An unnamed Kabbalist has granted blessing to famed archeologist Dr. Vendyl Jones to uncover the Holy Ark of the Covenant. Jones plans to excavate the Lost Ark by the Tisha B’Av Fast this summer.
The famed archaeologist, the inspiration for the “Indiana Jones” movie series, has spent most of his life searching for the Ark of the Covenant. The ark was the resting place of the Ten Commandments, given to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, and was hidden just before the destruction of the First Temple.
The Talmud says the Ark is hidden in a secret passage under the Temple Mount. Jones says that the tunnel actually continues 18 miles southward, and that the Ark was brought through the tunnel to its current resting place in the Judean Desert.
Throughout the many years of his quest, Jones has been in close contact and under the tutelage of numerous Rabbis and Kabbalists. Extremely knowledgeable in Torah, Talmud and Kabbalah sources dealing with Holy Temple issues, Jones has now received permission from both known and secret Kabbalists to finally uncover the lost ark.
Dr. Jones, who divides his time between Texas and Israel, has been here since March 9th ready to finally reveal the Ark. However, he has been waiting for both permission from the mysterious Kabbalist and for project funding to come through.
As recently as last month, the rabbi, who only communicates via messenger, told Jones that the time was not yet right to discover the Temple vessels.
Last Thursday, however, Dr. Jones received a communication from the rabbi reading, “The time is right.”
Armed with this and other blessings, Jones is now excited to uncover his life's pursuit. He believes the ark will be discovered by Tisha B'Av (Aug. 14), a day of repeated tragedy in Jewish history. Most notably, it is the anniversary of the destruction of both the First and Second Holy Temples.
Noahide guru Jones says that the State of Israel is passing through the same biblical straights as the generation that first entered Israel after the exodus from Egypt. “If history repeats itself, the history itself is prophecy,” Jones says.
“Israel is different from all other nations in a lot of ways, but more than anything else, Israel is the only nation whose history was written before it happened.”
Once a Christian pastor, Jones left his post to become a leader of the growing Noahide movement. Noahides are G-d fearing non-Jews who observe the seven laws of Noah, which are obligatory upon all of humanity.
The explorer and teacher published a book in 1959 predicting the precise outbreak of the Six Day War, based on his analysis of the period from the Exodus from Egypt up until the First Temple Period. He says that applying biblical analysis to modern times points to major events that will “turn the world right-side-up.”
Jones calculated the war in 1967 by analyzing the sequence of events in the First Temple Period and transposing them onto the "Third Temple Period” – the period beginning with the Jews’ foundation of an independent State in the Land of Israel in 1948.
“It fits just like tongue in groove,” he says.
Jones analyzed the following passage from the book of Bamidbar (Numbers): “Every man from 20 years old and upward, all that are able to go to war...". He said it could be read this way, "So from 20 years old and upward, all that are able to go, went to war in Israel.”
“Well, ’67 was the 20th year,” said Jones, who received acclaim for fighting as a non-listed soldier in the Six Day War. He was the only non-Jewish American to take part in the combat.
“Two years at Mt. Sinai, and then the Jewish people went to Kadesh Barnea,” he says, referring to the time immediately following the Exodus. Transposing the Jewish people’s first entry into Israel via the Jericho region and the re-entry to those areas in 1967, one can find striking similarities.
“At Kadesh Barnea, [the Jewish Nation] sent in those [twelve] spies who gave the evil report, and because they believed the evil report, they were sentenced to wander for 38 years before they could come into Gilgal” – an ancient city near Jericho.
“1967 was a repetition of Kadesh Barnea,” Jones says. “If Israel had come in and taken this place, the Arabs would have fled like they did in 1948. But no, because of the evil report of Golda Meir and Motta Gur and Moshe Dayan, who said ‘We cannot do that, world opinion will be against us.’ So Israel was sentenced to 38 years more – and June the 7th [2005], Jerusalem Day, will be the 38th year.
Jones believes that the Jewish prophecies regarding the greatly anticipated redemption are occuring in front of our eyes.
Jones' escapades and explorations were the inspiration for the blockbuster movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' of the 'Indiana Jones' trilogy. The man who wrote the first draft of the film, Randolph Fillmore, was one of the volunteers who worked with Jones in 1977.
“I agreed to help him write the movie,” Jones said, “as long as – number one – he wouldn’t set it here (in Israel). Some people believe the ark is in Ethiopia or Egypt, some believe its in Constantinople or Rome. I just didn’t want it to be portrayed as being here. The second thing was, 'Don’t use my name.' So he didn’t. My name is Vendyl – V-E-N-D-Y-L. So he just dropped the first and last letters and it ended up Endy Jones.”
Although at the time of the film, Jones was far from pinpointing the location of the Ark, he has come a long way since then. With the help of an ancient document found in Qumran together with the Dead Sea Scrolls, known as the “Copper Scroll”, Dr. Jones is convinced he has pinpointed the location of the Ark of the Covenant.
“In the copper scroll, the first five lines say, 'In the desolations of the Valley of Achur, in the opening under the ascent, which is a mountain facing eastward, covered by forty placed boulders – here is a tabernacle and all the golden fixtures,'” Jones says.
"This is what we have been looking for all these years, and I’ve walked over those boulders thousands of times without really stepping back and looking – realizing ‘hey, those boulders have been brought in here, they’ve been placed in here, they didn’t come off a mountain. And they’re huge.’”
Jones recounts his early explorations into the tunnels which lead from the ancient Old City of Jerusalem, near Jaffa Gate, to the foot of the Dead Sea. “My son and I went an hour and 20 minutes into the tunnel. There were so many branches and we didn’t have anything to mark the route, so I said, ‘We better get out of here and come back with a roll of string.’ Then I made the mistake of asking permission to do it. That was before I learned that Israel is a lot like heaven - it is a lot easier to get forgiveness than it is permission.”
Dr. Jones, wearing an orange anti-disengagement bracelet, dismisses the current Israeli government's plan to uproot the Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria from their homes. "There will not be any disengagement, nor will there be any Palestinian State,” he says.
Jones, who has a photographic memory, quotes: “Chapter One in Isaiah: 'How has the holy city become a harlot? Righteousness filled the street, but now murderers. The ruler is a friend of thieves and the ministers desire bribes.'”
“The prophet wasn’t talking about his day – he was talking about now. ‘Therefore, says the L-rd, I will restore them to their beginnings. I will set judges up as at first, and counselors as in the beginning.’”
The Sharon government will soon be history, Jones asserts, and the Sanhedrin (the Jewish High Court of 71 judges) will take its place and lead the Jewish people. “The Sanhedrin was established October the 13th of last year. Now all we have to do is have an election to elect counselors. The Sanhedrin is like a Senate and the elected counselors are like a House of Representatives.”
Dr. Jones says the discovery of the lost ark will “flip the whole world right-side-up.”
“I just gotta drill a bore-hole into the chamber, drop a pin-camera in and there it is. And everything is gonna change, believe me. The Jewish people are gonna come back.”
Listen to an exclusive interview with Dr. Jones on the Noahide Movement, on IsraelNationalRadio's brand new show: 'Light Unto the Nations.'
Learn more about Dr. Jones' excavations online at www.vendyljones.org.il.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=82226
VATICAN CITY — White smoke poured from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel in Rome, signaling that a new pope has been elected by the College of Cardinals.
The announcement that German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been named the next pope followed less than an hour later.
“My dearest brothers and sisters,” said Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez from a balcony. "I announce to you a great joy. We have a pope!”
Ratzinger, 78, has been the Vatican's chief overseer of doctrine since 1981.
At about 6 p.m. local time, their eyes glued to the chimney, the crowd lingering in St. Peter’s Square cheered, clapped, laughed and honked horns as the white smoke wafted out.
At first, no bells rang, as they were expected to when a pope had been decided upon, so there was some initial confusion as to whether the cardinals had actually settled on a choice.
But then the Sistine Chapel's big, old bell began tolling, signaling that the Vatican had chosen its next leader. The crowd went wild, waving flags and shouting in glee.
The 115 red-robed cardinals charged with electing the man who will lead the Roman Catholic Church and follow the late Pope John Paul II began their vote Monday.
Earlier in the day, black smoke rose from the chapel. The next pope will be the successor to Pope John Paul II, who died April 2 at age 84.
There was no immediate word on who the new pope was, but his election is historic since it is the first papal conclave of the new millennium.
Crowds in the square chanted, "Viva il Papa!" or "Long live the pope!" when they saw the plumes of white smoke and heard the bell ringing.
For the tens of thousands of people packed St. Peter's Square on Tuesday for a second day in a row to watch the narrow chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, the time between the smoke and the bells was an agonizing 15 minutes of uncertainty.
People were saying "White!" and "Black!" and then some began to chant "It's white, it's white!" and a group of Brazilians started jumping up and down, pushing their fists in the air.
"Habemus papam, habemus papam," said Daomario Barbalho, 26, from Natal, Brazil.
At 5:55 p.m. Amy Turnipseed, 21, an American, said, "It looks really white, but I'm not sure."
There was a brief flutter in the crowd when the bells rang at 6 p.m., but the cheers died down when they stopped ringing. Minutes later, they began in earnest and the crowd erupted.
"Oh my gosh, this is insane," Turnipseed said.
Some were surprised that the next pope was decided upon so quickly.
The two morning ballots Tuesday followed an early Mass in the cardinals' high-security Vatican hotel. The prelates from six continents and 52 countries were to return to the chapel Tuesday afternoon for up to two afternoon ballots, with a new plume of smoke expected by late evening.
On Monday evening, black smoke that initially looked light enough to throw even Vatican Radio analysts off-guard poured from the chimney, disappointing a crowd of 40,000 pilgrims anxious for a sign that the cardinals had settled on a successor. That first puff followed the conclave's initial vote.
A quick decision in the first round of voting on Monday would have been a surprise. The cardinals have a staggering range of issues to juggle as they choose the first new pope of the 21st century — fallout from priest sex-abuse scandals, chronic shortages of priests and nuns, as well as calls for sharper activism against poverty and easing the ban on condoms to help combat AIDS.
The next pontiff also must maintain the global ministry of John Paul, who took 104 international trips in his more than 26-year papacy.
"Keep praying for the new pope," said 82-year-old Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez of Puerto Rico, who was too old to join the conclave, open only to cardinals under 80 years old.
The first conclave of the new millennium is being held amid unprecedented security, with the cardinals seated atop a false floor concealing electronic jamming devices designed to thwart eavesdroppers by cutting signals to cell phones or bugs.
It is also the first time in more than a generation that crowds have been staring at the chimney for the famous smoke and word of a new pope. In that time, the church has been pulled in two directions: a spiritual renaissance under John Paul, but battered by scandals and a flock pressing for less rigid teachings.
"It's very powerful to be in the place where St. Peter was martyred and to pray to the Lord for a worthy successor," said Brother Mateo Lethimonier, 30, a monk from Argentina in a light blue robe and sandals who was among those on the square.
He said he was praying for the cardinals to find "the one who loves Jesus most, the one who represents the church best."
"All the people here have something in common: the religion, of course, but also being a part of history. This is a part of history," said Adrien Asselin, 66, of Hawkesbury, Ontario, a retired art teacher who cut short a trip to South Africa to fly to Rome.
Before the conclave began, one of the possible candidates — German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — tried to set a tone of urgency, warning cardinals, bishops and others gathered in St. Peter's Basilica for a Mass that the church must stay true to itself.
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires," said Ratzinger, 78, who has been the Vatican's chief overseer of doctrine since 1981.
"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism," he said, making clear that he disagrees with that view.
About five hours later, the electors walked in a procession into the chapel decorated with frescoes by Michelangelo. They bowed before the altar and took their places.
For 30 minutes, each walked up and placed his right hand — with the special gold ring of the cardinals — on the Holy Book and again pledged never to reveal what will occur in the conclave. The penalty is severe: excommunication.
Under conclave rules, four rounds of voting were being held per day beginning Tuesday — two in the morning, two in the afternoon — until a prelate gets two-thirds support: 77 votes. If they remain deadlocked late in the second week of voting, they can go to a simple majority: 58 votes.
No conclave in the past century has lasted more than five days, and the election that elevated Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla to into the papacy as John Paul II in October 1978 took eight ballots over three days.
FOX News' Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,153862,00.html
House proposal would ban state from recognizing same-sex unions
By JEFFREY GILBERT
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - When Dick and Jimmie Sue Francis' son told them he was gay several years ago, they talked to his friends, read up on the subject and looked to their faith.
Now they are fighting for him. The couple, along with dozens of other gay rights activists, testified before a House committee on Monday against a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban the state from recognizing gay marriage.
"Thomas Jefferson said, 'If you are angry, count to 10 before you talk. If you are very angry, count to 100,' " Dick Francis said. "I can't listen to Jefferson because I'd be counting to 1 million."
The state already has a law banning gay marriages, but many lawmakers support making it an amendment. The resolution was filed by Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa. Before Monday's meeting, he proposed a substitute that also would prohibit the state from recognizing any legal status similar to marriage.
"In the natural law, there's a difference between a man and a woman, and if you agree with that, then you would agree that the two coming together complete each other and create a unique atmosphere," Chisum told the House State Affairs committee. "Marriage between one man and one woman is essential to the future of this state."
The committee heard testimony into the night, with most people speaking against the amendment.
The resolution faces a tough hurdle if it reaches the full House because it requires two-thirds approval — or 100 of the 150 members. There are 87 Republicans, so it would require some Democratic support. If passed through the House and Senate, the amendment would then require endorsement from Texas voters.
Much of the debate focused on what defines a family. Chisum argued that it's a man and a woman, and that passing this amendment would strengthen the institutions of marriage and family.
"Family is the basic foundation of our society," he said. "Without families, society will surely fail. When families flourish, societies flourish."
Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, argued that the amendment would narrowly define what a family is, and would limit the number of families in the state who can raise healthy children.
"Around the state, there are couples coming together to adopt children who otherwise would be in other institutions or foster homes," he said. "This policy could have serious ripple effects."
Calling the amendment "vague," Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, asked why Chisum is proposing the amendment when no one is asking to legalize same-sex marriage right now.
Randall Ellis, executive director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby Texas, said the committee substitute to the proposal moves the amendment from bad to worse. Ellis and other activists said the substitute prevents gays from private contract privileges.
"The reality is that families take many shapes and forms, and these families still need protection," Ellis said, adding there are 43,000 same-sex households in Texas.
Kelly Shackelford, president of the Free Market Foundation, was among the few people who testified in favor of the resolution. He said there are 66 pending lawsuits around the country challenging state marriage laws, and that is why Texas needs to consider a constitutional amendment.
"This allows the people to speak," Shackelford said. "It allows Texas to say what it wants to say and not leave it to some judge. This clearly is something we can't put our heads in the sand about. Marriage between one man and one woman does things that no other relationship can do."
Farrar said the proposed amendment would move the state backward and would write discrimination into the constitution.
"This doesn't discriminate against anyone," Chisum responded. "It discriminates against a practice, not people."
Several religious groups and people of faith — including Christians, Jews and Quakers — testified against the amendment, discussing how religion plays a part in the gay marriage debate. Many also questioned whether the Legislature even has a role in the discussion.
Dick Francis agreed, saying the passage of this amendment would trespass on the civil rights of all citizens.
jeffrey.gilbert@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3118055
By sending data over the surface of the skin, it may soon be possible to trade music files by dancing cheek to cheek, or to swap phone numbers by kissing
By Paul Rubens
THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Sunday, Mar 20, 2005,Page 12
Your body could soon be the backbone of a broadband personal data network linking your mobile phone or MP3 player to a cordless headset, your digital camera to a PC or printer, and all the gadgets you carry around to each other.
These personal area networks are already possible using radio-based technologies, such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or just plain old cables to connect devices. But NTT, the Japanese communications company, has developed a technology called RedTacton, which it claims can send data over the surface of the skin at speeds of up to 2Mbps -- equivalent to a fast broadband data connection.
Using RedTacton-enabled devices, music from an MP3 player in your pocket would pass through your clothing and shoot over your body to headphones in your ears. Instead of fiddling around with a cable to connect your digital camera to your computer, you could transfer pictures just by touching the PC while the camera is around your neck. And since data can pass from one body to another, you could also exchange electronic business cards by shaking hands, trade music files by dancing cheek to cheek, or swap phone numbers just by kissing.
NTT is not the first company to use the human body as a conduit for data: IBM pioneered the field in 1996 with a system that could transfer small amounts of data at very low speeds, and last June, Microsoft was granted a patent for "a method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body."
But RedTacton is arguably the first practical system because, unlike IBM's or Microsoft's, it doesn't need transmitters to be in direct contact with the skin -- they can be built into gadgets, carried in pockets or bags, and will work within about 20cm of your body. RedTacton doesn't introduce an electric current into the body -- instead, it makes use of the minute electric field that occurs naturally on the surface of every human body. A transmitter attached to a device, such as an MP3 player, uses this field to send data by modulating the field minutely in the same way that a radio carrier wave is modulated to carry information.
Receiving data is more complicated because the strength of the electric field involved is so low. RedTacton gets around this using a technique called electric field photonics: A laser is passed though an electro-optic crystal, which deflects light differently according to the strength of the field across it. These deflections are measured and converted back into electrical signals to retrieve the transmitted data.
An obvious question, however, is why anyone would bother networking though their body when proven radio-based personal area networking technologies, such as Bluetooth, already exist? Tom Zimmerman, the inventor of the original IBM system, says body-based networking is more secure than broadcast systems, such as Bluetooth, which have a range of about 10m.
"With Bluetooth, it is difficult to rein in the signal and restrict it to the device you are trying to connect to," says Zimmerman. "You usually want to communicate with one particular thing, but in a busy place there could be hundreds of Bluetooth devices within range."
As human beings are ineffective aerials, it is very hard to pick up stray electronic signals radiating from the body, he says. "This is good for security because even if you encrypt data it is still possible that it could be decoded, but if you can't pick it up it can't be cracked."
Zimmerman also believes that, unlike infrared or Bluetooth phones and PDAs, which enable people to "beam" electronic business cards across a room without ever formally meeting, body-based networking allows for more natural interchanges of information between humans.
"If you are very close or touching someone, you are either in a busy subway train, or you are being intimate with them, or you want to communicate," he says. "I think it is good to be close to someone when you are exchanging information."
RedTacton transceivers can be treated as standard network devices, so software running over Ethernet or other TCP/IP protocol-based networks will run unmodified.
Gordon Bell, a senior researcher at Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center in San Francisco, says that while Bluetooth or other radio technologies may be perfectly suitable to link gadgets for many personal area networking purposes, there are certain applications for which RedTacton technology would be ideal.
"I recently acquired my own in-body device -- a pacemaker -- but it takes a special radio frequency connector to interface to it. As more and more implants go into bodies, the need for a good Internet Protocol connection increases," he says.
In the near future, the most important application for body-based networking may well be for communications within, rather than on the surface of, or outside, the body.
An intriguing possibility is that the technology will be used as a sort of secondary nervous system to link large numbers of tiny implanted components placed beneath the skin to create powerful onboard -- or in-body -- computers.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/03/20/2003247076/print
WASHINGTON (BP)--Americans apparently did not support the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo after all.
A new poll by Zogby International showed the public favors protecting disabled people such as Schiavo from being denied food and water, according to LifeNews.com. The survey results contradict those of surveys conducted before Schiavo’s March 31 death and commissioned by major news media organizations.
Schiavo, 41, died in a Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice 13 days after being disconnected from a feeding tube. The severely brain-damaged woman was at the center of a battle between her husband, Michael, and parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Her husband contended she would not have wanted to be kept alive by a feeding tube, although no written guidelines existed. Her parents sought to keep her alive and offered to care for her. A state judge ordered her tube be disconnected March 18.
In the Zogby poll, the public was asked, “If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water?” The result showed 79 percent said the person should continue to receive food and water, while only 9 percent said food and water should be withheld, LifeNews reported. The question closely described Schiavo’s condition when her feeding tube was removed.
In a poll sponsored by ABC News and released March 21, however, 63 percent of Americans polled supported the disconnection of Schiavo’s feeding tube. The survey’s description of the woman said she had “suffered brain damage and has been on life support for 15 years. Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible.”
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey issued March 22 reported 56 percent believed the feeding tube should have been disconnected, while 31 percent disagreed and 13 percent did not have an opinion. A CBS News poll released March 23 showed 61 percent agreed with removing the tube, while 28 percent were opposed and 11 percent had no opinion.
Potentially misleading information was provided in all three polls. Since Schiavo required no assistance for her heart and lungs, the ABC poll’s use of the phrase “life support” easily could have provided an inaccurate portrayal of her condition. Both the CNN and CBS surveys described Schiavo as being in a “persistent vegetative state,” a contention refuted by some neurologists, who said she could have been in a minimally conscious condition.
In other Zogby poll results, according to LifeNews:
-- 56 percent said guardianship should have been transferred to Schiavo’s parents, when they were told Michael Schiavo had a decade-long relationship with a woman who had given birth to two of his children; 37 percent disagreed.
-- 49 percent said there should be exceptions to the rule a spouse should act as the guardian for a severely disabled person; 36 percent said there should be no exceptions.
-- 43 percent said the law should presume an incapacitated person would want to live when he does not leave a written directive for medical care, even if he has a feeding tube, while 30 percent objected.
-- 42 percent said elected officials should order a feeding tube remain connected when there is a conflict over what the patient would have desired, while 18 percent said the tube should be removed.
--30--
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20510
By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent
CBN.com – ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Most states already have laws against same-sex marriage, but judges in Massachusetts and California have ruled such laws are unconstitutional, and judges in many other states may be ready to do the same thing. This is why the church may be waking up to what it sees as one of the most sacred institutions on earth -- holy matrimony. Americans in overwhelming numbers are beginning to say "no" to gay marriage.
Homosexual marriage advocates were cheering after a San Francisco judge declared a California law banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. But supporters of the traditional family say that will just spur them on to greater effort in their battle to protect by any means the model of one-man, one-woman marriage.
Campaign for Children and Families spokesperson Randy Thomasson said, "No judge has the right to create gay marriage out of thin air and say it's the law."
Rallies in places as diverse as California and Maryland are aimed at getting religious believers out of their pews and into this battle.
Organizers at this rally say some 500 churches across Maryland have pledged to become involved. They say it will take the strength and numbers of those believers to counter the powerful gay rights lobby, which now thinks it is unstoppable.
Alan Sears, co-author of "The Homosexual Agenda," commented, "They do not believe that people of faith, orthodox Jews, evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics and others, who care about marriage and this subject, will really stay in the game long enough to win."
Guy Carey is a pastor at Immanuel's Church in Silver Spring, Maryland and emceed this rally. He remarked, "We're beginning to understand that the church has a moral and biblical responsibility to speak out on moral issues."
CBN News followed Carey around, to see how leaders actually go about organizing such events. It started out with prayer and fellowship at a Christian's home near the statehouse in Annapolis. Then the organizers met with the various speakers who would work at getting the crowd involved. Finally, they attacked the microphone before several hundred believers braving the cold wind whipping in off nearby Chesapeake Bay.
It does appear that the conservative citizens who identify moral values as their number one concern are waking up over this issue. They have been turning out in droves to vote for just about any ballot measure that preserves traditional marriage.
In fact, in states where there have been such votes, the average is 71 percent against gay marriage.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), remarked, "Those who've been advocating same-sex marriage really took a real bump in the road for their cause back in the elections in November, where they lost in even blue states."
And the battle is just getting started. As it stands now, 17 states already have some sort of ban on homosexual marriage in their constitutions, 13 of those having just been voted on last year.
This year, 20 more states are taking action that could eventually lead to an amendment. They are spread all across the country, not just conservative states, but ones considered liberal. If all pass, that should add real momentum to the campaign for a federal constitutional amendment.
Because, if 37 pass state amendments, they would probably vote for a federal version, and that is just one shy of what is needed. First up to bat this year: Kansas, with a vote on April 5th.
Now, many critics of these votes say it is too drastic for states to amend their constitutions when simple state laws would do. But legal experts like Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline say voters are being forced to take drastic action, because of activist judges who are tossing out state laws against gay marriage.
Kline said, "...and mandating an action that in no way is mandated by our constitution, nor has been. It's not been a part of this country for over 200 years of its existence."
Sears stated, "Every time the people have been allowed to decide, by overwhelming margins, they've said, ' We reaffirm the plan that God laid out for marriage in Genesis. And we don't want any of these rewrites, and we don't want activist judges forcing us to take these changes.'"
Many homosexuals and their allies look at all these states voting to ban gay marriage and see it as proof of bigotry and homophobia on the part of many Americans.
Baltimore gay activist Mike said, "I was planning a trip to Ohio later this year, and I said 'No way. I'm not going to support a state economically that discriminates against my gay brothers and sisters.'"
Steve Kay of suburban Annapolis has three gay children. He claims, "They're basically preaching hatred against gays, religious hatred against gays."
Another gay activist from Takoma Park, Maryland, remarked, "…I have faith that people of faith will recognize the hijacking of their religion by extremists and zealots."
Sears commented, "It's amazing how many people of faith have bought into aspects of the homosexual agenda. They really think it's hate speech to share the love of Christ."
But many opponents of gay marriage say this is not about being anti-homosexual at all – it is about preserving an important building block of civilization.
Rev. Richard Bowers, Defend Maryland Marriage chairman, remarked, "We were told to populate this world, multiply and be fruitful. And those unions do not have that capability, even on their best day."
Sears said, "Anything that lowers the value of marriage, that cheapens the value of marriage, that makes marriage less important in our culture, has a negative impact culture- and society-wide."
Delegate Herb McMillan (R-Annapolis) stated, "When anyone can be married to anyone else, no one's really married at all. And I think same-sex marriage doesn't expand the institution of marriage; it serves to dissolve it."
One thing a lot of ordinary folks say is, 'What does this issue have to do with me? What do I care if homosexuals get married?' But those who are leaders of the pro-marriage movement say it may have a lot to do with you in the future, and your faith.
Pastor Carey added, "The platform from which this issue of same-sex marriage is being approached is to identify homosexual marriage as a civil right. If homosexuality is identified as a civil right, that then brings them under the protection of a specialty group, and that when we speak against homosexual behavior as a sin, which our scriptures mandate that we do, then we can be accused of hate speech."
Reverend Paul Schenck has been involved in hundreds of street protests for pro-life and pro-family causes. He said, "The implications are dire, because you have the perception of a hate crime."
He said that in Europe recently, ”…a pastor spent 10 days in jail because he preached on the subject of homosexuality from a biblical point of view, and was accused of making disparaging remarks about homosexuals."
Pastor Carey stated, "There've actually been people in this nation arrested for speaking against homosexuality on the basis of the scriptures, as hate speech. So it's a major issue, and it can be a real source of future persecution."
So will the church rise up to protect itself? To protect traditional marriage? To say no to activist judges making up their own laws?
Well, in the case of Maryland, only hundreds showed up at this Defend Marriage rally, when organizers were hoping for many tens of thousands. They had warned if legislators do not see multitudes protesting outside the statehouse, most would not do anything to defend one-man, one-woman marriage.
And sure enough, behind closed doors just a few feet away, Democrat leaders here in Annapolis were pressing their troops into line and holding back all efforts to bring about a marriage amendment to Maryland's constitution -- at least for now.
Pro-marriage leaders say it is a lesson to citizens in other states worried about marriage, but not enough to get up and do something about it.
Sears said, "Will we step up to the mat? Will we fight? Or will we simply surrender, and give this away as we've given away so much other territory?"
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/050401a.asp
Third-longest papacy marked by a passion to evangelize the whole world.
By Peggy Polk and Kevin Eckstrom, Religion News Service | posted 04/04/2005 09:30 a.m.
John Paul II, the Polish-born pope whose strong-willed activist papacy helped unravel the Soviet Union and redefined the office's relationship to the world as he led the billion-member Catholic Church, died Saturday (April 2) at the age of 84.
John Paul's death ended a pontificate of more than a quarter century. He was the longest-serving pope of the 20th century and the third-longest in history after St. Peter and Pope Pius IX.
He died at about 9:37 p.m. (2:37 EST). Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, Argentine deputy secretary of state and a member of the papal household, announced the death to tens of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square to say the Rosary prayer on behalf of their beloved pontiff.
On Sunday, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, will preside over a Mass in St. Peter's Square for the repose of the pope's soul. The Vatican said John Paul's body is expected to be taken to St. Peter's Basilica no later than Monday afternoon. That same day, the College of Cardinals will hold its first meeting to decide the date of the pope's funeral and the opening of the conclave of cardinals that will choose his successor.
Ailing from Parkinson's disease and rapidly declining health in his last week, the pope succumbed to heart and kidney failure after a bacterial infection weakened his body. His fate seemed sealed when aides administered the Sacrament of Anointing, or last rites, on Thursday (March 31).
Though John Paul had weathered ill health for several years, he took a downward turn on Feb. 1 when he was hospitalized with the flu. An emergency breathing tube inserted three weeks later allowed him to recover enough to return to the Vatican for Holy Week and Easter, although he was too weak to preside or speak.
In his 26 years in office, John Paul touched the lives of lepers and heads of state, and hundreds of millions of people in between who saw in this stoop-shouldered leader the vision of a better humankind.
Death came to John Paul after years of frailty. The world watched as Parkinson's disease and arthritis slowly changed him from the robust hiker of his early papacy to a hunched old man unable to walk and barely able to speak. Still, he was unwilling to lay down the duties of his office and the global stage he commanded so well.
A younger, more vigorous John Paul shattered the familiar image of a bureaucrat pope who merely managed the church from afar. Instead, he burst out of Rome and brought the church — and the papacy — to the world. "The Catholic Church has lost its shepherd. The world has lost a champion of human freedom," said president Bush, appearing with his wife, Laura, in a televised comment from the White House.
"Throughout the West, John Paul's witness reminded us of our obligation to build a culture of life in which the strong protect the weak. And during the pope's final years, his witness was made even more powerful by his daily courage in the face of illness and great suffering."
His legacy to Catholics was twofold. Admirers credit him with instilling clear direction among a divided and widely scattered church, but critics accused him of clamping down on the tides of reform unleashed by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and of being too slow to confront worldwide reports of sexual abuse by priests.
From the start of his papacy, John Paul was a pilgrim pope who traveled the world to spread the gospel. Everywhere he went, his charisma drew crowds — sometimes in the millions — to celebrations of Masses on airport runways, in sports stadiums and in city squares.
Biographers often recounted the story of a young boy in Rome who once asked the pope why he traveled so much. "Because the world is not here!," the pope replied. "Have you heard what Jesus said? Go and evangelize the whole world. And so I go to the whole world."
The globalized papacy that John Paul leaves behind is coupled with the activist role he played on the international stage, particularly his skillful use of the papacy as a bully pulpit to challenge — and outlive — communism.
His election in 1978 came months before the Solidarity movement in his native Poland confronted the country's communist regime, setting in motion a decade of challenges that would — with the pope's moral and financial support — eventually see the Iron Curtain collapse from within.
His appearances in Poland during the first year of his papacy electrified millions of Poles, to the discomfort of party bosses who dared not bar his entry to the country. Along with President Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, John Paul emerged as a global leader willing to vigorously challenge communism.
"He certainly didn't do it by himself," said the Rev. Tom Reese, editor of the Jesuit weekly America. "But he was the right man, at the right place, at the right time to be the catalyst to make that happen."
John Paul also did not hesitate to open the doors of the Vatican to the leader of the officially atheist Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. "Without this pope, it would be impossible to understand what happened in Europe at the end of the 1980s," Gorbachev said.
Yet interwoven with John Paul's global legacy was a central theme of what he called "the culture of life," a responsible use of political and economic freedoms to promote human dignity. At the same time, he condemned what he saw as "the culture of death" marked by abortion, euthanasia, totalitarianism and an unrestrained consumerism. It was an agenda that left him unbeholden to the political left or the right.
In a larger sense, John Paul saw humanity imperiled by twin threats — the economic brutality of globalization and runaway capitalism, and old-fashioned political tyranny, which trampled individual dignity and freedom. He worried about both when he described the state of man in 1991: "At times it seems as though he exists only as a producer and consumer of goods, or as an object of state administration," he said.
Still, he will be remembered less for humbling the mighty than for lifting up the young, the poor, the sick and the disabled. He was happiest when surrounded by hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims at World Youth Days or in moments such as a visit to Los Angeles in 1987 when he startled security guards by climbing over barricades to embrace and bless with a kiss a young man with no hands playing the guitar with his feet.
Tony Melendez, who was turned down for the seminary because he did not have a thumb or a forefinger with which to hold the Eucharist, later would say from the moment the pope embraced him, "it was for this that I was born. It was for this that I came into the world."
Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born on May 18, 1920, to a devout Catholic family in the industrial town of Wadowice, Poland, near Krakow. His father, also Karol Wojtyla, was an army officer and his mother, Emilia, a schoolteacher.
"She wanted two sons, one a doctor and the other a priest," the pontiff told French writer Andre Frossard about his mother. "My brother was a doctor and, in spite of everything, I became a priest."
His compassion for others was forged early in his own suffering. He never knew an older sister, Olga, who died a few days after birth. His mother died of kidney and heart failure when he was 8. When he was 12, his brother Edmund died at age 26 from scarlet fever while serving in a hospital.
Raised by his father, the young Wojtyla immersed himself in his studies and in prayer. The young boy nicknamed Lolek was also an athlete who swam, skated, boated, skied, played ice hockey and hiked in the nearby Carpathian Mountains. He was goalkeeper for a soccer team of Jewish schoolmates.
As he grew older, Wojtyla began writing poetry and plays, and he acted with an underground theater company during the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War II.
Wojtyla was studying philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow when the war broke out. The occupying forces closed the university, and he went to work in a quarry as a stone cutter and later in a chemical plant to avoid deportation to Germany.
His father died of a heart attack in 1941, and in 1942, Wojtyla began studying for the priesthood in an underground Krakow seminary. Ordained a priest in 1946, he was sent to Rome where he earned doctorates in theology and philosophy.
In 1958, Pope Pius XII named the 38-year-old Wojtyla, then a professor of Catholic ethics at Jagiellonian University and Catholic University of Lublin, auxiliary bishop of Krakow. He was named archbishop of Krakow in 1964 at age 44, and elevated to cardinal in 1967 at age 47.
Wojtyla attended all sessions of the landmark Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and later assisted Paul VI in drafting the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae — helping to convince the wavering pope to affirm the church's ban on all forms of birth control.
When Pope John Paul I died after only 25 days in office, the College of Cardinals elected 58-year-old Wojtyla on its eighth ballot on Oct. 16, 1978, as the 263rd successor to St. Peter. He was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutchman Hadrian VI was elected in 1522.
But the reign of the youngest elected pope in 138 years almost was cut short in May 1981 when Ali Agca, a murderer who escaped from an Istanbul prison, shot John Paul as he greeted the faithful from an open car in St. Peter's Square.
Five hours of surgery and months in the hospital saved his life. In his first public message a few days later, the pope said, "Pray for the brother who shot me and whom I have sincerely pardoned." In one of the most powerful images of his papacy, the pope embraced his would-be assassin in a prison visit on just after Christmas in 1983.
John Paul's papacy was one of superlatives. He outdid all his predecessors in travel, literary output and creating modern-day saints of the church.
By the 26th anniversary of his election in 2004, he had made 146 trips inside Italy and 104 abroad, traveling 773,520 miles, the equivalent of 31.19 times around the world.
In the same period, John Paul issued 14 encyclical letters, 11 apostolic constitutions, 42 apostolic letters and 18 "motu proprio," letters written on his own initiative to the whole church. He also called 15 synods of bishops.
He beatified 1,345 candidates for sainthood and proclaimed a record 483 saints — far more than all his predecessors combined over the last five centuries since the modern sainthood process was reformed in 1588.
According to the records of the papal household, he met at the Vatican with 803 heads of state and government, prime ministers and foreign ministers.
John Paul called nine consistories to create cardinals. With his last consistory in October 2003, the College of Cardinals swelled to a record 194 members. By the time of his death, the number had cardinals eligible to elect his successor fell to 117, with all but three appointed by John Paul.
As John Paul ushered the church into the 21st century, he became a vigorous opponent of cloning, euthanasia and embryonic stem-cell research even as he battled his own illness. As the AIDS pandemic raged, John Paul drew fire for opposing the use of condoms to help contain the disease.
And, despite declining health, John Paul clung to his role as a lion of orthodoxy in church teaching, resisting calls to open the priesthood to married men or women, opposing growing acceptance of homosexuality and gay unions and instructing priests to bar Catholics who had divorced and remarried from receiving Holy Communion.
John Paul's relations with the American Catholics — and vice versa — were more ambivalent. While praising the U.S. church for its moral commitment and generosity, he deeply distrusted the intensity with which some sought reform.
On his first visit as pope to the United States in 1979, he ignored an appeal by a prominent nun, Sister Theresa Kane, for "the possibility of women as persons being included in all the ministries of the church." The topic, the pope said, was not up for discussion.
In 1987, during his fourth visit to the United States, John Paul lectured American bishops on their softness toward "cafeteria Catholics," who pick and choose between church teachings.
Critics contended that John Paul's own training and background in Eastern Europe left him ill-equipped to understand American Catholicism, with its democratic instincts and appetite for dialogue.
"He was not one who could understand that opposition did not mean hostility," said the Rev. Gerald Fogarty, a University of Virginia historian. "I don't think he's a good listener. I think he has trouble understanding a country like us, even though we're one of the more vibrant branches of the church in the West."
John Paul's over-riding desire to preserve conservative church doctrine also conflicted at times with his efforts to promote Christian unity and interfaith understanding.
Though ecumenical dialogue — especially with Orthodox Christians — was a hallmark of his papacy, John Paul angered many non-Catholics in 2000 by approving the "Declaration Dominus Iesus," a document that said only Catholics "have the fullness of the means of salvation."
In 1983, John Paul became the first pope to visit a Lutheran church, and in 1999, the Roman Catholic Church reached consensus with Lutherans on the issue of how the faithful are saved, a key stumbling block between Catholics and Protestants since the 16th century Reformation.
John Paul also reached out to Jews with unprecedented initiatives that some predict will be his most enduring papal legacy. John Paul called Jews "elder brothers in faith" and in 1986 became the first pope since St. Peter to step inside a synagogue. In 1994, he opened diplomatic ties with Israel.
"I think those will come to be seen to be of historic, millennial importance," said Reese, of America magazine. "We may continue to have occasional arguments, but from now on they'll be family fights."
And while John Paul signaled early in his tenure a desire to reach out to Muslims, he spent the twilight of his papacy confronting the rise of militant Islam. In 2001, he became the first pope to visit a mosque, during a trip to Damascus, Syria.
On three occasions — at the height of the Cold War, during the Balkans conflicts and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — the pope led leaders of the Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Zoroastrian, Tenrikyo, Shinto and traditional African faiths on inter-faith peace pilgrimages to the medieval hill town of Assisi, home of St. Francis.
During the landmark Holy Year of 2000, John Paul rebuffed the advice of Vatican bureaucrats in seeking a "purification of memory" by formally asking forgiveness at a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the errors committed by Catholics over the past 2,000 years and especially in the 20th century.
A Holy Year pilgrimage in March 2000 took him to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. He visited a Palestinian refugee camp and Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust and prayed at the Western Wall, Judaism's most sacred site.
Now, in every corner of the world touched by John Paul, people are mourning the loss of the priest Italian biographer Luigi Accatolli refers to in the title of his book as "Man of the Millennium."
David Briggs and Bruce Nolan contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/114/15.0.html
NBC's special series, "Faith in America" shifted the attention of the nation's nightly news audience to faith - at least for the week building up to Easter.
From March 18 to March 25, the special series, "Faith in America" examined "the role religion plays in Americans' lives."
The range of topics covered the effect of faith on education and health care to entertainment, money, and politics.
The story that ran on March 21, "Finding faith in sex-education classes for teens" told about the increasing openness that churches and other places of worship now have when it comes to teaching their youth congregants about sexuality, but in a biblical context.
The following night, March 22, NBC ran a story on money and faith, "Making God your priceless money manager." Joe Dunsey, who leads faith financial ministries, teaches people to balance the budget with faith.
Dunsey said of the Bible, “It taught me to trust God with those things I wanted. It taught me to be content with what He gave us, whether a lot or a little.”
The weeklong series had an entertainment focus, rather than a serious “hard news” focus like crime or politics. Nevertheless, it riveted secular and faith-based audiences alike and promulgated faith to the national spotlight in various roles, garnering positive media attention.
In the past, the media have almost always chosen the time leading up to the Resurrection (Easter) to discredit the Bible, faith, and religion.
"It's almost an Easter tradition," said Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries. However, this year seems to be a different case with the release of "The Passion Recut" in theaters nationwide, new television shows on faith, and now, even nightly news featuring faith stories insistently for a whole week.
The March 24th story, "A faith-based reality check," which aired on NBC, showcased the former head of the White House faith-based initiatives criticizing President Bush for not keeping his promise of $8 billion a year in tax incentives to religious groups. However, the story also mentioned that a half-billion dollars in new money has been allocated for charities.
On March 25, Good Friday, "Did prayers to God help cure cancer?" took a look at faith in healthcare and reported that, "For decades the medical community basically ignored the impact of religion on health. But in recent years, scientists have begun studying the possibility that faith matters."
With the increasing prevalence of religion in television and movies, "Hollywood begins to embrace its faith," reported the nightly news on March 21, and indeed, even networks like NBC has also begun to do the same.
These and many other stories were the focus for NBC and MSNBC this year during Holy Week.
"In a place normally run by money," now "[there] are stories guided by faith," stated Brian Williams, nightly news anchor for NBC, regarding Hollywood. The statement could just as easily apply to NBC.
Rhoda Tse
rhoda@christianpost.com
http://www.christianpost.com/article/ministries/1147/section/faith.in.america.examined.on.nbc.nightly.news/1.htm
