Home: No place for Bible study

A San Diego pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a county official and warned they will face escalating fines if they continue to hold Bible studies in their home.

The couple, whose names are being withheld until a demand letter can be filed on their behalf, told their attorney a county government employee knocked on their door on Good Friday, asking a litany of questions about their Tuesday night Bible studies, which are attended by approximately 15 people.

"Do you have a regular weekly meeting
in your home? Do you sing? Do you say 'amen'?" the official reportedly asked. "Do you say, 'Praise the Lord'?"

The pastor's wife answered yes.

She says she was then told, however, that she must stop holding "religious assemblies" until she and her husband obtain a Major Use Permit from the county, a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations and costs that top tens of thousands of dollars.

And if they fail to pay for the MUP, the county official reportedly warned, the couple will be charged escalating fines beginning at $100, then $200, $500, $1000, "and then it will get ugly."

Dean Broyles of the Western Center for Law & Policy, which has been retained to represent the couple, told WND the county's action not only violates religious land-use laws but also assaults both the First Amendment's freedom of assembly and freedom of religion.

"The First Amendment, in part, reads, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,'" Broyles said. "And that's the key part: 'prohibiting the free exercise.' We believe this is a substantial government burden on the free exercise of religion."

He continued, "If one's home is one's castle, certainly you would the think the free exercise of religion, of all places, could occur in the home."

Broyles confirmed the county official followed through on his threat. The pastor and his wife received a written warning ordering the couple to "cease/stop religious assembly on parcel or obtain a major use permit."

"The Western Center for Law and Policy is troubled by this draconian move to suppress home Bible studies," said the law center in a statement. "If the current trends in our nation continue, churches may be forced underground. If that happens, believers will once again be forced to meet in homes. If homes are already closed by the government to assembly and worship, where then will Christians meet?"

On a personal note, Broyles added, "I've been leading Bible studies in my home for 13 years in San Diego County, and I personally believe that home fellowship Bible studies are the past and future of the church. … If you look at China, the church grew from home Bible studies. I'm deeply concerned that if in the U.S. we are not able to meet in our homes and freely practice our religion, then we may be worse off than China."

Broyles also explained to WND that oppressive governments, such as communist China or Nazi Germany, worked to repress home fellowships, labeling them the "underground church" or "subversive groups," legally compelling Christians to meet only in sanctioned, government-controlled "official" churches.

"Therein lies my concern," Broyles said. "If people can't practice their religious beliefs in the privacy of their own homes with a few of their friends, that's an egregious First Amendment violation."

WND contacted a spokeswoman for San Diego County, who acknowledged the description of the incident seemed "bizarre," but who was unable to locate the details of the account. She simply could not provide comment yet, she said, until she could become familiar with the case.

Broyles said the WCLP is nearly ready to file a demand letter with the county to release the pastor and his wife from the requirement to obtain the expensive permit. If the county refuses, Broyles said, the WCLP will consider a lawsuit in federal court.

Broyles also told WND the pastor and his wife are continuing to hold the Bible study in their home.

Jordan: Muslim Brotherhood Celebrates Obama's Victory, "We Consider This an Apology From the American People"

The Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

That's from "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," a 1991 presentation by Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram.

Since we're talking apologies here, can we get an apology from the Brotherhood for its efforts to destroy Western civilization from within? Oh, and a complete cessation of those efforts?

I didn't think so.


Amman- The Islamic Action Front (IAF), Jordan's largest political party, on Wednesday expressed guarded optimism over the election of Barak Obama as the next US president and said they considered his win an "apology" from the American people to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan. "We welcome Obama's election and believe that his win represents a clear message inside as well as outside America," IAF Secretary General Zaki Bani Ershaid told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"Obama's victory is also tantamount to an apology from the American people for the crimes committed by the outgoing Republican administration in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere," he added.

Bani Ershaid said that his party, the political arm of the influential Muslim Brotherhood movement, was "cautiously optimistic" over the change promised by Obama and believed that the "starting- point for this change should find expression in a correction of the US foreign policy on Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan."

"A real change in the US policies cannot materialize without rectifying the erroneous attitude considering Israel an ally, withdrawing troops from Iraq," he said.

He may very well get his wish on Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Doubts persist about Obama birth certificate

HONOLULU – Even though Hawaii officials now claim to have verified the authenticity of Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate – in hopes of ending widespread speculation and even multiple lawsuits challenging the Democrat candidate's constitutional qualification to be president – it turns out there is still reason for serious questioning.

In fact, there is considerable evidence that Obama was born in Kenya, not in Hawaii as the candidate and his campaign have maintained.

As WND reported from Honolulu last week, Gov. Linda Lingle instructed the Hawaii Department of Health to make sure no one in the press obtains access to Obama's original birth certificate. Lingle's letter to WND made clear that the original doctor-generated and hospital-released birth certificate on file with the state's health department would be released to the press if Obama so requested – but to date the candidate has made no such request.

The governor's communication with WND also left ambiguous whether the Obama birth certificate on file with the Department of Health was originally generated by a Hawaii doctor after giving birth to Obama in Hawaii, or generated in Kenya and subsequently registered by the Obama family in Hawaii.

On April 5, WND conducted a telephone interview from New Jersey to Kenya with Sayid Obama, brother of Barack Obama senior and the uncle of Sen. Barack Obama. The interview is reported in the book "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality" on pages 21-25, 26-28, 29, 30, 34 and 103.

In the interview, Sayid acknowledged he was not sure whether his brother, Barack Obama senior, practiced Islam or whether Barack Obama junior was born in Kenya or in Hawaii.

He did remember distinctly that Obama junior had visited Africa in 1987, then a second time in 1992 when Obama junior traveled to Kenya with his wife-to-be Michelle; and a third time, as a U.S. senator, when Obama returned with Michelle in 2006.

Sayid acknowledged that his father (Sen. Obama's grandfather) was wealthy in the Luo tribe, a practicing Muslim who traveled the world with the British, and insisted that Barack Obama senior attend school and was quite intelligent in school.

WND had scheduled a second telephone interview for April 25 with Auma Obama, Sen. Barack Obama's sister in Kenya, but Auma canceled the interview and apologized to WND after Sen. Obama's campaign forbade her or any other of the Obama family to conduct any further interviews with WND, following the interview with Sayid Obama.

The issue of the authenticity of Obama's original birth certificate is further muddied by communications from Sen. Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, who has claimed Obama was born in two different Hawaii hospitals.

In a November 2004 interview with the Rainbow Newsletter, Maya told reporters her half-brother Sen. Barack Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu; then in February 2008, Maya told reporters for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Obama was at the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children.

Last week in Hawaii, WND retained a top private investigator with extensive FBI training and tasked with visiting both the Queens Medical Center and the Kaliolani Medical Center to investigate claims that Obama birth certificates existed at either hospital.

But the private investigator reported that on Thursday and Friday of last week, sheriff's deputies were stationed at both hospitals to fend off press inquiries about Obama's birth certificate.

On Thursday, KGMB9 News reported that Hawaii's top health official, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, was trying to defuse rumors that Barack Obama was born in Kenya by saying she had seen the birth certificate herself, but said Hawaii laws aimed at stopping identity theft prevented her from releasing the document despite multiple requests to do so.

Fukino failed to resolve the controversy by disclosing whether the "official document" she saw had been generated in a Kenyan hospital or in a Hawaiian hospital.

The controversy is further fueled by a video posted on YouTube in which Obama's Kenyan grandmother Sarah claims to have witnessed personally Obama's birth in Kenya. The YouTube.com video tape also features Sayid Obama who was interviewed by WND.

Considerable evidence still points to candidate's birth in Kenya
By Jerome R. Corsi

To date, Obama and his campaign have refused to disclose the name of the doctor delivering the candidate or the precise hospital where he was born.

The main reason doubts persist regarding Obama's birth certificate is this question: If an original Hawaii-doctor-generated and Hawaii-hospital-released Obama birth certificate exists, why wouldn't the senator and his campaign simply order the document released and end the controversy?

That Obama has not ordered Hawaii officials to release the document leaves doubts as to whether an authentic Hawaii birth certificate exists for Obama.

Rather, the failure to release the document fuels the theory – true or not – that the Obama family, shortly after Obama's birth overseas, returned to Hawaii and registered at the Hawaii Department of Health the original Obama birth certificate that had been issued by the doctor and hospital that delivered Obama in Kenya.

Dancing with the Stars

This is just plain FUNNY!

Is Obama your Messiah?

...This is one of the most frightening things I've ever read...

An associate editor of the campus newspaper at Massachusetts' Smith College has joined the chorus attributing to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama messianic characteristics, but she has gone one step further, calling Obama her "Jesus."

"Obama is my homeboy. And I'm not saying that because he's black – I'm saying that in reference to those Urban Outfitters T-shirts from a couple years ago that said, 'Jesus is my homeboy.' Yes, I just said it. Obama is my Jesus," wrote Maggie Mertens in the Smithsophian's commentary section recently under the headline: "I Will Follow Him: Obama As My Personal Jesus."

"While you may be overtly religious and find this to be idol-worshiping, or may be overtly politically correct and just know that everything in that sentence could be found offensive, I'm afraid it's true anyway," she wrote.

The writing prompted P.J. Gladnick, in a posting on NewsBusters.org, to express concern about Mertens' dedication to her "Jesus."

He cited her conclusion: "I've officially been saved, and soon, whether they like it or not, the rest of the country will be too. I will follow him, all the way to the White House, and I'll be standing there in our nation's capital in January 2009, when Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States of America. In the name of Obama, Amen."

"Saved, 'whether they like it or not.' That sounds like a threat to me," the NewsBusters report said. "What will you do, Maggie? Burn non-believers in your holy Barack at the Democrat party stake for being heretics?"

He said the problem is people turning Obama into a sort of spiritual savior, as WND reported radical Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan also has done with Obama.

"A lot of the commenters to this article were hoping that this was just satire by Maggie Mertens, NewsBusters' Gladnik said. "Your humble correspondent knows satire and this was definitely not satire. Mertens was serious although, after the richly deserved mocking she is sure to receive over her belief in Barack, she might try to squirm out of it by pulling a Sheryl Crow. … She might claim she was really just joking as Crow claimed after she was widely ridiculed by claiming we could fight global warming by using just one square of toilet paper per sitting. Crow was serious and so is Maggie Mertens in proclaiming Barack Obama as her savior."

Mertens also described Obama as "my miracle."

Get "The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values"

"Barack Obama bore to me his testimony in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, a testimony that included believing in concepts as simple and wholesome as the Constitution; a belief the current administration had done away with entirely. … I was intrigued. I would follow him," she wrote.

"I must admit, I questioned this myself. After all, would I have ever bought a T-shirt with Al Gore's face on it? Was this all he was, the newest pop culture fad? I questioned my newfound faith – was it all only a phase, like the time I thought I was Baptist in junior high? But my inner dogmatic struggle only helped cement my beliefs," she continued.

"Wait, this is satire, right," wrote one participant in the newspaper's forum.

"It's very telling that people have to ask if this is satire, don't you think," said another.

"Um … whoa. I hope this is a parody. … If it isn't, I just don't know what to say except that your conception of the appropriate place of government and politicians in our lives appears to have reverted 2000+ years," added another.

On the NewsBusters site, the concern level was ratcheted up a notch.

"This is actually quite frightening. There are a lot of stories out there where people actually look at Obama as more of a deity than a typical politician," wrote one forum participant. "And I have yet to hear him counter it."

NewBusters managing editor Ken Shepherd had earlier commented on the "penchant" in some media corporations "for selecting photographs of Sen. Barack Obama that make him appear rather, um, messianic."

He cited an ABC blog, which featured a photograph of Obama with a halo around his head, and raised similar questions.

Accompanying the critique of media image uses there was the headline: "There is Born to You This Day in the City of Chicago a Savior."

WND reported less than a week ago on comments from Farrakhan, another powerful Chicago-based political figure associated with the Obama's longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who told an audience when Obama talks "the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

You can watch it for yourself on a newly posted YouTube video.

Addressing a large crowd behind a podium Feb. 24 with a Nation of Islam Saviour's Day 2008 sign, Farrakhan proclaims,

"You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

WND also previously reported a website called "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" captured the wave of euphoria that followed the Democratic senator's remarkable rise.

WND also reported when talk radio host Rush Limbaugh criticized Democrats who were comparing Obama to Jesus and Gov. Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate.

"I know Jesus Christ. I pray to Jesus Christ all the time," said Limbaugh." I study what Jesus Christ did and said all the time, and let me tell you something, Barack Obama, you are no Jesus Christ."

Democrats, including party strategist Donna Brazile and Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., earlier made nearly identical biblical comparisons of the characters in this presidential election, which Limbaugh traced back to a Sept. 4 posting on a Washington blog.

"Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus," Cohen said during a one-minute speech on the floor of the U.S. House. "Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Sin - the root of America's economic problems

A Christian financial expert says America's current financial liquidity problem can't be solved by a government bailout or the policy of a new elected official, but only if people take responsibility for their sin.

Chuck Bentley is the CEO of Crown Financial Ministries and host of the "Money Life" radio program. He says the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill signed into law by President Bush contained "the good, the bad, and the ugly."

Bentley likes the controversial provision that gives the Treasury secretary funding to remove the bad mortgage assets off the books of banks, as well as the tax relief for small business owners that was added to the legislation.

But Bentley says he still would not have voted for the bill because it contains an "outrageous" amount of pork and raises the federal debt limit to $11.3 trillion.

"I think it's abhorrent," he states bluntly. "It's putrid that our legislators would try to throw that pork into this bill....I think we do need the good parts of it -- but the bad parts are politicizing the issue. They're not 'sweeteners.' They're feathers in the cap of politicians, [and] I think it's actually unpatriotic."

Bentley believes the country's current financial woes can be attributed to the sin of greed and the failure of Americans to acknowledge that sin and repent of it before God.