Introducing Jamie Price

Spaceship (song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a musician I know what it feels like to think, every so often: I wonder what life would have been like if I’d completely sold out on doing music full time…

Fortunately for a friend of mine, he doesn’t have to think that at all; as part of a band he’s done far better than I ever have and as supported bands I’ve actually heard of, like Puddle of Mudd. On top of that, he’s just released a lovely new web page where you can hear some of his music, see a trailer for an upcoming film he’s written a lot of the soundtrack for, and peruse the services he offers as a solo musician.

So please, check out Jamie’s website to show your support for him, and if you know anyone who’s looking for a singer/musician/band for a wedding/party/event get in touch with him!

Why shouldn’t a man have two wives?

Marriage Day (Photo credit: Fikra)

A couple of months ago I posted about how redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships was a bad idea – gay couples wouldn’t be subject to the same restrictions as straight couples (i.e. you couldn’t divorce over adultery – bad idea), straight couples still wouldn’t be allowed to have civil partnerships, and it would start a slippery slope towards polygamy and incest.

Most people agreed with me on the first two points (this is a question of equal rights, after all), but most also disagreed on the third.

As a little example of someone who would have disagreed with me, check out the Washington Post’s Slate.com’s opinion, published way back in 2004 (please read it). Because they believed so strongly, they published a second article to underline their opinion in 2012 (this one isn’t as good, but help yourself).

Only one year later, they’ve completely turned around; now gay marriage is legal, why isn’t polygamy legal?

A brief quote from the first article:

Bracket all the hysterical and irrelevant stops along the slippery slope…and we are left to try to draw principled lines between gay marriage, in which no one is harmed, and adult incest, adultery, bigamy, or polyamory.

In other words, gay marriage is fine, polygamy isn’t. And a quote from the third article:

The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less “correct” than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting adults. Though polygamists are a minority—a tiny minority, in fact—freedom has no value unless it extends to even the smallest and most marginalized groups among us. So let’s fight for marriage equality until it extends to every same-sex couple in the United States—and then let’s keep fighting. We’re not done yet.

I’m sorry: I told you so.

Related articles

• And now on to polygamy (economist.com)
• Slate: ‘Marriage Equality’ Includes Polygamy (joemiller.us)
• Some traditions aren’t worth preserving (newsherald.com)
• “[P]rohibiting polygamy on ‘feminist’ grounds – that these marriages are inherently degrading to the women involved – is misguided.” (althouse.blogspot.com)
• Progressive Salon.com advocates polygamy as next step in marriage equality (illinoisreview.typepad.com)
• Archbishop of Canterbury ‘supports civil partnerships for heterosexuals’ (guardian.co.uk)

Book review: Captive in Iran by Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh

This is essentially a diary following the interrogation and imprisonment of two Iranian ladies, who were held by the government for nine months simply for being Christians. Their story covers everything from their arrest to the prison environment, relationships with the guards and other prisoners, the court case and hearing about the news reports.

Firstly: this is eye-opening. I knew basically nothing about Iran before reading this, and it almost reads like a fiction story. The Iranian government is controlling and insecure, oppressing women and silencing any voice against them going as far as falsifying statements and handing out the death penalty simply for disagreeing with them. This book is a well-written account of the experiences of two innocent ladies remaining calm and speaking out in the face of persecution.

By the nature of it the book’s saddening, but there’s an under-current of faith and hope throughout the whole thing; the authors are Bible-focused and love to pray, and are an incredible modern example of rejoicing in the midst of suffering.

That said, there’s humour in here as well; on a few occasions the ladies related giggling as a bit of a coping mechanism, and the mental image of pompous, ultra-serious prison guards being humiliated by two ‘infidels’ not being able to stop laughing made me chuckle on many occasions, despite the rest of the book’s content.

I’d encourage anyone and everyone to buy and read this book. It’s written really well and it’s informative; I’m certainly going to be more aware of the situation in Iran from now on, and not only for Christians. The message of the book is clear, true and simple: Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh were quite literally captives in Iran, but the people of Iran are themselves captives of the regime there, whether they realise it or not.

I got this book for free from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Related articles

• Captive In Iran Memoir Tells True Story Of Two Iranian Women Imprisoned, Sentenced To Death, Miraculously Freed: (hopeforthisworld.wordpress.com)
• Finally! U.s. Asks for Jailed Pastor’s Freedom ! (cpnagasaki.wordpress.com)
• Imprisoned Pastor after Beatings and Torture Said He Didn’t Recognize Himself (hopeforthisworld.wordpress.com)
• Remember Iranian Christians (samisaacson.wordpress.com)
• Inspiring Letter from Pastor in Iranian Prison #FreePastorSaeed (jthmishmash.com)
• Islaam was never forced upon people (by the Salaf) | Letter to the king of Alexandria (inspiringcharacter.wordpress.com)

TV for kids

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have you ever wondered how watching TV affects you? Or your kids? Well, I don’t have a simple answer to that here, but I discovered something pretty frightening today I want to share with you. It might not tell us whether or not we reflect what we see on TV, but if it even hints at reflecting our changing culture, I reckon we need to ask ourselves some serious questions.

UCLA has done a whole bunch of research about the TV programmes children watch, and what they promote as good ideas – how they tell children to be successful in life, if you like. In particular they tracked how these changed over the past few decades, looking at popular kids shows in the 60s right through to today.

And guess what they found. Here’s a tiny quote:

The top five values in 2007 were fame, achievement, popularity, image and financial success. In 1997, the top five were community feeling, benevolence (being kind and helping others), image, tradition and self-acceptance.

Which five would you most like? The whole news release is here.

The difference between born and unborn children

English: Newborn infant, 4 hours after birth Deutsch: Neugeborenes, 4 Stunden nach der Geburt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog will know that I’m not a fan of abortion. The argument from pro-abortionists is often along the lines of ‘let’s decide a date upon which the unborn becomes human’, which strikes me as a little ridiculous.

But look no further than the Journal of Medical Ethics, some very important and intelligent people have put some proper thought into it, and concluded (as I would), that there’s literally no difference between newborns and the unborn outside of criteria which would make no difference to someone’s personhood in other circumstances:

• location (in the womb) – you’d never say someone was ‘less human’ for being in a different location
• size (very small) – little people are not ‘less human’ than tall people
• development (still undergoing physical development) – aren’t we all?
• dependency on the mother – let’s kill disabled people while we’re at it, shall we?

There’s clearly no difference in personhood (and therefore human rights) between the unborn and the born. So go over to the Journal of Medical Ethics and check out what they’re proposing (and I quote, because I almost don’t believe this):

By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Ignoring the point about where newborns/babies in the womb are disabled (what difference does that make?) do you see how this argument is absolutely ridiculous? They demonstrate clearly that newborns and the unborn are no different (go and read it, it’s pretty obvious), but conclude that therefore newborn babies are not ‘actual persons’.

Wow.

God help us.

The full paper’s available here.

Related articles

• Court rules unborn is ‘child’ (wnd.com)
• Abortionist Turned Pro-Life Apostle: True Story of Dr. Stojan Adasevic (catholicglasses.com)
• If life doesn’t begin at conception, then where do we draw the line? (liveactionnews.org)
• We know they are killing children – All of us know (revivalandreformation.wordpress.com)

What is a karate class like?

If you ask me, people who don’t like Jim Carrey’s comedy don’t have enough fun. So enjoy (I said ENJOY!!!) this little video of him as a karate instructor (and former world champion).

Remember Iranian Christians

Iran sentences American pastor Saeed Abedini to 8 years in prison Fox News #tcot #iranelections (Photo credit: Robert Reed Daly)

A couple of weeks ago I saw a news story highlighting an Iranian pastor, who was apparently arrested and has received an eight-year gaol sentence for nothing more than being a Christian.

13 years ago Saeed Abedini converted from Islam to Christianity. Since then he’s left the country and has been living in the US, but has returned to Iran regularly to visit his parents. He’s been arrested about ten times, and this most recent time has been particularly hard for his family and other supporters because the Iranian government have been lying to them.

This is what’s known as persecution. A few months ago I saw a comment about the lady at BA who had been asked to remove the cross jewellery, saying ‘persecution’s coming to England!’ Well, perhaps it is, but hold your horses. In Iran, and elsewhere, Christians are being arrested, tortured and killed for their faith.

Let’s pray for Saeed and his family, and the many others like him who don’t have the chance for CNN to do a story on them. Come, Lord Jesus.

Related articles

• American pastor sentenced to 8 years in Iranian prison (muslims4jesus.wordpress.com)
• Latest News on Imprisoned American Pastor Saeed Abedini (voiceofthepersecuted.wordpress.com)
• U.S. condemns sentencing of American pastor in Iran (news.yahoo.com)

Celebrating the end of the slave trade

Slavery monument (Photo credit: drhenkenstein)

Writing in 1823 the Bible commentator Adam Clarke wrote this about Isaiah 58:

How can any nation pretend to fast or worship Godat all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O ye most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, while ye continue in this traffic!

Good words for a dark time: don’t pretend to be a Christian while you lounge around in your luxurious lifestyle, supporting the slave trade. I’m sure we’d all offer a hearty ‘amen’ to that.

So today, how about we remember that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before, almost 27 million of them.

In 1850 the cost of a slave was $40,000; a luxury good owned only by the most wealthy. Nowadays, you can own one for $90. That’s cheaper than most mobile phones, tablets, games consoles, TVs…virtually worthless. If my TV dies after a few years’ work, let’s buy a new one. If my slave dies, there are plenty more where that came from.

And let’s consider slaves in the sex trade. In the USA, a progressive, influential, modern, rational nation, the average…the AVERAGE age of entry into the sex trade is 11-12 years old. And every year about 325,000 children join them.

But what can we do? Probably more than we realise:

1. We can fast and pray. God listens.
2. We can actually admit that products we buy that don’t say they’re fairly traded, probably aren’t fairly traded. So we can stop buying them.
3. We can consider giving money to churches and charities which are working to eliminate the slave trade.
4. We can go back to that Adam Clarke quote and read it again, and admit we need to do something now, for the glory of God.

Related articles

• The basics about slavery (traffickfree.org)
• Fact:there are more slaves today than ever before in history. What should Christians do? (au.christianitytoday.com)
• Saudi man is selling his ‘castrated black African slave’ on Facebook (themuslimissue.wordpress.com)
• Muslim Slave Trade (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)

What the love of a parent can do

 

Please make the time today to read this article about an American couple adopting a Russian child with Down Syndrome.

 

I’m normally a bit cynical about Americans who seem to claim that the world would be a better place if only everyone became a bit more American (USA! USA! God bless America! God’s own country!)…you know what I mean. But this article does show that without adoptions like the author’s, disabled Russian children have little to no hope.

 

That’s probably something worth praying about today.

 

Related articles

• American parents-to-be say Russian adoptions remain in limbo despite court ruling (pennlive.com)
• The Blind Girl Vs. Putin: A Plea for Russia’s Handicapped Orphans (world.time.com)

 

The genocide continues

Supporters of Planned Parenthood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve written quite a bit on this blog about whether abortion’s right or wrong. That’s not what this is about. Most pro-choice campaigners would be happy to unite behind a banner saying, ‘Let’s make abortion legal, safe and rare.’

Let’s look at rare for just a moment. Planned Parenthood released their annual report last week, proudly announcing that in 2011-12 its affiliated clinics carried out 333,964 abortions. On average, wait for it, that’s one unborn child killed every 94 seconds.

In two words: not rare.

Please pray.