He then goes on to tout the new Anti-Christ ideology of “inclusiveness”. Where people should not separate from one another because of differences in foundational doctrinal matters.

It is not hard to see where all of this is going, and where “Oneness” and “Modalsim” takes us. The next step, and what you are seeing more and more in so called Christians circles goes along the lines of: “Well we Christians worship ONE God manifested in three modes, or One God appearing at different times in different forms, so that is not THAT different from Muslims who believe in ONE god, or Hindu’s who believe in ONE god manifested in multiple “avatars”

What is further troubling is how he uses a verse out of context to imply that the nature of God is a mystery, therefore its ok if you have Oneness, Modalist or Trinitarian beliefs! The passage in no way implies any kind of nature of the Godhead nor was it intended to!

from The “Christian Post”:

Bishop T.D. Jakes, pastor of The Potter’s House megachurch in Dallas, Texas, was put on the spot during a theological roundtable Wednesday in regards to his beliefs about the Godhead and why, in some Christian circles, he is considered a “heretic.”

Jakes and of a handful of other male Christian leaders were invited to participate in this year’s “The Elephant Room” roundtable, hosted and moderated by Pastors James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll. The Dallas pastor was hit with several questions about how his theological beliefs have developed, specifically in regard to the Holy Trinity – a controversial issue which The Christian Post reported on in October.

The Potter’s House senior pastor denied that he clings to a modalist position, although he confessed that he did at one time in his walk with God.

Modalism, a 3rd-century teaching accredited to theologian Sabellius, purports that the members of the Trinity are not three distinct, eternally co-existing persons, but that instead God, a singular spirit, discloses Himself at different times in three modes – a doctrine espoused by Oneness Apostolic Pentecostal and United Pentecostal Church International denominations.

During Wednesday’s “Elephant Room” conversation on the “majors” of Christian doctrine, Jakes explained where he falls on the issue.

“My father was a Methodist and my mother was a Baptist,” he explained. “I was raised in the Baptist church … but I didn’t really have a real committed experience with Christ until my father died. When my father died, I had a real experience with Christ, a real conversion with Christ and I had it in a Oneness church.”

The minister emphasized to Driscoll that the Pentecostal congregation he was referencing, which he pointed out was not a UPCI church, was home to “Christians who believe in Jesus Christ, believe he died, rose from the dead, is coming back again — all the same things you do.”

“How they describe and explain the Godhead in a traditional Oneness sense is very different than how traditional Trinitarians describe the Gospel. I was in that church for a number of years and raised in that church for a number of years,” Jakes said.

“As I began to progress, I began to understand that some of the dogma that I was taught in the Oneness movement was very dogmatic, very narrow and not the very best description of how I now understand the Godhead,” he continued.

“My struggle as I was ordained in the Oneness church was in several passages – sometimes the doctrine fit, sometimes it doesn’t. When the doctrine becomes the primary thing, you force it into fitting in places where it doesn’t fit. I really at this point in my life don’t want to force my theology to fit in my denomination.”

Referencing Gen. 1:26, Luke 3:21-22, John 14:11 and other passages that he believes point to Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit as having unique distinctions, Jakes revealed: “That began to make me re-think some of my ideas and some of the things I was taught.”

“I got kind of quiet about it for a while. When you’re a leader and you’re in a position of authority sometimes you have to back up … for a minute and really think those things through.”

Driscoll, near the end of the discussion, pointedly asked Jakes if he believes the Bible is “the perfect, inspired, final authority Word of God,” to which Jakes responded “absolutely.”

Driscoll then posed several other creedal questions in quick succession, to which Jakes responded in the affirmative:

“You believe there is one God, three persons: Father, Son and Spirit? You believe Jesus was fully God, fully man?”

“You believe he died on the cross in our place, for our sins?”

“You believe he bodily rose from death?”

“You believe that he is the judge of the living and the dead?”

“You believe that apart from Jesus there’s no salvation?”

Jakes told Driscoll once more that “there is very little difference between what I believe and what you believe.”

“For you, the issue between Trinitarianism and modalism at its essence is one God manifesting Himself successively in three ways, or one God, three persons, simultaneously existing eternally. Your best understanding now … would you say it’s ‘one God manifesting Himself in three ways’ or ‘one God in three persons?’” Driscoll asked.

“I believe that neither one of them totally get it for me,” Jakes revealed, yet expressing his agreement with the description of “one God, three persons.”

“Here is why I am there. I am not crazy about the word ‘persons’ … most people who know me know that … my doctrinal statement is really no different from yours except for the word ‘manifest’ instead of ‘person,’ which you describe as modalist and I describe as Pauline,” Jakes insisted, before quoting 1 Timothy 3:16.

The passage in the English Standard Version reads: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

“That is what Paul describes as a ‘mystery’ and I don’t think we should do that,” the bishop said. “Now, Paul is not a modalist, but he does not think it is robbery to the divinity of God to say God was ‘manifest’ in the flesh,” Jakes argued.

“When we start talking about that sort of thing, I think that it is important that we realize that there are distinctives between the Father and the working of the Son: the Father didn’t bleed, the Father didn’t die, only in the person of Jesus Christ, coming back for us in the person of Jesus Christ … Jesus Christ has been with us, but only indwelt in the person of the Holy Spirit. We are baptized into the Body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is consistent with my belief system.”

He added, “We are taught in our society that if we disagree within a movement, we leave … we sever. I still have fellowship associations, relationships and positions within and without Oneness and Trinitarian movements because I believe that until we bridge the gap between our thinking, and humble both sides and say ‘we’re both attempting to describe a God we love, that we serve and that we have not seen, and that we are viewing Him through the context of the Scriptures but that with a glass darkly’ – why should I fall out and hate and throw names at you when all that I know and understand, be it very Orthodox, is still through a glass darkly?” . . . . . .

And this small minority will not only be persecuted by the state, but they will also be persecuted by those Churches that have chosen to put their allegiance to the state over their allegiance to God.

A classic fairly recent example is Nazi Germany during WWII. The Nazi government required ALL Churches,Seminary’s and Ministers to swear loyalty to the National Socialist Government or be faced with being dissolved by the government or ministers being defrocked and prohibited from being a minister.

Read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship“

Just for Clarity: I do not endorse the Roman Catholic Church  by posting this article. Nor do I endorse the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Roman Catholic Church is an apostate church that practices idolatry, however what this article is saying has a much broader impact upon the religious freedom of all those denominations and individual believers that identify themselves as Christian.

And likewise Dietrich Bonhoeffer had many questionable beliefs, but again what happened to churches and individuals that identified themselves as Christian in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe during WWII is a good case study and “Type” of will happen to Christians in the latter days who will be forced to either deny their faith or not be allowed to openly practice their faith!

from The Washington Times:

Like many leftists, President Obama has deep contempt for Christianity and democracy. This is why his administration has declared war on the Catholic Church and religious liberty.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently went ahead and approved last year’s decision to mandate that many religious organizations provide health insurance plans to their employees that include contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization coverage – and this must be done without charging a co-pay. In other words, Mr. Obama has done something that is ominous and unprecedented: compelling religious groups to embrace and subsidize free birth control. Catholic universities, hospitals and charities must either betray their fundamental social teachings or drop insurance coverage for their employees, thereby triggering massive financial penalties under Obamacare. The choice is simple: Abandon Catholic doctrine or go out of business.

The ruling will not simply devastate the Catholic heath care system and elaborate social network, which includes soup kitchens, adoption centers, immigrant services and parochial schools. It directly assaults and violates the conscience rights of Catholics. The church teaches that contraception is a sin, an immoral attempt to obstruct God’s will of when and whether human life should be created. It is the ultimate embodiment of pride: man trying to act as God. That is why opposition to birth control is at the heart of the Catholic faith.

The church teaches that the primary purpose of sexual activity within the sacred bonds of marriage is procreation – to perpetuate humanity from one generation to the next. For nearly 1,500 years, such thinking underpinned the Christian West. That was then; this is now. Since the 1960s, modern society is obsessed with contraception, abortion and sexual hedonism. The results have been declining birth rates and shrinking native populations. Literally, the West is dying. As the late Pope John Paul II put it, we are in the grips of “a culture of death.” Birth control is a key pillar. It is a seminal aspect of the socialist drive to establish a secular utopia – smash the traditional family by relentlessly advancing the sexual revolution. The pill and the condom are the hammer and sickle of cultural Marxism. Decades ago, the Vatican warned that birth control eventually would lead to the West’s demise. A civilization unable – and unwilling – to reproduce itself is doomed. . . . . .

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12:

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,  and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

From Bioedge:

Pregnancy and childbirth are so painful, risky and socially restrictive for women that public funding should urgently be directed to the development of artificial wombs. This is the only way to achieve true equality between men and women for then neither women nor men would then be limited by having children and the burdens of reproducing the species would be shared equally.

This is the radical suggestion made by a leading British bioethicist, Anna Smajdor, of the University of East Anglia.

Artificial gestation, or ectogenesis,  is currently science fiction, but it may be possible. Dr Smajdor believes that in a truly liberal society pregnancy and childbirth should not be tolerated:

Changes to financial and social structures may improve things marginally, but a better solution needs to be found. Either we view women as baby carriers who must subjugate their other interests to the well-being of their children or we acknowledge that our social values and level of medical expertise are no longer compatible with “natural” reproduction.…

I suggest that there is a strong case for prioritizing research into ectogenesis as an alternative to pregnancy. I conclude by asking the reader the following: if you did not know whether you would be a man or a woman, would you prefer to be born into Society A, in which women bear all the burdens and risks of pregnancy, or Society B, in which ectogenesis has been perfected.

http://seg.sharethis.com/getSegment.php?purl=http%3A%2F%2Ftruediscernment.wordpress.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php%3Fpost_type%3Dpost&jsref=&rnd=1327681635366

Britain’s broadcast advertising body has given the go-ahead for private abortion clinics to advertise their services on television, angering those who say that the move desensitizes the public to the practice.

The Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice said late Friday there was no justification for barring private clinics that offer post-pregnancy services, including abortions, from advertising on television. Nonprofit post-pregnancy services are already allowed to advertise on television, and their for-profit counterparts are allowed to advertise in all other media.

The organization’s spokesman, Matt Wilson, said that “there is not going to be some sort of free-for-all saying: ‘Come to us to get an abortion.’ They are not there to promote abortion, they have to promote an array of services.”

Speaking to Britain’s right-leaning Daily Mail, Conservative lawmaker Nadine Dories said the move would allow broadcasters to make a profit “through advertising revenue off the back of a service which ends life. It’s appalling.”

British law allows abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy, so long as two doctors agree that the procedure would cause less harm to a woman’s physical or mental health than carrying the fetus to term. There is no time limit in cases which pose a serious risk to the life of the mother.

Employers will be forced to offer free contraception in their healthcare plans, it was announced yesterday.

Religious organisations had been pushing for exemption from the ruling, but the Obama administration has said they will be allowed just a one-year delay in implementing the policy.

The vast majority of healthcare plans will have to offer birth control without any co-pays or deductibles from the beginning of August.

Republicans in Congress argued that the administration’s ‘unbending’ refusal to make an exception for religious groups would undermine freedom of worship.

But reproductive-rights activists hailed the decision as ‘common sense’ which would uphold employees’ access to ‘basic health care’.

The decision was announced by Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who said she had considered ‘the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty’, according to The Hill.

She added: ‘I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.’

Churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship are exempted from the requirement, but other religious bodies – such a universities, hospitals and charities – will have to offer free contraception from August 2013.

‘This ruling forces religious organizations to violate the fundamental tenets of their faith, or stop offering health insurance coverage to their employees,’ said the Republican Policy Committee.

The GOP leadership also criticised the government’s ‘unbending approach to appease its liberal base’.

The ‘Obamacare’ health reforms are designed to make insurers offer preventive measures such as contraception free, on the grounds that that will save on the future costs of treating illness.

Although most insurance plans already include contraception, some religious groups say they would rather shut down than offer birth control.

Nashville’s Dominican congregation told The Hill: ‘What war and disease could not do to the congregation, the government of the United States will do – it will shut them down.’

The president of Planned Parenthood welcomed the ruling, saying: ‘Birth control is not just basic health care for women, it is an economic concern.

‘This common sense decision means that millions of women, who would otherwise pay $15 to $50 a month, will have access to affordable birth control, helping them save hundreds of dollars each year.’

Replacement theology (also known as supersessionism) essentially teaches that the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan. Adherents of replacement theology believe the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, and God does not have specific future plans for the nation of Israel. All the different views of the relationship between the church and Israel can be divided into two camps: either the church is a continuation of Israel (replacement/covenant theology), or the church is completely different and distinct from Israel (dispensationalism/premillennialism).

Replacement theology teaches that the church is the replacement for Israel and that the many promises made to Israel in the Bible are fulfilled in the Christian church, not in Israel. So, the prophecies in Scripture concerning the blessing and restoration of Israel to the Promised Land are “spiritualized” or “allegorized” into promises of God’s blessing for the church. Major problems exist with this view, such as the continuing existence of the Jewish people throughout the centuries and especially with the revival of the modern state of Israel. If Israel has been condemned by God, and there is no future for the Jewish nation, how do we explain the supernatural survival of the Jewish people over the past 2000 years despite the many attempts to destroy them? How do we explain why and how Israel reappeared as a nation in the 20th century after not existing for 1900 years?

The view that Israel and the church are different is clearly taught in the New Testament. Biblically speaking, the church is completely different and distinct from Israel, and the two are never to be confused or used interchangeably. We are taught from Scripture that the church is an entirely new creation that came into being on the day of Pentecost and will continue until it is taken to heaven at the rapture (Ephesians 1:9-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17). The church has no relationship to the curses and blessings for Israel. The covenants, promises, and warnings are valid only for Israel. Israel has been temporarily set aside in God’s program during these past 2000 years of dispersion.

After the rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), God will restore Israel as the primary focus of His plan. The first event at this time is the tribulation (Revelation chapters 6-19). The world will be judged for rejecting Christ, while Israel is prepared through the trials of the great tribulation for the second coming of the Messiah. Then, when Christ does return to the earth, at the end of the tribulation, Israel will be ready to receive Him. The remnant of Israel which survives the tribulation will be saved, and the Lord will establish His kingdom on this earth with Jerusalem as its capital. With Christ reigning as King, Israel will be the leading nation, and representatives from all nations will come to Jerusalem to honor and worship the King—Jesus Christ. The church will return with Christ and will reign with Him for a literal thousand years (Revelation 20:1-5).

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament support a premillennial/dispensational understanding of God’s plan for Israel. Even so, the strongest support for premillennialism is found in the clear teaching of Revelation 20:1-7, where it says six times that Christ’s kingdom will last 1000 years. After the tribulation the Lord will return and establish His kingdom with the nation of Israel, Christ will reign over the whole earth, and Israel will be the leader of the nations. The church will reign with Him for a literal thousand years. The church has not replaced Israel in God’s plan. While God may be focusing His attention primarily on the church in this dispensation of grace, God has not forgotten Israel and will one day restore Israel to His intended role as the nation He has chosen (Romans 11).

Normalizing Necromancy Part 1 

By Pastor Larry DeBruyn

Have Heart: bridging the gulf between heaven and earth

 “Our minds need to be stretched to the other side.”
(Have Heart, p. xxii)

In the aftermath of Josiah’s “appearing,” the Bergers relate how they informed the guest worship leader, Rita Springer, about Josiah’s visit with “Mr. Jim” that evening. She then told the Bergers about the prayer request she made to God before the service. “Father, could Siah [Josiah] come worship with us tonight?” (HH, 101) God seemingly granted her request. Regarding the implications of this reported incident and others like it, the Bergers reach the novel theological conclusion, “Yes, the residents of Heaven are personally present, they are aware, and they are near!” (HH, 100-101)

Normalizing Necromancy?

From this paranormal occurrence, and similar ones recorded in the book, necessary questions arise:

Can the dead communicate with the living?

To what degree do such reports ascribe a normalcy to necromancy?

Are the Bergers’ laying the theological groundwork for an evangelical acceptance of necromancy? . . . . . . .

Read the full article here.

Not everyone who calls themselves a Christian actually is one

“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:14-16

If you needed further proof that the Laodicean church, warned of in the book of Revelation, is in full bloom right now, then this article should clear up any and all remaining doubt you may have. The World Council of Churches (WCC), boasting a membership of over 349 churches and denominations around the world, hates Israel with a passion and seeks their overthrow. The following was taken directly from documents on their own website:

The Bethlehem Call:The deligitimization and criminalization of the Israeli government and its local and international support base is gaining unstoppable momentum. The existence of international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns and other forms of nonviolent resistance is an established fact. The government and state of Israel is now regarded as an apartheid regime in terms of international law, with particular reference to the UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statutes of the International Criminal Court. The severity of the Palestinian situation makes comparisons with apartheid in South Africa superfluous and almost irrelevant. The benchmark is international law and not South Africa.

In the light of the above and with our conviction that Palestine is in an ever deepening crisis, Kairos Palestine urgently calls us to move forward boldly and act radically by speaking out with courage, passion and determination. The time for words and diplomatic niceties, that obscure the reality, are over. We affirm the churches’ commitment to and contributions for decisive action since the Amman Call as well as in the creation and impact of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF).” source – World Council of Churches

To our beloved Jewish brothers and sisters living in Israel, let us assure you that no one associated or affiliated with the World Council of Churches is in fact a Christian, and neither does their horrific and repugnant anti-Israel stand represent the cause of Yeshua Ha’Machiac in any way, shape of form. These pseudo-christians, the bible calls them ‘ravening wolves’, are not of God and neither do the follow the bible. What they preach, aside from the hatred of Jews and of Israel, is Replacement Theology, and it is a doctrine of the Devil himself.

From Arutz Sheva: Next March, the Bible College in Bethlehem will host dozens of US theologians, activists and ministries for the “Christ at the Checkpoint 2012 Conference”. It is to be a major religious and political event meant to demonize Israel and to support the Palestinian Intifada against the “ethnocentric” Jewish State.

The impressive range of Christian theologians and pastors from many churches located in the United States make the gravity of the upcoming conference clear. Samuel Rodriguez, President of the US National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is a speaker. Also attending are popular US preacher and “spiritual adviser” to Bill Clinton, Tony Campolo, and President of the World Evangelical Alliance and Asia Evangelical Alliance, Sang-Bok David Kim. Two of the conference organisers, Stephen Sizer and Sami Awad, adamantly defended the Gaza flotilla sent in May 2010 by the Turkish terror group IHH.

Another speaker, Ben White, has shared a political platform with Azzam Tamimi, who has endorsed suicide bombings against Jewish civilians in the past.

In the last few months we have seen an increase of attacks on Israel by many Christian denominations. While the United States is home to millions of Christian supporters of Israel, these are anti-Jewish Churches which are more closely attached to global public opinion, European bureaucracy, the media industry, the United Nations and various legal forums.

In fact, the “Bethlehem Call” manifesto, which serves as platform for the Bethlehem 2012 Conference, has just been published on the websites of the Would Council of Churches, the Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ.

The Bethlehem Call defines Israel as an “illegal regime” and a “crime against humanity”, it promotes “international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns” against Israel, labels the more neutral Churches as “accomplices in crimes against humanity” and attacks Christian Zionism as “a crime and sin as defying the core of the Gospel”.

The Bethlehem Call also updates the “Kairos Palestine”, the major document used as global tool for the Christian struggle against Israel speaking in the behalf of “us Christian Palestinians”. Even the name of the Catholic Custodian of the Holy Land, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, prominently appears among the most important signatures in this website: http://www.kairospalestine.ps/sites/default/Documents/English.pdf

In 2007, the World Council of Churches, the umbrella organization of liberal Protestants claiming a membership of 580 million worshippers, also produced the “Amman Call”, which denies Israel’s right to continue to exist as a Jewish State by insisting that millions of Palestinians have the “right of return” to Israel.

In 2008, the World Council of Churches convened a group of Protestant and Catholic theologians to review the underpinnings of Christian attitudes about Israel. The group published the “Bern Perspective”, which, among other things, instructed Christians to understand all biblical references to Israel only “metaphorically”.

The theological meeting also marked a return to “replacement theology”, the medieval view that the Church has replaced the people of Israel in God’s plan and that all biblical references to Israel refer to the “new Israel”—that is, to Christians.

Replacement calumny has changed its language, yet still is basically a death sentence for the Jewish people. Now it is Israelis, like Lucifer, who were God’s chosen but were cast out for their rebellious and evil ways, and deserve to be obliterated from the “Holy Land”, according to this macabre theology. Taken together, it seems these Churches are now breathing new life into a kind of demonology which criminalizes all the Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. source – Israeli National News

Psalm 53:1:

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good”

And God’s word will offend those who reject it:

Galatians 5:11:

“And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offense of the cross ceased”

from The Daily Mail:

A church advertising campaign that depicted atheists as stupid has been banned by a watchdog in South Africa.

Officials ruled a billboard that suggested non-believers considered their existence to be accidental was likely to be found offensive.

The advertisement, which had been erected beside a church in Johannesburg, was pulled down following the ruling by South Africa’s Advertising Standards Authority.

The “offending” poster showed a picture of a man holding his hands against his temples in thought above the line ‘An atheist is a man who believes himself to be an accident’, famously attributed to British poet Francis Thompson.

It was erected last year in a prominent position on the property of the Rivers Church in the Sandton suburb of Johannesburg.

However, the ASA noted that it was obliged to consider the advertisement’s content after it received a complaint from a non-Christian member of the public.

Laying out its judgement on the matter, the authority stated that the complainant, Eugene Gerber, felt offended by the suggestion he was stupid.

The ruling stated: ‘In essence, the complainant submitted that the billboard offends him as an atheist as he does not consider his existence to be an accident.

‘Secondly, the depiction of a man with an empty head communicates that atheists are stupid.’

In a four-page judgement, the ASA noted that it had considered the billboard in terms of a clause in South Africa’s advertising code preventing content which could offend.

The authority stated that the church leaders had responded to the complaint by saying they believed the public would recognise the quote as the work of Thompson, who wrote during the late nineteenth century and died in 1907.

The ASA wrote: ‘The respondent submitted that the advertisement is based on Psalm 14v and Psalm 53v1, which say “only foolish say in their hearts there is no God”.

‘The implication of the image was meant to convey that if someone does not believe in God, then they are not wise.

‘It quoted the famous English poet Francis Thompson thinking that most people would be familiar with his work and would possibly respect his comment.’

However, the advertising authority judgement said the watchdog believed the quotation printed alongside an image of a man shaking his head was likely to cause gratuitous offence to atheists.

It wrote: ‘It is apparent that the proverbial line is drawn when advertising propagates statements that undermine the dignity and constitutionally protected right to freedom of religious beliefs of any identifiable sector of society.

‘The Directorate notes that the respondent has made use of a quote “An atheist is a man who believes himself to be an accident” by Francis Thompson, however this does not justify its use in this context.

‘The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines an accident as, “An unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance”.

‘The quote therefore suggests that atheists believe that their existence is a result of an unforeseen and unplanned event. 

‘The use of the word believe further strengthens this communication.

‘Furthermore, the visuals of a man holding the sides of his empty head suggest that atheists are ‘empty-headed’ or lack intelligence, presumably as a result of the above “belief” communicated.

‘This is something that would likely offend all atheists in a manner that the Code seeks to prevent.’

The ruling added: ‘While the directorate accepts that the respondent is entitled to promote its view and commentary to all who choose to attend its services, it cannot ignore the fact that the respondent has chosen to publicly proclaim its viewpoint.’

The ASA ruling, published on January 6, concluded by stating that the complaint against the church had been upheld.

The institution was ordered to pull down the advert immediately and was banned from using the material again.

Joint US-Israel drill called off by Netanyahu, to Washington’s surprise

Debkafile’s sources disclose exclusively that, contrary to recent reports published in Washington, Jerusalem – and this site too – it was Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, not the Obama administration, who decided to call off the biggest ever joint US-Israeli military exercise Austere Challenge 12 scheduled for April 2012.

Washington was taken aback by the decision. It was perceived as a mark of Israel’s disapproval for the administration’s apparent hesitancy in going through with the only tough sanctions with any chance of working against Iran’s nuclear weapon program: penalizing its central bank and blocking payments for its petroleum exports.

This was the first time Israel had ever postponed a joint military exercise; it generated a seismic moment in relations between the US and Israel at a time when Iran has never been so close to producing a nuclear weapon.

This week, Netanyahu further orchestrated a series of uncharacteristically critical statements by senior ministers: Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon called the Obama administration “hesitant” (Jan. 15), after which Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman urged the Americans to “move from words to deeds” (Jan 16). The underlying message was that the Israeli government felt free to attack Iran’s nuclear sites on its own if necessary and at a time of its choosing. Debkafile’s sources report that Netanyahu decided on this extreme course after careful consideration when he judged the Obama administration’s resolve to preempt a nuclear Iran to be flagging, as indicated by four omissions:

1. Washington has taken no action against Iran’s capture of the RQ-170 stealth drone on Dec. 4 more than a month after the event, and not even pressed President Obama’s demand of Dec. 12 for the drone’s return. Tehran, for its part, continues to make hay from the event: This week, our Iranian sources report, the Islamic Republic circulated a new computer game called “Down the RQ-170.” Players assemble the drone from the components shown on their screens and then launch it for attacks on America.

2. Silence from Washington also greeted the start of 20-percent grade uranium enrichment at the underground Fordo facility near Qom when it was announced Jan. 9. Last November, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned in two US TV interviews (Nov. 17 and 22) that as soon as the Fordo facility went on stream, Iran would start whisking the rest of its nuclear facilities into underground bunkers, out of reach and sight of US and Israeli surveillance.

Barak made it clear at the time that Israel could not live with this development; therefore, the Netanyahu government believes Israel’s credibility is now at stake.

3. Exactly three weeks ago, on Jan. 3 Lt. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, Iran’s Army chief, announced that the aircraft carrier USS Stennis and other “enemy ships” would henceforth be barred from entering the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz . Yet since then, no US carrier has put this threat to the test by attempting a crossing. Tehran has been left to crow.

4. Even after approving sanctions on Iran’s central bank and energy industry, the White House announced they would be introduced in stages in the course of the year. According to Israeli’s calculus, another six months free of stiff penalties will give Iran respite for bringing its nuclear weapon program to a dangerous and irreversible level. source – DEBKA