Pope Francis: Scandal kills, and Jesus’ teachings are Christianity, not communism

David Gibson, Religion News Service, Feb 27, 2014

Also: the pope, in his homily at Mass on Thursday morning, says that all the Christian apologetics in the world won’t convince an unbeliever to believe—but living a genuine Christian life can.

In other words, practice what you preach. What a concept!

As he did in decrying the weapons industry earlier this week, Francis used as his first reference point another powerful selection from the New Testament Letter of James, in which the apostle blasts the wealthy, warning them of a terrible judgment to come for exploiting their workers:

You have stored up treasure for the last days.
Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers
who harvested your fields are crying aloud;
and the cries of the harvesters
have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

Says Francis:
“The Lord is very strong here. If someone hears this they might think: ‘But a communist said this!’ No, no, the apostle James said this! It is the word of the Lord. It is about inconsistency. When a Christian is not consistent and lives with this inconsistency they create a scandal. And Christians who do not live consistent Christian lives make a scandal.”

Francis then pointed to the Gospel reading from Mark and the well-known passage in which Jesus prophesies all manner of punishments for those lead others astray:

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,
it would be better for him if a great millstone
were put around his neck
and he were thrown into the sea.”

“Inconsistent Christians do so much evil,” the pope said. “Scandal kills.” He continued:

“If you find yourself in front of an atheist … and he tells you that he doesn’t believe in God, you can read him an entire library of books that say they prove that God exists, and you can even prove that God exists, and he will not have faith.”

“But if before this atheist you give the witness of a consistent Christian life, something will begin to work in his heart.”

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What Changed the Vikings?

By Jerry Newcombe, Christian Post, February 28, 2014

I saw an advertisement recently for a series on the History Channel on the Vikings. A viewer’s guide blurb reads, “Chronicling the medieval adventures of a band of Norsemen.”

“Adventures”? I guess that’s one way to put it. They went around killing people, raping women, stealing, and destroying things.

For two centuries the Vikings were the scourge of Europe. But what changed them? Who changed them? It’s really one of the great stories in human history.

Norway, my wife’s native land—we were married there, in fact—was once dominated by Vikings. These days, Norway has a reputation as a country committed to peace. The Nobel Peace Prize is given in Norway.

But it didn’t used to be that way … as you can see, I’m sure, in this TV series on the Vikings.

Sometime in the 800s or so, Norwegian Vikings would plant their crops in the spring and then board ships they made to invade all over Europe. They would return with loot, just in time for harvest.

The Christians in the pillaged lands would pray, “God, save us from the Norsemen [Vikings].” Religious institutions (e.g., monasteries) in particular were a favorite target of the Vikings because they often housed treasures and were often poorly defended.

The Vikings pillaged, raped, and killed men, women, and even children. They would systematically put to the torch what was left.

Dr. Kennedy and I noted in the book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? “Their fighting men, berserkers, were so fierce in battle that our word berserk comes from them.” (They used drug-inducing mushrooms in battle.)

But when one of their leaders, “St.” Olaf (995-1030), claimed to become a follower of Jesus, things began to change. I put the “saint” in quotes because by Christian standards, he wasn’t always too saintly.

He forced his people to worship Christ instead of their gods, like Odin (from whence we have the word Wednesday, i.e., “Odin’s dag” in Norwegian) or Thor (Thursday). As Thomas Jefferson rightly said, “the holy author of our religion” doesn’t force Himself on anyone. The gospel should never be imposed by force. But despite this rough start, Christianity began to take root.

Over time, the Vikings were changed. As Dr. Kennedy and I note, “…over time, many of the Scandinavians became true Christians, and so the Vikings stopped their terrible raids. Virtually every Norwegian, Dane, Swede, and even many British [because of the Viking raids] are descendants of these formerly fierce and warlike people.”

The gospel had such an effect that by 1020 A.D., Norway passed laws, reflecting these new values. Norwegian historian Sverre Steen writes about that law that “old practices became illegal, such as blood sacrifice, black magic, the ‘setting out’ of infants, slavery and polygamy.”

I recently preached a funeral for a Norwegian/American. The coffin of the deceased had an American flag on one part and a Norwegian flag on the other.

I noted to the assembled mourners how the Norwegian flag, and all the flags of the Scandinavian countries, are based on the cross of Jesus. Only the colors are different. The Danish flag (a white cross with a red background) is among the oldest national flags in the world.

Norway has sent out more Christian missionaries per capita than any other country until recent years. Norway is now one of the most humanitarian countries when it comes to helping the world’s poor. In short, Norway—a formerly warlike, barbarian nation—now has a good reputation as a peace-loving country.

My wife Kirsti told me, “It was Christianity that changed the Vikings. No doubt about it. Before Christianity came, things like humility, kindness, gentleness were considered a female weakness, instead of as virtues.” The Vikings are a trophy of the gospel of Jesus.

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Why you will fail to have a great career: Larry Smith

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Take a Walk, Sure, but Don’t Call It a Break

by Dan Pallotta, HBR, February 27, 2014

Every weekday morning, I take a three-and-a-half mile walk around my neighborhood, in pretty much whatever weather my New England town throws at me. I split an apple and give half to each of the horses at the corner of Cross Street. The sounds of their chomps and slurps fill me with vicarious happiness.

When I was a kid I walked to school every day with John Flaherty, Doug Casey, and Rollie Graham. At the end of the day, after debate practice, Bill Bailey, Paul Salamanca, and I would walk home. We never stopped talking for a minute, and we could have used another hour each day to say all that was on our minds.

Part of the reason I created the Breast Cancer 3-Days, a charity walk, back in 1998, was to offer women with breast cancer and their supporters the luxury of having three days to converse, to daydream, and to imagine—without any of the aggravation of day-to-day life intruding.

But we’re wrong to think of walking only as a way to calm the mind, a source of exercise, or as a leisurely luxury. When it comes to work, walking can dramatically increase productivity. In a very real sense, walking can be work, and work can be done while walking. In fact, some of the most important work you may ever do can be done walking.

Last year I gave the closing talk at the 2013 TED Conference. The talk has been viewed nearly three million times and is now one of the 100 most-viewed TED talks of all time. I rehearsed the talk entirely on icy-cold morning walks over the course of about two months last January and February. Far from a luxury, I dreaded those walks, because my rehearsing was hard work. The productivity of that hour was so dense—it was mentally exhausting. Had I stayed home, chained to my desk, where most of us are taught that real serious work happens, the work would have been easier—but far less productive. I’d have gone online every few minutes to check a favorite news site. Grabbed a chocolate chip cookie or a glass of water. Checked my e-mail. Walking affords no such distractions. It’s just you and the work.

A 2013 study by cognitive psychologist Lorenza Colzato from Leiden University found that people who go for a walk or ride a bike four times a week are able to think more creatively than people who lead a sedentary life. The British Journal of Sports Medicine found that those benefits are independent of mood. Sunlight also boosts seratonin levels, which can improve your outlook.

These findings are absolutely true for me. The first mile of my walk is just a racket of competing voices of judgment and to-do lists. But after about two miles, no matter how low my mood may have been at the outset, those voices settle down.

Henry David Thoreau said famously, “Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” The endorphin increase that comes with climbing hills makes the ideation that happens almost predictable. There are particular spots on my walks at which the ideas begin popping into my head, as if dropping from a magic tree on the side of the road there. Many refinements in essential phrases or visuals for my TED talk came to me at that spot.

But it’s work. The ideas don’t come unless I’ve engaged with the issue at hand. If I had U2 blaring in my ears, which would be a lot easier, they’d stay buried or just out of reach.

Last year my company, Advertising for Humanity, was up against a final deadline for a big branding assignment for a major client, and after months of work the idea just wasn’t gelling. On a morning walk it came to me. The new campaign has been a huge success. Our creative team did a walk together a few months back for another major assignment. The road seemed to be far more effective than a whiteboard for distilling the problem down to its essence. The clearing we created led to yet another big idea that has been a phenomenal success.

Walking is great for professional heart-to-heart talks. When I was running a large business in Los Angeles, I would often take employees on walks down Sunset Boulevard to talk things out. Biographer Walter Isaacson noted that walking was Steve Jobs’s preferred way to have a serious conversation. It’s not a break. It’s a change of scenery, but it’s work. The walking just makes it more productive work. The movement makes the conversation less stiff, more authentic, more responsible, even.

So, when you really need to get something done, get away from your computer and your conference room, and go for a long walk. It’s not a luxury. It’s work.

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Gaither Homecoming Count Your Blessings

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FILME- UMA RAZÃO PARA CANTAR

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A História de Ron Clark- O Triunfo

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A Vida É um Desafio

Maria Fontaine

Porque sou eu que conheço os planos que tenho para vocês", diz o Senhor, "planos de fazê-los prosperar e não de lhes causar dano, planos de dar-lhes esperança e um futuro. —Jeremias 29:11[1]

Enfrentar oposição e adversidades muitas vezes nos lança em situações e nos coloca em contato com pessoas que nunca teríamos condições de conhecer de outra maneira.Às vezes, o Senhor abre portas através de situações aparentemente negativas, as quais só poderiam se abrir dessa forma. Se estivermos em sintonia com Ele e seguirmos o Seu plano, eventualmente veremos as oportunidades que o Senhor nos ofereceu por meio dos desafios.[2] Conforme manifestarmos a nossa fé por meio do louvor a Deus, Ele nos ajudará a ter uma atitude positiva e cheia de fé, e reagir à situação tomando decisões sábias e guiadas pelo espírito.

Por pior que as circunstâncias pareçam num primeiro momento, ou a dificuldade e desafios que apresentem,certamente o Senhor tem um plano. Qualquer que seja a oposição ou adversidade, devemos procurar as oportunidades que o Senhor tem a oferecer e Lhe pedir para mostrar as vantagens da situação.

Winston Churchill disse certa vez: “Dificuldades dominadas são oportunidades ganhas”. Ele é também autor do famoso pensamento: “O pessimista vê a dificuldade em cada oportunidade; o otimista vê uma oportunidade em cada dificuldade”. Vamos então pedir ao Senhor para nos ajudar a dominar as dificuldades procurando oportunidades em toda adversidade.

Vamos abraçar os desafios que a oposição nos apresentar!Vamos dizer ao Senhor que estamos preparados. Na verdade, queremos que Ele nos dê essas oportunidades, se são necessárias para termos oportunidade de dar fruto para Ele e cumprirmos a Sua vontade.

Vamos nos concentrar nas oportunidades e vitórias que o Senhor nos reservou. Ele disse que a vereda dos Seus filhos é como a luz da aurora, que brilha mais e mais até ser dia perfeito, então podemos contar com um caminho iluminado pela Sua luz, não importam as circunstâncias.[3]

Jesus diz:

A vida não é sempre um mar de rosas, e nem tudo sempre flui e podemos seguir caminho em paz, sem empecilhos ou imprevistos para os retardar. A vida é feita de lutas, de desafios que exigem que aprimorem as qualidades de perseverança, determinação, e firmeza de convicção. É preciso encarar e desfrutar de obstáculos aparentemente instransponíveis, confiando no Meu poder para ajudá-los a superar.

Os pontos altos são quando estão na crista da onda, seguindo a todo vapor. Devem ousar pegar a onda e ficar por cima, em vez de sentados na praia evitando o desafio. Jamais superarão os desafios da vida ou alcançarão novas alturas se ficarem encolhidos nos locais seguros, e procurarem o caminho mais fácil.

Viver por Mim deveria ser um desafio. Vocês estão em guerra, uma guerra espiritual e a mais importante já travada, pela causa mais justa, para obterem resultados eternos, ou seja, a salvação da humanidade e a preparação da Terra para o Meu Reino.

Guerra tem tudo a ver com oposição. São dois exércitos adversários se enfrentando, cada um determinado a ser o vitorioso e levar o troféu. Vocês têm uma vantagem sobre os exércitos tradicionais, porque a sua vitória foi profetizada desde os primórdios do tempo. O seu sucesso é garantido, determinado no Céu. Precisam apenas enfrentar todo tipo de oposição usando as armas espirituais que lhes estão disponíveis, decididos a vencer cada batalha.

Um combatente veterano vive para a batalha. Essa é a sua vida e vocação. Ele sabe que foi chamado para lutar e está preparado para as batalhas. Se conseguirem ver o antagonismo como um desafio e oportunidade de pegarem a onda para ganharem mais velocidade e chegarem ainda mais longe, não vão considerar a oposição algo negativo, um revés, ou empecilho para os seus planos. Busquem a Mim para transformar a oposição e as adversidades em oportunidades.

Quando pedirem pão, não vou lhes dar uma pedra. Se pedirem oportunidades não as ignorem caso se apresentem na forma de antagonismo. Agradeçam-Me pela oportunidade, e perguntem-Me como aproveitar ao máximo a limonada que conseguiram fazer com esse limão. Procurem conquistar o crescimento, progresso e avanço que desejo que resulte de toda adversidade. A Minha meta é que peguem a onda e subam mais alto do que nunca.

Está tudo relacionado à sua perspectiva e atitude. Oposição e adversidade os fortalecem e os ajudam a se tornarem os vitoriosos que devem ser.

Quando assumem a mentalidade de superar, vencer e conquistar a vitória, todo tipo de oposição e adversidade se torna uma oportunidade, um degrau para novas possibilidades e maiores vitórias.

Abracem as batalhas do dia antes de elas surgirem no horizonte. Talvez não saibam o que o dia trará, mas podem ter certeza que estarão prontos se recorrerem a Mim — prontos para entrarem na luta, mesmo desconhecendo os obstáculos, provas e dificuldades. As poderosas e fortes armas da sua guerra que lhes foram dadas são mais do que páreo para qualquer adversário.[4] Então, abracem a luta, a oposição e os obstáculos, que são os ingredientes da vitória.

A fórmula para conseguir enfrentar os ventos de oposição é pura e simplesmente ter fé. Precisam confiar que estou no comando. Por mais fortes que sejam as ondas que açoitam a embarcação Eu os guiarei até atravessarem a tempestade.

Vocês também terão suas funções como tripulantes. Mas será uma função pequena em comparação à Minha. Além de ficar no leme, ajudando-os a passar pelas águas agitadas, também posso acalmar o mar e cessar a tempestade depois que ela cumprir o seu propósito. Enfrentaremos as tempestades em equipe, vocês fazendo a sua parte, e Eu o resto.

Caso se sintam um pouco inseguros e tenham dificuldade para se manter firmes no convés, olhem para o leme e lembrem-se de Quem está no comando da embarcação. Não importam as circunstâncias— o tamanho das ondas de adversidade que açoitam a sua embarcação, a sua incapacidade de enfrentar os desafios — quero que cada oposição contribua de alguma forma para o seu bem, quer imediatamente, quer no futuro. Quero que aprendam a pegar as ondas e permitir que os levem a novas oportunidades para alcançarem outras pessoas com a Minha Palavra e verdade, chegando às terras da Minha promessa, e a novos níveis de sabedoria e experiência.

Desfrutem dessa aventura e do vento soprando em seus cabelos! Desfrutem da oportunidade de exercitarem a sua fé e firmarem-se nas Minhas promessas. Em tempos de oposição, a vitória é uma questão de fé, não de ser perfeito ou nunca errar. Não tem a ver com o seu desempenho, mas sim com confiar em Mim, acreditando que juntos conseguiremos enfrentar qualquer tempestade e sair vencedores. O melhor que podem fazer é apostar tudo em Mim, e serão vitoriosos. É 100% garantido!

E Deus é poderoso para fazer que lhes seja acrescentada toda a graça, para que em todas as coisas, em todo o tempo, tendo tudo o que é necessário, vocês transbordem em toda boa obra.—2 Coríntios 9:8[5]

Publicado originalmente em fevereiro 2009. Adaptado e republicado em novembro 2013. Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli.


[1] NVI.

[2] Romanos 8:28.

[3] Provérbios 4:18.

[4] 2 Coríntios 10:4.

[5] ESV.

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Hebron still a divided city 20 years after mosque massacre

By Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, February 28, 2014

HEBRON, West Bank—Nidal lives just steps from the mosque where his life changed forever.

It was there, during early morning prayers in 1994, that an Israeli physician named Baruch Goldstein walked in and opened fire, killing 29 Palestinians and wounding 125. Nidal, then 25 and engaged to be married, was shot twice in one arm and once in the back.

The massacre at the Ibrahim mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians in the West Bank city of Hebron, occurred 20 years ago this week. Like Nidal, who is unable to work because of his injuries, the city has never been the same.

With 170,000 residents, Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank, and perhaps its most sharply divided.

After the killings set off deadly riots, Israeli authorities moved to separate Hebron’s Palestinian residents from the several hundred Jewish settlers living in the heart of the Old City. Shuhada Street, once a vital commercial corridor, was closed to Palestinians, and dozens of military barricades and checkpoints were established.

Even the biblical burial ground—said to be the final resting place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah—was partitioned with separate prayer spaces for Muslims and Jews.

Israeli officials say the measures are necessary to protect both sides from persistent inter-communal violence in the city, just 20 miles from the heart of Jerusalem. Palestinians complain that the restrictions have targeted only them and have made the Old City virtually uninhabitable for non-Jews.

A report released last year by the United Nations found that thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from the old quarter in recent years, and those who remain are forced to make long detours through multiple Israeli military checkpoints to access basic services, such as schools and hospitals.

In recent weeks, Palestinian activists have used the anniversary to demand a loosening of restrictions.

“We were victims, and now we’re being banished,” said Issa Amro, who heads a group called Youth Against Settlements that on Feb. 21 led a march calling for Shuhada Street to be reopened to Palestinians.

Nidal does not care for protests. He planned to mark the anniversary of the shooting by attending a small ceremony at the mosque, but he also wishes things would return to the way they were. Before the massacre, he could walk 100 feet from his home to the entrance of the mosque without having to pass through a checkpoint, and he could have guests over without Israeli permission.

“The cameras are on us all the time,” Nidal said. He asked to be identified by only his first name because he fears retribution from soldiers for inviting a journalist into his home without authorization.

Nidal had planned to skip prayers that morning 20 years ago. He was working at a construction site at the time and had told his mother that he needed a few extra hours of sleep. But when the dawn call to prayer rang out, he was inspired. He lurched out of bed, put on a suit and went to pray.

It was the holy month of Ramadan, and the mosque was crowded. Nidal was standing in the back of the hall, about to kneel, when the bullets struck him. He was one of the first people shot by Goldstein, a Brooklyn-born physician and member of the ultra-right Kach movement living in a settlement outside Hebron. Goldstein had often talked about his desire to clear Palestinians from land held by the Jewish people during biblical times.

Goldstein was beaten to death in the mosque by Palestinian worshipers; Nidal was taken to a hospital in Ramallah, where he underwent surgery that saved his life. He is now married, with two sons and two daughters, but has limited mobility in one arm and still suffers breathing problems.

Despite the presence of Israeli soldiers on nearly every block in the Old City, violence remains an almost everyday occurrence. The U.N. found that in 2012 and 2013, about 700 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces or settlers, and 44 Israelis were injured by Palestinians.

Nidal says he harbors no hostility.

“The person who shot me is dead,” he said. “Why should I carry this anger inside me?”

But he said it is difficult to pass through security points without thinking about the shooting at the mosque. “It’s a constant reminder,” he said.

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Crimea’s Bloody Past Is a Key to Its Present

By David M. Herszenhorn, NY Times, Feb. 27, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine—On Thursday, masked gunmen vowing loyalty to Russia seized the Parliament building in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea.

The simple explanation was that pro-Russian demonstrators in Crimea, a peninsula of Ukraine that juts into the Black Sea, were unhappy with the political developments here in Kiev, where three months of civic unrest led to the ouster on Saturday of President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

In a historic sense, however, Thursday’s events were as much about Russia’s relationship with Ukraine as they were about Crimea’s relationship with Ukraine. Crimea, a multiethnic region populated by Russians, Ukrainians and Tatars, has been the focus of territorial disputes for centuries, and in recent decades it has frequently been a source of tension between Ukraine and Russia.

Before this week, the most recent of these disputes occurred in May 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Crimean Parliament declared independence from Ukraine. And there has always been an expectation that when things become tense between Russia and Ukraine, that tension is likely to be felt must acutely in Crimea.

“The Crimean peninsula has become an arena for the duel between Kiev and Moscow on political, economic, military and territorial disputes,” Victor Zaborsky, an expert on the region, wrote in a 1995 paper for the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

The 1992 dispute was resolved with an agreement known as the Act on Division of Power Between Authorities of Ukraine and Republic of Crimea, which granted Crimea autonomous status within Ukraine.

In that sense, it is similar to the status of Chechnya within Russia. Chechnya’s autonomy nods to that region’s distinct Chechen language and Muslim religion, while in Crimea, such autonomy acknowledges that the political and cultural identity is often more Russian than Ukrainian.

Historically, Crimea has been a crossroads for stampeding empires, and it has been occupied or overrun by Greeks, Huns, Russians, Byzantines, Ottoman Turks, Golden Horde Tatars, Mongols and others. It became part of Ukraine in 1954, when the Soviet ruler Nikita S. Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine, then a Soviet republic, as a gift to mark the fraternal bond between Ukraine and Russia.

As part of the 1992 dispute, Russia’s Parliament voted symbolically to rescind the gift.

Crimea is home to the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, and also beach resorts that have long been favored by Russian and Ukrainian rulers. Russia now leases the naval installations, under a controversial deal that Mr. Yanukovych agreed in 2010 to extend by 25 years, until 2042, in an arrangement that includes discounts for Ukraine on Russian natural gas.

The worst of the conflicts over Crimea was the Crimean War of 1853-56. At least 750,000 people were killed.

Nominally a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire over a territorial dispute, it also ensnared France, Britain and the Italian kingdom of Sardinia, and the battlefield stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south.

According to the most recent Ukrainian census, Crimea is home to about two million people, with nearly 60 percent identifying as Russian, nearly 25 percent as Ukrainian, and about 12 percent as Crimean Tatar, which gives the peninsula a sizable Muslim population.

The Tatars, who in 1944 were deported en masse by Stalin to Central Asia and have since returned to their homeland, have little affection for Moscow.

Russia’s deep historical ties to Crimea and especially its military interests in the naval bases help explain why President Vladimir V. Putin and the Kremlin were so adamantly opposed to efforts by Europe to tighten ties with Ukraine. The unrest in Kiev began last November when Mr. Yanukovych, under pressure from Russia, backed away from political and free trade agreements with the European Union that he had previously said he would sign.

While Russia has major economic interests in eastern Ukraine, its military-strategic interest is greatest in Crimea.

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