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The Pope tours Auschwitz to show support for the victims of the Nazi death camps. Asia News photo.

By Asia News

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – The Holocaust remains a warning against the power of evil and all forms of oblivion and negationism, Benedict XVI said today as he expressed his “full and unquestionable solidarity” with Jews.

The Pope who mentioned his visit to Auschwitz also referred to his decision to lift the excommunication on bishops consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, urging  them to accept the Second Vatican Council.

“Whilst I renew with affection the expression of my full and unquestionable solidarity with our (Jewish) brothers, I hope the memory of the Shoah (Holocaust) will induce humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of hate when it conquers the heart of man,” the Holy Father said.

The Holocaust, he added must be “a warning against oblivion, negation or reductionism because violence against even one human being is violence against all.”

Benedict XVI’s remarks come in response to the controversy caused by a traditionalist bishop, Mgr Richard Williamson, who has denied the gas chambers ever existed, cutting the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust to at best 300,000.

Catholic writer Jay Guillette reports that the Chief Rabbinate has not severed ties with the Vatican over the issue, but that the Rabbis say maintaining a relationship will be difficult without amends being made. 

For the rest of the story, click here…

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14334&geo=&theme=&size=A

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By Steven Ertelt

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – The White House quietly announced on Friday that President Barack Obama is starting the process of overturning protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions. The move is the latest that will add to Obama’s growing pro-abortion record.

Existing federal laws already make it so doctors and hospitals are not required to perform abortions. Because those laws aren’t always followed, the Bush administration added additional protections.

Bush officials noted a pattern of grant recipients being unaware of or flouting existing laws protecting medical professionals’ rights of conscience. So, HHS enacted the new regulations to require grantees to certify compliance with them in order to receive funds.

In August, 2008 the Department of Health and Human Services proposed regulations to strengthen those existing laws. The regulations were finalized on December 18, 2008 and went into effect January 20, 2009.

For the rest of the story, click here…

http://www.lifenews.com/nat4865.html

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By Eileen Sullivan and Matt Apuzzo

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano avoids mention of terrorism or 9/11 in remarks prepared for her first congressional testimony since taking office, signaling a sharp change in tone from her predecessors.

Napolitano is the first homeland security secretary to drop the term “terror” and “vulnerability” from remarks prepared for delivery to the House Homeland Security Committee, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

Tom Ridge, who headed the agency when it was launched in 2003, mentioned terrorism 11 times in his prepared statement at his debut before the oversight committee in 2003. And in 2005 Michael Chertoff, the second secretary, mentioned terrorism seven times, according to an AP analysis of the prepared testimonies.

Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, instead charts a course in very different terms than Chertoff, who used law enforcement and military jargon — “intelligence,” “analysis,” “mission” — to describe the agency’s objectives.

The department’s top priorities are spelled out in legislation that created it in 2001: preventing a terrorist attack in the United States; reducing the vulnerability for such an attack; and helping with the recovery if the U.S. is attacked.

Napolitano’s prepared remarks also show her using the word “attacks” less than her predecessors. She is the first secretary to use a Capitol Hill debut to talk about hurricanes and disasters, a sign of the department’s evolving mission following Hurricane Katrina.

Napolitano is not alone in her departure from terror talk.

For the rest of this story, click here…

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ ALeqM5iThZCxQzI7QRIvmynYqw3MSKWF8gD96I6MCG0

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By Jim Meyers

The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved an amendment banning reinstatement of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that would threaten conservative talk radio.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina attached the amendment, called the Broadcaster Freedom Act, to a bill giving the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House. It passed by a wide margin of 87-to-11.

But it’s not clear if the amendment will survive as Congress debates the voting rights bill.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois also won approval for an alternate amendment ordering the Federal Communications Commission to encourage radio ownership “diversity.” It passed by a vote of 57 to 41.

For the rest of the story, click here…

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Demint_fairness_amendment/       2009/02/26/186062.html?s=al&promo_code=7B19-1

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By Michael Ireland

UNITED KINGDOM (ANS) – Imagine taking part in a virtual Israel-Palestine pilgrimage which transports travelers from their e-mail inbox to the lands made familiar through both the Bible and contemporary — and sometimes tragic – media headlines.

That’s exactly what Christians and others in Great Britain are being invited to do During Lent. The online journey begins today organized by the UK-based international development agency Christian Aid.

The initiative is being backed by church leaders from across the denominations, according to the Christian think-tank Ekklesia.

The Rt Rev Peter Price, Anglican Bishop of Bath and Wells, said: “If you can’t go to the Holy Land in reality then the next best thing is this virtual journey. It’s important for us to have a picture of the Holy Land today to understand better what Jesus was saying to us in the Gospel. His challenge to create a world of compassion, justice and truth remains a responsibility of all Christian people and all people of good will.”

The www.Ekklesia.co.uk  website says the online pilgrimage gives people the chance to watch short videos, go to photo galleries, read stories and pray in the places where Jesus preached.

For the rest of the story, click here…

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2009/s09020154.htm

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By Michael Carl

In the mid-1990s, film maker Rich Christiano did a movie called The Time Changer.  The movie centred on a professor named Russell Carlisle who wrote a book promoting the idea that sound morals could be taught without the solid, moral framework and Biblical foundation for those values.

After a publisher agreed to print Dr. Carlisle’s book, the theology faculty gathered together to decide if they would endorse the book.  Most of the faculty said, ‘Russell it’s a marvelous work and I’ll be glad to lend my name to its publication.’

All of the faculty agreed except for one.  This chap played by actor Gavin McLeod of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Love Boat, was late to the meeting.  He had just returned from a journey.

The man said that while the book was wonderful, well-written and well-argued, he couldn’t endorse it.

The faculty wanted to know why but he couldn’t say.  Russell would have to see for himself.

The film is a semi-sci-fi movie and it turns out that the tardy professor had invented a time machine.  McLeod’s character gets Russell Carlisle to travel ahead in time to see the results of attempting to teach sound morals apart from their religious and/or Biblical foundation.

Russell enters the United States in the 1990s and is horrified!  God’s name was no longer honoured as holy.  Filth permeated the airwaves; children were rebellious.  He saw a sex-saturated country that had a casual, if not lethargic attitude about sin. 

So what happens when we try to advance morality apart from its Biblical foundation?

We get relativism. 

With no objective standard upon which to base moral values, who is able to say whose morals are right or wrong?  We say, ‘Stealing is wrong!’  The reply can honestly be, ‘Who says?’

We can answer, ‘Well, everyone,’ or, ‘Society,’ or ‘the country,’ all we want.  Yet, without the Biblical foundation and a proper reverence for the things of God, it’s a matter of competing opinions.

This describes the United States right now.  If you have any doubt, try arguing moral virtue with just about anyone.  We’re awash in relativism because as a culture we’ve thrown away the sound Biblical values upon which our culture was rightly based.

America is in desperate need of a Spirit-fired, Christ-centred, revival.  America needs another Great Awakening, but we won’t have one until the Church gets on its knees collectively and repents of its complicity in the moral decay.  

This process begins with worship.  Spirit-filled, Christ-centred, Three Streams worship cleans us, grounds us in our faith and glorifies the Lord.  It’s then that we experience God’s glory!

For more on this subject, click here…

http://www.awtozerclassics.com/page/page/4891818.htm

http://www.welshrevival.org/

http://www.churchoftheapostles.org/index.php/coa/detail/three-streams-one-river/

http://www.newenglandalliance.us/index.php

http://www.greenwoodunionchurch.com/

Posted under News

By Stefan J. Bos

BEIJING, CHINA (BosNewsLife)– Chinese authorities have released the last four house church leaders who were among dozens of evangelical officials detained in Central China this month, an advocacy group told BosNewsLife Tuesday, February 24.

They belonged to a group of over 60 evangelical leaders arrested during a seminar on February 11, along with two South Korean pastors, in Nanyang city of Henan province,said China Aid Association (CAA).

All others were already released earlier. CAA attributed their freedom to international media attention, including from BosNewsLife, as well as “worldwide prayer and other international pressure” from its supporters.

The house church leaders came from four provinces to attend a seminar [and] were all evangelical Christians from different house church groups, CAA said.

The two South Korean pastors, who were only identified as Kim and Chang, planned to speak at the meeting when “more than 30 police from Nanyang Public Security Bureau(PSB) and the National Security Bureau (NSB) broke uo the meeting,” the group explained.

For the rest of the story, click here…

http://www.bosnewslife.com/6114-breaking-news-china-releases-                                            four-house-church-leaders

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By Gospel for Asia

MYANMAR (ANS) – In a recent crackdown on Christians in Myanmar (Burma), at least 100 churches were ordered to stop holding services. About 50 pastors were forced to sign at least five documents each to cease church services—and warned repeatedly they could face time in jail if they disobeyed.

The crackdown is of great concern to Christians in Myanmar and a serious violation of religious freedom. Most of the churches meet in homes, and Christians are now left wondering if they will be prohibited from worshipping in their own homes.

Some think it could be the military regime’s response to churches helping with relief for victims of Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar’s coast in May 2008.

“The regime does not like the fact that Buddhists have been receiving help from churches, and fears this may possibly result in conversion,” one pastor living in exile said. “It does not want Christianity to grow in Burma. Ultimately, the regime seeks the destruction of Christianity.”

All of the affected churches are in the Yangon (Rangoon) area. So far, none of the churches led by Gospel for Asia missionaries have been shut down.

For the rest of this story, click here…

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2009/s09020145.htm

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Editor’s Note:  CentrePoint News reported in January about a Minneapolis student who left school and returned to Somalia to fight in that nation’s civil war.  The attack in this report took place before the young man in our story left Minneapolis. 

By Jason Ryan and Pierre Thomas

A U.S. citizen who killed himself in a suicide bomb attack in Somalia last year was actively recruited in the United States, FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed today.

“A man from Minneapolis became what we believe to be the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing,” Mueller said of Shirwa Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen.

“The attack occurred last October in northern Somalia, but it appears that this individual was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota,” Mueller said.

The comments before the Council on Foreign Relations come several months after the FBI and Justice Department established a working group to look at a handful of cases where men of Somali descent returned to Somalia to fight in the ongoing conflict there.

For the rest of this story, click here…

http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Terrorism/story?id=6942162&page=1

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By Aaron Leichman

Though a large portion of Americans are cutting back on donations to non-profits amid tough economic conditions, evangelical parachurch ministries have been among those least affected by the cuts, according to a new survey.

Least affected negatively, that is.

According to the survey by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), most evangelical parachurch ministries exceeded, met or came very close to their 2008 fourth-quarter contributions goals.

“Many of the parachurch ministries we surveyed reported small donations of $10 to $100 were relatively unaffected, and in some cases, donations in this category increased,” reported Dan Busby, acting president of the Christian accreditation agency. “In fact, some of our members had the strongest fourth quarter they’ve had in years and ended the year debt-free.”

In a survey of ECFA members, 72 percent of responding organizations reportedly exceeded, met or came within 10 percent of their goals. The remaining 28 percent said they were more than 10 percent below their goals.

For the rest of the story, click here…

http://www.christianpost.com/Society/ngo/2009/02/survey-7-in-10-                             evangelical-ministries-report-little-no-loss-in-donations-25/index.html

Posted under News