Oh Gee What A Surprise: Roman Catholics Trying To Start Secular Christian Values Charter Schools

Still more evidence that conservative Protestant evangelicals have been taken for a ride by Rome.

D.C. may get 7 ‘values-based’ schools – USATODAY.com

For Catholic schools in the nation’s capital, it’s feast and famine these days.

Donors have helped the Archdiocese of Washington pump $60 million into its schools in the past decade. In 2004, Congress approved a $14 million voucher that paid tuition last year for more than 1,900 students.

But as in other big cities, shifting demographics have drained D.C. of families who want to send their kids to Catholic schools, even when it’s free. And Congress, which is controlled by Democrats, probably won’t renew the voucher program.

Meanwhile, the city is at the heart of the USA’s quiet love affair with privately run, publicly financed charter schools: One in five D.C. students attend a charter.

Faced with a $55 million long-term deficit and the looming closure of nearly half its schools, the archdiocese awaits approval of an unusual proposal: converting a handful of schools to secular “values based” charter schools that reflect Catholic morality but don’t overtly teach church doctrine.
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The bid represents the largest of its kind so far — and though it stands a good chance of approval by the D.C. Public Charter School Board in April, it’s opposed by the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), which says the schools will lose their greatest strength: their religious character.

“This isn’t a path for everyone,” says archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs. “But we look around at other dioceses and they close their doors. We couldn’t do that.”

An independent, non-profit board would run the seven proposed elementary schools, with no teaching of Catholic doctrine, no in-school prayer and no religious artifacts on the walls. In fact, none of the proposed charters would be considered “Catholic” schools. Essentially the archdiocese would act as a landlord.

In that sense, it’s similar to arrangements in places such as Buffalo, and Gary, Ind., where church schools have been transformed into non-religious charters.

“We’re sad that they can’t be Catholic schools,” NCEA president Karen Ristau says of the D.C. proposal. “There will be no religious doctrine or celebration of faith or prayer in the school day.”

Though charters enjoy freedom from most regulations on personnel, curriculum, budget and teaching methods, Ristau says religious instruction is still out. “As far as I know, there’s no wiggle room.”

In the past few years, charter schools in Florida, Minnesota and New York that have approached the line between values-based learning and religious instruction have run afoul of critics who say they’re ignoring the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on government sponsorship of religion.

Ristau calls proposals such as D.C.’s “a temporary solution to a serious problem” facing churches across the nation. Recent data from Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate finds that though the percentage of Americans who are Catholic has remained steady since 1995, the number of Catholic elementary schools dropped about 10%; secondary schools have dropped 2.3%.

“At a time when we’re all trying to figure out how to create good public schools in the inner city, it’s a shame that good public schools in the inner city are going away,” says Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a Washington education think tank.

Gibbs says the archdiocese is keeping its options open. If neighborhoods change, she says, “We still have the buildings. … In 10 years, we may want to open a Catholic school again.”

What Has Rome To Do With Mecca? Medina With The Pope? Pagans With Mary?

A play on the words of Tertullian: “”What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the academy to do with the Church? Away with all attempts to produce a Stoic, Platonic or compliant Christianity!” Please follow link. msnbc.msn.com/id/22472790/

The Main Problem With Many Of The Theories On Who The Anti – Christ Is Supposed To Be

Catholics say that it will be a rogue pope. More extreme Protestants say that it is the Roman Catholic Church. Evangelicals say that it will be the European Union or the United Nations. During the Cold War, many were certain that the communists were going to play a huge role in it. Now during the “global war on terror” (which a lot of people seem to forget that the Christian west pretty much started and is DEFINITELY responsible for funding and arming “our enemies” in the first place), Islam has replaced the communists. And it is interesting: thanks to the “ecumenism” movement, a lot of Protestants that would have put the blame on Catholics are trying to cast blame elsewhere, especially to the Muslims or the EU. By the same token, a lot of Catholics that would have figured that the best sign that the pope had turned apostate would have been his making overtures to Protestants are now looking elsewhere. After all, Tim LaHaye had to have the pope raptured in his “Left Behind” novels, or that would have seriously harmed his ability to associate with politically conservative Catholics on the religious right through the Center For National Policy and similar. (Since the Center For National Policy is an arm of the Council on Foreign Relations and similar groups, it is interesting that “Left Behind” kept the focus trained solely on the EU, and not on any of the various groups, some secret and some not so secret, that are either aligned with the Council on Foreign Relations or allied with it … no mention of the Skulls and Crossbones, the Bilderbergs, the Masons, etc. Gee, I wonder why! Almost makes you wonder if a lot of these pretribulationists are being used to run interference for certain people.) It is also curious that where many Christians once accused Jews of playing a key role in the anti – Christ coming to power, the neo – dual covenant theologians of the dispensational evangelical movement have taken precisely the opposite view (motivated by their belief that pursuing self – interested, self – motivated, self – pleasing, and self – serving “relationships” with our friends in the Jewish community is the quickest way to get them to all return to Israel and rebuild the temple so the rapture can happen; of course those same Jews that would speed the departing of the Christians to heaven would be left behind to endure the great tribulation … oh well too bad hey it sucks to be you, you should have accepted Christ while you had the chance … ooops I forgot we listened to John Hagee when he said not to target Jews for conversion because doing that will slow down the process of getting you back into Israel so we can leave you behind there to face the anti-Christ. If that is what ”loving your neighbor as yourself” means, I really don’t blame Jews for not wishing to be “loved” in that fashion.)

The main issue is that this “man of sin” is supposed to cause all the people of the world to worship one religion. Claiming that it will be Roman Catholicism will mean that Muslims and Jews will have to become Catholic. (Keep on holding your breath waiting for that to happen.) Similar problems exist with the beast being a Muslim, a communist, a mason, a Mormon, a UN/EU secular humanist, or some leading political figure that you don’t like. While all of these may knowingly or unknowingly (I am believing that it is mostly the latter, though you had better believe that the former exists) play a role in bringing the anti – Christ and his system into reality and power, the beast himself will command universal support: be all things to all people. Meanwhile, any person from the groups listed above (or pretty much any other group) will by definition provoke opposition from a substantial percentage of the population. Of course, global economic, political, medical, environmental, etc. catastrophes could change a lot of that and force a lot of people that would ordinarily be enemies to set aside their differences and work together for survival. Some of that is actually happening already, and one could make the case that the Bible does prophecy such a thing happening. Further, the massive horrors that are supposed to precede the rise of the anti – Christ could wipe out a good percentage of the population, thereby wholesale removing a lot of the people that potentially would have reason to oppose the anti – Christ. You only have to look at how AIDS has dramatically reduced the population of Africa and is now spreading in Asia to see how that could possibly happen. Still, that would leave a lot of huge barriers, the primary one being the one world religion.

So, perhaps what will happen is NOT the anti – Christ causing everyone to cast aside their current religion (including atheists who have no religion at all), but rather create a way for everyone to incorporate his religion into their own beliefs? A way for a person to simultaneously participate in the one world religion while remaining a Catholic, Muslim, Jew, atheist, or Christian (including the many strands of conservative evangelical and fundamentalist)? It is very possible … especially if the said people do such a thing without knowing it, or knowing that they are practicing another religion. They may not even have to bring the world religion “into the church”, that is, incorporate it into their religious practice. Quite the opposite, it may even be expedient if they do not, because a lot of Christians would be loathe to imitate or share in what Muslims are doing, and vice versa, and the same goes for a lot of other groups. The new religion whereby the beast is worshipped COULD be something done outside of the context of that which is generally regarded as religious worship, but nonetheless be something that even the very religiously devout of all religions would not only have no problem doing, but would even desire to do, even if only occasionally. Indeed, all but the very elect, as the Bible says.

Now how elect does one have to be not to follow after some of these things? One does not have to be an elect Catholic to generally avoid Protestantism, or an elect Muslim to stay away from masonry. (That was not a universalistic or ecumenical statement on my part, since I steadfastly reject both; I am just making a general point.) And no, observing the sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday (when actually according to Jewish tradition it is sundown Friday until sundown Saturday anyway) and refusing to partake in the “Christmas”, “Easter”, or other traditional Christian holidays (in the western or orthodox tradition anyways) does not make you an elect Protestant Christian either (because if it would, it would imply that God would hold such a thing against a Christian on judgment day even if the Christian erred out of ignorance).

Instead, we might have to look in another direction; something whereby everyone in the world can worship Satan while not knowing that they are doing so; something that everyone from a person living in a “remote illiterate primitive tribal culture” to a refined Middle Eastern oil aristocrat to a middle America fundamentalist would theoretically be able to share in. One “easy out”: causing “the whole world” to worship the anti – Christ may not be a reference to each individual, but rather to the leadership of each nation. Keep in mind: it is a pretty consistent biblical principle that the actions of the leaders of a nation were counted to the nation, and that God would punish a whole nation on account of wicked actions by its leaders. (Before you claim that God is unfair in doing this, please realize that holding an entire nation accountable for the evil actions of its rulers in this life is a way of sparing them individual accountability on the day of judgment; destroying the nation on account of its leaders prevents the spiritual evil that is coming from the leaders of the culture from infecting each individual member of it. Therefore, it is actually an action of God’s mercy and saving grace to destroy a nation whose leaders want to turn it into Sodom and Gomorrah before it actually BECOMES Sodom and Gomorrah, because when a nation becomes Sodom and Gomorrah everyone in it is wicked, everyone is individually accountable on the day of judgment for their evil, and none will be saved.) That was why God warned Israel not to pray for a king, and why the results of their getting a king was the nation dividing and ultimately going into captivity because of the wickedness of their kings. Also, since one would have to be a “nation” to actually qualify, remote cultures that have not politically organized themselves into a nation – state or kingdom might for these purposes be excluded, and not be part of “the world”, so to speak, in this respect (another example of God’s saving grace, and also why we should not be so quick to look down upon “third world, primitive, tribal, savage, heathen” peoples and presume ourselves to be better than them because of our wealth, culture, and technology … they might actually be the ones that wind up with the better deal of it!

Another thing to consider: the gospel. The end cannot come until the gospel is preached to all nations, so said Jesus Christ in the gospels. Since we are talking about the “anti – Christ” here … is it possible that the gospel must be preached in a nation before people can choose the anti – Christ by virtue of either A) rejecting the gospel outright or B) accepting it initially only for a great many of them to turn away to a false Christianity? It would be the greatest of ironies if one of the consequences of our spreading the gospel to an unreached land would be the people of that land ultimately falling under the control of the anti – Christ. Or perhaps it would be better to think of it this way: what if the very reason why God wants to use His preachers of the gospel in a certain area is so the people there can hear it and reject it so that God can judge them? Please realize that God used Moses in a similar fashion before pharoah for the purposes of God judging the entire nation of Egypt, thereby glorifying Himself.

In the end, God’s Will alone shall be done, and the result will be God alone being glorified. Remember: it is ultimately not Christianity or even the church that will be glorified and whose righteousness will be vindicated, but Jesus Christ Himself, so that through Jesus Christ the Father alone will be vindicated. Think not that Jesus Christ saving you is in any way evidence of your righteousness or the correctness of your church or movement or of the church itself, but is instead merely proof that God alone is able to do the impossible, which is to save one individually (and the church collectively) from sin and the punishment of sin in the time, place, manner, and reason of His choosing. That, perhaps is the main thing that Christians should keep in mind when considering these endtimes scenarios lest they forget that it is God alone who will save them and as a consequence of their failure to remember God they will also fail to be elect and in that way be led astray, not so much by the man of sin but rather by their own pride of life.

Catholic Molestation Scandal: Wisdom From The Mouths Of Sinners?

 See this link. Now my position always will be that light cannot come from darkness, that an evil tree cannot produce good fruit. But here you have a person who is not even Christian and furthermore rejects Bible teaching mentioning that the Catholic Church’s policy of allowing homosexuals to become priests was bound to cause problems! Of course, this rejecter of Biblical truth, inerrancy, and authority (and therefore of God’s) is taking the position that the church should simply stop calling sin what it is and start saying that homosexuality is A – OK. My approach would be slightly different: use the qualifications given in the Pauline letters, Timothy and et al, in choosing your priests. That would, by definition, tend to exclude homosexuals. However, the problem is that it would include MARRIED MEN. So … the Catholic Church decided that it was better to have homosexuals serving as priests than married men!

It is highly interesting that in the interests of pushing their homosexual agenda, they got politically correct. Remember the homosexual controversy about Spongebob Squarepants? It is easy to see why gays like the show: there are no families and no women save the masculine (indeed, the most masculine character on the show) and sexually inaccessible squirrel on it. Perversity loves itself and hates order, and as such homosexuals are put off by heterosexuality and are drawn to unnaturality. So were the Catholic priesthood made up of heterosexual men who had their WIVES and KIDS always hanging around and involved in the church and were always talking about their WIVES and KIDS all the time … well remember the homosexual who actually WON a harassment lawsuit against a man because he kept talking about how much he loved his wife and kids? Heterosexism, heterosexual chauvinism, making the homosexual feel “inferior” and “excluded.” An environment of heterosexual husbands and fathers would be a homosexual repellent, but the current environment attracts homosexuals to the priesthood! Catholics say homosexuality is unnatural, well so is systematically denying men marriage. All they did was trade one form of unnatural affection for another, and once unnatural affection is let in, it allows in other forms of unnatural affection, and not only homosexuality but child molestation (homosexuals will be the first to tell you that male attraction for another male is different from male attraction for a boy, and I agree since, after all, only a tiny percentage of homosexuals are child molesters, while heterosexuals are certainly not immune from this evil).

You might say that the easy way to deal with this is to only allow FORMER homosexuals to be priests. That is, performing spiritual deliverance on homosexuals who want to be priests to cast the homosexuality demons out of them. Well, Catholics cannot do that. Quite the contrary, Catholics no longer hold that homosexuality is demonic! They have conceded that people are born homosexuals, and that such a person should simply view it as “a thorn in the flesh” (yes, lots of morons claim that Paul was a repressed homosexual, and some even claim that he did not repress it) and simply repress their homosexual desires either through marriage (to a member of the opposite sex of course) or celibacy. Why? Well, one, because taking a stand that homosexuality is demonic in origin would offend all their gay priests! But mainly because they forfeited their power to cast homosexual demons out of their priesthood by transgressing the Bible by imposing celibacy on their priesthood to begin with!

Again, it is a shame when a Christian strays so far from the truth that someone who has totally rejected truth is able to correct him in any least way, but this is certainly the case in this article telling the Catholic Church that they shouldn’t be allowing homosexual men to participate in their all male all celibate priesthood. Now of course, this is not to say that PROTESTANTS don’t have problems with homosexual pastors … they do big time, and not just in the liberal denominations that say that it is OK. It is a big scandal that no one talks about. And yes, Protestants try to cover up and shield from punishment their pastors when they commit child molestation and other crimes too. Then again, let’s face it, Protestants don’t adhere to what the Bible says concerning qualifications for church leadership or for overall church governance either. So this is one instance where Protestants DEFINITELY cannot throw stones at Catholics, but need to look in the mirror and pray and plead to God for the correction of ALL our evil ways.  .

Will The Anti – Christ Be Homosexual?

Daniel 11:37 - Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. What does that verse mean, precisely, especially the fascinating “nor the desire of women” part of it? Some people take it to mean that the anti – Christ, or more accurately the beast, will be homosexual. Of course, this interpretation is almost certainly false, a conclusion motivated by hatred of homosexuals (rather than the true biblical stance of loving the sinner while hating the sin). This is another example of the same type of nonsense that many on the Christian right engage in when they do things like claim that the anti – Christ will be a leader of the UN or EU or represent whatever group that they oppose for worldly reasons. I am absolutely certain that at one time some of these people were convinced that the anti – Christ would be a civil rights leader, for instance. (This should not be interpreted as a defense of the Christian LEFT, by the way, most of whom do not believe in the anti – Christ or anything else in the Bible for that matter.) That is one of the biggest problems with the church giving itself over to worldliness; it causes ever so much false doctrine because it causes people to interpret the Bible through their own temporal passions than by the true revealer of all knowledge, the eternal Ruach Hakadosh. So, I am absolutely certain that right after the Massachussetts Supreme Court committed their little judicial activism adventure, a bunch of preachers were so provoked into rage by the fact that (gasp!) sinners SIN and support others in their sins that they began to interpret Daniel 11:37 through their flesh and not by the Holy Spirit. Look, the Bible has never had any problem calling homosexuality plainly what it is, and even where it is “indirectly described” (i.e. in Paul’s letters), it leaves nothing to the imagination regarding the type of conduct that it is describing. So, if the beast was going to be homosexual, Daniel 11:37 would have come right out and said it. Further, even if the beast IS going to be homosexual, whoop tee doo! So what? The beast is THE MAN OF SIN, and homosexuality would just be one more. All sins are equal because all sin makes man worthy of the second death and therefore in need of the Saviour’s death to serve as substitutionary redemption. While homosexuality is clearly a PERVERSION, in terms of sin itself, the only ones that God pays special attention to are 1) murdering the innocent, 2) oppressing the poor, and 3) blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (which can be done any number of ways, including being a false teacher). So, I would be willing to propose the notion that in addition to killing a lot of innocent people, oppressing many poor people with his brutal economic system, and blaspheming with his false religious system, the man of sin is also going to be a mighty big gossip! Yes, that is right, gossip is a sin! But you aren’t going to see that many preachers going around saying that you will know the anti – Christ because he is going to be this big gossip, because that would offend all of the gossipmongers in their congregations! And you aren’t going to hear the “religious right” sort talking about how the anti – Christ is going to oppress the poor, because so many of them support or get behind political candidates that support very harsh economic, social, and criminal justice policies against the poor and would rather see $100 billion given away to our big corporations in tax breaks and subsidies that “create jobs” than $1 million “wasted on ‘nation building’ in the ‘Third World’” (as if the term “Third World” or anything like it exists in the Bible). And you also aren’t going to hear them say that the anti – Christ will come as a Jesus Only Oneness Pentecostal Word of Faith predestination “you can’t lose your salvation and you aren’t saved unless you speak in tongues” teacher, either, because even though they KNOW that those doctrines aren’t biblical, they, er, go to conferences and stuff with guys like that and bring in a lot of money. Except, of course, if they’re Catholic. Oh, they have NO PROBLEM entertaining “the anti – Christ will be the pope” notions, because WE ALL KNOW that the Catholic deviations from the Bible are FAR WORSE than our own, right?

Instead of reading that fragment in Daniel 11 out of context because of the worldly cultural notions of today, let us consider it in this fashion: that the beast will be SO DEPRAVED IN HIS EVIL THAT HE WILL NOT EVEN DESIRE WOMEN! Why? Because his desire to please himself through power will be so strong that it will DESTROY HIS NATURAL AFFECTION! Now again, none of this Catholic bashing about the celibate priesthood fulfilling Daniel 11:7. Catholic Priests have desire for women but ABSTAIN FROM FULFILLING IT as a sacrifice to God. (Of course, anyone who has read the Bible for five minutes knows that it is a sacrifice that God never asked for and does not want, but facts are facts.) But this fellow’s evil will be so great that his natural desire for women is nonexistent.

And as such, instead of reading into Daniel 11:37 something that is not there because of your frustration with the current political situation and the success of the “gay rights movement”, consider something that IS there instead: an affirmation of the natural desire between a man and a woman that is meant to be fulfilled in the holy union of man and wife. In the Garden of Eden, God said that it was not good for man to be alone, and therefore He made woman in the image of God as man’s equal to be his companion. And inherent in man was a very strong, and very natural, desire for the companionship of matrimony. It was man that took what was created to be the pure and holy product of God’s love given freely to man and turned it into something painful, hurtful, and dirty. It first happened in the Garden of Eden, when after the fall of man Adam became so depraved through sin that he tried to blame Eve (and God also) for his actions. We later saw it when man created the institutions of polygamy, sex chattel slavery, and prostitution, and then went even further into homosexuality and bestiality. And then came along religion, which has filled so many men and women with such fear and loathing of their bodies and of sex that even men and women who have been married for years have problems in that area that in many cases lead to adultery and divorce. Wow, Mr. Preacher, it is far easier for you to get up on your pulpit on Sunday or on your radio and TV show and claim that the anti – Christ will be a homosexual Catholic pope than it is for you to talk about the sexual problems that the married people in your own congregation are having, isn’t it? You don’t have the guts to stand up and say that a lot of the married members of your congregation, including the people in high administrative offices and the ones who give a lot of money to the church, need to come to you for counseling and spiritual deliverance on the problems that they are having in their marriage, and to warn them about any generational and inheritance demon issues that might also afflict their children and harm THEIR marriages by keeping THEM from developing healthy mutually enjoyable and beneficial sex lives with their spouses? Or, Mr. Preacher, is your church one of the ones where Internet pornography has been the best thing to come along in a long time, and the fantasy life that it has trapped many of your congregants in gives them yet another way to keep them from dealing with the problem? Why do so many of your congregants have computers (and TVs with DVD players and TiVos) IN THEIR BEDROOMS to begin with, Mr. Pastor? And by the way, Mr. Pastor, why do YOU have them in YOURS?

Well, no one is willing to get up in front of their congregations and talk about things like that. Is it because they lack guts? No. It is because they lack a love for God and for God’s people, and because of that they take the easy road, the easy way out, to go through the wide gate. Which is why they point the finger at homosexuals and at Catholics. It is easier to preach on Daniel 11:37 THAT way than it is to have all the men in your congregation stand up and ask them A) how many of you still desire your wives, B) how many of you ONLY desire your wives, C) of those who fail B) how to deal with that lust that is in your heart and D) of those of you that fail A) how you can RESTORE YOUR NATURAL AFFECTION THAT PLEASES GOD and E) those of who actually pass A) and B)  – which will be few – how to fulfill that desire WHILE FULFILLING THAT OF YOUR WIFE TOO!

All right you religious right political megachurch preachers who like to get up and “prophesy”, tell me when is the next time you are going to give a sermon like THAT.