NOW, THE NEWS:
ELON MUSK SAYS LOW BIRTH RATES ARE ONE OF THE 'BIGGEST RISKS TO CIVILIZATION'
from: LiveAction News
(9 Dec., 2021) Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is speaking candidly about what he believes to be the greatest threat to civilization: the lack of children. "I can't emphasize this enough: There are not enough people,” he said Monday during the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit. "One of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birth rate.”
In his comments, Musk noted that many people still tout the myth of overpopulation. "So many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and the population is growing out of control,” he said. "If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words.”
Indeed, Musk's observation coincides with trends being seen worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 2020 birth rates for the United States were at an all-time low, with 3.6 million babies born in the US. That marks a four percent decrease from the previous year. Currently, the fertility rates in the US are at about 1.6 births per woman, lower than the necessary replacement-level fertility rate at about 2.1 children per woman.
Declining birth rates aren't just plaguing the US. Across the globe, countries are starting to notice that their birth levels are far below replacement levels. Even China, which for decades has controlled its population with an extremely oppressive governmental family planning policy, is now facing a demographic crisis. To combat the problem elsewhere, countries like Italy, Hungary, and Singapore are actually providing incentives for people to have more children.
This isn't the first time that Musk has spoken out about the dangers of a declining birth rate. In July of this year, he tweeted, "Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization.” [read more...]
COMMENTARY: Put simply, each married couple owes a debt to society to produce two or three children, the next generation. I've known personally a few married couples who simply decided not to have any children because it would interfere with their careers. How selfish and short-sighted! Who will care about them when they're old and gray? Will they say on their deathbeds: "Oh, I only wish I had made more money!" We make the world a better place by raising an intact family... period.
QUEBEC MOVING TOWARD EUTHANASIA FOR DEMENTIA PATIENTS
from: BioEdge.org
(12 Dec. 2021) A government commission in Quebec has recommended the use of advance directives in euthanasia. In a report released this week, the committee says that "a person who is old enough and competent can make an advance request for medical assistance in dying following a diagnosis of a serious and incurable disease leading to incapacity" – such as Alzheimer's disease.
At the moment, people with dementia are not permitted to have "medical aid in dying" in Quebec. The commission believes that this expansion of the existing law should not apply to people whose only medical issue is a psychiatric disorder.
The original request would have to be made to a doctor when the person is fully aware of the consequences of the document. But if a person has made a request, and his surrogate decision-make makes a request on his behalf after the dementia sets in, the doctor should comply as quickly as possible if the person is suffering unbearably.
The Quebec Minister for Health, Christian Dubé, is believed to support the recommendations. The report was composed after extensive public consultation and is said to have the backing of the professional bodies representing doctors and nurses in the province.
Euthanasia, or l’aide médicale à mourir as it is termed in Quebec has been quite successful there. According to the report (page 20), about 7000 people have been euthanised since legalisation in December 2015 to March this year. [read more...]
COMMENTARY: Euthanasia – when we hear that word, do we think it's about young people in Asia? No, it's a euphemism for killing off the "elderly and undesirables." Notice that the word "people" doesn't follow those adjectives: this makes the elderly and undesirables not real people. Ageism and ableism are very real – if unconscious – forms of discrimination, just like racism.
LUHANSK, DONBAS: CHRISTMAS SAVED FOR PARISHES NOT ALLOWED A PRIEST
from: Forum 18 News Service
(22 Dec. 2021) The first Christmas services in the Roman Catholic parishes in Luhansk and Stakhanov since 2019 are due to go ahead, thanks to a Greek Catholic priest from neighbouring Donetsk prepared to make the seven-hour round trip. Roman Catholics iin those cities have not been allowed to have a resident priest since spring 2020. These will be the first Christmas services in either parish since Christmas 2019.
Parish priest Grzegorz Rapa left in March 2020 expecting to return, but the authorities of the self-declared Luhansk People's Republic repeatedly refused. The only two Masses in 2021 were both celebrated by the visiting Greek Catholic priest. Asked why Catholics have not been allowed a resident priest since 2020, Sergei Panteleyev of the Religious and Inter-Ethnic Relations Sector of the Culture Ministry said: "Our department doesn't take such a decision – it is decided at a higher level."
The first Christmas services in the Roman Catholic parishes in Luhansk and Stakhanov since 2019 were due to go ahead, thanks to a Greek Catholic priest from neighbouring Donetsk prepared to make the seven-hour round trip. Parish priest Grzegorz Rapa left in March 2020 expecting to return, but the authorities of the self-declared Luhansk People's Republic repeatedly refused his applications.
The rebel Luhansk authorities insist that religious communities that have not undergone local registration are illegal. They point to a May 2015 Decree by Igor Plotnitsky, the then Head of the unrecognised LPR entity, banning mass events while the area was under martial law, and the February 2018 local Religion Law approved by the LPR People's Council.
No Protestant communities have been allowed to gain registration, so cannot meet openly in their places of worship. "The situation is still the same," a Kyiv-based Protestant who follows developments in Luhansk told Forum 18. "Nothing is better, but at the same time nothing is worse." [read more...]
COMMENTARY: The tactics used by socialism and secularism – both anti-God belief systems – are quite similar: requiring religious leaders to be approved by the state, requiring their churches to register with the state, making registration very difficult or impossible, then not allowing religious groups to meet without registration in homes or without owning their meeting places, or confiscating their meeting places.
PUSH TO ADD 'PROFOUND AUTISM' LABEL TO DSM GAINS STEAM
from: Disability Scoop
(17 Dec. 2021) Support for recognizing profound autism as a separate psychiatric diagnosis has gained momentum recently with several high-profile endorsements.
Since a 2013 change to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, autism spectrum disorder has been an umbrella diagnosis encompassing everyone from mildly affected individuals who used to be diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome to those who are nonverbal and require 24-hour care. That's far too broad, said Amy Lutz, vice president of the National Council on Severe Autism.
"It's not useful to think of everybody having the same disorder, including a range of presentations from people who are law school graduates to those who are still in diapers and nonverbal," Lutz said. "It's not helpful for research or therapeutics. It's become a meaningless category."
The council adopted a position statement in October asking the American Psychiatric Association to revise the DSM to include a "distinct, stand-alone diagnostic category" for severe autism.
"The umbrella ASD diagnosis has marginalized a growing population of individuals whose neurobehavioral pathologies are among the most alarming and disabling in the entire field of psychiatry," reads the statement.
Identifying autism as a spectrum that includes a growing number of people with no intellectual disability has led to potentially unintended consequences in research, government and culture, said Alison Singer, co-founder and president of the Autism Science Foundation.
"Whether you had an IQ of 50 or 150 you were diagnosed the same," Singer said. "This turned out to be a huge problem. A group of very high-functioning people were called upon to represent autism at policy tables and in the media." [read more...]
COMMENTARY: The term "Autism" is a catch-all for a wide range or "spectrum" of conditions. It spans from the brilliant but socially maladapted to those with an IQ of 50 who are nonverbal and need constant care. One of our grandsons is in the former range: he was diagnosed in grade school with Asperger's Syndrome and is a top mathematician and programmer now finishing university in computer science. Just like we have four levels of hearing loss: mild, moderate, severe (my level), and profound, so we need more precise diagnostic categories for "Autism" – a very poor way to categorize all people "on the spectrum."
(28 Dec. 2021) Practical cooperation among the faithful in concrete undertakings like church restoration can happen today. Ukrainian Greek-Catholics (Uniates) and Orthodox have been fighting for 425 years, since the 1596 Union of Brest.
With the revival of the Greek-Catholic Church in the late 1980s and 1990s, disputes over church property erupted throughout western Ukraine. Today, the old rivalry has been complicated by the emergence of two major Orthodox Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. While Catholic-Orthodox conflicts have abated, reunification is still a far-off dream.
The theological differences between Catholics and Orthodox are not as great or irresoluble as many think. Although Greek-Catholic ritual has been influenced over the centuries by Latin-rite Catholicism, the Ukrainian Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches share the same Kyivan Byzantine rite. The practical obstacles to unity, however, are formidable. Even if one imagines unity as simply sharing in the Communion cup, rather than an institutional consolidation, resistance is considerable.
There are, nevertheless, areas in which Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholics can build trust, cultivate tolerance, and gradually work towards the unity that Christ Himself enjoins. One such area is the restoration of churches. This is particularly appropriate in places where an Orthodox and a Catholic parish share a single church.
Many churches in Ukraine are in dire need of restoration. Wooden churches in particular are prone to decay, deterioration, and damage from the elements. All too often, restoration has been done poorly and unprofessionally, using shoddy or inappropriate materials, without care for the original design. In some cases, priceless artwork has been damaged or even destroyed.
But in recent years, the US-based Foundation To Preserve Ukraine's Sacral Arts (FTPUSA) has worked with restoration specialists and local communities in western Ukraine to help repair and restore historic churches. [Several examples follow.] [read more...]
COMMENTARY: The Ukrainian Orthodox, Carpatho-Russian Orthodox and Greek Catholics all use the Kyivan Byzantine Liturgy: the only significant difference between them is that the first two mention the patriarch of Constantinople while the latter mentions the patriarch of Rome: the Greek Catholic rite doesn't add "and from the Son" in the Nicene Creed about the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, as Roman Catholics do – a major cause of the East-West schism. Orthodox and Catholic Christians can partake of the Eucharist in each other's churches.
Practical cooperation among Christians – Evangelicals, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics – is a noble goal even if difficult. Sharing a place of worship implies sharing at least some essential creedal basis. The Nicene Creed is the only creed that is confessed by all three of these major segments of Christianity. Each claims to be the true Church. But as several Orthodox theologians have said – "We know where the Church is, but we do not know where the Church is not." This attitude leaves room for dialog and cooperation.
DIGNITY BEYOND ACCOMPLISHMENT
from: Mere Orthodoxy
The article "Dignity Beyond Accomplishment" is considered one of the best of 2021 on the "Mere Orthodoxy" website: reading it will clearly tell you why. Here are a few excerpts –
On Christmas Day 1999, when she was six years old, my little sister Jenna swallowed a whole jar of diuretic pills. Or rather, she chewed them. She always chews pills like they're candy. And that is probably what she thought they were, lying there on the piano side table at our grandparents' definitely un-childproof house in a leafy Pennsylvania suburb. This was no suicide attempt. Jenna has Down Syndrome, but her cognitive slowness did not ever imply that she was any less adept than other children at briefly escaping the watchful eye of even the most conscientious parents, which mine were and continue to be, and causing plenty of havoc in those brief few unsupervised seconds.
If she had swallowed the pills whole and without chewing, we probably would not have realized it in time to get her to the hospital before the damaging effects of an overdose became visible, and perhaps irreversible. It was only because of the white powder from the chewed-up pills at the corners of her mouth and dusting the front of her brand new Christmas dress, complete with the shoulder pads that late nineties fashion demanded. That white powder led us to the empty bottle of pills, and the empty bottle of pills led to panic. She was taken by an ambulance which, thanks to those willing to work on Christmas Day while the rest of us celebrated at home, arrived promptly. And that is when the real trouble began.
The ambulance drivers, citing "policy," did not want my mother to ride in the ambulance with them on the way to the hospital. But my mother had by then acquired a protective streak she never hesitates to summon in defense of any of her children, let alone her most vulnerable one, Jenna.
"Well, then I'll just put her in my car seat in our car and I'll drive behind you to the hospital."
"We cannot let you do that; it is against policy and we need to get there quickly."
"We'll get there quicker if you just decide that I'm going to come in the ambulance with you, because she is not leaving my sight."
Eventually my mother got her way, as she often does. Maternal watchfulness triumphed over protocol, and she rode in the passenger seat of the ambulance to the hospital, talking to and reassuring an increasingly sick Jenna through the rearview mirror the whole way there.
[read more...]
COMMENTARY: Please read the rest of the article: you'll be just as greatly impressed as I was! It is written by Jenna's brother who is a Ph.D. student at Yale. He raises the question – which one of them is more to be valued as an authentic human being? Jenna, who loves life and is a caring, compassionate person, or her brother Justin, intellectually gifted and studying for a Ph.D. at a prestigious university?
NOW, OUR VIEWS:
Pastor Joshi, one of our regular "Morning Prayers and Readings" participants on Skype, sent us these photos of his outreach to children in a slum village of India and of his church meeting: 
(Click these thumbnail photos to see them full-size.) They have very meager buildings and often meet in the open air. But the Gospel is spreading faster in Africa and Asia than in western countries! We could send you dozens more of such photos that we receive almost every week from our Skype outreaches to people in Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and a few visitors from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and even China.
In a recent article by Shane Schaetzel entitled "Against the Modern Judaizers" he writes that the problem of Judaizing has constantly been embedded in Christianity from the first century to the present; in fact, he calls it the first heresy in Christianity.
You may recall that Paul and Barnabas were frequently accosted by Jews "of the Dispersion," those who were scattered around in various cities of the Greco-Roman Empire, who insisted that a man must be circumcised and observe the whole Law of Moses if he wanted to become a follower of Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah – the "Khristos" (both titles meaning "the Annointed One").
This issue came to a head at the first council in Jerusalem (Acts ch. 15) where the Apostles came together to hash out this problem. The Pharisee party of believers presented their case: "Unless you are circumcised after the custom of Moses, you can't be saved" (v. 1). Then the Apostles decided that Jewish converts could continue observing the Law and their cultural traditions, but Gentile converts didn't need to, they should only abstain from idolatry, meat sacrificed to idols or still having the blood in it, and from "fornication" ("porneia" in Greek, which includes not only premarital sex, but also all forms of sexual immorality including adultery, transgender and homosexual behavior).
The modern form of Judaizing now insists on much the same things: circumcision, Sabbath (Saturday) worship services, observing the Jewish holy days and shunning the observance of Sunday worship, Easter, and Christmas as "pagan" traditions that have "corrupted Christianity," as they claim. In other words, belivers in Christ must become Jews and adopt Jewish cultural traditions. This modern form of Judaizing may be a reaction against the rabid anti-Semitism that came to a head in Nazi Germany and still exists in many countries today.
But is there a more subtle form of Judaizing in our Christian churches when we insist on retaining the cultural traditions of our immigrant forebearers of three or four generations ago and consider those Christians who don't share our ethnicity or culture as somehow less "Christian" and inferior? When we mouthe words and phrases in our singing at church in a language that ceased being spoken in our communities over sixty years (two generations) ago, we not only are pretending to speak a language that we don't know, but we are driving our children, the next generation, away from our churches. This is a major reason why our churches are shrinking.
In the conclusion of my M.Th. thesis, "A FIRST-CENTURY VIEW OF YESHUA, THE MESSIAH," I attempt to resolve this dichotomy or dualism of Judaizing vs. anti-Semitism. You don't need to read all 74 pages of my thesis, just the last few pages, to see that it's not an either-or problem, the resolution is both-and: we can retain our own American cultural traditions of observing Easter and Christmas, sing "The Old Rugged Cross" and "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "Amazing Grace" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Silent Night" instead of chanting things in Latin or Slavonic that almost nobody understands, and accept those Christians who have other traditions as genuine believers as long as they confess and practice basic moral teachings and creedal doctrines as found in the Nicene Creed.
Every Christian confession has its own spiritual fathers such as Luther, Calvin, or Wesley, and cultural traditions which they believe are the best and correct, otherwise they wouldn't hold to them. But we need to keep in mind the difference between Holy Tradition (teaching of the Apostles including Scripture and that of their successors, the Holy Fathers) and the traditions of men, as the Lord Jesus explained in Mark 7:5-13 –
The Pharisees and the Scribes asked him, "Why don't your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unwashed hands?" He answered them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.' For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men – the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things." He said to them, "Full well do you reject the Commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother;' and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.' But you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, "Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban that is to say, given to God;" then you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother, making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down. You do many things like this."
The Pharisees and the Scribes had added 613 extra "commandments of men" to the Ten Commandments, some of which provided a way to skirt around the basic Commandments of God, which are to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength, and then to love our neighbors as ourselves. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just like I have loved you; that you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35). Loving one another is how the world will believe in Christ, not how well we debate over secondary rules and traditions of men.
Please remember to pray for Christians in Secularized Countries, and for...
Your fellow-servants,
Bob & Cheryl
p.s. Mice die in mousetraps because they do not understand why the cheese is free. The same is true of socialism.
