Friday, July 31, 2009

Will The Human Sacrifice Stop?


I wrote a piece over a week ago that focused on the fate of Bryce Faulkner, the young man who went missing after being pressed to join an ex-gay program. I likened this coercion to a form of human sacrifice.

I'm still waiting for someone to save the sacrifice from the altar.


To date, there has been NOTHING from Bryce Faulkner himself. The "statement" made for the press was given by Exodus International and not Bryce in the flesh.

Coercion can equal imprisonment. Coercion can even equal death. In this case, the emotional death of a person's true self. Even though Bryce is 23 and legally able to cut the strings to his family, those strings are more like electrical wires supplying a current of stability to Bryce: his parents are defined in financial support, physical support and emotional support. Bryce knows this. When his parents told him that they would cut those wires, they told him that he would no longer have any life. It was Exodus or die. "If you're not right with the Lord, you're not right with us. You're dead. Goodbye."

From Bay Windows:
"I don’t believe Bryce was forced to attend the program against his will," Swanson told Bay Windows. "I believe he was economically blackmailed since he was a financial dependent of his parents. They controlled everything and he was given two choices: A) agree to attend treatment; or, B) move out by tomorrow with no phone, car, money, or job."

Gay activist Rev. Brett Harris, who leads Magnolia, Ohio’s Ergonomical Ministries and the Coalition for the Abolition of Homosexual Reformation Tactics, responded to Bryce’s disappearance by creating a "Save Bryce" Web site (http://savebryce.ergonomicalministries.org).

Swanson’s main concern is "Bryce’s safe return ... Bryce needs to know that he is loved and that is why we are searching so hard to find him." He does realize the value of bringing stories like Bryce’s to the attention of the public. "[Ex-gay ministries] are everywhere, and people need to be aware that they are still around and operating in their backyards," he said. Exodus International operates more than 230 locations in North America, including four in Massachusetts. Since the launch of his "Save Bryce" Web site, Harris has received numerous death threats, but said, "It isn’t going to stop me ... It doesn’t matter to me whether Bryce wants to continue the program, we just want to make sure that he’s safe."
From Truth Wins Out

While boyfriend Travis Swanson struggles to free 23-year-old Bryce Faulkner from less-than-voluntary seclusion at an ex-gay boot camp, Faulkner’s antigay family members and a couple of friends appear to be conducting a Facebook campaign in support of Faulkner’s ex-gay reprogramming.

As of July 29:

Bryce is seeking a spiritual reformation away from the worries and struggles of daily living, Bryce is in an environment where he has said he has come closer to the Lord than he has been in some time.
The writers of the Facebook profile are NOT identified. The profile is a CLOSED Facebook Group, making it like a secret support group sponsored by Exodus International.

So, WTF is happening? What's going to come out of all this? Will Bryce come forward? When? How long are his parents going to insist that third parties be involved? If Bryce meets with Travis, will it be as an "ex-gay?" The drama never stops when it comes to religion and same-sex love: "Love God or another man. You can't love both."

However, if everyone who's ever loved someone who's been taken away from them , if they all chip away at Exodus International - bit by bit, day by day - the drama can change. To closure, if nothing else.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Americans And Same -Sex Marriage: Hearts Are Running To The Left, While Money Is Veering To The Right! The Far, Far RIGHT!



So, the way to win?

Persevere!
Never Give Up!
And in the process:

BANKRUPT THEM!


A while ago, we wrote about how the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Ku Klux Klan and, in the process bankrupted them.

Now, from Pam's House Blend:

From Columbia News (of Columbia University):
Interest groups and voters opposed to marriage equality and other non-discrimination policies have influence far beyond their relative share of a state’s population. They can block equality measures even when there is a significant majority favoring them.
The only truly effective way for us to best the Christofascists against human rights: make every campaign cost them MUCHO BUCKS! And that doesn't necessarily mean we have to spend a lot of money, either. One press release that discredits them, for example, can cause them to make an expensive commercial in defense. And when you get them on their defense, the money will have to flow quicker on their side than yours.

Find out ways to make them pay for their bigotry. Sue them - every time. Make them defensive and (eventually) defenseless. Don't just picket businesses, but pull out the pro-bono lawyers and use them to hammer away at them and their holy reputations. Make them bankrupt through legal fees alone. And if they work through a conservative "legal defense" non-profit, it's probably one of Regent University's (i.e., Pat Robertson's) fourth tier alimni. Looking at every one of them as a Monica Goodling , you'll be able to break through to, at the very least, a pocket-emptying settlement.

Remember, nothing breaks up a group of bigots better than a lack of money.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Latest Birther Revelation: OBAMA IS FROM MARS!!


Or Might As Well Be!
(Because Birthers Will Believe Anything!)

People desperate to latch on to anything to attack someone - anyone - are usually unstable in their desperation. The problem with many right-wing media outlets is that they give these people more than equal time, becoming as unreasonable as the people they're supporting.

For example: FOX News has already been revealed as THE media to attack Barack Obama on anything. After all, we witnessed "Dijongate," instituted by Sean Hannity. FOX inter-office memos have revealed that staff has been ordered to paint the President in a bad light for everything, no matter what the subject. Hannity and other FOX pundits (like Greta Van Sustern - supposedly a "journalist/reporter") have taken every opportunity, no matter how scant, to keep hammering away at Obama's image.

Even individual commentators from other networks have succumbed to ridiculous cause celebres such as the "birther movement."

Birthers are (at best) laughable and (at worst) unstable. They are the uneducated fringe who are given center stage simply because they seem so irrepressably ridiculous. They will go to any lengths to disguise their hatred for Obama as a matter of patriotism. They will not accept the fact that the questions of Obama's birth have been answered and that birther "theories" have been debunked.

They also cherish any media that shows the slightest amount of serious interest in them.

They found that wedge with conservative commentator Lou Dobbs of CNN.

From ThinkProgress. com:

'The Wacko Wing'
Last Thursday, CNN President Jon Klein sent an e-mail to a handful of the network's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" staffers informing them that he considered one of the stories pursued by the infamously anti-immigrant host to be "dead." On his radio show the week before, Dobbs declared that President Obama needed to "produce a birth certificate," picking up on a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that claims Obama was not born in the United States, and the birth certificate released by his campaign last year was fake. Dobbs repeatedly pushed the "birther" cause despite the fact that his colleagues at CNN have repeatedly called the story "total bull." In fact, while guest-hosting Dobbs' own show on July 17, Kitty Pilgrim refuted the fringe theory, saying, "CNN has fully investigated the issue, found no basis for the questions about the president's birthplace, but the controversy lives on, especially on the Internet." But Dobbs has persisted, attacking his critics as "limp-minded, lily-livered lefties" who hate him because he has "the temerity to inquire as to where the birth certificate was." As Dobbs continued to air the conspiracy theory, Klein backed off his admonition of the host, telling the Los Angeles Times that Dobbs had handled the issue in a "legitimate" manner and "if there are future news pegs, then we have to take that story as it comes." On Sunday, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz used his CNN show to chastise media outlets that "give the birthers any airtime" to repeat their "ludicrous claims." Kurtz specifically criticized Dobbs for not acting "responsible."
And lest we forget, Lou Dobbs' last brush with the Obama administration involved buying several boxes of the obviously racist Obama Waffles at the Values Voters Summit. Even Tony Perkins was not amused.

What we have here is the image of our country as a place where every person, sane or not, can gain media attention if they latch on to just one commentator.

The Washington Independent has a great piece on the trivial and stupid theory that Obama's grandparents lied about the birth certificate to avoid a custody battle.

Birthers are also people who have read and believed The Weekly World News. So, of course, they believed: (from wikipedia):
...profiles on the location and nature of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, including the news that Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of giant slingshots, the missing link and Dinosaurs. ... a series of articles profiling the ongoing relationship, and eventual marriage of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. ...that Bin Laden is actually a dwarf, that he recruited a cloned Adolf Hitler to join Al Qaeda. ...Since being captured by Batboy, Saddam had been humiliated by female prison guards, won the United States lottery, and even demanded that the government pay for his sex change operation.
Now the birthers have an absolute ally in their quest for more insanity in The Weekly World News website:
July 22, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC – The official copy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate was stolen this week by Republicans wishing to halt his health care reform. Earlier this week a group of conservatives stole the Presidents birth certificate, and are now holding it ransom to stall talks on Health Care reform. The group stealing the certificate was led by Florida Representative Bill Posey. He, along with California Congressman John Campbell, led an elite squad of commandoes in a daring heist at the Honolulu hospital where the document, real or forged, was kept.

The Weekly World News went out of print in 2007 and the website WeeklyWorldNews.com is still operating as a PARODY.

Someone, please tell that to the birthers. Granted, it might not sink in to some, but at least they've been warned not to waste their time.



Monday, July 27, 2009

Christians Executing Christians

A friend of mine emailed to me a disturbing BBC News item. Disturbing? I should say, more provocative:

North Korea 'executes Christians' By Andre Vornic, BBC News

Human rights groups in South Korea say North Korea has stepped up executions of Christians, some of them in public.The communist country, the world's most closed society, views religion as a major threat.

Only the founder of the country, Kim Il-sung, and his son, Kim Jong-il, may be worshipped, in mass public displays of fervour. Despite the persecutions, it is thought up to 30,000 North Koreans may practise Christianity secretly in their homes.

A report by a number of South Korean groups highlights one particular case of a woman allegedly executed in public last month, in a northern town close to the Chinese border. She was accused of distributing Bibles, spying for South Korea and the United States and helping to organise dissidents.

Her parents, husband, and children were sent to a prison camp.

And at this writing, there may be someone taking their "last walk," reading aloud from the Bible.

Because Christians in this country voted for the death penalty.

No, this really isn't a Christian-bashing post. Just a wake-up call to people who might read the above with mounting hatred for "Commie-Pinko" North Korea while not taking the time to look at themselves. It's a "let those without sin, cast the first stone" moment. And, very possibly, right now, there are people who will scream at me for daring to even make such a bold, insensitive statement.

Let them scream. But I think it's true.

It's also true that Christians are being executed in North Korea. North Korea has allowed the evidence to mount against its human rights violations point by point, death by death. But as we view that evidence with disgust, let us remember that we should set an example when it comes to the judging of our own citizens: our "most religious" country status is in jeopardy lest we abolish capital judgment as well as capital punishment.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Warren The Illiterate or, " My Dear, Dear Ragheaded Infidel Friends, Let's Work Together."

And Us Christians Will Rule The World!

I know it's two weeks old. I know Rick Warren's speech to the Islamic Society of North America was picked over. The "together" theme and the "talk is cheap" quote ran the media rounds and quickly died. I heard/read about them, but since it was Rick Warren, I guessed it would be a "let's all love one another" generic speech.

Now I realize that it was an insulting speech.

I had put a google alert on the text of the speech. It became available TODAY. What's up with that? And it was accompanied by this statement:

From Beliefnet.com

This is an exclusive transcript of Pastor Rick Warren's remarks at the 2009 Islamic Society of North America conference that concluded a few weeks ago, kindly provided to me by his staff and reprinted with their permission.

Rick Warren has the old Dubya Bush generic-foreigners-speech down pat: repeat the buzz words over and over again until you've numbed them into thinking the words are real.

"I love you!" "My dear, dear Muslim friends." "My next door neighbors, I love you!" I'm surprised that he didn't say "I have Muslim friends who have had me over for dinner." He knew that he couldn't say "God" too much and that he'd have to stress "together-ness." Click on the Wordle below and you'll find that the word used most often was "together."

Try to find "love." It's there. Barely. He starts out with it. That's all.

And the rest is a hodgepodge of cliches, brainless fluff and the grammatically absurd.

For instance, he wrongly links secularism to atheism:
"Secularists, those who don't believe in God."
wikipedia:

Secularism is the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs.
Then there are the remarks like:
And there are a lot of things that we could do together but tonight I would quickly want to mention 4 things.

Perhaps he was oblivious to the fact that reference to Holy Scriptures is a bit off-puting to Muslims:

And as the Holy Scriptures tell us since we are created in the image of God, each person has intrinsic value and dignity.

And most of the speech was fraught with fragments of attempted reasoning:

And since today much of the press is actually clueless of what you believe, and as to what I believe, and then there are frequent mischaracterizations in the media, frequent ignorant generalizations, generalizations are generally wrong, and frequent stereotyping, of all of us.


But the most insulting rhetoric of all was the self-aggrandizing. Warren lists how many nations he's been to with his message of "togetherness", how many Christian congregations there are in Rwanda as opposed to Muslim mosques (the ratio is about 80 to 1), and how compassionate all faith-based organizations are in comparison to evil secular government-run, atheistic programs and clinics.

You can see the full manuscript with annotations HERE.

Or you can view the full speech and the perplexed audience below. Don't be squeamish!

Wordle: Warren To Muslims

The Shambles Of Rick Warren's Speech

NOTE: This is the ACTUAL transcript as put forth by Rick Warren's staff a full two weeks after the speech was given. To the best of our knowledge and comparing it to the video, this is a true transcript.

Remarks as Delivered at the 46th Annual ISNA Convention
By Pastor Rick Warren, Saddleback Church
Washington , DC
July 4, 2009

I come here today with a spirit of love, a spirit of friendship, a spirit of deep respect. I love my dear, dear Muslim friends, my next door neighbors, ....and so many that are friends,...and I love you[DV1] . Now dear friends as globalization draws us closer and closer together, one of the most pressing questions we have to ask ourselves is how to we deal with our deepest differences? It is a fundamental question that we have to wrestle with. How do we live together in peace and harmony, and not only that, how can we actually work together, maintaining our separate traditions, maintaining our convictions without compromise, working together for the greater good of everybody in the world. Secularists, those who don't believe in God,[DV2] don't understand really, how deeply your ability, my ability and other people of faith, how our identity is tied to what we believe. They just don't get it. Now of course you understand that. You know that obviously as an evangelical pastor, my deepest faith is in Jesus Christ. But you also need to know that I am committed not just what I call the "Good News," but I am committed to the common good. And as the Scripture says "Love your neighbor as yourself." I am commanded to love and I am commanded to respect everybody. Everybody. Now I was asked to speak to you about how Muslims and Christians can work closer together for the greater good, in our world. And I will tell you that I am not interested in interfaith dialogue, I am interested in interfaith projects. There is a big difference. Talk is very cheap[DV3] . And you can talk and talk and talk and not get anything done. Love is something you do. It is something that we do together. Love is a verb. Now as the two largest faiths on this planet, Muslims and Christians, we must lead in this. We must lead. With over one billion Muslims, and over 2 billion Christians, together, as half the world, we have to do something, about modeling what it means to live in peace, to live in harmony. And there are a lot of things that we could do together but tonight I would quickly want to mention 4 things.[DV4] Can we work on these things together? And I know we can.

The first thing we have to do is what I call on Muslims and Christians together to model; what it means to respect the dignity of every person. The tensions that we see in our world, and we see these tensions all around us, friends, dear friends, they are not going to be solved by mere tolerance. Tolerance is not enough. People do not want to be tolerated, they want to be respected. They want to be treated with dignity. They want to be listened to. They want to be valued. And as the Holy Scriptures tell us since we are created in the image of God, each person has intrinsic value and dignity.[DV5] We may disagree over policy, we may disagree over behavior, but we are called, and we are commanded, to treat each other with dignity and respect. Now let me get real practical about this. That means we need to join together, and I call on you, members of Islam, we need to join together to create some kind of coalition to end stereotyping. For talking to my Muslim friends I know without a doubt you have experienced the stupidity of stereotyping, as I have as an evangelical[DV6] . And since[DV7] today much of the press is actually clueless of what you believe, and as to what I believe, and then there are frequent mischaracterizations in the media, frequent ignorant generalizations, generalizations are generally wrong[DV8] , and frequent stereotyping, of all of us. And friends, it needs to be challenged. And it needs to be challenged not just point by point through, in other words, Muslims challenging Muslim stereotypes, Christians challenging Christian stereotypes, Jews, or gays, or Hispanics, or African Americans, or anybody challenging their stereotypes. But we need a coalition of people of, as Dr. Mattson calls "people of good will." People of good will committed to the common good. Who'd say: "We are not allowing this stereotyping about anybody, it is the truth that sets us free, and we will challenge it." That's why I hope that we can, maybe even in this year, have some kind of coalition on stereotyping[DV9] and say we are not going to allow this and we will challenge it when we see it in the media.

But there is a second thing and I think that it is even greater. Not just do we need to show dignity and respect to each other, treat each other with love, treat each other with respect[DV10] , you can disagree without being disagreeable, you can walk hand in hand without seeing eye to eye, you can have unity in America without uniformity. We don't need that. I don't know if you have discovered this, but God likes variety. Have you noticed this? God likes variety, He likes diversity. In fact, when God created insects, beetles, did you know that He made over 60.000 kinds of beetles in the world? You would have thought that 3 or 400 varieties might have been enough. But God overloaded[DV11] on variety and created that many. And there are not as many like you in the world. You have a unique hand and thumb print, eye print, voice print. God made you to be you, and He made you to be broke the mold[DV12] .

Not only do we need to show respect and consideration of dignity of everybody.[DV13] The second thing we need to do together is we need to work together to restore civility to civilization[DV14] . I am sure you noticed that our world is getting more rude. It is getting more impolite, it's getting more disrespectful. People talk AT each other on television; they don't talk WITH each other. They talk about each other. They talk at each other; they don't talk with each other[DV15] . And we need to restore here in America a rebirth of what I call the civil public square[DV16] . The civil public square; where people of all beliefs, get to be[DV17] and discuss, and yes, even disagree, without demeaning or debasing each other. And in a civil public square, people of all faiths are free to engage in what they do best, sharing their faiths, sharing their ideas, where it depends on persuasion, not coercion, with each other. And just because you disagree with somebody, does not make it right to demonize them. Now when I speak of the civil public square, I am not talking about civil religion where everybody compromises their beliefs and we dumb it down so really we don't believe in anything.[DV18] Differences make a difference.

Differences do matter. And the right to believe anything does not believe that everything is right. [DV19] But you can, as I said, disagree without being disagreeable. And we show grace to each other when we make mistakes. Now in order to restore civility to our civilization, I call on American Christians, American Muslims, American Jews and everybody else[DV20] to be a part of this. The problem is that a civil vision is not of the interest of either political party or any of the media. The fastest way to raise money is to demonize the enemy, make people afraid or hate them. And the fastest way to raise ratings on television is to create a conflict. Civility, politeness is not a very interesting story. Now to restore civility, it means that as we try to walk down this pathway together, in the middle, not on the extremes. You know what I discovered, if you walk down the middle of the road, you get hit coming and going .You get hit on both sides. Actually it is easier to be an extremist of any kind, because then you have only one group of people mad at you. But if you actually try to build relationships, like invite an evangelical pastor to your gathering, you get criticized for it. So will I. But that is not what matters. Now the problem is to restore civility to civilization you are going to have to make, and I am going to have to make some very courageous decisions. And one of those decisions is to challenge conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom now today, political practice says if you disagree with an idea, then you are intolerant, you hate that person, or you are afraid of them. No, you can disagree with somebody without hating them.[DV21] You can disagree with somebody without being afraid of them. My wife disagrees with me all the time, but she still loves me. Actually she respects me, but we disagree all the time.

Now there is a third thing that we need to do together and I think we can do these, hand in hand, and that is promoting peace, promoting freedom, and protecting freedom, particularly the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion.[DV22] Today as we celebrate Independence Day, on the 4th of July, we need to remember frankly, freedom never ever lasts unless we intentionally cultivate it. History has proven over and over again that freedom is eventually lost to either license, or political correctness[DV23] , or the fear of security. And so we have to work at protecting that freedom. I had ancestors, Baptists, who died in the Revolutionary War, fighting for my freedom of speech and my freedom of religion. And yet today, over 200 years later, those freedoms are still under attack by people who don't want you to talk about the things you want to talk about and the things that I want to talk about[DV24] , or anybody else and they want us to just talk about what they want us to talk about. So we need to work together, in promoting religious freedom and freedom of speech wherever. And part of that, let me just say this to those of you who that defended [DV25] America for many generations now, part of your responsibility is helping the newcomers to learn what is means to be American. The old-timers help the newcomers in every generation. America is a nation not built on a race, not built on a creed but built on an idea; Liberty and Justice for all. And freedom for all. It is very easy to become an American, but it is much more difficult to explain the responsibilities of being an American. And we need citizen education.

Finally, I believe that there are some problems in this world that are never going to be solved by the governments of the world. I call these problems the global giants. These are problems that affect billions of people, not just millions of people. There are a lot of problems that affect millions. But as I travelled around the world and I've trained leaders of 169 countries,[DV26] I have seen these same 5 problems over and over; I have seen them in America and in every other country. The 5 global giants. These problems are so big the United States has failed to solve them, the United Nations has failed to solve them, and so has everybody else. What are they?

Number 1 is the problem of Conflict. War, confrontation, hostilities, terrorism, refugee camps[DV27] . All of the things that cause hostility between generations, hostility between races, hostility between nations, hostility between ethnic groups and economic groups, and it is just an evidence of our unwillingness to reconcile with God and to reconcile with each other. The second big problem that is all around the world is corruption. And we see corruption in government, we see it in business, in academics, we see it in healthcare, we can see it in religion. It is actually everywhere. It keeps people stuck in poverty; it keeps people being abused, and it robs them of their dignity. The third biggest problem on the planet is poverty.[DV28] Half of the world lives on less than 2 dollars a day. One billion people live on less than 1 dollar a day. We're working in countries in humanitarian efforts, like in Rwanda where the average income is 16 cents a day. Now in Rwanda they grow coffee, but a farmer will work all day and could not afford a cup of Starbucks coffee from his entire day wages. Something is wrong with that.[DV29] Poverty.

The fourth big problem is disease. This year 500 million people around the world will get malaria. That is a problem we solved 100 years ago in Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Why do people still get malaria today? Because we don't have the leaders who will say enough is enough, we are going to stop this and we are going to wipe this out right now. The number one killer of children in the world is poor water. It is diarrhea; it is water born eye disease.[DV30] Things we know how to get rid of, how to prevent or how to cure since the 19th till the 21st century....and the 5th biggest problem in[DV31] Illiteracy. Half of the world functionally can't read or write.[DV32] Five years ago I began working with our network of congregations around the world on what we call the PEACE Plan. That is promoting reconciliation, equip servant leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick and educate the next generation. In the last 5 years we had over 8000 members of my congregation go overseas, somewhere around the world in nearly 100 countries to do this PEACE Plan. [DV33] And I want to close with this story to show you how it is possible for Muslims and Christians to work together, for the greater good or the common good around us, without compromising my convictions or your convictions.

Two years ago I was invited by President Bush to be the closing speaker for the global summit on malaria. And I stood up in front of that group of world leaders and I said; I have heard of everything you said, but we will never solve any of the major problems of the world until you involve houses of faith; mosques, temples, synagogues, churches and so forth[DV34] . There are 600.000 Buddhists in the world; there are 800,000 Hindus in the world, over a billion Muslims and a couple of billion Christians. Most of the world has some kind of faith. And if you say only secularists can do humanitarian care you have ruled out the rest of the world. Now, I believe that we can do this together. And I said let me just show you an example, so I put three slides on the screen. The first slide was a picture of the western province of Rwanda. And I said this; this is the western province of Rwanda, and it has 750.000 people in it, and one doctor, and no nurses. No registered nurses for 750.000 people. I said it has 3 hospitals but they're staffed by people who are not fully trained, and I said it is a 2 day's walk to any hospital, and you have to you walk up and down the mountains, you get sick, and there is no guarantee that you will get in the hospital, it is a 2 day's walk to the nearest hospital. And by the way, 2 of these are faith based hospitals. So you would not have that if it would not be for people of faith. One of them is a secular governed hospital.[DV35] Then I said let me show you the second slide, and I put up the second slide and said; here are the 18 clinics in the western province of Rwanda. And I said now that is better for that is only one day's walk to get healthcare. If you have been to many developing countries they have a bottle of aspirin and that is it. Nothing else. I have been in clinics in Africa and they have a stethoscope or a microscope and no medicine. And I said it is better for it is only a one day's walk, but it is not good enough for nearly 750.000 people. By the way I said of these 18 clinics, 16 of them are faith based. They would not be in existence, if they would just left it up to the government. [DV36] Then I put up a third picture and I said, oh, it was covered with dots, dot, dot, dot, all over the whole the province of west Rwanda. I said all of these dots; they represent the 729 congregations of faith in this region. Now, if you needed healthcare where would you like to go to get it? 2 day's walk, a one day walk or 5 minutes away? So we began in the western province of Rwanda, about a year and a half ago. We invited 2 imams and 18 pastors, those in the area to come and involve themselves in training. The pastors and the imams said of course we can. So the 2 imams and the 18 Christian churches from Kibuye came and we said what we are going to do is we will teach you basic healthcare skills. And we began to train, and that training began to multiply in the mosques and in the churches together. And first there were 32, and we asked each imam to pick 2 members of his congregation and each pastor to pick 2 members of his congregation. And so the first group we had about 38 people take the training. Three months later they went out and got 36 more, 38 more, brought them back and began to train them. You begin to see how this began to multiply? We began to train them in how to care for basic human health needs, for since there is only one doctor for 750.000 people. That project has exploded with growth from 100 to 200 to 400 and 800. By the end of this year, in a province in Africa, they had only one doctor, a year and a half ago, a certified doctor, by the end of this year, because of the monsoon, and churches working together, there will be over 15,000 trained health care workers, in that area.[DV37]

Friends, this is the time for action. This is the time for civility, this is the time for respecting of each other, and this is the time for the common good that we work together. Some problems are so big you have to keep tackle them,[DV38] may God bless you. And on the 4th of July, may God bless America.


[DV1] Even for Warren, stumbling and badly worded – love, love, love.??

[DV2] Secularist isn’t atheist

[DV3] Interfaith projects – like getting nations declared “Purpose Driven?” If “talk is cheap” why is he there talking to people and not DOING something?

[DV4] Very awkward structure

[DV5] Utter hypocrisy. A: He still pre-judges people. B: “image of God, each person has intrinsic value” tell that to Noah as he watched God destroy earth.

[DV6] And he doesn’t stereotype?

[DV7] “Since”?

[DV8] So bad as to elicit no comment

[DV9] Bad

[DV10] Repetitious

[DV11] Overloaded? Too much of a good thing?

[DV12] Huh?

[DV13] Fragmented sentence

[DV14] Trite

[DV15] Redundant

[DV16] Poor attempt at coining a phrase

[DV17] Be …what?

[DV18] Therefore: “civil religion” (whatever that is) is “dumbed down”??

[DV19] Poorly put reasoning.

[DV20] Atheists too?

[DV21] Too disingenuous. He should be speaking to his own flock.

[DV22] The third thing is really four things?

[DV23] WTF?

[DV24] But he said: “talk is cheap.” Or is he cleverly inserting a dig at the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act?

[DV25] Transcriber mistake…again?

[DV26] Self-aggrandizement

[DV27] How do refugee camps cause conflict?

[DV28] Stating the obvious is not going to prove the point.

[DV29] Then again, maybe something is wrong with Starbucks!

[DV30] So which one is #1?

[DV31] Didn’t anybody proof read this stuff?

[DV32] Should “functionally illiterate – like me.”

[DV33] In other words, his congregation is phenomenal and wonderfully compassionate.

[DV34] I’m wondering about the “and so forth.”

[DV35] Faith-based good. Secular bad.

[DV36] Faith-based good. Government bad.

[DV37] And, of course, most of them were Christians. After all, it was “the Christian thing to do!”

[DV38] And success! The audience is now numbed and dumbed.