August 10, 2007
By Al Bedrosian
Bedrosian, of Roanoke, is a former political candidate for the Virginia General Assembly (1997 and 1999). He hosts a 10-minute commentary program on local AM radio.
As a Christian, I think it’s time to rid ourselves of this notion of freedom of religion in America.
Now that I have your attention, let me take a moment to make my case. Freedom of religion has become the biggest hoax placed upon the Christian people and on our Christian nation.
When reading the writings of our Founding Founders, there was never any reference to freedom of religion referring to a choice between Islam, Hindu, Satanism, Wicca and whatever other religions or cults you would like to dream up. It was very clear that freedom to worship meant the freedom to worship the God of the Bible in the way you wanted, and not to have a government church denomination dictate how you would worship.
Christianity, by its own definition, does not allow freedom of religion. A Christian is defined as a follower of Jesus Christ.
Jesus clearly states all through Scripture that he is the way and the only way to God the father. The Bible is clear in teaching us that we should have no other gods before him. Our God is a jealous God.
As Christians, we should not be just going through a ritual of worship. We have a personal relationship with the God of all creation. You can’t have this type of relationship alongside the worship of other Gods.
I know that my stance is even unpopular among Christians. If you took a poll in America and asked just Christians if we should allow any religion to be practiced in America, I guarantee that 99 percent would say yes. They would be proud to state that freedom of religion is the pillar America was founded on.
Yet these are the same Christians who will be protesting in the streets against the homosexual agenda, abortion, removing God from our schools and from our pledge.
Somehow many Christians have not been able to connect the dots. Don’t we see that when we allow other gods into America, those other gods start influencing our culture and our laws? And soon we are allowing laws and regulations to be enacted that are totally opposed to our belief system. And the sad thing is that we knowingly allow them in the name of “freedom of religion.”
One of the greatest moments in U.S. Senate history came when a Christian group recently shouted for God to forgive us during the opening prayer of a Hindu in the Senate.
Beware, Christians, we are being fed lies that a Christian nation needs to be open to other religions. America is a great nation — not because of its freedom, great economic system, or even its military power. It is a great nation because the God of the Bible has blessed us in our freedom, our wealth and our military power.
Once we remove ourselves from worshiping the one true God, all the wonderful qualities of America will vanish.
Those who oppose Christianity are extremely cunning. They realize that the true power of Christianity rests in the name of Jesus. Currently, there is a legislative battle in Congress over whether to allow our military chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus.
In Southwest Virginia, local government boards are coming under fire for “invocations” at public meetings. They can’t even call them prayers, and most can’t even use the name of Jesus.
Christians are kept occupied by fighting a battle over the removal of the generic word ‘god’ from our culture. This really is not the true battle. The word ‘god’ can refer to anything. Hindus, Islamists, Buddhists and Satanists all have gods.
In fact, the global warming crowd worships the environment as god, the abortionist has the death of unborn babies as their god, and the homosexuals have sexual freedom as their god.
The real battle is keeping the name of Jesus as Lord. The name Jesus is what makes us a Christian people and a Christian nation. This is why we must continue our heritage as a Christian nation and remove all other gods.
also:
Klansman Statue – “Historical Item”
August 4, 2007
By Jane Macartney
Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.
“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.
It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities to tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as tulkus, often lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks, giving them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan region. Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process of seeking and recognising a living Buddha, effectively excluding the Dalai Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving recognition to candidate reincarnates.
For the first time China has given the Government the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible death knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far as the 12th century.
China already insists that only the Government can approve the appointments of Tibet’s two most important monks, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama’s announcement in May 1995 that a search inside Tibet — and with the co- operation of a prominent abbot — had identified the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, enraged Beijing. That prompted the Communist authorities to restart the search and to send a senior Politburo member to Lhasa to oversee the final choice. This resulted in top Communist officials presiding over a ceremony at the main Jokhang temple in Lhasa in which names of three boys inscribed on ivory sticks were placed inside a golden urn and a lot was then drawn to find the true reincarnation.
The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama has disappeared. The abbot who worked with the Dalai Lama was jailed and has since vanished. Several sets of rules on seeking out “soul boys” were promulgated in 1995, but were effectively in abeyance and hundreds of living Buddhas are now believed to live inside and outside China.
All Tibetans believe in reincarnation, but only the holiest or most outstanding individuals are believed to be recognisable — a tulku, or apparent body. One Tibetan monk told The Times: “In the past there was no such regulation. The management of living Buddhas is becoming more strict.”
The search for a reincarnation is a mystical process involving clues left by the deceased and visions among leading monks on where to look. The current Dalai Lama, the fourteenth of the line, was identified in 1937 when monks came to his village.
China has long insisted that it must have the final say over the appointment of the most senior lamas. Tibet experts said that the new regulations may also be aimed at limiting the influence of new lamas.
like that’s really going to happen… my impression is that if you have control over life and death, and can reincarnate at will, the proclamations of a limited human government make little difference, and if you want to reincarnate, there’s not an awful lot that the limited humans can do about it.
Someone kindly send Mr. Bedrosian to, say, Iran, and make sure that he proclaims his faith and his absolute right to practice it. Assuming he survives the encounter, we check to make sure that he learned the appropriate lesson. If he has, we bring him home. If not, we send him out again. Either way, he’ll learn why freedom of religion should extend to everyone.
Story one prompted a rare LTE from me:
Wow
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Rick Day