Sister of Australian ex-prime minister quits Labor over gay marriage

Remember that you are not supposed to talk either politics or religion with family. But politics really does affect people's relations sometimes. Take it from me. I've lost a friend because I opposed the war against Irak, and then, I lost another friend because he would not see that his theology is blinded by his right wing politics.

I guess that even in the lives of politicians, when the policies of the party that they, and their siblings, belong turn against their religion beliefs, they have to part ways. This is what has happened to the sister of the previous prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, who could not put up with the Labor Party betraying its membership and opting to support gay marriage. This is how the Brisbane Times reports it:

Loree Rudd, 61, said she sent the letter to her Nambour branch last week after a policy shift at the ALP National Conference on December 3.Delegates voted to change the party policy from opposing to supporting gay marriage, with Labor MPs and senators granted a conscience vote when a bill is considered in parliament."I knew I didn't want to stay in a party if that was their stand," she said."It's not something I believe in and it's also the way it happened that I dislike."I no longer liked the direction the Labor Party was going at state or federal level and I couldn't work for a party that had endorsed homosexuals marrying."Ms Rudd did not resign from Labor when her brother was toppled as prime minister.

That's right, she didn't quit when the faceless men and women in the Labor party pounced on Kevin Rudd, and got rid of him. Later, Labor just got into power by doing a deal with the Greens, who many today believe that are the ones pulling the strings. It is interesting to see that the leader of the Greens is a homosexual that lives with his partner, and then suddenly, Labor who has gays among its ranks, sees the light. This is the way Australian politics are heading, the majority being led by the minority, and quite a minority!!

Now, she has quit Labor over the issue of gay marriage."I don't believe gay marriage is good for the community," she said."Homosexuals should be loved and treated right and they should not be discriminated against."It is a horrible thing for them to be discriminated against and that's why my brother introduced laws so they are not discriminated against."But to make that huge leap from their rights to breaking a commandment of Moses, to say homosexuals' relationships is marriage, is utter nonsense."

This woman, a Catholic, has more of a backbone than many professing Evangelicals!!! 


If you still think that gay marriage won't affect your marriage, well, you better include now that it won't affect your relationship with your siblings. You know that both assertions are utter lies!!

Ms Rudd said her brother, the Foreign Minister, was aware of her intention to resign from Labor over its support for gay marriage.She said she thought he "did not necessarily approve" of her decision.

The Crystal Cathedral has finally become a cathedral, a Roman Catholic one..

The mis-management of a family, has caused a congregation to loose their own place of worship:


A federal judge on Thursday approved the sale of the glimmering Crystal Cathedral to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange to help the financially troubled megachurch emerge from bankruptcy. 


The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert N. Kwan came after a bidding war between the diocese and Orange County's Chapman University for the sprawling 40-acre property - and was opposed by many Crystal Cathedral congregants who fear it will be the end of their church. 

The diocese will pay $57.5 million to use the iconic building in Garden Grove made of 10,000 panes of glass as a long-sought countywide cathedral.

I wonder why they rejected a good offer from a University and went along selling to the Catholics. Don't  get me wrong, a place of worship is a place for worship, but this church was built for Protestant worship, or what was considered Protestant worship:

Rather, churchgoers threw their support behind a proposal by Chapman University for the site to expand its health sciences offerings and possibly start a medical school - a plan that would have paid up to $59 million for the site allowed the church to continue to use the famous building designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson. 

For the last two weeks, the board of directors of Crystal Cathedral Ministries had supported Chapman as the preferred buyer. But the board did an about-face Wednesday and voted to back the diocese instead to preserve the church as a religious institution, citing church bylaws and a wish to respect the spirit of donors who footed the bill for the building.

 Maybe the Schullers want to get rid of the building that showed how rotten they are. There's still talks about the congregation moving somewhere else, but if experience counts something, they won't get far:

Some congregants at the Crystal Cathedral said losing their church would be a sign of failure of the ministry's leadership and they wouldn't follow its leaders to a new site.
Churchgoers also questioned whether the ministry that shares the name of the building it inhabits would be financially viable elsewhere, noting that viewers of the "Hour of Power" are equally attached to the glass-spired church and are the source of 70 percent of the church's revenue.
"This is more than a money issue. This is about the continuation of our church," said Michael Nason, a member of the church for 39 years and former producer of the Hour of Power.

The Church was built around the Crystal Cathedral structure, and if they want their congregation to keep on going, they will have to recreate their image.

But what they must do, is not to let any of the former leadership take over their new endeavour. And I think the members of the church are aware of that from what the news item has mentioned.

But apart from the corruption in the Crystal Cathedral, they were also victims of the times:

In 2008, the church's revenues plummeted amid a decline in donations and ticket sales for holiday pageants due to the recession, church officials said. But some experts say the church failed to attract younger members while alienating older churchgoers with an ill-fated attempt to turn the church over to Schuller's son, ending in a bitter and public family feud.

 I remember that many conservatives have criticised the Crystal Cathedral for being a "hipster" church. Well, if such a church does not bring new blood into their lines, it is doom to fall. Conservatives, although better than liberals in retaining their young, are due to fail as well if they don't change their ways, and start attracting new blood into their lines.

My mom loves the Crystal Cathedral. The only positive is that it will still dazzle the eyes for years, or decades to come. But this is a reminder that Ecclesia Semper Reformanda.

Apparently, it's not only the MIddle East that Muslims want to bring their Spring to.

Time and time again, we see how Muslims want to bully us in the West to conform to their ideology. Given, I also acknowledge that the West for a long time, has been trying to impose democracy and capitalism in their lands by force or plain subversion, but these people don't seem to have a problem by being so confrontational against Westerners, and Christians.

If you don't believe me, Newt Gingrich has responded to the lawsuit brought against the Catholic University of America by some muslims studying there. And the reason for the lawsuit? Because they don't feel comfortable studying with so many crosses around.

This is what Gingrich said in a speech in South Carolina:

"We now have a lawsuit apparently by some Muslim students at Catholic University who are offended being at a Catholic university. Now my first answer to them is 'Fine, don't go to a Catholic university.'"
His comments drew applause. Gingrich was referring to allegations that Catholic University of America is illegally discriminating against Muslim students by "denying them access to benefits that other student groups enjoy," and, in particular, not providing space for daily prayers so that they have to pray in classrooms or campus chapels where they are surrounded by Catholic symbols. The charges are currently being reviewed by the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights.

Couldn't they get a grip? If they don't want to see crosses, well, they should not go to the Catholic University of America. It's like going to the USA, yet, being offended by seeing the American flag all over the place.

He continues:

Gingrich challenged the "people who filed the lawsuit," asking rhetorically, "Are you prepared to sponsor a Christian missionary in Mecca? Because if you're not prepared to sponsor religious liberty in Saudi Arabia, don't come and nag us with some hypocritical baloney. So I think we need to be prepared to stand firm for genuine religious liberty, not for something that's anti-Christian."

Yes, I never thought I would agree with Gingrich in one thing, but I do on this. While American, British and Australian lives are being lost in Afghanistan for their "freedom" to practice Islam not the Taliban 's way, they don't show us the same courtesy. If not, look at this past post of mine.

The news item finishes with Gingrich's words:

"People say, well isn't this great, we're having an Arab Spring. Well I don't know, I think we may in fact be having an anti-Christian spring. I think people should actually be taking this pretty soberly."

There's still more news of this nature, how the Muslims, in their new found freedom, have tried to abolish Christianity, and Christians from their lands.

Gingrich words are sober, and also refer to a previous entry I have made on this blog:

 "What I would do is I would actively try to defend religious liberty across the planet, including in Egypt, in Iraq. Look, the number of Christians left in Iraq dropped from a million 200 thousand to five hundred thousand after we liberated the country."

May the West open its eyes, and see that if they support other people's freedoms, it may end up costing our own, since those people don't share our sense of justice, or our sense of freedom for all, not just for muslims.

Luis Alberto Jovel

Great Documentary on Luther and the Reformation

How different denominations see each other

Forcing charities to give children to gay couples, is not on!

Many had said it before, but not many wanted to believe it. Once "gay marriage" would come into effect, it would give gays more freedom at the expense of the freedom of children, for example, to have a family with a mom and dad.

In what could be another example of a same-sex law trumping religious freedom, an Illinois judge has ruled the state can end its adoption and foster care relationship with Catholic Charities, which refuses to place children with gay couples.

This was coming in the pipeline. And to and insult to the injury, check how they are calling this new move:

The new law is named, ironically, the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act. It grants same-sex couples the state legal benefits of marriage, except the name itself.

Incredible!!!! Freedom for whom?

And I like the way the article ends:

For years, traditionalists have warned the legalization of civil unions and "gay marriage" would have a widespread negative impact on religious liberty, affecting not only some adoption agencies but also the tax-exempt status of religious organizations, the religious liberty of private businesses and curriculum in elementary schools.

If you thought that gay marriage would not bring any harm to you, you are deluding yourself. Just check the new law in California, where now it is mandatory to teach "gay history" at school.

If you consider yourself "tolerant", don't expect the toleration to be reciprocal.

Calvin Vs Servet in the Afterlife

A funny cartoon, which I think says a lot of true.

Servet was a heretic by denying the Trinity, yet, he didn't deserve to be killed or to be exiled.

This proved that even the Reformers were victim of what they condemned in the Catholic Church, of intolerance.

Sound like the age of relativism started there and then.

America's Changing Religious Landscape

A massive new study of the American religious landscape reveals big changes and powerful trends shaping the future. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life surveyed 35,000 Americans in one of the largest research projects yet undertaken.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey report is over 140 pages long, but the Pew Center for Research has provided a helpful summary. Among the major findings:

• Most Americans (78.4%) identify themselves as Christians of some sort. This Christian majority seems to be a settled fact for some time to come, with trends such as Hispanic immigration bolstering these numbers.
• America's Protestant majority -- a mainstay of American life from the colonial era to the present -- is in decline and Protestant Christians will soon become a minority. The survey revealed that only 51.3% of Americans now identify as Protestants.
• Evangelicals are now the largest single group of American Christians (26.3%).
• Roman Catholics (23.9%) are the second-largest Christian grouping, though almost a third of those born into Catholic homes no longer consider themselves as Catholic. In all, almost 10% of all Americans are "former Catholics."
• Mainline Protestant churches and denominations continue to lose membership and now represent only 18.1% of the population.
• Buddhists (0.7%) outnumber Muslims (0.6%).
• Mormons (1.7%) and Muslims report the largest families.
• Those identifying as "unaffiliated" represent a fast-growing segment of the population (16.1%), including atheists (1.6%), agnostics (2.4%) and "nothing in particular" (12.1%).
• At least 27% of families are interfaith to some extent. The percentage rises to 37% if spouses of different Protestant denominations are included.
• Among younger Americans (ages 18-29) almost a quarter claim no religious affiliation.
• The Midwest is the most representative region of the country, while Evangelicals are concentrated in the South.

Here is a particularly important section of the report:

More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion -- or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, roughly 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

The first wave of media reports pointed to this section of the report, while pointing to the larger issue of religious diversity and the growth of "nothing in particular" as a response. The "switching" phenomenon was a leading focus of the report summary, with Pew researchers arguing that "religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid."

What are we to make of this? The report is a credible and extensive review of the American religious landscape. Taken as a whole, the data point to big changes on the horizon. The loss of a Protestant majority will lead to further adjustments in the cultural worldview. Clearly, America is more of a mission field than ever before.

There are some caveats about the research as well. These affiliations are self-reported, meaning that some of the individuals may have little affiliation, knowledge, or commitment behind these identifications. Nevertheless, that has always been a limitation on these surveys.

The issue of "switching" should attract a great deal of interest. In one sense, this is the inevitable product of religious liberty and religious diversity. But it also reveals that many Americans are looking for something they have not found in the tradition and affiliation of their childhood.

Even so, the research methodology probably understates this phenomenon. A member of a liberal Presbyterian church who switches to a conservative Presbyterian church is still a constant Presbyterian in the survey.

Evangelical Christians and churches should look at this report closely. There is a wealth of data here that helps to define the mission field we face in America. There are danger signs. Here are several points of concern:

• Our evangelism is not keeping pace with growth in the population. Evangelical churches are growing, but falling behind in the task of reaching Americans with the Gospel.
• We are losing many young people and many of those who switch from evangelical identity switch to "nothing in particular."
• Evangelicals are accustomed to being part of a Protestant majority, but that majoritarian posture is about to be taken away (and already has been in some communities).

All this reminds us of the complexity of our context and the immensity of our challenge. We cannot look at this data with mere interest. These numbers represent real people who desperately need to hear the Gospel -- and to see authentic Christianity made visible.

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=1104