Here is what I am getting at. Christmas is easily the biggest and most exciting time of the year for most kids. It is bigger than their birthdays, bigger than the Easter bunny, and bigger than summer break. So when we celebrate Christmas with all these gifts and exciting toys, and add a quaint little story all by itself, outside of the context of, as Paul Harvey would say, “…the rest of the story,” we rob our children of the real meaning of Christmas. At this time of year, instead of isolating the birth of Christ, we should instead acknowledge why the birth of Christ is so special. There are then in my mind two aspects of this story that are often missing from the story so often told, the foretelling of Christ in the Old Testament and the ultimate meaning of Christ in his death.

Christmas is a time of celebration, but it is also, and I would argue more importantly, a time of sober acknowledgement of the reason that Christ chose to be born into this world. He ultimately came to die for our sins. I like the way Stand to Reason has acknowledged Christmas in this regard. Please visit here (The Advent of Messiah) and consider the many prophecies collected from the Old Testament by Stand to Reason and ultimately fulfilled with the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ. The birth of Jesus is special because it is the fulfillment of several dozen prophecies that were in place hundreds of years before that special night. The final culmination of those prophecies occurred in the events leading up to his death. It is not a quaint little story, but a verifiable truth that God incarnate visited His’ creation to become the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.

I readily acknowledge that younger children will not fully understand this, but older children and teenagers should be taught not just the birth, but instead, the fuller deeper meaning of Christmas found in the foretelling of his coming, his birth, and finally, his resurrection.

Albert Mohler, the President of the Sothern Baptist Theological Seminary has a great article on the new movie produced by Newline Cinema, The Golden Compass. Click here to read the full article. It is important that Christian parents be aware of the agenda being set forth by the author of this story, Philip Pullman. For instance, Mohler notes, “Pullman’s attack on biblical Christianity is direct and undeniable. He once questioned why his books attracted little controversy even as the Harry Potter books attracted so much. He told an Australian newspaper that what he is “saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God.””

Mohler points out another quote by Pullman on the Christian belief in original sin, “Why the Christian Church has spent 2,000 years condemning this glorious moment, well, that’s a mystery. I want to confront that, I suppose, by telling a story that the so-called original sin is anything but. It’s the thing that makes us fully human.” Of course, this is not to say that atheists should not be allowed to have movies with atheist themes, but certainly we should be alarmed by one so anti-Christian. And by no means, should we as Christians spend our money on this movie or let our kids go see such a movie.

You know the political correctness of our time has truly run amok when you wake up and hear on the news that the town of Fort Collins, Colorado is considering banning the use of red and green lights in city holiday decorations to avoid offending anyone that associates the colors with Christmas – I am just wondering if they have to redesign their traffic lights? The city has created a “Holiday Display Task Force” designed to “to review the city’s existing holiday display policy.” The “City Council will vote on the task force’s recommendations Nov. 20.”

Click Here for the full article.

Find more great articles at FaithfulObserver.com.

Here is an excerpt from his article:

On October 19, only months after being nearly dehydrated to death when his feeding tube was removed, Jesse Ramirez walked out of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix on his own two legs. Ramirez is lucky to be alive. Early last June, a mere one week after a serious auto accident left him unconscious, his wife Rebecca and doctors decided he would never recover and pulled his feeding tube. He went without food and water for five long days. But then his mother, Theresa, represented by lawyers from the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, successfully took Rebecca to court demanding a change of guardianship on the grounds that Rebecca and Jesse’s allegedly rocky marriage disqualified her for the role.

Read the full article here.

“Christian conservatives are an exceptionally active and aware demographic when it comes to politics. Those who were going to take a deep breath and support Giuliani wholeheartedly had already made that calculation. Those who could not see their way to a Giuliani vote have made that calculation on the basis of Giuliani’s pro-abortion rights stance, and perhaps on the immigration issue. A Robertson endorsement won’t help with these people. They have “hard” objections to Giuliani for which no argument really matters.”

I am disappointed, and even saddened that Pat Robertson would endorse Giuliani. I could see Pat choking down Giuliani’s candidacy when given no choice – assuming he won the Republican nomination. I can’t understand why he would endorse him now. That being said, I am not swayed by this endorsement and it is unlikely to sway too many other conservatives who have already made up their mind. Barring an intelligible explanation from Rudy on his abortion beliefs, as well as a commitment to the right type of judges, there is nothing else he can do to win my vote.

Here’s an excerpt from a Fox New article on the subject:

“The father of a Marine killed in Iraq took the stand in his invasion of privacy suit against a fundamentalist church that pickets soldiers’ funerals, saying protesters carrying signs at his son’s burial made him sick to his stomach.”

Read Full Article

It is unfortunate that this church has chosen to exploit military deaths in this manner, especially since there is a good chance that a number of those they are exploiting are likely Christians themselves.

Here is an excerpt:

It seems atheists have developed a comprehensive strategy to win the minds of the next generation. The strategy can be described simply: let the religious people breed them, and we will educate them to despise their parents’ beliefs. Many people think that the secularization of the minds of our young people is the inevitable consequence of learning and maturing. In fact, it is to a large degree orchestrated by teachers and professors to promote anti-religious agendas.

Why the hostility to religion? “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate,” writes Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. “Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”

Click here to read the full article.