UPDATED: 11 NOVEMBER 2006

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Federal court complaint claims discrimination

Canyon Ridge Baptist Church website

Should a church pay more than a Little League club or Girl Scout troop to rent a public building?

That's the question at issue in a federal lawsuit filed last week against the city of San Diego, which charges religious organizations higher fees than other community groups using city buildings.

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura

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THE "BOOK OF DANIEL"

NBC's new series takes "shot" at Religion

And in moments of great stress, Jesus (played by "Deadwood" alum Garret Dillahunt) turns up--in the passenger seat of Daniel's station wagon, in the bedroom hallway, outside the church--to offer his counsel.

So, yeah, "Book of Daniel" is going to be controversial, and that's even before you consider that Kenny is gay, and that homosexuality and religion have mixed lately like hair spray and a blow torch.

"I recognize there are going to be people who have an issue with a gay man writing about Jesus," Kenny says at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour. He adds, "I'm not making fun of Jesus. I never want to poke fun at religion or at Jesus. These characters are very spiritual people. They believe in God, they believe in Christ as their savior, and I think that's wonderful."

While his characters are devout, Kenny's own feelings toward Christ and organized religion are more complicated. He is, as he puts it, "in Catholic recovery," is interested in Buddhist teachings about reincarnation, and isn't sure exactly how he defines God and/or Jesus.

"I'm a spiritual person," he says. "I don't know specifically what's going on up there. I think there must be something going on, whether it's an energy we're all connected to or an old white man with a beard and a robe.

"I do believe in Jesus. I don't necessarily know that all the myth surrounding him is true, but I read his teachings, and I think he was a great teacher and a wonderful philosopher. I think he had a great idea: `Love thy neighbor.' There's nothing wrong with that."

Kenny's mother was Cuban and his father Irish Catholic, and they had different commitments to the church. Kenny remembers watching his mother receive Communion while his father, weary from a childhood of daily Mass, would stand outside smoking a cigarette. In his teens, Kenny found himself drifting from the church, a process accelerated by the growing realization he was gay.

"Once I got into college, I didn't go anymore," he recalls. "The Catholic Church is very obviously not accepting of homosexuals, so if they're not going to want me in their doors, I don't want to bother them with it."

"This is a real good definition of Episcopalian: Michael once said to his mother, `God bless you, Mommy,' and she said, `We don't say that. We don't proselytize. Just keep that to yourself. Order another martini and keep it quiet. Don't run around blessing everybody."'

Kenny never intended for "The Book of Daniel" to be anything more than a writing sample to branch out of a career in sitcoms. But as he showed it to people, he realized he was on to something more than a means to a new job. "Organized religion is, to me, almost the same organism as the Mafia," he says. "It's got its internal politics, it's got rules that it follows, rules that it doesn't follow, who's allowed to do what to who. It's got skeletons in the closet and scandals and all those things. It skirts the law because it can. They do it legitimately, where the Mafia does it illegitimately. I always wanted to explore religion the way `The Sopranos' explored the Mafia, through the focal lens of a family."

Similarly, when asked whether Jesus really needs to be in this show, he points to Dr. Melfi, noting she's not essential to the plot of "The Sopranos" but provides insight into Tony Soprano's thoughts that just isn't available elsewhere.

"He's not really talking to a living Jesus," says Kenny. "I think he's in Daniel's mind. We see him because Daniel would like to see him. This is Daniel's personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This is how it manifests itself. He talks to him, this is his way of praying: He's talking to his best friend, his brother, his pal, his partner."

Kenny knows he has to step very carefully in writing Jesus. He wants some of those scenes to have a sense of humor, but "without a sense of satire." In one moment in the pilot, Jesus tries to cheer up Daniel by inventing self-help book titles like "Jesus' Guide to a Comfortable Life" and "My Tuesdays With Jesus."

Kenny isn't shy about his own political beliefs, but insists that with this show, "I don't have a platform, I don't have a political idea. If the notion of abortion or gay rights or civil rights or anything was to come up, I would never have Jesus give an opinion about it. But I would have Jesus encourage Daniel to search his own soul for his opinion."

"I pull from my own life, but I don't have a gay agenda. Peter is not me, to use an example. He's a conservative, middle-of-the-road Republican gay man, and that's not me."

Though Kenny won't discuss it, NBC desperately needs a show like "The Book of Daniel"--well-written, impeccably cast and destined to push a whole lot of buttons--to make some noise after the network's fourth-place finish in the ratings this past season. Throughout the development process, the notes from NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly focused almost entirely on minor details.

"And I said, `But Jesus, the Vicodin, the marijuana, that's all OK?' And he said, `Oh, yeah, yeah, that's fine."

John Lennon, former Beatle (deceased)

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DAWKINS: RELIGION EQUALS 'CHILD ABUSE'

Scientist compares Moses to Hitler

A 2 part television series written by Dawkins entitled "Root of All Evil?," features the atheist Dawkins visiting Lourdes, France, Colorado Springs, Colo., the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and a British religious school, using each of the venues to argue religion subverts reason.

In "The God Delusion," the first film in the series, Dawkins targets Catholicism at the pilgrimage site in Lourdes. "If you want to experience the medieval rituals of faith, the candle light, the incense, music, important-sounding dead languages, nobody does it better than the Catholics," he says.

Dawkins, using his visit to Colorado Springs' New Life Church, criticizes conservative U.S. evangelicals and warns his audience of the influence of "Christian fascism" and "an American Taliban."

The backdrop of the al-Aqsa mosque and an American-born Jew turned fundamentalist Muslim who tells Dawkins to prepare for the Islamic world empire – and who clashes with him after saying he hates atheists – rounds out the first program's case for the delusions of the faithful.

In part two, "The Virus of Faith," Dawkins attacks the teaching of religion to children, calling it child abuse.

"Innocent children are being saddled with demonstrable falsehoods," he says. "It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation. Isn't it weird the way we automatically label a tiny child with its parents' religion?"

"Sectarian religious schools," Dawkins asserts, have been "deeply damaging" to generations of children.

Dawkins, who makes no effort to disguise his atheism and contempt for religion, focuses on the Bible, too.

"The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist," he says. Dawkins then criticizes Abraham, compares Moses to Hitler and Saddam Hussein, and calls the New Testament "St Paul's nasty, sado-masochistic doctrine of atonement for original sin."

Dawkins, perhaps best known for his much-cited comment that evolution "made it possible to be an intellectually satisfied atheist," appeals to John Lennon in a commentary he authored for the Belfast Telegraph on the eve of his program's premiere: "Religion may not be the root of all evil, but it is a serious contender. Even so it could be justified, if only its claims were true. But they are undermined by science and reason. Imagine a world where nobody is intimidated against following reason, wherever it leads. "You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one."

Ted Turner, TV mogul

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ANTI-CHRISTIAN DISCRIMINATION IN AMERICA

From 2003

Judge Roy Moore’s fight to keep a monument honoring the Ten Commandments on display in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building was high profile and discussed from sea to shinning sea.

However, similar struggles are taking place with increasing frequency and without media fanfare. Throughout America there seems to be a growing trend of anti-Christian discrimination.

Recently Daria and Evan Buchanan, who live in Washington State, were refused a request to place a commemorative fund-raising brick in a state park because the inscribed message included the word “Jesus.” As a result the American Center for Law and Justice has filed suit on behalf of the couple.

According to an ACLJ statement, the state conducted a fund-raiser to build a playground at Saint Edward State Park in Kenmore, Wash. Members of the public were invited to pay $100 for the privilege of placing an inscribed paving stone in the playground.

“Thank you Jesus, Daria & Evan Buchanan,” the couple’s proposed message, was rejected by state officials on the grounds the inscription would violate the doctrine of separation of church and state.

The ACLJ says the coordinator of the playground program, Colleen Ponto, wrote a letter to the Buchanan’s in August which included the following explanation: "Because the Saint Edward State Park Playground is located on public land, our intent and unwritten policy for all of the 511 bricks sold was to engrave only non-religious requests in order to uphold the separation of church and state as dictated by our state constitution."

A few months ago a couple from Chicago experienced discrimination identical to the Buchanan’s.

In July Rob and Mildred Tong sought to purchase an inscribed brick to be placed in Senn Park near their home. The $50 paver was part of a fund-raiser park officials were conducting to help pay for improvements to the park.

The Tong’s chosen message, "Dear Missy, E.B. and Baby, Jesus is the cornerstone. Love, Mom and Dad," was rejected by the Chicago Park District.

Park personnel expressed concerns over the Tong’s proposed message and suggested the Tongs change the word "Jesus" to "God." The couple declined to alter the inscription.

Chicago television station WMAQ reported a park spokesman as saying

"The reason for this display (in Senn Park) is to highlight people who have contributed

(and) given money to improve the parks. The bricks highlight these people and are not to be a bulletin board for people's religious, cultural or political expressions."

The Tong’s have filed a lawsuit seeking $1 in damages. The couple’s only desire is to be able to inscribe their original message on the brick they purchased.

The aforementioned are but two cases of what I call Christ-o-phobia that is occurring with increasing regularity throughout the land of the free.

If history teaches us anything it is that overt discrimination is but one step away from profound persecution. Today it is the name of Jesus on a paving stone and the public display of the Ten Commandments, but what will it be tomorrow?

"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of oral progress in the world."

Bertrand Russell, British Philosopher 

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US COLLEGE BANS STUDY OF THE BIBLE

Not even on their own time...

The university claims the ban is necessary because some students might not feel RAs who lead Bible studies are "approachable.”

"As a state university, UWEC has no business forbidding RAs or any other students to engage in religious activities in their own rooms and on their own time,” declared David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has written UWEC to protest the ban.

The controversy began on July 26, when UWEC Associate Director for Housing and Residence Life Deborah Newman sent a letter saying RAs could not lead Bible studies in their dorms at any time. Her reason for this was that students might not think Bible study-leading RAs were sufficiently "approachable.”

The letter was sent to RAs who were members of the Student Impact religious group and who had been leading Bible studies—not as official residence hall activities, but in their own dorm rooms and on their own time.

Newman’s letter added that Koran and Torah studies would be similarly prohibited and that RAs who did conduct a Bible study in their dorms would face "disciplinary action.”

Shocked by the ban, undergraduate RA Lance Steiger inquired further via e-mail. In a Sept. 22 reply, Newman reiterated the ban and told him, "[a]s an RA you need to be available to your residents both in reality and from their perspective.”

Steiger contacted FIRE, and on October 10, FIRE wrote UWEC Interim Chancellor Vicki Lord Larson to ask her to lift the Bible study ban.

FIRE reminded Larson of UWEC’s own acknowledgement that RAs are students first, and that "every university student at a public university such as UWEC enjoys the full panoply of First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion and freedom of expression.”

FIRE also pointed out a 2004 article in UWEC’s student newspaper in which the Office of Housing and Residence Life praised an RA who for three years in a row staged the controversial feminist play "The Vagina Monologues" as an official "residence hall activity.”

This praise came despite the RA’s acknowledgement that "with the Vagina Monologues ... she [did not have] as much time as she would have liked for her wing.” UWEC has failed to respond to FIRE’s letter.

"UWEC’s position that leading a Bible study is more likely to make students uncomfortable than leading a controversial play like 'The Vagina Monologues' simply doesn’t hold water,” noted FIRE’s French. He continued, "The First Amendment doesn’t end with a Bible study or with 'The Vagina Monologues' — it guarantees a student’s right to perform both.”

"While RAs have a responsibility to be approachable to students, this cannot extend so far as to bar their own religious or political expression,” added FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg Lukianoff. "No state institution has a right to demand that others not hold any beliefs or engage in any expression that might possibly be offensive.”

FIRE has expressed concern about the status of constitutional rights at UWEC before. In April, FIRE revealed that UWEC’s Student Senate had forbidden any student-organized activity that promotes a "particular ideological, religious, or partisan viewpoint” from receiving student-fee funding - a policy that directly contradicts the university’s First Amendment obligation to distribute student funds regardless of viewpoint and violates the rights of all UWEC students.

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation’s colleges and universities.

“The Bible is full of error, contradictions, and inconsistencies...”

Steve Allen, Comedian

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"FLIGHT 93", HOLLYWOOD STRIKES (OUT) YET AGAIN

Todd Beamer portrayed as a "coward," not Christian hero.

I haven't been to a movie in a long, long time. Hollywood just doesn't do it for me as a Christian. But I fell for the "hype" on one recent movie. Once again, Hollywood slapped me in the face. In "United 93", a movie about Todd "Let's Roll" Beamer and United flight 93, Mr. Beamer (an evangelistic Christian) is portrayed as a whiney, cussing, frat boy, instead of the God fearing, brave man he actually was. [ See Todd Beamer for his real story. ]

As a matter of fact, I came out not having the feeling of seeing something heroic and patriotic but feeling dirty and ashamed. The terrorists are shown as faithful zealots who pray more times than they breathe and the American "heroes" are shown as ignorant, foul mouthed cowards, who can do nothing but talk on their cell phones and cry.

New York Observer reporter Andrew Sarris writes, "...I have been left with a bitter taste in my mouth from all the guilt incurred in trying to understand the points of view of the hijackers, who some people still describe as “courageous” in their suicidal acts." Sarris also writes in the same review, "Even the undeniable heroism of the passengers on United 93 doesn’t edify as it should."

While a movie that shows the real heroism of United 93 needs to be made, Hollywood just will not bring itself to show Christians in a positive light. Reviews have been very high for this travesty. Naturally. America, as a nation, evidently doesn't want to see Christians as faithful and strong. And most Christians, evidently, don't want to stand up and correct the misperceptions about Christianity that are spreading like a virus.

One example: While we hear cursing throughout the film (never from the terrorists, though) when the story gets to the part of the story where the real Todd recited the Lord's Prayer before rushing the cockpit with the other passengers, you hear about 3 seconds of the prayer...and it's not even said by Todd! Hollywood Todd, in the movie, is too busy looking scared and saying the "f" word.

On the subject of prayer, the Muslim terrorists are shown praying THROUGHOUT the film, in the beginning, the middle, and the end! Of course, Hollywood wants to show those who pray often as the "enemy."

The liberal media and Hollywood are trying to convince us that Hollywood has no agenda. I'm not falling for it. Hollywood had a chance to show that , in America, there are still heroes who are faithful Christians. Instead, in "United 93", Hollywood shows our enemy as the "misunderstood bad guys" who seem to have no other option but to attack the "bad Americans" who are, for the most part, cowards who curse God every other sentence. And then Hollywood and the media tell us over and over again that the movies they put out are "patriotic" and "accurate". God help those who are being deceived by this trash.

And most people don't even see, or don't WANT to see, that the attacks, lies, and propaganda are getting worse.

"!#$%*&" 

Hollywood's "Todd Beamer" in "United 93".

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THE "DIVINE" OPRAH

Talk Show Host is "America's Pastor" ?

She's no longer just a successful talk-show host worth $1.4 billion, according to Forbes' most recent estimate. Over the past year, Winfrey, 52, has emerged as a spiritual leader for the new millennium, a moral voice of authority for the nation.

With her television pulpit and the sheer power of her persona, she has encouraged and steered audiences (mostly women) in all matters, from genocide in Rwanda to suburban spouse swapping to finding the absolute best T-shirt and oatmeal cookie.

"She's a really hip and materialistic Mother Teresa," says Kathryn Lofton, a professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., who has written two papers analyzing the religious aspects of Winfrey. "Oprah has emerged as a symbolic figurehead of spirituality."

"She's a moral monitor, using herself as the template against which she measures the decency of a nation," Lofton says.

"She puts the cult in pop culture," wrote media critic Mark Jurkowitz in The Phoenix

"One of the things that's key," says Marcia Nelson, author of The Gospel According to Oprah, "is she walks her talk. That's really, really important in today's culture. People who don't walk their talk fall from a great pedestal - scandals in the Catholic Church, televangelism scandals. If you're not doing what you say you do, woe be unto you."

In Ellen DeGeneres' stand-up comedy act several years ago, she included a joke about getting to heaven and finding that God is a black woman named Oprah.

Last fall, at the start of this 20th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, guest Jamie Foxx said much the same thing, but he wasn't joking. "What you have is something nobody can describe," Foxx said to Winfrey on the air. Then he explained about how he told Vibe magazine: "You're going to get to heaven and everyone's waiting on God and it's going to be Oprah Winfrey."

He told her she has "different gears" than most people. "You're on the top of the world, and we really do watch and listen for everything you do and say to kind of get our lives together. It's the truth."

In a November poll conducted at Beliefnet.com, a site that looks at how religions and spirituality intersect with popular culture, 33% of 6,600 respondents said Winfrey has had "a more profound impact" on their spiritual lives than their clergypersons.

Cathleen Falsani, religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, recently suggested, "I wonder, has Oprah become America's pastor?"

"I am not God," Oprah said in a 1989 story by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison that ran in The New York Times Magazine titled The Importance of Being Oprah. But at the time, Winfrey called her talk show her "ministry," Harrison wrote. It remains an interview Winfrey says she hates. In a Los Angeles Times interview in December, the talk-show host said that "at every turn everything I said was challenged and misinterpreted."

She declined to be interviewed for this story, and she declined to allow USA TODAY to cover her most recent, and now rare, Live Your Best Life seminars. Tickets, priced at $185 each, sold out in minutes.

Katrina Singleton, 34, paid $450 each for tickets to the February event in Charleston, S.C., which she purchased through a ticket broker. "For Oprah, nothing is too much," she told the Associated Press. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

At the seminar, according to AP, Winfrey repeatedly spoke of her relationship with God. She even sang a chorus of I Surrender All.

"I live inside God's dream for me. I don't try to tell God what I'm supposed to do," she told the crowd. "God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself."

Claire Zulkey, 26, an Oprah follower who has written about Winfrey in her online blog at zulkey .com, says, "I think that if this were the equivalent of the Middle Ages and we were to fast-forward 1,200 years, scholars would definitely think that this Oprah person was a deity, if not a canonized being."

Marcia Nelson says that it's not going too far to call her a spiritual leader. "I've said to a number of people - she's today's Billy Graham."

One of Winfrey's most appealing subtexts is that she's anti-institutional, says Chris Altrock, minister of Highland Street Church of Christ in Memphis. He says Winfrey believes there are many paths to God, not just one. After doing his doctoral research three years ago on postmodernism religion, a religious era that began in the 1970s as Christians became deeply interested in spirituality and less interested in any established church, he came up with what he calls "The Church of Oprah," referring to the culture that has created her.

"Our culture is changing," he says, "as churches are in decline and the bulk of a new generation is growing up outside of religion." Instead, they're turning to the Church of Oprah.

"People who have no religion relate to her," Nelson says.

"I think at the time when she had me and Gary Zukav and a lot of the other spiritual teachers on her show, it was her own journey, and she was taking all of the world on that spiritual evolution," Ford says.

Jim Twitchell, a professor at the University of Florida who has written several books about branding and describes himself as a cultural anthropologist, says Oprah reverence makes sense.

"Religion essentially is based on high anxiety of what's going to happen to you." Winfrey pushes the idea "that you have a life out there, and it's better than the one you have now and go get it."

It's most apparent in the setting of her show, Twitchell says.

"The guest is sitting beside her, but what she's really doing is exuding this powerful message of 'You are a sinner, yes, you are, but you can also find salvation.' What I find intriguing about it is it's delivered with no religiosity at all, even though it has a powerful Baptist, democratic, enthusiastic tone.

"It has to do with this deep American faith and yearning to be reborn. To start again."

"...she's today's Billy Graham" 

Marcia Nelson, "Oprahite".

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THE DA VINCI CODE

The Dan Brown Book: Attacking Christ's Divinity

The Da Vinci Code, which is a bold attack upon the Christian faith, has taken the world by storm. The book, first published in March 2003, has sold more than 40 million copies, and the Sony Pictures movie starring Tom Hanks, scheduled for release on May 19, 2006, is expected to be a blockbuster. The book has received rave reviews in hundreds of newspapers and journals. It is so popular that Da Vinci Code tours are now conducted to the various sites that are mentioned in the book, such as the Louvre Museum and St. Sulpice Church in Paris and Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.

Woven integrally into the storyline of this fast-paced novel is a wild-eyed theory that Jesus was a mere man who married Mary Magdalene and had a child by her; she was not only his wife but the chief apostle and the recipient of the "truth" about goddess religion and
the "sacred feminine." One of the main characters in the Da Vinci Code says: "Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene" (p. 248).

After Jesus' death Mary Magdalene and the child fled to Europe and married into a bloodline that still exists. Mary Magdalene and her bloodline are presented as the very "Holy Grail" of ancient folk lore (the quest for the Holy Grail first appeared in a 12th-century novel). Brown's novel alleges that the Roman Catholic Church invented
the doctrine of Jesus Christ's deity in the fourth century, suppressed the "truth" about Mary Magdalene, and has covered up this truth throughout the centuries. The suppressed "truth" was maintained from generation to generation by a secret society known as the Priory of Sion that had some famous members, including Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci. These people passed along the "truth" by means of secret codes, the most famous of which is the alleged symbolism in Da Vinci's painting The Last Supper. According to Brown, the disciple sitting to the right of Jesus in this painting is not the apostle John but Mary Magdalene.

Though the Da Vinci Code is a novel, it purports to be based upon historical facts. In an introductory note Brown writes that "all descriptions of documents and secret rituals are accurate." On an ABC News special Jesus, Mary, and Da Vinci (Nov. 3, 2003), Brown said
that he believes the book's thesis. In an interview on Good Morning America that same day he said that if he were to write a nonfiction piece on these things he would change nothing about what he claimed in the novel (Darrell Bock, Breaking the Da Vinci Code, p. 3).

Bible-believing Christians will not be deceived by The Da Vinci Code, but it has created confusion in the minds of many. A survey taken in Canada in 2005 found that 32% of those who had read the Da Vinci Code believed its story line ("Canadian Readers Believe Da Vinci Code," The Ottawa Citizen, June 24, 2005).

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER SO-CALLED GOSPELS?

According to the Da Vinci Code, the Gospels in our Bibles were only four among 80 competing ones that circulated among the Christians and that were considered for inclusion in the New Testament and they were not proclaimed divinely inspired and canonized until the fourth century in the days of Constantine (Da Vinci Code, p. 231).

In fact, the four Gospels were considered authentic and apostolic from the very beginning of the churches. We have second century quotations from church leaders who defended the four Gospels against heretical writings. Irenaeus wrote, "It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are" (Against Heresies, 3:11.8). He defended the four Gospels because they were written either by the apostles (Matthew and John) or by men directly associated with the apostles (Mark and Luke).

As for the other "gospels," there were not many of them and they were never given serious consideration for inclusion in the canon of the New Testament Scripture. The Nag Hammadi Library, consisting of 45 early gnostic writings discovered in the Egyptian desert in 1945 and published in English in 1977, contains only five works known as gospels: the gospel of Truth, the gospel of Thomas, the gospel according to Philip, the gospel of the Egyptians, and the gospel of Mary Magdalene. We also know about the gospel of Nicodemus, the gospel of Peter, and the gospel of Judas, which was recently translated and published.

The reason that these alleged gospels were rejected by the early Christians was that they were not associated with the Lord's apostles and they taught doctrine that was contrary to the teaching of the apostles and that was even downright weird. The Gospel of Thomas
contains an account of alleged miracles performed by Jesus when he was a child and depicts him as petulant and disobedient, so much so that Mary and Joseph's neighbors beg them to take him away. According to one gnostic gospel the child Jesus even kills a playmate and then raises him from the dead to avoid punishment. The Gospel of Judas
presents Judas as the head disciple who received special revelation and who betrayed Jesus only because Jesus asked him to do so. According to Irenaeus, the Gospel of Judas was produced by the Egyptian Cainite Gnostics who claimed that Cain, Esau, the Sodomites, Korah, Judas, and other villains of biblical history were actually the enlightened heroes who valiantly kept the truth in a dark world. According to this cult, a god named Hystera created the world and another deity called "Sophia" allegedly assisted the aforementioned people.

The Gnostics denied the God of the Old Testament, replacing Him in some cases with two gods: the Pleroma, who is an eternal, spiritual god and has no connection with the material world, and the Demiurge, who is an evil god that created the physical universe. According to the Gnostics, the objective of salvation was to understand the mystery about the universe and to be freed from the prison of materiality. This required coming to the secret gnosis or knowledge, and only some special members of the human race could ever expect to arrive at this knowledge.

It was not any sort of conspiracy that caused the Gnostic gospels to be rejected by the vast majority of Christians for the past 2,000 years. It was the simple fact that when we leave the four Gospels and enter the world of Gnosticism, we enter a world of make believe and nonsense. The Gnostic gospels were mostly created in Egypt, where no
apostles ministered and where no part of the New Testament was written.

WHAT ABOUT DA VINCI'S PAINTING?

According to the Da Vinci Code, Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting "The Last Supper" contains a secret code promoting the supremacy of Mary Magdalene. The novel gives two "evidences" for this view: First, there is a V shape between Jesus and the figure to His right, and this, we are told, is not merely because Da Vinci depicted Jesus and the figure to His right leaning away from each other and thus creating a natural and innocuous V shape but is a symbol for the feminine. Second, the figure to Jesus' right has a feminine
appearance and must therefore be Mary and not John.

In fact, no reputable art historian believes that these are secret symbols or that Mary Magdalene is depicted in this painting.

Da Vinci and other homosexual artists of that day, including Michelangelo, often painted feminine men. Da Vinci's painting of John the Baptist, for example, depicts a very feminine man with curly hair befitting a woman and a strange sensual expression. It is commonly
believed that Da Vinci was a homosexual. He lived with a younger male artist and surrounded himself with handsome young male models. His biographer, Michael White, wrote: "He was a homosexual vegetarian born out of wedlock who received very little formal education and was excluded by birthright from almost all professions. ... It is
possible that up to this time [the time of his arrest] he had felt no real guilt about his homosexuality, that it had either been natural to him, or else he accepted it as part of his self-image; after all, there were certainly plenty of role models [in other Florentine
painters] for him" (The First Scientist, 2000, pp. 7, 72).

In fact, the Jesus depicted in Da Vinci's Last Supper is also feminine looking.

WHAT IF THE DA VINCI CODE IS TRUE?

If the premise of this novel is true the Bible is a lie and the four Gospels are a myth; Jesus was not the virgin-born Son of God; He did not rise from the dead and did not ascend back to heaven.

If the premise of this novel is true there is no Gospel and no hope. It would mean that Jesus Christ did not die and shed his blood on the cross for man's sin and did not rise again for the justification of those who believe.

We have a clear choice between the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is found in the New Testament and the teaching of the Da Vinci Code. If the Da Vinci Code is true, there is no gospel and no need of a gospel and it really doesn't matter what one believes because there is no lost condition and no Savior. The Jesus of the Da Vinci Code was a mere man who taught a message of peace and unity and feminism and then died.

On the other hand, if the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, those who die without faith in Christ spend eternity in Hell. This was the testimony of the apostle John who sat at Jesus' right hand at the Last Supper:

"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God" (1 John 5:11-13).

"...almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." 

Dan Brown, Author.

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JESUS CARTOONS

Student newspaper publishes lewd Jesus drawings

In its March 2006 edition, the Insurgent, an "alternative" student paper on the Eugene, Ore., campus printed 12 hand-drawn cartoons of Jesus as a response to rival paper the Commentator having published the controversial cartoons of Muhammad originally published in Europe that sparked Muslim riots worldwide. The Insurgent claimed it published the drawings to "provoke dialogue."

The university's president, Dave Frohnmayer, had been unresponsive to complaints about the drawings.

"The March edition of the Insurgent ... was one of the most obscene assaults on Christianity I have ever seen," William Donohue, President of the Catholic League, said in a statement. "...one was a depiction of a naked Jesus on the cross with an erection; the other, titled 'Resurrection,' showed a naked Jesus kissing another naked man, both sporting erections."

Donohue also says there were other depictions of Jesus on the cross that were "so gratuitously offensive that only the most depraved would defend them." He also noted the paper published two commentaries attacking Catholicism.

While not describing the more sexual drawings, the main student newspaper at the university, the Oregon Daily Emerald, also criticized the Insurgent.

"The Insurgent editorial indicates a desire to show Americans why the original cartoons were so offensive to the Muslim world," wrote the editor of the Emerald. "According to the editorial, 'What is "not a big deal" in the US (sic) is apparently a humongous big deal to others. Why should we assume it would not be?"

"However, printing home-grown cartoons depicting Jesus on a cross/pogo stick or Jesus on a cross/hang gliding apparatus are not inflammatory in the same manner as the anti-Islam cartoons, and therefore fail to produce the intended empathy from Christians to Muslims."

Added the paper: "Unlike the Danish cartoons, the Insurgent drawings seem intended to simply incite controversy for controversy's sake rather than making specific social commentaries."

A spokesman for Frohnmayer said that the university president had posted a statement regarding the controversy surrounding the cartoons:

"I share your concern about the offensive nature of the content contained within the publication.

"I understand why it may seem as if the University should have prevented publication or should take some action against those responsible for the publication. The Student Insurgent is not owned, controlled or published by the University of Oregon and is funded with student fees. Therefore, the University cannot exercise editorial control over its content.

"The best response to offensive speech often is more speech. ... I am strongly opposed to speech that makes individuals feel that they or their beliefs are unwelcome or belittled, and I can assure you I will use all permissible means to respond to publications such as the recent Insurgent."

"I have to say it's really fun to offend people." 

Jessica Brown, Insurgent Student Editor.

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THANK YOU JESUS

Thanking the Lord lands man in jail

Stowers, 47, sat in the courtroom and a cellblock for about six hours until the judge granted him a hearing on the contempt charge and released him. The judge at a July 7 hearing dropped the contempt charge, a petty misdemeanor that carries up to 30 days in jail.

Stowers couldn't be reached for comment. But his attorney in the contempt case, Deputy Public Defender Susan Arnett, said he wasn't treated fairly.

"I don't think there's anything about saying 'Thank you, Jesus' that rises to the level of contemptuous behavior in this case," she told The Honolulu Advertiser.

Stowers is a devoutly religious man active in his church who spontaneously expressed his thanks to the higher power in which he believed, she said. Family members and Stowers' pastor at Assembly of God Church, Iakopo Sale, who watched from the gallery were "very upset that those words could land somebody in jail," Arnett said.

Border declined to comment but indicated the court minutes reflected his actions. The minutes showed he found Stowers' "nonverbal gestures and outbursts to be disruptive and improper regardless of content." Court minutes said Border later dropped the charge because he realized Stowers' trial lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Carmel Kwock, did not have time to tell Stowers the judge had ordered both sides not to show emotion when the verdict was announced.

Stowers, of Honolulu, was charged with hitting his 15-year-old son with a broomstick in January. The misdemeanor charge of abusing a household member carries a sentence of up to a year in jail. Stowers was free on a $1,000 bond. During the trial last month, the boy recanted his earlier statements that his father hit him, according to court records. The boy instead testified his brother had hit him with a car door, a story verified by the brother in court.

Just before the verdict was announced on June 29, Border called city Deputy Prosecutor Sean Sanada and Kwock to the bench and told them he didn't want a show of emotion by either side, according to a defense request to dismiss the contempt charge. When Stowers made his remarks after the verdict was announced, the judge told him, "There will (be) no more of that," the papers said. Stowers asked to approach the bench and apologize, but the judge told him he could not and ordered him to remain in the courtroom, the defense request said.

"There will (be) no more of that."

Patrick Border, Judge.

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'Radical Christianity' as Threatening as Radical Islam

The world according to Rosie

Addressing the 9-11 anniversary and talking about security, co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck noted that since the attacks of 2001, America has not been attacked at home. “We have not been attacked,” she said. “We are on the offense here.”

O’Donnell, in her infinite wisdom, then interrupted and said that America was attacked “not by a nation” and as a result of Islamic terrorists killing 3,000 innocent Americans, we “invaded two countries and killed innocent people in their countries.”

First, I guess Rosie forgets the fact that Afghanistan, with its Taliban leadership, was the training ground for al Qaeda — the group directly responsible for killing thousands of Americans. That the Taliban sponsored, housed, and protected al Qaeda fighters and leaders. President Bush told the Taliban to turnover al Qaeda leaders or face the consequences. They refused and America took action against our attackers.

Second, America, in response to the attacks, focused its attacks on the Taliban and al Qaeda. Civilian causalties are tragic during the course of war, but, unfortunately, they occur. The point is that we did not target innocent civilians for butchering. This is exactly what radical Islamists having been doing with their attacks.

Hasselbeck noted that the funding of radical islam is widespread. O’Donnell again interrupted and said, “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.”

O’Donnell then added that Iraq and Afghanistan “never threatened to kill us.” What?!?!? Earth to O’Donnell! The purpose of al Qaeda, a group interwoven into the ruling Taliban, is the destruction of the American way of life. In Iraq, on numerous occasions, Saddam Hussein threatened America.

O’Donnell is just plain wrong. In addition to being wrong, her comment on Christianity is scary. At the same time those on the left are telling people to “understand” the views of the terrorists, we see more instances where they are bashing Christianity with impunity. We can’t say anything bad about people who want to kill us… we can’t profile… we can’t do what it takes to protect ourselves… but we sure can bash Christians. What is wrong with this picture?

It is my hope that ABC will learn that things will not change with O’Donnell. If they want to keep main-stream American viewers, O’Donnell needs to go. I’m sure she can find a good spot on Air America where no one is listening.

“Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.”

Rosie O'Donnell, Talk Show Host

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"I would ban Religion completely."

Gay Singer Elton John

The PRESS ASSOCIATION reports: In a candid interview for a dedicated Gay issue of the magazine he shared his views on topics as varied as being a pop icon to Tony Blair's stance on the war in Iraq. He said there was a lack of religious leadership, particularly in world politics, and complained that people do not take to the streets to protest any more.

Elton said: "I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion. From my point of view I would ban religion completely. Organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."

He added: "The world is near escalating to World War Three and where are the leaders of each religion? Why aren't they having a conclave? Why aren't they coming together? I said this after 9/11 and people thought I was nuts. Instead of more violence why isn't there a meeting of religious leaders? It's like the peace movement in the Sixties. Musicians got through to people by getting out there and doing peace concerts but we don't seem to do them any more."

"If John Lennon were alive today he'd be leading it with a vengeance," he said.

Elton said people were too busy blogging on the internet to go out onto the streets to stand up for what they believed in. "They seem to do their protesting online and that's not good enough. You have to get out there and be seen to be vocal, and you've got to do it time and time again."

"There was a big march in London when Britain decided to join the war against Iraq and Tony Blair is on the record as saying 'the people who march today will have blood on their hands'. That's returned to bite him on the ***," he said.

Elton compared his place in British culture with that of the Queen Mother's. He said: "People come to me and I'm a bit like the Queen Mother. I never get those problems. I don't know what it is with me, people treat me very reverently."

Referring to his "wedding" to long-term partner David Furnish, he said: "It was the same when Dave and I had our civil union - I was expecting the odd flour bomb and there wasn't. "Dave and I as a couple seem to be the acceptable face of gayness, and that's great."

He pledged to continue to campaign for gay rights saying: "I'm going to fight for them whether I do it silently behind the scenes or so vocally that I get locked up.

"I can't just sit back; it's not in my nature any more. I'm nearly 60-years-old after all. I can't sit back and blindly ignore it and I won't."

“Religion promotes hatred....”

Elton John, Gay Rock Star

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Christians, don't be discouraged by this. It is God's will that we know the times (1Ch.12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. These things remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the coming of the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? If not, see:   "ARE YOU SURE?"

Also see: http://www.cobra74creations.com/blog/17dec05.htm