Lowe’s says ‘family trees’ a mistake

[From AZ Central.com]

In big bold print, above a picture of the Lowe’s Christmas tree collection, are the unfamiliar words ‘family trees.’ Lowe’s is causing a stir, by taking the “Christmas” out of “Christmas trees,” and calling them “family trees” in their catalog.

Read about it here, here and here.

[From me]

Mistake?  Give me a break.  Corporations have too much money at stake to make that kind of “mistake.”  It is a Christmas tree. Retailers start Christmas after Labor Day and rake in billions of dollars. First they change it to “Happy Holidays” and Holiday Season. Now it is a Family Tree. What’s next are Christians going to be called “Familians?” This is more political correctness that is incorrect.

What do you think?

School District Bans Christian Group After Bobbing for Live Goldfish

[Fox News]

A Christian student group’s latest attempt to show middle school students how fun the group could be was too much for school administrators to swallow.

Last week the Campus Life group allowed students to bob for live goldfish. Two students and one Campus Life volunteer swallowed fish. No student was harmed or forced to participate, but some parents complained, and district officials weren’t pleased.

“We just felt like that type of action was distracting to the students and interfered with the learning process,” Virgil Horne, assistant to the superintendent, told the Lincoln Journal Star.

So Campus Life will be allowed to meet only at Lincoln’s Scott Middle School one more time this school year. The group’s executive director, Bryan Carlson, said he would tell students the news at Wednesday’s meeting.

Read about it here.

[From me]

PLEASE! I grew up in Campus Life–literally. Campus Life is the student ministry of Youth for Christ. My father was a Campus Life Director for over 30 years in Kansas City, Iowa, Indiana, Alabama and South Carolina. Bobbing for a goldfish is tame compared to some of the things we did when I was in Campus Life.

What does the school district want? Kids selling pot, having illicit sex, having babies out of wedlock, crime, etc…? Campus Life, Young Life, Youth Dynamics and other groups like it are making a difference in kids who don’t go to church. I have seen thousands of students lives changed by the ministry of YFC/Campus Life. This school board needs to get a clue.

What do you think?

Christian Students, Faculty Forced to Don Muslim Garbs

[Christian Post]

Students and teachers at a primary school in England were forced to dress up as Muslims to celebrate a belated Muslim festival although most were Christians.

All 257 students and 41 teachers at Rufford primary school in Lye, England, were ordered to wear traditional Muslim dress in an effort to promote multi-culturalism, reported the U.K.-based Daily Mail newspaper on Wednesday.

“Staff have got to go along with it – or let’s face it, they would be branded racist,” reportedly said a relative of one of the staff, according to British tabloid The Sun.

Father Jonathan Morris, an analyst for Fox News pointed out that the story will probably not receive much attention in the United States because of the “can-do-no-wrong” thinking linked to diversity, pluralism, and multi-culturalism among mainstream media. Instead, they would agree that promoting tolerance in any way is good.

“There is nothing tolerant about cowing Christians into acting like Muslims, intimidating Jews into acting like Christians, scaring Muslims into acting like Westerners, or even worse, suggesting that we should all be nothing,” said Morris.

“This, I would say, is a sign of a dictatorship of cultural relativism. Such absurdity has nothing to do with tolerance.”

Read about it here.

[From me]

What would happen if the Muslims were forced to dress like Priests or average Christians?  I don’t get the point.

What do you think?

More tolerance for Biblical beliefs?

[Inside Bay Area.com]

A gay rights group has urged Barack Obama to cut ties with a gospel singer who it says spreads false information about homosexuality being a choice.Donnie McClurkin is among several gospel singers scheduled to raise money for the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate at a concert in South Carolina this weekend.

McClurkin has drawn attention from gay rights activists for his views on homosexuality.

“I don’t believe that it is the intention of God,” McClurkin said Monday in a telephone interview. “Sexuality, everything is a matter of choice.”

“We strongly urge Obama to part ways with this divisive preacher who is clearly singing a different tune than the stated message of the campaign,” Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, said in a statement.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I guess tolerance only applies to the left-wing liberal agenda not for those who hold to a Biblical view.

What do you think?

IRS decides not to sanction anti-war church

[ABP News]

The Internal Revenue Service has informed a progressive California church that it will not be sanctioned for an anti-war sermon preached there in 2004 — but church leaders are asking for an apology for an investigation they believe may have been politically motivated. The investigation stemmed from a guest sermon that George Regas, the church’s rector emeritus, delivered just before the 2004 presidential election. In it, he strongly criticized the war in Iraq but also said he believed that both President Bush and his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, were good Christians.

n a Sept. 10 letter, IRS officials informed Bacon and All Saints of their decision to drop the investigation without any sanction. However, the letter also noted the agency’s determination that the church “intervened in the 2004 presidential election campaign.”

It continued, “We note that this appears to be a one-time occurrence and that you have policies in place to ensure that the church complies with the prohibition against intervention in campaigns for public office.”

But Bacon, in a statement released by the church, said that was not a satisfactory conclusion to the investigation, which has cost the church hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Read about it here.

[From me]

This kind of harassment scares me.  I’m on the other side of the political spectrum of this church but I think the IRS has better people to go after than churches.  This is why the Hate Crime Bill scares me.  If I preach what the Bible says about Homosexuality am I going be audited by the IRS.  Am I going to jail.  I’m not a hate person by any means.  But speech is not going to put someone in the grave or hospital.   The government should concern itself with cleaning itself up and leave churches alone.

What do you think?

Hate Speech?

[From The Washington Times]

The words “natural family,” “marriage” and “union of a man and a woman” can be punished as “hate speech” in government workplaces, according to a lawsuit that is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read about it here.

[From me]

Huh? What’s next? Are we not going to be able to introduce our spouses as “husband” or “wife?” Will children be arrested for calling their female parent mom, mommy or mother? Will cops beat down the door when children refer to their male parent as dad, daddy or father? What can we call our children? Will we be required to call them “offspring?”

Does this mean that men can’t call their wives “the old ball and chain?” Can the term “trophy wife” be used? How about a wife referring to a husband as “Sugar Daddy?” Will terms like “gold-digger,” “cradle robber,” “sugar snookums,” “old man,” or “old woman” be added to the crime list?

How dumb is this nation becoming?

What other names will be outlawed? What do you think?

‘God’ Removed from Graduating Senior’s Yearbook

[From Christian Post]

A graduating senior at Higley High School in Gilbert, AZ discovered this week that his reference to “God” had been edited from his yearbook profile. Anthony Sciubba, 18, approached the school Wednesday about why the yearbook had taken out ”God,” who he felt was essential to his bio page, and was told that it was to avoid problems with the separation between church and state.

Read about it here.

[From me]

I don’t get this one at all. It is a student, not a teacher who is telling his fellow students that God transformed his life. What is the problem?

What do you think?