Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

New Radio Broadcast Delivers Christian Leadership Training to Persecuted North Korean Christians


Two ministries have launched a radio broadcast to provide Biblically-based leadership training to North Korean Christians and others in the country experts call the "worst place in the world to be a Christian."

The 30-minute daily broadcast is a partnership between Dr. John C. Maxwell's EQUIP organization and The Voice of the Martyrs -- Korea (VOM-Korea). The broadcast consists of a version of EQUIP's leadership training material, called PREQUIP, modified to provide the basic concepts of leadership not learned under totalitarian regimes.

The broadcast is produced and engineered in VOM-Korea's facilities in Seoul, South Korea and airs in the overnight hours. According to VOM-Korea Vice President Choi Young Hun, this is "when the most North Koreans are able to safely listen to their illegal radios."

The Voice of the Martyrs and Open Doors organizations both rank North Korea as the worst persecutor of Christians in the world. According to VOM's Persecuted Church Global Report 2010, "Christians must practice their faith in deep secrecy and are in constant danger" of kidnap, arrest, imprisonment or execution.

According to Choi, "Being a Christian is considered a capital crime in North Korea and Hebrews 13:3 reminds us that every Christian shares the responsibility to encourage and train their fellow believers being persecuted in North Korea."

"That's why this partnership is important," says John D. Hull, president of EQUIP. "Our mission is to raise up Christian leaders in every country around the world and that must include North Korea. This partnership enables us to support our Christian brothers and sisters there."

This broadcast is an extension of a partnership that began by jointly developing the PREQUIP curriculum that is also taught in Underground University, a Seoul-based training program for North Korean exiles who are preparing to serve and grow the North Korean church in North Korea, China, South Korea and around the world (Underground University is a joint venture between The Voice of The Martyrs organizations in Korea, Canada, Australia and the United States).

EQUIP is a Georgia-based non-profit organization, founded by Dr. John C. Maxwell in 1996, specializing in the development of effective Christian leaders internationally.


Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Intelligence Chiefs Say Another Terror Attempt in U.S. is 'Certain'

The likelihood of another attempted terror attack is "certain,"
Director of National Intelligence Agency Dennis Blair says.

Another attempted terrorist attack on the United States in coming months is "certain," the heads of major U.S intelligence agencies told a Senate committee Tuesday.

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New Federal ‘Hate Crimes’ Law Challenged on Constitutional Grounds


We are very proud that our friend and Sunlit Uplands columnist, Gary Glenn, is the lead plaintiff challenging this unconstitutional assault on freedom of speech and religious liberty. Gary is a valiant champion of freedom and we will follow this story closely.

From CNSNews
By Susan Jones


A conservative civil liberties group is challenging the constitutionality of the recently enacted federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

The new law, attached to a defense authorization bill that President Obama signed on October 28, 2009, makes it a federal crime to attack someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center says it elevates people engaged in deviant sexual behaviors to a special, protected class of persons under federal law.

The lawsuit naming U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of three pastors and the president of the American Family Association of Michigan.


All of the plaintiffs “take a strong public stand against the homosexual agenda, which seeks to normalize disordered sexual behavior that is contrary to Biblical teaching,” the Law Center said in a news release.


“There is no legitimate law enforcement need for this federal law,’ said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.

“This is part of the list of political payoffs to homosexual advocacy groups for support of Barack Obama in the last presidential election,” Thompson continued. “The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin. It elevates those persons who engage in deviant sexual behaviors, including pedophiles, to a special protected class of persons as a matter of federal law and policy.”

According to the Law Center, of the 1.38 million violent crimes in the U.S. reported by the FBI in 2008, only 243 were considered to be motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation.


The four plaintiffs are Michigan Pastors Levon Yuille, Rene Ouellette, James Combs, and Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.


The lawsuit alleges that the new law violates the plaintiffs’ rights to freedom of speech, expressive association, and free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, and it violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. The lawsuit also alleges that Congress lacked authority to enact the legislation under the Tenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

The lawsuit says the Hate Crimes Prevention Act “provides law enforcement with authorization and justification to conduct federal investigative and other federal law enforcement actions against Plaintiffs and others deemed to be opponents of homosexual activism, the homosexual lifestyle, and the homosexual agenda,” thereby expanding the jurisdiction of the FBI and other federal law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies.

Robert Muise, who is handling the case, said the new law promotes two Orwellian concepts: “It creates a special class of persons who are ‘more equal than others’ based on nothing more than deviant, sexual behavior. And it creates ‘thought crimes’ by criminalizing certain ideas, beliefs, and opinions, and the involvement of such ideas, beliefs, and opinions in a crime will make it deserving of federal prosecution."


He said it gives government officials the power "to decide which thoughts are criminal under federal law and which are not.”

The Thomas More Law Center describes its mission as defending and promoting “America’s Christian heritage and moral values, including the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life.”


White House Chief-of-Thugs Apologizes for Calling Comrades "F%&king Retarded"


In response to a demand by Sarah Palin that Obama fire White House Chief-of-Thugs Rahm Emanuel for describing the strategy of Senate liberals as "fucking retarded," Emanuel has apologized to Tim Shriver, the chief executive officer of the Special Olympics.

Since we don't want Obama to succeed in his efforts to reduce America to a European-style welfare state, we're delighted to see the thugs in the White House feuding with soon to be retired comrades in the Congress. Governor Palin's open letter to the President follows:

“I would ask the president to show decency in this process by eliminating one member of that inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and not allow Rahm’s continued indecent tactics to cloud efforts. Yes, Rahm is known for his caustic, crude references about those with whom he disagrees, but his recent tirade against participants in a strategy session was such a strong slap in many American faces that our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm’s recent sick and offensive tactic.

The Obama Administration’s Chief of Staff scolded participants, calling them, “F—ing retarded,” according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the “N-word” or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.

A patriot in North Andover, Massachusetts, notified me of Rahm’s “retarded” slam. I join this gentleman, who is the father of a beautiful child born with Down Syndrome, in asking why the Special Olympics, National Down Syndrome Society and other groups condemning Rahm’s degrading scolding have been completely ignored by the White House. No comment from his boss, the president?

As my friend in North Andover says, “This isn’t about politics; it’s about decency. I am not speaking as a political figure but as a parent and as an everyday American wanting my child to grow up in a country free from mindless prejudice and discrimination, free from gratuitous insults of people who are ostensibly smart enough to know better… Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Mr. President, you can do better, and our country deserves better.


1000 Rabbis Warn: Open Homosexuality in the Military is a Disaster and May Cause Further Natural Disasters


Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America issued the following statement:

"When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it's shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama's kooky coalition.
We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft.

"Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.

"We plead with saner heads in Congress and the Pentagon to stop sodomization of our military and our society. Enough is enough."

Obama Surrendering Internet to Foreign Powers


From Newsmax
By Bradley A. Blakeman

Without the ingenuity of America’s brightest minds and the investment of U.S. taxpayer dollars, there would be no Internet, as we now know it today.

Now, the Obama administration has moved quietly to cede control of the Web from the United States to foreign powers.

Some background: The Internet came into being because of the genius work of Americans Dr.Robert E. Kahn and Dr. Vinton G. Cerf. These men, while working for the Department of Defense in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the early 1970s, conceived, designed, and implemented the idea of "open-architecture networking."

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Monday, February 1, 2010

Tebow's Defensive Line: 50,000 and Counting


NOW and Company Are on Wrong Side of America, New York Times

Today Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser announced that over 50,000 Americans have submitted comments of support to football star Tim Tebow through the Susan B. Anthony List website, www.blockhardfortebow.com. The comments support the Tebow family's decision to share their story in Focus on the Family's pro-life Super Bowl advertisement. The National Organization for Women (NOW) is leading feminist groups in a campaign demanding CBS pull the ad from its Super Bowl schedule.

"NOW and company are on the wrong side of American public opinion," said Dannenfelser. "In only four days, over fifty thousand Americans have sent messages of support to the Tebow family on www.blockhardfortebow.com. The outcry of national support for Tim Tebow's pro-life leadership illustrates the strength of the growing American pro-life majority."

The Susan B. Anthony List-sponsored website, www.blockhardfortebow.com, was launched late Wednesday, January 27, 2010. Already 50,000 visitors to the site sent personal comments of support to Tebow. Visitors can also view a short ESPN video about Tebow. Over the same period, the abortion-rights group EMILY's List has collected only 16,000 anti-CBS petition signatures.

"NOW's campaign against CBS, the Tebow family and Focus on the Family is going nowhere fast," said Dannenfelser. "Old guard feminists like Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling are struggling to defend their opposition to the ad, and their desperate arguments ring hollow. The 'pro-choice' label has worn out its usefulness – it is an empty platitude for the pain women feel when they've made the abortion choice. Arguments that abortion is somehow as liberating and self-sacrificing as Pam Tebow's decision to choose life in the face of great personal pain just don't stand the straight face test. Such callous attitudes grate on the conscience and defy experience."

On Sunday, January 31, 2010, Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling published a Washington Post commentary arguing, "abortion is as tough and courageous a decision as is the decision to continue a pregnancy."

The New York Times editorialized in favor of CBS' decision to run the Tebow Ad on Sunday, January 31, 2010, arguing that NOW's "protest is puzzling and dismaying." Editors went on to criticize the campaign's "lame attempt to portray the ad as life-threatening," and argued that "CBS was right to change its policy of rejecting paid advocacy commercials from groups other than political candidates."