Change Came!
You might be wondering where everyone went! Why isn’t the Engage Family blog updating anymore? Where is everyone?
Not to fear, this blog just became so popular, we had to make it bigger and better. All the news, analysis, and commentary you are used to reading can now be found at www.engagefamilyminute.com. You’d better update your bookmark now!
The podcast too? You bet! Or, if www.engagefamilyminute.com is too much to type, then you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, just click here.
Oh, and if your RSS Reader automatically sends these high quality posts directly to your Mac or PC, be sure to update the feed to our new one: feed://engagefamilyminute.com/?feed=rss2
See you at www.engagefamilyminute.com.
Change is coming….10.19.09
Just a reminder the change you’ve hoped for comes Monday…..
We are grateful for the thousands of readers that have made the Engage Family Blog the best pro-family, policy blog in West Virginia. In just two years, the Engage Family Blog has nearly quadrupled in readership.
Because it has become so popular, we are putting the final touches on a new blog that we hope will be bigger and better. Some changes we have planned include a new domain, integrating with familypolicywv.com, and a new podcast link with iTunes.
When we make the change, you’ll want to update your bookmark and/or change the RSS feed to which you’ve subscribed. But don’t worry, we’ll let you know when to make the adjustments.
Stay tuned – the change you’ve hoped for comes on Monday.
The Irony and Hypocrisy that Abortion Creates
One woman behind bars, one walks free, both attempted to murder their baby.
By Nathan A. Cherry
Martinsburg, W.V. – The irony, rather hypocrisy that exists in our country regarding the life of an unborn child is both striking and angering.
The sentence of Wendy J. Villatoro was just handed down by a Washington, D.C. district judge. According to the article in the Washington Post, Villatoro will be spending the next 13 years behind bars. Her crime? She killed her baby. So where is the irony?
Had Villatoro walked into an abortion clinic and told doctors she was raped and wished to have an abortion the procedure would have been performed and she would have been on her way. But because she did it herself she will now spend 13 years in prison.
AARP Shills for Planned Parenthood
From Big Hollywood comes this incredulous incredible story about how AARP, the White House, and Hollywood are conspiring to encourage your kids to volunteer for Planned Parenthood – and, to boot, pass health care reform.
The “Create the Good” campaign seems like a kitchy idea, until you see the life-ending, political motivations behind it. WATCH THE VIDEO! (Video link takes you off blog to our main website):
If your 12 year-old hears about this volunteer initiative and follows the lead of her favorite TV star, she will go to www.createthegood.com and type in her favorite cause. If she’s been paying attention to the news these days (or listening to the lectures from most public school teachers) she will know that “Health Care” is a big deal these days. All she has to do is type “Health Care” into the search engine with her zip code (let’s say 90210 cause we love those adorable Beverly Hills high school kids) and she’ll get a whole host of opportunities to serve.
Go ahead… open that link and you’ll see twelve opportunities to serve. Look at items “H”, “I” and “L.” All are from Planned Parenthood:
“With President Obama’s focus on health-care reform, now is an exciting and crucial time for us to broaden our support and make sure that the new health-care plan includes women’s health. We’re holding a series of phone banks to identify new people who share our commitment to reproductive freedom.”
When I clicked for more info I found out that the phone bank listing was a month old, but there was a handy link for other opportunities to serve Planned Parenthood, like this one:
“Planned Parenthood Los Angeles is currently seeking adults to volunteer as our High School Speakers.”
(Make this reason #724 why I home school my kids).
While we’re looking at all those volunteer options on www.createthegood.org, we should also take a look at that really nifty video listed second from the top. No matter where you are in the country, if you type “health care” as the subject you want to volunteer for, this video called: “How To Spread The Truth About Health Care Reform” pops up for your viewing pleasure:
“Gifted Hands” Kindly Rebuffs President Obama
Ever since the pep rally that was the white coat ceremony in the backyard of the White House, I’ve been waiting to see what the doctors who I hold in highest regard have to say on the issue of health reform.
Then this came to my attention. It is the strong, yet characteristically kind, words of Dr. Ben Carson. And, he appears to be more in the mainstream of physicians than not:
[W]ith credibility and acclaim the world over for the pioneering surgeries he has and his personal story of overcoming hardship, recently ripped the dominant health care legislation before Congress in a critique similar to that of conservatives and libertarians. Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md., and recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, criticized in a recent interview the approach of the current bills for their mandate, creation of a “public option,” and lack of malpractice liability reform.
“My biggest problem is I feel it’s going in the wrong direction,” Carson told reporters at TV station WLOS in Asheville, N.C. (Video here.)“It’s giving us more government and less autonomy. And I think we should be going in exactly the opposite direction. We should be having more autonomy and less government. And that is the kind of thing that brings the prices down.”
Considered one of the best neurosurgeons in the world, Carson gained acclaim in the ’80s and ‘90s for his pioneering operations separating conjoined twins joined at the head and other procedures that have saved children from epilepsy and brain cancer. But Carson is also celebrated for his personal story of overcoming poverty and prejudice. An African-American, Carson grew up in a single-parent home Detroit ghetto, but his mother pushed him and his brother to achieve excellence. He is the author of the popular autobiography “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story,” which was made into a TV movie this year with Cuba Gooding Jr. portraying Carson. And he does much philanthropic work through charities such as his “Carson Scholars” fund.
via Big Government » Blog Archive » “Gifted Hands” Surgeon Rips Into Obamacare.
I included that last paragraph because I wanted to give kudos to Cuba Gooding’s potrayal of Dr. Carson – you really ought to watch it sometime. Dr. Carson’s story is among the most inspiring in our nation’s history.
But I digress, or do I? You see, what Dr. Carson is reacting to is the force medical paternalism that squelches the freedom to succeed, to exceed, and to advance medical breakthroughs and life-saving, life-affirming techniques for which he is renown. Imagine the conjoined twins he separated receiving the “gifted hands” of Dr. Ben Carson under health reform. Weighing the costs and benefits, wouldn’t it be more likely that these unique creations would have had their resources allocated elsewhere?
“Legal Stranger” Given Parental Rights in Custody Case
Adoptive mother must share children with former roommate and girlfriend
By Nathan A. Cherry
Martinsburg, W.V. – Below is the story of a recent court decision in Montana where, for the first time, parental rights were given to a non-parent. Not just a non-parent, a “legal stranger,” as Alliance Defense Fund legal counsel Austin Nimocks stated it. This is more than frightening; this is a shocking picture of where our judicial system is headed as they seek to purposely play culture wars in cases involving former homosexual partners.
The Cloakroom » Hill Update: Targeting DOMA
From Tom McClusky writing on FRC Action’s The Cloakroom Blog:
Undermining DOMA
Senator Liebermann (I-Conn.) plans on holding a hearing tomorrow in his Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in 342 Dirksen on his bill to expand federal benefits reserved for federal employees and their spouses to homosexual federal employees and their “partners.” This would be effectively neutralizing most of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 by a large bipartisan majority and signed by President Bill Clinton.
Witnesses for the bill include John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Mr. Berry, an open homosexual activist, is best known for his recent comments on how the Obama Administration will undermine marriage piece by piece using legislation such as Senator Lieberman’s. The other witness is Dr. William Hendrix, Global Leader, Gays, Lesbians and Allies at Dow Chemical (GLAD).
via The Cloakroom » Hill Update: Targeting Domiciles and DOMA, and Sen. Boxer’s Hot Flashes.
Change is in the air….10.19.09
We are grateful for the thousands of readers that have made the Engage Family Blog the best pro-family, policy blog in West Virginia. In just two years, the Engage Family Blog has nearly quadrupled in readership.
Because it has become so popular, we are putting the final touches on a new blog that we hope will be bigger and better. Some changes we have planned include a new domain, integrating with familypolicywv.com, and a new podcast link with iTunes.
When we make the change, you’ll want to update your bookmark and/or change the RSS feed to which you’ve subscribed. But don’t worry, we’ll let you know when to make the adjustments.
Stay tuned – the change you’ve hoped for comes on Monday.
What is Culture?
From Jesse Wisnewski at Reformed and Reforming, What is Culture?
If you were to scan the entirety of the Bible front-to-back you would not find a word or definition of culture. With this being the case we need to begin with the English word “culture” and see if this concept matches anything the Bible teaches so that we can see what exactly the Bible says about culture.
Culture Defined
The English word culture is originally derived from the Latin word “colere.” Colere is an agricultural word that means to “tend, guard, cultivate, and till.” From this point culture evolved into different figurative meanings. For instance, it is used in a figurative sense to refer to “cultivation through education,” the “collective customs and achievements of a people,” to the medical usage as “The act or process of growing living material.”
Irrespective of its usage throughout time, the term culture carries within it a sense of growing and making – both tangible and intangible things. From growing corn to building buildings, to growing living material in a Petri dish to developing complex mathematical equations, culture encompasses all of these facets.
Now that we have an idea of what exactly culture is, let’s take a look in the Bible to see if there is any concept
Culture by the Book
After creating mankind in His image and after His likeness, the act of culture begins with God’s blessing of humanity:
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1.28).
In addition to the tasks encapsulated within this mandate we observe further responsibilities in Genesis 2.15, which says,
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”
There is a lot to be said at this point, but I would like to draw our attention to two observations
Creation vs. Culture
The first thing we observe from these passages is the difference between creation and culture. Simply put, creation is what God makes and culture is what we make. During his lectures at Pensacola Theological Seminary on Christ and Culture, John Frame said,
The Engage Family Blog 