Salvation Army reports on human aid

From The Salvation Army International Web-site

Salvation Army  in Pakistan Distributes More Relief Aid and Expands Assessment Area (Update 24 August)

Salvation Army Provides Aid to Further Three Hundred Families in Pakistan (Update 17 August)

Salvation Army in Pakistan Starts Distribution Programme (Update 11 August)


Salvation Army Assessors in Pakistan Seek to Help People Who 'Have No Hope' (Update 10 August)

Salvation Army in Russia Responds to Wildfires

The Salvation Army Provides Flood Relief in Romania

Salvation Army Still Supporting Earthquake and Tsunami Victims in Chile (Update 29 July)

God is back

A good friend, just coming back from some weeks in the United states told about his impressions from strong growing Christian work in America. He also noted that it was so evident that GOD IS BACK, and referred to the book with the same name.
An article in New Your Times from last year presents the book:
Not all that long ago, the great minds of Europe predicted a future with little or no religion. Science would make us highly skeptical of miracles. Psychiatry would direct all of our awe and wonder inward. Changing roles for women would weaken the patriarchal structure that props up clerics. Whatever script for modernity one followed, it had God playing a bit role.
As we all know, it didn’t happen that way. Modernity arrived and improvised new starring roles for God. The Americans led the way by becoming both “the quintessentially modern country” and a very devout one, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge write in their new book, “God Is Back,” and most of the world has followed that model. In rich countries and poorer ones, democratic and undemocratic, primarily Islamic and primarily Christian — everywhere, basically, except Europe — devotion to God has remained surprisingly robust.

“The very things that were supposed to destroy religion — democracy and markets, technology and reason — are combining to make it stronger,” write Mickle­thwait, editor in chief of The Economist, and Wooldridge, the magazine’s Washington bureau chief, who together have written previous books about globalization and American conservatism, two ­similarly sweeping topics. 
Read more in New York Times>>

New Prayer letter for Latvia

A new prayer letter has just been sent out. Do you also want to pray for Latvia? Write to info@rupeba.se and ask to be put on the e-mailing list for Prayer Letters.

Praying for muslims

Today, the 11th of August starts Ramadan. During Ramadan Christians all over the world are praying for muslims. Join in at the prayer site The 30 days Prayer Network

Pilar Rahola

   A good friend sent me an e-mail with this article. Why don´t we hear this kind of speaches more often?:
Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist and member of the far left.   Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America .

    "Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London ,  Paris ,   Barcelona ?

    Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?

    Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live  without any legal protection?

    Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs?

    Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in    Sudan ?

    Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against  Israel ?

    Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?

    Why don't they defend Israel 's right to exist?

    Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism?

    And finally, the million dollar question:  Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the  planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn't care.

    And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum, I hear the left yelling with fervor: "We want freedom for the people!"

    Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria , or Yemen , or Iran , or Sudan , or other such nations.  And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The  resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.

    The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the  Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don't inform, they propagandize.

    When reporting about  Israel , the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel , that there aren't any accusations left to level against her.

    At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel ; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of  the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.

    And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: "Our friends are the  people of Iran , Libya and Venezuela , oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel ."

    In another example,  the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

    Or in my native city of  Barcelona , the city council decided to commemorate the  60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70's and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel .

    This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic left, and on issues of the Middle East , he is unequivocally pro Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the   Middle East , and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it is a symbol.

    Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us with cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages.
    And yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israeli in the world.

    And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.

    Conclusion:

    I am not Jewish.  Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not anti- Israeli like my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the  historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland,  Israel . To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.

    As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles.

    Principles that  Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty, I have a triple moral duty with  Israel , because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.

Change your beliefs or get out

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The student, Jennifer Keeton, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs in order to graduate from the counseling program.

Augusta State ordered Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will expel her from the Counselor Education Program.

“A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French. “Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree. This type of leftist zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop. Jennifer’s only crime was to have the beliefs that she does.”

Read more at Alliance Defense Fund

Teaching the Quadrilateral

If you are a member of The United Methodist Church you have probably heard of the Quadrilateral. It is some times called “John Wesley’s Quadrilateral,” despite the fact that John Wesley never used the word. The more accurate adjective to use is “Wesleyan.” This strange word is shorthand for the four ingredients used by people in The United Methodist Church when we study, teach, discuss, argue about, and interpret God and God’s action and involvement in the world, the church, and in our individual lives. The Wesleyan quadrilateral contains the four ingredients of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. All four of the ingredients are essential. God reveals God’s self to us through each one. And each contributes to our understanding and experience of who God is and how God has acted in the past is acting now and will act in the future. Understanding and teaching the quadrilateral is important because it is gives us a proven way of exploring, growing in, and living our faith in Jesus Christ.
Read the full artical at Accountable Discipleship

Doctrine, Spirit and Discipline

It’s also fair to say that if The United Methodist Church is going to take seriously its mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, then we must wrestle with the need for discipline. I say this because we know from Scripture and tradition that disciples cannot be made apart from discipline. This is why John Wesley wrote the lines at the beginning of his tract, “Thoughts Upon Methodism” we have heard today:

“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.”

From Accountable Discipleship