Choices you make will impact your children good, or bad

Listen to the Audio .

– “Are you a risker taker” Thoughts of Pastor Ty,and Pastor Jonathan Falwell

I recall Pastor Ty Schenzel who along with his wife were in a car accident some years ago and now call Heaven their home, saying comfort was to the American Church what Communism was to the Old USSR Soviet Union. In other words it was easy not to take risks for God, or go against the flow. It was easy in the USSR not to stand up to those who said God was dead, and that he for the sins of mankind. Then on on that wonderful day Easter Sunday God raised his son Jesus from the dead to prove He was God.

Here is a short commentary by a current Pastor on being a vision risk taker. Listen here.

Prepare Them for Failure

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Failing can be educational too.

Across the country, college counseling services are overwhelmed.

As Peter Gray writes at Psychology Today, “Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life,” especially coping with failure.

Many interpret a “B” or “C” on a test “as the end of the world.” Instead of working harder, they just complain about the professor, or the course—and writing poor reviews, sometimes even filing lawsuits.

Many professors say they’re bewildered and helpless as they encounter these young people who, just a few short years ago, were expected to act like—you know—adults in college.

Gray cites “helicopter parenting” as a major factor: parents being the ultimate “fixers” for their kids when they hit the smallest bump in the road.

That doesn’t prepare them for life.  Kids should be allowed to fail. We can support and guide them, but since failure is inevitable this side of heaven, we might as well prepare them for how to handle it.

For more on faith and culture, come to BreakPoint.org

Humanae Vitae and Artificial Contraception A Prophetic Warning

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Fifty years ago, a Papal encyclical forbade the use of artificial contraception. How relevant is that document today?

July 29th marks the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae.  You don’t have to fully agree with the encyclical’s stance on artificial contraception to appreciate its spot-on analysis of the sexual revolution and its consequences. In fact, it’s no stretch to call this document “prophetic” in many respects.

The document begins by saying something every Christians should agree with: “The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator.”

And then, it recognizes what it calls a “remarkable development”: “man’s stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature (has reached the) point that he is endeavoring to extend this control over every aspect of his own life,” including the laws “that regulate the transmission of life.”

Humanae Vitae was prompted by the collision of the historical Christian view of marriage and childbirth, and the view that emerged from the intersection of medical technology and the sexual revolution. The latter resulted in the divorce of sex, marriage, and procreation.

In 1968, the expectation in many circles, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, was that the Christian view would succumb to the new modern ideology. But instead, Pope Paul VI surprised many when he affirmed nearly two millennia of Christian teaching on the subject.

Now note I said “Christian,” not “Catholic.” For 1900 years, all Christians—Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox—condemned artificial birth control.

Martin Luther called contraception a manifestation of the wickedness of fallen human nature. In his Commentary on Genesis, John Calvin wrote, “When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime.”

In 1930 at the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion opened the door to artificial contraception. It attempted to hedge its bets by condemning it when used “for motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience,” but that attempt just ended up being futile. By 1968, the contraceptive mentality had taken over our culture.

Even those who disagree with Paul VI’s rejection of contraception, must still acknowledge that his prediction of where the contraceptive mentality would take us was quite accurate.

Experience, Paul VI wrote, teaches us that “human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law.” But artificial contraception offered incentive to break that law. The result, Humanae Vitae predicted, would be increased “marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.” Men “may forget the reverence due to a woman and . . . reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires…”

Countless victims of the sexual revolution have proven Paul VI right.

Finally, he warned that governments, in furtherance of some “greater good,” may actually impose contraception on an entire population. Again, countries like China, India, and others have done exactly what Humanae Vitae predicted they would.

We’ve asked a number of scholars to weigh in on the ongoing legacy of Humanae Vitae and the consequences of the sexual revolution. Come to BreakPoint.org today to view this, our latest symposium. We must, in this cultural moment, re-imagine sexuality as God intended, not as the sexual revolution corrupted it. As Christians, we must recommit to living faithfully to a Christian vision of sex, procreation, and marriage—as strange is it may seem to progressive ears.

Again, come to BreakPoint.org for our symposium “Humanae Vitae at 50.”

Humanae Vitae and Artificial Contraception: A Prophetic Warning

Find out what Christian thought leaders have to say about the legacy of this important document and the issue of artificial contraception. Click on this link to read the symposium submissions. And click here to get the whole text of Humanae Vitae.

Resources

Encyclical Letter: Humanae Vitae

Pope Paul VI | July 29, 1968

Public smoking ban in, near public housing starts Tuesday

Here is the story.

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Missouri Boy, 8, Sets Up Lemonade Stand to Benefit Local Police Officers

A young boy in Missouri said that he’s hoping to make “over 12 dollars” selling lemonade in order

to raise money for his local police department.

Eight-year-old Brecken Simmons, of Blue Springs, said that the street he lives on sees a lot of traffic, so he wanted to use that to his advantage this weekend.

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Stick to Your Guns, Congress

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Stick to your guns, Congress.

In the wake of Turkey’s outrageous imprisonment of American pastor Andrew Brunson, the House and Senate Armed Services committees have temporarily blocked the delivery to that nation of 100 advanced F-35 fighter jets.

Now the Washington Times reports that the ban is in reaction to Turkey’s growing coziness with Russia. But lawmakers also demanded the release of Pastor Brunson and any other “U. S. citizens wrongfully detained in Turkey.”

Well, good! Ed Stetzer and I discussed Turkey’s virtual kidnapping of Brunson on BreakPoint This Week and praised President Trump for his strong words against Turkey’s lawlessness.

Now Congress is taking a stand as well. The F-35 ban is part of next year’s Pentagon budget blueprint, which has yet to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the President. Stick to your guns, Congress.

And tune into “BreakPoint This Week” every weekend, when Ed and I discuss the issues of the week from a Christian worldview. You can find it at BreakPoint.org.

Resources

Lawmakers move to block delivery of F-35s to Turkey, demand Brunson’s release

Les Sillars | wng.org | July 24, 2018

A REAL MASTER’S DEGREE –

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We tend to measure life by its milestones. Take our first born child, our daughter. There have been a lot of milestones in her life. I remember looking at the films of her learning to walk. Now, that’s a big milestone from a long time ago. Her first piano recital; we have pictures of that of course. Her first band concert; that was a big one. Let’s see, there was her junior high graduation, then her high school graduation, her college graduation, her wedding; man, there have been a lot of things. I remember that when she graduated from college there was a sense of completion I think for all of us. She had a double major in college. She graduated with honors. She got a degree from a great school, and I wrote something on her graduation card for all the work and all the money that that degree had cost. I told her there is another degree that she needs. One that is far more important.

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Pope accepts resignation of US Cardinal accused of altar boy sex abuse

Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who once led the Archdiocese of Washington and was a force in American politics, after a decades-old allegation of sexual abuse of a teenage altar boy forced the Vatican to remove him from public ministry.

The Vatican said Saturday that Pope Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation Friday evening and ordered him to “a life of prayer and penance until the accusations made against him are examined in a regular canonical trial.”

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Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Movie review