Life news: Tougher abortion clinic regulations in Pennsylvania

You don't have to pay much attention to the news recently to see that government regulations are increasing in many different areas of life under the leadership of the Obama administration.  Yet curiously, one place where this does not happen is the abortion industry.  Instead, attempts by pro-life legislators to strengthen regulation of abortion are resisted.  However, sometimes even the government cannot ignore the problem.  This is happening in Pennsylvania as a result of the Gosnell case.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pas-new-tougher-abortion-clinic-regulations-prove-costly-for-abortionists?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LifesitenewscomLatestHeadlines+%28LifeSiteNews.com+Latest+Headlines%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Persecuted Church: Muslims traffic Christian children in Bangladesh in order to convert them to Islam

This is a horrifying story about how Muslim traffickers take Christian children to madrassas where they are forced to convert to Isalm.  Lord have mercy!

http://www.persecution.org/2013/04/02/christian-children-rescued-from-islamic-training-centers-in-bangladesh-disappear/

Culture news: Why interfaith and interconfession marriages cause problems

It never ceases to amaze me  People convince themselves that religious differences won't be a big deal in their relationship. This article does a nice job in looking at why issues arise in interfaith marriages.  Almost all of this applies to marriages between Christians of different fellowships.

Life in a fallen world, and marriage that involves two sinners, is hard enough when that couple shares a common faith and confession.  Things become exponentially more difficult when faith itself becomes a source of friction and strife.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/marrying-out-of-the-faith/?smid=fb-shar

Thanks to Hicham Chehab for posting this.

Mark's thoughts: Easter - The Defeat of Death

The resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter was the defeat of death.  It was an event that can only be understood in light of the first two chapters of Genesis that emphasize the goodness of the material creation that God made (Genesis 1:31).  We read in Genesis, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (2:7).  In this verse we learn that humanity was created as the unity of body and soul and that only in this unity can we live as God intended.  Life – true and full life as God created it – is a bodily one.

The disobedience of Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, and with sin came death (Romans 5:12).  In death, humanity now experienced the disruption of the created unity between body and soul.  God said, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).  Sin entered the world through Adam (Romans 5:12-14) and sin continues to bring death as its outcome for each one of us (Romans 6:23).

However, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has forgiven sin and defeated death.  Jesus, the suffering Servant, died in our place in order to take away our sins (Isaiah 53; Mark 10:45).  And then on Easter He rose from the dead in order to defeat death.  In the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God became flesh (John 1:14) as in Jesus all the fullness of the deity dwelt in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).  On Good Friday Jesus yielded up His spirit in death (Matthew 27:50) and His dead body – His dead flesh - was laid in the tomb. 

Yet death did not have the final word.  On Easter Sunday Jesus Christ emerged from the tomb as the resurrected One.  He emerged with a resurrected body and flesh.  As Jesus said to the disciples on the evening of the first Easter, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:38-39).  He emerged with a resurrected body and flesh which can never die again (Romans 5:9; 1 Corinthians 15:49-53).

Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His defeat of death, we are looking forward to “the redemption of the body” that will take place on the Last Day when all of creation itself is renewed (Romans 8:19-23).  We look forward to Christ’s return when he will raise the bodies of dead Christians and transform those who are still living (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).  It is on this day that we will experience the final defeat of death.

We know that death cannot separate us from Christ because in death we depart and are with Him (Philippians 1:23).  In Christ, we already share in the defeat of death now. Through Holy Baptism we have been joined to the death and resurrection of Jesus.  As Paul says in Colossians 2:12, “having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”

Yet in our own lives we still await the final defeat of death.  Until Christ returns, each of us will die and our body will be placed in the ground – something that is not very good (Genesis 1:31).  The final defeat of death will occur on the Last Day when Jesus Christ returns in glory,  raises up our bodies and transforms them to be like His glorious resurrected body (Philippians 3:21).  Paul put it this way: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.  But each in His own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ.  Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.  For He must reign until He has put all his enemies under His feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:22-26). 

On Easter Sunday we rejoiced that Christ has defeated death through His resurrection.  We rejoiced that God “has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).  And each Sunday in the liturgy of the Divine Service, as we prepare to receive the foretaste of the feast to come in the Sacrament of the Altar we cry out: “Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). We look forward to the Last Day when Jesus Christ will return and will raise and transform our bodies – the day when we will enjoy the final and ultimate defeat of death.

 

Culture news: The New York Times and Jesus' Easter "resurrection into heaven"

You can't make this stuff up.  From the New York Times:

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life. In urging peace, Francis called on Jesus to ”change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace.”

At least someone finally caught it and they issued a correction.

 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/getreligion/2013/04/this-ny-times-easter-correction-is-a-doozie/

Persecuted Church: Hardships, but a peaceful Easter for Iraqi Christians

Though they face hardships, give thanks to God that the Christians in Iraq had a peaceful Easter.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0331/Iraq-s-Christians-face-hardship-but-peaceful-Easter-also-highlights-promise

Culture news: Modernity and the redefinition of marriage

The attitudes and worldview of modernity are alive and well in so called "post-modern world.. Bruce Thornton make some interesting observations about what we see in the effort to redefine marriage:

"The redefinition of marriage currently before the court reflects the modern disdain for tradition, and modernity's overweening arrogance about our superior "scientific" knowledge and our power to alter human and social reality to fit our modern prejudices and ideologies. Schooled by the media, popular culture, and dubious social science, many have come to think that homosexuality is a human variation no more significant under the law than hair color or eye color, and so any other point of view can only be the result of irrational prejudice and bigotry. Of course, this belief is unprecedented in human history, for even societies that treated homosexuals better than we think we do never claimed that they weren't anomalous. Even the ancient Greek celebrator of homoerotic attraction, Plato, called sex between males "against nature." Thus our modern view does not reflect advances in scientific knowledge, but rather changing fashion and the efforts of a gay identity-politics lobby that finds social and political traction in casting gays as victims of civil rights inequality."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/04/gay_marriage_and_the_dysfunctions_of_modernity.html