Monday, January 13, 2014

Former Pastor Decides To Spend A Year Without God


by NPR Staff
January 12, 2014 4:00 PM


Listen to Story
Morning Edition
5 min 1 sec





Minister Ryan Bell has decided to "try on" atheism for a year. The former Seventh-day Adventist pastor was asked to leave his congregation in March
Natalie Gee




Former Seventh-day Adventist Pastor Ryan Bell made an unusual New Year's resolution: .

He used to lead a congregation in Southern California, but in March, he was asked to step down after voicing some of the doubts that led to this decision to "try on" atheism.

Just a few days into the new year, after announcing his resolution, Bell was asked to leave the teaching positions he held at the Christian Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary.

Bell spoke with NPR's Arun Rath about his flirtation with atheism and how he arrived at the decision to put his work as a religious leader — and follower — on hold.

Interview Highlights

On the expectations of belief for church leaders

My entire adult life, I've been a leader in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And I think the expectation of church leaders is that they would have fewer questions and more answers, and that the members or seekers or people that come to the church are the ones with the questions. And I can't remember a time that I wasn't wrestling with my faith. I think faith is one of those things that people wrestle with.

On experiencing doubt

When things start to come unwound, sometimes they unwind all the way. And then, you know, perhaps you can wind it up a little bit again later — who knows? But I feel like I lost my church leadership position and then I really didn't have any compulsion to go to church internally, like I just didn't feel like participating in church. I tried a number of times.

And it woke me up to the kinds of things people had been saying to me all these years, like, "I love what you're doing at the church, but church just isn't for me." ...

So I just decided not to fight it. I just decided to say, "Well, let me just give church a rest." And as I did that, I just began to wonder about the very existence of God.

On how members of his congregation have responded

Some people have been encouraging, some people have just been silently watching. Some are a little heartbroken. It's almost like people respond as though I've lost a loved one and I'm going through a deep grieving process and doing strange things as a result. Some people have just tried to talk me off the ledge.

Others have said, "I have these same questions. I'm really glad that you're doing this, and I'll be following along. Maybe I'll figure some things out along the way, too."

I'm not saying to my former members, "Follow me out the door." Nothing like that. I don't want them to do that. I want them to be on their own journey authentically.

On the reaction of the atheist community

Some people are, in a way, gloating. They're like, "Congratulations on coming to the other side" ... But other people are skeptical. There are a lot of atheists who are really not sure what I'm doing. So they say, "You are either an atheist or you're not. You can't be 'a little atheist,' like you're 'a little bit pregnant.' "

In a way, what I hear them saying is, "You're not authentically atheist" ... And my internal reaction to some of that is to say, oh, I was a Christian leader for a long time. I heard that argument on the other side, as well: "You're not properly Christian. You're not a Christian in our way of being a Christian, so you don't really fit here." And my response to that is, I'm used to not fitting places. So that's fine with me.


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Sunday, January 12, 2014

Vatican Secret Intelligence Network - Homeland Security - NSA - CIA Intelligence Gathering

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666JESUIT666

Published on Apr 22, 2013

http://religiousmatrix.com/ The real Vatican Intelligence service will revealed here on this video. But here is the Vatican's official explanation for their Intelligence service. The Secretary for Relations with States is the foreign minister of the Holy See, an official serving within the Secretariat of State and presiding over its "Section for Relations with States." This ex officio archbishop deals with relations between the Holy See and other governments and international bodies and is assisted by a deputy called the Undersecretary for Relations with States.This Section began as the Congregation Super Negotiis Ecclesiasticis Regni Galliarum, set up by Pope Pius VI with the Constitution Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum of 28 May 1793, in order to deal with the problems which the French Revolution posed for the Church. In 1814, Pope Pius VII gave this office responsibility for the entire world and named it Congregatio Extraordinaria Praeposita Negotiis Ecclesiasticis Orbis Catholici. Some years later, Pope Leo XII changed its name to Congregatio Pro Negotiis Ecclesiasticis Extraordinariis, which remained its title until 1967 when Pope Paul VI separated this body from the Secretariat of State, calling it the Council for the Public Affairs of the Church. On 28 June 1988, Pope John Paul II promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, which created the present incarnation of the Secretariat of State. It was divided into the Section for General Affairs and the Section for Relations with States, which was the direct successor of the Council for the Public Affairs of the Church.
On the basis of Articles 45--47 of Pastor Bonus, the Section for Relations with States, sometimes known as the second section of the Secretariat, has the specific duty of attending to matters which involve civil governments. It has responsibility for the Holy See's diplomatic relations with sovereign states including such matters as the establishment of Concordats or similar agreements; the Holy See's presence in international organizations and conferences; the provision and modification, in special circumstances, of appointments to particular churches; and, in close collaboration with the Congregation for Bishops, the appointment of Bishops in countries which have entered into treaties or agreements with the Holy See.
This section is headed by an Archbishop, the Secretary for Relations with States, who is aided by a Prelate, the Undersecretary for Relations with States and various Cardinals and Bishops.


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Saturday, January 11, 2014

Time to pray for the latter rain - David Kang





STAwachauf

Published on Aug 28, 2012

We have to pray and prepaire and to know what is happen in the future, pastor David Kang explain important things that we have to know.
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The 7 Mountains, the Woman Sitteth - Bill Hughes





Michael Nicholas


Published on Dec 15, 2013


No description available.
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Colin Standish on the Church Organisation - The Rebellion in 1901 (SDA)




Church Organisation  - The Rebellion in 1901 (SDA) .




TheMedien

Uploaded on Jan 8, 2011


Facts of the Future? http://www.mefag.com/engl.htm

More literature in english and german you can find at:
http://www.scribd.com/users/TheMedien...

Bible Study? http://www.biblestudytools.com/interl...
Spirit of Prophecy? http://egwwritings.org/
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Great Is Thy Faithfulness Hymn (with lyrics)





TheHymnsofPraise

Uploaded on Dec 2, 2009

A marvelous hymn. :)
(6) But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. -Hebrews 11:6 King James Version
Madacy Entertainment Group, Ltd. If you want to buy the CD get it here http://www.amazon.com/Best-Loved-Hymn...
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What a friend we have in Jesus





THENBA

Uploaded on Jun 25, 2009

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

....

The Sweet By and By





SE Samonte

Uploaded on May 26, 2011

Please click to play all the featured Christian hymns:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...

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Friday, January 10, 2014

Happy Sabbath


Internet Criminals Stole a Half Million Dollars from the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference

 


By AT News Team, January 6, 2014

Last week the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church released a statement that it had been the victim of online theft. No personal information was taken, but about $500,000 was stolen, according to the statement released by Adventist News Network (ANN), the official news service of the denomination.

The theft involved a transfer of funds for an organization or institution within the denomination. Church officials are cooperating with Federal authorities in the United States who are investigating the crime. They are also working with the banks and insurance companies to determine what recoveries may be possible. Information so far suggests that there was no insider involvement in the crime.

“No personal information such as private information, personal donor records or internal accounts were accessed or compromised in the scheme” assured the denomination's treasurer, Bob Lemon. “We are modifying procedures to do our best to prevent this from happening again.”


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Sheila Jackson Lee proposes new term for 'welfare'



By Carol Christian | January 9, 2014 | Updated: January 9, 2014 12:41pm





Photo By Mayra Beltran/Houston Chronicle

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is making headlines around the nation again, this time for her comments on welfare. She is now suggesting "welfare" should be called a "transitional living fund." See other notable quotes from the polarizing Texas congresswoman.


U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who has decried the failure of Congress to extend unemployment benefits before its December recess, is talking about changing the vocabulary of assistance.

In a speech Jan. 8 on the House of Representatives floor, Jackson Lee suggested renaming government welfare.

"Maybe the word 'welfare' should be changed to something of, 'a transitional living fund,'" Jackson Lee said, according to a post on The Minority Report blog. "For that is what it is - for people to be able to live," she said.

The congresswoman went on to speak well of the Earned Income Credit, food and nutrition programs, jobs training and education programs, Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act as "huge safety nets - not handouts, but safety nets," the Minority Report said.


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NSA Says It Would Welcome Public Advocate At FISA Court




by
January 09, 2014 2:45 PM


 Morning Edition

8 min 57 sec





The National Security Agency headquarters building in Fort Meade, Md. Reuters/Landov

The National Security Agency "would welcome" the creation of a public advocate's position at the court that oversees its electronic surveillance programs, said its outgoing deputy director.

John C. "Chris" Inglis, who retires Friday after more than seven years as the NSA's No. 2, told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep that "I would only put the caveat on there that it needs to be operationally efficient."



TRANSCRIPT

Click here to read a transcript of the entire conversation with John C. "Chris" Inglis.

"So, let's say that I'm authorized to target the head of al-Qaida worldwide and I'm actively doing that," he continued. "I'm trying to figure out what communication services — selectors — that person is using. If at every moment in time somebody had to authorize me to put the next selector on — 'He just changed his email address, can I put that on?' — if that's where the advocate stands in, that's operationally not terribly efficient.

"But if there's going to be some novel interpretation of the law — if there's going to be some authority that's going to be applied as an extension of the law [that] might say, 'I've got a different view,' we'd welcome that."

The NSA would also welcome a public advocate's presence in the room each time it seeks a warrant, Inglis said, if the process can be made "operationally efficient."

The creation of a public advocate position inside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance — or FISA — court that oversees the NSA that the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies has suggested. The recommendations followed former NSA contractor 's leaks about the agency's surveillance programs.

The idea is that the advocate could raise objections if it appears the NSA might be about to violate someone's civil or privacy rights.

President Obama has been meeting with congressional leaders and will talk with technology company executives on Friday as he considers the panel's recommendations. The president is expected to announce his decision on what changes, if any, will be made to U.S. surveillance programs later this month.

Snowden's revelations have lifted the veil on many secrets about the NSA's massive electronic surveillance efforts, which the agency says are aimed at the telephone and Internet communications of suspected terrorists overseas — but have also swept up data about the phone calls and emails of world leaders and average Americans.


NSA's John Inglis on why you need a haystack


In the NPR interview, Inglis did not dispute an estimate that the agency had examined electronic communications more than 44 million times in 2012. But he said that does not mean the NSA spied on 44 million people, since many targets of surveillance had multiple phone numbers or email accounts, which the agency examined multiple times.

"A particular terrorist might have dozens ... hundreds of these selectors," he said.

Inglis made the case for why the NSA needs to gather so much information. "If you're looking for a needle in a haystack, you need the haystack," he said.

He also said the NSA is open to another potential change that has been suggested — having the data it wants collected stored by phone companies and other tech firms, not by the agency itself, and only made available after warrants are issued by the FISA court. "We are considering that," he said, although the decision about such a change will be made by policymakers, not the agency.

 
NSA's John Inglis compares what Edward Snowden did to arson



During the conversation, Inglis also said that in hindsight, the NSA should have disclosed at least some details about its surveillance programs before Snowden's leaks hit front pages last June.

But Snowden did not do the NSA any favor by spilling its secrets and sparking a national debate, Inglis said. He likened what Snowden did to "somebody who burned my house down [and] has given me an opportunity to perhaps build it in a way that I would prefer."

Much more from the conversation with Inglis is scheduled for Friday's Morning Edition.


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A Jesuit Pope? Understanding The Jesuit Agenda and the Evangelical/Protestant Church




March 14th, 2013 | Author: Lighthouse Trails Editors

LTRP Note:
Nearly two years ago, we issued this special report. With a newly elected Jesuit Pope in the Vatican, we thought it would be timely to repost this important article. It is also in booklet form as one of our new Print Booklet Tracts.

An Understand the Times/Lighthouse Trails Special Report

(Booklet Form)

According to Bible prophecy, a one-world religion that will offer the promise of peace throughout the world is going to commence prior to Christ’s return. To most, this global body will seem like a wonderful thing and very possibly will be a pseudo-Christianity (coming in the name of “Christ”); however, contrary to how the masses will view it, it will actually help establish and set up the antichrist and his one- world government.

In order for this to happen, all religions must come together in an ecumenical plan. Today, as part of this Satanic scheme, the evangelical/Protestant church is being drawn seductively into the Roman Catholic church, largely through what we call “The Jesuit Agenda.” Incredibly, while the evidence is obvious to some, the majority of proclaiming Christians are not at all aware it is happening.

So, what should we expect if we are in the time when such a system unfolds? First, many who once were Protestant and evangelical will become ecumenical and eventually assimilate with the Roman Catholic church. Second, all religions will unite in solidarity of purpose. Understanding the Jesuit Agenda is essential if we are to understand how this worldwide deception will come about.

Who are the Jesuits?

Since its foundation, the Catholic papacy has been zealous and often brutal in its endeavor to establish the kingdom of the Pope (of whom it is believed within the Catholic church is headed by Jesus Christ). In fact, the Pope has been referred to as the “Vicar of Christ.” This determination was witnessed during the Inquisition where countless thousands, if not millions, died cruelly for resisting Rome. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs describes many of these atrocities.

While many believers in Christ during the Reformation period attempted to spread the truth that God’s Word was truly God’s Word and could not be squandered and kept hostage by the papacy and the Catholic Church, it was not long before the Counter Reformation was founded to bring the “Separated Brethren” back to the “Mother of All Churches.”

This Counter Reformation was largely headed by Ignatius Loyola, the man who founded the Jesuit Order in the mid 1500s and launched an all-out attack against those who dared stand against the papacy and Rome. This excerpt from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs gives us an idea of the nature and determination of this Counter Reformation:

The emperor Ferdinand, whose hatred of the Bohemian Protestants was without bounds, not thinking he had sufficiently oppressed them, instituted a high court to prosecute the reformers upon the plan of the Inquisition, with this difference, that the court was to travel from place to place and always to be attended by a body of troops. This court was conducted chiefly by Jesuits and from their decision there was no appeal, by which it may be easily conjectured that it was a dreadful tribunal indeed.

This bloody court, attended by a body of troops, made the tour of Bohemia. They seldom examined or saw a prisoner, for the soldiers were permitted to murder the Protestants as they pleased and then to make a report of the matter to them afterward.1

You see, the Jesuits were commissioned by the Pope to do whatever it took to end the Protestant Reformation. The 1540 Constitution of the Jesuits states:

[L]et whoever desires to fight under the sacred banner of the Cross, and to serve only God and the Roman pontiff, His vicar on earth, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity,- let him keep in mind that he is part of a society, instituted for the purpose of perfecting souls in life and in Christian doctrine, for the propagation of the faith . . . Let all members know, and let it be not only at the beginning of their profession, but let them think over it daily as long as they live, that the society as a whole, and each of them, owes obedience to our most holy lord, the pope, and the other Roman pontiffs, his successors, and to fight with faithful obedience for God. (Emphasis added.)

While most Christians think that the Counter Reformation is a thing of the past because we are not seeing Inquisitions today, this movement continues until today and with renewed effort through various avenues of the evangelical/Protestant church. In a way, it is more insidious than the Inquisitions, because now it has infiltrated Christianity and is being disguised as the “new” Christianity. (Rick Warren promotes it as the “new” or second reformation.) But disguised or not, it is the Jesuit Agenda, and it is bringing about ecumenism and a one-world religion. And at the same time, it is attempting to destroy the message that so many died for – the message that Jesus Christ is not found in a wafer and a cup of juice to be re-crucified day after day but has died once and for all for the sins of man and offers a salvation that is an entirely free gift, unearned to those who believe on Him (Hebrews 7:27; 10:11-14).

Who Was Ignatius Loyola?

After a serious injury in the military and during a lengthy rehabilitation, Ignatius Loyola (b. 1491, d. 1556) turned his focus from “military enthusiasm to ghostly fanaticism.”2 Ignatius assumed the name and office of Knight of the Virgin Mary, seeing himself as Mary’s favorite. Ignatius wanted to start a new order, The Society of Jesus (or the Jesuits) and presented the idea to the Pope. He told the Pope that the idea had been inspired by heavenly revelations. At first, the Pope hesitated, but when Ignatius added a fourth vow (in addition to the regular poverty, chastity, and obedience), “absolute subservience to the pope,” promising to do whatever the Pope wanted and go wherever he wanted, the Pope agreed and sent the new order out to “invade the world.” While other monks of other orders sought to separate themselves from the world, the Jesuits went out into the world and obeyed whatever command the Pope gave. Often this was to win the world with the sword. No violent act was withheld if the order came from their top “general.”3

In time, the Jesuits entered the education system, especially that of the Protestants. The Jesuit maxim was: “Give us the education of the children of this day – and the next generation will be ours.”4 The Reverend W. C. Brownlee, D.D. stated: “They pretended to be converted and to enter into Protestant churches.” One Jesuit even boasted that the Jesuits were successfully able to imitate the Puritan preachers. They used trickery and deception to become “all things to all men.” Within 48 years, there were eleven thousand Jesuits around the world, quite a large number for back then. 5

By 1773, the order was abolished because of their horrible reputation of bloodiness, deception, and immorality. However, they were reinstated fully in 1814 by Pope Pius VII. Even by this time, the influence and infiltration into the United States by the Jesuits was significant.

In 1857, the Reverend W.C. Brownlee, D.D. compiled a book of a translated document called Secret Instructions of the Jesuits (found on the Boston College Libraries website, for one). While Catholic sources say that the Secret Instructions of the Jesuits is an untrue document, there is enough evidence to indicate that it is true indeed. Naturally, it is so indicting against the papacy and the Jesuit Order that one can understand from a human point of view why Catholic sources would say the document isn’t true. But the facts are that the Jesuit Order was performing brutal cruel acts to bring the world to “Christ” and the Mother Church and that they were infiltrating every area of society to do so. This cannot be denied. Brownlee’s book would be a worthwhile read for those who wish to understand more of the history of the Jesuits.

The Jesuit Oath

It is said that the ancient Jesuits took the Jesuit Oath. This has been refuted by Catholic sources as a true oath taken by Jesuits of the past; nevertheless, there is evidence enough that the oath did exist to include excerpts of it in this report. We have taken these excerpts from a book titled Political and Economic Handbook by Thomas Edward Watson published in 1916, and found in the Harvard College library:

I do declare from my heart, without mental reservation, that the Pope is Christ’s Vicar General and . . . He hath power to depose Heretical Kings, Princes, States . . . that they may safely be destroyed. Therefore, to the utmost of my power I will defend this doctrine. . . . I do further declare the doctrine of the Church of England, of the Calvanists [sic], the Huguenots, and other Protestants to be damnable and those to be damned who will not forsake the same.

I do further declare that I will help, assist, and advise all or any of His Holiness agents in any place wherever I shall be; and to do my utmost to extirpate [exterminate] the heretical Protestant doctrine, and to destroy all their pretended power. (p. 437)

In another version of the Jesuit Oath, the Jesuit is asked to promise that he will make “relentless war” against “all heretics, Protestants” and to “hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics” (found in U.S. House Congressional Record, 1913, p. 3216).

The Jesuit Agenda Today


While we are not saying that Jesuits today are murdering Protestants if they don’t convert to Catholicism, we are saying that the determination and efforts to convert Protestants back to the Mother Church still exist. Basically, while the methods may have changed, the plan and objectives have not. The following quote from an article titled “Essay on Popery” by Rev. Ingram Cobbin M.A. (taken from one edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs) is insightful:

The Jesuits, though at times expelled or pretendedly so from Rome, have been its awful emissaries to augment its power. The intrigues and deceptions of these men would fill volumes, and the conveniency of their creed to deny or affirm anything, or assume any profession as it may serve their purpose, is too well known to need recapitulating here. These men have at times assumed so much that every papal state has alternately ejected them; and large numbers are now in this country—doubtless many under false colours —waiting the most favourable opportunities to corrupt the rising generation, and, as much as possible, restore the dark days of former ages. The Jesuits are unchangeable.

The Jesuits were driven in the past to bring back the lost brethren, and they are driven today with the same vision. Today, that vision is part of the pope’s Eucharistic Evangelization, drawing people to the Eucharistic Christ. The Eucharistic Evangelization is discussed at length in Another Jesus: The Evangelization of the Eucharistic Christ and in several articles on the Understand the Times website.
Jesuit (Mystical) Spirituality and the Protestant/Evangelical Church

So if the methods of converting lost or prodigal souls back to Rome have changed, what is the method to accomplish these goals today? It is largely through what is called Jesuit Spirituality. A 2002 book titled Contemplatives in Action: The Jesuit Way reveals how the Jesuit order has had and continues to have a “great influence” in people around the world. It attributes this “vitality” to “its spirituality” which has also “evoked fierce loyalty and fierce opposition.”6

What is the spirituality of the Jesuits that was so controversial? By their very roots, Jesuits are proponents of mystical prayer practices. The founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, created “spiritual exercises” that incorporated mysticism, including lectio divina. Today, millions of people worldwide practice the “Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola.”

One Jesuit priest who resonates with the mystical spiritual outlook is Anthony De Mello (d. 1987), author of Sadhana: A Way to God. De Mello is often quoted today by contemplative and emerging authors and embraced the mysticism of Hinduism. He stated:

To silence the mind is an extremely difficult task. How hard it is to keep the mind from thinking, thinking, thinking, forever thinking, forever producing thoughts in a never ending stream. Our Hindu masters in India have a saying: one thorn is removed by another. By this they mean that you will be wise to use one thought to rid yourself of all the other thoughts that crowd into your mind. One thought, one image, one phrase or sentence or word that your mind can be made to fasten on. – Anthony de Mello, Sadhana: A Way to God (St. Louis, the Institute of Jesuit Resources, 1978), p. 28 (cited from A Time of Departing, by Ray Yungen, p. 75).

Ray Yungen explains that Sadhana “is very open in its acknowledgment of Eastern mysticism as an enrichment to Christian spirituality.”

It doesn’t take a long search to find De Mello within the evangelical/Protestant camp. In fact, Richard Foster, one of the pioneers of the evangelical spiritual formation (contemplative) movement wrote the introduction to one of De Mello’s books, The Sacrament of the Present Moment. In A Glimpse of Jesus, popular contemplative author Brennan Manning quotes De Mello. Amazon shows that De Mello’s book, The Sacrament of the Present Moment is cited in 82 books, some of which are written by some of evangelicalism’s most popular authors: John Ortberg, Richard Foster, Jan Johnson, Philip Yancey, and Calvin Miller – incidentally all these are contemplative advocates.

Another example of Jesuit influence in the evangelical/Protestant church is the Be Still DVD, where Richard Foster quotes 18th century Jesuit priest, Jean Nicholas Grou as saying: “O Divine Master, teach me this mute language which says so much.” This “mute language” Grou speaks of is the mystical “silence” practiced by contemplatives and mystics throughout all religions.

One of the key figures in the “new” progressive Christianity today is Leonard Sweet. Sweet has partnered on a number of occasions with Rick Warren and speaks at evangelical events frequently. In Sweet’s book, Quantum Spirituality, he states:

Mysticism, once cast to the sidelines of the Christian tradition, is now situated in postmodernist culture near the center. . . . In the words of one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, Jesuit philosopher of religion/dogmatist Karl Rahner, “The Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, one who has experienced something, or he will be nothing.” [Mysticism] is metaphysics arrived at through mindbody experiences. (p. 76)

How fitting that Sweet would quote a Jesuit priest’s prediction about the “Christian” of the future.

Tony Campolo, another popular figure in the evangelical church, reveals something quite interesting in his book, Letters to a Young Evangelical. In the book, he explains the role mysticism had in him becoming a Christian. He explains:

I learned about this way of having a born-again experience from reading Catholic mystics, especially The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. (p. 30, see “Coming to Christ Through Mysticism,” Oakland )

For skeptics who may need further evidence that Jesuit Spirituality has come into the evangelical/Protestant church, consider this. In 2006, Baker Books, one of evangelicalism’s top book publishers, released a book titled Sacred Listening: Discovering the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola written by James Wakefield. A publisher description of the book states:

Central to the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the Spiritual Exercises is a manual used to direct a month-long spiritual retreat. Now adapting these time-honored Exercises specifically for Protestant Christians, James L. Wakefield encourages readers to integrate their secular goals with their religious beliefs and helps them reflect on the life of Jesus as a model for their own discipleship.7

Wakefield’s book, devoted to the Jesuits and Ignatian Exercises, should be proof enough that the Jesuit Agenda has entered the Christian church and that mysticism is the tool by which the Jesuit Agenda is largely being brought into the lives of countless evangelicals and Protestants. Is it any wonder Wakefield’s book found praise within the Jesuit community? Armand M. Nigro, professor emeritus at the Jesuit school, Gonzaga University, said:

As a Jesuit for 62 years, I have been formed by the Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, our principal founder. I rejoice, then, at the long-awaited publication of Sacred Listening. It will be for its readers, I hope, a classic manual for spiritual growth in genuine mystical prayer. (on back cover of book)

Incidentally, Eugene Peterson, author of The Message wrote an endorsement of Wakefield’s book on the front cover.

These are just a few of a great many examples where the “Jesuit Spirituality” has come into the Protestant church; thus this new modern (post-modern) mystical method to accomplish the goals of the papacy is working.

If Protestants and evangelicals can be convinced to practice mysticism (i.e., contemplative), this conditions them to begin embracing Rome and even all religions. It’s important to understand that mysticism is the bridge that unites all the religions of the world. In order to unite them, there would need to be a uniting, common denominator, so to speak. That common uniting medium is mysticism. Thomas Merton recognized this. In a conversation he was having with a Sufi master, the topic of Christian atonement arose. The Sufi master said this was an area they could never agree on, to which Merton replied:

Personally, in matters where dogmatic beliefs differ, I think that controversy [atonement] is of little value because it takes us away from the spiritual realities into the realm of words and ideas . . . in words there are apt to be infinite complexities and subtleties which are beyond resolution. . . . But much more important is the sharing of the experience of divine light, . . . It is here that the area of fruitful dialogue exists between Christianity and Islam.8 (Emphasis added.)

Tilden Edwards, co-founder of the Shalem Institute (where Ruth Haley Barton was educated), would agree with Merton. He said, “This mystical stream [contemplative prayer] is the Western bridge to Far Eastern spirituality” (Spiritual Friend, p. 18). And in a New Age book titled, As Above, So Below, the author states (quoting Aldous Huxley) that “the metaphysical [mystical] that recognizes a divine reality” is the “highest common factor” that “links the world’s religious traditions.” And even evangelical-turned-emerging author Tony Campolo recognizes this commonality in mysticism when he states: “Beyond these models of reconciliation, a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam” (pp 149-150).

Incidentally, when we say all the religions of the world uniting, we include the New Age movement (perhaps one of the largest “religions” in the world today). New Agers believe that in order to enter into an age of enlightenment (or Age of Aquarius), the world needs to become “vibrationally sympathetic,” meaning that a sufficient mass (critical mass) of people will need to engage in mystical prayer.9

The Counter Reformation Continues

Jesuit influence in the world today is everywhere: in the business world, in education, in government, and yes, in the evangelical/Protestant church. According toContemplatives in Action: The Jesuit Way, there are over one million people living in the United States alone who have graduated from Jesuit high schools, colleges, and universities (Introduction, p. 1).

While there have often been tensions between the Pope and the Jesuit Order over various issues, the current Superior General of the Jesuit Order, Adolfo Nicolas Pachon, reassured the Jesuit commitment to Rome when he stated:

The Society of Jesus was born within the Church, we live in the Church, we were approved by the Church and we serve the Church. This is our vocation…[Unity with the pope] is the symbol of our union with Christ. It also is the guarantee that our mission will not be a ‘small mission,’ a project just of the Jesuits, but that our mission is the mission of the Church.”10 


Where Else in Evangelicalism is the Jesuit Evangelism Showing Up?

Earlier this year, Understand the Times released an article titled Jerry Boykin and the Calvary Chapel Connection. It was a difficult article for many to read. People do not want to think that Christian leaders and pastors they have trusted for years would be so foolish as to associate with and promote someone who is part of a group that wants to bring the “lost brethren” back to the Mother Church. But the fact is that a high officer in the Vatican’s Jesuitical, “Knights of Malta” was a featured speaker at a Calvary Chapel sponsored Preach the Word prophecy conference.

Another example, and I believe an important one, has to do with one of the most well-known and influential evangelical organizations in America. Robert Siciro is a Protestant turned Catholic Paulist priest, and he is one of the featured speakers in the very popular Truth Project by Focus on the Family. While the Paulist Order is not a Jesuit Order, it has basically the same objective as the Jesuit order with regard to winning souls for the Catholic church. According to one Catholic source , the Paulist order is “A community of priests for giving missions and doing other Apostolic works, especially for making converts to the Catholic faith.” Robert Siciro is President of the Acton Institute, an ecumenical think tank where, incidentally, there are scores of articles by or about those in the Catholic faith, including a number of Jesuits. Now, through the Truth Project, thousands and thousands of evangelical/Protestant Christians have been introduced, by way of proxy, to the Eucharistic Evangelization.

The Fatima Plan

For those who are not convinced that we are headed toward a one-world religion for “peace,” take a trip some time to Fatima, Portugal where annual pilgrimages bring people from the religions of the world to pray to “the queen of heaven,” also called “our lady of Peace.”

Pope John Paul II was dedicated to Mary and especially “Our Lady of Fatima.” He believed this entity saved him from an assassin’s bullet on May 13, 1981, on the anniversary of the so-called apparition’s appearance (to have first occurred in 1917).

People from all around the world have been coming to Fatima to pray to “Our Lady.” At a gathering for “world peace” in Fatima, Jesuit priest Jacques Dupuis stated:

The religion of the future will be a general converging of religions in a universal Christ that will satisfy all. The other religious traditions in the world are part of God’s plan for humanity and the Holy Spirit is operating and present in Buddhist, Hindu and other sacred writings of Christian and non-Christian faiths as well. The universality of God’s kingdom permits this, and this is nothing more than a diversified form of sharing in the same mystery of salvation.11

Fatima is just another avenue through which the Jesuit Agenda is being accomplished.
In Summary


Perhaps the best way to understand the Jesuit Agenda that undermines biblical Christianity is to recognize the move toward a so-called “social gospel” that unites the religions of the world for the cause of peace. Like mysticism, this social gospel is a vehicle through which all religions will be united. Who would have believed this could have happened to the Protestant evangelical church? But we have already been warned in Scripture that Satan’s ministers are “transformed as the ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:15).

Rick Warren has been one of the many pied pipers of this move to unite through “good works.” Called “America’s pastor,” Warren has become the evangelical/Protestant spokesperson for a one-world religion. His Purpose Driven model has become the battle cry for let just all get along and do good. We can work together as one for one common purpose – peace in the world.

Willow Creek has helped to escalate this global religious body through their Global Leadership Summits, where they are “bringing people together from all nationalities to complete our shared Kingdom assignment in the Church and beyond”12 (emphasis added). Warren and Hybel’s global agenda is moving full force throughout the earth today.

Rick Warren and Bill Hybels – protégés of Peter Drucker, by the way – have advanced the Jesuit Agenda by leaps and bounds. Many of these “new” Christianity, new reformation leaders have ignored the prophetic warnings of Jesus Christ’s soon return based on the signs we see from Bible prophecy. Instead, they promote the establishment of the kingdom of God with all the world’s religions.

The emerging church movement, which has been widely propagated by Warren, Hybels, and a host of other Christian figures, has been used by Satan to quickly bring about this worldwide deception by introducing mystical experiences and the social gospel to an entire generation of young people. Sensual experiences that tickle the flesh of the postmodern generation are often the same ones that Rome has used in the past to convince the faithful that they have encountered the God of the Bible. History reveals that history is repeating, and the same tools of delusion are being used over and over.

Those who shine the light on the Jesuit Agenda are considered to be conspiratorial crackpots. The prophets of the past when they exposed the Babylonian worship by the leaders of Israel were also deemed to be crazy, as have been Bible-believing Christians since Christianity began. One of those was John Huss (1372-1415). John Foxe describes what happened:


[Huss] compiled a treatise in which he maintained that reading the books of Protestants could not be absolutely forbidden. He wrote in defense of Wickliffe’s book on the Trinity; and boldly declared against the vices of the pope, the cardinals, and clergy of those corrupt times. He wrote also many other books, all of which were penned with a strength of argument that greatly facilitated the spreading of his doctrines. . . . 13

Eventually Huss was arrested, and when he was brought before the council (of the papacy), he was mocked and called “A ringleader of heretics,” to which he replied:


My Lord Jesus Christ, for my sake, did wear a crown of thorns; why should not I then, for His sake, wear this light crown, be it ever so shameful? Truly I will do it and willingly.14

At 43 years of age, John Huss was burned at the stake, singing hymns during the brutal execution. Why was he called a “ringleader of heretics”? For standing up for biblical truth against the Pope and Rome.

Discerning Christians should be asking many questions. But one question that stands out foremost is: why are so few saying anything about the Jesuit Agenda? Do they see it but are afraid to speak? Or do they see it and are part of it?

Speaking of questions, Jesus asked one: “[W]hen the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Will He find it in the pastors and theological professors? Will He find it in your own church? Or will He only find those who have remained silent?

Just as God raised up others to carry the torch of truth after Huss was eliminated from this earth, God will and is raising up others today who are willing to risk all to stand for the truth and speak against the lies.

To believers who are standing fast, look up, for “your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).


Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. . . . See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:6-11, 15-17)

Notes:
John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (Eureka, MT: Lighthouse Trails Publishing edition), p. 169.
Rev. W.C. Brownlee, D.D., Secret Instructions of the Jesuits, http://www.archive.org/details/secretinstructio00brow at Boston College Libraries archives
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
https://lists.ateneo.edu/pipermail/blueboard/2004-May/003422.html
From the Publisher’s description at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Listening-Discovering-Spiritual-Exercises/dp/080106614X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309703869&sr=8-1#_
Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Editors, Merton and Sufism (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999), p. 109, as cited in A Time of Departing, p. 60.)
Ken Carey, The Starseed Transmissions (A Uni-Sun Book, 1985 4th printing), p. 33.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Nicol%C3%A1s and see http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801316.htm
Jesuit theologian Father Jacques Dupuis, at the 2003 interfaith congress “The Future of God; http://www.understandthetimes.org/commentary/c19.shtml
http://www.growingleadership.com/summit/speaker_brenda_salter_mcneil.asp
John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (Eureka, MT, Lighthouse Trails Publishing edition), pp.160-164.
Ibid.

For more information:

Understand the Times, International

Lighthouse Trails Research Project


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The Separation of Church and State




When God said to Abraham, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee," Abraham "went out, not knowing whither he went" (Heb. 11:8).

God had not yet showed to him the land or country into which he was to go, and which was to be his. So far, the Lord had only promised to show it to him.

There were three things, however, which Abraham must do before he could fairly expect God to show him the country which He had promised, and which was to be his. First, he was to get out of his country; secondly, from his kindred; thirdly, from his father's house.

He left his country; but when he did so, his father and his kindred went with him to Haran, and dwelt there. There his father died; and now, separated from his father's house, he went on to the land of Canaan.

But there accompanied him yet one of his kindred -- Lot, his brother's son. While Lot was with him, and he was thus not separated from his kindred, though separated from his country and his father's house, the time could come for God to show to him the land, nor the country which He would give him.

But there came a day when Lot should be separated from him. Lot chose all the plain of the Jordan, and journeyed east, and "they separated thus, one from the other" (Gen. 13:11).

And just then it was that God showed to Abraham the land which He had promised to show him, the country which should be his. "And the Lord said unto Abraham, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever" (Gen. 13:14, 15).

And the country which the Lord then showed to Abraham, and which He there promised him should be his for an everlasting possession -- that country embraced the world; for "the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith" (Rom. 4:13).

Therefore, when at the word of the Lord Abraham lifted up his eyes to see what the Lord would show him, he saw "the world to come," which is to be the everlasting possession of all them which be of faith. For "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29).

Thursday, January 09, 2014

THE MOST DELICIOUS FRUIT YOU'LL EVER FIND - PART 2

(January 07, 2014)

Date: Feb 12, 2013


THE MOST DELICIOUS FRUIT YOU'LL EVER FIND - PART 2




When a 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia in late December, 2004, some 220,000 died and 500,000 were left homeless. For weeks after that, house painter Bill Crosby wanted to help. But he asked himself, Who cares about paint if you don’t have a house?

Hello everyone, I’m Connie Jeffrey and it’s my pleasure to welcome you to today’s broadcast of the Voice of Prophecy. We’re in the second week of a three-week series exploring four major assurances that are ours through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Pastor Lonnie dealt with two of them last week, and introduced the third yesterday, which is this: The Holy Spirit grows beautiful, desirable, spiritual fruit in our lives. So as you can well imagine, we’re offering you a book about one of the Spirit’s works, the gifts He gives to all of us when we enter the Kingdom of His grace. The book is by H. M. S. Richards Jr. and titled What’s Your Gift? For your free, post-paid copy of this fine 62-page book, just write to Voice of Prophecy, Box 53055, Los Angeles 90053. That’s Box 53055, Los Angeles, 90053, or call us toll free at 1-800-872-0055. Now here’s our radio pastor, Lonnie Melashenko to conclude the message he began yesterday on the fruit of the Spirit.

Thank you Connie. And friend, let me return to the story I began a moment ago. After the tsunami disaster just after Christmas 2004, the world tried to help. In America, Bill Crosby went to work every day painting houses, but he couldn’t get out of his mind the people far away whose lives had been devastated. “Then something just snapped,” he told a reporter. “One minute I knew I was going over there. I just knew it.” He wanted to go to Phi Phi [pee-pee] Island to search for friends he’d made at a resort. But the Thai government refused permission. So he volunteered at a temple that had been converted into a morgue. He helped stack 2,000 bodies and assisted relatives searching for loved ones. Then Bill collapsed from heat exhaustion. He’s a big guy, arms displaying bulging muscles covered in tattoos. But when he told a reporter about helping a family find a man whose arms had been torn off by the tsunami, his voice quavered and his hands shook. “The morgue was the most intense experience of my life,” he murmured.

Rumors reached his ears that relief was not getting to the surrounding islands. It made him angry. So he decided to go home, sell his house, and return with food. Back in the States, he couldn’t believe the tsunami story had vanished from the media! He purchased supplies and arrived back in Thailand in March and personally delivered a 10-week supply of food to 4,000 people who had received nothing from any relief agency. When all 30 tons of supplies had been distributed, he got on a plane and came home. When a reporter caught up with him, Bill was sitting on the floor, because he’d sold all his furniture. All he had left were a few of his “toys”—a Harley motorcycle and a black Hummer both for sale from sheer necessity. “I’m embarrassed to even have this stuff after what I’ve seen,” he mused. Bill is thinking of becoming a missionary in Thailand because he just can’t get these needy people out of his mind.

You can’t help but think of the words Jesus spoke about the last day of human history. He will say to people like Bill: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink” (Matthew 25:35, 36).

And that kind of thoughtfulness reminds me of these words about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, 23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” And we observed yesterday, there’s one fruit, the fruit of love, and this love is manifested in many different ways. And we looked at the first two love aspects of the Spirit’s fruit: joy and peace. Today we’ll explore the other six aspects of the “love fruit” named in the New Testament.

The third aspect of this fruit is patience. This means to be tolerant when provoked. No Christian can reach the Golden Gates without experiencing provocation and pain. But when we listen to the Spirit within, He makes us sensitive to the plea of the serenity prayer: God help me accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

You know, there's one thing that no one can take away from us, not even a court of law dispatching someone to jail for life. No one can take from us the right to choose our attitudes. Nelson Mandela is a fine example. He maintained a strong, positive, hopeful, helpful attitude to life throughout his 27-year incarceration on Robben Island, off the coast of South Africa, and became one of the most revered leaders of our time. The Holy Spirit helps us to be patient so God can turn an assault from Satan into an advance for God's kingdom.

John Bunyan suffered 13 years in a medieval prison and turned his experience into his classic, Pilgrim's Progress. That experience taught him patience and how to hurl the giant Despair over the walls of Doubting Castle.

The fourth aspect of the Spirit's fruit of love is gentleness. The beatitudes call this same quality, “mercy.” And I’m sure we would agree that the ultimate biblical example of mercy is the Good Samaritan. By the time he got to the beaten, bloodied traveler, two religious leaders had come and gone without lifting a finger to help.

Finally, the Samaritan comes by. He does everything one could wish for and more. He shows compassion, he cleans up the man’s wounds, he carries the stranger to the nearest resting place and assumes full responsibility for the bill. Oh, how the world needs this love fruit!

The fifth aspect of love Paul names is goodness. In some ways it’s one of the more difficult to define of the eight aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. It’s both so obvious and illusive! Of course the Christian shows the quality of goodness, but it’s a very particular kind of goodness. It’s almost incandescent. It shines from within. It shows its beautiful face at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected places. And its demonstrations of love for God and love for others become a spontaneous way of life.

When Catherine Booth, the co-founder of the Salvation Army, first learned of the deadly disease that would take her life (slowly, over two years of agony for which she would not take any drug to dull the pain) she knelt beside her husband and said, “Do you know what my first thought was? That I should not be there to nurse you at your last hour.” In that simple statement, Catherine showed in all its glory that the Spirit had grown the fruit of goodness in her powerful, sacrificial life.

The sixth aspect of love is faithfulness, doing what God asks us to do, and doing it to the best of our ability in God’s strength. Yes, this fruit is about faith, but the question is not whether we have faith, or don’t have faith, the question is how much faith we’ve developed, and how much we can be trusted. I think the perfect illustration is found in the Gospels in the cry of the father of an epileptic son. When he came face to face with Jesus, his love for his boy, his desperation to see the lad healed, elicited these poignant words: “Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24, KJV).

And we see another illustration of the meaning of faithfulness in the comments of the apostle Paul while in prison. He describes himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ. Now we know he was a prisoner of Nero! But here’s the difference: Paul knew Nero could not hold him against the will of God! That was the extent of Paul’s faith, and the demonstration of his abiding faithfulness.

The seventh aspect of the love fruit is meekness. And this is a really difficult word to understand. Meekness is like gentleness, but that’s not quite adequate either. Maybe the English word that comes closest to the Greek word is "submission." Of course, non-believers see meekness as weakness, but in reality it is incredible strength. It's also mistaken for an inferiority complex or a lack of ambition, but that’s only because this aspect of love is beyond the understanding of the secular mind. In reality it’s the other side of the coin of a healthy self-esteem. It's the awareness that without Jesus we never reach the full potential that He desires for us. And when we're tuned to the Spirit’s voice in our innermost souls, we exhibit both humility and a healthy self concept.

For me the late Mother Teressa, submitting herself to a life of abject deprivation, and holding in her arms diseased and dying derelicts from the littered streets of Calcutta, is a modern portrait of genuine meekness. In her we see a strong, indomitable spirit, perfectly wed to a deep humility and daily service for others because of her submission to Jesus.

Which brings us to the eighth and final dimension of love, which Paul names temperance, which means balance, or self control. A Christian who listens to the Spirit's voice in her heart makes intelligent choices with the goal of maintaining a balanced life. This often means a prayerful calculation to deny something which might hinder personal growth and witness—something which is almost impossible for a narcissistic society to comprehend. We’ve bred a generation that knows what it wants, and gets what it wants no matter what the cost. Deprivation is almost unknown except for the poor. Which reminds me that John Wesley endorsed his mother's judgment that, "Moderation is still an indispensable Christian duty."

Christians have to live with a Spirit-conditioned sense of moderation, of self-imposed limits, of discipline, especially when it comes to such aspects of life as diet and daily exercise, and how we choose to spend the resources God gives. As Scripture says, “’My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17, 18). Discipline and balance extend to every aspect of the Christian’s life—even how we choose to spend the money God gives us the ability to earn.

So there you have the eight dimensions of love that the Holy Spirit grows in your life: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. I know I’d like my Spirit garden to flourish with these fruits. How about you? They’re not fruits we can grow by ourselves, but by allowing God’s Holy Spirit to be our gardener, we can see a rich crop. Invite Him to take over your garden today!


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Book review: ‘Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War’ by Robert M. Gates





View Photo Gallery — Robert Gates: A look at his career in government: He served as defense secretary under presidents Obama and George W. Bush, bridging the two administrations and earning a reputation as careful, conservative and consensus-oriented.




By Greg Jaffe, Published: January 7




Greg Jaffe covered the Pentagon for The Washington Post and is a co-author of “The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army.”

Maybe it was the time of year, just before the Christmas holidays. Maybe it was the setting — a bare-bones combat outpost in the violent mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Maybe it was the strain of more than four years of signing deployment orders that he knew would lead to the deaths of more young Americans. But in December 2010, speaking to troops clustered around him,Robert M. Gates was overcome by an uncharacteristic flood of emotion.

The soldiers in their dirt-splattered uniforms had been ordered to stop whatever they were doing and listen to the defense secretary, who, with his neatly parted white hair, khakis and starched button-down shirt, looked as if he had helicoptered in from another planet. “I feel a personal responsibility for each and every one of you,” Gates said. “I feel the sacrifice and hardship and losses more than you’ll ever imagine. I just want to thank you and tell you how much I love you.”




(Knopf) - “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War” by Robert M. Gates.



More on Bob Gates

Gates issues harsh critique of Obama in new memoir ‘Duty’ 


 

Bob Woodward JAN 7

The former defense secretary describes a contentious relationship with the president and his top aides.



How Bob Gates’s memoir could haunt Hillary in 2016  



Chris Cillizza JAN 7

The former defense secretary says Clinton opposed the Iraq surge for political reasons.


Gates bashes Biden in memoir

Aaron Blake JAN 7

“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” Gates wrote of Biden, according to the New York Times.



It is impossible to imagine former wartime defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney or Robert McNamara ever telling his troops that he loved them.

As a military reporter who covered Gates throughout his nearly five-year tenure and witnessed many of his increasingly emotional thank yous to troops in Afghanistan, I often wondered what was going on inside his head: He rarely showed anger or frustration. “I have a pretty good poker face,” he explains in his new memoir, “Duty.”

While his rivals at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon loudly staked out their positions, Gates held back his opinion. The uncertainty about where he stood was a source of his power, allowing him to swoop in at the last moment and broker a bargain, usually on terms that were most acceptable to him. Unlike his predecessors, he had a reputation for quietly and ruthlessly holding subordinates accountable. He fired senior people, including Gen. David McKiernan, his top wartime commander in Afghanistan, whom Gates thought wasn’t up to the job — the first such dismissal since the Korean War.

In his new book, which has nearly 600 pages of text, Gates takes the reader inside the war-room deliberations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and delivers unsentimental assessments of each man’s temperament, intellect and management style. “It is difficult to imagine two more different men,” Gates writes.

Gates left Washington in 2011 with a reputation as a steady, sober-minded member of the foreign policy establishment, who had served eight presidents and was admired equally by Republicans and Democrats. The next time Gates visits the capital, his reception may not be quite so warm. “Duty” is his second memoir, and this time he cuts loose.

He slams Congress for its grandstanding and gridlock. “I would listen with growing outrage,” he writes, “as hypocritical and obtuse American senators made all these demands of Iraqi legislators and yet themselves could not even pass budgets.” He describes members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee as “rude, nasty and stupid.”

Joe Biden haters will enjoy Gates’s description of the vice president as loud, garrulous and obsessed with politics over substance. “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” Gates writes. He accuses the vice president of poisoning Obama’s relationship with his generals: “I thought Biden was subjecting Obama to Chinese water torture, every day saying, ‘the military can’t be trusted.’ ”

Gates admires Obama’s decisiveness and smarts, but accuses him of sending troops to fight and die in support of a strategy in Afghanistan that, according to Gates, the president himself believed would fail. “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission,” Gates writes.

He recounts his thoughts during a tense 2011 meeting with Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then in charge of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, in the White House Situation Room: “As I sat there I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

The critique will infuriate the parents and spouses of troops who were killed trying to execute Obama’s Afghan war strategy. But Gates doesn’t prove his damning accusation and can be maddeningly self-contradictory in his criticism of Obama. He describes the president’s decision to send 33,000 more troops to Afghanistan as courageous and politically unpopular. “Obama overruled the policy and domestic political concerns of his vice president and virtually all the senior White House staff,” Gates writes. Why would the president pursue a politically unpopular strategy that he believed would fail? Gates never attempts to explain the contradiction.

Though he decries Obama’s White House staff as the “most centralized and controlling” since the Nixon administration, he offers little substantive criticism of the president’s big decisions on Afghanistan. Hawkish Republicans and some in the military slammed Obama for putting firm limits on the number of troops he was willing to send to Afghanistan and for setting a withdrawal date, saying the timelines and troop caps betrayed a lack of resolve and emboldened the enemy. Gates, however, dismisses this argument, writing, “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.”

Gates’s problem with the president is less about strategy or substance than about heart. “I myself, our commanders, and our troops had expected more commitment to the cause and more passion for it from him,” Gates writes. He compares Obama unfavorably with Bush, who “had no second thoughts about Iraq, including our decision to invade.”

No civilian in Washington was closer to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than Gates. As Washington and the rest of the country were growing bored with the grinding conflicts, he seemed to feel their burden more acutely. He describes how his trips to Afghanistan and Iraq wore on him: “On each visit I was enveloped by a sense of misery and danger and loss.” His anger at Obama, Congress and even some in the Pentagon seems to spring from his belief that they didn’t match his sense of mission in Afghanistan. They didn’t feel the sting of the troops’ deaths with the intensity that he felt.

More than 3,800 soldiers and Marines died on Gates’s watch in Iraq and Afghanistan. The losses are small compared with the numbers in the Civil War, World War II or Vietnam. But for Gates and his generals, they were extraordinarily difficult to bear. Gates spent most of his evenings as defense secretary alone, writing condolence letters to the families of the deceased. He asked his staff for a picture of the soldier and some hometown news clippings so that he would be able to personalize his message. It was a major change from the early days of the war, when Rumsfeld relied on an autopen machine to sign the letters — a practice he abandoned after lawmakers publicly flayed him for it.

Like Gates’s profession of love for the troops in Konar, his descriptions of the guilt and pain he felt from these losses are touching, heartfelt and occasionally a little over the top, especially when he recounts his predawn jogs around the Mall in Washington: “I would ritually look up at that stunning white statue of Lincoln, say good morning, and sadly ask him, How did you do it?”

McNamara published his autobiography, “In Retrospect,” two decades after the Vietnam War as a kind of pre-death-bed confession. “We were wrong, terribly wrong,” he wrote of his and his colleagues’ mistakes. Rumsfeld’s autobiography, “Known and Unknown,” was fueled by his desire to settle scores with his Bush administration foes and shoot back at critics of his tenure as defense secretary.

Gates, widely considered the best defense secretary of the post-World War II era, seems to have been driven by a desire to sort through all of the anger, frustration, sadness and guilt that he held inside during his tenure. The book comes off a bit like an extended therapy session.

In public Gates was always polite and in control. His private and deep sense of obligation to the men and women he was sending to war made him an effective defense secretary. He fought to buy special mine-resistant vehicles for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over the objections of many of his generals, who didn’t want to spend the money. He forced the Air Force to scale back its plans to buy high-tech fighter jets and instead to boost spending on surveillance drones that were desperately needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He insisted that the military add field hospitals and helicopters in Afghanistan to ensure that every wounded soldier or Marine would receive treatment within an hour of his injuries. Military doctors insisted that two hours was fast enough. Gates imagined a wounded soldier waiting for a helicopter in the dirt and dust, and told the military doctors and generals to make it an hour.

There are moments when Gates seems to realize that he let his pain, guilt and frustration overwhelm his judgment in the latter days of his tenure. “My fuse was really getting short,” he writes. “It seemed like I was blowing up — in my own, quiet way — nearly every day, and no longer just in the privacy of my own office with my staff.”

Like most soldiers, journalists and civilians who passed through Iraq and Afghanistan, Gates still seems to be struggling to make sense of his war years and the toll they took on him. He says he is “indescribably proud” of the U.S. military’s efforts to stem the chaos in Iraq and believes that the American war effort in Afghanistan is on a path to reasonable success. He also carries the heavy burden of knowing that troops were killed and maimed following his orders.

This confusing, frustrating and sometimes fascinating book is best summed up by a pair of conflicting statements Gates uttered during his tenure.In a meeting with Obama’s national security team a few days before the president’s inauguration, Gates described being defense secretary as “the most gratifying experience of my life.” Only days earlier, in an e-mail to a friend, he confided: “People have no idea how much I detest this job.”


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Global Recession Hits Puerto Rico Hard


by Tim Fitzsimons
January 09, 2014 4:29 AM

Morning Edition

4 min 12 sec




The island is paying nearly 10 percent interest on its bonds to attract reluctant investors. And some credit-rating analysts are saying Puerto Rico's bonds may soon get a downgrade. But optimists say they can help solve the island's problems from the bottom up.
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie rambles on during apology about GWB traffic jams


January 9, 2014, 9:54 am


Live Updates on Bridge Scandal Surrounding Chris Christie By JENNIFER PRESTON



Read more
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For the priest's lips should keep knowledge



And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.

2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.

3 Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.

4 And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts.

5 My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name.

6 The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.

7 For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.

8 But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts.

9 Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?

11 Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.

12 The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts.

13 And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.

14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

16 For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

17 Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?

 Malachi 2
King James Version (KJV)
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