* DR PEET BOTHA TOURS THE NETHERLANDS SPEAKING ON
HOMOSEXUALITY – For two weeks Dr Botha toured through the Netherlands
with a clear message. Homosexuality is not something that a person is born with, but a
specific choice. Deliverance from homosexuality is possible.
For the past eight years Dr Botha has studied the subject of homosexuality, and has
written three books on the subject. He is currently a missionary and part of the
leadership of a teacher's training college in South Africa. Developments within the Dutch
Reformed church led him to seek for answers why the church changed from acknowledging that
homosexuality was sin in 1986 to reviewing the matter almost 20 years later and eventually
overturning their 1986 decision.
Dr Botha points out that Paul's condemnation of homosexuality in Rom 1 is also
applicable to “long lasting, loving homosexual relationships”, because such
things took place in his time. For example, the Roman Emperor, Nero, was married to a
young man named Sporus.
Homosexuality was also a well-known phenomenon in the time of the Old Testament. The
nations around Israel allowed the practice of homosexuality, while Israel was unique in
condemning it based on God's Word. In fact, the whole matter of homosexuality, in whatever
form, was so well known in the Old and New Testaments that Paul didn't have to elaborate
on the matter.
According to the Bible homosexuality in all its forms is sin and it is still applicable
to our day. “The Bible is the Word of God, and not the Word about God. The authority
of the Bible is not negotiable”, says Dr Botha. “And when the Bible condemns
homosexuality as sin, it also means that a person can find forgiveness and deliverance
from this sin. In Prov 28:13 we read that 'he who confesses and forsakes his sin shall
obtain mercy'. Homosexuality stands on the same level as other sins like anger,
drunkenness and adultery. And according to the Bible a person can be delivered from these.
Homosexuality is therefore not a born trait. What does science say? Paul writes in Rom
1:20 that nature itself declares God's purposes. Biologically man and woman are made for
one another. Neither has any reputable study shown any homosexual gene”.
“Homosexuality is a choice a person makes, although various factors could have
lead to the decision, e.g. a boy being dressed like a girl by his mother, or a child that
has been molested etc. However, the final choice is made by the person in the same way a
paedophile makes his choice. It boils down to under what authority a person makes his
choice; and for a Christian that authority is the Bible, the Word of God”.
“Homosexuality is not a sickness but a sin for which deliverance is always
possible through the Lord Jesus Christ. There are people who get deliverance even from
homosexual feelings and temptation, and others who are never completely free from the
temptation, even as heterosexual men should not lust after other women. I know of a woman
who has been delivered from lesbian desires. She said that the answer for her was to stay
away from places and to refrain from reading books which awaken those feelings”.
“The church must make it clear that Christ has come for the salvation of all
sinners, including those who practice homosexuality. As long as a person wants to be
helped and seeks deliverance from his or her sin, the church must not excommunicate
them”.
(Translated from the “Nederlands Dagblad”, 4 Oct 2006) (to index)
* SUPREME COURT JUSTICE SCALIA DEBATES ACLU PRESIDENT
ON ABORTION - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia debated ACLU president
Nadine Strossen on abortion and other political issues on Sunday. Scalia argued that
nothing in the Constitution supports a right to abortion and warned Strossen that her
aggressive approach of using the courts to further her agenda will come back to haunt her.
During the debate, Scalia told Strossen that unelected judges have no business in
formulating public policy on highly-charged political issues like abortion. Instead, those
decisions should be best left to lawmakers or the public.
"In controversial issues on stuff like ... abortion, we debate with each other and
persuade each other and vote on it either through representatives or a constitutional
amendment," Scalia said, according to an Associated Press report.
He added that the role of a Supreme Court justice should be interpreting the law, not
inventing it.
"Whether it's good or bad is not my job. My job is simply to say if those things
you find desirable are contained in the Constitution," he said.
Discussing pro-abortion judges who created a right to abortion, Scalia warned her,
"Someday, you're going to get a very conservative Supreme Court and regret that
approach."
But Strossen, according to AP, countered, "There are some rights that are so
fundamental that no majority can take them away from any minority, no matter how small or
unpopular that minority might be."
Scalia is one of the two members of the high court, including Justice Clarence Thomas,
who have taken a pro-life position against the Roe v. Wade decision.
Joined by new Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the four are thought
to be the block of judges who will lead the way in overturning Roe once one more pro-life
judge is added. The current Supreme Court is divided 5-4 in favour of abortion.
(LifeNews, 16 Oct 2006) (to index)
* PORTUGAL PARLIAMENT EXPECTED TO APPROVE
ABORTION REFERENDUM THURSDAY - The Portuguese parliament is expected to
approve an abortion referendum on Thursday. The measure, which would likely go before
voters in January, would legalise abortion through the first 10 weeks of pregnancy in this
strongly Catholic nation.
The governing centre-left Socialist Party has been pressing for legalizing abortion for
some time and now the main opposition parties have said they won't oppose a national vote
on abortion.
If the referendum is approved, the likely question will be: "Do you agree that an
abortion performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with the consent of the woman
in a legal medical establishment, ceases to be viewed as a crime?"
Whether residents of the Western European national will approve the abortion referendum
is another matter.
In 1998, Portuguese voters turned down a referendum seeking to legalize abortion by a
51-49 percentage vote and only 30 percent of those eligible to vote participated.
In March 2004, members of Portugal's parliament voted down three separate proposals to
legalize abortion after more than 200,000 petitions were submitted against them.
"The solution for a woman in difficulty should never be the death of her unborn
child," one of the leaders of a pro-life coalition, Teresa Aires de Campos, said
after the vote.
"We want to create a society where a newborn child is never seen as a burden that
needs to be eliminated. We want to create a country where a child is always
welcomed."
Portugal currently bans abortions in most cases and they are only allowed in rare
exceptions such as preventing the death of the mother or in cases of rape, incest, or when
the baby has major physical disabilities. No abortions can be done after 12 weeks of
pregnancy.
Approximately 1,000 legal abortions are currently done each year.
Ireland and Malta are other European nations with pro-life laws against abortion.
(LifeNews, 16 Oct 2006) (to index)
* BRITISH PRO-LIFE GROUP WANTS UNITED NATIONS TO BAN
ABORTIONS WORLDWIDE - One of the leading pro-life organizations in England is
calling on the United Nations to prohibit abortions worldwide. The group says the UN,
which has called on nations to curb violence against children, should include protecting
unborn children from the violence of abortion in that action alert.
Responding to the Wednesday publication of the UN Secretary General’s Study on
Violence Against Children, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children called for
the abortion ban.
"We are deeply saddened by the report's findings. Abuse of children seems to be
widespread, and a lot of that abuse is hidden," John Smeaton, SPUC's national
director, said in a press release LifeNews.com obtained.
"Today's UN report urges the prohibition of all violence against children,"
he added. "We urge the UN to include a worldwide prohibition of abortion, the
greatest of all violence against young, defenceless human beings."
"The gravest abuse of children is to deprive them of life before they are even
born," Smeaton explained.
(LifeNews, 12 Oct 2006) (to index)
* KEEP DARWIN'S 'LIES' OUT OF POLISH SCHOOLS: EDUCATION
OFFICIAL - Poland's deputy education minister called for the influential
evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin not to be taught in the country's schools,
branding them "lies."
"The theory of evolution is a lie, an error that we have legalised as a common
truth," Miroslaw Orzechowski, the deputy minister in the country's right-wing
coalition government, was quoted as saying by the Gazeta Wyborcza Daily Saturday.
The evolution theory of the 19th-century British naturalist holds that existing animals
and plants are the result of natural selection which eliminated inferior species gradually
over time. This conflicts with the "creationist" theory that God created all
life on the planet in a finite number.
Orzechowski called for a debate on whether Darwin's theory should be taught in schools.
"We should not teach lies, just as we should not teach bad instead of good, or
ugliness instead of beauty," he said. "We are not going to withdraw (Darwin's
theory) from the school books, but we should start to discuss it."
(Yahoo News, 14 Oct 2006) (to index)
* BREAKPOINT APPLAUDS “A MEANINGFUL WORLD”:
INTELLIGENT DESIGN ARGUMENT BREAKS NEW GROUND - On 12 Oct 2006, long-time ID
supporter Chuck Colson gave the first of two BreakPoint radio commentaries praising
“A Meaningful World” by Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt. While Mr. Colson is
familiar with many of the arguments for design, he was quick to note that A Meaningful
World is about so much more than the narrow concept that many people have of
“intelligent design”. Their book’s subtitle helps explain their idea: How
the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. It’s an original and utterly
fascinating approach to the subject.
Wiker and Witt have taken the argument for design to another level, posing questions
that Darwinism is utterly incapable of answering, as Prison Fellowship Ministries
President Mark Earley pointed out in a radio commentary:
“The authors ask that, if the world was born out of chance, how is it that nature
acts according to rational laws? If we’re all here because of random and meaningless
events, it doesn’t make sense that, one, there are mathematical and scientific laws
that govern our world, and, two, that our efforts could discover what those laws are. We
would be fumbling in the darkness of randomness, looking for explanations that didn’t
even exist.
But the universe is full of design – design that extend to the smallest particles of
an atom, that can be seen in the orderliness of the periodic table of elements.
Furthermore, they are patterns that the human mind could discover and comprehend. How does
random chance explain all that?”
(Science and Culture, 13 Oct 2006) (to
index)
* MUSLIM STABS WIFE WHEN DAUGHTER BECOMES CHRISTIAN -
A devout Muslim woman was attacked and stabbed to death, allegedly by her husband, after
their 17-year-old daughter announced she was embracing Christianity, according to police
and news reports.
According to Assist News Service, neighbours of the Australian family reported
"blood curdling" and "terrifying" screams, along with cries of
"Help me, help me, they're trying to kill me," on Monday night.
"From what we understand the daughter decided to tell her father of her radical
plan to convert to Christianity which, in the eyes of most Muslims, is totally
unacceptable and to be honest, sadly, many would react as he has done," a Muslim
source told "The Gold Coast Bulletin."
"It is the Islamic way that if a son or daughter does or plans to do something
that is unacceptable or wrong for a Muslim then it is the mother who is automatically at
fault and will bear the brunt of the blame," the source said.
(WorldNetDaily, 14 Oct 2006) (to index)
