Nature Rights

As the culture continues to grow increasingly hostile to biblical morality and the Christian faith, all engaged in the culture war need to know the latest from the front. That is the purpose of these weekly posts.

My mission is to provide help and encouragement to live out our faith amidst the moral decline of our culture. Challenges to religious freedom, free speech, biblical morality, innocent and defenseless human life continue unabated.

Do not be afraid. Standing firmly on the Word of God, we can resist evil and shine as lights, offering hope to a darkened world.

Ecuador’s Highest Court Grants Rights to Wild Animals

More nature rights activism. Make sure you get permission from your dog or cat before you have them neutered. 😊

The “nature rights” movement is not a benign attempt to improve environmental practices. Rather, it seeks to upend human exceptionalism and elevate animals — and even geological features — to rights-bearing beings or entities.

Ecuador has instituted the rights of nature into its constitution. Now, the highest court there ruled that making a wild monkey a pet 18 years ago — before nature had rights in Ecuador — violated the monkey’s rights.

Really Funny Things Pastors Said While Preaching (But Wish They Hadn’t)

A little humor to lighten up the usual dark tone of these posts about the culture war.

“God loves a cheerful liver.”

“We must guard against that four-letter word called pride.”

While preaching on John 3 where Jesus talks about the wind blowing: “You can’t break wind.”

The word was supposed to be “deprecating,” but the pastor told them they needed to be “self-defecating.”

Speaking about making too many excuses, the pastor told the congregation he had “a big but that always gets in the way.”

In a child dedication service, the pastor said, “the history of child sacrifice goes back many centuries.”

It was supposed to be “hearts”: “Father, you know our farts.”

Preaching in a nursing home, the pastor told the residents, “God, I want you to bless each person here at this funeral home.”

It was supposed to be “enemies”: “God has given you power over all your enemas.”

“Mary washed her hair with Jesus’ feet.”

More Unintentional Humor from the Pulpit

Two men named “Loose” had expectant wives: So the pastor said, “Please pray for these Loose women.”

The pastor was talking about how potters would fill impure pottery with wax to hide imperfections: “The problem with many believers is we have wax in our cracks.”

Christmas message speaking about how beautiful the Christmas tree is in his home: “I love sitting in the living room with nothing on but the Christmas tree.”

Speaking at a wedding: “Marriage should be endured, not enjoyed.”

The preacher meant to say “inflatables” during the announcements: “Please consider donating your blow-up dolls for our church’s Christmas outreach.”

He meant to say “biopsy”: “Please pray for Mrs. Jones who recently went in for an autopsy.”

The pastor meant to say Jesus will wipe away the tears from our faces. “Jesus will wipe away our faces.”

So much for fruit of the womb: “Behold, children are a blessing from the Lord, the Fruit of the Loom is a reward.”

Instead of “Jesus eats with sinners,” the pastor said, “Jesus eats sinners.”

The senior adult group in the church is called The Triple L Club (Live, Love, Laugh), but the pastor referred to them as “The Triple X Club.”

Hillsong Syndrome; Why the Megachurch Model Will Never Work with Genuine Christianity.

An interesting analysis of the failures and weaknesses of megachurches.

As a church grows, there are things it will no doubt bring in that can contaminate any genuine attempt at building a relationship with Jesus Christ. Hillsong, and before it, Mars Hill and many other churches grow to these large proportions over many years and then, it seems, almost overnight they collapse.

“Pure Islam” Is Anything but Peaceful

Apologists for Islam, including President Barack Obama, call Islam a religion of peace. This article explodes that myth.

MBS began the interview by distancing himself from Muslim extremists, accusing them of distorting Islam and claiming they “hijacked and changed our religion into something new for their own interests.” He presented himself as both a true conservative and a real reformer, as he vowed to bring Saudi Arabia “back to the roots” of the true faith.

“We are going back to the real teachings of Islam, the way that the Prophet and the four rightly guided caliphs lived, which was open and peaceful societies,” MBS said. Thus, for the crown prince, Muslims should follow the way Muhammad and his earliest four successors lived.

Frankly, this imagined view of peace and harmony may be good for public relations, but it has nothing to do with what historical Muslim accounts reveal about Muhammad’s time and that of his successors.

When Muslims follow the actions of Muhammad’s time and apply the authoritative texts describing the behavior of his successors, we end up with patterns similar to what militant Muslim groups—such as ISIS—apply and imitate.

‘Social-Emotional Learning’: The Next Fight in Education

This article reveals another strategy to take over our children and deny parental rights.

Last week, the organization Parents Defending Education pressured Panorama, an education company that provides curricular materials and professional development to 1,500 districts, to remove a controversial training on its site. Called ‘Social-Emotional Learning as a Guide to Equity,” the course is replete with concepts such as privilege, anti-racism, equity, intersectionality, and other progressive buzzwords. In recent months several school boards have succumbed to controversy over the implementation of similar SEL programs.

While this three-letter acronym is less known and more euphonious than its CRT cousin, it may soon eclipse CRT as the acronym under debate in education.

At best SEL is a secularized character education devoid of virtue or any foundation on objective morality; the theory justifies emotional competence not because it’s objectively preferable but for the utilitarian, economic, academic benefits it provides. Tolerance and open-mindedness replace humility and justice. Robert Pondiscio, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, sums up SEL by saying that it changes the role of the teacher from “pedagogue” to “therapist.” At worst, it’s a sly shoo-in for a politicized education couched in therapeutic terms.

The Left Is the Culture War Aggressor, by Ben Shapiro

Why are we engaged in a culture war? Is it something conjured up by the Right, sour-grapes conservatives? Or is it that those of us who hold on to traditional values are responding to attacks from the left?

This article answers these questions.

The Left, caught with its hand in the kiddie jar, immediately swiveled and accused the Right of initiating this culture war. Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times lamented that she felt terrible for Raveneau, who, after all, was just “step(ping) up to defend the company’s queer friendliness, only to become a national object of right-wing fury and disgust,” and whose injection of LGBTQ propaganda into children’s content was “sweetly anodyne.” CNN hosted Washington Post transgender columnist Charlotte Clymer, adding the chyron “LGBT COMMUNITY LATEST TO BE CAUGHT IN CULTURE WAR.” The takeaway, according to the social Left, is that anyone who defends traditionalism in child-rearing — or anyone who simply doesn’t want children turned into targets of sexual propagandizing — is the true cultural aggressor.

 

Imagine That, the Left is Lying About the Culture War

This is a transparent lie. And it’s a lie that won’t redound to the benefit of those who seek radical change. If they wish to pose the rubric of gay rights against parental rights, gay rights are likely to suffer. If they wish to suggest that LGBTQ freedom extends to teachers initiating children into sexual conversations without parental permission, parents are unlikely to go along for the ride. For decades, the social Left has made inroads by arguing that they simply want to be left alone.

The Right, by contrast, has argued that the Left’s agenda is far broader, that the Left demands cultural celebration of its sexual mores and that it will stop at nothing to remake society in order to achieve its narcissistic goals. Disney’s latest foray into the culture wars proves that the Right was correct, that the Left’s stated agenda was a lie and that its “not-at-all-secret” agenda targeted the most vulnerable Americans.

Conservatives Are Winning the Culture War

The post above proves that the left is the aggressor in the culture war. This post answers the question, who is winning the culture war?

The American press and progressives like to refer to conservatives as “culture warriors,” but the label ignores the fact that conservatives did not start the fight. All we have done is refuse the “progress” the left offers on sexuality and social justice. Daring to dig in our heels has made us warriors, and the press frames it as a fight against progress. Despite framing conservatives as “against” their better future, the left is losing, and we are winning.

Weirdos Who Want to Sexualize Kids Should Be Stigmatized as Groomers

If you have young children or grandchildren, as I do, this must concern you. More and more, our children are prey for sexual predators.

Have the “conservatives” resisting the use of the “groomer” label forgotten about the concerted effort by gender activists to host drag-queen story hours for little children in taxpayer-funded libraries or “drag-tastic” camps at museums? Have they not seen the pornographic books introducing kids to gay sex and masturbation?

How about government schoolteachers’ documented cult-like allegiance to gay pride? The cover-up of sexual assault resulting from trans bathroom policies? Or the coaxing of children into sex confusion and dangerous gender-bending interventions and then hiding it from their parents?

Have they not heard stories of young people who internalized backward notions about human sexuality during their formative years, were utterly failed by every institution that should have helped them correct course, then underwent destructive procedures that left them full of regret, just disfigured shells of the unique and beautiful people they were created to be?

How about tongue-in-cheek confessions from choruses of gay men that they’ll “convert your children”? Or even manipulation by the president of the United States that those who don’t abide by LGBT orthodoxy “don’t see” and “don’t respect” transgender people and that so-called gender affirmation is the best way to keep kids “safe and healthy”?

There’s a word for adults who build trust with children then condition them in sexual matters without their parents’ consent or knowledge in order to manipulate them for their own pleasure: It’s groomer.

Texas Governor to Send Migrants to D.C.

One thing about Texas Governor Greg Abbott, he has guts! I love this “in-your-face Joe Biden” response to the Biden administration’s reckless border policies. As I write this, the first buses are on their way to the Capitol.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday he is authorizing 900 buses to carry migrants who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border to Washington, D.C. Abbott said the federal government can better address the needs of “hordes of illegal immigrants” and that the first stop is the U.S. Capitol steps. Abbott plans to announce more measures next week as part of his promised “unprecedented action” to address an immigration crisis.

What else will change? State troopers near the border will start stopping and inspecting commercial vehicles, which human smugglers are known to use. This is expected to dramatically slow traffic. State authorities are ordered to form boat blockades on the Rio Grande and install barbed wire in low-river crossings to deter migrants. Border Patrol officials are preparing for up to 18,000 arrivals daily once Title 42, a pandemic health rule that allowed the immediate removal of many migrants, expires. Former Trump administration officials have urged lawmakers to declare an illegal invasion to give law enforcement the authority to send migrants back, but it is unclear whether states have the authority to do this.

Study: Chinese Doctors Executed Prisoners by Organ Removal

The human rights abuses in China continue unabated.

Now, a paper just published in the American Journal of Transplantation — one of the world’s most respected medical journals — lays out a convincing case that Chinese doctors are not only harvesting from executed prisoners, but that organ removal was often the means of execution.

More Suggested Reading on the Culture War

 

Biden’s Order on Gender Transitioning Kids Shows Left Is All in on the Culture War

 

Conservatives Celebrate Musk’s Twitter Stake as ‘WIN’ for Free Speech: ‘Heroic and Public Serving’

 

The Left Unmasks Its Desire to Destroy the Nation with Sexual Chaos

 

The Biden Family Biz Is Everything Leftists Invented About the Trumps

 

In Defense of Freedom of Conscience

 

May God bless you and keep you and yours safe this week.