This is from several years ago so perhaps the store has decided to eliminate all association with religious holidays. Or perhaps it hasn’t:
Aside from all of the holiday activities affiliated with local area temples, Boscov’s Department store will be hosting a Hanukkah party on December 12. At the request of Boscov’s, the Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Monmouth County will be hosting the Hanukkah party, which is intended for the general public. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be held at Boscov’s Department store in the Monmouth Mall in their Community Room. At the party, members of the general public can light the candles of the Menorah, play dreide l games, listen to a storyteller, and watch Monmouth County folk dancers perform. The Jewish Family and Children’s Services is excited about the party and hopes that many of you from the public can attend this celebratory event.
Doesn’t matter to me if a store or anyone else selects which groups to support. But we all know if the situation were reversed what would happen.{
“Boscov’s was founded by Solomon Boscov in 1911 and is owned by the families of Albert Boscov and Edwin Lakin.”
So, presumably, the founders and current owners both are Jewish; the point is, they’ll carry Hanukkah greeting cards, but not ones saying “Merry Christmas”, which is an attack on the faith of the majority of Americans, and likely, the majority of those purchasing things in December of each year. So it’s clearly a bigoted double standard. But money talks, so if people in Reading, PA and nearby vote with their dollars, by not spending them there, and by complaining and letting them know that’s why, it may force them to change their minds; if they don’t, they’ll just have to suffer the loss of business their stance results in.
The expansion came later according to this article. It says Albie Boscov’s first store burned down in the 1960s after which he began a massive advertising campaign and sponsored the first Black Heritage Festival in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
In Harvard Business School Review,I have reads a jew woman filed a lawsuit against a holy bible study group in her corporation,made by workers in their offtime because it makes her feel excluded. When christiansin america will realizes who their real enemy is…
It seems to me the real enemy is a way of thinking that sets up neutrality as a standard to be enforced by government on all social relations. There are always minorities who don’t like what most people do and would stop it if they could. So the key question is what the institutional arrangements and understandings are that empower such people.
Various affirmative action schemes, abortion and the purging of faith from the public square—three of the left’s favorite things—have been imposed upon society in part, or entirely, by judges.
But there is hope. All of Bush’s nominations to the Fedeal Bench are good. Best crop in my lifetime. Consider Justice Brown’s speech to the Federalist Society:
not that the commentator necessarily thinks otherwise. (Somehow my immediate post did not get through weeks ago.) The number of non-Jewish people in accord with some Jewish people is so vast and overwhelming in number, I cannot see the reason for the inference that Jewish people are somehow a decisive moral liability for non-Jewish behavior or, better yet, reaction. What would a Christian (who believes the Jewish Messiah has already come) expect from people who believe Christ was not the Jewish Messiah?
Christians perhaps should trust in the final judgment of Jesus, a Jewish person and part of the Trinity. It is not sensible to conclude Jewishness is responsible for whatever situation we relatively enormously-numbered non-Jewish people find ourselves.
Liberalism is perhaps a cause of our disregard of race, culture, or religion but not because liberals are morons. Liberals can think. I saw a recent example tonight on the liberal program (that I never watch) where Martin Sheen is the President. A regular—a short, balding small man—recited a litany of incontrovertible reasons for the speciousness of the charge we are not “nice†to Arabs. (His style reminds me of Al Pacino.) So liberals are not stupid or ignorant, just biased. Let’s not mimic their behavior by blaming Jewish people for America’s woes. We are so lucky to not be in Israel’s situation, perhaps we should be thinking of ways to help Israel, not that we should write a blank check.
but jews and arabs who are no christians must to be evangelized;USA as secular country/reads node America as Kingdom of God on Earth/,makes political decisions that can be hurtful to another countries,please visit comeandsee.co.il for more info.
I would join the boycott if I could, but I am located in the Deep South. We have only the big three TV networks, Disney, and Google (for its refusal to take anti-abortion ads) to boycott.
I am interested and will check them out. I have been using Alta Vista exclusively, but I will gladly try traditionalist engines of the Christian or Jewish persuasion. Thanks for the tip.
‘Boycott Beijing Olympics’ Campaign Launched
By Patrick Goodenough CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
August 21, 2001
London (CNSNews.com) - A press freedom group Tuesday launched a campaign to generate international support for a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, because of China’s human rights record.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) conceded that without the backing of major governments a boycott would never materialize, but said a campaign had to begin somewhere.
The organization has set up a href=”http://www.boycottbeijing2008.net “websites in English and French, and it is encouraging Internet users to sign a petition.
“Given the massive human rights violations in China, it seems unacceptable to us that the Chinese government be allowed the right to host the world’s most prestigious sporting event,” it reads in part.
The petition is addressed to U.N. member states, which are urged to publicly voice their disapproval of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to grant the 2008 Games to Beijing, and to support a boycott.
The Paris-based group said the reasons used to justify a U.S.-led boycott by around 60 nations of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow were relevant in Beijing’s case too.
As the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, so too has China taken possession of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, it said, charging that the Chinese today infringes human rights more vigorously than the Soviets had done in the late 1970s.
“The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich,” said RSF. “In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics.
“In 2008, the international sporting movement must refuse to tolerate one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships.”
‘We have to find other ways’
RSF, which monitors and reports on infringements of press freedom worldwide, says China is a major violator of this and other basic human rights.
Since the IOC selected Beijing as host city in mid-July, it said, repression in China had not eased.
“As long as the Chinese government does not release political prisoners, refuses to have negotiations with the [exiled Tibetan leader] Dalai Lama and does not put an end to censorship, our campaign will not stop,” said RSF general secretary Robert M’e9nard.
RSF spokesman Vincent Brossel said from Paris Tuesday the group recognized the enormity of the challenge, but was already picking up support in Europe and North America, especially among sportsmen.
Some Tibetan groups and exiled Chinese dissident have also voiced their support for the boycott campaign, he said.
Brossel conceded that leading human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, were unlikely to support the campaign.
But new tactics had to be found, he insisted. “Each year human rights organizations go to Geneva to try to see China condemned by the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Every year we are depressed, because China is too strong. We have to find other ways, and I think the pressure that civil society can put on our governments is very important.”
Brossel noted that European countries and the U.S. had been “very quiet” after the IOC voted in favor of Beijing on July 13.
“They said, ‘We don’t know if it’s good news, but we hope it will help [improve] human rights and have a positive impact.’ But they have to do more, they have to set some conditions,” he argued.
The Americans and Europeans knew that diplomatic pressure on China had in the past proved highly effective in persuading the authorities to free pro-democracy activists, he said.
Brossel challenged the view that hosting the Olympics may force the Chinese to improve their human rights record. In recent meetings with prominent Soviet-era dissidents in Russia, he said, he had learnt that this had not been the case in the Soviet Union in 1980.
The Moscow Olympics had no positive effect at all, they told him. The only good thing to come out of the episode was the boycott, which had awoken many Soviet citizens to the realization that their country was out of step with much of the international community.
“It’s completely wrong to say the Olympic Games helped with the democratization of Russia. It was the boycott itself that had the impact.”
Brossel said it was too early to say how the campaign would go, and how much support the petition would generate. Also, much could happen in the seven years between now and the Beijing Olympics.
But he expressed optimism that the boycott strategy could be an effective one.
“A lot of people like to watch the Olympic Games. Maybe they will be conscious that if it is in Beijing, it will be shameful. People do not like to have a bad conscience, to see that the athletes are enjoying the Games, but at the same time people are in jail and in Tibet the repression is going on.
“We have to act more on the conscience of people, and I think they will follow our initiative.”
In his 1981 book, Political History of the Olympic Games, author David B. Kanin wrote that while the Moscow boycott did not succeed in moving the Games from the Soviet capital, it did rob the authorities of the sense of international legitimacy hosting the Games normally confers on the host country.
“There was no way for the Soviet government to hide from its people the depth of anger over Afghanistan, nor to embellish an event now largely reduced to the level of a Warsaw Pact inter-army game,” Kanin wrote.
“This does not mean that Soviet citizens began to question government policy, only that they knew that many countries doubted Soviet explanations of it.”
Wait for more post related,there are catholic conservatives who support it,click in rutherford.org about abortion issue in china informations.
… I’ve done so for the last few Olympiads; I can’t stand the pagan, “one world”, humanist ethos; not to mention the doping and steroids; the politicized, biased judging; the overly commercial nature of it all; the corrupt IOC’s decision-making processes (whoever wines them and dines them best, buys them off)…
Evidently, the paganism was even more explicit than ever before, in the recent Athenian Olympics’ opening ceremonies, with an artistic dance/performance-art homage to Zeus, or so I read… (Mind you, in the last Olympics I watched, I didn’t like the sumo wrestlers in Nagano ceremonially “purifying” the stadium, whatever the heck that means. Of course, it could be that I simply don’t care to see big giant fat pony-tailed men in diapers, but hey, that’s me…)
Politics, and boycotts over political reasons, have always been part and parcel of the Olympics, and have always produced distorted results…
Corporate sponsorship of Olympic events have reached such ridiculously all-encompassing levels that people were banned from bringing non-sponsor food items onto the grounds in Athens…
I see nothing positive about the Olympics, that can’t be accomplished in simply having international amateur competitions for each of the sports in question - and without professional “dream team” athletes unfairly being allowed to compete against amateurs…
I hate the Olympics; there’s a million and one reasons to dislike them, and few valid reasons to like them, IMO. Boycott them, period… If that makes me a spoilsport, a curmudgeon despite my relatively small number of years, oh well…
The Shanghai media has been ordered to play down any stories that promote Christmas, a celebration the city’s propaganda chiefs worry may come to rival traditional Chinese festivals. The directive was contained this week in on e of the regular missives that the propaganda department sends out to all …continued hereˇ¿
The Chinese must not appreciate being culturally colonized by us any more than we’d appreciate being culturally colonized by them. I see nothing wrong with China’s authorities trying to limit the growth of Christmas (just as I see everything wrong with certain forces in this country trying to stamp Christmas out).
Notice how appealing must be what in reality amounts to the Christmas spirit. Someone in the article says Christmas in China is purely commercial. No. It’s the other way around. Things have to be extremely appealing first, then they can be commercial. Unappealing things don’t entice people into stores to make purchases.
One Chinaman quoted in the article says the expansion of Christmas there is inevitable. That seems somehow not right—makes me, for one, feel uneasy. There’s supposed to be a China in the world. And the China there’s supposed to be doesn’t celebrate Christmas (just as the Europe there’s supposed to be does). China is supposed to be Buddhist, not Christian. I’d feel more comfortable if the missionaries out there all came home.
Given Christmas’s strength, think what the Christmas haters, those trying to stamp Christmas out here, are up against.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Mr. Scrooby, your statement about China and Christianity really encapsulates everything that is wrong with integralist traditionalism as an ideology. Cultural universalism is an obvious error, but so is every form traditionalism and particularism which excludes Christianity. Men are different, yes—but not that different. As John Henry Newman told the world, every man was “born to be a Catholic.”
I’m no spokesman for traditionalism. No doubt I’m getting it wrong in lots of ways. I’m also a different kind of Christian than many of the good people who post here—a worse one, I’m sure.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Mr. Culbreath, since you mention “forms of traditionalism and particularism which exclude Christianity,” and having very vividly in mind my conversations with you some months ago (I’m “Unadorned”), I’ll add if I may that all I would like from Christians like you is an admission that Christianity does not consider it wrong for people to prefer to preserve the racial and ethno-cultural identies of their communities and nations and to take reasonable steps in that direction.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Hello Unadorned. Yes, I remember our discussions. The problem with any racial/ethnic preservation policy in America (I assume you are talking about public policy here) is that it would almost certainly have to subordinate greater goods. That is, things like national unity, civic unity, regional unity, family unity, religious unity, etc., would be torn asunder in the name of racial or ethnic preservation.
If this is not the case - if racial preservation in your view would NOT require breaking up existing social units - then I’m not sure what you mean by “racial preservation” exactly.
If you are just saying that you think immigration should from henceforth be restricted to whites only, well, that doesn’t do much for racial prervation since there already exist multi-racial social units in place and functioning well. Something will have to be done about them too.
We are slowly and methodically being homogenized into a brainwashed society of valueless pedagogues. We rant and pontificate about the dilution of our values and beliefs but are unwilling to remove the pathogens that are eating into the body of our religion, values, family structure and other cornerstones of moral based living. Think about it the next time you click on the TV or pop in a movie or pickup a magazine. Think about it as the stream of unending conditioning is absorbed into your eyes – your children’s eyes – and as the commercial assault on your being slowly tears away your ideas about what used to be considered embarrassing or taboo or off-limits or vulgar or unacceptable. Think about it as you watch celebrities and the neo-elite living in a state of public moral degradation as they openly and purposely abuse and corrupt our legal and political systems. Our regulating bodies determine that we shouldn’t hear four letter words before 10:00 pm but the airwaves are full of blasphemy and vulgarity used as punctuation and emphasis in everything from news broadcasts to cartoons. Taking the lords name in vain is as common and as acceptable as promiscuous sex, references to violence, death and murder and the wholesale assault on religious beliefs.
From the perspective of the devil, who could have guessed that his most audacious attacks would come in the most subtle of forms? Parents are scared to send their children to the bathroom at McDonalds alone for fear of abduction or molestation yet we allow our children to be morally assailed everyday on their way to secular schools. Schools that treat faith, hope and charity like medieval abominations while they promote evolution, faithless atmospheres that won’t allow the pledge of allegiance, and the absurdity of gay proms and sexual education that teaches one view only. Where does it end? How do we open our eyes? How have we gone so far from the morals that created the ‘greatest generation’ in such a short amount of time? Think about it.
Is the cost of a return to sanity the removal of all distractions? “The devil’s snare doesn’t catch you unless you are already nibbling at the devil’s bait.†- St. Ambrose of Milan
So shall each of us who refuses to bend become ten thousand, for day is dawning.
No generation is excused from having to fight for what it loves. The blessing for our generation is the lightness of the burden we carry, of the responsibility history has placed on our shoulders, compared to the burden borne by those saints and faithful who went before, who were called upon to “go into the gulf of death unterrified.” The burden history has thrust upon us compared to that is an easy one.
It’s a burden we, each of us, can shoulder.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Do I think preserving non-Christian cultures and religions is more important than saving heathen souls? I don’t view it that way. I view it as “Christianity is right for me, and their religions are right for them.” Let each respect the other, not try to impose his truth on the other.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
(John 14:6)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
(John 3:16-18)
The above quotes, Fred, are from Jesus Christ. He is the only Way, and those who don’t believe in Him, and what He has done, and who don’t have Him as their Saviour, are condemned to hell. We’ve been given a Great Commission, to spread the gospel to the four corners of the world:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:18-20)
Scripture is quite clear, and a summary of Scriptural doctrine which is held by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed alike, http://www.canrc.org/resources/bop/athan/ the Athanasian Creed, begins and ends thus:
(1) Whoever desires to be saved must above all things hold to the catholic faith. (2) Unless a man keeps it in its entirety inviolate, he will assuredly perish eternally.
{…}
(42) This is the catholic faith. Unless a man believes it faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved. Amen.
I can appreciate the “live and let live” desire, but it’s not an option for orthodox Christians. (Of any stripe - you noticed, in the account of the martyred missionaries in Uganda, which you linked earlier, that they consisted of both Roman Catholics and Protestants; both traditions have emphasized the importance of spreading the Word, and thus the Faith, everywhere…) Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and without Him, people perish for their sins. BTW, South Korea is now apparently over 50% Christian - and I assure you, from friends I know who’ve been there and from other Asians, they still very much have their culture, and do Asian things we’d find revolting, e.g. eat dogs and cats… (And they still speak Korean, and have names like Kim and Lee and Park and Jung… And drink disgustingly, cloyingly sweet rice wines, ick… I’ve had them - don’t!) But, praise God, some of them have been saved, and get to spend eternity with the Lord, as will the faithful here in the West.
There is One Truth, to which, either men subscribe, and live eternally, or don’t subscribe, and perish, burning in everlasting hell. That’s the Gospel…
BTW, I’m very glad our forebears evangelized the Nigerians, because now Anglicans and Episcopalians, in Canada and the U.S., respectively, can look to the leadership of Bishop Akinola, who, you recall, is considering allowing orthodox Anglicans over here to have their churches be under his jurisdiction, thus resisting the “gay”-rights, gay-ordination trend… Akinola, and the African Anglicans in general, are staunch traditionalists, while the North American church, and the British one for that matter, too (and doubtless the same in Australia and New Zealand), are liberal, apostate denominations, rejecting Biblical truths in favour of liberal, politically correct B.S. Praise God, for the faithful African Anglican church! Which we wouldn’t have, if the missionaries had been relativistic, rather than following the Great Commission, and going where they felt the Lord leading them…
… I know this is off on a tangent, but thinking about the Athanasian Creed reminded me of an essay which incorporated the whole Athanasian Creed into it; IMO, a very inspirational essay; it’s a Lutheran pastor’s reflections, a couple Christmases back, and relevant as ever today. Go http://www.markdankof.com/the_mystery_of_christmas.htm here to read it.
Thank you for that very thoughtful, helpful reply. I’ll certainly think further on the subject. I agree with you about Nigeria and Bishop Akinola, thanks to whom, as you remind us, Episcopalians in the U.S. have additional hope that there will be congregations available to them which are not completely taken over by the homosexualist agenda where, if need be, they can go and worship without leaving Anglicanism. Bishop Akinola is a wonderful man.
What I said, incidentally, about respecting already-existing religions and cultures rather than trying to convert them was meant to apply to civilized religions and cultures like the Korean, Chinese, Middle-Eastern Moslem, and so on. Uncivilized ones, such as existed among Eskimos, non-Moslem Black Africans, and so on, are a different story.
Since I participate in this forum a lot, I’ll add a word about myself which may partly explain my lack of understanding of many Christian things (I’m still learning): my upbringing as far as religion is concerned was a little complicated and I don’t have orthodox views, as things have worked out, not by choice but by ignorance and having had to cobble things together for myself. Briefly, I was educated as a Catholic child until I think the summer between my fourth and fifth grades, then was abruptly pulled out of all Catholic education and practice (when my mother got the upper hand over my father) and raised atheist thereafter and to ridicule Christianity at every opportunity. After college I began to find my way back to Christianity, a long process that took years. I’m ignorant of a great many Christian ideas and practices and often don’t have standard views and feelings about things Christian, by ignorance. I consider myself a Catholic (I was never confirmed). (I’m married to a Catholic Walloon who has raised our kids Catholic.)
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.
For my part, I was raised in a liberal denomination, the United Church of Canada - kinda similar to the United Church of Christ in your country - and was led out of it, by God’s grace, about twelve years ago. I shortly thereafter became an evangelical Protestant, worshipping in a variety of different churches, but I became disillusioned with evangelicalism, and have left it behind, and by God’s grace, have become Reformed - and I’m staying put, this time…
I see no reason for a distinction between civilized pagans and uncivilized pagans - both should have the Word preached to them, and the opportunity to embrace (or reject) it. Like I said, South Korea is half-converted now, and remains Korean, in their language, habits, customs, etc. In other words, their embrace of the faith hasn’t weakened their culture, or made them less Korean. So I don’t think one need fear about others’ losing their cultures - I know some Iraqi Christians here in Canada, and I assure you, they speak Arabic, eat Middle Eastern food, etc. - their faith makes them no less Iraqi… (I might wish, as immigrants, that they’d leave behind more of their distinctives; further, I might wish that Canada would not let in so many non-Western immigrants, but those are other concerns, not relevant to this discussion, per se.)
Some of the cultures here in North America which groups like the Jesuits found and worked to convert, e.g. the Iroquois, were quite civilized, in terms of technological and social development - and in central and South America, the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas were even more so. That didn’t discourage the Spaniards from evangelizing them… In fact, it made it, in their minds, all the more imperative to convert them - and destroy such elements of their pagan idolatry as human sacrifice… Some cultural practices, should be destroyed…
“I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.” (—Will S.)
Thank you.
____
“by God’s grace” (—also from Will’s post)
That’s a beautiful expression, “by God’s grace.”
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
[…]
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Boscov's was OK with Hanukkah event at the store
This is from several years ago so perhaps the store has decided to eliminate all association with religious holidays. Or perhaps it hasn’t:
Doesn’t matter to me if a store or anyone else selects which groups to support. But we all know if the situation were reversed what would happen.{
The link from the majorityrights post...
… says this:
“Boscov’s was founded by Solomon Boscov in 1911 and is owned by the families of Albert Boscov and Edwin Lakin.”
So, presumably, the founders and current owners both are Jewish; the point is, they’ll carry Hanukkah greeting cards, but not ones saying “Merry Christmas”, which is an attack on the faith of the majority of Americans, and likely, the majority of those purchasing things in December of each year. So it’s clearly a bigoted double standard. But money talks, so if people in Reading, PA and nearby vote with their dollars, by not spending them there, and by complaining and letting them know that’s why, it may force them to change their minds; if they don’t, they’ll just have to suffer the loss of business their stance results in.
Bocov's founded in 1911 but growth came in 60s.
The expansion came later according to this article. It says Albie Boscov’s first store burned down in the 1960s after which he began a massive advertising campaign and sponsored the first Black Heritage Festival in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
Sounds like an Identity Politics kinda guy.
Re: I knows an even worse situation...
In Harvard Business School Review,I have reads a jew woman filed a lawsuit against a holy bible study group in her corporation,made by workers in their offtime because it makes her feel excluded. When christiansin america will realizes who their real enemy is…
It seems to me the real enemy
It seems to me the real enemy is a way of thinking that sets up neutrality as a standard to be enforced by government on all social relations. There are always minorities who don’t like what most people do and would stop it if they could. So the key question is what the institutional arrangements and understandings are that empower such people.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
The courts are Exhibit #A.
The courts are Exhibit #A.
Various affirmative action schemes, abortion and the purging of faith from the public square—three of the left’s favorite things—have been imposed upon society in part, or entirely, by judges.
But there is hope. All of Bush’s nominations to the Fedeal Bench are good. Best crop in my lifetime. Consider Justice Brown’s speech to the Federalist Society:
“A Whiter Shade of Pale”: Sense and Nonsense— The Pursui t of Perfection in Law and Politicsa
Everything it demonstrates C. Carlson is right!
and Israel Shamir too!.Reads about more atrocities as it in:whtt.org
Jews are our Friends
not that the commentator necessarily thinks otherwise. (Somehow my immediate post did not get through weeks ago.) The number of non-Jewish people in accord with some Jewish people is so vast and overwhelming in number, I cannot see the reason for the inference that Jewish people are somehow a decisive moral liability for non-Jewish behavior or, better yet, reaction. What would a Christian (who believes the Jewish Messiah has already come) expect from people who believe Christ was not the Jewish Messiah?
Christians perhaps should trust in the final judgment of Jesus, a Jewish person and part of the Trinity. It is not sensible to conclude Jewishness is responsible for whatever situation we relatively enormously-numbered non-Jewish people find ourselves.
Liberalism is perhaps a cause of our disregard of race, culture, or religion but not because liberals are morons. Liberals can think. I saw a recent example tonight on the liberal program (that I never watch) where Martin Sheen is the President. A regular—a short, balding small man—recited a litany of incontrovertible reasons for the speciousness of the charge we are not “nice†to Arabs. (His style reminds me of Al Pacino.) So liberals are not stupid or ignorant, just biased. Let’s not mimic their behavior by blaming Jewish people for America’s woes. We are so lucky to not be in Israel’s situation, perhaps we should be thinking of ways to help Israel, not that we should write a blank check.
Christian who happen to be jews or arabs are our brothers
but jews and arabs who are no christians must to be evangelized;USA as secular country/reads node America as Kingdom of God on Earth/,makes political decisions that can be hurtful to another countries,please visit comeandsee.co.il for more info.
Would if Could
I would join the boycott if I could, but I am located in the Deep South. We have only the big three TV networks, Disney, and Google (for its refusal to take anti-abortion ads) to boycott.
Opinion is Interested
I am interested and will check them out. I have been using Alta Vista exclusively, but I will gladly try traditionalist engines of the Christian or Jewish persuasion. Thanks for the tip.
Boycott Olympic games too!
‘Boycott Beijing Olympics’ Campaign Launched
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
August 21, 2001
London (CNSNews.com) - A press freedom group Tuesday launched a campaign to generate international support for a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, because of China’s human rights record.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) conceded that without the backing of major governments a boycott would never materialize, but said a campaign had to begin somewhere.
The organization has set up a href=”http://www.boycottbeijing2008.net “websites in English and French, and it is encouraging Internet users to sign a petition.
“Given the massive human rights violations in China, it seems unacceptable to us that the Chinese government be allowed the right to host the world’s most prestigious sporting event,” it reads in part.
The petition is addressed to U.N. member states, which are urged to publicly voice their disapproval of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to grant the 2008 Games to Beijing, and to support a boycott.
The Paris-based group said the reasons used to justify a U.S.-led boycott by around 60 nations of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow were relevant in Beijing’s case too.
As the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, so too has China taken possession of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, it said, charging that the Chinese today infringes human rights more vigorously than the Soviets had done in the late 1970s.
“The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich,” said RSF. “In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics.
“In 2008, the international sporting movement must refuse to tolerate one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships.”
‘We have to find other ways’
RSF, which monitors and reports on infringements of press freedom worldwide, says China is a major violator of this and other basic human rights.
Since the IOC selected Beijing as host city in mid-July, it said, repression in China had not eased.
“As long as the Chinese government does not release political prisoners, refuses to have negotiations with the [exiled Tibetan leader] Dalai Lama and does not put an end to censorship, our campaign will not stop,” said RSF general secretary Robert M’e9nard.
RSF spokesman Vincent Brossel said from Paris Tuesday the group recognized the enormity of the challenge, but was already picking up support in Europe and North America, especially among sportsmen.
Some Tibetan groups and exiled Chinese dissident have also voiced their support for the boycott campaign, he said.
Brossel conceded that leading human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, were unlikely to support the campaign.
But new tactics had to be found, he insisted. “Each year human rights organizations go to Geneva to try to see China condemned by the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Every year we are depressed, because China is too strong. We have to find other ways, and I think the pressure that civil society can put on our governments is very important.”
Brossel noted that European countries and the U.S. had been “very quiet” after the IOC voted in favor of Beijing on July 13.
“They said, ‘We don’t know if it’s good news, but we hope it will help [improve] human rights and have a positive impact.’ But they have to do more, they have to set some conditions,” he argued.
The Americans and Europeans knew that diplomatic pressure on China had in the past proved highly effective in persuading the authorities to free pro-democracy activists, he said.
Brossel challenged the view that hosting the Olympics may force the Chinese to improve their human rights record. In recent meetings with prominent Soviet-era dissidents in Russia, he said, he had learnt that this had not been the case in the Soviet Union in 1980.
The Moscow Olympics had no positive effect at all, they told him. The only good thing to come out of the episode was the boycott, which had awoken many Soviet citizens to the realization that their country was out of step with much of the international community.
“It’s completely wrong to say the Olympic Games helped with the democratization of Russia. It was the boycott itself that had the impact.”
Brossel said it was too early to say how the campaign would go, and how much support the petition would generate. Also, much could happen in the seven years between now and the Beijing Olympics.
But he expressed optimism that the boycott strategy could be an effective one.
“A lot of people like to watch the Olympic Games. Maybe they will be conscious that if it is in Beijing, it will be shameful. People do not like to have a bad conscience, to see that the athletes are enjoying the Games, but at the same time people are in jail and in Tibet the repression is going on.
“We have to act more on the conscience of people, and I think they will follow our initiative.”
In his 1981 book, Political History of the Olympic Games, author David B. Kanin wrote that while the Moscow boycott did not succeed in moving the Games from the Soviet capital, it did rob the authorities of the sense of international legitimacy hosting the Games normally confers on the host country.
“There was no way for the Soviet government to hide from its people the depth of anger over Afghanistan, nor to embellish an event now largely reduced to the level of a Warsaw Pact inter-army game,” Kanin wrote.
“This does not mean that Soviet citizens began to question government policy, only that they knew that many countries doubted Soviet explanations of it.”
Wait for more post related,there are catholic conservatives who support it,click in rutherford.org about abortion issue in china informations.
The Olympics should be boycotted, anyway, period...
… I’ve done so for the last few Olympiads; I can’t stand the pagan, “one world”, humanist ethos; not to mention the doping and steroids; the politicized, biased judging; the overly commercial nature of it all; the corrupt IOC’s decision-making processes (whoever wines them and dines them best, buys them off)…
Evidently, the paganism was even more explicit than ever before, in the recent Athenian Olympics’ opening ceremonies, with an artistic dance/performance-art homage to Zeus, or so I read… (Mind you, in the last Olympics I watched, I didn’t like the sumo wrestlers in Nagano ceremonially “purifying” the stadium, whatever the heck that means. Of course, it could be that I simply don’t care to see big giant fat pony-tailed men in diapers, but hey, that’s me…)
Politics, and boycotts over political reasons, have always been part and parcel of the Olympics, and have always produced distorted results…
Corporate sponsorship of Olympic events have reached such ridiculously all-encompassing levels that people were banned from bringing non-sponsor food items onto the grounds in Athens…
I see nothing positive about the Olympics, that can’t be accomplished in simply having international amateur competitions for each of the sports in question - and without professional “dream team” athletes unfairly being allowed to compete against amateurs…
I hate the Olympics; there’s a million and one reasons to dislike them, and few valid reasons to like them, IMO. Boycott them, period… If that makes me a spoilsport, a curmudgeon despite my relatively small number of years, oh well…
VDARE's 2004 War On Christmas Competition has begun
See http://vdare.com/asp/printPage.asp?url=http://vdare.com/pb/2004_christma… here.
China bans Christmas joy in Shanghai media
Financial Times (12/03/04):
The Shanghai media has been ordered to play down any stories that promote Christmas, a celebration the city’s propaganda chiefs worry may come to rival traditional Chinese festivals. The directive was contained this week in on e of the regular missives that the propaganda department sends out to all …continued hereˇ¿
How would we like it if Buddhism rivaled Christianity here?
The Chinese must not appreciate being culturally colonized by us any more than we’d appreciate being culturally colonized by them. I see nothing wrong with China’s authorities trying to limit the growth of Christmas (just as I see everything wrong with certain forces in this country trying to stamp Christmas out).
Notice how appealing must be what in reality amounts to the Christmas spirit. Someone in the article says Christmas in China is purely commercial. No. It’s the other way around. Things have to be extremely appealing first, then they can be commercial. Unappealing things don’t entice people into stores to make purchases.
One Chinaman quoted in the article says the expansion of Christmas there is inevitable. That seems somehow not right—makes me, for one, feel uneasy. There’s supposed to be a China in the world. And the China there’s supposed to be doesn’t celebrate Christmas (just as the Europe there’s supposed to be does). China is supposed to be Buddhist, not Christian. I’d feel more comfortable if the missionaries out there all came home.
Given Christmas’s strength, think what the Christmas haters, those trying to stamp Christmas out here, are up against.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
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China is not supposed to be Christian?
Mr. Scrooby, your statement about China and Christianity really encapsulates everything that is wrong with integralist traditionalism as an ideology. Cultural universalism is an obvious error, but so is every form traditionalism and particularism which excludes Christianity. Men are different, yes—but not that different. As John Henry Newman told the world, every man was “born to be a Catholic.”
Please don't consider me a spokesman for anything
I’m no spokesman for traditionalism. No doubt I’m getting it wrong in lots of ways. I’m also a different kind of Christian than many of the good people who post here—a worse one, I’m sure.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
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What I want from Christians like Mr. Culbreath
Mr. Culbreath, since you mention “forms of traditionalism and particularism which exclude Christianity,” and having very vividly in mind my conversations with you some months ago (I’m “Unadorned”), I’ll add if I may that all I would like from Christians like you is an admission that Christianity does not consider it wrong for people to prefer to preserve the racial and ethno-cultural identies of their communities and nations and to take reasonable steps in that direction.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
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Christianity and Racial Preservation
Hello Unadorned. Yes, I remember our discussions. The problem with any racial/ethnic preservation policy in America (I assume you are talking about public policy here) is that it would almost certainly have to subordinate greater goods. That is, things like national unity, civic unity, regional unity, family unity, religious unity, etc., would be torn asunder in the name of racial or ethnic preservation.
If this is not the case - if racial preservation in your view would NOT require breaking up existing social units - then I’m not sure what you mean by “racial preservation” exactly.
If you are just saying that you think immigration should from henceforth be restricted to whites only, well, that doesn’t do much for racial prervation since there already exist multi-racial social units in place and functioning well. Something will have to be done about them too.
Where does it end?
We are slowly and methodically being homogenized into a brainwashed society of valueless pedagogues. We rant and pontificate about the dilution of our values and beliefs but are unwilling to remove the pathogens that are eating into the body of our religion, values, family structure and other cornerstones of moral based living. Think about it the next time you click on the TV or pop in a movie or pickup a magazine. Think about it as the stream of unending conditioning is absorbed into your eyes – your children’s eyes – and as the commercial assault on your being slowly tears away your ideas about what used to be considered embarrassing or taboo or off-limits or vulgar or unacceptable. Think about it as you watch celebrities and the neo-elite living in a state of public moral degradation as they openly and purposely abuse and corrupt our legal and political systems. Our regulating bodies determine that we shouldn’t hear four letter words before 10:00 pm but the airwaves are full of blasphemy and vulgarity used as punctuation and emphasis in everything from news broadcasts to cartoons. Taking the lords name in vain is as common and as acceptable as promiscuous sex, references to violence, death and murder and the wholesale assault on religious beliefs.
From the perspective of the devil, who could have guessed that his most audacious attacks would come in the most subtle of forms? Parents are scared to send their children to the bathroom at McDonalds alone for fear of abduction or molestation yet we allow our children to be morally assailed everyday on their way to secular schools. Schools that treat faith, hope and charity like medieval abominations while they promote evolution, faithless atmospheres that won’t allow the pledge of allegiance, and the absurdity of gay proms and sexual education that teaches one view only. Where does it end? How do we open our eyes? How have we gone so far from the morals that created the ‘greatest generation’ in such a short amount of time? Think about it.
Is the cost of a return to sanity the removal of all distractions? “The devil’s snare doesn’t catch you unless you are already nibbling at the devil’s bait.†- St. Ambrose of Milan
Be aware with Brainwashing theory
This Behaviorist/Marxist theory invented by Liberal Prochoice Margareth Singer has made many damage. Stop to believe in it.http://www.cesnur.org/cgi-bin/swish.cgi?query=brainwashing
Q, along with you we're sick of it. Each of us can help end it.
“Where does it end? How do we open our eyes?” (—Q, 12/7, 10:58am)
It ends with you, Q. And me. And Will S. And Muhlenberg. And Jeff Culbreath. And André. And Mr. Henri. The counterrevolution starts with you and with each of us individually. By refusing to bend you’ve already taken the first step on the long road that lies ahead and, in fact, the only step you or anyone can take, at first: just refuse to bend. You don’t have to work wonders, start a movement, run for office, found a magazine or web-site, or give a speech. You have only to not bend. You. No one else. Just you. The rest will come, as surely as the dawn. Long ago and far away, twenty-four saints and eight unbaptized faithful also asked themselves “where it ended.” They had no power; no one was coming to help or rescue them: what could they do? Answering their own question, they finally understood that it ended right there with them alone—with their own refusal to bend. And when dawn came twenty-four and eight had become ten thousand.
So shall each of us who refuses to bend become ten thousand, for day is dawning.
No generation is excused from having to fight for what it loves. The blessing for our generation is the lightness of the burden we carry, of the responsibility history has placed on our shoulders, compared to the burden borne by those saints and faithful who went before, who were called upon to “go into the gulf of death unterrified.” The burden history has thrust upon us compared to that is an easy one.
It’s a burden we, each of us, can shoulder.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
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Yes Fred I was snide
I’m a victim of society. What can I say? Never thought I would end up here but the death threats got to me. I simply don’t care anymore. S?
Something's not right about Christians converting other cultures
Eliécer, just to mention—Christian concern about the world’s different races along the lines of the Joshua Project wasn’t what I was referring to in my question to Jeff Culbreath. But thanks very much for giving the URLs of the Joshua Project in your two comments. I’d never heard of the Joshua Project before, and I find the work they’re doing very interesting to read about. That said, I’ll add something about my views that I realize goes against most standard Christian teaching: my personal preference is against converting the whole world to Christianity. I feel the world is vastly richer for having all the world’s religions, for one thing, and for another, all peoples and societies have a right to not be converted, but to continue to cherish their traditional religions, cultures, and ways of life. The Bible is universally available for any who may want to read it, as are books galore on Bible commentary and Christianity. If people choose to adopt Christianity entirely on their own, fine. But I don’t agree with efforts of Westerners to convert them. Unless I’m misinformed, about 25% - 30% of the population of South Korea is now Christian and the percentage is growing. Was undertaking the conversion of South Korea necessary? I don’t think so. They have an extremely rich, beautiful, and deep culture and way of life of their own. Why must they lose that? If Korea gets converted entirely to Christianity the world will be a poorer place. If the whole world were converted, the world would be an immensely, incalculably poorer place. It would be just an incredible disaster.
Do I think preserving non-Christian cultures and religions is more important than saving heathen souls? I don’t view it that way. I view it as “Christianity is right for me, and their religions are right for them.” Let each respect the other, not try to impose his truth on the other.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
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That's a disturbing, theologically relativist view, Fred...
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
(John 14:6)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
(John 3:16-18)
The above quotes, Fred, are from Jesus Christ. He is the only Way, and those who don’t believe in Him, and what He has done, and who don’t have Him as their Saviour, are condemned to hell. We’ve been given a Great Commission, to spread the gospel to the four corners of the world:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:18-20)
Scripture is quite clear, and a summary of Scriptural doctrine which is held by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed alike, http://www.canrc.org/resources/bop/athan/ the Athanasian Creed, begins and ends thus:
(1) Whoever desires to be saved must above all things hold to the catholic faith. (2) Unless a man keeps it in its entirety inviolate, he will assuredly perish eternally.
{…}
(42) This is the catholic faith. Unless a man believes it faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved. Amen.
I can appreciate the “live and let live” desire, but it’s not an option for orthodox Christians. (Of any stripe - you noticed, in the account of the martyred missionaries in Uganda, which you linked earlier, that they consisted of both Roman Catholics and Protestants; both traditions have emphasized the importance of spreading the Word, and thus the Faith, everywhere…) Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and without Him, people perish for their sins. BTW, South Korea is now apparently over 50% Christian - and I assure you, from friends I know who’ve been there and from other Asians, they still very much have their culture, and do Asian things we’d find revolting, e.g. eat dogs and cats… (And they still speak Korean, and have names like Kim and Lee and Park and Jung… And drink disgustingly, cloyingly sweet rice wines, ick… I’ve had them - don’t!) But, praise God, some of them have been saved, and get to spend eternity with the Lord, as will the faithful here in the West.
There is One Truth, to which, either men subscribe, and live eternally, or don’t subscribe, and perish, burning in everlasting hell. That’s the Gospel…
BTW, I’m very glad our forebears evangelized the Nigerians, because now Anglicans and Episcopalians, in Canada and the U.S., respectively, can look to the leadership of Bishop Akinola, who, you recall, is considering allowing orthodox Anglicans over here to have their churches be under his jurisdiction, thus resisting the “gay”-rights, gay-ordination trend… Akinola, and the African Anglicans in general, are staunch traditionalists, while the North American church, and the British one for that matter, too (and doubtless the same in Australia and New Zealand), are liberal, apostate denominations, rejecting Biblical truths in favour of liberal, politically correct B.S. Praise God, for the faithful African Anglican church! Which we wouldn’t have, if the missionaries had been relativistic, rather than following the Great Commission, and going where they felt the Lord leading them…
Speaking of the Athanasian Creed...
… I know this is off on a tangent, but thinking about the Athanasian Creed reminded me of an essay which incorporated the whole Athanasian Creed into it; IMO, a very inspirational essay; it’s a Lutheran pastor’s reflections, a couple Christmases back, and relevant as ever today. Go http://www.markdankof.com/the_mystery_of_christmas.htm here to read it.
Thank you Will S. for those helpful explanations
Thank you for that very thoughtful, helpful reply. I’ll certainly think further on the subject. I agree with you about Nigeria and Bishop Akinola, thanks to whom, as you remind us, Episcopalians in the U.S. have additional hope that there will be congregations available to them which are not completely taken over by the homosexualist agenda where, if need be, they can go and worship without leaving Anglicanism. Bishop Akinola is a wonderful man.
What I said, incidentally, about respecting already-existing religions and cultures rather than trying to convert them was meant to apply to civilized religions and cultures like the Korean, Chinese, Middle-Eastern Moslem, and so on. Uncivilized ones, such as existed among Eskimos, non-Moslem Black Africans, and so on, are a different story.
Since I participate in this forum a lot, I’ll add a word about myself which may partly explain my lack of understanding of many Christian things (I’m still learning): my upbringing as far as religion is concerned was a little complicated and I don’t have orthodox views, as things have worked out, not by choice but by ignorance and having had to cobble things together for myself. Briefly, I was educated as a Catholic child until I think the summer between my fourth and fifth grades, then was abruptly pulled out of all Catholic education and practice (when my mother got the upper hand over my father) and raised atheist thereafter and to ridicule Christianity at every opportunity. After college I began to find my way back to Christianity, a long process that took years. I’m ignorant of a great many Christian ideas and practices and often don’t have standard views and feelings about things Christian, by ignorance. I consider myself a Catholic (I was never confirmed). (I’m married to a Catholic Walloon who has raised our kids Catholic.)
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
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Ah, I see...
I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.
For my part, I was raised in a liberal denomination, the United Church of Canada - kinda similar to the United Church of Christ in your country - and was led out of it, by God’s grace, about twelve years ago. I shortly thereafter became an evangelical Protestant, worshipping in a variety of different churches, but I became disillusioned with evangelicalism, and have left it behind, and by God’s grace, have become Reformed - and I’m staying put, this time…
I see no reason for a distinction between civilized pagans and uncivilized pagans - both should have the Word preached to them, and the opportunity to embrace (or reject) it. Like I said, South Korea is half-converted now, and remains Korean, in their language, habits, customs, etc. In other words, their embrace of the faith hasn’t weakened their culture, or made them less Korean. So I don’t think one need fear about others’ losing their cultures - I know some Iraqi Christians here in Canada, and I assure you, they speak Arabic, eat Middle Eastern food, etc. - their faith makes them no less Iraqi… (I might wish, as immigrants, that they’d leave behind more of their distinctives; further, I might wish that Canada would not let in so many non-Western immigrants, but those are other concerns, not relevant to this discussion, per se.)
Some of the cultures here in North America which groups like the Jesuits found and worked to convert, e.g. the Iroquois, were quite civilized, in terms of technological and social development - and in central and South America, the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas were even more so. That didn’t discourage the Spaniards from evangelizing them… In fact, it made it, in their minds, all the more imperative to convert them - and destroy such elements of their pagan idolatry as human sacrifice… Some cultural practices, should be destroyed…
Thank you
“I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.” (—Will S.)
Thank you.
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“by God’s grace” (—also from Will’s post)
That’s a beautiful expression, “by God’s grace.”
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
[…]
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
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