Immoral behavior

[Shammu]

Muslims, Christians, Jews at interfaith service urged to express their Thanksgiving joy by helping others
Muslims, Christians, Jews urged to express happiness by helping
Thursday, November 22, 2007
GREG GARRISON
News staff writer

Seven 4-year-old children stood on the steps of Highlands United Methodist Church at Five Points South just before noon on Wednesday, jumping excitedly and greeting everyone who entered the church.

"Happy Thanksgiving!" they shouted.

The class from the Highlands Child Development Center provided the first dose of cheer at the annual community Thanksgiving service sponsored by the Southside Faith Community.

Then the Rev. Johnny Mosby, pastor of East End Missionary Baptist Church, urged everyone to be not only thankful but also joyful givers.

"We oftentimes get joy mixed up with receiving," Mosby said in his sermon. "When you're able to give, it means you are already a recipient of God's blessings and can share it with others."

More than 100 people, a dozen clergy and the Highlands choir joined in what has become an annual interfaith ritual.

Rabbi Jonathan Miller and Cantor Jessica Roskin of Temple Emanu-El shared a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, followed by a reading from the Quran by Raed Awad of the Birmingham Islamic Society and a reading from the Gospel of Luke by the Rev. Ed Hurley, pastor of South Highland Presbyterian Church.

"You only get happy when you are able to give to others," said Mosby. "We always expect to have something poured in and are loathe to pour out. You've got to start emptying out. We ought to express our joy by helping others. Maybe it's your enemy, but you need to learn how to give."

An offering was taken up to be divided between the YMCA Youth Center Camp scholarship fund and the Birmingham Hospitality Network.

"Everybody was in the Thanksgiving mood today," said Rhonda Hooks, a member of Highlands Methodist. "The way the world is right now, we need this a lot. We need to get Christians, Jews and Muslims together in the same room more often."

The Rev. Marc Burnette, rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, said this was his first Southside interfaith service and that he was impressed.

"It should be done more than once a year," he said. "We're all brothers and sisters."

Muslims, Christians, Jews at interfaith service urged to express their Thanksgiving joy by helping others

[Shammu]

Muslims, Christians, Jews at interfaith service urged to express their Thanksgiving joy by helping others
Muslims, Christians, Jews urged to express happiness by helping

Seven 4-year-old children stood on the steps of Highlands United Methodist Church at Five Points South just before noon on Wednesday, jumping excitedly and greeting everyone who entered the church.

Seeing that this was held at Highlands United Methodist Church. I'm not shocked, not at all. Considering how liberal some churches are in Omaha.

[Shammu]

Seattle Schools' Thanksgiving 'Myths' Stir Controversy

Thursday , November 22, 2007
By Robert Shaffer

FC1
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Seattle public schools want a side of political correctness served on your Thanksgiving table.

Washington state's largest school district sent letters to teachers and other employees suggesting Thanksgiving should be "a time of mourning" for its Native American students.

The memo, from Caprice Hollins, the district's director of Equity, Race & Learning Support, included an attachment to a paper titled "Deconstructing the Myths of 'The First Thanksgiving.'"

Click here to read the "myths."

It includes 11 "myths" disputing everything from what was served at the first Thanksgiving (no mashed potatoes or cranberries) and who provided the food to the nature of the Pilgrims themselves: Myth No. 3 calls the colonists "rigid fundamentalists" who came to the New World "fully intending to take the land away from its native inhabitants."

But what got the Internet abuzz was Myth No. 11: "Thanksgiving is a happy time." It was followed by "Fact: For many Indian people, 'Thanksgiving' is a time of mourning ... a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship."

Hollins would not defend her letter, but David Tucker, a spokesman for the district, said it was an effort to be sensitive to minorities in Seattle schools.

"One of the core elements in education is not just understanding your own life history but also those of others," he said.

But one Seattle-area tribe says Thanksgiving is not somber on the reservation but a time to see friends and family, as it is for other Americans.

Native Americans in the Northwest celebrate the holiday with turkey and salmon, said Daryl Williams of the Tulalip Tribes. Before the period of bitter and violent relationships between natives and their culturally European counterparts, they worked together to survive, he said.

"The spirit of Thanksgiving, of people working together to help each other, is the spirit I think that needs to grow in this country, because this country has gotten very divisive," he said.

Nationally syndicated talk show host Michael Medved was more blunt.

"The notion that now you have a major school system sending out a message that, no, rather than expressing thanks we should emphasize guilt on this holiday — that is sick, it is destructive and it is anti-American."

Seattle Public Schools has been in the news before, not always for the performance of its students.

The U.S. Department of Education investigated in April after the district spent part of a federal Smaller Learning Communities grant to send 20 students to the "Eighth Annual White Privilege Conference."

After complaints last year, the district removed from its Web site a definition of racism that claimed planning ahead and individualism were examples of cultural racism.

Seattle Schools' Thanksgiving 'Myths' Stir Controversy

[Shammu]

Seattle public schools want a side of political correctness served on your Thanksgiving table.

"The notion that now you have a major school system sending out a message that, no, rather than expressing thanks we should emphasize guilt on this holiday — that is sick, it is destructive and it is anti-American."

History revisionists and so-called "progressives" absolutely love this stuff, especially if it's a chance at cheap-shot "Blame America First".

[HisDaughter]

Seattle Schools' Thanksgiving 'Myths' Stir Controversy

"The spirit of Thanksgiving, of people working together to help each other, is the spirit I think that needs to grow in this country, because this country has gotten very divisive," he said.

Divisive....that's exactly what all this "Political Correctness" has caused.  Not unity and understanding which they say is the goal but division, hatred, prejudice etc and given a licence to any "perceived" smear even if it's not meant that way.
I am totally embarrassed for my own city.
I wonder if when this guy sat down yesterday with his family to dinner, if he even gave a single thought to Native Americans while he stuffed his face and laughed with his family.  Or did he invite a single Native family from one of our Reservations over to share it with them and, apologize over dinner for whatever notions of guilt he has been carrying?
What a schmuck.

[HisDaughter]

PS)  Maybe Caprice Hollins (I thought it was a guy in my last post) would like to hand over her job to a Native American since this guilt she has is eating her up so badly.  I'm sure she'd feel better about herself and be able to sleep better at night!

What an idiot.

[HisDaughter]

Seattle Schools' Thanksgiving 'Myths' Stir Controversy

: Myth No. 3 calls the colonists "rigid fundamentalists" who came to the New World "fully intending to take the land away from its native inhabitants."

Yes.  Those monters!  I am sure that is what those sea-sick, wobbly-legged, starving group of settlers had on their minds from the get go!
What a moron.

[Soldier4Christ]

Let's change history to read the way that we want it to read. That way we can establish a false platform for our own political causes and we can insight minority groups to become more active and hate filled. Then maybe we can achieve our goals through them.

(End of sarcasm.)

This is just like the liberal, hate filled, anti-American group. Doing all they can to divide and to destroy what it means to be a Christian and an American.

[HisDaughter]

Let's change history to read the way that we want it to read. That way we can establish a false platform for our own political causes and we can insight minority groups to become more active and hate filled. Then maybe we can achieve our goals through them.

(End of sarcasm.)

This is just like the liberal, hate filled, anti-American group. Doing all they can to divide and to destroy what it means to be a Christian and an American.

I'm wondering how she ever graduated grammer school, let alone high school and college if she couldn't pass a single history class? 
One of my pet peeves is "blatant" stupidity and I seem to be surrounded by it these days.

[HisDaughter]

One of the frustrations for me of working at Microsoft, was to be surrounded by highly educated people and not find a shred of common sense among them!   It drove me absolutely wild!

[Soldier4Christ]

One of my pet peeves is "blatant" stupidity and I seem to be surrounded by it these days.

Thank you.   

[Soldier4Christ]

One of the frustrations for me of working at Microsoft, was to be surrounded by highly educated people and not find a shred of common sense among them!   It drove me absolutely wild!

Yes, some of the most "educated" are the ones so full of themselves that they loose contact with reality believing others that also tout self-intelligence. They are afraid of being called stupid by their colleagues and in the long run they show their ignorance.

[HisDaughter]

Thank you.  

Present company excluded of course!

[Soldier4Christ]

Present company excluded of course!

  

[Shammu]

Pope, cardinals discuss ties with other Christians
Fri Nov 23, 2007 1:14pm EST

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict and his cardinals discussed Catholic relations with other Christians on Friday, highlighting efforts to work closely with the Orthodox and to meet the challenge of fast-growing Protestant churches.

The closed-door meeting, held on the eve of a ceremony to install 23 new cardinals, took place amid progress with the Orthodox -- who broke from Rome in 1054 -- but growing fragmentation in the Protestant and Anglican world.

The Roman Catholic Church, with 1.1 billion of the world's 2 billion Christians, seeks better ties with other Churches partly to strengthen the Christian message in the world.

A statement on the meeting said the cardinals also spoke briefly about ties with Jews and Muslims but gave no details. Islam is a pressing issue after 138 Muslim scholars called for a broad Christian-Muslim dialogue last month.

"We made good progress with the Orthodox in Ravenna," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the department for Christian unity, referring to a Catholic-Orthodox meeting last month that agreed the Pope was the leading prelate of Christianity.

The Russian Orthodox Church, with more than half the world's 220 million Orthodox, quit that meeting in protest against the presence of an Estonian Orthodox Church aligned to the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, today's Istanbul.

"We are working now in Constantinople and Moscow that they find a solution or a compromise. It's a political question, not a theological one," Kasper told journalists.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which has become more active on the ecumenical scene since the fall of communism, chafes under the tradition that gives pride of place to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomos, despite the fact his local church is tiny.

Kasper said a historic meeting between Pope Benedict and the Alexiy, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, would be very helpful to improve relations but did not say when or where it might take place.

ANGLICAN SITUATION "VERY COMPLICATED"

Kasper said talks with the Orthodox could not restore the hierarchy of the ancient church, which gave second place to Constantinople, but that the Orthodox agreed last month for the first time that the Pope still held first place.

"This can only be the Bishop of Rome," he said, using one of Benedict's titles. "There is no other candidate."

On relations with Anglicans, Kasper said the 77-million member Anglican Communion was in "a very difficult situation" with the challenges by traditionalists -- many from the Third World -- against liberal bishops in western countries.

The Anglican Communion is in internal crisis over the ordination of women and openly homosexual bishops.

"We hope they make a decision very soon. They cannot postpone all this crisis. There must be a decision made. But it is not in our hands."

Relations with Protestant Churches were getting more difficult because of "an inner fragmentation" among them, Kasper said. "Some of them have turned to liberal (positions) and there are now new ethical problems dividing them," he said.

He said that evangelical churches were spreading quickly and noted there were now 400 million Pentecostals around the world.

These two conservative Christian movements have been spreading especially rapidly in Latin America, often wooing away the faithful from the Catholic Church there.

"We must not ask first what is wrong with the Pentecostals but ask what is wrong with our pastoral work and come to a spiritual renewal," he said.

Pope, cardinals discuss ties with other Christians