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Post details: Newspaper moxie: Southsider Voice lives
02/12/09
Permalink 08:37:16 am, Categories: Posts, 307 words English (US)
Newspaper moxie: Southsider Voice lives

At a time when newspapers around the nation are cutting back or in danger of closing entirely, a new Southside paper is emerging on the streets of Indianapolis.

The backstory? After greedy Gannett killed off two of its smaller community papers last year, the South Side Spotlight and the East Side Herald, three employees of the Spotlight did not take the news lying down.

Former Spotlight operations manager Kelly Smith and former assistant editor Denise Summers, both graphic designers as well, have kept alive the dream of a weekly serving their neighborhoods.

They will launch the first issue of the Southsider Voice next Wednesday with 25,000 copies. The paper, a freebie, will be distributed at racks throughout the Southside. Jeanie York, who formerly sold ads for the Eastside Herald and the Spotlight, is joining the staff of three to continue working in sales.

"Gannett gave us six weeks notice," said Summers, recounting the news that the Spotlight was to die a quiet death. "...But so many people said to us, 'What are we going to do? It's such a shame, not to have local news...how can I help?'"

The paper's focus is "to try to show the positive side of the South Side of Indianapolis," added Summers. "Everyone wants to know what's happening, to see pictures of the Little League teams and their friends and neighbors. This is about community news."

The paper will be printed in Greenfield. The two investors -- that's Smith and Summers -- are operating out of a building at 3145 Madison Avenue owned by Jeff Cardwell, the city-county councilman. Fred Cavinder, formerly a writer for the Indianapolis Star, will contribute a column and stories to the paper.

For more information, visit the paper's website:

http://www.indysouthsider.com/

And wish them great good luck. Also, thanks to the tipster/friend who contributed to this story.
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Comment from: John Howard [Member]
On a sidenote, I've been noticing the IndyStar.com stories now often seem to be USA Today pages with the Star's banner plastered across the top. In recent weeks, other regional paper's websites also have cropped up. Slowy it's withering and dying...

It will be interesting to find out if one day the small local papers become the ONLY papers.
Permalink 02/12/09 @ 10:52
Comment from: hendy [Member]
News is local, like politics. Value for a newspaper has to be local; there are too many sources for other news available conveniently and at no charge.

Repurposing content isn't a bad idea, but when the local content is obscured, the value is harder to find.
Permalink 02/12/09 @ 15:02
Comment from: Tom Greenacres [Member]
"Repurposing?"

Bernstein would groan.

The Great Age of Debacle has created a lexicon of its own over the past decade. Think about how many silly new words and expressions have slipped into common use. It's depressing. Not only are newspapers dying, language is already dead.
Permalink 02/13/09 @ 07:01

Joel’s Army followers are most often labile teenagers and young adults. They are taught to believe they’re members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world. Sarah Palin was twelve when she first came into these circles.

Joel’s Army believers are hard-core Christian ‘dominionists,’ meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism. To paraphrase George W. Bush, ‘You’re either with us or you are against us.’

The spawning of some Christian Right sects also creates an ideology to drive the shock troops willing to literally ‘die for Christ’ in places such as Iraq or Afghanistan, Iran or elsewhere that the Pentagon needs their services. That ideology has been used to build a fanatical activist base within the Republican Party which backs a right-wing domestic agenda and a military foreign policy that sees Islam or other suitable opponents of the US power elite as Satanism incarnate. How does Sarah Palin fit into this?

In order to shape public debate over the course of national military and foreign as well as domestic policy, the US establishment had to create mass-based organizations to manipulate public opinion in ways contrary to the self-interest of the majority of the American people. The Committee on National Policy was formed to be a central part of this mass manipulation.

The Committee on National Policy is a vital link between multi-billion dollar defense contractors, Washington lobbyists like the convicted felon and Republican fundraiser, Jack Abramoff, and the Christian Right. It’s at the heart of a new axis between right-wing military politics, support for the Pentagon war agenda globally and the neo-conservative political control of much of US foreign and defense policy.

Sarah Palin it appears now, was chosen very carefully as she comes out of the very fundamentalist evangelical circles that the CNP uses to mobilize and shape America’s political agenda.

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read “Joel’s Army.” They’re evidence of Bentley’s generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that’s gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other “hyper-charismatic” preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel’s Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian “dominion” on non-believers.’ 10

Joel’s Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.

According to Joel’s Army doctrine, the enforcers of the five-fold ministry will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover.

Bentley, who claims to be a supernatural healer, is no less over the top, playing his biker-punk appearance and heavy metal theatrics to the hilt. On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: “I am thinking, ‘God, why is the power of God not moving?’ And He said, ‘It is because you haven’t kicked that women in the face.’ And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, ‘Kick her in the face - with your biker boot.’ I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God.”

The atmosphere is less charged with violence at “The Call,” a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 youths led by Joel’s Army pastor Lou Engle and held every summer in a major American city (this year’s event was scheduled for Washington, D.C. in August).

This March, at a “Passion for Jesus” conference in Kansas City sponsored by the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, a ministry for teenagers from the heavy metal, punk and goth scenes, Engle called on his audience for vengeance.

”I believe we’re headed to an Elijah/Jezebel showdown on the Earth, not just in America but all over the globe, and the main warriors will be the prophets of Baal versus the prophets of God, and there will be no middle ground,” said Engle. He was referring to the Baal of the Old Testament, a pagan idol whose followers were slaughtered under orders from the prophet Elijah.

”There’s an Elijah generation that’s going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion,” Engle continued. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire.”

For his part, Bentley’s prestige and influence are suffering at the moment, thanks to the announcement that he was divorcing his wife.

Theocratic Sect Prays for Real Armageddon
By Casey Sanchez, Southern Poverty Law Center
Posted on August 30, 2008, Printed on October 29, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/96945/

LAKELAND, Fla. — Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous “supernatural healing revival” in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don’t bat an eye when he tells them he’s seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. “He was looking very Jewish,” Bentley notes.

”An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion,” Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. “The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel’s Army. - Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God’s kingdom on earth.”

Joel’s Army followers, many of them teenagers and young adults who believe they’re members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world, are breaking away in droves from mainline Pentecostal churches. Numbering in the tens of thousands, they base their beliefs on an esoteric reading of the second chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joel, in which an avenging swarm of locusts attacks Israel. In their view, the locusts are a metaphor for Joel’s Army.

Despite their overt militancy, there’s no evidence Joel’s Army followers have committed any acts of violence. But critics warn that actual bloodletting may only be a matter of time for a movement that casts itself as God’s avenging army.

Those sounding the alarm about Joel’s Army are not secular foes of the Christian Right, few of whom are even aware of the movement or how widespread it’s become in the past decade. Instead, Joel’s Army critics are mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel’s Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening.

’Snorting Religion’

Dominionism’s original branch is Christian Reconstructionism, a grim, Calvinist call to theocracy that, as Reconstructionist writer Gary North describes, wants to “get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”

Notorious for endorsing the public execution by stoning of homosexuals and adulterers, the Christian Reconstructionist movement is far better known in secular America than Joel’s Army. That’s largely because Reconstructionists have made several serious forays into mainstream politics and received a fair amount of negative publicity as a result. Joel’s Army followers eschew the political system, believing the path to world domination lies in taking over churches, not election to public office.

Another key difference between the two branches of dominionism, which maintain a testy, arms-length relationship with one another, is Christian Reconstructionism’s buttoned-down image and heavy emphasis on Bible study, which contrasts sharply with Joel’s Army anti-intellectual distrust of biblical scholars and its unruly style.

”Some people snort cocaine, others snort religions,” Joel’s Army Pastor Roy said while ministering a morning program at Todd Bentley’s Lakeland, Fla., revival in late May.

As this article went to press, Bentley’s “Florida Outpouring” had been running for more than 100 days straight. Many attendees came in search of spontaneous physical healing and a desire to be part of a mystical community marked by dancing, shouting, gyrating, speaking in tongues and other forms of ecstatic release.

Snide jabs at traditional church services are fairly common at Bentley’s revivals. In fact, what takes place onstage at the Florida Outpouring looks more like a pro wrestling extravaganza than church. On stage, Bentley and his team of pastors, yell, chant, and scream “Fire!” and “Bam!” while anointing followers.

The audience members behave as if they are at a psychedelic counterculture festival. One couple jumps up and down twirling red and silver metallic flags. Dyed-haired teenagers pulled in by the revival’s presence on Facebook and MySpace wander around looking dazed. Women lay facedown on the floor, convulsing and howling. Fathers wail in tongues as their confused children look on. Strangers lay hands on those who fail to produce tongues or gyrate wildly enough, pressuring them to “let it out.”

Bentley is considered a prophet both by his followers and by other leaders of the Joel’s Army movement, whose adherents claim to be reviving a “five-fold ministry” of prophets, apostles, elders, pastors and teachers, as outlined in the Book of Ephesians. Not every five-fold ministry is connected to the Joel’s Army movement, but the movement has spurred an interest in modern-day apostles and prophets that’s troubling to the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal church, which has officially disavowed the Joel’s Army movement.

Warrior Nation

According to Joel’s Army doctrine, the enforcers of “the five-fold ministry” will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover.

”Everyone born after abortion’s legalization can consider their birth a personal invitation to take part in this great army,” writes John Crowder, another prominent Joel’s Army pastor, who bills his 2006 book, The New Mystics: How to Become Part of the Supernatural Generation, as a literal how-to guide for joining Joel’s Army.

Both Bentley and Crowder are enormously popular on Elijah’s List, an online watering hole for a broad spectrum of Joel’s Army enlistees, from lightweight believers who merely share an affection for military rhetoric and pastors who dress in army camouflage (several Joel’s Army pastors are addressed by their congregants as “commandant” or “commander”) to hardliners who believe the church is called to have an active military role in end-times that have already begun. Elijah’s List currently has more than 125,000 subscribers on its electronic mailing list.

Rick Joyner, a pastor whose books, The Harvest and The Call, helped popularize Joel’s Army theology by selling more than a million copies each, goes the furthest on Elijah’s List in pushing the hardliner approach. In 2006, he posted a sermon called “The Warrior Nation — The New Sound of the Church,” in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and called believers “freedom fighters.”

”As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel’s Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces,” Joyner wrote. “In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc.”

In a sort of disclaimer, Joyner writes at one point that God’s army “will bring love, peace and stability wherever they go.” But several of his books narrate with glee what he describes as “a coming civil war within the church.” In his 1997 book The Harvest he writes: “Some pastors and leaders who continue to resist this tide of unity will be removed from their place. Some will become so hardened they will become opposers and resist God to the end.”

Two years later, in his book The Final Quest, Joyner described a vision (taken as prophecy in the Joel’s Army world, where Joyner is considered an “apostle”) of the coming Christian Civil War in which demon-possessed Christian soldiers enslave other, weaker Christians who resist them. He also describes how the hero of the novel — himself — ascends a “Holy Mountain” in order to learn new truths and to acquire new, magic weapons.

Kids on Fire

Attendees are called upon to fast and pray for 40 days and take up culture-war pledges to lead abstinent lives, reject pornography and fight abortion. They’re further asked to perform “identificational repentance,” lugging along family trees and genealogies to see where one of their ancestors may have enslaved or oppressed another so that they can make amends. (Many in the Joel’s Army movement believe in generational curses that must be broken by the current generation).

As even his critics note, Engle is a sweet, humble and gentle man whose persona is difficult to reconcile with his belief in an end-time army of invincible young Christian warriors. Yet while Engle is careful to avoid deploying explicit Joel’s Army rhetoric at high-profile events like The Call, when he’s speaking in smaller hyper-charismatic circles to avowed Joel’s Army followers, he can venture into bloodlust.

Although Joel’s Army theology is mainly directed at people in their teens and early 20s via events like The Call and ministries like IHOP, sometimes the target audience is even younger. In some of the most arresting images in Jesus Camp, a 2006 documentary about the Kids on Fire bible camp in North Dakota, grade school-aged kids dressed in army fatigues wield swords and conduct military field maneuvers. “A lot of people die for God and they’re not afraid,” one camper told ABC News reporters in a follow-up segment.

”We’re kinda being trained to be warriors,” added another, “only in a funner way.”

Cain and the Intellectuals

Both Christian and secular critics assailed the makers of Jesus Camp for referring to the camp’s extremist, militant Christianity as “evangelical.” There is a name, however, that describes Kids on Fire’s agenda, if you’re familiar with their theology: Joel’s Army. Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the camp, said that a third of the kids at her camp were under 6 years old because they are “more in touch in the supernatural” and proclaimed them to be “soldiers for God’s Army.” Her camp’s blend of end-times militancy and supernaturalism is perfectly emblematic of the Joel’s Army movement, whose adherents believe their cause is prophesied in the Old Testament chapter titled “An Army of Locusts.”

The stark, evocative passages of that chapter describe a locust swarm that lays waste to Israel (to this day, the region suffers periodic locust invasions): “Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come.” As remarkable as the language is, most biblical scholars agree that it is a literal description of a locust invasion and resulting famine that occurred sometime between the 9th and 5th centuries B.C.E.

In the Book of Joel, the locust invasion is described as an omen that an Assyrian army to the north may attack Israel if it fails to repent as a nation. But nowhere is the invasion described as an army of God. According to an Assemblies of God position paper: “It is a complete misinterpretation of Scripture to find in Joel’s army of locusts a militant, victorious force attacking society and a non-cooperating Church to prepare the earth for Christ’s millennial reign.”

The story of how an ancient insect invasion came to be a rallying flag for 21st-century dominonists begins just after World War II in Canada. Out of a small town in Saskatchewan, a Pentecostal preacher named William Branham spearheaded a 1948 revival in which he claimed that his followers lived in a new biblical time of “Latter Rain.”

The most sinless and ardent of his flock would be called “Manifest Sons of God.” By the next year, the movement was so strong — and seemed so subversive to some — that the Assemblies of God banned it as a heretic cult. But Branham remained a controversial figure with a loyal following; many of his followers believed him to be the end-times prophet Elijah.

Michael Barkun, a leading scholar of radical religion, notes that in 1958, Branham began teaching “Serpent Seed” doctrine, the belief that Satan had sex with Eve, resulting in Cain and his descendants. “Through Cain came all the smart, educated people down to the antediluvian flood — the intellectuals, bible colleges,” Branham wrote in the kind of anti-mainstream religion, anti-intellectual spirit that pervades the Joel’s Army movement to this day. “They know all their creeds but know nothing about God.”

The Gates of Hell

Branham was killed in a car accident in 1965, but his Manifest Sons of God movement, the direct predecessor of Joel’s Army, lived on within a cluster of hyper-charismatic churches. In the 1980s, Branham’s teachings took on new life at the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF), a group of popular self-styled apostles and prophets who used the Missouri church as a launching pad for national careers promoting outright Joel’s Army theology.

Ernie Gruen, a local pastor who initially promoted and gave citywide credibility to KCF pastors in the early 1980s, cut his connections in 1990. Concerned about KCF’s plans to push its teachings worldwide, Gruen published a 132-page insider’s account, based on taped sermons and conversations and interviews with parents who had enrolled their kids in KCF’s Dominion school.

According to Gruen’s report, students at the school were taught that they were a “super-race” of the “elected seed” of all the best bloodlines of all generations — foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the “end-time Omega generation.”

Though he’d once promoted these doctrines himself, Gruen became convinced that the movement was turning into an end-times cult, marked by what he summarized as “spiritual threats, fears, and warnings of death,” “warning followers to beware of other Christians” and exhibiting “a ‘super-race’ mentality toward the training of their children.”

When contacted by the Intelligence Report, Gruen’s spokesman said that Gruen stands by everything he published in the report but no longer grants media interviews.

The Kansas City Fellowship remains in operation and has served as a farm team for many of the all-stars of the Joel’s Army movement. Those larger-than-life figures include John Wimber, the founder of a California megachurch, The Vineyard, who, before his death in 1997, proclaimed that Joel’s Army would not only conquer the earth but defeat death itself. Lou Engle founded The Call based on the Joel’s Army visions that KCF “prophet” Bob Jones (not to be confused with Bob Jones III of Bob Jones University) received while at KCF. Mike Bickle, another KCF member, stayed in Kansas City to form the International House of Prayer.

IHOP members and other Joel’s Army adherents are well aware of how their movement is perceived by other conservative Christians.

”Today, you can type ‘Joel’s Army’ into a search engine and a thousand heresy hunter websites pop up, decrying the very mention of it,” writes John Crowder in The New Mystics. Crowder doesn’t exactly allay critic’s fears. “This is truly warfare,” he writes. “This battle is not a game. They [Joel’s Army warriors] will not be on the defense; they will be on the offense — and the gates of hell will not be able to hold up against them.”

So far, few members of the secular media have taken notice of Joel’s Army, even as they report on Protestant dominionists like Pat Robertson or the more outrageous calls for the stoning of gays and lesbians emanating from Reconstructionist circles. There are exceptions, however. On the DailyKos, a well-read, politically liberal blog, a diarist has been blogging for two years about her experiences as a walkaway from a Joel’s Army church. She writes under a pseudonym out of fear of physical reprisals.

She may have real cause for concern. As Wimber, the late founder of The Vineyard, put it in one of his most famous and fiery sermons, one that is still frequently cited by Joel’s Army followers: “Those in this army will have His kind of power. - Anyone who wants to harm them must die.”

Joel’s Army

http://www.letusreason.org/Latrain10.htm

Remember the song that went, “Oh when the saints, come marchin’ in, oh when the saints come marchin in, Lord I want to be in that number when the Saints come marchin’ in.” This is not the tune you’ll find Joel’s army sings because they are not looking to be brought up to Jesus but waiting for Christ (the anointing) to be brought down upon them to march through the land.

The church that once looked toward being taken away to heaven (Jn.14) has been taught by some to change her focus. In about the mid-70’s a triumphalist post-millennial doctrine appeared. Instead of watching for the blessed coming of the Lord the goal became to establish the Kingdom on earth. Doctrines about the rapture, tribulation, an end time apostasy with a literal personal Antichrist were taught as deceptions. Without a tribulation ahead, there is no need to be vigilant, discerning or watchful. With no apostasy, there is no need to look for deception, only blessing. The desire for heavenly things has faded out, and Restorationist Christians no longer “look up”. They look around them and consider how to transform the world and rule over it. When Christ comes back they will hand over a Christian earth.

”In all revolutions there are noisy and dangerous times as THE OLD ORDER Is replaced by the now - after the dust settles. WE CAN PROCEED TO BUILD the beautiful kingdom that the Lord has purposed from the foundations of the World” - Vinson Synan, one of the leaders of A.D. 2000 (FULNESS, Jan - Feb. 1990. Vinson Synan. p. 24.)

Many believe Israel was replaced by the Church in prophecy despite it brought back into its land and the city of Jerusalem reclaimed in 1967. The focus of attention became the earth, rather than the eternal heavenly kingdom. The blessings of God are now, instead of rewards later. The nations and all people are to be Christianized. Taking the nations for God will be accomplished by becoming an army fighting a war against spiritual hosts of wickedness and driving them out of the land. With our newly discovered powers that are taught by the new leaders (apostles and prophets)we can now bind and loose the wicked ones and punish evil.

Ern Baxter said in 1975:.We have individual salvation - but in the nation we have corporate salvation-God’s people are going to start to exercise rule and they’re going to take dominion over the power of Satan. As the rod of his strength goes out of Zion, he will change legislation, he will chase the devil off the face of God’s earth and God’s people will bring about God’s purposes and God’s reign. (MacPherson “Can The Elect Be Deceived” 1986)

Deliverance is now throughout cities and nations as well as Christians. Despite there is no example or teaching that a Christian can be so inhabited some of the best selling books are all about this.(oppression is not the same as possession) Through their teaching, demonization in Christians was also birthed and deliverance ministries through exorcism by the laying on of hands.

Not all Dominionists, Charismatics and restorationists believe the same things, especially how it is to be accomplished. Few still believe in a rapture, but there are many variables. So I’m not addressing all but a certain group that has mainly been affiliated with the Vineyard and the prophet/apostle movement from Kansas City and the Latter Rain teachers.

The latter Rain is run on the rail of misinterpreted Scriptures and spiritualizing their context. Hosea 6:3 tells us the Lord will come as the Latter Rain, and James 5:7 speaks of the Latter Rain, but ties it together with the coming of the Lord. The “former and latter rain” refers to the agricultural calendar of the land of Israel although it has a spiritual truth. The latter rain was essential for bountiful crop harvest in Israel. This corresponds to the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost as Peter proclaimed this is like that of Joel but was not the ultimate fulfillment. Joel 2:23 also speaks of a harvest of abundance. But the modern interpreters have given Joel’s army new significance. Joel’s army will purge the earth (the cleansing) of all wickedness and rebellion and even judge the apostate Church (which is those who do not join their fraternity of miracle workers). They will overcome death itself, they will redeem all creation, and restore the earth. The Church will inherit the earth, and rule the nations all before Christ comes back. When he (Jesus) does come we are to hand the kingdom over to him and he will say job well done, enter into the kingdom. The real Joel’s army in Joel 2 does NO miracles and marches strictly through the land of Israel making destruction, there is no blessing from Joel’s army marching. If one reads through about Joel’s army they find that they will be destroyed in the end.

Because Joel’s army is called God’s army they think that they are his people. they may be doing Gods will but they certainly are not his Church or saints. In the same way Cyrus was called Gods shepherd Isa.44:28 he was given all the kingdoms of the earth Ezra 1:2, 2 chron.36:23, He was called Gods anointed Isa. 45:1”Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held— to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut.” Sounds familiar? Nebuchadnezzar was also called Gods servant Jer. 43:10”and say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will send and bring Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden. And he will spread his royal pavilion over them.”One must consider the actions of these men’s teachings in light of what Joel is actually saying. So despite their new interpretation, the Bibles definition still stands. They may be called Gods army but they are not his people. Joel’s army is the raising up of a devouring army of locusts, (destroyers) to bring judgement upon the land. Whether its Israel or the church, its not good.

Much of this is being preached from the pulpits big and small without the congregant’s ever blinking. Without being able to identify phrases they don’t know what they are ingesting. Many churches have turned into Latter Rain churches by default or influence, some knowingly and some not.

Benny Hinn shows his latter Rain ties with “The lord said this , this is where my people will rise up as an army and bring millions into the kingdom of God.” (Benny Hinn Honolulu Blaisdale Jan.21 1999)

Jack Deere states “This army is unique…when this army comes , its large and mighty. it’s so mighty that there has never been anything like it before. Not even when, Moses not even David, not even Paul . what’s going to happen, now will transcend what Paul did, what David did what Moses did…

Rick Joyner teaches “”What is about to come upon the earth is not just a revival, or another awakening; it is a veritable revolution. The vision was given in order to begin to awaken those who are destined to radically change the course, and even the very definition of Christianity. The dismantling of organizations and disbanding of some works will be a positive and exhilarating experience for the Lord’s faithful servants-the Lord will raise up a great company of prophets, teachers, pastors and apostles that will be of the spirit of Phinehas - this “ministry of Phinehas” will save congregations, and at times, even whole nations. …Nations will tremble at the mention of their name-”(THE HARVEST, Rick Joyner)

Notice Its not the name of Jesus they will tremble at but THEIR NAME. All this from a vision to awaken the destined.

So if one does not involve themselves in this then they are not faithful servants. But our attention should be on the statement of changing the course and definition of Christianity. What person in all of history has ever said this? Certainly Martin Luther’s contribution was to bring the Church back to its correct doctrine and purpose. Is this what Joyner and others mean? Certainly not, as we look at the following statements of explaining what they want it to be like.

”In the near future we will not be looking back at the early church with envy because of the great exploits of those days, but all will be saying that He certainly did save the best wine for last. The most glorious times in all of history have not come upon us. You, who have dreamed of one day being able to talk with Peter, John and Paul, are going to be surprised to find that they have all been waiting to talk to you.” (Rick Joyner, The Harvest Morning Star, 9, 1990)

This means the apostles were not special in starting the Church and having divine miracles, we are. Think about the ramifications of this proposal. This means if the Church began with them and today’s Church with its SUPER apostles and prophets will do greater things. Then the Church really begins all over again.

Nowhere does Scripture teach that the Church will do wonders like this in the end. Jesus actually WARNED that these signs and wonders at the end are to DECEIVE THE ELECT.(MT.24) Is anyone paying attention to the Scripture and the time we are living in?

Mormons are not the only ones who have false modern apostles. John a true apostle said the Church did. Rev.2:2 “And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars;” Notice John says they have tested them. Paul said the Church did as well 2 Cor. 11:13 “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.” Notice Paul says they transform themselves to look like they do. How? By their teaching, authority and could very well have had manifestations of power.

” The early church was a first fruits offering, truly this will be a harvest! It was said of the Apostle Paul that he was turning the world upside down; it will be said of the apostles soon to be anointed that they have turned an upside down world right side up.” (Rick Joyner, The Harvest, 128-129) So from what I can gather Joyner says that they are going to reverse what the Apostle Paul did.

Peter Wagner has recently written a book called the New Apostolic Churches which explains the new Apostolic Spirit that is raising international leaders. It is from these Churches that the new Christianity will go forth and be implemented throughout the world.

We are not talking about those who plant churches or are leaders of movements or denominations, but those who claim Spiritual authority JUST LIKE the Apostles, by revelations and miracles. This boasting before the facts is a constant theme throughout these men’s writings.

Joseph Smith of the Mormons in May 1844 proclaimed this: “I have more to boast of than any man ever had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a church together since the days of Adam.…Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I.” While the boasting may be for slightly different reasons essentially, the end result is the same. Some will do what even the apostles were unable to do.

Jack Deere explains Joel 2 in the context of Ezekiel 9: “When this army comes, He says it’s large and it’s mighty. It’s so mighty that there’s never been anything like it before…‘begin the slaughter and begin it in the temple and begin it with the elders, the leaders of my people.’ And they walk through the land and they start and they begin to slaughter and you know it’s already started with the biggest names in His household? He has already started the slaughter…and it is coming now among the Church.”( It Sounds Like the Mother of All Battles, Jack Deere, VMI, Joel’s Army, 1990, “Joel’s Army”)

-this army is totally unique. This army, there’s never been one like it and there never will be one like it in ages to come. -Its so mighty that there’s never been anything like it before. Not even Moses, not even David, not even Paul. What’s going to happen now will transcend what Paul did, what David did .. what Moses did, even though Moses parted the Red Sea - there’ll be a numerous company. . , Revelation hints at this when it talks about the 144,000 that follow the Lamb wherever He goes and no one, no one can harm that 144,000. See, that’s a multiple of 12. What’s 12? Twelve is the number of the Apostles, 12 is Apostolic government. And when you take an important number in the Bible and you multiply if, it means you intensify it. So, 12, 000 times 12, 000 = 144,000. That is the ultimate in Apostolic government. Revelation talks about that. Well, here Joel is talking about it now in different words, a powerful, a MIGHTY ARMY with many Paul’s many Moses’, many David’s.” ( VINEYARD MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL 1990.)

This is portraying an “elite” special group which is exactly what the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach. The Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that they are the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14. Both The JW’s And Deere are wrong. The Bible means just what it says in this instance, they are Jews from the 12 tribes who are evangelists not an army and certainly not a destructive one as in Joel. This genuine Revival they are waiting for (as the main participants) is introduced by the sealing of the 144,000 Jewish Evangelists. Those who respond to their message will literally lose their head over it.

Terry Virgo, in “Restoration in the Church” says this is about God visiting the Church! It is treated as the coming of the GLORY of Christ, in the Latter Rain visitation, not the physical coming. And “the result of that visitation is that the poor misguided flock is UNITED and transformed into a majestic war-horse - a great vehicle of power and energy, a fearsome, awe-inspiring, effective tool of WAR. The sheep become “mighty men treading down the enemy in battle” … and the flock is TRANSFORMED CORPORATELY (they become the Corporate Christ).

As Jewel Grewe so clearly put it,” The MANIFESTED SONS believe they are establishing a new and glorious Kingdom - led by a NEW BREED of men of women. The “Joel’s Army” now individually manifest as Sons of God. would be revealed to the world as many “saviours” who would take dominion and execute judgment.”

Jack Deere speak of an invincible army. He says, “-they won’t be able to kill this army.” John Wimber also stated, “those in this army will have the ‘kind of anointing - his kind of power - anyone who wants to harm them must die”.

Paul Cain says that out of this unity will come an army, Joel’s Army, based on Joel 2: “I told you about - this recurring [35 year-old] vision I had-. The angel of the Lord said, ‘You’re standing at the crossroads of life. What do you see?’ And I saw a brilliantly lit billboard which reads, ‘Joel’s Army now in training.’ . . . .I believe one day soon Joel’s Army will be in training - until it graduates into the stadium -. But a right understanding of the plan of God for this generation brings this tremendous inclusion-. God’s offering to you, this present generation, a greater privilege than was ever offered any generation at any time from Adam clear down through the millennium.”

”I had a vision of you people coming from . . . a circle of maybe a hundred miles and I saw people coming from every major city within that circumference and a great conclave was taking place, and it was the training of Joel’s Army. . . . I believe that people are going to come together by the thousands and train for the Army of the Lord. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I mean, that’s long overdue.” (Grace Ministries tape)

Paul Cain has prophesied a day when sporting events throughout the world will be cancelled because the stadiums will be used for revival meetings. He says the Lord gave him this vision around the late fifties or early sixties ,and it his been repeated more than 100 times since then. This spectacular happening will see millions brought to Christ in a short period of time.

”I had a dream that became a recurring dream, and it was about all the stadiums - and we’ve told this hundreds and hundreds of time all across America, all over the world, in fact - and I saw these stadiums and football fields, soccer fields and sports arenas, all of them filled with thousands of people, sometimes over 100,000 in each place” (Christ Chapel, August 30, 1995). This is much more than what we have seen from Promise Keepers, in fact we may be only seeing the first of these gatherings .

I don’t think everyone is in the same way involved but the statements seem uncannily the same. Coach McCartney wants unity and every church involved. In a Promise Keepers gathering in the Detroit Silver Dome stadium in April 1995, founder Bill McCartney, speaks of a great army like Cain and others, “We have a great army that we are assembling. They’re the Christian men of this nation. However, our leadership, our clergy are not uniform. Our clergy are divided. . . . There’s no unity of command. . . …We have to assume that responsibility. We have to say, ‘Are we impacting our clergy in a way that’s going to take them and make them all that they have to be in order to lead this army?’ Because the shepherds are the ones God’s chosen to lead us out of here” (Promise Keepers Meeting, April 29, 1995, Detroit Silver Dome).

The last time I read the Scripture it was Jesus who was the captain of the Lords army, and he was in charge then, as he is now in the Church. Who will be the leaders or leader of this Church army? We have no appointed Generals except self appointed ones today.God has made local church’s as part of the universal Church, each is autonomous. None answer to a leadership that controls them all since they are to be called men in the pastorate listening to Gods direction for their communities as well as in the world.

’Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of what God wants to do with His hand-picked leaders?’ . . . I think Almighty God is going to rip open the hearts of our leaders. I think He’s going to tear them open. And I think he’s going to put them back together again as one. One leadership. We’ve got to have one leadership, one leadership only. We’ve got to have everybody hitting on all cylinders. There’s only one race. It’s the human race. There’s only one culture. Its Christ before culture. Christ culture - that’s all that there is.” (Promise Keepers Meeting, April 29, 1995, Detroit Silver Dome).

Scripture verse for this? NONE

The bible says no such thing, it says the opposite. And it becomes a dangerous precedent when a few control the many, church or not! Jesus said the field is the world. The wheat and tares grow up together. And we had better be able to distinguish the difference in our day. This concept of unity was tried by the Catholic Church to integrate religion with the state and politics. And it became the downfall of a Church that was kept pure by persecution. We may yet see the “holy wars” like the early Holy Roman Empire revived to try and produce what only Christ can as the Prince of Peace.

Rick Joyner who seems to be a main promoter of an end time army wrote from his visions about “a bloody civil war” in the Church. (Latter Rain Revival, 1996) that the blues and the grays in his end-time war scenario in the church is that just likened to the American Civil war. He interprets this with “In dreams and visions blue often represents heavenly-mindedness – the sky is blue - and gray speaks of those who live by the power of their own minds – the brain is often called gray matter - This will be a conflict between those who may be genuine Christians, but who live mostly according to their natural minds and human wisdom, and those who follow the Holy Spirit.” (Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin, 5/96 )

Spoken like a true Gnostic. First he has a dream of prophecy that is not biblical, then he himself interprets the meaning by the colors from dreams, which are from the view of his human understanding.

Joyner says, “I do not believe that this [prophecy] can now be stopped, or that the Lord wants it stopped” The main reason for the spiritual civil war is over the institution of spiritual slavery and “ to drive the accuser out of the church, and for the church then to come into a unity that would otherwise be impossible.” descriptions like ‘this is the church’s greatest victory, her finest hour, triumphantly marching, empowered for victory’ are commonplace for those who want to assert Gods kingdom on earth now. But by this method the are exhibiting a master to slave relationship which operates on power. This is not the servitude that Christ said would be found in his followers.

Joyner contradicts himself by saying “Criticism is one of the ultimate manifestations of pride because, whenever we criticize someone else we are by that assuming that we are superior to them, Pride brings that which any rational human being should fear the most - God’s resistance. We would be better off having all of the demons in hell resisting us than God!” (Epic Battles of The Last Days, p.23, Rick Joyner) That’s exactly what Joel’s army ends up to be, resisted by God and destroyed.

What I see in Joyner’s writings is much criticism of the Church, but it is disguised as dreams and visions from the Lord for guidance. All one has to do is read his writings and it won’t be long before they see certain Christians demonized in graphic detail. To be rational one must use their mind, something of which he has already drawn a line in the sand on his own imaginary battlefield as the enemy. As he has accused the brethren of not being spiritual, even to the point of identifying the “Antichrist” as the orthodox church. (Weighed and Found Wanting, Bill Randles, p. 64.) As far as I’m concerned, criticism does not have to be severe, it can be advantageous to ones growth if it presents the truth and is done with right motive’s.

May we have the full armor of God on as Joel’s army begins to march and challenges the historic view of Christianity. Yes, there just may be a civil war, but it certainly would not be necessary if those who aggressively want to change the Church and the world by power would get back to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures for its guidance, and let God be God.

Arming’ for Armageddon
Militant Joel’s Army Followers Seek Theocracy
By Casey Sanchez
Photography by Lowell Handler

”An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion,” Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. “The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel’s Army. … Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God’s kingdom on earth.”

”The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008,” writes The Discernment Research Group, a Christian watchdog group that tracks what they call heresies or cults within Christianity. “One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors.”
’Snorting Religion’
Joel’s Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.

”Some people snort cocaine, others snort religions,” Joel’s Army Pastor Roy said while ministering a morning program at Todd Bentley’s Lakeland, Fla., revival in late May.

The Call

”The Call,” a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 young people held in a different city each year, is led by Joel’s Army pastor Lou Engle.

In a 2001 position paper, Assemblies of God leaders wrote that they do not recognize modern-day apostles or prophets and worried that “such leaders prefer more authoritarian structures where their own word or decrees are unchallenged.” They are right to worry. Joel’s Army followers believe that once democratic institutions are overthrown, their hierarchy of apostles and prophets will rule over the earth, with one church per city.
Warrior Nation
According to Joel’s Army doctrine, the enforcers of the five-fold ministry will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover.

Kids on Fire

Bentley, who claims to be a supernatural healer, is no less over the top, playing his biker-punk appearance and heavy metal theatrics to the hilt. On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: “I am thinking, ‘God, why is the power of God not moving?’ And He said, ‘It is because you haven’t kicked that women in the face.’ And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, ‘Kick her in the face … with your biker boot.’ I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God.”

Although Joel’s Army theology is mainly directed at people in their teens and early 20s via events like The Call and ministries like IHOP, sometimes the target audience is even younger. In some of the most arresting images in “Jesus Camp,” a 2006 documentary about the Kids on Fire bible camp in North Dakota, grade school-aged kids dressed in army fatigues wield swords and conduct military field maneuvers. “A lot of people die for God and they’re not afraid,” one camper told ABC News reporters in a follow-up segment.

”We’re kinda being trained to be warriors,” added another, “only in a funner way.”

Cain and the Intellectuals

Both Christian and secular critics assailed the makers of “Jesus Camp” for referring to the camp’s extremist, militant Christianity as “evangelical.” There is a name, however, that describes Kids on Fire’s agenda, if you’re familiar with their theology: Joel’s Army. Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the camp, said that a third of the kids at her camp were under 6 years old because they are “more in touch in the supernatural” and proclaimed them to be “soldiers for God’s Army.” Her camp’s blend of end-times militancy and supernaturalism is perfectly emblematic of the Joel’s Army movement, whose adherents believe their cause is prophesied in the Old Testament chapter titled “An Army of Locusts.”

The Gates of Hell
Branham was killed in a car accident in 1965, but his Manifest Sons of God movement, the direct predecessor of Joel’s Army, lived on within a cluster of hyper-charismatic churches. In the 1980s, Branham’s teachings took on new life at the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF), a group of popular self-styled apostles and prophets who used the Missouri church as a launching pad for national careers promoting outright Joel’s Army theology.
Branham
The Joel’s Army movement began with the 1940s preaching of William Branham, whose group was banned as heretical by the Assemblies of God.

When contacted by the Intelligence Report, Gruen’s spokesman said that Gruen stands by everything he published in the report but no longer grants media interviews.

IHOP members and other Joel’s Army adherents are well aware of how their movement is perceived by other conservative Christians.

Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104

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The Third Pentecost
bc, 29 October 2008 (created 29 October 2008)

Joel’s Army” and omnicide in the name of God

Wed May 21, 2008 at 02:12:57 PM PDT

Yesterday, we revealed that John Hagee’s church is confirmedly within the “Joel’s Army” movement---a group of the “most extreme of the extreme” of neopentecostal dominionists, who believe they are part of a “third pentecost” designed to raise a group of divine ubermenschen to “name and claim” the world for their theology.

One of the parts of their theology that is very rarely discussed--save by a few of us researchers---is that they are one of the very few groups on the planet to literally have a theological mandate for not only genocide but near omnicide--both pre- and post-Tribulation. Combined with the known use of coercive tactics and the decidedly unique interpretations of Biblical verses that claim they’re part of an end-time army of “God Warriors”-it’s not exaggeration to state this is a potential threat to humanity.

Things re “Joel’s Army” Hagee doesn’t want you to know

One thing Hagee may not want folks to know about is the fact that “Joel’s Army” is a kissing cousin to the horribly racist “Assemblies granddaughter” Christian Identity--namely, one big thing they both promote (though in different contexts) is the concept of “Phineas Priests”.

Again, Let Us Reason notes this:

Rick Joyner teaches “”What is about to come upon the earth is not just a revival, or another awakening; it is a veritable revolution. The vision was given in order to begin to awaken those who are destined to radically change the course, and even the very definition of Christianity. The dismantling of organizations and disbanding of some works will be a positive and exhilarating experience for the Lord’s faithful servants-the Lord will raise up a great company of prophets, teachers, pastors and apostles that will be of the spirit of Phinehas - this “ministry of Phinehas” will save congregations, and at times, even whole nations. -Nations will tremble at the mention of their name-”(THE HARVEST, Rick Joyner)

So does Paw Creek:

Since Joel’s Army is supposed to be men and women taking possession of this earth for their King, a second class of warriors becomes necessary. These they call the “Phineas Priesthood.” Rick Joyner made mention of those with the “spirit of Phineas” in his book, The Harvest.

”The dismantling of organizations and disbanding of some works will be a positive and exhilarating experience for the Lord’s faithful servants-..a great company of prophets, teachers, pastors and apostles will be raised up with the spirit of Phineas-” (THE HARVEST, Rick Joyner).

A book written by Richard Kelly Hoskins entitled, “Vigilantes Of Christendom,” describes these warriors. He says of them, “As the Kamikaze is to the Japanese, As the Shiite is to Islam, As the Zionist is to the Jew, So the Phineas priest is to Christendom.” It is very clear that they are preparing to slaughter those who resist their authority. Jesus warned that, “They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” (St. John 16:2). That sounds exactly like the great inquisitors of the dark ages.

It’s interesting--and more than a bit disturbing--to discuss the one usage of the term outside of Joel’s Army circles.

The one other group that talks about “Phinehas Priests” aside from “Joel’s Army” neopentecostal dominionists-happens to be Christian Identity groups (of note, Christian Identity itself can be considered to be a particularly racist split from an early “Joel’s Army” movement called “Manifest Sons of God”). The Anti-Defamation League has more info on the racist version:

A police search of Furrow’s car yesterday reportedly revealed a copy of War Cycles/Peace Cycles, a book written by Richard Kelly Hoskins, an adherent to the racist and anti-Semitic “Identity” movement. Hoskins’ 1990 book, Vigilantes of Christendom: The Story of the Phineas Priesthood, is a lengthy manifesto that perverts passages of the Bible to justify anti-Semitic and racist acts of violence.
. . .
The “Phineas Priesthood” is a violent credo of vengeance that has gained some popularity among white supremacists and other extremists in recent years. Unlike other extremists groups, the Phineas Priesthood is not a membership organization in the traditional sense: there are no meetings, rallies or newsletters. Rather, extremists become “members” when they commit “Phineas acts:” any violent activity against “non-whites.” In this way, achieving Phineas Priesthood status has become the goal of extremists committed to perpetrating violent crimes.
. . .
In 1990, Hoskins published his bizarre magnum opus, Vigilantes of Christendom: The Story of the Phineas Priesthood where he claimed that the “Phineas Priesthood” are Christian guerillas who avenge Judeo-Christian traitors. While assuming a posture of impartiality, he speaks with clear sympathy of The Order, of Adolf Hitler, and of murderers of homosexuals and interracial couples.

”Phinehas Acts” are becoming much more common in regards to domestic terrorism tied to Christian Identity groups; they’ve also become quite common among domestic terrorist acts linked to neopente dominionist and Christian Reconstructionist groups (like clinic bombings, assassinations, and so on):

Paul Hill, the antiabortion activist, was convicted of murdering Dr. John Bayard Britton and his escort outside a Pensacola, Florida, abortion clinic in 1994. Hill had written an essay advocating the commission of “Phineas actions” a year before.

(Paul Hill was a domestic terrorist and assassin who was ultimately executed in part because of this murder--part of a campaign of domestic terrorism conducted by a group calling itself the “Army of God”.)

Hidden messages for divinely-sanctioned slaughter

It’s also worth noting the Biblical context of this--and why it’s so worrying. Phinehas (which is the more proper transliteration) is described in Numbers 25 as being the leader of a particularly bloody purge in Jewish history. In Numbers 25:1-3 the introduction of the worship of Ba’al-Peor (a local mountain deity) via Moabite and Midianite influence--including, notably, intermarriage with the Moabite and Midianite peoples--is noted, and in Numbers 25:6-8 the level of Phineha’s zeal is revealed when Moses commands the mass slaughter of anyone who’s had truck with veneration of Ba’al-Peor:

[6]And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Mid’ianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the tent of meeting.
[7] When Phin’ehas the son of Elea’zar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation, and took a spear in his hand
[8] and went after the man of Israel into the inner room, and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman, through her body. Thus the plague was stayed from the people of Israel.

(RSV)

(Yes, you read this right. He literally shish-kabobbed not only the Midianite lady but her Israeli fiance--whilst the two of them were boinking their brains out in the temple.)

Phinehas is not only hailed for this, but in Numbers 25:11-13, is made head of a hereditary priesthood; the families of the two persons involved in the affair become cyphers.

The bloodshed doesn’t stop here. In Numbers 25:17-18, the example of Phinehas’s sex-kabobbing of Cozbi and her fiance is given as an example of what should be done, and in Numbers 26:1-10 the death of 250 men “swallowed up by fire” is described in a census conducted for the purpose of raising an army. After said census is conducted, Numbers 31 describes how an army of 12,000 is called up and the entire country of the Midianites is destroyed in a scorched-earth campaign lead by Phinehas (including the slaughter of literally every person in the country with the exception of female virgins, who were claimed as literal spoils of war).

Phinehas also shows up again in Joshua 22:9-34--this time to squelch what was mistaken as a separatist movement among a few of the ancient Israeli tribes who made the fatal mistake of setting up a temple on land they had recently reclaimed. This eventually led to the entire Israeli army being led against the tribes of Reuben and Gad (and the demitribe of Manassah)--and they would have been utterly exterminated by Phinehas were it not for some quick explanation that the temple that had been built was a memorial, not an attempt at separatism.

If anything, the Joel’s Army interpretation is even more extreme than that of racist groups--they literally believe they are commanded to exterminate not only anyone non-dominionist but anyone felt to have been tainted by non-dominionists. In short, pretty much all of non-dominionist America is equated to Midianites tempting people into the moral equivalent of conducting a live sex show in the middle of St. Peter’s Cathedral--and both they, and the people within the group seen to have been “friendly” with them-well, in their view, we’re all to be destroyed by “God Warriors”.

”Joel’s Army” theology as popular entertainment

As strange as it may sound, omnicide of over 99.99% of the world’s population is now a topic of a popular media series--the “Left Behind” media empire, which include not only a series of books but a video game (which was originally planned to be marketed to children as young as six and primarily within neopentecostal dominionist churches), several movies, and even a few spinoffs. The entire series is essentially a fictionalised version of post-Rapture “Joel’s Army” theology--including the formation of a “Tribulation Force” comprised of post-Rapture convertees to Joel’s Army theology who form a guerilla resistance. The book series in particular also gives a rare semi-public glimpse as to the actual sorts of theology being preached in your average “Joel’s Army” church.

The final book of the series, “Glorious Appearing”, promotes the idea in Joel’s Army circles of the Prince of Peace being hip-deep in the blood and entrails of the slain in an image that would even shock the Norse skald’s images of Ragnarok:

Jesus has been depicted as a lamb and a shepherd, a rock star and a lowly carpenter. In “Glorious Appearing,” the climactic twelfth installment in the Left Behind series released this week, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins give us Christ the Destroyer.

Here’s the Christ Triumphant speaking as he encounters the army of the Anti-Christ near the ancient city of Petra in Jordan: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and the End, the Almighty.” Upon hearing these words, the Anti-Christ’s minions fall dead, “simply dropping where they stood, their bodies ripped open, blood pooling in great masses.” Later, as the Lord rides his white horse to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the saved sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

This vision of Christ, who eviscerates his human foes and drops them to the desert floor, is fast becoming the Savior for our times. He is Jesus the Warrior, who has gone in and out of fashion for most of the 20th century. “We’re looking for a much more martial messiah,” says Stephen Prothero, chairman of Boston University’s religion department and author of the recently published “American Jesus.” “In part, it’s a response to 9/11 and the war in Iraq,” he says, pointing out that the militant Jesus was popular during and after both world wars. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, this Jesus nearly disappears,” says Prothero. “You get the sense now that we are swinging back.”

The images are more akin to the final scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” than to anything in the conventional Biblical sermon--bodies literally melting, Christ (who is apparently played by the genetic lovechild of Chuck Norris and John Rambo) literally causing people to split open and their entrails pouring out by just speaking, graphic descriptions of chucking the Bad Guys (pretty much most of humanity) into the sulfurous pit of Hell, with the God Warriors eventually kicking everyone’s asses (along with the Raptured coming back down--and all parties involved being provided white horsies Just Like Jesus to slaughter the rest of humanity). A Harper’s review (noted below) goes into more detail:

The armies of heaven, also on white horses, follow, though their role in the battle ends up being superfluous. The Antichrist’s black-clad legions ride horses, too, possibly because they explode so satisfactorily. No sooner does Jesus speak than the carnage begins. Carpathia’s legions begin to fall dead, “their bodies ripped open, blood pooling in great masses.”

Seeking a better view of the action, Rayford abandons his ATV for a Hummer, “riding shotgun,” which, write Jenkins and LaHaye in something less than a Proustian reverie, “transported him back to college when he and his fraternity brothers would compete to call the favored seat, sometimes as much as twenty-four hours before a trip.” Meanwhile, the slaughter runs on for close to eighty gleeful pages:

Rayford watched through the binocs as men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin. . . . Their innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor, and as those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ.

The glory of Christ, mind you. Blood is described roaring through the Holy Land in rivers five feet deep. At one point, the Antichrist’s Humvee sinks up to its axles in a swamp of blood-mud.

The rest of the books in the series are just as bad--in a scene disturbingly reminiscent of Hagee’s claims that the Eastern and Western Seaboards would be nuked--and Assemblies’ claims of Russia nuking the US--there is a scene in “Nicolae” where most of the world’s major cities are nuked by the titular Nicolae Carpathia (who has in the meantime converted the UN into the One World Government--a popular scenario in “Joel’s Army” circles since before the fall of the Soviet Union).

Now, it’s bad enough that an entire cottage industry has come about over the fictionalisation of what amounts to a disturbing theology of Jesus “Hulkamaniac” Christ (now we know what the “H” in “Jesus H. Christ” stands for, apparently) coming down with an army of God Warriors.

What’s worse, though, is that to “Joel’s Army”-this isn’t fiction, and they expect to be the guys literally swimming in everyone else’s blood as they descend from Heaven at the end of the Tribulation and slaughter the world.

God-Warrior mandates and physical violence in the name of “spiritual warfare”

Combine this with a major scripture-twisting of Joel 2 that describes themselves as not only a “third Pentecost” but as a locust-like army of God Warriors and the known use of extremely coercive tactics that have been documented to cause personality changes in less than three days-

-well, if you aren’t disturbed, you should be, seriously.

And if this isn’t enough to worry you, think of this-the goal is ultimately omnicide of the entire world population other than neopentecostal dominionists (no, Jewish people don’t get an out unless they convert to “Messianics”) via thermonuclear war. The mere promotion of this in churches (which has gone on for quite a long time; I’ve personally witnessed it since the late 70s in the Assemblies church I am a walkaway from, and this sort of thing has been promoted since at least the fifties in the context of nuclear warfare) is scary enough.

However, there’s been a distressing trend over the past twenty years or so of the concept of “spiritual warfare” being increasingly embraced in the physical realm as well.

One area is with paramilitary training of youth and indoctrination. “Jesus Camp” detailed what is actually a mild version of this in Assemblies of God circles; increasingly common are literal boot camps, including literal paramilitary training in the Assemblies’ “Christian alternative” to Scouting. Movements popular in the Assemblies and its “daughters” tend to be even worse; Bill Gothard runs a literal paramilitary training facility for “Joel’s Army” youth.

This also means that the US military has become an increasing target for infiltration. The very paramilitary training camp noted above has gotten quite official sanction by the general in charge of most of the US Air Force’s military recon and IT security. This effort has become disturbingly successful; no less than two of the primary parties involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal including policymaker William Boykin are directly involved in the Assemblies and the “Joel’s Army” movement within the denomination, and in many cases the US government has literally been paying for packing the chaplaincy of the US Army and Air Force with “Joel’s Army” promoters. (Boykin is especially interesting in this regard; he has quite explicitly referred to Joel’s Army theology in speeches to his fellow soldiers.) One of the major groups involved in infiltration of the military, Campus Crusade for Christ, has been known to promote this sort of theology as well.

Increasingly, though, these groups aren’t restricting themselves to infiltrating the military (or political parties, for that matter) or having their kids play soldier in “Bible boot camps”. Increasingly, “Joel’s Army” theology is leaking into real world violence--including the neopentecostal dominionist hategroup “Watchmen At The Walls” (which has received official support from the Assemblies of God as a whole) as well as domestic terrorism (such as targeted assassinations of women’s clinic workers and bombings of not only women’s clinics but adult bookstores and LGBT nightclubs). Not only this, but increasingly “Joel’s Army” is no longer even bothering to keep a “private face”--such as Joseph Fuiten’s call for the mass denationalisation and deportation of non-dominionists.

And if this doesn’t scare you yet--these groups may have influence to the very highest levels of government and documented histories of particularly horrific genocides (ask Guatemala about the hell it endured under Gen. Rios Montt sometime)-and the largest denomination embracing “Joel’s Army” theology has an estimated membership of nearly three million people-and they’ve rather explicitly targeted the largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, for total conversion from within.

The Lakeland Deception

Further to the recent revelations from one of C Peter Wagner’s apostles Robert Ricciardelli about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland deception, here is some more information from Ricciardelli’s latest posts on the Charisma Magazine forum here.

(Please note that I in no way endorse Ricciardelli, his beliefs, or the movement he is attached to. However I attach this for information purposes as he has interesting insider information, that confirms what we already know - that Todd lies and falsely speaks for God and manipulates for money.)

“If you are going to lie or stretch truth like Todd does on a world stage, you can bet people like me who he is representing are going to speak up. Here is one of the errors.

In early June, I think on the 6th Todd gave an offering message that was manipulation and borderline witchcraft. He said the Lord told Him that there were 1000 people who were going to give $1000 and if they were obedient, the Lord said they would receive 1000 fold return. I am in almost daily conversation with Stephen Strader, and challenged him that it was not from God. He agreed and talked to Todd.

Todd admitted that he worded it wrong, but that it was an idea he had to raise money for the 30,000 seat revival center they want to build.

I then asked if he would repent publicly and they said:

”No, because the crowd changes every night.”

TOPICS: Apologetics; Charismatic Christian; Current Events; Evangelical Christian
KEYWORDS: falseprophet; lakeland; revival; toddbentley

Robert Ricciardelli is showing some cajones in the Spirit to stand up to the NAR Manifest Sons of God/Latter Rain/Toronto Blessing/Lakeland Revival false prophets by coming out with his doubts and concerns about the movement and specifically, Todd Bentley.

Personally, I think Todd is deceived and he is just the current circus barker for a more deceptive and delusional non Christian movement.

Someone said along the line that in the end, these so called Christians will be pushing for laws and legislative morality — which on the face of it is a good thing — but that Christ requires evangelism, loving laying on of hands, carrying the Word to the Lost (not signs and wonders for entertainment or “proof” that Christ is who He says He is.)

Robert Ricciardelli is uncomfortable with the things he is seeing backstage at the Bentley blitzkrieg. I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for an New Apostolic Reformation “Apostle” to wake up and realize you are part of the End Time Delusion, the delusion God promises He will send on those who “no longer love the Truth” and to those who “do not tremble at His Word”.

In these End Times, it is very very necessary that we show ourselves approved and “test all things” especially testing and discerning the Spirits. The way you do that, btw, is by testing doctrine and what is actually being taught. People flocking after Todd Bentley shows a precarious lack of discernment, something that we are required to do before a Holy God.

I’ve had my doubts about Bentley and this only confirms it.

There are pastors who will “repent” of things that they’ve said, bring it up later after they’ve thought about it, and discuss it from the pulpit. I said “x”: upon reflection I think I went further than I ought to have; I should better have said it like “this”.

I have respect for men like that. I don’t expect perfection from any human and when you’re speaking in public, pumped full of adrenaline its easy to say something that later you’ll wish you hadn’t said. So admit it. It won’t decrease your credibility or influence, if anything it will increase it.

Robert Ricciardelli must be waking up by means of the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Christians make mistakes, even ones that Christ has shown a more active spiritual presence(tongues,ect).

Satan appears as an angel of light, even to the point of “deceiving the elect were it possible”. In the end all of God’s true work involves Jeusus Christ who is seeking the lost to bring them into the kingdom-anything that detracts from that (and from the very person of Jesus Christ who is seeking to build his image into all of us) is suspect!

New Apostolic Reformation

The New Apostolic Reformation is a movement in Protestant Christianity that grew out of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, that asserts that God is restoring the lost offices of church governance, namely the offices of Prophet and Apostle.

General beliefs

The New Apostolic Reformation started from Pentecostal and Charismatic origins, and thus includes belief in the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit within a believer; the performance of miracles (such as healing), prophecy and the revelation of Christ within a believer.

However, although the movement sees the Church as the true body of saved believers as many Evangelical Protestants do, it maintains the need for Church offices and submission to Church leaders, who are seen as ordained by God, and given power and authority by God to lead by serving, as described in the biblical letter of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians. As such, they believe in the 5-fold offices of the Church first popularized in Charismatic groups; of which the prophet and apostle has been absent from the Church for the last 2000 years, and are now being restored. See Five-Fold Ministry.

Many apostolic churches are at their heart missionary churches. (Apostolos Gk: Sent ones) This reformation seeks to reform the church on a global scale beginning first with the local church which is then networked to other apostolic churches relating to one another as one body and submitted to Christ who is believed to be the head of the church.

The apostolic ministry is not concerned with membership numbers but rather with a process they refer to as the formation of Christ within its members. As such, apostolic churches tend to be small, consisting of dedicated believers who all function and carry weight in the church, working together toward the commission and vision of the local church.

<html><div><object width="420" height="307"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x21p15&v3=1&related=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x21p15&v3=1&related=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="307" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><br /><b><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21p15_rage-against-the-machine-bulls-on-p_music">RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - BULLS ON PARADE</a></b><br /><i>Uploaded by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/hushhush112">hushhush112</a></i></div></html>


"Bulls on Parade" is a song released by Rage Against the Machine in 1996, and can be found on their second album Evil Empire. One of Rage's signature songs, it deals with what is commonly referred to as the "military-industrial complex", which is the tendency of industry (the arms industry in particular) to encourage military action in order to gain military contracts, and therefore increase its profits. Lines such as "Weapons; not food, not homes, not shoes, not need, just feed the war cannibal-animal," and "what we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving / they don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em" are just a couple of examples of the several allusions to the military-industrial complex throughout the song. With the words, "Terror rains, drenching, quenching the thirst of the power dons," the song suggests that the fear of terrorism is used to manipulate the American populace into supporting dubious military action. The phrase "terror rains" also serves as a double entendre, which suggests that "terror reigns" by way of the government terror as a tool.

The song was performed on Saturday Night Live in April of 1996. Their two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted American flags from their amplifiers, a protest to having presidential candidate Steve Forbes as guest host on the program that night.

The song features one of Tom Morello's most famous guitar riffs and a highly unusual solo that sounds more like a turntable than a guitar by making use of the toggle switch and rubbing his hand along the strings parallel to the neck of the guitar. It is usually cited as the most famous example of Tom Morello's extremely innovative guitar playing antics, along with Calm Like a Bomb from their next album The Battle Of Los Angeles.
'

<html><div><object width="420" height="307"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x174w4&v3=1&related=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x174w4&v3=1&related=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="307" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><br /><b><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x174w4_rage-against-the-machine-killing_music">Rage Against The Machine - Killing</a></b><br /><i>Uploaded by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/hushhush112">hushhush112</a></i></div></html>



"Killing in the Name" was the first single released by Rage Against the Machine from their eponymous album, and is one of the band's signature songs.

On 31 August 1999, it was reissued together with two previously unreleased tracks, "Darkness of Greed" and "Clear the Lane". Note that the name is not "Killing in the Name Of", a common mistake due to the lyrics of the song.

The lyrics allege that some members of law enforcement in the United States are also members of Ku Klux Klan: "Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses". Zack De La Rocha's tone suggests that racism in law enforcement is nothing new yet tantamount to government racism.

The song's verses are built around the same few lines repeated several times, building up a crescendo.

The last line has become rather notorious: "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" shouted repeatedly, most likely referring to the oppressive KKK groups the song is aimed at, but also a message of rebellion to the American government as a whole.

Crazy as Spears, but sings better.

[img[http://images.contactmusic.com/dn/amy+winehouse_855_18278276_0_0_12312_300.jpg]]

''Amy Winehouse Dominates 50th Grammy Awards''
By Mike O'Sullivan
Los Angeles
11 February 2008

British pop star Amy Winehouse led the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles Sunday, winning five of the music industry's top honors. As Mike O'Sullivan reports, the singer was absent from the ceremony, but took part by satellite from London.

Amy Winehouse performs live via satellite in London at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, 10 Feb 2008
Amy Winehouse performs live via satellite in London at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, 10 Feb 2008
Winehouse won Grammys for record of the year, song of the year, and best pop vocal performance for "Rehab," a track from Back to Black, which was named best pop vocal album.

She was also named best new artist.

The 24-year-old singer recently entered a drug rehabilitation program and did not come to Los Angeles. American officials initially refused her a work visa. They reversed the decision, but by then it was too late for her to make the long trek from England, so she appeared on the Grammy broadcast by satellite from a London studio. She seemed shocked as her Grammy wins were announced and dedicated one to her mother, father, and her incarcerated husband, who is in prison following a pub brawl.

Carrie Underwood, a Grammy winner for best female vocal country performance for "Before He Cheats," said backstage in Los Angeles the British singer deserves the honors.

"Tonight's about music, you know, and I think she's very talented, very creative and definitely deserves accolades," Underwood said.

Winehouse lost the nomination for album of the year to Herbie Hancock, which surprised the audience and the veteran jazz pianist. He was honored for the album River: The Joni Letters, his all-star tribute to the singer Joni Mitchell.

Hancock noted it has been 43 years since a jazz musician won the Grammy for best album.

"This is a new day that proves the impossible can be made possible," Hancock said.

Backstage, country musician Vince Gill said the win did not surprise him.

"Herbie Hancock is by far the best musician out of all of us, put together," Gill said.

Gill won the Grammy for best country album for These Days, but lost to Hancock for best album. The country star said the nominees in that key category included a mix of genres, with recordings by Kanye West, Amy Winehouse and the Foo Fighters.

"There was a jazz guy, there was a hillbilly guy, there was a rapper, there was a pop singer and a rock and roll band," said Gill. "It doesn't get any more diverse than that. I'm just thrilled to death to be a part of it."

Kanye West earned Grammys for best rap album for Graduation and best rap vocal performance for the track "Stronger." He also won best rap song for ''Good Life'' and best rap performance by a duo or group for his collaboration with Common on ''Southside.''

The rapper offered an emotional tribute to his mother, who died unexpectedly last year at the age of 58.

The Foo Fighters won the Grammy for best hard rock performance for "The Pretender," and best rock album for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama earned a Grammy for best spoken word album for the audio version of his book The Audacity of Hope.

Fifteen young musicians got the chance to perform in the broadcast with the rock band Foo Fighters, and 28-year-old Anne Marie Calhoun, a violinist, was the featured performer.

"They're just the perfect rock bank," she said. "They're fun, they're goofy, they're kind. They're everything that you would want them to be."

This 50th Grammy presentation featured performances by rising stars and veterans, often paired in duets. They included Tina Turner, who performed a medley of her hits with Beyonce.

Today is the 150 year birthday of the American Civil War.

Type the text for '12 October 2007'

2008 Annual World Rainbow Family Gathering: Un-Official Home Page

2008 World Family Gathering
Rainbow Family of the Living Light
July 1st ~ 7th, 2008

The 2008 Annual Rainbow Gathering of Living Light will be celebrated July 1st through July 7th. Consensus at the 2007 Annual Vision Counsel was that the 2008 Annual Rainbow Gathering of Living Light will be held in Wyoming.

Where the Gathering will be in 2008

This year the Annual North American Rainbow Gathering (hence referred to as the Gathering) will be in Wyoming.

Please use caution as police are known to harrass gatherings and those who are entering the site. Be legal and be safe!

WELCOME HOME

Ignore all rumors of cancellation or organization! Live Lightly with the Land and People!

The Kind Ride Share located at http://kindrideshare.org

For current and up to date information on the Rainbow Gatherings, Happenings in North America, International and Underground check out the Circle of Light website http://welcomehere.org

-----------------------------------------

Community Calendar
http://welcomehere.org/cgi-bin/calendar.pl

Community Forum
http://welcomehere.org/states/

Tribal Mailer
http://welcomehere.org/2007/mailer.php

Rainbowpedia
http://welcomehere.org/wiki/

Welcomehere.org is a loving effort of combined heartsongs dedicated to Spirit and the Children of the Rainbow Family Tribes. This site does not represent nor speak for the Rainbow Families of the Living Light, Rainbow Family Counsels, the kind host providers, tribal circles, you or anyone else. You are encouraged to speak for yourself. Special thanks to all the folks who dedicate their time, focus and energies to help create the magic that is Rainbow and shine beautiful whenever they can. It is by our deeds and kindness that we will journey together the trail towards home. Much love and respect to you and yours from our lumpy circle, forever loving you!

Please copy & distribute this information freely where applicable and help spread the peace in all directions.

Diversity and Jah Guide.

-------------------------------------->

Once Spring counsel reaches a decision, Seed Camp begins. Seed Camps is when we create the infrastructure to support the gathering. This means building kitchens, digging shitters, laying water pipe and building water filtration stations. Seed camp generally finishes by the end of June. If you come to seed camp early be self sufficient and be prepared to work.

Gatherings tend to be located many miles from the nearest Interstate and paved road. When planning your drive, realize that the last 50 to 100 miles may be traveled at 20 MPH and plan accordingly. Always plan to arrive early in the morning. The roads into the gathering are generally in poor shape and it's easy to get lost at 1 AM in the dark when you've been driving for 12 hours. Kick it at a camp site for the night, get up at dawn and come on home. It can take 4 to 8 hours from the time you park your car until you've gotten to your campsite and pitched your tent. If this is your first gathering, I'd plan on 8 so you can figure out what's happening and where you want to camp.

For people with kids, if you've never been to a gathering plug in with Kiddie Village - a kid friendly space with lots of parents willing to share how to sanely and safely parent at a gathering. If you've never camped with kids before, read up an that to make sure you're prepared. Read the rap on kids at Gatherings http://rainbowguide.info/Raps/RAPeng.php?id=13

For people with special needs, ask for Handicamp - a space for people with mobility and other related disabilities with lots of folks willing to help you make the most of your gathering experience. While the trails can be tough and conditions vary from site to site, there's usually a couple of friendly folks just waiting to assist with the rough spots. Sometimes we have cool things like rickshaws to assist people in getting around. Bring your own personal supplies (catheter, wraps, chair, medical supplies, diapers, cleanup, etc.). Bring own attendant if you need assistance with personal care (bowel programs, skin, transfer, catheterizations, wounds, etc) or supervision issues or other issues (mobility, access, safety) as needed.

Bring enough for yourself and some to share, tread lightly while you're there, dissappear your campsite compleatly, and take away more trash than you brought. Beware of any form of leadership or magical hats!!!!
Clean-up begins upon arrival.

For local potlucks, regional gatherings, campouts and other good news please surf to the Community Calendar, The Rainbow Guide or look in the Forum under the state you are looking for information about.

READ UP HERE ---> Current Gathering News!!!!!

Tribal Mailer

CALM Mailing List

There well be several focuses through out the Spring and Summer of 2008.. Get your tribe ready to join this awesome celebration. "WE LOVE YOU!"

All peaceful beings are welcome to come share the gift of harmony and prayers for world peace as we celebrate interdependence day in unity without glorification of war. A circle of silent meditation will commence with the rising sun on the morning of July 4th until noon.

This peaceful vibration will be shared world wide with other individuals in a conscience wave of hope, love and understanding.

...........

This is a low impact gathering, respect the Earth and tread lightly on this pristine reserve. Show your love and remove all refuse you find.
...........

Ignore Rumors of cancellation, site changes or leadership

Type the text for '22 November 2008'

 
VERSE:
   Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he
has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has
promised to those who love him. 

    -- James 1:12
       http://www.SearchGodsWord.org/desk/?query=James+1:12

THOUGHT:

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Alas, Bedlam

“While I do not believe that our patients are at risk at our mental health hospitals (as they were at FWSDC), we would never build them as they are [[denovo]]. They are artifacts of 19th century compassion. Twenty years from now, I pray we will no longer need them.” Departing Statement of Mitch Roob, FSSA Director

This departing statement of Secretary Mitch Roob lets us, the public, see a little of the administration's opinion on mental illness. The administration seems to hold the notion that mental illness is a social problem rather than a biological problem. It would seem they believe that we, the public, are at fault for the mental illness. Or in other words, the psychiatric treatment centers cause the problem and if the public only allowed these aberrant individuals to be mainstreamed, we would have no problems with mental illness, nor would we need psychiatric treatment centers.

If you followed Mitch's logic, all we seemingly need to do to cure mental illness, is to put the psychiatric patient on the mainline to be mainstreamed. The psychiatric patient doesn't have a biological problem, they have a problem with learning. The logic is this: put the psychiatric patient in a normal and supportive family and they will blossom into happy and productive citizens. The psychiatric patient is not ill. There are no lesions on the brain. There are no problems with the imbalance of neuro-chemicals. There are no short circuits in neural pathways. A psychiatric patient is only mentally ill because he is under-educated and under-socialized.

And what if the psychiatric patient “chooses” to stay ill? What is he will not participate in the mainstreaming effort? What if, after all the education, the rehab, the love, and the support, the patient still has delusions, hallucinations, and engages in bizarre behavior? The answer is quite simple. An administrator makes a flick of the pen and changes the man's diagnosis from schizophrenia to that of an anti-social personality disorder. He is then put on the mainline to the criminal-justice system and may ultimately live the rest of his life in a psychiatric unit of a state prison.

The state hospitals are truly already gone though. The centers that Mitch calls “state hospitals” are little more than glorified boarding facilities. There is little treatment other than the use of medication. There is little if any research. There is little individual exploration of a patient's mental or physical problems. There may be no doctor, not one, present in the “hospital” much of the time. The medical nurses are glorified prison matrons and offer little in care to the patients. If the patient even develops something as minor as a cold or an in-grown toe nail, they are sent to a real hospital for “emergency care.” How can a place be called a hospital when it has no doctors, no nurses, and can not even treat the most minor problem?

In fact, the only reason these state facilities are still called hospitals is because it is the only way the state politicians can suck at the teat of the federal monetary stream. The state makes money by having mental hospitals, even if it is in name only.

[img[
http://leeh.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/amazing-grace.jpg]]

This morning we are going to be thinking about the story behind the beloved hymn AMAZING GRACE. The point of this hymn is that God’s grace and love comes to all of us not because we deserve it or have earned it, but because of the nature of God to be gracious and loving.

The author of Amazing Grace is a man named John Newton and he based this hymn on what Paul wrote to the Ephesians in chapter 2:4-10.

Read Ephesians 2:4-10. Notice the phrases about the nature of God contained in these verses: GOD IS RICH IN MERCY, THE GREAT LOVE WITH WHICH HE LOVED US, IMMEASURABLE RICHES OF GOD’S GRACE, GOD’S KINDNESS TOWARD US.

God’s amazing grace is God’s mercy, God’s great love and God’s kindness toward us.

Whenever a survey is conducted of the most popular hymns, AMAZING GRACE is usually ranked as number one. More Christians love to sing this hymn more than any other hymn ever written.

However, the story behind this hymn is also amazing.

In the 1740’s, there was an English ship captain named JOHN NEWTON who traveled to Sierra Leone on the west coast of Africa, sent his men out to capture Africans, put them in chains and haul them to the United States of America to be sold as slaves. Millions of Africans were captured, put into the hold of ships where they received little food and water and many died of starvation and disease on board the ships. If they survived the voyage, they were then sold as slaves along the east coast of the United States and would spend the rest of their lives as unpaid slaves on plantations and in businesses throughout the colonies.

In 1748, however, John Newton and his crew were returning from the United States to Africa to pick up more slaves when their ship encountered a violent storm. The ship was being tossed about by the wind and waves so violently that Newton was sure it would sink and they would all be killed.

Now, John Newton was a cruel and heartless slave ship captain who had no religious convictions at all but in the mist of his fear of death, John Newton cried out over and over again, “LORD, HAVE MERCY ON US.” Eventually the storm subsided and the ship and crew survived.

After the storm was over Newton wondered why he had cried out to a God he didn’t believe in for mercy. And even more he wondered why this God had appeared to answer his prayer and save his life which he knew had been spent inflicting cruelty on other human beings.

John Newton’s life was transformed by his experience of God’s mercy in the midst of a storm and it changed the whole direction of his life. He began to study the Scriptures and to surrender his life into the hands of God. He realized that what he was doing as a slave trader was evil and wrong so he sold his ship, returned to England, got married and studied to become an Anglican priest in the Church of England.

John Newton went from being a slave trader to a Christian minister who then devoted his life to outlawing the slave trade throughout the British Empire.

Newton was an eloquent and powerful preacher and he was eventually assigned to a parish in London where huge crowds came to hear him tell the story of his transformation by the grace of God, and how God’s grace is freely offered to all human beings, and when we receive God’s grace then we surrender ourselves into the hands of God and allow God to use us to overcome evils like slavery in this world.

John Newton became friends with another Anglican priest named John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and attended many services where John Wesley was preaching. Newton was greatly influenced by the 18th century evangelical revival led by John Wesley and George Whitfield.

One of the persons who came to hear John Newton was a member of the House of Commons named WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. Wilberforce was a bright up and up coming member of the House of Commons and he was so inspired by Newton and John Wesley he felt a call by God to work through the Parliament to outlaw slavery in the British Empire.

For 18 years Wilberforce introduced legislation to make the slave trade illegal in the British Empire and he was soundly defeated year after year. However, in March, 1807, two hundred years ago next month, the slave trade was made illegal in England.

Wilberforce is called the ABRAHAM LINCOLN of England because he succeeded in outlawing the slave trade in England 60 years before Lincoln signed the EMANCIPATON PROCLAMATION freeing slave in the United States.

John Newton also discovered he had some ability in writing hymns and wrote about 280 hymns which were published and sung throughout England. In our hymnal we have two hymns by John Newton: AMAZING GRACE and GLORIOUS THINGS OF THEE ARE SPOKEN.

A movie, entitled AMAZING GRACE, which is about the spiritual lives and challenges of JOHN NEWTON and WILLIAM WILBERFORCE in outlawing slavery will open next Friday February 23 in theatres around the country.

This movie was shown at the Heartland Film Festival here in Indianapolis last fall and received the award as a TRULY MOVING MOTION PICTURE.

The heart of the story is the song Amazing Grace which John Newton wrote about his life transforming experience with God which lead him to the ordained ministry and to devote his life to overcome slavery. Here is what Newton wrote:

AMAZING GRACE HOW SWEET THE SOUND THAT SAVED A WRETCH LIKE ME.

Looking back on his life John Newton felt that he was truly a wretch - a cruel and heartless man for what he had done in selling Africans into slavery because of his greed for wealth. But he also felt that God’s amazing grace, love and forgiveness came as a sweet sound into his life and that removed cruelty and greed from his life and gave him a heart of love for God and all of God’s children everywhere.

I ONCE WAS LOST BUT NOW AM FOUND, WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE.

Newton realized that he once was lost in his greed and his intense desire for wealth and was blind to the ways he was destroying the lives of thousands of African people.

However, God came into his life in the midst of a storm and he experienced God’s amazing grace and love coming into his life and filling him full to overflowing with the love of God. He spent the rest of his life telling people about God’s amazing grace for all people.

Now, you know the rest of the story behind the song Amazing Grace.

It is the amazing story of how God transformed a greedy, cruel slave ship captain into a loving, compassionate preacher who gave his life to free the people he had once sold into slavery.

If you ever wonder about the power of God to transform a life, we have to look no further than the life of John Newton.

Pastor Millard, St. Luke's UMC

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=yn82dMFGN8g&feature=related

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Dec. 19, 2008

Dear Judy,


I am writing to wish you a Merry Christmas!

I just want to send a brief note regarding Bob Sparks. I know he must be in the forefront of your mind since it is approaching the anniversary of his passing.

I want you to know that Bob meant a great deal to me as a friend.  He was probably the best friend I had on this earth. He was always trustworthy and supportive. He stood with me when there was no one. There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.

I am so sorry that I could not have spent more time with him in the last couple of years of his life. I am a much better person because of the time having him as a friend and I would have continued to grow much more with him.

At Bob’s service, last year, his family gave their memories.  I paraphrase: They said that Bob was “bigger than life”, that “you knew when he entered a room”, and “that he was always in the adventure of learning.”  These qualities are those I remember about Bob too. But, and I must stress, he was all those things and caring too.  Often people who are in love with life, that are bigger than life, and seem self absorbed in the quest of knowledge seem to lose a bit of personal humanity. This was not true of Bob.  He was always warm, caring, and full of sympathy.  

Bob was the one friend that I could turn to for the best advice. Bob was the one friend I could have asked for anything and he would have tried to help me.  His help and knowledge through the years are a debt which I could never repay.

I know you miss him too and may God Bless you and afford a bit of mercy this year.

Warmest Regards,

Bob Cardwell


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<html>from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/13/religion.scienceandnature/print

[img[http://www.ljworld.com/billsnead/gallery/222_snakehandlers_dewey.jpg]]

Today, snake-handling continues mostly in small communities in rural areas of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as pockets in other southern states. Participants feel that "the spirit of God" comes upon them as they open the boxes containing the snakes. Often lifting three or four of them up simultaneously in one hand, holding them high and allowing the creatures to wind around their arms and bodies, they praise God ecstatically.

To many of us, religious or not, this type of activity seems little short of outright lunacy. And it's certainly the case that religion and mental ill-health have long been linked. The disturbed individual who believes himself to be Christ, or to receive messages from God, is something of a cliche in our society. Ever since Sigmund Freud, many people have associated religiosity with neurosis and mental illness.

Many years ago, a team of researchers at the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota decided to put this association to the test. They studied certain fringe religious groups, such as fundamentalist Baptists, Pentecostalists and the snake-handlers of West Virginia, to see if they showed the particular type of psychopathology associated with mental illness. Members of mainstream Protestant churches from a similar social and financial background provided a good control group for comparison. Some of the wilder fundamentalists prayed with what can only be described as great and transcendental ecstasy, but there was no obvious sign of any particular psychopathology among most of the people studied. After further analysis, however, there appeared a tendency to what can only be described as mental instability in one particular group. The study was blinded, so that most of the research team involved with questionnaires did not have access to the final data. When they were asked which group they thought would show the most disturbed psychopathology, the whole team identified the snake-handlers. But when the data were revealed, the reverse was true: there was more mental illness among the conventional Protestant churchgoers - the "extrinsically" religious - than among the fervently committed.

A Harvard psychologist named Gordon Allport did some key research in the 1950s on various kinds of human prejudice and came up with a definition of religiosity that is still in use today. He suggested that there were two types of religious commitment - extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic religiosity he defined as religious self-centredness. Such a person goes to church or synagogue as a means to an end - for what they can get out of it. They might go to church to be seen, because it is the social norm in their society, conferring respectability or social advancement. Going to church (or synagogue) becomes a social convention.

Allport thought that intrinsic religiosity was different. He identified a group of people who were intrinsically religious, seeing their religion as an end in itself. They tended to be more deeply committed; religion became the organising principle of their lives, a central and personal experience. In support of his research, Allport found that prejudice was more common in those individuals who scored highly for extrinsic religion.

<span style="font-weight: bold;">The evidence generally is that intrinsic religiosity seems to be associated with lower levels of anxiety and stress, freedom from guilt, better adjustment in society and less depression. On the other hand, extrinsic religious feelings - where religion is used as a way to belong to and prosper within a group - seem to be associated with increased tendencies to guilt, worry and anxiety.</span></html>

[img[http://img802.mytextgraphics.com/photolava/2008/04/19/klimt-4a8g5aohi.jpeg]]

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rube 

noun 
a person who is not very intelligent or interested in culture [syn: yokel]  

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University. 



[img[http://bp0.blogger.com/_fwukQ1dvAw8/Ryu4O9UYrXI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/a2vXPlkBJ6w/s400/rhubardpie.bmp]]

Instructions
Difficulty: Moderate
Step1
Search. There are several different websites online that allow you to complete ministry courses online. Do a little research on at least three organizations that offer ministry courses. See Resources below for a few options.
Step2
Sign-up for the courses once you have chosen the organization that you want to complete your ministry courses with. Signing up to complete the courses will allow you to gain access to the course materials.
Step3
Complete the ministry courses. Some programs have the courses split up into different sections, which means that you will need to complete each of the sections in order to become ordained. Since these programs are usually self-study courses, you can go at your own pace. So, when you finish one step, you can move onto the next step whenever you are ready. Courses include topics like starting a congregation, how to annoint, performing baptisms, performing wedding ceremonies, performing funerals and more.
Step4
Receive your certificate. Once you complete the ministry courses, completing all of the assignments with passing grades, and passing any tests required, then you will be awarded your ordained minister certificate.
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Tips & Warnings

* Before you pay for any course, be sure to check out the organization with the Better Business Bureau. Make sure that there are not any complaints against them.

Who Can Help:

Resources

* Universal Life Church
* Ordination Online
* American Fellowship Church

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1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies in LA at 85
By BOB THOMAS Bob Thomas

LOS ANGELES – Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controverisal photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.

"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment of beauty."

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.

Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She was a very dear person."

Page mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for decades, during which time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.

"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young."

The 21st century indeed had people remembering her just as she was. She became the subject of songs, biographies, Web sites, comic books, movies and documentaries. A new generation of fans bought thousands of copies of her photos, and some feminists hailed her as a pioneer of women's liberation.

Gretchen Mol portrayed her in 2005's "The Notorious Bettie Page" and Paige Richards had the role in 2004's "Bettie Page: Dark Angel." Page herself took part in the 1998 documentary "Betty Page: Pinup Queen."

Hefner said he last saw Page when he held a screening of "The Notorious Bettie Page" at the Playboy Mansion. He said she objected to the fact that the film referred to her as "notorious," but "we explained to her that it referred to the troubled times she had and was a good way to sell a movie."

Page's career began one day in October 1950 when she took a respite from her job as a secretary in a New York office for a walk along the beach at Coney Island. An amateur photographer named Jerry Tibbs admired the 27-year-old's firm, curvy body and asked her to pose.

Looking back on the career that followed, she told Playboy in 1998: "I never thought it was shameful. I felt normal. It's just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets monotonous."

Nudity didn't bother her, she said, explaining: "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."

In 1951, Page fell under the influence of a photographer and his sister who specialized in S&amp;M. They cut her hair into the dark bangs that became her signature and posed her in spiked heels and little else. She was photographed with a whip in her hand, and in one session she was spread-eagled between two trees, her feet dangling.

"I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets," she said later.

Moralists denounced the photos as perversion, and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Page's home state, launched a congressional investigation.

Page quickly retreated from public view, later saying she was hounded by federal agents who waved her nude photos in her face. She also said she believed that, at age 34, her days as "the girl with the perfect figure" were nearly over.

She moved to Florida in 1957 and married a much younger man, as an early marriage to her high school sweetheart had ended in divorce.

Her second marriage also failed, as did a third, and she suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1959, she was lying on a sea wall in Key West when she saw a church with a white neon cross on top. She walked inside and became a born-again Christian.

After attending Bible school, she wanted to serve as a missionary but was turned down because she had been divorced. Instead, she worked full-time for evangelist Billy Graham's ministry.

A move to Southern California in 1979 brought more troubles.

She was arrested after an altercation with her landlady, and doctors who examined her determined she had acute schizophrenia. She spent 20 months in a state mental hospital in San Bernardino.

A fight with another landlord resulted in her arrest, but she was found not guilty because of insanity. She was placed under state supervision for eight years.

"She had a very turbulent life," Todd Mueller, a family friend and autograph seller, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She had a temper to her."

Mueller said he first met Page after tracking her down in the 1990s and persuaded her to do an autograph signing event.

He said she was a hit and sold about 3,000 autographs, usually for $200 to $300 each.

"Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40 to $50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all," he told The AP last week.

Born April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tenn., Page said she grew up in a family so poor "we were lucky to get an orange in our Christmas stockings."

The family included three boys and three girls, and Page said her father molested all of the girls.

After the Pages moved to Houston, her father decided to return to Tennessee and stole a police car for the trip. He was sent to prison, and for a time Betty lived in an orphanage.

In her teens she acted in high school plays, going on to study drama in New York and win a screen test from 20th Century Fox before her modeling career took off.

___

<br><br>[[see more Bettie Page stencils here|http://www.kittybuttons.com/stencils/categories/famous%20people/bettie%20page/index.html]]<br><br>[[see more Bettie stencils here|http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.kittybuttons.com/stencils/categories/famous%2520people/bettie%2520page/bettie-page-floating-head.gif&amp;imgrefurl=http://www.kittybuttons.com/stencils/categories/famous%2520people/bettie%2520page/index.html&amp;usg=__7-UVqFIEpGZ3iJgrAJ7si4Ig7r0=&amp;h=900&amp;w=900&amp;sz=24&amp;hl=en&amp;start=36&amp;sig2=o83Hd8unA0qgBclJDwH7-A&amp;tbnid=gQopRASs6WdEhM:&amp;tbnh=146&amp;tbnw=146&amp;ei=kOhDSZv0MczAtgevht3eCA&amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbettie%2Bpage%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN]]
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1. Who wrote the first four books of the New Testament?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Mark Gospel of Luke Gospel of John

2. Who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament?

Most conservative scholars hold that the Pentateuch was written by Moses.

3. What two Old Testament books are named for women?

Esther and Ruth.

4. What are the Ten Commandments?

1. I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me.

2. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife: or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:2-17)

5. What is the Greatest Commandment?

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37,38)

6. What is the second Greatest Commandment?

"Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:39)

7. What is the Golden Rule?

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Matthew 7:12)

8. What is the Great Commission?

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:19,20)

9. What was the test of a prophet, to know that he was truly from God?

He had to be 100% accurate in his prophecies. The penalty for a false prophet was death by stoning. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)

10. To whom did God give the 10 Commandments?

Moses. (Exodus 20)

11. Which two people did not die?

Genesis 5:24 says that Enoch, who was Noah's great- grandfather, "walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." The other was the Old Testament prophet Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind with a chariot and horses of fire. (2 Kings 2:11)

12. What is the root of all kinds of evil?

The love of money. (1 Timothy 6:10)

13. What is the beginning of wisdom?

The fear of the Lord. (Psalm 111:10)

14. Who delivered the Sermon on the Mount?

The Lord Jesus. (Matthew 5-7)

15. How did sickness and death enter the world?

Romans 5:12 says that sin entered the world though one man, and death through sin. The fall of man is recorded in Genesis 3, where God's perfect creation was spoiled by Adam's sin.

16. Who was the Roman governor who sentenced Christ to death?

Pontius Pilate. (Matthew 27:26)

17. Who are the major prophets?

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

18. What people group is the Old Testament about?

The Hebrews, who became the nation of Israel. They were descendants of Abraham though Isaac.

19. What happened while the Lord Jesus was in the desert for 40 days?

He was tempted by the devil. (Matthew 4:1) Hebrews 4:15 tells us that He was tempted in every way, just as we are: yet was without sin.

20. How many people were on Noah's ark?

Eight: Noah and his wife, his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. (Genesis 7:13)

21. Who was the first murderer?

Cain, who killed his brother Abel. (Genesis 4:8)

22. Which person was afflicted with terrible trials but trusted God through it all?

Job. (See Book of Job)

23. Who was Israel's most well-known and well-loved king?

David. (1 Chronicles 29:28)

24. Who was "the weeping prophet?"

Jeremiah.

25. Who was thrown into the lion's den?

Daniel. (Daniel 6)

26. Who were the two people in the famous fight with a stone and a sling?

David and Goliath. (1 Samuel 17)

27. What is the book of Acts about?

The early years of the church, as the gospel begins to spread throughout the world.

28. What are epistles?

Letters.

29. On what occasion was the Holy Spirit given to the church?

Pentecost. (Acts 2:1-4)

30. Whom did God command to sacrifice his only son?

Abraham. (Genesis 22:2)

31. What was the Old Testament feast that celebrated God's saving the firstborn of Israel the night they left Egypt?

Passover. (Exodus 12:27)

32. Who was the Hebrew who became prime minister of Egypt?

Joseph. (Genesis 41:41)

33. Who was the Hebrew woman who became Queen of Persia?

Esther. (Esther 2:17)

34. Who was the pagan woman who became David's great-grandmother?

Ruth. (Ruth 4:17)

35. Which angel appeared to Mary?

Gabriel. (Luke 1:26)

36. How did the Lord Jesus die?

He gave up His life while being crucified. (John 19:18)

37. What happened to Him three days after He died?

He was raised from the dead. (John 20)

38. What happened to the Lord Jesus 40 days after His resurrection?

He ascended bodily into heaven. (Acts 1:9-11)

39. What should we do when we sin, in order to restore our fellowship with God?

1 John 1:9 tells us, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

40. How did the universe and world get here?

Genesis 1:1 tells us, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." We are told further in Colossians 1:16 and 17 that the Lord Jesus Christ was the one who did the creating.

41. Where did Satan and the demons come from?

Satan was originally the best and the brightest angel, but he sinned in his pride, wanting to be God. Some of the angels followed him, and these "fallen angels" were cast out of heaven. (Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28)

42. Who directed the writing of the Bible?

The Holy Spirit. (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21)

43. Where was the Lord Jesus before He was conceived in Mary?

In heaven. (Philippians 2:6-11, 1 Corinthians 15:49)

44. Who taught in parables?

The Lord Jesus. (Matthew 13:3) Jesus' Parables

45. What are parables?

A short, simple story with a spiritual point.

46. Which two animals talked with human speech?

The serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:3) and Balaam's donkey (Numbers 22:28)

47. With which woman did David commit adultery?

Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 11)

48. Which one of their sons succeeded David as king?

Solomon. (2 Samuel 12:24)

49. Who was the female judge of Israel?

Deborah. (Judges 4:4)

50. Who was the wisest man in the world?

Solomon. (1 Kings 3:12)

51. Who was the first man?

Adam. (Genesis 2:20)

52. Who was the most humble man on earth?

Moses. (Numbers 12:3)

53. Who was the strongest man on earth?

Samson. (Judges 13-16)

54. Where were the two nations of God's people taken into captivity?

Israel was taken into Assyria (2 Kings 17:23), and Judah into Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:20).

55. Which cupbearer to a foreign king rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem?

Nehemiah. (Nehemiah 2:5)

56. Who were the two Old Testament prophets who worked miracles?

Elijah and Elisha. (1 Kings 17 - 2 Kings 6)

57. Which Old Testament prophet spent three days in the belly of a great fish?

Jonah. (Jonah 1:17)

58. What is the last book of the Old Testament?

Malachi.

59. For which Israelite commander did the sun stand still?

Joshua. (Joshua 10)

60. Who was the first king of Israel?

Saul. (1 Samuel 13:1)

61. Who built the temple in Israel?

Solomon. (1 Kings 6)

62. Which of the twelve tribes of Israel served as priests?

Levites. (Deuteronomy 10:8)

63. Which city fell after the Israelites marched around it daily for seven days?

Jericho. (Joshua 6:20)

64. What did God give the Israelites to eat in the wilderness?

Manna and quail. (Exodus 16)

65. Which two people walked on water?

Jesus and Peter. (Matthew 14:29)

66. Who was the first martyr?

Stephen. (Acts 7)

67. Who betrayed Jesus to the priests, and for how much?

Judas betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. (Matthew 26:14-15)

68. What is the Lord's Prayer?

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)

69. Who was the first person to see the risen Lord?

Mary Magdalene. (John 20:16)

70. Which prophet and cousin of the Lord was beheaded?

John the Baptist. (John 14:10)

71. To what country did the young Jesus and His parents escape when Herod was threatening His life?

Egypt. (Matthew 2:13-15)

72. What was Christ's first miracle?

He turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana. (John 2:11)

73. Which one of the Lord's personal friends did He raise from the dead?

Lazarus. (John 11)

74. Who was the greatest missionary of the New Testament?

Paul. (see book of Acts)

75. Who was Paul's first partner?

Barnabas. (Acts 13:2)

76. Whom did an angel release from prison?

Peter. (Acts 12)

77. Which event caused God to splinter human language into many tongues?

The building of the Tower of Babel. (Genesis 11)

78. Which chapter of an Old Testament prophet's book gives a detailed prophecy of the Messiah's death by crucifixion?

Isaiah 53.

79. Who wrestled all night with the Lord and was left with a permanent limp?

Jacob. (Genesis 32:22-32)

80. Which two pastors did Paul write letters to?

Timothy and Titus.

81. Who was hailed as a god when he was bitten by a snake but nothing bad happened?

Paul. (Acts 28:5-6)

82. Which two New Testament writers were brothers of the Lord Jesus?

James and Jude. (Matthew 13:55)

83. Which two New Testament books were written by a doctor?

Luke and Acts. (2 Timothy 4:11)

84. Who had a coat of many colors?

Joseph. (Genesis 37:3)

85. In what sin did Aaron lead the Israelites while his brother Moses was up on the mountain talking to God?

They made an idol in the form of a golden calf. (Exodus 32)

86. How many books are there in the entire Bible?

66: 39 in the Old Testament, and 27 in the New Testament.

87. What's the difference between John the Baptist and the John who wrote several New Testament books?

John the Baptist was a prophet who proclaimed the kingdom of God was near in preparation for his cousin Jesus' ministry. The John who wrote the gospel of John, the epistles: 1, 2 and 3 John: and Revelation, was one of the twelve apostles and one of those closest to the Lord, along with Peter and James. He called himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

8. Who saw the Lord appear to him in a burning bush?

Moses. (Exodus 3)

89. How many sons did Jacob have?

Twelve. They were the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Genesis 35:22)

90. Who gave up his birthright for a bowl of stew?

Esau. (Genesis 25:33)

91. Which Psalm starts out, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want?"

Psalm 23.

92. Who disowned the Lord Jesus three times before a cock crowed?

Peter. (Matthew 26:69-75)

93. What did the Lord do just before the Last Supper to demonstrate His love and humility?

He washed the disciples' feet. (John 13:5)

94. Where is the New Testament "Hall of Faith?"

Hebrews 11.

95. Who appeared with the Lord in glory on the Mount of Transfiguration?

Elijah and Moses. (Mark 9:4) Transfiguration

96. Who is the second Adam?

The Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)

97. Which Old Testament prophet married a prostitute because God told him to?

Hosea. (Hosea 1:2)

98. What are the two sacred ordinances that the Lord commanded us to observe?

Baptism (Matthew 28:19,20) and Communion, or the Lord's Table (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

99. What are supernatural enablings that allow a believer to serve the Body of Christ with ease and effectiveness?

Spiritual gifts. (Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:8-13, 1 Peter 4:10-11)

100. Whose tomb was Christ buried in?

Joseph of Arimathea. (Matthew 27:57-60)

101. Who wrote the book of Hebrews?

Nobody knows.

102. Which is the "epistle of joy?"

Philippians.

103. What is the book of Revelation about?

The end of the world.

104. Who is the bride of Christ?

The church: that is, all who have trusted Him for salvation. (Ephesians 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-8)

Body of Christ

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  <td> <i><font size="5" face="Times New Roman, 
  Times, serif"><b>my</b></font></i><b><font 
  size="5" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">D<font 
  color="#3333FF">e</font>v<font color="#006600">o</font>ti<font 
  color="#CC0066">o</font>n</font><font size="5"> 
  </font></b>
  <form name="getpassage" method="GET" action="http://mydevotion.com/logos/scripts/biblesyntax.asp?parent=0&x=v">
  <p align="left"><b>Find Book</b> <br>
  <input type="text" name="passage" size="10">
  <input type="SUBMIT" value="Go" name="B13">
  <input type="hidden" name="goto" value="/logos/bibleverse.asp">
  <font size="1"><br>(e.g. Luke 1 or Lu 1:30)</font> </p>
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[img[http://www.americanheritage.com/assets/images/articles/web/20050924-billofrights.jpg]]

This is a great project.  I hope to do some work with the Story Corp locally.

http://www.storycorps.org/


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[img[http://carper.senate.gov/images/photos/2008/20080418S_StoryCorps7838.jpg]]     [img[http://nycgo.com/uploadedImages/devnycvisitcom/venue/Story-Corps_V4_460x285.jpg]]

[img[http://www.wksu.org/news/images/23706/storycorpslogo.jpg]]






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Bob's Tiddlyspots

http://bc1488.tiddlyspot.com/
http://bobstheology.tiddlyspot.com
http://feverdream.tiddlyspot.com
http://azusa.tiddlyspot.com
http://bobwebsite.tiddlyspot.com

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by [[Philip Yancey]]

I first encountered C. S. Lewis through his space trilogy. Though perhaps not his best work, it had an undermining effect on me. He made the supernatural so believable that I could not help wondering, What if it's really true? What if there is a God and an afterlife and what if supernatural forces really are operating behind the scenes on this planet and in my life?

I was attending college in the late 1960s, just a few years after Lewis's death. I ordered more of his books from second-hand bookshops in England because many had not yet made it across the Atlantic. I wrestled with them as with a debate opponent and reluctantly felt myself drawn, as Lewis himself had, kicking and screaming all the way into the kingdom of God. Since then Lewis has been a constant companion, a kind of shadow mentor who sits beside me, urging me to improve my writing style, my thinking, and my vision.

Lewis has taught me a style of approach that I try to follow in my own writings. To quote William James, "… in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion." In other words, we rarely accept a logical argument unless it fits an intuitive sense of reality. The writer's challenge is to nurture that intuitive sense—as Lewis had done for me with his space trilogy before I encountered his apologetics. Lewis himself converted to Christianity only after sensing that it corresponded to his deepest longings, his Sehnsucht.

Lewis's background of atheism and doubt gave him a lifelong understanding of and compassion for readers who would not accept his words. He had engaged in a gallant tug of war with God, only to find that the God on the other end of the rope was entirely different from what he had imagined. Likewise, I had to overcome an image of God marred by an angry and legalistic church. I fought hard against a cosmic bully only to discover a God of grace and mercy.

"My idea of God is not a divine idea," Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed. "It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. … The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins." That book, conceived as his wife lay dying a most cruel death from bone cancer, unsettles some readers. Lewis had dealt with theodicy philosophically in The Problem of Pain, but tidy arguments melted away as he watched the process of bodily devastation in the woman he loved. I believe the two books should be read together, for the combination of ultimate answers and existential agony reflects the biblical pattern. The Cross saved the world, but, oh, at what cost.

Lewis saw the world as a place worth saving. Unlike the monastics of the Middle Ages and the legalists of modern times, he saw no need to withdraw and deny all pleasures. He loved a stiff drink, a puff on the pipe, a gathering of friends, a Wagnerian opera, a hike in the fields of Oxford. The pleasures in life are indeed good, just not good enough; they are "only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."

I found in Lewis that rare and precarious balance of embracing the world while not idolizing it. For all its defects, this planet bears marks of the original design, traces of Beauty and Joy that both recall and anticipate the Creator's intent.

Alone of modern authors, Lewis taught me to anticipate heaven: "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea."

I doubt Lewis ever anticipated that almost half a century after his death several million people each year would buy one of his dozens of books still in print, and that Disney Studios would release movies based on Narnia with spinoff products available in every shopping mall. If informed of that fact, he would likely have shrunk back in alarm.

We writers are not nouns, he used to say. We are mere adjectives, pointing to the great Noun of truth. Lewis did that, faithfully and masterfully, and because he did so, many thousands have come to know and love that Noun.

Including me.

Adapted from Mere Christians: Inspirational Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis, forthcoming from Baker Publishing

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/sunday/main3445.shtml

CBS News Sunday Morning is an early morning news program CBS airs on Sunday mornings. The typical time is from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. ET, though west coast stations often air it earlier due to conflicts with sports programming later in the day. Sunday Morning premiered in 1979. Original host Charles Kuralt hosted the program until 1994, when he was replaced by Charles Osgood.

Sunday Morning is considered one of television's highest-quality news shows, and a throwback to the "old guard" CBS style of thoughtful news broadcasting.[citation needed] The style was briefly copied by the weekday CBS Morning News broadcast anchored by Bob Schieffer as Morning (Kuralt eventually took over the daily role). However, the show's then-limited 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. ET air time (since Captain Kangaroo was entrenched in the 8 o'clock hour) hampered its ability to compete with NBC and ABC's rival two-hour morning shows, though it expanded to an hour and a half in 1981. The CBS weekday program, now a full two hours on the East Coast, is now known as The Early Show.

Format
Each episode follows a sort of story totem pole in the center of the CBS soundstage. Each story covered in a given episode has a glass plate with its headline on this pole, which the camera follows after Osgood's introductions. Osgood introduces each story with a short monologue, then sends the show out to the pre-taped segment. The show usually ends with a 60 second scene of a tranquil scene of plants and/or animals. After that, a subtle plug is delivered by Osgood for his radio commentaries, with the closing "I'll see you on the radio."

The program has been described as a "Sunday newspaper in a [television] tube". Notably, Sunday Morning includes significant coverage of the fine and performing arts, including coverage of topics usually not covered in network news, such as architecture, painting, ballet, opera, and classical music, though increasingly more popular forms of music have been included. The program chooses to ask untraditional questions of guests; for instance, it asked actor Brad Pitt about his love of architecture, and Grant Hill about his painting collection. Television essays similar to the kinds delivered on PBS also show up, and the program generally has a stable of positive and negative news stories to fill up the program when there is no breaking news of note. Story lengths are longer and the pace of the program is considerably relaxed from the weekday Early Show. Recurring segments occur with commentators Ben Stein and Nancy Giles delivering their opinion, and with correspondent Bill Geist doing human interest stories. [1] [2] Despite the stereotype of the program appealing towards senior citizens [3], the show actually placed first among its time slot in the key 25-54 demographic. [4]

Production
The program is marked by its distinctive "Sun" logo. In addition, in between some segments images of the sun in various forms also appear. The show's theme is the trumpet fanfare "Abblasen", attributed to Gottfried Reiche. A recording of the piece on baroque trumpet by Don Smithers was used as the show's theme for many years, until producers decided to replace the vinyl recording with a digital one on a piccolo trumpet by former Tonight Show musical director Doc Severinsen. The current version is played by Wynton Marsalis. [5]

Cast

Charles Kuralt, Host from 1979-1994Sorted chronologically by start date

Charles Kuralt, Host, 1979-1994
Ron Powers, Film, Book, and Drama Reviews, 1979-1988
Martha Teichner, Correspondent, 1979-
Eugenia Zuckerman, Classical Music Correspondent, 1980-
Billy Taylor, Jazz and Modern Music Correspondent, 1981-
Bill Geist, Correspondent, 1987-
Roger Welsch, Correspondent and Postcards From Nebraska Correspondent, 1988-
John Leonard, Film, Book, and Drama Review, 1988-
Faith Daniels, Correspondent, 1988-1989
Terence Smith, Correspondent, 1990-
Tim Sample, Correspondent, 1993-
Charles Osgood, Host, 1994-
Nancy Giles, Correspondent, 2002-
Serena Altschul, Correspondent, 2003-
David Edelstein, Commentator, 2005-
Erin Moriarty, Correspondent,
Ben Stein, Commentator,
Rita Braver, National Correspondent 1998-
Bill Flanagan, Music Critic

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

The Indianapolis Star

November 9, 2007

Jeff Cardwell will bring cooperative spirit to City-County Council
Businessman aims to bring cooperative spirit to council
By William J. Booher
william.booher@indystar.com
November 9, 2007

Southside businessman and civic leader Jeff Cardwell can add something else to his list of accomplishments -- elected City-County councilman.

"I've been training for this opportunity for more than 30 years," said Cardwell, 47, a Republican. "Now it's time to bring all those life skills together to serve others in an official capacity as an elected official."
He said he's "really blessed and very grateful to all the volunteers who supported my campaign."
Cardwell got 4,810 votes (73.6 percent) to 1,723 votes (26.4 percent) for Democrat Earl E. Williams in the race for council District 23.

The 73.6 percent is the highest of any candidate in a contested race Tuesday in Marion County, according to unofficial results.

Cardwell, a Perry Township resident, is president and chief executive officer of Cardwell Do-It Best Home Center, 3205 Madison Ave. He is widely known on the Southside for several reasons, including his devotion to promoting volunteerism efforts to help those in need.

He is founder of "People Helping People," a weekly radio show championing volunteerism. He is co-founder of World in Need, which also encourages volunteerism.

He's an international board member of the Fuller Center for Housing, which is Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller's expanded vision of eliminating substandard housing worldwide.

On the Southside, Cardwell is co-founder and president of the Gateway Business Alliance, which is focused on economic development initiatives along the Madison Avenue corridor, and he is vice president of the board of directors of Friends of Garfield Park.

He said he intends to bring the cooperative spirit to the council.
"We all have a role to play," he said, emphasizing how the city and its neighborhoods can be improved through positive interaction of business and community leaders, resident volunteers, faith-based organizations and others.

"I believe we live in one of the greatest cities in the nation. I feel very blessed to be in this city. We can make the best even better."

He said one way is to go back to the basics.

"I think the sense of community policing speaks for itself," he said. "For years in my business, I knew the officers on every shift by name."

Cardwell said he isn't too surprised that Greg Ballard won the mayor's race and Republicans won 17 council seats to the Democrats' 12, ending the Democrats' 15-14 council control.

He said that late in the campaign, he felt Ballard could win.

"I heard many stories that went way beyond taxes. There was concern about the direction of our city," he said.

Cardwell also credits someone for a legacy of leadership -- Phil Borst.
Borst, who is concluding 28 years as District 23 councilman, decided not to seek re-election.
He became Cardwell's campaign chairman. Cardwell had served in some of Borst's campaigns as his campaign chairman.

"Phil Borst's legacy will be a great blueprint for all of us to follow," Cardwell said.

From Cave to Castle
by Mike Krumboltz

11 hours ago
975 Votes

There's rags to riches and then there's rags to mega-riches. Two brothers from Hungary definitely fall into the second category.

Until recently, Geza and Zslot Peladi lived in a cave near Budapest. Completely destitute, the two cave-brothers earned money by gathering scrap metal and selling candy they found on the street. That all changed the moment they heard that they stood to inherit a substantial portion of their maternal grandmother's $6.6 billion fortune. (That's billion, with a "B.")

According to an article from the New York Post, once the paperwork goes through, the two brothers will share the fortune with their sister in the United States. While some folks who come into obscene amounts of money might buy a plane, throw a party, or commission large oil paintings of themselves, Geza Peladi has a more modest goal. He would like a "normal life" and to find a woman to share his fortune with. Apparently, it's rather hard to get dates when you live in a cave.

A blog from Ananova features photos of the two brothers and explains their circumstances a bit more. They were told of their mother's death by homeless charity workers. Geza was quoted as saying that he knew his mother came from a wealthy family "but she was a difficult person and severed ties with them, and then later abandoned us and we lost touch with her and our father until she eventually died."

Under German law (where the grandmother lived), the brothers (and the sister) "will inherit the entire estate as they are the closest surviving family members." Once proof of relation to the grandmother is established, they'll be traveling to Germany to start what we can only presume will be a very different kind of life. Best of luck, guys.

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Guevarakorda3.jpg/443px-Guevarakorda3.jpg]]


Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, el Che, or simply Che; was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, global political figure, author, military theorist, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas. As a young man, Guevara studied medicine and traveled "rough[›]" throughout Latin America, activities that brought him into direct contact with the poverty in which many lived. Through these experiences he became convinced that only revolution could remedy the region's economic inequality, leading him to study Marxism and become involved in Guatemala's social revolution under President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.

Later while in Mexico in 1956, Guevara joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement that fought a guerrilla war and ultimately seized power from the regime of the U.S.-supported Cuban dictator General Fulgencio Batista in 1959. For a few months after the success of the Cuban Revolution, Guevara was assigned the role of supreme prosecutor, overseeing the revolutionary tribunals and executions of suspected war criminals associated with the previous regime.

Along with serving in several important posts in the new government, and traveling around the world meeting important leaders on behalf of Cuban socialism, he was a prolific writer of an assortment of books, including a classic manual on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare (foco theory). Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to incite revolutions first in a failed attempt in Congo-Kinshasa and ultimately in Bolivia, where he was captured and executed.

Although a controversial figure during his life, after his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements worldwide and a countercultural hero. He has since been venerated and reviled in dozens of biographies, memoirs, books, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. An Alberto Korda photo of him (shown) has received wide distribution and modification. The Maryland Institute College of Art called this picture "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century."[1]
Contents
[hide]

    * 1 Early life
    * 2 Guatemala
    * 3 Cuba
    * 4 Disappearance from Cuba
    * 5 Congo
    * 6 Bolivia
          o 6.1 Insurgent
          o 6.2 Capture and execution
          o 6.3 The Bolivian Diary
    * 7 Legacy
    * 8 Timeline
    * 9 Guevara's authored works
    * 10 Content notes
    * 11 Source notes
    * 12 References
    * 13 External links
          o 13.1 Photos/interactive media
          o 13.2 Archival footage

Early life
Birthplace of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Rosario. The building was erected by Enrique Ferrarese and designed by Arq. Bustillo.    Another view.
Birthplace of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Rosario. The building was erected by Enrique Ferrarese and designed by Arq. Bustillo.    Another view.
Ernesto Guevara Serna (left) with his parents and siblings, ca.1944. Seated beside him, from left to right: Celia (mother), Celia (sister), Roberto, Juan Martín, Ernesto (father) and Ana María.
Ernesto Guevara Serna (left) with his parents and siblings, ca.1944. Seated beside him, from left to right: Celia (mother), Celia (sister), Roberto, Juan Martín, Ernesto (father) and Ana María.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a family of mixed Spanish and Irish descent; both his father and mother were of Basque ancestry.Basque[›] The date of birth recorded on his birth certificate was June 14, 1928, although some sources assert that he was actually born on May 14 of that year.[2] One of Guevara's forebears, Patrick Lynch, was born in Galway, Ireland, in 1715; he traveled to Bilbao, Spain, and from there to Argentina. Francisco Lynch (Guevara's great-grandfather) was born in 1817, and Ana Lynch (his beloved grandmother) in 1868Galway[›] Her son, Ernesto Guevara Lynch (Guevara's father) was born in 1900. Guevara Lynch married Celia de la Serna y Llosa in 1927, and they had three sons and two daughters.

Growing up in this declassé family with leftist leanings, Guevara became known for his dynamic personality and radical perspective even as a boy. Though suffering from the crippling bouts of asthma that were to afflict him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete. He was an avid rugby union player despite his handicap and earned himself the nickname "Fuser" — a contraction of "El Furibundo" (English: raging) and his mother's surname, "Serna" — for his aggressive style of play.[3]

Guevara learned chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by the age of 12.[4] During his adolescence, he became passionate about poetry, especially that of Pablo Neruda. Guevara, as is common practice among Latin Americans of his class, also wrote poems throughout his life. He was an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, with interests ranging from adventure classics by Jack London, Emilio Salgari, and Jules Verne to essays by Sigmund Freud and Bertrand Russell. In his late teens, he developed a keen interest in photography and spent many hours photographing.

In 1948 Guevara entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. As a student, he spent long periods traveling around Latin America. In 1951, Guevara took a year off from his medical studies to embark on a trip traversing South America with his friend, Alberto Granado. They set off from their hometown of Alta Gracia on a motorcycle to spend a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo Leper colony in Peru on the banks of the Amazon River. Guevara narrated this journey in The Motorcycle Diaries, which was translated into English in 1996 and used in 2004 as the basis for a motion picture of the same name.

Witnessing the widespread poverty, oppression and disenfranchisement throughout Latin America, and influenced by his readings of Marxist literature, Guevara decided that the only solution for the region’s inequalities was armed revolution. His travels and readings also led him to view Latin America not as a group of separate nations but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide strategy for liberation. His conception of a borderless, united Hispanic America sharing a common 'mestizo' cultureHispanic America[›] was a theme that would prominently recur during his later revolutionary activities. Upon returning to Argentina, he expedited the completion of his medical studies in order to resume his travels in Central and South America and received the diploma accrediting him as a medic on 12 June 1953.Diploma[›]

Guatemala

On 7 July 1953, Guevara set out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. In December 1953 he arrived in Guatemala where President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán headed a democratically elected government that, through land reform and other initiatives, was attempting to end the U.S.-dominated latifundia system. In a contemporaneous letter to his Aunt Beatriz, Guevara explained his motivation for settling down for a time in Guatemala: "In Guatemala", he wrote, "I will perfect myself and accomplish whatever may be necessary in order to become a true revolutionary."[5]
A map showing Che Guevara's movements between 1953 and 1956; including his trip north to Guatemala, his stay in Mexico and his journey east by boat to Cuba with Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries.
A map showing Che Guevara's movements between 1953 and 1956; including his trip north to Guatemala, his stay in Mexico and his journey east by boat to Cuba with Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries.

Shortly after reaching Guatemala City, Guevara sought out Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist living and working there. Gadea was well-connected politically as a member of the socialist American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) led by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre and she introduced Guevara to a number of high-level officials in the Arbenz government. He also re-established contact with a group of Cuban exiles linked to Fidel Castro whom he had initially met in Costa Rica, among them Antonio "Ñico" López associated with the attack on the "Carlos Manuel de Céspedes" barracks in Bayamo in the Cuban province of Oriente.[6] During this period he acquired his famous nickname, "Che", due to his frequent use of the Argentine interjection Che (pronounced [tʃe]), which is used in much the same way as "hey", "pal", "eh", or "mate" are employed colloquially now in various English-speaking countries.

Guevara's attempts to obtain a medical internship were unsuccessful and his economic situation was often precarious.[7] He maintained a distance from any political organization, even though his political thinking at the time manifested a clear sympathy toward communism. Despite his financial woes, he rejected an offer to work as a state medic when he learned that in order to get the job he would have to affiliate himself with the Communist Party of Guatemala.[7] Political events in the country began to move quickly after May 15, 1954 when a shipment of Škoda infantry and light artillery weapons sent from Communist Czechoslovakia for the Arbenz Government arrived in Puerto Barrios aboard the Swedish ship Alfhem.[8][9] Shortly after, the CIA-sponsored coup attempt led by Carlos Castillo Armas began.[8] The anti-Arbenz forces tried, but failed, to stop the trans-shipment of the Czechoslovak weapons by train. However, after pausing to regroup and recover energy, Castillo Armas' column seized the initiative and started to gain ground.[10] Guevara was eager to fight on behalf of Arbenz and joined an armed militia organized by the Communist Youth for that purpose; but, frustrated with the group's inaction, he soon returned to medical duties. Following the coup, he again volunteered to fight but his efforts were thwarted when Arbenz took refuge in the Mexican Embassy and told his foreign supporters to leave the country. After Gadea was arrested, Guevara sought protection inside the Argentine consulate where he remained until he received a safe-conduct pass some weeks later and made his way to Mexico.[11]

The overthrow of the Arbenz regime by a coup d'état backed by the Central Intelligence Agency cemented Guevara's view of the United States as an imperialist power that would oppose and attempt to destroy any government that sought to redress the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries. This strengthened his conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such conditions.

Cuba

    Further information: Che Guevara's involvement in the Cuban Revolution

After the battle of Santa Clara, 01 January 1959.
After the battle of Santa Clara, 01 January 1959.
In his trademark olive green military fatigues, 02 June 1959.
In his trademark olive green military fatigues, 02 June 1959.

Guevara arrived in Mexico City in early September 1954, and renewed his friendship with Ñico López and the other Cuban exiles whom he had known in Guatemala. While living in Mexico, Guevara worked in the allergy ward of the General Hospital and supplemented his salary as a photographer.[12]In June 1955, López introduced him to Raúl Castro. Several weeks later, Fidel Castro arrived in Mexico City after having been amnestied from prison in Cuba, and on the evening of 8 July 1955, Raúl introduced Guevara to the older Castro brother. During a fervid overnight conversation, Guevara became convinced that Fidel was the inspirational revolutionary leader for whom he had been searching, and he immediately joined the 26th of July Movement plotting to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Although it was planned that he would be the group's medic, Guevara participated in the military training with the other members of the Movement, and at the end of the course, was singled out by their instructor, Col. Alberto Bayo, as his most outstanding student.[13] Meanwhile, Hilda Gadea had arrived from Guatemala and she and Guevara resumed their relationship. In the summer of 1955, she informed him that she was pregnant, and he immediately suggested that they marry. The wedding took place on August 18, 1955, and their daughter, whom they named Hilda Beatríz, was born on February 15, 1956.[14]

When the cabin cruiser Granma set out from Tuxpan, Veracruz for Cuba on November 25, 1956, Guevara was one of only four non-Cubans aboard.non-Cubans[›] Attacked by Batista's military soon after landing, about half of the expeditionaries were killed or executed upon capture. Guevara wrote that it was during this confrontation that he laid down his knapsack containing medical supplies in order to pick up a box of ammunition dropped by a fleeing comrade, a moment which he later recalled as marking his transition from physician to combatant.Knapsack[›]

Guevara became a leader among the rebels, a Comandante (English translation: Major), respected by his comrades in arms for his courage and military prowess,[15] as well as feared for his ruthlessness. During the guerrilla campaign, he was responsible for the execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies.[16] In March 1958, Guevara was tasked with directing a training camp for new volunteers high in the Sierra Maestra, one of a number of military schools set up by the 26th of July Movement. Though wishing to push the battlefront forward and frustrated by his more stationary role, Guevara spent the period developing contacts with sympathetic locals.[17]

As the war extended throughout eastern Cuba, Guevara and a new column of fighters were dispatched westward for the final push towards Havana. In the closing days of December 1958, he directed his "suicide squad" (which undertook the most dangerous tasks in the rebel army)[18] in the attack on Santa Clara that became one of the decisive events of the revolution, although the series of ambushes during la ofensiva in the heights of the Sierra Maestra and then at Guisa and the Cauto Plains campaign that followed were more significant militarily.[19][20][21] Batista, upon learning that his generals — especially General Cantillo, who had visited Castro at the inactive sugar mill, Central Oriente — were negotiating a separate peace with the rebel leader, fled to the Dominican Republic on January 1, 1959.

On February 7, 1959, the government proclaimed Guevara "a Cuban citizen by birth" in recognition of his role in the triumph of the revolutionary forces. Shortly thereafter, he initiated divorce proceedings to put a formal end to his marriage with Gadea, from whom he had been separated since before leaving Mexico on the Granma. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March,Children[›] a Cuban-born member of the 26th of July movement with whom he had been living since late 1958. Guevara was appointed commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, and during his five-month tenure in that post (January 2 through June 12, 1959),[22] he oversaw the trial and execution of many people, among whom were former Batista regime officials and members of the "Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities" (BRAC), a unit of the secret police known by its Spanish acronym. José Vilasuso, an attorney who worked under Guevara at La Cabaña preparing indictments, said that these were lawless proceedings where "the facts were judged without any consideration to general juridical principles" and the findings were pre-determined by Guevara.[23] It is estimated that between 156 and 550 people were executed on Guevara's extra-judicial orders during this time.[24]
Riding a mule in Las Villas province, Cuba, November 1958.
Riding a mule in Las Villas province, Cuba, November 1958.

Guevara recorded the two years he spent in overthrowing Batista's regime in a detailed account entitled Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria. Individual chapters of Pasajes, which was based on the war diary Guevara kept during the guerrilla campaign, first appeared in Verde Olivo, the official magazine of the Cuban armed forces, beginning in 1961. It came out in book format in 1963, and an English translation was issued in 1968 under the title Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. [25]

On 12 June 1959, Guevara set out on a three-month tour of fourteen countries, most of them Bandung Pact members in Africa and Asia. He spent twelve days in Japan (15 - 27 July), participating in negotiations aimed at expanding Cuba's trade relations with that nation. While there, he requested that the Japanese government arrange for him to visit the city of Hiroshima, where the American military had detonated an atom-bomb fourteen years earlier. When the Japanese government refused to add Hiroshima to his delegation's itinerary, Guevara surreptitiously left his Osaka hotel to secretly visit Hiroshima by night train along with his aide Omar Fernández. According to Fernández, who served as the deputy head of the mission, Guevara was "really shocked" at what he saw and by their visit to a hospital where A-bomb survivors were being treated.[26]

Later, Guevara became an official at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform,INRA[›] and President of the National Bank of Cuba.BNC[›] He signed all Cuban banknotes issued during his fourteen-month presidency with his nickname, "Che".Signature[›] Throughout his time in the Cuban government, Guevara refused his due salaries of office, insisting on drawing only his wages as army comandante in order to set a "revolutionary example".[27] During this time his fondness for chess was rekindled, and he attended and participated in most national and international tournaments held in Cuba.[28] He was particularly eager to encourage young Cubans to take up the game, and organized various activities designed to stimulate their interest in it.

As early as 1959, Guevara helped organize revolutionary expeditions overseas, all of which failed. The first attempt was made in Panama; another in the Dominican Republic (led by Henry Fuerte,[29] also known as "El Argelino", and Enrique Jiménez Moya)[30] took place on 14 June of that same year. In 1960 Guevara provided first aid to victims when the freighter La Coubre, a French vessel carrying munitions from the port of Antwerp, exploded while it was being unloaded in Havana harbor. A rescue operation immediately ensued but went awry when a second explosion occurred, resulting in well over a hundred dead.[31] It was at the memorial service for the victims of this explosion that Alberto Korda took the most famous photograph of him.
Meeting with French philosophers Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1960. Guevara was also fluent in French.
Meeting with French philosophers Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1960. Guevara was also fluent in French.[32] [33]

Guevara later served as Minister of Industries,MININD[›] in which post he helped formulate Cuban socialism, and became one of the country's most prominent figures. He called for the diversification of the Cuban economy, and for the elimination of what he called "material incentives". He believed that volunteer work and dedication of workers would drive economic growth, all that was needed was will. To display this Guevara led by example, working endlessly at his ministry job, in construction, and even cutting sugar cane. [34] Time was also set aside to write several publications. In his book Guerrilla Warfare, he advocated replicating the Cuban model of revolution initiated by a small group (foco theory) of guerrilla warfare without the need for broad organizations to precede armed insurrection. His essay El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba (1965) (Man and Socialism in Cuba) advocates the need to shape a "new man" (hombre nuevo) in conjunction with a socialist state. Some saw Guevara as the simultaneously glamorous and austere model of that "new man."

During the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, Guevara did not participate in the fighting, having been ordered by Castro to a command post in Cuba's westernmost Pinar del Río province where he was involved in fending off a decoy force. He did, however, suffer a bullet wound to the face during this deployment, which he said had been caused by the accidental discharge of his own gun.[13]

Guevara played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. During an interview with the British newspaper Daily Worker some weeks later, he stated that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them against major U.S. cities.[35]

Disappearance from Cuba
Addressing the UN General Assembly(New York City - 11 December 1964).
Addressing the UN General Assembly
(New York City - 11 December 1964).
Walking through Red Square in Moscow, November 1964
Walking through Red Square in Moscow, November 1964

In December 1964 Che Guevara traveled to New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to speak at the UN (listen, requires RealPlayer; or read). He also appeared on the CBS Sunday news program Face the Nation and met with a gamut of people and groups including U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy, several associates of Malcolm X, and Canadian radical Michelle Duclos.[36][37] On 17 December, he flew to Paris and embarked on a three-month international tour during which he visited the People's Republic of China, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland, Paris and Prague. In Algiers on 24 February 1965, he made what turned out to be his last public appearance on the international stage when he delivered a speech to the "Second Economic Seminar on Afro-Asian Solidarity" in which he declared, "There are no frontiers in this struggle to the death. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of what occurs in any part of the world. A victory for any country against imperialism is our victory, just as any country's defeat is our defeat."[38][39] He then astonished his audience by proclaiming, "The socialist countries have the moral duty of liquidating their tacit complicity with the exploiting countries of the West." He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist-bloc countries should implement in order to accomplish this objective.[40][41] He returned to Cuba on 14 March to a solemn reception by Fidel and Raúl Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez at the Havana airport.

Two weeks later, Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. His whereabouts were the great mystery of 1965 in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the relative failure of the industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industry, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials disapproving of Guevara's pro-Chinese Communist bent as the Sino-Soviet split grew more pronounced, and to serious differences between Guevara and the Cuban leadership regarding Cuba's economic development and ideological line. It may also be that Castro had grown increasingly wary of Guevara's popularity and considered him a potential threat. Castro's critics sometimes say his explanations for Guevara's disappearance have always been suspect (see below), and many found it surprising that Guevara never announced his intentions publicly, but only through an undated and uncharacteristically obsequious letter to Castro.

The coincidence of Guevara's views with those expounded by the Chinese Communist leadership was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the nation's economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union. Since the early days of the Cuban revolution, Guevara had been considered by many an advocate of Maoist strategy in Latin America and the originator of a plan for the rapid industrialization of Cuba which was frequently compared to China's "Great Leap Forward". According to Western "observers" of the Cuban situation, the fact that Guevara was opposed to Soviet conditions and recommendations that Castro seemed obliged to accept might have been the reason for his disappearance. However, both Guevara and Castro were supportive of the idea of a united front, including the Soviet Union and China, and had made several unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the feuding parties.

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis and what he perceived as a Soviet betrayal of Cuba when Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles from Cuban territory without consulting Castro, Guevara had grown more skeptical of the Soviet Union. As revealed in his last speech in Algiers, he had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the U.S. in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. He strongly supported Communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged the peoples of other developing countries to take up arms and create "many Vietnams".[42]

Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara's fate, Castro stated on 16 June 1965, that the people would be informed about Guevara when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Numerous rumors about his disappearance spread both inside and outside Cuba. On 3 October of that year, Castro revealed an undated letter[43] purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier in which Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but declared his intention to leave Cuba to fight abroad for the cause of the revolution. He explained that "Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts," and that he had therefore decided to go and fight as a guerrilla "on new battlefields". In the letter Guevara announced his resignation from all his positions in the government, in the party, and in the Army, and renounced his Cuban citizenship, which had been granted to him in 1959 in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the revolution.

During an interview with four foreign correspondents on 1 November, Castro remarked that he knew where Guevara was but would not disclose his location, and added, denying reports that his former comrade-in-arms was dead, that "he is in the best of health." Despite Castro's assurances, Guevara's fate remained a mystery at the end of 1965 and his movements and whereabouts continued to be a closely held secret for the next two years.

Congo
Listening to a Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave receiver are (seated from the left) Rogelio Oliva, José María Martínez Tamayo (known as "Mbili" in the Congo and "Ricardo" in Bolivia), and Guevara. Standing behind them is Roberto Sánchez ("Lawton" in Cuba and "Changa" in the Congo).
Listening to a Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave receiver are (seated from the left) Rogelio Oliva, José María Martínez Tamayo (known as "Mbili" in the Congo and "Ricardo" in Bolivia), and Guevara. Standing behind them is Roberto Sánchez ("Lawton" in Cuba and "Changa" in the Congo).

During their all-night meeting on March 14–March 15, 1965, Guevara and Castro had agreed that the former would personally lead Cuba's first military action in Sub-Saharan Africa.Algeria[›] Some sources state that Guevara persuaded Castro to back him in this effort, while other sources maintain that Castro convinced Guevara to undertake the mission, arguing that conditions in the various Latin American countries that had been under consideration for the possible establishment of guerrilla focos were not yet optimal.[35] Castro himself has said the latter is true.[44] Guevara previously in August of 1964 laid out why he believed the Congo was a major battleground against imperialism, stating that the North American monopolies were installing themselves in a battle to "own the Congo", in order to control the copper, radioactive minerals, and strategic raw materials.[45]

According to Ahmed Ben Bella, who was president of Algeria at the time and had recently held extended conversations with Guevara, "The situation prevailing in Africa, which seemed to have enormous revolutionary potential, led Che to the conclusion that Africa was imperialism’s weak link. It was to Africa that he now decided to devote his efforts." [46][47]

The Cuban operation was to be carried out in support of the pro-Patrice Lumumba Marxist Simba movement in the Congo-Kinshasa (formerly Belgian Congo, later Zaire and currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Guevara, his second-in-command Victor Dreke, and twelve of the Cuban expeditionaries arrived in the Congo on 24 April 1965; a contingent of approximately 100 Afro-Cubans joined them soon afterwards.[48][49] They collaborated for a time with guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila,Kabila[›] who helped Lumumba supporters lead a revolt that was suppressed in November of that same year by the Congolese army. Guevara dismissed Kabila as insignificant. "Nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour," Guevara wrote.[50]
Guevara teaching guerrilla tactics to Congolese forces. To his left is Santiago Terry (codename: "Aly"), to his right, Angel Felipe Hernández ("Sitaini").
Guevara teaching guerrilla tactics to Congolese forces. To his left is Santiago Terry (codename: "Aly"), to his right, Angel Felipe Hernández ("Sitaini").

Although Guevara was 37 at the time and had no formal military training, he had the experiences of the Cuban revolution, including his successful march on Santa Clara, which was central to Batista's finally being overthrown by Castro's forces. His asthma had prevented his being drafted into military service in Argentina, a fact of which he was proud given his opposition to Perón's government.

South African mercenaries including Mike Hoare and Cuban exiles worked with the Congolese army to thwart Guevara. They were able to monitor his communications, arrange to ambush the rebels and the Cubans whenever they attempted to attack, and interdict his supply lines. Despite the fact that Guevara sought to conceal his presence in the Congo, the U.S. government was aware of his location and activities: The National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting all of his incoming and outgoing transmissions via equipment aboard the USNS Valdez, a floating listening post which continuously cruised the Indian Ocean off Dar-es-Salaam for that purpose.NSA[›]

Guevara's aim was to export the Cuban Revolution by instructing local Simba fighters in communist ideology and foco theory strategies of guerrilla warfare. In his Congo Diary, he cites the incompetence, intransigence and infighting of the local Congolese forces as key reasons for the revolt's failure.[51] Later that year, ill with dysentery, suffering from asthma, and disheartened after seven months of frustrations, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors (six members of his column had died). At one point Guevara considered sending the wounded back to Cuba, then standing alone and fighting until the end in the Congo as a revolutionary example; however, after being urged by his comrades and pressed by two emissaries sent by Castro, at the last moment he reluctantly agreed to leave the Congo. A few weeks later, writing the preface to the diary he kept during the Congo venture, he began: "This is the history of a failure."[52]

Because Castro had made public Guevara's "farewell letter" to him — a letter Guevara had intended should only be revealed in case of his death — wherein he had written that he was severing all ties to Cuba in order to devote himself to revolutionary activities in other parts of the world, he felt he could not return to Cuba with the surviving combatants for moral reasons,[53] and he spent the next six months living clandestinely in Dar-es-Salaam, and Prague. During this time he compiled his memoirs of the Congo experience, and wrote drafts of two more books, one on philosophy[54] and the other on economics.[55] He also visited several countries in Western Europe to test a new false identity and the corresponding documentation (passport, etc.) created for him by Cuban Intelligence that he planned to use to travel to South America. Throughout this period Castro continued to importune him to return to Cuba, but Guevara only agreed to do so when it was understood he would be there only for the few months needed to prepare a revolutionary effort somewhere in Latin America, and that his presence on the island would be secret.

Bolivia

Insurgent

Speculation on Guevara's whereabouts continued throughout 1966 and into 1967. Representatives of the Mozambican independence movement FRELIMO reported meeting with Guevara in late 1966 or early 1967 in Dar es Salaam, at which point they rejected his offer of aid in their revolutionary project.[56] In a speech at the 1967 May Day rally in Havana, the Acting Minister of the armed forces, Major Juan Almeida, announced that Guevara was "serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America". The persistent reports that he was leading the guerrillas in Bolivia were eventually shown to be true.

At Castro's behest,[57] a 3,700-acre (15 km²) parcel of jungle land in the remote Ñancahuazú region had been purchased by native Bolivian Communists for Guevara to use as a training area and base camp.Camp[›] Training at this camp in the Ñancahuazú valley proved to be more hazardous than combat to Guevara and the Cubans accompanying him. Little was accomplished in the way of building a guerrilla army. Former Stasi operative Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, better known by her nom de guerre "Tania", who had been installed as his primary agent in La Paz, was reportedly also working for the KGB and is widely inferred to have unwittingly served Soviet interests by leading Bolivian authorities to Guevara's trail.[58]
Map of Bolivia showing location of Vallegrande.
Map of Bolivia showing location of Vallegrande.

Guevara's guerrilla force, numbering about 50 and operating as the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia; English: "National Liberation Army of Bolivia"), was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against Bolivian regulars in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region. In September, however, the Army managed to eliminate two guerrilla groups in a violent battle, reportedly killing one of the leaders. Guevara's revolution had failed.

Guevara's plan for fomenting revolution in Bolivia appears to have failed because it was based upon misconceptions:

    * He had expected to deal only with the country's military government and its poorly trained and equipped army. However, Guevara was unaware that the U.S. government had sent the CIA and other operatives into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. The Bolivian Army was trained and supplied by U.S. Army Special ForcesUSMilitary[›] advisors, including a recently organized elite battalion of Rangers trained in jungle warfare that set up camp in La Esperanza, a small settlement close to the location of Guevara's guerillas.[59][60]
    * Guevara had expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents which he did not receive, nor did he receive support from Bolivia's Communist Party, under the leadership of Mario Monje which was oriented toward Moscow rather than Havana.
    * He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. However, the two shortwave transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty; the guerrillas were unable to communicate with Havana and Guevara was therefore on his own, receiving no support from Cuba.

In addition, his known preference for confrontation rather than compromise, which had surfaced during his guerrilla warfare campaign in Cuba as well, contributed to his inability to develop successful working relationships with local leaders in Bolivia, just as it had in the Congo and in Cuba.[61] This tendency had existed in Cuba , but had been kept in check there by the timely interventions and guidance of Castro.[62]

Capture and execution
Che Guevara's corpse was displayed to the World's press after his execution.
Che Guevara's corpse was displayed to the World's press after his execution.

The hunt for Guevara in Bolivia was headed by Félix Rodríguez, a CIA operative.[63][64] On 7 October, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine. They encircled the area, and Guevara was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a detachment with Simeón Cuba Sarabia. According to some soldiers present at the capture, as they approached Guevara during the skirmish he allegedly shouted, "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead."[65]

Guevara was taken to a dilapidated schoolhouse in the nearby village of La Higuera. Early the next day, Barrientos ordered that he be killed.Barrientos[›] The executioner was Mario Terán, a sergeant in the Bolivian army who had drawn a short straw after arguments over who would get the honor of shooting Guevara broke out among the soldiers. To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story the government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army.[66]

Moments before Guevara was executed he was asked if he was thinking about his own immortality. "No," he replied, "I'm thinking about the immortality of the revolution." [67] Che Guevara also allegedly said to his executioner, "Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."[68] Guevara received many wounds to the legs and a fatal one to the chest but none to the face that would soon be seen around the world. His body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to neighboring Vallegrande where photographs were taken showing a figure described by some as "Christ-like" lying on a concrete slab in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta hospital. [69][70]

A declassified memorandum dated 11 October 1967 to President Lyndon B. Johnson from his senior adviser, Walt Rostow, called the decision to kill Guevara “stupid” but “understandable from a Bolivian standpoint.” [71] After the execution, Rodríguez took personal items of Guevara's including a Rolex watch, often showing them to reporters during the ensuing years. Today, some of these belongings, including his flashlight are on display at the CIA.[72] After a military doctor amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's cadaver to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated.Amputation[›] On October 15, Castro acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba. The death of Guevara was regarded as a blow to socialist revolutionary movements in Latin America and the rest of the third world.[citation needed]
Che Guevara's Monument and Mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba.
Che Guevara's Monument and Mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba.

In 1997, the skeletal remains of a handless body were exhumed from beneath an air strip near Vallegrande, identified as those of Guevara by a Cuban forensic team at the scene, and returned to Cuba.[dead link] On 17 October 1997, his remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleumMausoleum[›] in the city of Santa Clara, where he had won the decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution.

The Bolivian Diary

Also removed when Guevara was captured was his diary, which documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia.[73] The first entry is on November 7, 1966 shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last entry is on October 7, 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely due to discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara's decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their overall failure. It records the rift between Guevara and the Bolivian Communist Party that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally anticipated. It shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, due in part to the fact that the guerrilla group had learned Quechua rather than the local language which was Tupí-Guaraní. As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He suffered from ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.

The Bolivian Diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world. There are at least four additional diaries in existence — those of Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias "Braulio"), Harry Villegas Tamayo ("Pombo"), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez ("Rolando")[74] and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez ("Benigno")[75] — each of which reveals additional aspects of the events in question.

Legacy

    Main article: Legacy of Che Guevara

Some see Che Guevara as a hero. Nelson Mandela, for example, referred to him as: "An inspiration for every human being who loves freedom" [76] and Jean-Paul Sartre, described him as "Not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age."[77] Guevara remains a beloved national hero in Cuba.[78] but with his death Cuba abandoned guerrilla warfare as an instrument of foreign policy.[79]

Conversely, others view him as a spokesman for a failed ideology and as a ruthless executioner. Johann Hari, for example, wrote that "...Che Guevara is not a free-floating icon of rebellion. He was an actual person who supported an actual system of tyranny."[80] Detractors have also theorized that in much of Latin America, Che-inspired revolutions had the practical result of reinforcing brutal militarism for many years.[81] He remains as roundly hated in the Cuban-American community as he is beloved in Cuba.[82][83]

A monochrome graphic of a photograph of Guevara taken by photographer Alberto Korda became one of the century's most ubiquitous images.[84] Guevara remains an iconic figure, both in specifically political contexts[85][86] and as a popular icon of youthful rebellion.[87] In 1999, Time Magazine would name Guevara one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.[88]

Timeline
Che Guevara Timeline[hide]

Guevara's authored works

In English

    * Argentine, by Ernesto Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2008, ISBN 1920888934

    * A song written by Che for Fidel Castro (flyer), by Ernesto Guevara, FreeThought Publications, 2000, ASIN B0006RP426

    * Back on the Road: A Journey Through Latin America, by Ernesto "Che" Guevara & Alberto Granado, Grove Press, 2002, ISBN 0802139426

    * Che Guevara, Cuba, and the Road to Socialism, by Ernesto Guevara, Pathfinder Press, 1991, ISBN 0873486439

    * Che Guevara on Global Justice, by Ernesto Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2002, ISBN 1876175451

    * Che Guevara: Radical Writings on Guerrilla Warfare, Politics and Revolution, by Ernesto Che Guevara, Filiquarian Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1599869993

    * Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings, by Ernesto Guevara, Pathfinder Press (NY), 1980, ISBN 0873486021

    * Che Guevara Talks to Young People, by Ernesto Guevara, Pathfinder, (2000), ISBN 087348911X

    * Che: The Photobiography of Che Guevara, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998, ISBN 1560251875

    * Colonialism is Doomed, by Che Guevara, Ministry of External Relations: Republic of Cuba, 1964, ASIN B0010AAN1K

    * Critical Notes on Political Economy: A Revolutionary Humanist Approach to Marxist Economics, by Ernesto Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2008, ISBN 1876175559

    * Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1956-58, by Ernesto Guevara, Pathfinder Press (NY), 1996, ISBN 0873488245

    * Guerrilla Warfare: Authorized Edition , by Ernesto Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2006, ISBN 1920888284

    * London Bulletin Number 7, Che's Diaries, by Che Guevara, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1968, ASIN B000LARAC0

    * Manifesto: Three Classic Essays on How to Change the World, by Ernesto Che Guevara, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, & Rosa Luxemburg, Ocean Press (NY), 2005, ISBN 1876175982

    * Marx & Engels: An Introduction, by Che Guevara, Ocean Press, 2007, ISBN 1920888926

    * Our America And Theirs: Kennedy And The Alliance For Progress, by Ernesto Guevara, Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1876175818

    * Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War: Authorized Edition, by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2005, ISBN 1920888330

    * Self Portrait Che Guevara, by Ernesto Guevara & Victor Casaus, Ocean Press (AU), 2004, ISBN 1876175826

    * Socialism and Man in Cuba, by Ernesto Guevara & Fidel Castro, Pathfinder Press (NY), 1989, ISBN 0873485777

    * The African Dream: The diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo, by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Grove Press, 2001, ISBN 0802138349

    * The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Pathfinder Press, 1994 ISBN 0873487664

    * The Che Guevara Reader, by Ernesto Guevara, Ocean Press (AU), 2003, ISBN 1876175699

    * The Diary of Che Guevara: Bolivia: November 7, 1966-October 7, 1967, by Che Guevara, Bantam Extra, 1968, ASIN B000BD037G

    * The Diary of Che Guevara: The Secret Papers of a Revolutionary, by Che Guevara, Amereon Ltd, ISBN 0891902244

    * The Great Debate on Political Economy, by Che Guevara, Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1876175540

    * The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America, by Ernesto Che Guevara, Verso, 1996, ISBN 1857023994

    * The Role of Foreign Aid in the Deveopment of Cuba, by Che Guevara, Editorial en Marcha, 1962, ASIN B001159NRO

    * To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's "Cold War" Against Cuba Doesn't End, by Ernesto Guevara & Fidel Castro, Pathfinder, 1993, ISBN 0873486331

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism

Christian anarchism is any of several traditions which combine anarchism with Christianity. Christian anarchists believe that freedom is justified spiritually through the teachings of Jesus. This has caused them to be critical of government and Church authority. Some believe all individuals can directly communicate with God, which negates the need for a system of clergy. Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You[1] is a key text in modern Christian anarchism. Christian anarchism is closer to communist anarchism than to individualist anarchism[2], except for some strains of Christian anarchism that appeared in America which are more individualistic.

The Life and Teaching of Jesus
See also: Ministry of Jesus

More than any other text, the four Gospels are used as the basis for Christian anarchism.[citation needed] Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, Leo Tolstoy and others constantly refer back to the words of Jesus in their social and political texts. For example, the title "The Kingdom of God is Within You" is a direct quote of Jesus from Luke 17:21. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement particularly favored the Works of Mercy (Matthew 25:31–46), which were a recurring theme in both their writing and art.

Many Christian anarchists say that Jesus opposed the use of government power, even for supposedly good purposes like welfare. They point to Luke 22:25, which says: "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over the people; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves ‘Benefactors.’ But you are not to be like that."

Jesus antagonised the ‘system’ ruled by Satan: "He sent me forth to preach a release to the captives, to send the crushed ones away with a release." (Luke 4:18,19, John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11, 17:16, 18:36). He was against human leadership (Matthew 23:8-12), and he refused to be made king (Matthew 4:8-10 John 6:15).

The first Christians opposed the primacy of the State: “We must obey God as ruler rather than men” (Acts 4:19, 5:29, 1 Corinthians 6:1-6); "Stripping the governments and the authorities bare, he exhibited them in open public as conquered, leading them in a triumphal procession by means of it.” (Colossians 2:15). Eschatology identifies the State with the wild beast (Revelation chapters 13, 14, 17) and predicts an end to oppression: "The meek ones will possess the earth." (Psalms 37:10,11,28).

The anarchist attitude comes from the Old Testament: Nimrod was disapproved for becoming a dominator (Genesis 10:8,9). Abraham, who left civilization to life in tents, conflicted with Nimrod. (Jewish tradition Gen. R. Pesik. R.). Moses led the Hebrews out of captivity to live in the desert (Exodus 3:7,10), and the big nation remained three centuries without king: “In those days there was no king in Israel. As for everybody, what was right in his own eyes he was accustomed to do." (Judges 17:6, 21:25). Gideon refused to be made king: "Jehovah is the one who will rule over you." (Judges 8:23), and his son described the state as parasites (Judges 9:8-21). Samuel then warned the Hebrews against the evils of a kingdom (1 Samuel 8:5-18). The prophets disapproved domination (Ecclesiastes 8:9, Jeremiah 25:34, Ezekiel 34:10, 45:8, Hosea 13:10,11), and a God's kingdom of freedom was envisioned (Isaiah 2:4, 65:22).

The early Church
See also: Early Christianity

Some of the early Christian communities seem to have practiced certain features of anarchism. For example, the Jerusalem group, as described in Acts, shared their money and labor equally and fairly among the members.[4] From the earliest period, women and men seem to have shared religious duties equally, though the public offices, such as missionary work and Temple observances, seem to have been held exclusively by men.[5] However, it may be noted in Romans 16:1-2: "i commend to you Pheobe our sister, who is a servant (diakonos)of the church in Cenchrea, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also" Referring here to Pheobe, the word rendered "servant" being in the Greek 'diakonos' (dee-ak'-on-os), the parallel English word being deaconess, and in the context of the above quote, this denotes a servant who is given servants to manage, in effect, a deaconess,one who delegates, a manager, though in most ways, Christianity did not differ from any of the other Jewish sects active in the ancient world.

Some, such as Ammon Hennacy[6] and Keith Akers[citation needed], have claimed that a "shift" away from Jesus' practices and teachings of nonviolence, simple living and freedom occurred in the theology of Paul of Tarsus, see also Paul of Tarsus and Judaism. These individuals suggest that Christians should look at returning to pre-"Pauline Christianity". Although there is some evidence that egalitarian Jewish Christians existed shortly after Jesus's death, possibly including the Ebionites, the majority of Christians soon followed a more hierarchical religious structure, particularly after the First Council of Nicaea (see also First seven Ecumenical Councils).
Jesus vertreibt die Händler aus dem Tempel, a depiction of the Cleansing of the Temple, by Giovanni Paolo Pannini

As the Christian community grew and spread, some prominent members began to advocate legalism[7] and strict obedience to church doctrine. This type of religious authority and adherence has been compared to the theological economy of Israelite sacrificial religion in the second Temple period which Jesus directly attacked in throwing the money changers out of the Temple district (Matt 21:12-27).[citation needed]

Other Christians say that Paul's teachings emphasized congregational autonomy, servant-like leadership within the churches, prohibitions on one-man rule even in a local church, and other practices which contrast with this claim.[citation needed] Evidence of this interpretation can be found in Galatians 3:28 .

The conversion of the Roman Empire
See also: Constantine I and Christianity

After the conversion of the emperor Emperor Constantine, Christianity was legalised under the Edict of Milan in 313 bringing an end to the persecution of Christians. Some Christian anarchists argue that this merger of Church and state marks the beginning of the "Constantinian shift", in which Christianity gradually came to be identified with the will of the ruling elite and, in some cases, a religious justification for the exercise of power.[citation needed]

Anarchist Biblical views and principles

Antinomianism
Main article: Antinomianism

Some Christian anarchists self-identify as antinomian, often meaning that they do not consider themselves subject to a moral law given by religious or other authorities, but most frequently applying to the Old Testament. Anne Hutchinson was among the early Christian anarchists in America in the 1600s, holding to a belief in the form of, or similar to, individualist anarchism, upholding the right of individuals to determine their own lives.[8][9] Many base their beliefs upon an interpretation of the simple principles and historic messages of Jesus, such as the Sermon on the Mount, while others hold a higher critical view of the Bible, allowing for more lenient interpretation.

Opponents of Christian anarchism, ranging from Jewish to Catholic to certain Protestant sects, have criticized the anarchist viewpoint for what they view as rejection of the "inerrant Word of God" and also of church leadership. They believe that there is a need for a law to maintain order, while anarchists claim that good people do not require a law. See also Biblical law in Christianity.

Mysticism
See also: Christian mysticism and Christian meditation

The spirituality of a Christian anarchist can be as diverse as in any Christian tradition. For Christian anarchists who have their roots in the New Testament their spirituality may be described as mystical but is also very orthodox.[citation needed] In both Christian monasticism and lay spirituality certain elements of anarchism which, while being present in normative Christianity, move more to the forefront. Thomas Merton, for instance, in his introduction to a translation of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers describes these early monastics as "Truly in certain sense 'anarchists,' and it will do no harm to think of them as such."[10] It is also written that "As of the 4th century A.D., the desert lands of Egypt saw the beginning of the longest-living anarchic society of all time: that of the Christian anachorites." [11][12]

Directly, anarchists have borrowed from Quakerism the method of facilitation and meetings known as consensus decision making. This technique, which forms a fundamental part of Quaker worship, is used in most anarchist meetings.[13]

Other anarchists would hold to the syncretisms of Christianity and the New Age movement, which describes a broad movement of the late 20th century and contemporary Western culture. It is characterized by an eclectic and individual approach to spiritual exploration, such as mixing Christian principles with meditation and yoga practices from the East. One could describe Spirituality as anarchic if it is seen as being based on individual freedom and choice rather than keeping within rigid boundaries.

Pacifism and nonviolence
Main articles: Christian pacifism and Anarcho-pacifism

Many Christian anarchists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Ammon Hennacy, are pacifists opposing the use of both proactive (offensive) and reactive (defensive) physical force. Hennacy believed that adherence to Christianity meant being a pacifist and, due to governments constantly threatening or using force to resolve conflicts, this meant being an anarchist. These individuals believe freedom will only be guided by the grace of God if they show compassion to others and turn the other cheek when confronted with violence. The links between other philosophies of Christian anarchists are also deeply tied to pacifism, more so than their equivalents in secular anarchism and state-sponsored churches.

A few of the key historic messages many Christian anarchists practice are the principles of nonviolence, nonresistance and turning the other cheek, which are illustrated in many passages of the New Testament and Hebrew Bible (e.g. the sixth commandment, Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17, "You shall not murder").[citation needed]
[edit] Simple living
Main article: Simple living

Christian anarchists, such as Ammon Hennacy, often follow a simple lifestyle, for a variety of reasons, which may include environmental awareness or reducing taxable income.

States and state control
“ Not only does the action of Governments not deter men from crimes; on the contrary, it increases crime by always disturbing and lowering the moral standard of society. Nor can this be otherwise, since always and everywhere a Government, by its very nature, must put in the place of the highest, eternal, religious law (not written in books but in the hearts of men, and binding on every one) its own unjust, man-made laws, the object of which is neither justice nor the common good of all but various considerations of home and foreign expediency. ”

—Leo Tolstoy, The Meaning of the Russian Revolution

The most common challenge for the Biblical literalists is integrating the passage in Romans 13:1–7 where Paul defends obedience to "governing authorities", arguing that "there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." Christian anarchists who subscribe to Paul's teachings argue that this chapter is particularly worded to make it clear that organizations like the Roman Empire cannot qualify as governing authorities because they are not "approved" of God and do not recognize Him in word or action.[citation needed] If it could, then, according to Paul, "they [Christians] would have praise from the authorities" for doing good. Instead the early Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire for doing good, and became martyrs. Further, the "governing authorities" that are legitimate in the passage were never given the authority to make laws, merely to enforce the natural laws against "doing harm to a neighbor" in verses 8-10 (see tort and contract law).[citation needed] This interpretation makes all statute laws of states illegitimate, except as they restate Biblical moral precepts. Some Christians subscribe to the belief that God did not establish all authorities on the earth.[citation needed]

A different interpretation of Romans 13 which is used to support Christian anarchism grants that the passage commands submission to all governing authorities, but points out that this does not equate to a vindication of those authorities. Vernard Eller articulates this position by restating the passage this way: "Be clear, any of those human [authorities] are where they are only because God is allowing them to be there. They exist only at his sufferance. And if God is willing to put up with ... the Roman Empire, you ought to be willing to put up with it, too. There is no indication God has called you to clear it out of the way or get it converted for him. You can't fight an Empire without becoming like the Roman Empire; so you had better leave such matters in God's hands where they belong."[14] This was the position held by French philosopher and Christian anarchist Jacques Ellul.

Ernst Kaseman, in his Commentary on Romans, has challenged the usual interpretations of Romans 13 in light of German Lutheran Churches using this passage as justification to support the Nazi holocaust.[15] Others hold that Romans 13 teaches submission to the state while not encouraging or even condoning Christian participation in the workings of the state. According to this view Jesus submitted to the state while still refusing its means.[citation needed]

Another passage of the New Testament also appears to require some amount of harmonization with the ideals espoused by Christian anarchism. Hebrews 13:17 commands Christians to "obey your leaders and submit to their authority",[16] without referencing to any circumstantial qualifications as to when this command applies.

There are other Christians, such as Ammon Hennacy, who do not see the need to integrate Paul's teachings in Romans 13:1–7 into their anarchist way of life. Ammon Hennacy believed "Paul spoiled the message of Christ" [2].
[edit] Tax resistance
Main article: Tax resistance

Some Christian anarchists resist taxes in the belief that their government is engaged in immoral, unethical or destructive activities, such as war, and paying taxes inevitably funds these activities.[citation needed]

Adin Ballou wrote that if the act of resisting taxes requires physical force to withhold what a government tries to take, then it is important to submit to taxation.[citation needed] Ammon Hennacy, who, like Ballou also believed in nonresistance, managed to resist taxes without using force.[17]

Opponents cite that Jesus told his followers to "give to Caesar what is Caesar's," (Matthew 22:21) but that another interpretation for the passage is that it argues against material attachment.
[edit] Vegetarianism
See also: Christian vegetarianism and Anarchism and animal rights

Vegetarianism in the Christian tradition has a long history commencing in the first centuries of Church with the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers who abandoned the "world of men" for intimacy with the God of Jesus Christ. Vegetarianism amongst hermits and Christian monastics in the Eastern Christian and Roman Catholic traditions remains common to this day as a means of simplifying one's life, and as a practice of asceticism. Many Christian anarchists, such as Tolstoy and Hennacy, extend their belief in nonviolence and compassion to all living beings through vegetarianism or veganism.[18]
[edit] Later anarchistic Christian groups
[edit] The Doukhobors

The origin of the Doukhobors dates back to 16th and 17th century Russia. The Doukhobors ("Spirit Wrestlers") are a radical Christian sect that maintains a belief in pacifism and a communal lifestyle, while rejecting secular government. In 1899, the Doukhobors fled repression in Tsarist Russia and migrated to Canada, mostly in the provinces of Saskatchewan and British Columbia. The funds for the trip were paid for by the Quakers and Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Canada was suggested to Leo Tolstoy as a safe-haven for the Doukhobors by anarchist Peter Kropotkin who, while on a speaking tour across the country, observed the religious tolerance experienced by the Mennonites.
[edit] Catholic Worker Movement

Established by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day in the early 1930s, The Catholic Worker Movement is a Christian movement dedicated to nonviolence and simple living. Over 130 Catholic Worker communities exist in the United States where "houses of hospitality" care for the homeless. The Joe Hill House of hospitality (which closed in 1968) in Salt Lake City, Utah featured an enormous twelve feet by fifteen foot mural of Jesus Christ and Joe Hill.

The Catholic Worker Movement has consistently protested against war and violence for over seven decades. Many of the leading figures in the movement have been both anarchists and pacifists. Catholic Worker Ammon Hennacy defined Christian anarchism as:

…being based upon the answer of Jesus to the Pharisees when Jesus said that he without sin should be the first to cast the stone, and upon the Sermon on the Mount which advises the return of good for evil and the turning of the other cheek. Therefore, when we take any part in government by voting for legislative, judicial, and executive officials, we make these men our arm by which we cast a stone and deny the Sermon on the Mount.

The dictionary definition of a Christian is one who follows Christ; kind, kindly, Christ-like. Anarchism is voluntary cooperation for good, with the right of secession. A Christian anarchist is therefore one who turns the other cheek, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and does not need a cop to tell him how to behave. A Christian anarchist does not depend upon bullets or ballots to achieve his ideal; he achieves that ideal daily by the One-Man Revolution with which he faces a decadent, confused, and dying world".

Maurin and Day were both baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church and believed in the institution, thus showing it is possible to be a Christian anarchist and still choose to remain within a church. After her death, Day was proposed for sainthood by the Claretian Missionaries in 1983. Pope John Paul II granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open Day's "cause" in March 2000, calling her a Servant of God.
[edit] Student Christian Movement

Streams within the World Student Christian Federation, an international ecumenical network, follow anarchistic principles of Biblical interpretation, including non-creedal faith expressions, radical social justice activism, non-hierarchical decision-making structures and commitment to resisting oppression and imperialism. Some member movements, or Student Christian Movements, openly embrace a Christian anarchist ethic and structure, for instance the Student Christian Movement of Canada which makes decisions by consensus, adheres to a decentralized, autonomous structure and opposes hierarchies.
[edit] Anarchist quotations

Petr Chelčický

The man who obeys God needs no other authority (over him).

Ammon Hennacy

An anarchist is anyone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do.

Oh, judge, your damn laws: the good people don't need them and the bad people don't follow them, so what good are they?

Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals.

David Lipscomb

The people of Maine and Texas, of England and India, could never become enemies or be involved in strife and war, save through the intervention of human government to spread enmity and excite to war. […] Whatever tends to wean men from this government of God, and to substitute other governments for it, brings confusion and strife (95).

Leo Tolstoy

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Jacques Ellul

There are different forms of anarchy and different currents in it. I must, first say very simply what anarchy I have in view. By anarchy I mean first an absolute rejection of violence.

What seems to be one of the disasters of our time is that we all appear to agree that the nation-state is the norm. […] Whether the state be Marxist or capitalist, it makes no difference. The dominant ideology is that of sovereignty. (Anarchy and Christianity, 104–5.)

So I can very well say without hesitation that all those who have political power, even if they use it well have acquired it by demonic mediation and even if they are not conscious of it, they are worshippers of diabolos. (Si tu es le Fils de Dieu, 76)

Nicolas Berdyaev

It is beyond dispute that the state exercises very great power over human life and it always shows a tendency to go beyond the limits laid down for it. (Slavery and Freedom, 145)

There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. […] The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power … the Kingdom of God is anarchy. (Slavery and Freedom, 147–8)

Bible passages cited by Christian anarchists

* My kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36).
* We are to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).
* To seek rule by man is to reject the rule of God (1 Samuel 8).
* Christians struggle against governments, rulers, and spiritual wickedness (Ephesians 6:12).
* Honest people are too busy making an honest living to accept political power, so only the corruptible will accept political power (Judges 9:7-15 The Parable of the Trees).
* The devil offers all kingdoms to Jesus in return for worshipping him.(Matthew 4:8-10).
* So I saw all this, and applied my heart to every work that has been done under the sun; all the things wherein man has power over man to afflict him. (Ecclesiastes 8:9)
* And Jesus called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who are supposed to rule (Gr. archo) over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you...." (Mark 10:42-43a)
* Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world (Gr. Archos), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

[edit] List of key individuals

The following people may be considered key figures in the development of Christian anarchism. This does not mean that they were all Christian anarchists themselves (see Category:Christian anarchists).

Adin Ballou
Adin Ballou (1803–1890) was founder of the Hopedale Community in what is now Hopedale, Massachusetts, and a prominent 19th century exponent of pacifism, socialism and abolitionism. Through his long career as a Unitarian minister, he tirelessly sought social reform through his radical Christian and socialist views. Tolstoy was heavily influenced by his writings.

Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American author, pacifist, nature lover, tax resister and individualist anarchist. He was an advocate of civil disobedience and a lifelong abolitionist. Though not commonly regarded as a Christian anarchist, his essay Civil Disobedience does include many of the Christian anarchist ideals.

William B. Greene
William B. Greene (1819–1878), an individualist anarchist based in the United States, was a Unitarian minister, and the originator of a Christian Mutualism, which he considered a new dispensation, beyond God’s covenant with Abraham. His 1850 Mutual Banking begins with a discussion (drawn from the work of Pierre Leroux) of the Christian rite of communion as a model for a society based in equality, and ends with a prophetic invocation of the new Mutualist dispensation. His better-known scheme for mutual banking, and his criticisms of usury should be understood in this specifically religious context. Unlike his contemporaries among the nonresistants, Greene was not a pacifist, and served as a Union Army colonel in the American Civil War.

Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)[19] wrote extensively on his anarchist principles, which he arrived at via his Christian faith, in his books The Kingdom of God is Within You[1], What I Believe (aka My Religion), The Law of Love and the Law of Violence, and Christianity and Patriotism which criticised government and the Church in general. He called for a society based on compassion, nonviolent principles and freedom. Tolstoy was a pacifist and a vegetarian. His vision for an equitable society was an anarchist version of Georgism, which he mentions specifically in his novel Resurrection.

Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948), the Orthodox Christian philosopher has been called the philosopher of freedom and is known as a Christian existentialist. Known for writing "the Kingdom of God is anarchy" he believed that freedom ultimately comes from God, in direct opposition to anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin, who saw God as the enslaver of humanity (symbolically; Bakunin was an atheist). Christian anarchists claim Man enslaves Man, not God.

Léonce Crenier
Léonce Crenier (1888–1963) first rejected religion, becoming an anarcho-communist when he moved to Paris from rural France in 1911. In 1913 he visited his sister in Portugal where he stayed for several years. During this period he suffered a debilitating and agonising illness. Receiving the attentions of a particularly caring nurse, he survived, despite the gloomy predictions of the doctors. Converting to Catholicism, he became a monk. He is particularly known for his concept of precarity, and was influential on Dorothy Day.

Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Hennacy (1893–1970) wrote extensively on his work with the Catholic Workers, the IWW, and at the Joe Hill House of Hospitality. He was a practicing anarchist, draft dodger, vegetarian, and tax resister. He also tried to reduce his tax liability by taking up a lifestyle of simple living and bartering. His autobiography The Book of Ammon describes his work in nonviolent, anarchist, social action, and provides insight into the lives of Christian anarchists in the United States of the 20th century. His other books are One Man Revolution in America and The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.

Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) was a journalist turned social activist (she was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World) and devout member of the Roman Catholic Church. She became known for her social justice campaigns in defense of the poor, forsaken, hungry and homeless. Alongside Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933, espousing nonviolence, and hospitality for the impoverished and downtrodden. Dorothy Day was declared Servant of God when a cause for sainthood was opened for her by Pope John Paul II.

Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) was a French thinker, sociologist, theologian and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books against the "technological society", and some about Christianity and politics, like Anarchy and Christianity (1991) asserting that anarchism and Christianity are socially following the same goal.

Thomas J. Hagerty
Thomas J. Hagerty was a Catholic priest from New Mexico, USA, and one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Hagerty is credited with writing the IWW Preamble, assisting in the composition of the Industrial Union Manifesto and drawing up the first chart of industrial organization. He was ordained in 1892 but his formal association with the church ended when he was suspended by his archbishop for urging miners in Colorado to revolt during his tour of mining camps in 1903. Hagerty is not commonly regarded as a Christian anarchist in the Tolstoyan tradition but rather an anarcho-syndicalist. Christian anarchists like Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy have been members of the Industrial Workers of the World and found common cause with the axiom "an injury to one is an injury to all."

Philip Berrigan
Philip Berrigan was an internationally renowned peace activist and Roman Catholic priest. He and his brother Daniel Berrigan were on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for illegal nonviolent actions against war.

Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich was a libertarian-socialist social thinker, with roots in the Catholic Church, who wrote critiques of technology, energy use and compulsory education. In 1961 Illich founded the Centro Intercultural de Documentación (CIDOC) at Cuernavaca in Mexico, in order to "counterfoil" the Vatican's participation in the "modern development" of the so-called Third World. Illich's books Energy and Equity and Tools for Conviviality are considered classics for social ecologists interested in appropriate technology, while his book Deschooling Society is still revered by activists seeking alternatives to compulsory schooling. Ivan's view on Jesus as an anarchist is highlighted here.

Vernard Eller
Vernard Eller is a member of the Church of the Brethren and author of Christian Anarchy: Jesus' Primacy Over the Powers (1987) [3].

Tripp York
Tripp York is a Mennonite theologian whose work centers specifically around the implications of an anarchistic Christianity. [20] His book The Purple Crown: The Politics of Martyrdom advocates for an anarchistic witness predicated on the martyrs. His book Living on Hope While Living in Babylon: The Christian Anarchists of the 20th Century details key Christian anarchists in the 20th century in relation to the political philosophy of anarchism as well as Martin Luther King, Jr's triple axis of evil (materialism, racism, and militarism).[21]

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky in many respects can be considered to have believed in Christian anarchism/autonomy. His greatest novel The Brothers Karamazov postulates the idea that all men should be monks and that everyone is responsible for everyone else. Also, that belief in God can only be found through the practice of active love.

Anarchist organizations

* Ecclesia
* Life and Labor Commune
* Plowshares Movement
* Tolstoyan Moscow Society

See also
Anarchism portal
Christianity portal

* Anarchism and Islam
* Anarchism and Orthodox Judaism
* Catholic Worker Movement
* Christian communism
* Christian libertarianism
* Christian socialism
* Christian vegetarianism
* Christian pacifism
* Diane Drufenbrock
* Early Christianity
* Gnosticism
* Liberation theology
* Nonconformism
* Peace churches
* Plain people
* Precarity
* Postmodern Christianity
* Render unto Caesar
* Self-ownership
* Thomas Merton
* Weak theology
* "Fool for Christ": Christian ascetic and non-conformist tradition within Eastern Christianity, see also "Hermit", and "Stylite".
* Jonathan Livingston Seagull
* Simone Weil: French philosopher, social activist, and Christian mystic of Jewish heritage; Weil died under forced exile in Britain during World War II at 34 years of age. Her major works, including "Oppression and Liberty", "Gravity and Grace", and "Waiting for God" were all published post-humously and to great acclaim. Since her death in 1944 her thought has steadily grown in influence. Pope Paul VI, a great proponent of Catholic Social Teaching, counted Simon Weil as one of his major early influences.
* New Monasticism
* Order of Watchers: A French Protestant community of Hermits.
* God: Sole Satisfier
* Jan Tyranowski, solitary, mystic, and student in the teachings of John of the Cross. He was a central figure in the spiritual formation of young Karol Wojtyła, who became pope John Paul II.
* The Mormon Worker

References

1. ^ a b Full text at kingdomnow.org
2. ^ Skirda, Alexandre. Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. AK Press, 2002, page 189
3. ^ Gay, Kathlyn. Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy. Published by ABC-CLIO, 1999, Original from the University of Michigan. p. 104
4. ^ Hinson, E. Glenn. The early church : origins to the dawn of the Middle Ages, (1996) pp 42–3
5. ^ Chadwick, Henry. The early church , (1967)
6. ^ Hennacy, Ammon (1970). "The Book of Ammon" (full-length book). http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015069766825. Retrieved 2008-06-24.
7. ^ McGrath, Alister E., Christianity: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing (2006). ISBN 1405108991. Page 174: "In effect, they [Jewish Christians] seemed to regard Christianity as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra belief – that Jesus was the Messiah. Unless males were circumcised, they could not be saved (Acts 15:1). ... Paul notes the emergence of a Judaizing party in the region – that is, a group within the church which insisted that Gentile believers should obey every aspect of the law of Moses, including the need to be circumcised. According to Paul [reference is made to Galatians, but no specific verse is given], the leading force behind this party was James ... the brother of Jesus ..."
8. ^ Gay, Kathlyn. Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy. Published by ABC-CLIO, 1999 Original from the University of Michigan. p. 104
9. ^ Rothbard, Murray. Individual Anrachism in the U.S.: Origins. Editor, Stringham, Edward. Anarchy and the Law. Transaction Publishers, 2007. p. 438
10. ^ Merton, Thomas. "Wisdom of the Desert." Abbey of Gethsemani Inc. 1960. p.5
11. ^ Th. I. Riginiotes "The holy anarchists" [1].
12. ^ The Holy Anarchists (Video)
13. ^ 'Graeber, David. "What is Consensus" Many Worlds Press, 2006. p. 4.
14. ^ Christian Anarchy (Eller) 1
15. ^ Käsemann, Ernst, Commentary on Romans, (1980)
16. ^ BibleGateway.com - Passage Lookup: Hebrews 13:17
17. ^ “Ammon Hennacy” in Gross, David M. (ed.) We Won’t Pay: A Tax Resistance Reader (2008) ISBN 1434898253 pp. 385-393
18. ^ "'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings; and this Commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai." – Leo Tolstoy
19. ^ "Nesterov". http://www.abcgallery.com/N/nesterov/nesterov32.html.
20. ^ http://www.christianethicstoday.com/cetart/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.main&ArtID=959
21. ^ http://www.elon.edu/e-net/Note.aspx?id=937429

See also

[[Are snake handlers crazy?]]

[[Southern Style Religion|http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3524/is_n1_v50/ai_n28679587/print?tag=artBody;col1]]

Interchurch Holiness Convention

[[Snake Handlers]]

[[New Religious Movements|http://web.archive.org/web/20060827231029/religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/essays/miller2003.htm]]

[[Why do we believe in God?|http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/13/religion.scienceandnature/print]]

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiness_movement" and others
Categories: Christian evangelicalism | Revival movements | Holiness movement

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Hospitality

I have been doing a great deal of thinking lately about health care and the meaning of hospital. One must ask, " What are hospitals for? What are their purpose? Are they succeeding?"

Recently I heard that more people die every year from preventable accidents which occur in the hospital than die on the nation's highways. This is staggering. Isn't the first precept of the Hippocratic oath to "do no harm." How is this alarming problem able to exist and continue? Will managed care or a national health plan help reduced the number of deaths from sloppiness?

Another staggering statistic I heard was that the number one reason that people file for bankruptcy in the U.S.A. is because of medical bills. Of course, some of these filings are caused by persons without health insurance, but most are by people who thought they had adequate coverage.

Almost anyone with health insurance has some experience with being denied some medication or some treatment. Most people know what it is like to be slapped with a bill after a treatment or procedure which they thought were covered. Now imagine that you or your child is dying of a horrible illness, Lord forbid, and try to grasped the feeling of being at the mercy of your insurance coverage.

My theory is that there is excessive red tape and that bureaucracy is the cause of many of the problems in the health care delivery. Health providers get into the habit of treating patients like a number and not as a person, and certainly not as a loved one. The system has moved from holiness to one where each party feels the need to build barriers to protect themselves. The layers of protection keep growing and growing. We are at the point now that the health provider is insulated by policies, procedures, forms, qualifying events, etc. And the patient is cloaked with a sensitivity and vigilance for wrongdoing. We are now at the point where health delivery has little to do with caring or comfort and has moved to a simple mathematical model where A treats B and is paid for by C. The process has lost all humanity.

I would like to expound a little of the development of the hospital and the need to put hospitality back into the health care system.

In the Middle Ages, there was a hospital in France called "The Hotel-Dieu" [the hotel of God]. It suggests that health workers were invested with a holy duty to treat the guests of God. Wouldn't our health care system be better if all of the providers acted like were on a holy mission to treat and comfort the guests of God?

My goal is to develop a program to instill some new values in the health delivery system. I want to see hospitality put back into the concept of hospital. I want people to think of hospitals as "hotels of God" and treat the guests with holiness, compassion, and courtesy. I want to see patients treated more like humans and less like revenue sources. I want to see humanity brought back to the concept of hospital.

The Hotel of God

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Ian Stewart (musician)

[img[http://www.abcpedia.com/musica/rolling-stones-grupo.jpg]]

Born	July 18, 1938

Origin	Pittenweem, Fife, Scotland

Died	December 12, 1985 (aged 47), heart attack in doctor's waiting room.

Genre(s)
Rock, Boogie - Woogie

Occupation(s)	Keyboard Player
Tour Manager
Instrument(s)
Piano

Years active	1960s — 1985

Associated acts	Rolling Stones, Rocket 88

Ian AR Stewart (18 July 1938 – 12 December 1985) was a Scottish keyboardist and founding member of The Rolling Stones. In May 1963 Stewart left the group's official line - up, but he remained with them in the capacity of road manager and piano player until his death.
•	
Role in the Rolling Stones
Born in Pittenweem, Fife, Scotland, and raised in Sutton, Surrey, Stewart (who was often called Stu) started playing piano when he was about six years old. He also took up banjo, and played with various Sutton - area amateur groups on both instruments.[1] Stewart, who loved rhythm & blues, boogie - woogie and blues as well as big - band jazz, was the first person to respond to Brian Jones's advertisement in Jazz News of 2 May 1962 seeking musicians interested in forming a rhythm & blues group.[2] Mick Jagger and Keith Richards joined them in June, and the group (with Dick Taylor on bass and either Mick Avory or Tony Chapman on drums) played their first gig under the name The Rollin' Stones at the Marquee Club on 12 July 1962.[3][4] By January 1963 Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts had also joined, replacing a series of off - and - on bassists and drummers.[4]
Stewart had a regular job at Imperial Chemical Industries in addition to his work with the fledgling Rolling Stones. None of the other band members had a telephone; Stewart said, "[My] desk at ICI was the headquarters of the Stones organisation. My number was advertised in Jazz News and I handled the Stones' bookings at work." He also bought a van to transport the group and their equipment to their gigs.[5]
In early May 1963, the band's new manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, informed the Rolling Stones that Stewart should no longer be part of the onstage line - up, saying that six members would be too many for a popular group and that Stewart's appearance didn't fit the band's image.[6] He proposed that Stewart could stay with the band as road manager, and could continue to play piano on recordings.
Stewart accepted this demotion. Keith Richards has said: "[Stu] might have realised that in the way it was going to have to be marketed, he would be out of sync, but that he could still be a vital part. I'd probably have said, 'Well, fuck you', but he said 'OK, I'll just drive you around.' That takes a big heart, but Stu had one of the largest hearts around."[7]
As the Rolling Stones' career started to take off, Stewart became the band's full - time road manager, loading the gear into his battered van, driving the group to their gigs, replacing frayed guitar strings and doggedly setting up Charlie Watts' drums the way he himself would play them. "I never ever swore at him," Watts says, with rueful amazement.[citation needed] He also played piano (and occasionally organ) on most of the band's albums in the first decades of their career, as well as providing essential criticism. Shortly after Stewart's death Mick Jagger said: "Stu was the one guy we tried to please. We wanted his approval when we were writing or rehearsing a song. We'd want him to like it."[citation needed]
Stewart was only one of the Rolling Stones' keyboard players; Jack Nitzsche, Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston and Ian McLagan are among the others who supplemented his keyboard work in the studio and on stage. In 1975 Stewart began to join the band on stage again, playing piano on numbers of his own choosing throughout the Rolling Stones' tours in 1975 - 76, 1978 and 1981 - 82.[4] Stewart favoured blues and country rockers, and remained staunchly dedicated to roots music forms like boogie - woogie and early rhythm & blues. He refused to play in minor keys, saying: "When I'm on stage with the Stones and a minor chord comes along, I lift me hands in protest."[8]
Stewart remained aloof from the excesses of the band's lifestyle. "I think he looked upon it as a load of silliness," said guitarist Mick Taylor. "I also think it was because he saw what had happened to Brian. I could tell from the expression on his face when things started to get a bit crazy during the making of Exile on Main Street. I think he found it very hard. We all did."[citation needed]
Stewart was an avid golfer, and as the Rolling Stones road manager he showed a strong preference for hotels with golf courses  -  much to the band's frustration. Richards recalls: "We'd be playing in some town where there's all these chicks, and they want to get laid and we want to lay them. But Stu would have booked us into some hotel about ten miles out of town. You'd wake up in the morning and there's the links. We’re bored to death looking for some action and Stu's playing Gleneagles."[9]

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<html><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Impulse Control Program 

</span></font><br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Attitude</span>- Is a mental position we take based on our beliefs, both rational and irrational ones. To change a bad attitude, we must change our beliefs through evaluation and self-talk. 
  
<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aptitude</span>- Is the natural or learned coping skills we have. To change a poor aptitude, we must acquire new coping and communication skills to identify, relate, and appropriately respond to triggers and stress. 
  
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br><br>Altitude</span>- Is a measurement of our mood and spirits. To change a down mood like depression sometimes needs counseling and treatment. To change a spiritual problem, one needs introspection, study, and spiritual counseling. 
  
<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Amplitude-</span> Is the strength we give our self-talk. To better control impulses, we must control what we say to ourselves.<br><br>&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold;">Apparition</span>- Is our mental imagery. In order to control our impulses, we must control what we see with our mind’s eye. <br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Act-</span> Is our ability to control our behavior and conform to a given environment. In order to control impulses, we must act as if we are calm and controlled.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> 
  
<br><br>Abuse of Substances</span>- Is the abusing of drugs, alcohol, and other substances to alter our mood or decrease our anxiety In order to control our impulses, we must not abuse substances. 
  
<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Anxiety-</span> Is focused or unfocused fear. It is rational or irrational fear. In order to control impulses, we must control anxiety with productive outlets like exercise, life style changes, or therapy. Uncontrolled anxiety may lead to uncontrolled panic and impulsive decisions regarding behavior.
  
<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Anger-</span> Is a secondary emotion usually in response to fear, hurt, anxiety, or frustration. Anger frequently invokes the fight or flight response in our bodies which ranges from irritation to rage and non-verbal thinking. To control impulses, one must know one’s anger signals in order to establish an early warning system. This system can be used to help one to follow a contingency plan when an individual goes into non-verbal thinking. * * *



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Indianapolis 1963

McDonalds Triple Treat, hamburger, fries, and a shake: 45 cents.
Burger Chef; cheeseburger, fries, and a large Coke; 50 cents.
(The Big Chef would not appear until 1966.)

A Big Chief, onion rings, and a Chocolate Coke at the TeePee drive-in; $1.20.
(Frisch's Big Boy platter and a drink were $1.35.)

A gallon of Ci ties Service Ethyl was 26 cents.

Pack of Lucky Strikes cost 20 cents. (25 cents out of a cigarette machine).

Movies at a downtown theater (Circle, Lyric, Lowes , Indiana , or Keith)
50 cents (before 6 PM ).

City bus fare was 20 cents. (2 cents more for a transfer).

Mo nthly phone bill: $4.95 (average). 'Information' was free.

P. O. P. (Pay One Price) all day rides at Riverside Amusement Park ; $1.00

A day of swimming at Longacre Pool; 35 cents.
(But you could go to the Garfield Park pool for 15 cents.)

Pay telephones( Indiana Bell ) were black and 'boxey' in brown booths
(ashtray equipped) with cushioned seats and sliding glass doors.

A call would cost you 10 cents, but a call to the operator or Information
would send your dime clanging back into the coin return.

Copy of The Indianapolis Times newspaper; 7 cents.

Half gallon of milk; 25 cents.

Bouncin' Bill Baker was spinnin g the platters on WIBC.
The 'Emperor' and Jackson 'Q' Sundae and Jay Reynolds were three of the WIFE Good Guys.

Selwin was hosting the Saturday afternoon Tarzan movies on WISH-TV Ch. 8

Sammy Terry was giving us all 'pleasant nigh tmares' on WTTV, Channel 4.

Wilhelmina followed Sammy with an even worse movie!

Happy Herb brought us Popeye cartoons from the 'poop deck' studio prop at Ch 4.
(Cowboy Bob was still in college; Janie was a Ch 4 'intern.')

David Letterman was a student at Broad Ripple High School ..

Jane Pauley was a student at Warren Central.

Harlow Hickenlooper and Curley Meyers kept us laughing
wi th the 3 Stooges on Saturday mornings (Ch.. 6, at 9:00)

Dick Summers hosted the Teen Dance Party on Ch. 8.

You could do the twist at Fox's Skating Rink, or at The Whiteland Barn.

Herman Hoglebogle was fixing problems for readers of The Indianapolis News.
(Herman was created by Tom Johnson, a graduate of Broad Ripple High School, 1951)

The Hinkle Fieldhouse, the State Fair Coliseum, and Clowes Hall
were the Biggest, the best, and considered 'state of the art'.

Debbie Drake was leading the morning exercises on Ch. 8.
Jack Lalane was doing the same on Ch. 6.

Frances Farmer hosted the Channel 6 late afternoon movie on WFBM TV (6)

Ruth Lyons 50 / 50 Club took up 2 hours from 12 Noon to 2:00 pm on WLW-I Ch. 13.
( with Bob Braun )

There were no Country music radio stations in town.
There were many German language radio programs but no Spanish language stations.

FM was strictly for classical or 'show tunes.'

WGEE, 1590 AM played music for 'Colored' listeners.

You could live in Marion County but not be a resident of the city of Indianapolis ..

38th Street was the line between the 'haves' (North) and the 'have nots' (South).

Greenwood was considered to be a 'hick' town.

Castleton was a gas station.

Fishers was a train depot.

Carmel was a truck stop on Rt. 31.

A von was a red flashing stop signal along Rt. 3 6.

Eagle Creek was just THAT!

The 'max' was dinner at the King Cole Restaurant , and a show at the Embers on the North Meridian 'strip' of upscale night life.

'Dream proms' were held at the Indiana Roof,
and dinner at the Key West Shrimp House or at Brody's'.(21st & Arlington)

Greyhound and Trailways buses came and went from the Traction Terminal
(old Interurban) shed on W. Market St..

<You could catch a train to Chicago about once every hour at Union Station. ($12.00 round trip)

You could fly out on a TWA 'jet' airliner at ' Weir Cook Municipal Airport '

You got your prescriptions filled at Hooks, Haags, or Rexall drug stores.

You got groceries at Kroger, Standard, or Marsh supermarkets. (or at Porky Lane ).

Interstate 465 was a short 4 lane 'highway' that served only to connect you to the 'big' State and National Routes.

No cable; No Internet; No wireless; No self-serve; No drive-thrus; No ATM's.

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This is a book I am currently reading. After you get past the goofy fantasy and sci fi set up it offers some profound truths and insights. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Read more about it <html><a href="http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~miles/works/Ishmael.html">here.</a></html>

Read more about it <html><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(novel)"> and here.</a></html>

Howie Richey has distilled the abundant wisdom of the novel, Ishmael, into the following concept summary and would be happy to hear any alternate interpretations you may have. Email Howie: zow at io dot com.

I. Introduction
Modern people are all captives who cannot find the bars of our cage.
We are destroying the Earth in order, we think, to survive.
We are being lied to, but we don't know what the lie is. If we were to find the lie, we might do something about it.
We are enacting a story that, we are told, has no alternative except death.
Those who do not participate in this enacting do not get fed.
This is a book about How Things Came To Be This Way: the meaning of the world, divine intentions in the world, and human destiny.

Some definitions:
"Takers" = peoples we sometimes call "civilized"
"Leavers" = peoples we sometimes call "primitive"
"story" = an interrelation between the gods, man, and the Earth, with a beginning, middle, and end
"enact" = to strive to make a story come true, enacting a story works out the story's premise
"culture" = a people who are enacting a story

II. The Problem
Takers' story is about to end in catastrophe. Leavers' story going along just fine, thank you.
Premise of Takers' story: Man is the pinnacle of creation and the whole reason for the world's existence; it's all for us.
Therefore, we can do whatever we damn well please with the world.
Nature is chaotic, fickle; man was made to bring order, to rule nature.
Nature stands in defiance of man's rule and must be conquered.
Thus man is fulfilling his destiny, becoming what humans are meant to be.
The story we're enacting casts man as the enemy of the Earth.
So we simply must go on conquering the world until it's all under our control -- then we'll have the Paradise that was meant for us.
But something's wrong with this picture: man has screwed it up, as evinced by our own history.
Is it man himself that is flawed? (If he is, there's no hope for Earth.) No, the problem is not man himself: it's the story we're now enacting that puts us at odds with the Earth. But given a different story . . .
Takers periodically have prophets arise to tell us how to live, since we seem to have no such certain knowledge.
Meanwhile, we go on messing up the world, earnestly believing we have no other choice.
Instead of consulting the prophets, we could learn how to live by observing what is actually here, in "nature."

III. The Laws of Life
Man (like all other biology on this planet) is subject to immutable Laws of Life.
We Takers are assured that these laws do not apply to us.
Surprise! Whatever violates the laws becomes extinct.
Ignorance of these laws does not lessen their effects. In an analogy, we've jumped off a cliff in our civilizational aircraft and we're in the air believing we're in flight; the ground is rushing up under us at an accelerating rate, with a crash imminent; but we say, "Hey, no problem. Our plane has carried us safely so far. Let's all just pedal a little harder and we'll be OK."
IV. Defying the Laws of Life
Things Takers do that natural systems and native peoples do not:
exterminate their enemies
destroy their competitors' food supply
deny their competitors access to all food
store lots of food external to their bodies
Diversity of species ensures survival and peace for all.
Takers are at war with the Earth; the drive towards homogeneity ("You must live as we do") ensures conflict and extinction.
One species exempting itself from the laws threatens all other species.
We don't have to be at war with the world if we forsake the drive for unlimited growth.
Human settlement is also subject to the Law of Limited Competition. ("You can have a deer, but you can't have all deer.")
How come population control never seems to occur, relative to the food supply? What's so benevolent about feeding the starved so they can raise another generation in famine?
Indian tribes (and other Leavers) limited their populations within their cultural and territorial boundaries.

V. Results of Defying the Laws of Life
Our current cultural construct exists only in our minds. The immutable Law of Limited Competition clues us to how people should live.
No one species shall make the life of the Earth its own, since the Earth was not made for any one species. The world does not need man to impose order on it.
Another result of Takers' fanatical tenant of specialness is that the members of our society are profoundly lonely and isolated. This story we're enacting is ultimately unsatisfying and unhealthy. On the other hand, Leaver cultures rarely experience crime, suicide, mental illness, or drug addiction. Their diets are better; they've survived three million years.
If you are going to rule the world, you need a special kind of knowledge that, formerly, only the gods possessed. Leavers don't claim to have it.
It is the knowledge of good and evil or Who Shall Live And Who Shall Die.
If we Takers keep living as though we have this knowledge, we will surely die.

VI. In and Out of the Garden
The Garden of Eden story was told from a Leaver point of view to explain why they were being killed off by the Takers. Why would the gods forbid Adam to have the knowledge of good and evil? This would be an Ascent, not a Fall!
So how did things come to be this way? Because Takers believe it's the only right way to live, regardless of the cost. Giving it up would mean admitting we're wrong, relinquishing all pretensions of divinity, and giving rule back to the gods.
Agriculture (work) is a curse. Leaver (Abel) says, stay away from that vengeful Taker (Cain).
Adam, the first agriculturist, said yes to unlimited growth.
VII. Cultural Differences
Culture is an accumulation of all that has worked well for a people, including attitudes, tastes, attire, etc.
Leavers relate directly to the most ancient of times; takers consider themselves a new people. Except for ceremonies, institutions, and holidays, they eschew the past like the plague, never intending to live that way again.
Takers preserve knowledge of making more and better things, and is called progress; Leavers preserve knowledge of what works well for them in their particular locale, and is called wisdom. Legislated laws don't work well, but they're "right." Cut off from our distant past, we grope for Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Confucius, inventing a new religion every week.
Leavers do not voluntarily give up their way of life to join the Takers revolution [unless seduced by our machines]. Usually they'd rather die, so we gladly kill them. Takers indubitably fear and loathe Leavers' way of life.
Comanches dropped agrarian life in favor of nomadic hunting. [Whites who took up the freedom of tribal life were particularly despised by their fellows.]
Instead of having a wretched existence, Leavers still inhabit Paradise, basking in less labor, in balance, in harmony.
As we Takers strive for ever more control over our own lives, as we hoard more food and things than we need, the gods have no power over us. As soon as we gain complete dominance, when the Earth is finally, entirely under our management, then we'll be free at last, our labors done!

VIII. Two Alternatives
Takers fired the gods for their incompetence, kicking them upstairs. This got the gods really pissed, so we offered sacrifices to them, for a while.
Takers think they know good and evil, forever judging and arguing and categorizing; Leavers live in the hands of the gods. So who is actually struggling to survive in a never-ending nightmare of terror and anxiety??
Those who live in the hands of the gods evolve, being part of the general community of life, subject to natural selection.
Takers' story says that creation came to an end with man, that man owns the world; there will be no successors, no competitors, no anything.
Leavers' story says that creation goes on forever; man belongs to the world.
Man is only the first of all other creatures to attain self-awareness, but certainly not the last.
Our choices: Thwart the gods and perish, or stand aside and make room for the other life-forms to become what they, too, can become.
The program:
Cain, stop murdering Abel -- Leavers can teach us that there isn't only one right way to live.
Spit out the forbidden fruit -- surrender the notion that we can decide who shall live and who shall die
Change people's minds -- no more Man Supreme, but Man The First Of Many
Summary
Takers are all inmates of a giant jail whose prison industry is about consuming the world. Not even the rich and powerful can escape this prison, which has nothing to do with justice. Of course we must redistribute wealth and power, but only after we tear down the prison itself. We are captives of a civilizational system that compels us to go on destroying the world in order to live.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Howie Richey is a curious fellow who seeks meaning in his interactions with others. He enjoys distilling the essence of what he reads, finding patterns that connect people and ideas. (Email Howie: zow at io dot com).

Howie grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, and now lives in Austin. At an early age he realized the beauty and diversity of his home state. This eventually led to his study of geography in college. Since 1983, Howie has taught classes and guided tours of Central Texas with an environmental emphasis.

Howie's quest for a unifying philosophy brought him to the novel, Ishmael, and his outlook on the cultural / ecological scene has been radically altered ever since. The implications of Ishmael's ideas are also having a profound impact on his personal life, leading him to investigate and experiment with systems thinking, with Bohm, et al's approach to dialog, and social design.

Copyright © 1995 - 1998 Howie Richey. If you give credit for the original novel to Daniel Quinn, and for the concept summary to Howie Richey, you may reproduce this work freely in electronic or hardcopy form.
Howie Richey's summary was adapted to web hypertext by Wayne L. Pendley. Wayne also adapted the images on this page from originals provided by Corel Professional Photos on CD-ROM and Aris Multimedia Discovery Series.

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/Spafford_hg.jpg]]

Horatio Gates Spafford (October 20, 1828, Troy, New York - October 16, 1888, Jerusalem)[1] is best known as the author of the hymn It Is Well with My Soul.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Early life
o 1.1 First tragedy: The Great Chicago Fire
o 1.2 Second tragedy: The wreck of the Ville Du Havre
* 2 The lyrics of It Is Well with My Soul
* 3 The American Colony in Jerusalem
* 4 References
* 5 External links
o 5.1 Horatio Spafford
o 5.2 Philip Bliss

[edit] Early life

[edit] First tragedy: The Great Chicago Fire

On October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire swept through the city. Horatio was a prominent lawyer in Chicago[2], and had invested heavily in the city's real estate, and the fire destroyed almost everything he owned.

[edit] Second tragedy: The wreck of the Ville Du Havre

Two years later, in 1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday somewhere in Europe, and chose England knowing that his friend D. L. Moody would be preaching there in the fall. Delayed because of business, he sent ahead of him his family: his wife, Anna, and four children, daughters Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta.
Anna Spafford

On November 21, 1873, while crossing the Atlantic on the steamship Ville du Havre, their ship was struck by an iron sailing vessel[3] and two hundred and twenty-six people lost their lives, including all four of Spafford's daughters. Anna Spafford survived the tragedy. Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to Spafford beginning "Saved alone."[4] Spafford then sailed to England, going over the location of his daughters' deaths. According to Bertha Spafford, a daughter born after the tragedy, "It Is Well With My Soul" was written on this journey.

[edit] The lyrics of It Is Well with My Soul

The original manuscript[5] has only four verses, but Spafford's daughter states how later another verse (the fourth in order below) was added and the last line of the original was slightly modified.[6] The music, written by Philip Bliss, was named after the ship on which Spafford's daughters died, Ville Du Havre.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

(Refrain:) It is well (it is well),
with my soul (with my soul),
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
(Refrain)

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
(Refrain)

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
(Refrain)

And Lord haste the day, when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
(Refrain)

[edit] The American Colony in Jerusalem

After the tragedy, the Spaffords had three more children: a son, Horatio Jr., and daughters Bertha and Grace. Sadly, young Horatio contracted scarlet fever and died at the age of four. In August 1881, the Spaffords set out for Jerusalem as a party of 13 adults and 3 children and set up the American Colony.

Moved by a series of profound tragic losses, Chicago natives Anna and Horatio Spafford led a small American contingent in 1881 to Jerusalem to form a Christian utopian society known as the "American Colony." Colony members, later joined by Swedish Christians, engaged in philanthropic work amongst the people of Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation and without proselytizing motives--thereby gaining the trust of the local Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. During and immediately after World War I, the American Colony played a critical role in supporting these communities through the great suffering and deprivations of the eastern front by running soup kitchens, hospitals, orphanages and other charitable ventures.

[7]

Spafford died on October 16, 1888, of malaria, and was buried in Jerusalem.

[edit] References

1. ^ Source of middle name and birth/death information
2. ^ http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/americancolony/images/ac0004bs.jpg
3. ^ http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/americancolony/images/ac0005s.jpg
4. ^ http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/americancolony/images/ac0006s.jpg
5. ^ Photo of manuscript
6. ^ Bertha's history. Bertha Spafford Vester. (1988). Our Jerusalem: An American Family in the Holy City, 1881-1949. Jerusalem: American Colony, 364 pp., ISBN 0-405-10296-8.
7. ^ Library of Congress Exhibition Overview. See also Yaakov Ariel & Ruth Kark. (1996, December). "Messianism, Holiness, Charisma, and Community: The American-Swedish Colony in Jerusalem, 1881-1933," Church History, 65(4), 641-657.

[edit] External links

[edit] Horatio Spafford

* SpaffordHymn.com : The original Hymn manuscript penned by Horatio Spafford
* CyberHymnal.org Photos of Horatio Spafford and a MIDI file of the hymn
* Elisabeth Elliot recalls tea with Horatio Spafford's daughter
* Gospelcom.net
* Christianity.ca Many details on life of Spafford
* The Library of Congress Exhibition covering the start of The American Colony in Jerusalem, the Spafford Family tragedy, their move to Jerusalem, their time in the Holy Land, and the American Colony at work

[edit] Philip Bliss

* The memoirs of P.P.Bliss

[img[http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/photo/philip_bliss.jpg]]
Photo of Philip Bliss, writer of the music

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/John_Coltrane_1960.jpg]]

John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina — July 17, 1967)[1] was an American jazz saxophonist and composer, and the husband of Alice Coltrane.

Throughout his career he reshaped modern jazz and influenced generations of other musicians. He was astonishingly prolific: he made about fifty recordings as a leader in these twelve years, and appeared on many more led by other musicians. Throughout his career Coltrane's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension that would color his legacy.

He received a posthumous Special Citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2007 for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."

[img[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Freddie_Hubbard_1976.jpg/220px-Freddie_Hubbard_1976.jpg]]

Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (7 April 1938 – 29 December 2008)[1] was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 60s and on. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop.
Hubbard started playing the mellophone and trumpet in his school band, studying at the Jordan Conservatory with the principal trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In his teens Hubbard worked locally with brothers Wes and Monk Montgomery and worked with bassist Larry Ridley and saxophonist James Spaulding. In 1958, at the age of 20, he moved to New York, and began playing with some of the best jazz players of the era, including Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, Eric Dolphy, J. J. Johnson, and Quincy Jones. In June 1960 Hubbard made his first record as a leader, Open Sesame, with saxophonist Tina Brooks, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Clifford Jarvis.

In December 1960 Hubbard was invited to play on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz after Coleman had heard him playing with Don Cherry.[3]

Then in May 1961, Hubbard played on Olé Coltrane, John Coltrane's final recording session with Atlantic Records. Together with Eric Dolphy, Hubbard was the only 'session' musician who appeared on both Olé and Africa/Brass, Coltrane's first album with ABC/Impulse! Later, in August 1961, Hubbard made one of his most famous records, Ready for Freddie, which was also his first collaboration with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Hubbard would join Shorter later in 1961 when he replaced Lee Morgan in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He played on several Blakey recordings, including Caravan, Ugetsu, Mosaic, and Free For All. Hubbard remained with Blakey until 1966, leaving to form the first of several small groups of his own, which featured, among others, pianist Kenny Barron and drummer Louis Hayes.

It was during this time that he began to develop his own sound, distancing himself from the early influences of Clifford Brown and Morgan, and won the Downbeat jazz magazine "New Star" award on trumpet.[4]

Throughout the 1960s Hubbard played as a sideman on some of the most important albums from that era, including, Oliver Nelson's The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage, and Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil.[5] He recorded extensively for Blue Note Records in the 1960s: eight albums as a bandleader, and twenty-eight as a sideman.[6] Hubbard was described as "the most brilliant trumpeter of a generation of musicians who stand with one foot in 'tonal' jazz and the other in the atonal camp".[7] Though he never fully embraced the free jazz of the '60s, he appeared on two of its landmark albums: Coleman's Free Jazz and Coltrane's Ascension.

Jacopone da Todi (Todi, 1228 – Collazzone 1306) was a Franciscan friar from Umbria, Italy in the 13th century. He wrote several laudi (songs in praise of the Lord) in Italian, and the famous Latin lyric Stabat Mater is conventionally attributed to him. He was an early pioneer in Italian theatre, being one of the earliest scholars who dramatised gospel subjects.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Life
* 2 Poetry
* 3 See also
* 4 Sources
* 5 External links

[edit] Life

Jacopone studied law in Bologna and became a successful lawyer. At the age of 40 his wife was killed when part of the floor of his house gave way during a dance. He discovered she had been wearing a haircloth to mortify her flesh - indicating great religious devotion and penance. Shocked, he gave up his legal practice, gave away all his possessions, and c.1268 lived as a wandering ascetic for about 10 years as a Franciscan tertiary. Around 1278 he joined the Friars Minor as a lay brother. By 1278, two broad factions had arisen in the Franciscan order, the former with a more lenient, less mystical attitude, the latter being more severe, preaching absolute poverty and penitence and known as The Spirituals.

Jacopone was connected with the latter group and in 1294 they sent a deputation to Celestine V to ask permission to live separate from the other friars and observe the Franciscan Rule in its perfection -- a request which was granted. On Celestine's death in 1297 the position of the Vatican reversed: Boniface VIII favored the Franciscan regulars which opposed The Spirituals strict views. Jacopone, in response, signed a covenant with the powerful Colonnas, one of the most influential families in Rome, calling for Boniface's deposition. The Pope excommunicated them. A battle between the two rival parties ensued, ending with the siege of Palestrina and the imprisonment and excommunication of Jacopone in 1298. He was freed in 1303 on the death of Boniface, having being excluded from the Jubilee of 1300 by papal bull. He retired to Collazzone, a small town situated on a hill between Perugia and Todi, and died in 1306.

Jacopone was steadfast in condemning corruption, especially through his satirical Italian poems. Jacopone would not recant his position on the requirement of ascetic poverty, believing that the mainstream church had become corrupt and that its ministers were not interested in the welfare of the poor. This criticism is echoed in the contemporary Alleluia Movement. It was a time of famine and poverty in Italy, and many mystics and preachers like Gioacchino da Fiore anticipated the end of the old world and the coming of Christ because kings and clergy had become too attached to material goods, too interested in their personal wars rather than the welfare of the country. Jacopone's preaching attracted many enthusiasts even within the Franciscan order and Dante praised him in his Paradiso.

Jacopone's body is buried in a crypt in the church of San Fortunato, Todi.

[edit] Poetry

Jacopone's satirical and denunciatory Laudi witness to the troubled times of the warring city-states of northern Italy and the material and spiritual crisis that accompanied them. The laudi are written in his native Umbrian dialect and represent the popular poetry of the region. Many hundreds of manuscripts attest to the broad popularity of his poems in many contexts - although anonymous poems are often attributed to him by the tradition. Other laudi extol the spiritual value of poverty.

Some of his laudi were especially in use among the so-called Laudesi and the Flagellants who sang them in the towns, along the roads, in their confraternities, and in sacred dramatical representations. With hindsight, the use of the laudi may be seen as an early seed of Italian drama that came to fruition in later centuries.

The Latin poem Stabat Mater Dolorosa is often attributed to Jacopone, although this has been often disputed. It is a fine example of religious lyric in the Franciscan tradition. It was inserted into the Roman Missal and Breviary in 1727 for the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated on the Friday before Good Friday. Following changes by Pius XII, it now appears on the Feast of Our Lady's Sorrows celebrated on 15 September. Many composers have set it to music, including Josquin des Prez, Giovanni Palestrina, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Gioacchino Rossini, and Antonín Dvorák.

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Click on Photo to enlarge.

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[img[http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2007/10/19/image3385576.jpg]]
The End of the Rat Pack
From left, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop star in the 1960 Warner Brothers' movie, "Ocean's Eleven." Bishop was the group's last surviving member: Lawford died in 1984, Davis Jr. in 1990, Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998. Bishop died Oct. 18 at age 89. (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

The Rat Pack

The Rat Pack is a nickname given to a group of performers, led by legendary singer Frank Sinatra. The other members of the group included Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., writer Joey Bishop, and actor Peter Lawford. On-screen fireball Shirley MacLaine also is considered the only female member of the group. Sinatra first started the group in the 1950s. The Rat Pack was an unofficial group at first. The performers often went to each others’ shows in support and then played along.

In the late 1950s, Sinatra called all of the members of the Rat Pack to Las Vegas. The group began performing together, and crowds loved them. They packed out every house where they played, and they helped make Vegas into a showbiz town. After singing for a while, the Rat Pack, so named by legendary actress Lauren Bacall, decided to branch out. They were the stars of the original Ocean’s Eleven, filmed in 1960, and recently remade. While the Rat Pack had a tremendous on-stage and on-screen impact, some credit them with helping with the struggle for desegregation as well. The members would not perform in places where they felt African American member Sammy Davis would not be treated well, and their refusal to do so forced some of the more popular Vegas clubs to abandon their still-accepted segregation policies.

The Pack was a popular performing groups for many years, and Sinatra, Dean, and Davis had their own successful individual careers as well. MacLaine, the female member, and Bacall were stalwarts of popular culture as well. They pushed the limits of music and are known as some of the greatest performers of their generation. Today, the Pack is still referenced throughout music, even in the hip hop world, and their run of fun and fame was memorialized in a movie in 1998.

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Listen to him here: http://www.jodonohue.com/beauty.ram

"We are not a body with a soul, we are a soul with a body."

John O'Donohue is an Irish poet and philosopher who lives in the solitude of a cottage in the West of Ireland and speaks Gaelic as his native language.

He has degrees in philosophy, English literature and was awarded a Ph.D in philosophical theology from the University of Tubingen in 1990. His dissertation developed a new concept of Person through a re-interpretation of the philosophy of Hegel. The prestigious Review of Metaphysics commended him for "breaking new ground in our thinking about consciousness…(with) a richer and deeper notion of Personhood." O'Donohue says: "Hegel struck me as someone who put his eye to the earth at a most unusual angle and managed to glimpse the circle toward which all things aspire."

Through the glow of image and narrative and a deft underpinning of thought, John's writing draws the reader into intimate conversation with neglected or unknown regions of the soul. Readers say his work puts words on things they have felt for years but never found expressed. As a speaker John evokes an atmosphere of Attention where heart and head gradually open to new horizons and where often the inspired self gains courage to break free from inner prisons. His work seeks to be a threshold where the hunger of our contemporary questions might awaken treasure-wells in our tradition.

As a speaker John's poetic gift is being increasingly recognized by the Corporate World of Work where he speaks to themes such as: Leadership: The Awakening of Creativity; Without Vision, The Work-Place Works Against Itself; The Gift of Encouragement in Times of Anxiety; The Art of Change: Finding the Courage for New Horizons; Coaching: The Art of Awakening Real Presence; The Intense Threshold: Holding Personal Integrity Within the System.

January 05, 2008
Sad News: John O'Donahue Dies

It's was with enormous sadness I received the news that John O'Donahue has died.

Martin Wroe, who had for so long championed him at Greenbelt Festival, sent me this email:

Our friend John O'Donohue has died. John was on holiday in France with the family of Kristine, a wonderful woman he met at Greenbelt just last August.

Poet, priest and philosopher, John was a one-off, the warmest, funniest, wisest person you could hope to meet.

His most recent book, 'Benedictus', was published just before Christmas. It's a book of blessings and this is an extract from one.

'May there be some beautiful surprise
Waiting for you inside death
Something you never knew or felt,
Which with one simple touch
Absolves you of all loneliness and loss,
As you quicken within the embrace
For which your soul was eternally made.

'May your heart be speechless
At the sight of the truth
Of all your belief had hoped,
Your heart breathless
In the light and lightness
Where each and every thing
Is at last its true self
Within that serene belonging
That dwells beside us
On the other side
Of what we see.'

May John know that serene belonging dwelling beside him. May we all.

[img[http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/gallery_images/0709/0000/0027/wesley_edited1_mid.jpg]]

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<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="14">Jonestown </font><br></div><br><br><div style="text-align: center;"><font size="5">Jonestown still haunts Hoosier couple who lost 20 family members in massacre

<br></font></div><br><div style="text-align: center;">[img[http://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/jonestown.jpg]]<br></div><br><br>&nbsp;By Robert King
robert.king@indystar.com
11/18/08

Before Jim Jones led more than 900 people to their deaths in a cult massacre 30 years ago today, he was just a young Indianapolis pastor who preached a Gospel that appealed to people such as Gene and June Cordell.

The Eastside Indianapolis couple, who broke with Jones long before he left Indiana, remember him initially as a man who was true to the Bible, fed the hungry and appeared to heal the sick. But as Jones evolved, the man they knew as "Jimmy" began to offer glimpses of the dangerous cult leader he would become: a man with a temper and a messiah complex.

Unfortunately, the Cordells couldn't pry 20 members of their extended family from Jones' grip. And on Nov. 18, 1978, they were among the members of Jones' Peoples Temple who perished in the forced suicide/mass murder in Jonestown, Guyana.

"To think we have had to have such a thing upset our family like this," said June Cordell, who recalls hearing Jones preach in a church on South Keystone Avenue, near where I-65 is now, on Easter Sunday 1953. Now 81, she says, "It has made it awful hard for us."

The 30th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre has a particular resonance in Indiana.

Jim Jones was born in Randolph County, along the Ohio border, in 1931. He attended Indiana University and graduated from Butler in 1962 with a degree in secondary education. He was the pastor at a succession of churches in Indianapolis that varied in their viewpoint and affiliation from Methodist to Pentecostal to Disciples of Christ.

For the Cordells, signs of trouble revealed themselves gradually.

June Cordell said there was nothing spectacular that first Sunday at South Keystone, just a church of 25 people in a chapel with cracked windows.

"You would have never known any reason to have thought there was anything out of the way," June said.

The Cordells soon came to appreciate Jones' devotion to the Bible, his food ministries for the poor, the music of his church choirs, congregations that became racially diverse and miracle healings that appeared genuine.

"The power of God was in those meetings," Gene Cordell, now 79, remembers. "We thought he was preaching the truth at that time as we knew the truth."

Soon they began to see something else.

In a Peoples Temple bathroom, June discovered a box of chicken livers that looked amazingly like the "cancers" that Jones would pull from the mouths of sick people cured at healing services.

"I kept saying to myself to keep quiet," she recalls. "I didn't want to be a doubting Thomas."

Then there were Jones' incessant morning phone calls to issue what June called his daily "orders." He wanted Gene to do things such as change light bulbs in the church, fix his car or tweak the choir practice to suit his needs. The calls became an irritant to June, who had three kids in diapers at the time. "I got disgusted with him," she said.

For the Cordells, the final straw came in 1957. Jones returned as a changed man after a visit to the Philadelphia offices of Father Divine, a cult leader. That Sunday, speaking to his 300-member congregation, Jones cast his book of Scriptures to the floor and said, "We don't need to use the Bible anymore."

"Some people got up and left right then," June recalls. "I stayed until the service was over with. That really did it for me."

The Cordells moved to a new church and began warning people about Jones. But they couldn't pry loose some beloved family members. Gene's aunt, Edith Cordell, who adopted him, and his adoptive sister, Carol Ann Cordell McCoy, both stayed with Jones, who promptly drove a wedge between his followers and the family.

The Cordells say they saw evidence that Jones was giving Edith mind-altering drugs -- marks on Edith's arm she said were "flu shots" from Jim that corresponded to a dramatic personality change. They reported the incident to police but say nothing came of it.

Eventually, Jones led his followers to Northern California, where he intended to develop a Utopian community. It proved to be just a stop on the way to Guyana.

"I told Edith," Gene Cordell recalls, "that if you follow Jimmy Jones to California, you are crazy."

Edith, a silver-haired grandma with horned-rimmed glasses, loaded up her car and went anyway. The Cordells never saw her again.

Carol Ann, a petite, pretty young brunette, went to California, too. She returned to Indianapolis before making a final break, driving a church bus back across the country to California. Both women, along with Carol Ann's four children, went to Guyana. They were joined there by more than a dozen other members of the Cordells' extended family.

When word of the Nov. 18, 1978, massacre made American newscasts, some families hoped their loved ones had been among the few to escape. The Cordells sensed the worst -- a fear that was born out.

Both Edith and Carol Ann died in the melange of cyanide-spiked Flavor Aid and gunfire. Their remains are buried in New Crown Cemetery on the Southside. Also dead were Carol Ann's four children and 14 other members of the extended family. Their remains are in California.

Thirty years later, hardly a day passes when Gene and June Cordell don't think about the Jonestown massacre. Today's anniversary will be like most days. From the pair of computers in their living room, the couple will review research and news on Jonestown and converse with others who saw their families ravaged by a tragedy strangely rooted in Indiana.

Their greatest fear is that others will be drawn into modern cults, which they say still exist in Indiana. They warn people to look for the signs, particularly any authority figure who wants to cut off individuals from their families.

"We just want people to be aware of cults," June said, "because there is going to be more of them."
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