Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Michael Coren, National Post ]

I suppose it’s the greatest joke of all. Deliciously ironic as well. My Christian faith has been profoundly encouraged by those most eager to smother it. Put simply, I was helped along the road from indifference to belief by the banality of atheism. Since reaching the age of reason, I’ve had the usual old regulars thrown at me. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why doesn’t He make Himself more obvious? Why is evil committed in the name of religion? Throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades and some lies about Papal culpability during the Holocaust and you have the standard God-hating manifesto.

The more I dealt with all this, the more I realized that the very belief being attacked was absolutely and abundantly true. More than this, the reason it was under attack in the first place was precisely because it was true.

Read the rest of the story here.

[From me]

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  I believe the tough questions my friends A3, Francoise, Damian, and Geekwad ask make me go to God’s Word for answers.  The very discrepancies they expose actually make me more convinced God is who He said He is.  Funny isn’t it.

What do you think?

[Breitbart]

Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born. Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed.

Read about it here.

[From me]

Nothing like celebrating the birth of the Savior by a fight. I didn’t know business meetings were scheduled for Christmas.

What do you think?

[CNN]

The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor’s living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.  And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Florida, area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.

Only the blessings didn’t come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn’t strong enough.

“I wanted to believe God wanted to do something great with me like he was doing with them,” she said. “I’m angry and bitter about it. Right now, I don’t watch anyone on TV hardly.”

Prosperity preachers say that it isn’t all about money — that God’s blessings extend to health, relationships and being well-off enough to help others.

Read about it here.

[From me]

Would Jesus have traveled today in a Rolls-Royce?  Would He be wearing designer clothes?  Do these so called preachers not see the damage they are doing to the name of God?  Sad…

What do you think?

[Heraldnet]

A 29-year-old Wenatchee man told police a pterodactyl caused him to drive his car into a light pole about 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

Read about it here.

[From me]

You don’t see those kind of accidents everyday. 

What do you think?

[Dallas Morning News]

After decades of living with what Mayor Scott Walker calls a stigma, residents of this southwest Louisiana village are getting a new telephone exchange, one without the biblical connotations attached to their current 666.

Beginning this month, residents and businesses can change the first three digits of their phone numbers from 666 to 749. Walker said he’s made the change on his phone; it’s set to be official for City Hall Jan. 2, and Walker said he’d had “20″ people contact him Friday morning – before 10 a.m. – about changing, as well.

“This boils down to, this is a very, very religious community,” Walker said.

There are three churches in town, two Bible and one Baptist, and fewer than 450 homes, he said. In the Bible, 666 is depicted as the mark of the beast, and those taking the mark would be associating themselves with Satan, he said.

Read about it here.

[From me]

Isn’t this discrimination against the Beast?

What do you think?