Netanyahu Claims Election A 'Great Victory'

  For His Party, Race Still Too Close To Call

MENAHEM KAHANA via Getty Images

JERUSALEM, March 17 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Twitter, claimed a "great victory" in Israel's election on Tuesday, after exit polls showed his right-wing Likud party even with its main opponent, the center-left Zionist Union.
"Against all odds: a great victory for Likud, a great victory for the national camp led by Likud, a great victory for the people of Israel," Netanyahu wrote on his official Twitter account.

Huffpost
(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Dan Williams)

The War on Christianity

America Needs an Awakening

 

The War on Christianity: “Why does our government fail to defend Christians around the world against terror and violence?” inquires Ralph Reed in his book Awakening. “Protecting Christians is not a priority, in part, because our government shows such little respect for the rights of Christians here at home. A war on Christianity has been under way in the U.S. for some time, fought not with bullets or tear gas but with court rulings, government policies, and a culture that stigmatizes and denigrates those with faith in Jesus Christ…. This war on Christianity began decades ago with court decisions marginalizing religious speech, creating what Richard John Neuhaus called ‘the naked public square’ and Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter termed a ‘culture of disbelief.’ If we do not combat hostility toward Christianity outside of our nation’s borders, by the time we finally rise up, it may be too late. That is why it is so critical that we Christians make our voices heard now; we need to fight back in the battle against Christian values and those who hold them.”

Beliefnet

Creflo Dollar Shuts Down Campaign for $65 Million Jet; Will Now Focus on 'Spreading the Gospel'

By Leonardo Blair , CP Reporter

March 16, 2015|7:28 pm

 

Televangelist Creflo Dollar.

After a bruising weekend handling ferocious backlash over his campaign to acquire a $65 million Gulfstream G650 airplane with planned donations of $300 or more from 200,000 people, controversial televangelist and founder of World Changers Church International, Creflo Dollar has completely abandoned the idea and will only consider acquiring one in the future if it's "properly priced."
"There is no campaign right now," said Juda Engelmayer of 5W Public Relations, who represents Creflo Dollar Ministries, in an interview with The Christian Post on Monday. The website hosting the campaign page was deactivated last week and an option to donate to the G650 campaign through the Creflo Dollar Ministries website was removed Monday afternoon.

(Photo: gulfstream.com)

The Gulfstream G650.

Dollar, who has an international ministry, was banking on raising enough money to buy the luxury jet to replace one owned by his ministry that was significantly damaged in an accident last November.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, Dollar's "Gulfstream Aerospace G-1159A airplane, N103CD, had a nose landing gear collapse during a runway excursion at the London Biggin Hill Airport (EGKB), near London, United Kingdom," on Nov. 24, 2014, and "the airplane sustained substantial airframe damage."


Since then, Dollar and his staff have been travelling "commercial," an option critics believe he should have simply continued to exercise instead of asking the public for money to purchase the luxury jet. It appears Dollar has somewhat taken that suggestion to heart.
"He's gonna continue traveling commercial. And if and when he obtains another jet it's gonna be used for ministry purposes, just like the current one," said Engelmayer.
When asked if acquiring a jet is still something on the televangelist's radar, Engelmayer said: "If one comes along that is properly priced and is sufficient and workable perhaps, but right now there is nothing that they are looking at."
Asked what the ministry considered a "properly priced" jet, he replied, "I don't know."
Engelmayer further explained that the now broken ministry plane has flown some 4 million miles in 16 years. Most of the trips made in the airplane were national flights. When it was used for international trips, he said, they transported hundreds of thousands of pounds of food and other supplies cumulatively. He was unable, however, to say how much cargo they transported on an annual basis.
"They load the plane up with what it can handle," he said.
Although not saying it in so many words, he acknowledged that the G650 campaign was a bad idea and they are now trying to move on.
"There is no campaign. It's a moot point. The ministry will now focus on spreading the Gospel," he said.

Contact: leonardo.blair@christianpost.com; follow me on Twitter @leoblair

Would You Skip Church for Football?

 

Contributor/ Trevin Wax
TGC
I know pastors who are discouraged by diminishing attendance at worship services. As Thom Rainer recently pointed out, an active church member 15 years ago attended church three times a week. Now it’s three times a month.
Pastors and church leaders feel the encroachment of activities vying for church members’ time and attention. The cultural Christianity of yesteryear, which reserved Sundays for worship and rest, has disappeared. In its place are travel leagues that tie up families, sporting events that lure away men, and shopping sales that entice women. Carving out time for worship and rest takes intentionality these days, and churches are feeling the impact.
Even so, a recent study from LifeWay Research shows that a whopping 83% of churchgoers disagree with this statement:

“I would skip a weekly worship service in order to watch my favorite football team.”

Now, I can see some pastors shaking their heads, thinking, They must not have polled my church! Other pastors may wonder about the “halo effect,” that human tendency to answer a poll in the way we perceive ourselves rather than the reality. “I read my Bible every day” (when it’s really three times a week) or “I share my faith once a month” (when it’s really once a year).
But even if we allow for some margin of error, or we take into consideration the halo effect, it’s still stunning how many churchgoers say, “Nope. I won’t skip worship to watch football.” The number of those who would skip is noticeably higher in men (nearly 1 out of 4) than women (1 out of 10), but even so, most churchgoers say their commitment to worship takes precedence over a sporting event.
People have been skipping church for centuries. And though we may think we’re busier today than ever before, we should remember that in agricultural societies, harvest season sometimes interfered with attending church to the point congregations would gather for prayer in the fields.
Pastors and church leaders expect congregants to miss from time to time due to health reasons, vacation, or occasional conflicts. But skipping church for football rubs pastors the wrong way, perhaps because they sense an inherent competition with the event itself.
As human beings, we perceive our existence at two levels: as an individual and as part of the larger society. It’s in our nature to want to activate what Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind calls “the hive switch,” that is, we shut down the self and become part of the whole, much like bees who are fulfilling their roles in a hive.
French sociologist Emile Durkheim called this phenomenon “collective effervescence.” He described it this way:

“The very act of congregating is an exceptionally powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are gathered together, a sort of electricity is generated from their closeness and quickly launches them to an extraordinary height of exaltation.”

Haidt uses college football as an example of losing yourself in the group. “It is a religious rite that does just what it is supposed to do,” he writes. “It pulls people up from Durkehim’s lower level (the profane) to his higher level (the sacred). It flips the hive switch and makes people feel, for a few hours, that they are “simply a part of a whole” (287).
The act of being in a stadium, part of a larger whole, within a grand narrative of wins and losses and individual personalities that meld together to form a team – all of these elements resemble, in one form or another, gathering with believers in Christ and re-centering our individual lives within the cosmic story of redemption and the called-out community of faith-filled saints.
So, even though pastors are probably encouraged to hear most churchgoers say church matters more than football, those same pastors probably feel the loss of churchgoers to football games more strongly than if their congregants were missing for other reasons.
What to do? I addressed the issue of “part-time churchgoing” last year, and I cautioned against guilting people into going to church, or avoiding the issue altogether. Instead, we need a renewed vision of worship and a gripping sense of the majesty of God so that all the other events competing for our attention lose their luster in light of His grace.

revin Wax

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​Trevin Wax is managing editor of The Gospel Project at LifeWay Christian Resources, husband to Corina, father to Timothy, Julia, and David.

7 Satanic Strategies to Distract From Christianity

By Dan Delzell , Special to CP

Pretend for a moment that you believe both God and Satan are real beings. And that God is omnipresent, while Satan is a fallen angel who can only be in one place at one time. God of course being the Creator, and Satan being the created being.

• 

OK, next. Pretend that Satan's heart became proud and he tried to usurp God's authority, and was quickly kicked out of heaven. This would have made him angry and confused, but certainly very focused. Pretend his hatred drives Him to oppose the purposes of God.
Next. Pretend that man, like Satan, has fallen from a place of safety in God's kingdom. And that man needs the blood which the Son of God comes to shed on a cross for the sins of the world. Pretend it's the only way for man to be forgiven and brought into a right relationship with God. Got it? Great.
Now in that scenario, what strategies might an intelligent evil angel devise to assail God's purposes and oppose His kingdom? Imagine Satan coming up with a worldwide plot, and utilizing other fallen angels who now serve him and his diabolical purposes. Imagine each of them being assigned a particular geographical territory in which to carry out their master's orders.
Can you picture it? Well then, just imagine Satan giving the following instructions to his army of fallen angels.

Strategy #1 - Convince man he is his own god. Trick man into believing he is not accountable to a Creator. In other words, get man to think the world revolves around him. Make man think others are either extremely impressed with him; or they think he is a loser. But either way, it must be all about man. We must turn his eyes inward rather than upward.
Strategy #2 - Raise up a bevy of false prophets who propose a variety of alternative religions. Any religion is OK, as long as it isn't Christianity. Any religious practices are fine, as long as they don't involve trusting Jesus and following Him as Lord of all. In fact, use false religion as a weapon against Christianity by convincing man that as long as the religion box is checked in his life, it will all turn out fine in the end.
Strategy #3 - Fan into flame man's sinful desires. Tempt him to give into those desires so that these habits become addictions driving man further from God. Place things in man's path which prompt him to compromise any allegiance to God's Word, and any commitment to holy living. Get man to hate others, hold grudges, and live with bitterness and resentment. Use lust, greed, jealousy, and every weapon at your disposal. Hold nothing back. And realize that your greatest opportunities will occur the moment man steps across any one of God's boundary lines.
Strategy #4 - Speaking of God's Word, do whatever it takes to convince man that Scripture is nothing but a bunch of myths. It is not to be taken literally. Convince man that only "fundamentalists" are naive enough to believe such a thing. Since pride is our specialty, use it to incite man to think highly of his knowledge, as long as it doesn't involve true knowledge of Christ, and a reliance upon God's Word. We must undermine any confidence man places in the Word of God.
Strategy #5 - Use science against man. Lead man to think science provides all the answers he needs in life, and to reject any belief in the supernatural. This includes rejecting the notion of Satan, angels, miracles, and even God Himself.
Strategy #6 - Convince man that no one can really know whether or not there is life after death. Keep man so busy with activities in this world that he barely has time to think about deeper issues, such as eternity, and the immortality of the soul. Get man to view himself the way he views animals. He lives, and dies, and that's it.
Strategy #7 - Realize that many human beings will choose to believe heaven and hell exist. For those people, do anything necessary to convince them they must earn their way into heaven. Above all else, distract man from considering the message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. No matter what, man must not hear that message. Do anything which distracts believers from spreading the message of salvation in your territory.
Well there you have it. Can you imagine Satan devising such a plan? That is, if he is real, and God is real, and the cross is man's only hope for salvation. It seems like it would be an effective plan. Many human beings would become ensnared by such enticing distractions.
If such strategies were actually being carried out, there would be plenty of evidence right before our eyes, right? Well, look carefully in the world today. What does the evidence suggest to you? Are these 7 strategies for distraction just an imaginative myth, or reality?
If you are too blind to see the Savior today, you probably don't even recognize the very things which are being used to confuse and distract you. Such is the nature of spiritual warfare.
Or did you think the devil was going to show up in a red suit with a pitchfork?

Dan Delzell is the pastor of Wellspring Lutheran Church in Papillion, Neb. He is a regular contributor to The Christian Post.

Shedding Light on #BringBackOurGirls and the Global War on Women

By Marisa Lengor Kwaning , CP Guest Contributor

As International Women's Day "is being celebrated", I can't help but think of the hashtag that set social media worldwide ablaze with protests. Last April, #BringBackOurGirls called the world's attention to the kidnapping of 276 school girls — taken from the Chibok Government Secondary School in northeast Nigeria by terrorist group Boko Haram.

(Photo: Reuters/Gary Cameron)

Protesters march in support of the girls kidnapped by members of Boko Haram in front of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington May 6, 2014.

Shocked and upset by the kidnappings, I participated in one of the real-life protests held in front of the Nigerian Embassy here in Washington, DC. Posting hashtags on twitter just wasn't enough; I needed to do more.
So I joined a frustrated but peaceful group of demonstrators comprised of people from all walks of life, who were rightfully outraged by this blatant attack on the lives of innocent young girls.

(Photo: Flickr Commons/Tim Green)

A mural for the Bring Back Our Girls movement.

We stood in front of the closed gates of the embassy, with our banners and signs, in earnest hope for solutions. We shared with one another our concerns and why we couldn't sit back in silence over this issue, in between speakers addressing us as a group. News cameras and reporters on-site were diligent in catching every angle of the event.
But as protestors, our mission was clear; we came to lend our voice to a growing chorus for the immediate release of the Chibok Government school girls. The chants that day rose up with passion: "We Want Action Now!"

(Photo: Reuters/Gary Cameron)

Protesters march in support of the girls kidnapped by members of Boko Haram in front of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington May 6, 2014.

Our signs lamented 276 Stolen Dreams and showed solidarity, stating We Stand with Chibok. Then we returned to the resounding call to "Bring Back Our Girls!"
It seemed even the most influential woman in the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama, wanted to join in the protest. Apparently she thought the best way to use her voice for this cause was to tweet about it. (Considering her influence and position, many questioned such online activism when more direct action is needed.)
The Nigerian government, U.S. government and the U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education are among those who have renewed their commitment to finding the girls. Yet over 300 days later, a majority of the Chibok school girls are still in captivity.
Rumored to be sold, converted into another religion, or married off to significantly older men, these girls need us to sound the alarm now more than ever for their freedom. Yet where is the social outcry? Where are the prayer vigils, protests or hashtags?
Perhaps, unfortunately, we have gotten used to the fact that girls are going missing in huge numbers all around the world. Because the real war on women begins in the womb.
In India alone, one million girls are intentionally aborted each year because of their gender. Seen as a burden due to an illegal dowry system that is widely practiced, and the fact that traditionally a son is tasked with caring for his parents in their old age while a daughter has little contact with her own family after marriage; has caused a preference for boys and fueled gendercide.
As a result, 50 million girls are missing in India today.
The lack of women has caused a drastic rise in sex trafficking and kidnapping of girls as brides to unwed men. China's appalling gender imbalance of 33 million more Chinese men than women spawns from over five decades of government-sponsored abortion policies, resulting in one of the most alarming gendercide rates in the world. East Asian countries such as Taiwan and Singapore, along with other former communist countries, also have perplexing gender disparities.
It would be flawed, however, to dismiss gendercide as an Asian or communist countries' problem. From 1995-2005, fifteen hundred girls went missing among Indian communities in England and Wales. Topic experts agree that sex-selective abortions was the only viable explanation for this steep decline of girls. In the United States between 1991 and 2004, two thousand Chinese and Indian girls were also missing.
And the issue persists today. It's no wonder women and girls are kidnapped and attacked at alarming rates globally.
If the attempt to silence their voice begins in the womb, the global outcry should begin here for our missing girls. As world leaders mark International Women's Day on March 8th, let us renew our efforts to advocate and be a voice for all missing girls.
The documentary film It's A Girl, currently streaming on Netflix, offers a starting point to understand and act to end gendercide:

This article originally appeared on Bound4LIFE and has been reprinted with permission.
Marisa Lengor Kwaning is a writer, editor and health policy analyst who resides in Washington, D.C. She earned a Masters degree in Public Policy from George Mason University, has worked in public health policy, and currently contributes to Bound4LIFE International, a grassroots movement to pray for the ending of abortion and for revival worldwide.

Pope Francis Acknowledges Security Threats -- And Has Just One Request For God

The Huffington Post  |  By Carol Kuruvilla

 




Although Vatican officials have acknowledged that the Islamic State group is a real threat to Pope Francis, the Catholic leader says he’s leaving his life in God’s hands.
Asked about whether he’s concerned for his safety, Francis said he’s prayed about it, and he has just one request.
"I told the Lord, 'You take care of me. But if your will is that I die or that they do something to me, I ask you just one favor: that it doesn't hurt because I am a big wimp when it comes to physical pain,'" the pope said, according to the Catholic News Service.
Francis made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with a community newspaper in Argentina.
The Italian government went on high alert in February after receiving threats from the Islamic State group. In its propaganda magazine, the militant group Photoshopped an image of its black flag billowing over St. Peter’s Square. It has called Italy “the nation signed with the blood of the cross,” Crux reports.
In a recent issue of the Italian magazine Polizia Moderna, published by Italy’s state police, the Vatican’s security chief Domenico Giani admitted that a threat to the pontiff and the Vatican exists. He emphasized, however, that he had no current knowledge of an imminent attack. In addition, Giani said Muslim countries around the world have also been helpful in giving him “valuable information” on the Islamic State group.
Despite the tense situation, Giani said Francis has no plans of changing the way he interacts with his flock. In the past, he's refused to use a bulletproof Popemobile when traveling in public -- saying the glass felt like a "sardine can" that separated him from people.
“Even as pope,” Giani said in a translation provided by Crux, “he’s still a priest who doesn’t want to lose the contact with his flock. It’s us, those in charge of his safety, are the ones that have to help him, not the other way around.”