Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Why are Some SBC Leaders Mainstreaming Islam?
May 31st, 2013
Daily NewsThe Balfour Post - Jim Fletcher
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

In a USA Today piece from April 26, Stetzer, president of research at LifeWay, advances his agenda of mainstreaming Islam within the evangelical world. It is an agenda item that his friends like Rick Warren and Bob Roberts Jr. have been engaged with for some time.

When self-identified leaders within evangelicalism are afforded spots on the biggest platforms, it appears they are speaking for the rest of us.

Which is ironic, because that’s what Stetzer’s USA Today PR piece for Islam seems to warn against: understanding others through the lens of what a few say.

Ed Stetzer doesn’t speak for me, and many, many other Christians. In fact, I want to be clear about my view of his view of Islam: he’s wrong.

Let me also be clear about something else: it’s obvious that there are still many Southern Baptist pastors and leaders and laypersons who are staunch supporters of Israel, and who recognize the agenda of the jihadists to infiltrate the church.

The problem is that visible leaders like Stetzer, Rick Warren, and Bob Roberts Jr. seem intent on pushing their Muslim friends on the rest of us.

In his attempt to appear as a tolerant, reasonable person, Stetzer makes the following point at USA Today:

“For many Americans, their knowledge of Muslims is what they see on television news rather than what they know from experience. Yet, forming your view of any group based solely on what you see on the news is a bad idea.”

I disagree. “Many Americans,” as is painfully obvious, have accumulated their knowledge of Muslims from violent acts committed by Muslims since at least 9/11 (Steve Emerson has been reporting on the jihadist agenda much longer than that—www.investigativeproject.org).
In fact, we “know from experience” that Islam sanctions murder and mayhem in order to establish a new caliphate.

Stetzer wishes to convince his readers that only a tiny, almost infinitesimal group of Muslims are committed to jihad. I would point out that people who study this full-time, such as Frank Gaffney and Steve Emerson, would say that no one really knows how many Muslims are committed to jihad, but a leading indicator that the rest of us are in deep trouble is borne out by the fact that almost all Muslims are silent on the issue.

If most of them weren’t extreme in their views, wouldn’t we hear that on a large scale?

And why are evangelical leaders falling all over themselves to mainstream Islam?

I frankly think Ed Stetzer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. As Daniel Pipes put it recently in a column with the Middle East Forum:

“The establishment denies that Islamism—a form of Islam that seeks to make Muslims dominant through an extreme, totalistic, and rigid application of Islamic law, the Shari’a—represents the leading global cause of terrorism when it so clearly does.”

Here Pipes is discussing the wider establishment, specifically our nation’s leaders, but the point exactly fits certain current strains within American Christianity. In the case of the evangelical establishment, it is clear that a whitewashing of violent Islam—jihad—is the order of the day.

Make no mistake, we are all reluctant volunteers in the War on Terror, which, to be precise, is the War on Islamic Terror. Sadly, perhaps tragically, there are those among evangelical leadership who seem to be lost in the fog of this war.

Just after 9/11, I read an essay by a Middle East expert on Islam. The writer said that due to perceived Western weakness manifesting itself just after the turn of the century, Islam was now “standing up.”

That is a chilling mental picture.

It also forces one to wonder why key evangelical “leaders” are taking that lying down.

Russia: S - 300s to Syria – Only in 2014
May 31st, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Maayana Miskin
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Sources in Moscow have confirmed that Syrian President Bashar Assad was bluffing when he claimed that S-300 anti-aircraft missiles had already been delivered.

The S-300s that Russia has promised Syria will be delivered only in 2014, they said.

The Russian daily Kommersant quoted a senior diplomatic source as saying that the delivery would take place sometime in the second quarter of next year.

After that, it will take another six months to make the missiles operational, he said. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has warned that Israel will not allow the missiles to become operational, implying that Israel would destroy them in an airstrike after delivery.

United States officials said Thursday that Assad was bluffing about possessing S-300s.

Former defense minister, MK Fouad Ben-Eliezer of the Labor party, warned Friday that S-300s would pose a real threat to Israel. “S-300s finding their way into the hands of Hizbullah would pose a serious threat,” he told IDF Radio (Galei Tzahal).

“It’s a threat because we aren’t talking about a state entity,” he continued. “The minute S-300s start moving toward Hizbullah – Israel has every right to protect itself and its residents.”

Netanyahu Orders Gas Masks for All Israelis
May 31st, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week ordered the defense establishment to urgently get gas masks and protective kits into the hands of all Israelis, according to Israel's Channel 10 News.

Currently, only an estimated 42 percent of Israelis have up-to-date gas masks and protective kits. Budgetary constraints in recent years prevented both the manufacturing and distribution of enough masks to protect the entire population.

But, with the probability of an unconventional attack on Israel increasing significantly in the past year, and with the recent proven use of chemical weapons in Syria, distributing gas masks to all Israelis has become more than just a "feel-good" measure.

The considerable cost of fulfilling Netanyahu's order will likely be covered by an increase in the national insurance every Israeli pays, though few are expected to complain over this particular tax boost.

Let the Headlines Speak
May 31st, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Thousands blockade European Central Bank in Frankfurt
Anti-capitalist protestors have taken to the streets the financial heart of Frankfurt a day ahead of Europe-wide gatherings planned for June 1 to protest leaders handling of the three-year euro debt crisis.  

Syria's Assad warns Israel on air strikes and Golan
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has warned Israel that it will respond in kind to any future air strikes. In an interview with a Lebanese TV channel, he said there was "popular pressure" to open a military front against Israel in the Golan Heights. He also suggested Syria may have received the first shipment of an advanced Russian air defence system.  

China to study possibility of joining U.S.-led trade talks
China will study the possibility of joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks, the Commerce Ministry said on Thursday, signaling its openness to the U.S.-led trade pact. "We will analyze the pros and cons as well as the possibility of joining the TPP, based on careful research and according to principles of equality and mutual benefit," Shen Danyang, a Commerce Ministry spokesman, said in a comments published on the ministry's website.  

Syria's Bashar Assad says a peace pact would face a referendum
Any agreement reached at prospective peace talks on Syria would have to be approved by the Syrian people in a nationwide referendum, President Bashar Assad said in a television interview aired Thursday.  

Major Japan banks' JGB holdings plunge in April - BOJ
The balance of Japanese government bonds held by the country's major banks plunged in April to below 100 trillion yen ($991 billion), Bank of Japan data showed, a sign their selling played a major part in pushing up yields to a one-year high.  

9 Young Escapees Are Being Sent Back To Terrifying Fate In North Korea
Nine North Korean refugees have been forced to return home after escaping to Laos, drawing protests from human rights groups and concern from the US.

Russian manufacturer to sell 10 MiGs to Syria
A Russian arms manufacturer says it is signing a contract to deliver at least 10 fighter jets to Syria. Sergei Korotkov, general director of the MiG company that makes the jets, told Russian news agencies Friday that a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss terms and deadlines of a new contract supplying MiG-29 M/M2 fighters to Syria.  

Asteroid fly-by on Friday sparks debate over readiness for ‘Armageddon’-style event
The passage close to Earth of a mountain-sized asteroid expected Friday has reignited discussions among scientists about how to deal with the improbable — but definitely possible — circumstance of an asteroid predicted to hit the planet. 1998 QE2, as the asteroid is designated, will pass Earth at what NASA calls a “safe distance” of about 3.6 million miles...but nonetheless a near miss in astronomical terms — at just before 5 p.m. Eastern on Friday.  

Assad: Arab world ready to join fight against Israel
Syrian President Bashar Assad told Al-Manar TV on Thursday that “there is pressure by the people to open a new front on the Golan.” “Even among the Arab world there is a clear readiness to join the fight against Israel,” he added in his interview with the Hezbollah TV station.  

The hi-tech tattoo that could replace ALL your passwords: Motorola reveals plans for ink and even pills to identify us
Among the ideas discussed at the D11 conference in California on Wednesday were electronic tattoos and authentication pills that people swallow. The tattoos, developed by Massachusetts-based engineering firm MC10, contain flexible electronic circuits that are attached to the wearer's skin using a rubber stamp.  

Gen. Vallely: White House in ‘Collusion’ With Other Agencies on Benghazi
“The Obama administration uses heavy-handed Chicago-style tactics to put the lid on people and they threaten them,” Vallely told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV. “They threaten them with their jobs. And that’s exactly what been happening.” Vallely, who served as Deputy Commanding General in the Pacific, commended the three “whistleblowers” who testified Wednesday in the Congressional hearings on Benghazi. But he urged House members conducting the probe to press even harder  

Discovery of Monsanto GMO wheat threatens US exports
The discovery of a Monsanto-created, genetically modified strain of wheat in the US that was never approved by the United States Department of Agriculture has imperiled US exports of a staple world food commodity. Japanese authorities have already opted to cancel part of a tender offer to buy US western white wheat and have suspended imports of both that variety and feed wheat, Reuters reported on Thursday.  

Israeli archaeologists find source of 'Second Temple' era stones
The first-century quarry, which fits into the Second Temple Period (538 B.C. to A.D. 70), would've held the huge stones used in the construction of the city's ancient buildings, the researchers noted. Archaeologists also uncovered pick axes and wedges among other artifacts at the site in the modern-day Ramat Shlomo Quarter, a neighborhood in northern East Jerusalem.  

Merkel and Hollande call for full-time euro President
One day after he rejected EU "dictates" on economic policy, French leader Francois Hollande and Germany's Angela Merkel have called for the creation of a full-time euro "President." ...The paper says that "a full-time President for the Eurogroup of finance ministers relying on wider resources" should be created after the EU elections in 2014.  

ASTEROID MOON DISCOVERED
May 30, 2013: Approaching asteroid 1998 QE2 has a moon. Researchers found it in a sequence of radar images obtained by the 70-meter Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., on the evening of May 29th (May 30th Universal Time) when the asteroid was about 6 million kilometers from Earth.  

More tremors in the wake of earthquake
The earthquake struck at about 4am yesterday a few kilometers off the Welsh coast and was felt by Dubliner's almost 100 kilometers away. The INSN have said the earthquake could be followed by tremors in the coming days. The 3.8 magnitude quake occurred 2 km off the coast of the Llyn Peninsula in Wales but it was nothing like the famous 1984 earthquake that struck off the coast of Wales. On July 19th 1984, some 15 km west of yesterday's earthquake epicentre, an earthquake measuring 5.4 was felt by people on the whole east coast of Ireland and much of Britain.  

Vatican organizing worldwide, simultaneous eucharistic adoration June 2
The Vatican is trying to organize a global hour of prayer around the Eucharist "for the first time in the history of the church," said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, the office organizing events for the Year of Faith. Pope Francis will preside over adoration and benediction in St. Peter's Basilica beginning at 5 p.m. June 2, the date most dioceses in the world celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord.  

Former IRS chief Shulman reportedly visited White House at least 157 times
The former head of the IRS visited the White House more times than any Cabinet member, according to an analysis by The Daily Caller, raising questions about the nature of those visits -- particularly around the time the agency was targeting conservative groups. The Caller analysis of White House visitor logs showed former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times under the Obama administration.  

Golan Heights villages brace for war as tensions rise between Syria and Israel
"Anyone here who looks at the current situation knows you need to prepare, especially food for the kids. Adults can wait to eat while fighting goes on outside but if your child wants milk," she says, pointing towards Angie, who is now howling with tears of frustration, "you'd better have milk to give them." Angie's mother, who asked not to be named, has been stocking up on rice, canned food, oil and wheat for the past week. She listens to news reports of missiles from Russia and Israeli air strikes, she hears the cracks of gunfire and thuds of mortars just minutes away in Syria and feels the war coming closer.  

Israel ‘The Most Threatened State in the World,’ Says PM
May 31st, 2013
Daily NewsThe Times of Israel
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Concluding a three-day nationwide defense drill, Netanyahu warns of ‘tens of thousands of missiles and rockets’ aimed at civilians

Amos Ben Gershom/ GPO/ Flash 90Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting of the Emergency Economy Committee on May 13, 2013. (photo credit: Amos Ben Gershom/ GPO/ Flash 90)