When Mother Teresa died in 1997, a common sentiment among her
admirers was, “At least Jean Vanier is still on the planet.” Vanier, a Canadian
and Catholic theologian, founded L’Arche in 1964
to provide people with disabilities dignified household communities. Vanier’s idea was
not to treat such people as the objects of charity, but rather as friends and
even teachers, founding communities in which they lived alongside people without
disabilities in a spirit of mutual respect and care.
L’Arche communites are now
in over 37 countries. Jean Vanier, who died
in 2019, has been regarded as a saint.
That is, until leaders of L’Arche International exposed that Vanier had engaged in “manipulative and emotionally abusive” sexual relationships with six women in France, between 1970 and 2005. Sexual relations were instigated by Vanier, usually in the context of giving spiritual guidance.
“I just cannot believe that Christian leaders and churches aren’t talking about this in every congregation in every corner of the [United States]. Boko Haram killed more Christians than ISIS in the year of the height of ISIS. This is the worst place in the world, at least in the northeast, where these terrorists are.” –Johnnie Moore (Christian Post, Feb. 28, 2020
A desolate piece of land in rural southeastern Colorado commemorates 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho tribe members who were murdered and mutilated by the U.S. Army.
On November 29, 1864, seven hundred members of the Colorado Territory militia embarked on an attack of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian villages. The militia was led by U.S. Army Col. John Chivington, a Methodist preacher, as well as a freemason. After a night of heavy drinking by the soldiers, Chivington ordered the massacre of the Indians. Over two-thirds of the slaughtered and maimed were women and children. For two days the soldiers roamed the nearby countryside hunting down and killing womean and children trying to escape. This atrocity has been known as the Sand Creek Massacre ever since.
In the year 2525 If man is still alive If woman can survive They may find…
Zager & Evans top 40 hit in 1969 questioned the future of humankind. How would be the influence of technology upon our species? The duo’s answer is bleak. And that is if even our species will survive to the year 2525. And what will God think?
Thirty years later I can still remember my first encounter
with Robert Tilton. I had stopped by a room at the nursing home I worked at. On
the TV screen was Tilton, eyes scrunched shut as he bleated a prayer for
prosperity on watchers who had sent in donations.
My immediate response was, “This preacher is a fraud bilking money from the poor and hopeless.”
The “Prosperity Gospel” is a seductive syncretism of orthodox traditional Christian belief with idolatrous Baal worship. In this, the new Baal priests promise prosperous lives of health, wealth, and security to followers if they sacrifice to them lots of their money.
It is fitting that my first post on this new edition of Creation Song should honor Jesus.
Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. I’m not always faithful or true; nor is He easy to follow. But my heart is to follow Him. I want to want to love Him and be true to Him. Here is some of my personal “why Jesus?”
Creation Song started as a weekly radio program in 1995. After six successful years, I took a break that never resumed. That is, until now in a new format as a blog.
A timing chain breakdown on an almost deserted highway around 11 pm on a Saturday night in the least populated county in the East. Heading for a Christian conference Sunday morning I very much felt led to attend. It would take a miracle to make it.
Nothing is worse than the use of the name of Jesus to prey on the vulnerable.”
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
If there is one good thing about the plethora of sexual abuse revelations in church bodies, it is that some of the wolves preying on the sheep are being caught.
