Christian News - 15 May 2008

Christian News

15 May 2008
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* SEXPO OUTREACH
* '1 IN 6 WITH HIV LIVES IN SA'
* RESIDENTS IN BID TO CLOSE BROTHEL

* SEXPO OUTREACH - When a "Sexpo" was advertised to take place in the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Africa Christian Action launched a campaign to expose and oppose this. Through a vigorous letter to the editor campaign, letters to the Mayor, many phone calls, e-mailings and radio programmes, Taryn Hodgson, Charl van Wyk and Dr. Peter Hammond alerted Christians in Cape Town and sought to mobilise opposition to this outrageous event.

Many contacts of ACA reported back on replies that they had received from the Mayor’s office, and on letters to the editor published in their community newspapers. Some outraged citizens ripped down posters of the Sexpo. Other posters were defaced or had pro-family stickers placed on them. All over town bumper stickers declared: Real men don’t use porn; Pornography ruins a mind, and other slogans in Afrikaans and Xhosa.

On Friday 9 May Africa Christian Action held a placard protest, prayer vigil, literature distribution and personal evangelism outreach at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. Some came to pray and spent the time outside the Convention Centre, either on their knees or standing, praying the Scriptures interceding for our city. Others held placards declaring: Porn exploits women; Porn is the theory – rape is the practice; Pornography fuels crime; Women are not objects; Sexpo = gateway to perversion; Child sexual offenders have ALL used child pornography; Women need protection and respect – ban porn! Execute rapists! "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." John 8:36; and Boycott Hell! Repent!

In addition to the placard protest and prayer vigil, missionaries of KwaSizabantu Mission, Waymakers and Frontline Fellowship engaged in a vigorous literature distribution and personal evangelism of delegates and exhibitors to the Sexpo.

By God’s grace, many hundreds of Gospel leaflets were handed to people going in to the Expo or coming out of it, and many evangelistic conversations resulted. Clive Human of STOP (Standing Together Opposing Pornography) had conversations with numerous prostitutes who were "working" at the Sexpo. Each of them felt degraded and exploited by the "work" they were doing and longed for a way out. One of them requested more copies of our "Freedom From Pornography" leaflet to give to her friends.

John Leach of Waymakers, spent hours sharing the Gospel with passers-by and delegates to the Sexpo. He recognised some professing Christians and challenged them, calling them to repentance.
Gerhard Le Roux of KwaSizabantu Mission also recognised some professing Christians attempting to enter the Sexpo and confronted them with the Gospel challenge.
Dr. Peter Hammond spent over 40 minutes counselling one young man who had planned to go into the Sexpo, but turned around and acknowledged that while he had planned to come there to sin, it was obviously God’s plan that he had heard the Gospel instead.

"Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." Ephesians 5:11
(Christian Action, 13 May 2008) (to index)

* '1 IN 6 WITH HIV LIVES IN SA' – "The moment that HIV/Aids began spreading among the heterosexual population in 1987 it was like wildfire because at that stage it was not really a problem in South Africa and was scarcely found among sex workers. Now, one in every six people on earth with HIV/Aids lives in South Africa."

These were the words of the executive director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Professor Barry Schoub, at the 100th memorial meeting of the Royal Society of South Africa in Cape Town.

About two thirds of people on earth with HIV/Aids live in sub-Saharan Africa (almost 22.5 million).

As with all other infectious diseases, HIV/Aids will eventually reach a plateau where there will be a balance between people who have the virus and those who don't.

There were also people with a relevant mutation who were resistant to the disease. This occurred in 10 to 15% of Caucasians.
(News24, 18 Apr 2008) (to index)

* RESIDENTS IN BID TO CLOSE BROTHEL - Glenwood home and business owners are saying "no" to the world's oldest profession being practised on their doorstep.
And one of their means of protest is an e-mail picture campaign called "Do you know this man?"

Residents are apparently going to capture sex workers and their clients on camera and email the pictures to everyone in their address book.
The campaign was advertised on the website www.helpglenwood.blog.com with the aim of "eradicating the demand for sex for sale on our streets".

Clark Road resident Charmaine Taylor has been on a mission since October 2007 when a property across the road from her was sold and allegedly turned into a brothel.
As a regular member of the Community Policing Forum in her area, she brought the matter to the police and community's attention.

In February she sent a copy of a petition signed by Clark and Frere road home and business owners, as well as a letter from "concerned Glenwood residents", to the Umbilo Police Station.

The petition called for the "brothel" in Clark Road to be shut down and listed a number of complaints.

It read that police found drugs at this house in a raid; a prostitute was stabbed in Clark Road; residents were threatened by prostitutes when they complained to them; locals could not leave their properties because prostitutes' clients blocked their driveways; guests and family were propositioned by the prostitutes; and "we are tired of picking up broken liquor bottles, used condoms and used syringes".

"The area is starting to deteriorate and the locals are frustrated. They are not just operating from the house, but move around the area," said Taylor.
A resident, who did not want to be named, said many of the girls looked as young as 16.
"There are more than 18 women living on this property. There is a main house and then rooms at the back. As soon as this property was bought it was turned into a brothel. They operate day and night," he said.

"What's more disturbing is that the clients appears to mostly consist of older men from the more affluent suburbs north of Durban.
"I have to wonder if their wives know that their husbands may be bringing home more than just 'the bacon' at the end of each month," said a resident on the ‘helpglenwood’ website.
(IOL, 13 Apr 2008) (to index)

International

* MORE BRITISH CATHOLIC ADOPTION AGENCIES TO CLOSE DOORS INSTEAD OF BOWING TO SEXUAL ORIENTATION REGULATIONS
* ITALIAN DOCTORS REFUSING TO COMMIT ABORTION
* POEM WRITTEN BY JUDGE ROY MOORE FROM ALABAMA
* STATES EYE LAWS TO ALLOW QUESTIONING OF EVOLUTION

* MORE BRITISH CATHOLIC ADOPTION AGENCIES TO CLOSE DOORS INSTEAD OF BOWING TO SEXUAL ORIENTATION REGULATIONS - When the Labour government's Sexual Orientation Regulations were passed last year, the leadership of the Catholic Church in England and Wales warned that the new law would spell the end of Catholic involvement in social service, particularly adoption. Now the first of the UK's Catholic adoption agencies affected are announcing they will close their doors for good rather than betray religious principles and their guiding principle of the good of the child.

Bishop Malcolm McMahon said his diocese of Nottingham would be cutting ties with their adoption agency, the Catholic Children's Society, because of the law that forces them to consider homosexual partners as equally qualified to adopt as people in natural heterosexual relationships.

The Nottingham agency, together with that of the Northampton Catholic diocese, will become a secular institution "with a Christian character" by merging with the adoption agency of the Anglican Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham in October. The parish churches of the diocese will no longer solicit funds to support the agency.

The Nottingham agency was founded in 1948 by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace and placed 25 children a year with adoptive families.

Contrary to common accusations that Catholics are trying to unjustly discriminate against homosexuals, the Catholic Church holds that its motivation is rather the desire to protect the best interests of children. The Church teaches, according to recent documents from the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, that allowing a child to be adopted by homosexual partners "would actually mean doing violence to these children" by placing them into a situation where their full social and spiritual development would be threatened.

Homosexual partners have had the legal right to adopt children in Britain since 2002. The new law, however, removes the right of Catholic and other Christian agencies to decline to consider homosexuals for adoption.

The move by the Nottingham diocese follows similar decisions made elsewhere in Britain. In the summer of 2007, shortly after the legislation was passed, the Leeds-based Catholic Care, which placed 20 children a year with adoptive families, voted to pull out of adoption services. Bishop Patrick O'Donohue of Lancaster announced at the same time that the Catholic Caring Services, an adoption agency working in Lancashire and Cumbria, will likely close rather than bow to the regulations.

When the legislation passed in 2007, Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, attempted to find a compromise in which Catholic adoption agencies would be exempt. Tony Blair, later to be received into the Catholic Church by the same Cardinal, refused to consider an exemption. Instead Blair offered his own version of a compromise: Catholic agencies had a year to adjust to adopting children to gay partners or close. That deadline comes at the end of this month.

The conflict comes at the same time that local branches of government continue to discriminate against Christians who volunteer to take in foster children. In November 2007, Vincent and Pauline Matherick, a Christian couple who had fostered children for years, were told by their Somerset council that they would no longer be allowed to continue because of their religious objections to homosexuality. They were later reinstated but only after a media furor and notices to the council by a Christian lawyers' group.

In February this year, it was reported that a Christian couple in Derby, Eunice and Owen Johns, is suing the local council after their application to foster children was refused because of their religious objections to homosexuality. In addition, the Labour-controlled council adoption panel was said to be "upset" that the couple insisted that children in their care would be required to accompany the family to church on Sundays.

In September 2007, an independent investigation revealed that a local council's fear of being labeled homophobic had allowed a total of 19 boys to be placed with a pair of homosexual child molesters. Despite growing reservations by staff and complaints from the mother of two of the boys, the Wakefield council placed the children into the care of Ian Wathey and Craig Faunch who were convicted in May 2006 of molesting and filming eight-year-old twins and two 14 year-old boys.
(LifeSiteNews.com, 23 Apr 2008) (to index)

* ITALIAN DOCTORS REFUSING TO COMMIT ABORTION - The Italian Ministry of Health has reported that nearly 70 percent of Italian gynecologists now refuse to perform abortions on moral grounds and that the number is only increasing.

Doctors in Italy are able to use a "conscientious objection" clause, which has been strenuously defended by the Catholic Church in the predominantly Catholic country since abortion became legal in 1978, and refuse to commit abortions.

Between 2003 and 2007 the number of gynecologists claiming protection under the conscience clause for abortion rose from 58.7 percent to 69.2 percent, according to the report.
For anesthetists helping in abortions, the figure of those refusing to participate rose from 45.7 percent to 50.4 percent.

"In the south, this increase is even more pronounced and in certain areas the rate has almost doubled," an AFP report explains. In Campania, the region around Naples, the proportion of gynecologists refusing to carry out the procedure reached 83 percent, and in Sicily 84.2 percent.

A similar situation exists in Canada where, though abortion is technically legal up to the moment of birth, such a high percentage of doctors refuse to commit abortions that abortion access is in effect restricted.

According to an article by Ted Byfield published last May by WorldNetDaily, "under Canadian Medical Association rules a doctor need neither perform an abortion nor even direct a patient to an abortion provider. Only 15 percent of Canadian hospitals provide the service, and that percentage is declining."

Byfield's article came in response to a demand made upon the Canadian Medical Association by Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the Washington D.C. based National Abortion Federation, that all doctors in the country be forced to refer for abortions, whether or not they object morally or on religious grounds.

However, even notorious abortionist Henry Morgentaler admitted that doctors should be allowed to opt-out of performing abortions. When asked in an interview by the National Review of Medicine, "Should doctors be allowed to conscientiously object to performing an abortion?" Morgentaler answered, "Yes. One fundamental reason is that doctors should not be obliged to do things which they don't approve of themselves, and secondly, a more practical reason, a doctor who doesn't believe in it is more likely not to do a good job."
(LifeSiteNews.com, 23 Apr 2008) (to index)

* POEM WRITTEN BY JUDGE ROY MOORE FROM ALABAMA -
America the Beautiful, or so you used to be.
Land of the Pilgrims' pride; I'm glad they'll never see.
Babies piled in dumpsters, Abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty; your house is on the sand.
Our children wander aimlessly poisoned by cocaine
choosing to indulge their lusts, when God has said abstain
From sea to shining sea, our Nation turns away
From the teaching of God's love and a need to always pray.
We've kept God in our temples, how callous we have grown.
When earth is but His footstool, and Heaven is His throne.
We've voted in a government that's rotting at the core,
Appointing Godless Judges; who throw reason out the door,
Too soft to place a killer in a well deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill a baby before he leaves the womb.
You think that God's not angry, that our land's a moral slum?
How much longer will He wait before His judgment comes?
How are we to face our God, from Whom we cannot hide?
What then is left for us to do, but stem this evil tide?
If we who are His children, will humbly turn and pray;
Seek His holy face and mend our evil way:
Then God will hear from Heaven; and forgive us of our sins,
He'll heal our sickly land and those who live within.
But, America the Beautiful, if you don't - then you will see,
A sad but Holy God withdraw His hand from Thee
(CFT News, May 2008) (to index)

* STATES EYE LAWS TO ALLOW QUESTIONING OF EVOLUTION - The debate over evolution is evolving. Although federal courts have banned teaching "creation theory" or "intelligent design theory" in public schools, legislators in several states are seeking new ways to allow teachers to cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The Florida House of Representatives passed a bill this week that will require schools to teach "critical analysis" of evolution. Michigan introduced a similar "academic freedom" bill. Louisiana, Alabama and Missouri also have legislation under debate, although no state has adopted a law yet.

Opponents say these bills that allow the questioning of evolution are a smokescreen for teaching creationism or intelligent design. Creation theory is the religious belief that God created all life. Intelligent design is the theory that some features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an "intelligent cause."
In Florida, Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, who sponsored the House bill, insists it would "not permit, nor authorize, nor allow the teaching of creationism or intelligent design" or any other religious theory. But the bill would offer supplementary scientific information and encourage teachers and students to engage in discussion that criticizes evolution.

"I do not expect teachers to go into the classrooms and present a bizarre array of theories," Hays told FOXNews.com. "The theory of evolution, which most practicing biologists are teaching today, is inadequate in explaining our existence in the eyes of some scientists. Teachers need to be able to bring their students up to date."

Rep. John Moolenaar of Midland, Michigan, who sponsored his state's academic freedom bill and was a science major in college, said it's only fair that students and teachers question, for example, phenomena like the sudden appearance of diverse species, not explained by theories of gradual progression. "Educators should have the freedom to bring in the best scientific information to facilitate those discussions," Moolenaar said. "We're trying to get students to ask the question: What scientific evidence exists for what theories?"

In similar moves, the Alabama State Senate passed a non-harassment bill for teachers expressing critiques of evolution, and Missouri's House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on a bill that would allow for intelligent design to be taught as a hypothesis. Michigan's bill protects teachers and students from being penalized for discussing challenges to traditional scientific theories on such topics as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, human impact on climate change and human cloning.
(Fox News, 1 May 2008) (to index)