The Rev. Terry Jones did pretty well with his 15 minutes of fame when he threatened to burn the Quran on Sept. 11. He’s gotten paid speaking engagements in America and he’s peddling a book.
But Britain wants nothing to do with him.
Britain has denied Jones’ entry in February for 10 days. Jones was planning to speak at rallies he’s been invited to in the United Kingdom, CNN reports.
Check out the CNN story here.
Given the backlash to the Catholic Twelve Steps of Courage story published in the Gazette Wednesday, it seems many people were caught by surprise.
It appear that not many people had heard of the program before the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs adopted it. Read my Gazette story on the backlash here.
The Rev. Mark Zacker, of Corpus Christi Church in Colorado Springs, is a facilitator of the controversial Twelve Steps of Courage, a 12-step program similar to that of Alcoholics Anonymous that supports homosexuals.
Here is what he told me Wednesday on the program: “It is not therapy. It is support and prayer for those who desire to live the chaste life.”
Zacker said people create their whole identity on their sexuality. But “for Christians, our everything is Jesus Christ. Jesus would be the orientation. Then everything, the other parts of our life – our personality, our sexuality — is served primarily by Christ.”
Twelve Steps of Courage
More info: call the Rev. Larry Brennan at St. Peter Church, 481-3511; or the Rev. Mark Zacker at Corpus Christi Church, 633-1457; or go to http://www.couragerc.net
Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/headline-111369–.html#ixzz1BWwEjiCs
Alabama Republican Gov. Robert Bentley has caused some controversy after his Monday talk at a church that kicked off his first term.
As governor, Bentley leads and must listen to the cares (ideally) of all Alabama citizens, regardless of their faith or lack of faith.
I’m sure Bentley is aware of this, but he puzzled many when he said at the Baptist church in Montgomery that Christians are his only “brothers and sisters.”
“So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister,” The Birmingham News reported Bentley saying.
Do you agree that only Christian believers are brothers and sisters?
Are we all brothers and sisters at some level?
Should the terms only be used for blood brothers and sisters to avoid implying a closeness that simply isn’t there?
Bentley’s people cleaned up the governor’s intent later. “Bentley is the governor of all the people, Christians, non-Christians alike,” one told The Birmingham News.
Last Friday, my story appeared on www.gazette.com about the Catholic anti-abortion rally to be held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Catholic Diocese of Colorado
Springs sponsored the Rocky Mountains March 4 Life, which had a theme of raising awareness about the fact that one-third of abortions in America are by black women. Read my story here.
Paul Harvey, a professor of American history at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, was in my story. This week, Harvey published an essay on the co-opting of MLK Day, particularly in Colorado Springs.
Harvey argues that King probably would have been for universal health care, which the Springs diocese fought against last year.
Harvey points out that King questioned some of the bedrock beleifs of American society, “calling unequivocally for a more just distribution of wealth, coming down hard against the war in Vietnam, and consistently invoking a social gospel critique of the workings of power and health.”
“Given the same (Colorado Springs) Catholic diocese’s bitter opposition to last year’s health care reform, it would appear the ‘civil rights of the pre-born’ stop before the child leaves the womb, at which point, as Martin Luther King pointed out, they might, given class or racial barriers from birth, very well be left without a bootstrap to pull themselves up by.”
Read Harvey’s essay here.
A faith-based pro-life pregnancy center in west Colorado Springs continues to draw pregnant women despite Planned Parenthood Westside’s move last summer to Centennial Boulevard near Fillmore Street, the Catholic Herald reports.
Abortions are performed at Planned Parenthood Westside.
The Old Colorado City Pregnancy Center opened in August 2008 in part to attract pregnant women away from Planned Parenthood Westside, which was a few houses west on West Colorado Boulevard. Read my story on the founding of the pregnancy center here.
“Things are going great,” Life Network executive director Christine Reyes told the Herald. “We’re seeing as many, if not more, clients.”
Reyes hasn’t ruled out that the center will some day move closer to the abortion clinic. But the Old Colorado City facility is serving an important purpose right now. The community, she told the Herald, “still has a need.”
In my Colorado Springs Gazette story posted today on www.gazette.com, I write about the Twelve Steps of Courage. Started in 1980 by the Catholic Church, it is a 12-step program for homosexuality, based on Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program. The program is coming to the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs.
Below are the Twelve Steps of Courage taken from the Courage International website www.couragerc.net.
The Twelve Steps of Courage
(taken from the Courage Handbook)
We admitted that we were powerless over homosexuality and our lives had become unmanageable.*
We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives to the care of God as we understood Him.
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of our character.
We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make direct amends to them all.
We made the direct amends to such people whenever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.
We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of God’s Will for us and the power to carry it out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I know, I know. I once wrote a blog post asking if Sarah Palin is the new James Dobson.
But after reading a Newsweek story on the American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer, and the fact that Palin is keeping her hat in the ring as a presidential hopeful, rather than pursue being the evangelical leader of America, I’m beginning to wonder.
As the Newsweek story points out, Fischer has been making some outlandish comments in recent months to the media that sound a lot like Dobson in his heyday. Is he calculating these comments to create maximum publicity? That’s what Newsweek wonders in its article.
“You might think that attention in the form of mockery is not what a public-policy organization would want. But when your business is waging a culture war, there is no such thing as bad publicity for ideological or rhetorical extremism. Being criticized by liberals in the media raises the profile of a socially conservative organization, and burnishes its credibility among the base. Just ask Sarah Palin, or her fans. Fischer’s critics also benefit from the twofer of his being both entertaining and threatening.”
Read the Newsweek story here.
The Rev. Brady Boyd of New Life Church in Colorado Springs announced this month on his blog that he’ll donate proceeds of his book, “Fear No Evil,” to the Dream Centers project.
Rev. Brady Boyd
Boyd’s book is scheduled to be released in April. Read his blog here. For another blog post about Boyd and Dream Centers, click here.
If you saw it, let us know what you think below.