September/October 2004X
 We're back, but neither tanned nor rested. Yeah, OK, I know it isn't even September anymore. I know it's already way into October. But does that mean we were having fun, flying around the country, hobnobbing again with the stars, forgetting about our favorite myriad of humans on the earth? No! School started. And when school starts we have out-of-body experiences, time flows at a different rate, we see visions, and before you know it October is here. And so without further ado (whatever that means) here are this months' musings... |
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 Getting to the root of the stem cell problemYou see, Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason doesn't have to teach at a public high school so he probably has loads of time - and a life - and, as a result, he has written a Christian worldview insight into the strange and misunderstood world of stem cell research. The Confusing Moral Logic of Embryonic Cell Research is a pdf file you can download and share with friends. You can't run from this issue; it ain't going away! So do the moral thing and download this essay and see if you can chalk up another "reasonable view of modern day issues seen from a Christian perspective" on your resume. |
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 Next time you feel "persecuted," think again.Parvez Masih, was the headmaster of a Christian school near Lahore, Pakistan when some of his students asked him if it was true that Mohammed had a nine-year-old wife. Parvez graciously mentioned her name, "Aisha," and told them to look in the Koran. On April 1, 2001 he was arrested and accused of violating Law 295C, blaspheming Mohammed as a result of the testimonies of two of the boys. This is one example of many throughout the world of fellow believers being truly persecuted for their faith. And they need your help. More than three years later Parvez is still in prison for this. You can help by going to sites like Prisoner Alert.com and others we list on the Human Rights pages on swordandspirit. C'mon! It's time we lazybutt Americans did something besides guess when Jesus is coming back! |
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 Mythunderstandings in the world of Christendumb.Myths abound about those of us who hold a different view - an old earth view - of Genesis One. A special minority of very vocal (did I say very vocal? I meant extremely vocal... and throw in "one-sided") Christians who see us and others like us as the breaking the seventh seal in the Revelation and being responsible for the rise in world terrorism and being the collective second gunman on the grassy knoll. Many "stories" have been bandied about which are false and misleading and... well, you get the idea. So we direct you to a small paper written by our friends at RTB re said allegations and hope you will read it and try and understand us better so we can together reclassify the "length of days in Genesis" controversy from "divisive" to "an interesting side issue" and move on with our goal of spreading the Good News of the Gospel. Go here. |
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 New unorthodox shirts for the ladies.How stupid are we? (Don't answer that!) We kinda didn't know kinda that there are girls' shirts, too, and that we could make them. D'oh! So, we are making a limited number of girlie shirts in black or dark green, SMLXL, to fulfill your desire to spread the lovingly rebellious, counter-christian-culture, I am a Christian with a brain and a heart! swordandspirit message all over this dark world of ours. They'll be here by mid-October. If you want one go here and find out about how to get one! |
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 Blah Blah Blog. (Part 2) Read our new one-sided opinions about political polls, Mr Bush and the unborn, the "scary faith" of our president, and how close a person can get to hating people for absolutely insane acts of terrorism. And feel more than free to comment on our views. We invite it. Fire in the hole!!! |
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 Blah blah blah back at us! (the Sequel) We have lots of people looking into our forum but few contributing. Think about this: Here's a new forum, not one with ten million delusional psychopaths ranting about never going to the Moon. Here are some fine subjects ripe for opining. Here is what is equivalent to a small church community, open to diverse and nonorthodox opinions and ideas, and read by people who can be influenced by your years of wisdom and knowledge. See the Big Picture going on here? Go to the Forum and contribute from the comfort of your own home. |
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 The Spirit has passed on. We have reached a decision here at swordandspirit not to go to Spirit West Coast next year. It's taken several years of thought and talk and prayer and (good) argument, but we felt last time that we were in essence wasting our time and your money. In the old days, when we were ideologically purer, we saw SWC and other Christian music venues as a great forum to display our wares, to show the youth of today that we had a beautiful faith and that it was defensible. Alas! Over the last several years and especially our last time there (last May) we were very disappointed. Even being a new venue (here in southern California) our booth was almost never visited, our material - all free! - wasn't even looked at. The entire hall was filled with Stupid Christian Stuff (with a couple exceptions). It was a micro-look into American Christianity that was disheartening to say the least. So, we've decided next year to go on a missions trip, to actually go out and help people no matter where or how dangerous, to be active not passive. We'll do this as an example for you all (actually, you could probably teach us a thing or two about this) and as a fulfilling trip for us. Don't know where yet, but we'll keep you informed. We'll need you to be our travel buddies in a financial and spiritual way, so please start praying for it. We want to report on the whole trip as an inspiration for you all to consider something similar for yourself: that is, show the love of Christ by what we do in a world that doesn't trust us or believe in Jesus. And if we raise enough money we'll want to send some of the other members of the Fellowship on another trip. Any ideas? Fire away! |
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| Thanks! Again, we need you in order to exist. If even a tenth of you got involved with forums or spreading the news via word of mouth or shirts or linking our site, we could change things around us in ways we never dreamed of. And through all this (naive ideology alert!) Christians could be strengthened and challenged, nonChristians can see Christians as they should be, and above all our loving God will be glorified and pleased with His children. Can you help? Love you all!
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