word.  I am happy to say that this is how our current pastor works as well. 

There are probably about 100 homeschooling families that belong to the Mega-church, and nobody is stared at for having more than 2 children.  Most of the people we were in a group with had beween 3 and 6 kids, we were actually the minority with 'only' 2.  In casual conversation when we mentioned we are homeschoolers, the statement was always met with "Really, my cousin/friend/other homeschools.  Tell me more about it."  In short, with interest, not judgement.  I am happy to say that about 50% of our old Sunday School class homeschools now that they have school aged children.

I guess what I'm getting at, is I matured as a Christian in this environment, and I believed that's how all Baptists were.  Boy, was I wrong.  I had no idea that there was a Liberal wing, in fact, I cannot understand how a person with sound judgement can read and believe the Bible as Truth, and still be a Liberal.  It's kind of an oxymoron in my mind.  I am ashamed at the churches who are openly trying to squash this measure with the argument that we should keep our kids in the public schools so that they can be 'salt and light' in them.  No thanks.  My children, beginning at age 5 (or 3, if the government has anything to say about it) are not qualified to go out into the missions field.  That's just ludicrous.  

It grieves me to see the politicking going on right now amongst the SB Leadership, and those leaders should be ashamed of themselves.  They sound like Senators, and that's not a compliment.

The debate going on as to whether or not we as Baptist Christians should 'stick it out' and sacrifice our children, our babies, to the state run schools sickens me.  It should be a no-brainer! 

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Here's my nutshell version of the resolution:

  (you can read the whole thing here)

Whereas,

• The schools are declining morally
• Federal Judges are going crazy
• The schools teach sex, homosexuality, and darwinism without parents' permission
• We need to reach out to orphans, single parent families, and the poor, to give them the same opportunities for Christian education alternatives
• Luke tells us that a student, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher
• Government schools are required to be humanistic and secular
• Children are our most important mission field
• Studies show that we are losing our children to the world - 88% of kids raised as evangelical leave the church never to return
• Studies further show that nearly half of all church members may not be Christians
• We should be raising fully devoted followers of Christ
• Parents cannot do this with their children in government schools
• We believe our member churches should support the Christian education of our children as fervently as they support missions and general benevolence
• We have the facilities available to educate children in a Christian manner
• We have many people who can help
• There are so many available alternatives for self-paced learning, and a lot of those are very affordable

Because of all these reasons, we resolve to encourage our member churches to develop an exit strategy from the government schools, and we should pay particular attention to helping people who otherwise may not be able to do so on their own.  The SBC will help churches in lower income areas partner with other churches to accomplish this goal.

Finally, we applaud the many adult members of our congregations who teach (or work) in government schools, and this resolution should be construed to encourage adult believers who are truly called to labor as missionaries to unbelieving colleagues and students to continue their missionary work in the government school system.

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So, here are my observations:

They are not so much advocating everyone to pull out and homeschool, rather, to investigate their own public schools, to decide whether an alternative should be sought, be that Christian private school, co-ops, or true homeschooling.  I think upon investigation, there is a very slim chance that any of our Christian children should be left in a public school.  There may be a few exceptions, where the teachers in smaller towns are allowed to be Christian, and teach in a Christian manner, but very few, so the effect may end up being that most Christians should homeschool. 

I think we must also be very careful about a lot of the Christian private schools that exist today.  A lot of them are simply public school with an hour of Bible study thrown in for good measure.  They don't all take Creation Science seriously, and many of them take students who have been thrown out of the public system.  Buyer beware.

If it were a perfect world, our churches would support homeschoolers who need help as they support other people with physical needs.  Just as the church may provide a car for a single mother who cannot afford one, so should they provide this same mother with a way that she can successfully school her children in the way that God has called her to do.  I don't know about all the logistics of this kind of thing, and I don't think it should be a 'handout' like welfare, I just know that we should be helping each other further the Kingdom.

Those studies that say that 88% of evangelicals leave the church when they are 18 should frighten us.  There are also studies that show that as many as 95% of Christians who were homeschooled stay in their faith when they become adults.  We should rejoice in this, and spread the word like wildfire.  

We experienced homeschoolers should be evangelizing people to homeschooling, in much the same way we evangelize them to Christianity.  We need to educate them with the truth about public education, show them there is a better way, pray that their hearts are convicted, and then mentor (disciple) them when they have made a decision. 

When we hear people talking about "No Child Left Behind", we as Christians should be thinking to ourselves, "No Child Left Behind When God Calls His Children Home."  Get them out of public school.

I never bothered to read the book, The DaVinci Code, I just don't read that much current fiction.  Then all the controversy started popping up.  I still didn't read the book, I just kind of read some articles about what all the fuss was. 

Now, there's a movie coming out, and it's predicted to be a major blockbuster.  With Tom Hanks as the star, and Ron Howard directing, how could it not be?  So, I have decided I need to see the movie.  I can't be one of those who boycotts it just because it tells a fictional story about a church cover-up, and I'll tell you why:  This movie presents one of the greatest evangelistic opportunities of our lifetime!  More so than even The Passion Of The Christ did.  Why?  Because non-believers don't care about the pain He went through.  They really don't.  I know that's harsh, but it's true.  Until the message of the Gospel is presented to someone, and they understand and accept it, they just don't have those kinds of thoughts in their heads, that Someone could love them so much that He would die a horriffic death just to save them.  It's just not personal to them until their acceptance of the gift of salvation.

Now, a fantastical adventure, with small amounts of history woven into the storyline, that catches people's attention.  They want to know more, find out what's truth and what parts are fictional.  Did you know that Constantine, DaVinci and the like are some of the most researched topics on the internet?  People want to know the real story behind the fiction.  That's where we come in.  A non-believer is much more apt to have a meaningful discussion about this movie than one with an overtly Christian theme.  They are simply more apt to see this movie, period.

I believe that all Christians need to educate themselves on the truth behind the movie storyline.  There are some excellent resources out there, from all kinds of organizations.  Personally, I am using some materials produced by Campus Crusade, but I know there is lots more available.  Get whatever suits you, study up, see the movie, and get ready to educate your neighbors, relatives, etc.