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This newsletter is available online by
clicking here. The archived newsletter are also available by
clicking here.
The News In Review newsletter is a service
provided
by Understand The Times that
is a compilation of the news articles
previously posted
on our site . Understand The Times does not
endorse these events but rather is
showing the church the current events.
The
purpose of posting these articles is to warn the church of deception from a
Biblical perspective.
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May 8 - Catholic Social Doctrine: The Communion of Nations
Artical: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
"God reigns over
the nations," regnavit Deus super gentes. (Ps. 47:8 [46:9]) It
is with this understanding of God's universal reign over man and his
political communities that the Church assesses the relationship between
nations and its inherently global perspective.
One cannot understand the Church's social doctrine and social thought on
international relations without appreciating the Church's understanding
of the universal nature of Jesus and the universal mandate given to her
by Christ. Indeed, the term "Catholic"
comes to us from Greek katholikos, which means "universal." The
Church is not limited to a particular nation, but is intended to embrace
all peoples. She lives with the Kingdom of God in her breast.
As Francis Cardinal George recently put it:
"Living in the kingdom of God means
thinking beyond and outside the boxes created by citizenship in a
nation, by cultural or racial exclusivity, and by individual choice. In
the kingdom of God, divisive markers are not needed to establish
identity."
That is not to say that nation,
culture, or race is unimportant or cannot be a source of identity or
pride, but these "markers" are decidedly demoted when placed with the
universality of the Gospel and the universality of the Church. There is
no Jew or Gentile in Christ. (Gal. 3:28) Salus populi lex suprema
est. The salvation of souls is the supreme law and transcends all
borders.
Indeed, one might even say that Jesus is become Israel.
Hosea says, "when Israel was a youth I loved him, and out of Egypt I
called My son." (Hosea 11:1) Jesus whom the Father loved fled to Egypt
and remained there until Herod's death, so that "what was spoke by the
Lord the prophet [Hosea] might be fulfilled, saying 'Out of Egypt did I
call my son.'" (Matt. 2:14-15) Jesus is
Israel. The Church, which is Christ's body, is the New Israel.
It is this universality, this Catholicism,
which is central to the Church's understanding of sacred history, of
man's history, and of her duties to all mankind and mankind's nations
and political communities. It is a deep stream in her social teaching,
and it is one
that requires us to demote those particularities which might otherwise
divide us if we placed too much importance on them: our nation, our
culture, and our race. These particularities are ordered under the
universality of the Church's message.
Read Full Article....
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May 3 - Credit Cards, An Endangered Species
Artical: Technology For Global Monetary System
Previously, mobile
phones have helped us satisfy our need to communicate. Now, however,
they are beginning to satisfy the need to engage in commerce by
providing a convenient means of exchange. Smartphones are becoming a
tool to accomplish what has previously required the use of cash, checks
or credit cards.
Unlike a piece of
plastic with a magnetic stripe, a
payment system based on an intelligent, networked device has the
advantage of providing real-time feedback on account and payment
information. Combine these advantages with the fact that most of us are
carrying a mobile device anyway, and a virtual wallet could eventually
make credit cards as uncommon for retail transactions as personal checks
are today.
In locations in
Africa, Asia and Latin America, money
is often stored in a mobile account and transferred to another one
during a purchase by bringing the buyer's and seller's cell phones into
close proximity. This is done by means of a short-range wireless
connection called near field communications (NFC). Just as elsewhere,
NFC will lead the mobile-transaction revolution in the US.
With major payment
processing companies finally signing onto the mobile payments game,
the US is entering an inflection point for
NFC technology. Much of the infrastructure has already been built. In
the 2000s, for example, Visa and MasterCard developed payWave and
PayPass, respectively, both contactless payment technologies. More
recently, Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express have licensed
these systems to Google for use in smartphones with its mobile payment
system, Google Wallet.
Along with the
software and systems sides of the mobile payment equation,
we are seeing increasing numbers of smartphone models equipped with NFC
technology. 2011 was the biggest year on record for NFC adoption, with
35 million new smartphones equipped with the technology,
according to IMS Research.
With this kind of
growth and industry support, NFC
technology is set to revolutionize the way we pay in a manner very
similar to what the credit card industry accomplished in the second half
of the 20th century. Innovators pioneering the
transformation with a strong market position should do very well for
themselves and their investors.
Read Full Article....
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May 7 - Study: Over Half of South Jersey's Catholics Believe Jesus Sinned
Artical: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
Although the sinless life of Jesus Christ is
a foundational tenet of the Christian faith, a study recently released
by the Diocese of Camden found that 60
percent of practicing Catholics in southern New Jersey believe Jesus
sinned during his time on Earth.
"The
number of Catholics who have a very flawed, a seriously flawed,
understanding of who Jesus is, that's troublesome,"
Bishop Joseph Galante of the Diocese of Camden said during a press
conference, USA Today reports. "We've got to re-focus on how we teach
and inform people. Jesus is the foundation of who we are as Catholics."
For example, the study showed that
four out of ten of these Catholics
disagree with the idea that sex should be reserved solely for marriage.
While 38 percent of the total residents living within the Camden Diocese
agree strongly with the idea that the Bible is "totally accurate in all
of the principles it teaches," only 28 percent of Catholics in the
diocese believe the same.
Another major issue Galante discussed
during the press conference was the high number of Catholics in his
diocese who simply don't attend Mass. One-third of lapsed Catholics said
they have other priorities or are too busy to attend, while others
said they just aren't interested in church (27 percent).
Peter Feuerherd, director of
communications for the Diocese of Camden, told The Christian Post on
Monday that another thing that struck him from the study was
the low percentage of Catholics who invite others
to church. The study found that Catholics (33 percent) were half as
likely as Protestants (66 percent) to invite someone to visit their
church.
Other interesting findings from the
study:
-Of the Catholics surveyed,
38 percent favor attending church only on
holidays.
-Among all of the adults
surveyed, 51 percent said churches are "too involved" in opposing
abortion or same-sex marriage.
-Only 18
percent of Catholics strongly agree that it is their personal
responsibility to share their religious beliefs with others, as compared
to 40 percent of Protestants and 36 percent of people who believe in
non-Christian faiths.
Read Full Article....
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May 9 - Obama endorses gay 'marriage': says support based on Jesus, Golden Rule
Artical: Perilous Times
President Barack Obama has flip-flopped on
gay "marriage" for the second time,
endorsing same-sex marriage in an interview today, in which he said his
decision was motivated in part by his Christian faith and his belief in
the Golden Rule.
"I've just concluded that for me
personally, it is important for me to
go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get
married," Obama told ABC News reporter Robin Roberts
in an interview to air this evening.
He added that his wife, Michelle, agreed
with him. "We've talked about it over the years and she, you know, she
feels the same way," he said. "We are
both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered
to put us at odds with the views of others," Obama stated, "but, you
know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think
about is, not only Christ sacrificing Himself on our behalf, but it's
also the Golden Rule."
However, Obama had previously implied the
Bible supports homosexual unions. "I
believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other
in a hospital or transfer property to each other," he said in 2008. "If
people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the
Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more
central than an obscure passage in Romans."
In the ABC interview, Obama highlighted
his service to the LGBT political agenda,
including "rolling back Don't Ask, Don't Tell," "no longer defending the
Defense Against Marriage Act," and supporting civil unions. However, he
said his personal relationships with homosexuals convinced him he had to
go further.
Read Full Article....
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May 8 - Judge suggests 10 Commandments be reduced to 6
Artical: Miscellaneous
The Giles County
School District, of which Narrows High School is a part, is being
represented by Liberty Counsel, a Christian non-profit law group
that is claiming that the presence of the display is, in fact,
perfectly legal. The debate over the presence of the Ten
Commandments began back in 2010 when the Freedom From Religion
Foundation first received complaints about it. Inevitably, the ACLU
got involved. After the initial complaints surrounding the Ten
Commandments, the list of moral elements to follow was apparently
removed and re-posted a number of times. In the end, it was made
part of a larger display of historical documents that have shaped
American history, the ACLU claims.
"This action flies
in the face of both strong legal precedents and our fundamental
notions of what religious equality means in the United States," the
ACLU said in a national statement.
"When the government promotes one faith, whether it is through the
Ten Commandments or other religious documents, it automatically
diminishes all other faiths."
But Mathew Staver,
who serves as dean of Liberty University School of Law and the
chairman of the Liberty Counsel, counters this argument by claiming
that the Ten Commandments has every right to be displayed. Staver
says that it is perfectly protected as a portion of a grander
historical setting alongside the Declaration of Independence and the
Bill of Rights.
On Monday,
federal Judge Michael Urbanski ordered all parties to discuss the
future of the Ten Commandments in mediation. If, indeed, a solution
cannot be reached, then the case will return to court. The Bluefield
Daily Telegraph had more:
A federal
court judge ordered mediation Monday for the parties involved in
a lawsuit about whether the Ten Commandments can be displayed at
a Giles County high school.
U.S. District
Court Judge Michael F. Urbanski with the U.S. District Court in
Roanoke ordered the Giles
County School Board and the unnamed student and parent into
mediation to see if a compromise can be reached over the display
of the biblical texts.
The Liberty
Counsel, which is representing the Giles County School Board,
and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, which is
representing the unidentified student and parents, will meet
with a magistrate judge during the mediation period. If no
decision is made during mediation, the case will return to
court.
But
Urbanski also made a curious recommendation to help alleviate
tensions and to find a potential middle ground. Rather than keeping
all 10 commandments, he suggested removing the first four and simply
leaving the remaining six. Why, you ask? Well, the first few codes
are religious in nature, whereas the final six are far more secular.
Read Full Article....
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
Sincerely, Roger Oakland
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