Monday, October 4, 2010
Artist Paints Jesus Christ In Pornographic Paintings Draws Protests
link to original story
LOVELAND, Colo. - The exhibit is the work of Stanford University Professor, Enrique Chaagoya, entitled "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" and will run through the end of November. Some say the pictures of Jesus show him in 'oral sex' positions, which they find to be pornographic in nature.
"We don't think our savior should be put in those kind of poses," said Steven Gergory. "I love art, but this isn't art."
Deacon Ed Armijo of St. John's Catholic Church says he has seen the display and is appalled by the thought of Jesus Christ being put in this light.
"We think it is just porn," said Armijo. We will be out front of the museum Friday at 10:30 in the morning."
The work is part of a show that also played in Denver the first half of last year, and FOX31 News was told that there were no issues with the show. In Loveland, the City Council, which helps operate the Museum, voted this week to keep the show running.
Still, some think the picture of Christ is offensive.
Bud Shark, who is putting on the exhibit in the show entitled, "The Legend of Bud Shark and his Indelible Ink," is from Lyons and the show is selected works of various artists who have visited and created art, here in Colorado.
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JMC Ministries Response
Why is it ok to draw Jesus this way and they uphold that it is freedom of speech but when it's another religion they shut it down because they don't want to offend anyone?
This is a blat-tan attack on the Christian Faith and all it stands for because the bible says that homosexuality and Sodomy is a sin. They can say it is artistic expression but we know it is just pornographic smut. That attacks the beliefs of the Christian Faith.
We pray for this man that he will see the truth and that Jesus loves him and allow Jesus to come into his heart and start making art that will inspire people to help one another and reach out to help those in need like Jesus did.
North Carolina: Student Shot And Killed At Christian University
Click to read full story from wavy.com
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. (WAVY) - Monday classes have been canceled at Mid-Atlantic Christian University in Elizabeth City, N.C., after a tragic shooting over the weekend. School officials say local ministers and counselors will be available throughout the day to help students grieve the loss of their classmate.
According to police, one student shot another inside a dorm room in Pearl Presley Hall Sunday afternoon. The student accused of the deadly shooting willingly surrendered himself to police, according to the university. He has not been charged with anything and is not in custody at this time though, according to Elizabeth City Police.
Officers responded to the call of a gunshot victim just before 1:00 p.m. in the 700 block of N. Poindexter Street. Upon arrival they discovered a male student with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a police report. The victim has been identified as Jonathan Schipper, a sophomore at the university.
The last place students at Mid-Atlantic Christian University expected to see violence was at their own school.
"Violence is unacceptable wherever it happens," said Mid-Atlantic President Dr. Clay Perkins.
But Sunday, the small campus of just 180 students turned into a crime scene. School officials say a fight between two students became deadly.
"The mood is just shock," Dr. Perkins added. "There are lots of hugs and lots of tears. The university is in pain."
The campus was put on lockdown following the shooting. Crime scene tape wrapped around the residence hall as detectives and school officials looked for answers.
"The why questions are abundant at the moment," said Dr. Perkins. "I don't even have those answers."
The answers could help provide comfort for the student who are leaning on each other for support.
"We are a family," Dr. Perkins added. "This will affect us for years to come. This is an ugly incident that happened in a good place."
Travel Alert Issued For U.S Citizens In Fear Of Terrorists Attacks In Europe
(CNN) -- The United States issued a general travel alert for Americans in Europe on Sunday amid concerns that al Qaeda or related groups plan attacks similar to the 2008 massacre in the Indian city of Mumbai.
"U.S. citizens should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling," the notice from the U.S. State Department said. "We continue to work closely with our European allies on the threat from international terrorism, including al Qaeda."
The advisory is not meant to tell Americans to avoid travel, but to take "common-sense precautions" in case of trouble, Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy told reporters Sunday.
"If they see unattended packages or hear loud noises or see something beginning to happen that they should quickly move away from them," he said. The warning urges them to be cautious in public places like tourist sites and airports or while riding public transportation, and Americans should know how to contact the U.S. Embassy and consider registering their travel plans there, he said.
In addition, thousands of U.S. troops based in Germany were placed under a curfew Friday night and were ordered not to wear their uniforms off base, according to an order obtained by CNN.
The State Department said worldwide travel alerts have been issued for U.S. citizens in the past, most recently in early September after the pastor of a small Florida church threatened to burn copies of the Quran, the Islamic holy book.
Previous alerts were issued after the 2004 al Qaeda bombings of commuter trains in Spain's capital Madrid and after the 2005 bombings of subway trains and buses in London, England.
Suicides Of Baby-Boomers Generation On The Rise
click to read full story from CNN
(CNN) -- "I hate him. I'm so mad. I love him. I miss him. I want him back," Christine Lopez's thoughts twisted and churned.
Questions swirled. A void swelled. And their 4-year-old son tugged at her, asking about Daddy.
Her husband committed suicide in 2007.
"It's not like he died in a traffic accident," she said. "All these thoughts were running through my head. I lost my future -- the man I was in love with, my son's father. Who do I blame?"
David Sklar, 43 and a part of the baby boomer generation, grappled with depression and chronic pain.
In the last 11 years, as more baby boomers entered midlife, the suicide rates in this age group have increased, according to an analysis in the September-October issue of the journal Public Health Reports.
The assumption was that "middle age was the most stable time of your life because you're married, you're settled, you had a job. Suicide rates are stable because their lives are stable," said Dr. Paula Clayton, the medical director for the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide.
But this assumption may be shifting.
Dashed expectations, economic woes, depression or chronic medical problems -- these may be factors why the suicide rates for middle-aged Americans have increased.
Surveys of baby boomers have shown a tone of disappointment.
"So many expected to be in better health and expected to be better off than they are," said Julie Phillips, lead author of the study assessing recent changes in suicide rates. "Surveys suggest they had high expectations. Things haven't worked out that way in middle age."
Richard Croker, author of "The Boomer Century, 1946-2046: How America's Most Influential Generation Changed Everything," said, "From Dr. Spock to Annette Funicello, growing up in the '50s and '60s, we grew up thinking we were special. Somehow, we metamorphosed from peace, love and happiness to a me generation."
"We started accumulating wealth and began focusing on providing for ourselves and our families. That's what we did and now, we're beginning to look around. What's it all about?" he said. "Many of us are divorced. Our families are spread to the seven winds. We're disappointed."
Baby boomers (defined in the study as born between 1945 and 1964) are in a peculiar predicament.
"Historically, the elderly have had the highest rates of suicide," said Phillips, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University. "What is so striking about these figures is that starting in 2005, suicide rates among the middle aged [45-64 years of age] are the highest of all age groups."
The 45-54 age group had the highest suicide rate in 2006 and 2007, with 17.2 per 100,000. Meanwhile, suicide rates in adolescents and the elderly have begun to decline, she said.
"What's notable here is that the recent trend among boomers is opposite to what we see among other cohorts and that it's a reversal of a decades-long trend among the middle-aged," said Phillips, who along with Ellen Idler, a sociologist at Emory University, and two other authors used data from the National Vital Statistics System.
Baby boomers had higher rates of depression during their adolescence. One theory is that as they aged, this disposition followed them through the course of their lives.
"The age group as teenagers, it was identified they had higher rates of depression than people born 10 or 20 years earlier -- it's called a cohort effect," said Clayton, from the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide, who read the study.
But none of these factors adequately explain why one individual commits suicide.
U.S Judge Asks Vatican To Serve Court Papers to Pope
click to read full story from Fox News
MILWAUKEE – A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in Wisconsin.
The request is an incremental step in a lawsuit that accuses the officials of conspiring to keep the allegations against the Milwaukee priest quiet. The Vatican is not obliged to comply with the request.
When faced with similar requests the Vatican has made service difficult, time-consuming and expensive by insisting, for example, that documentation be translated into Latin, one of the Vatican's official languages.
Mike Finnegan, the attorney representing the Chicago-based plaintiff, said Friday he's not holding out hope that the Vatican reverses course and begins to cooperate now.
"Based on what they've done in other cases, I don't expect them to do the right thing," he said. "I expect more delay and obstruction."
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's U.S.-based attorney, said he hadn't seen the court request and couldn't comment on whether the Vatican would comply with it.
The lawsuit, filed in April in U.S. federal court, names as defendants Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, and his predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
It claims the three men knew about allegations of sexual abuse at a Milwaukee-area school for the deaf, and called off internal punishment of the accused priest. The Rev. Lawrence Murphy, who died in 1998, was accused of sexually abusing some 200 boys at the school from 1950 to 1974.
Lena has called the lawsuit a publicity stunt and said it rehashes theories already rejected by U.S. courts.
"This is a minor procedural step by plaintiff's lawyers in a meritless lawsuit," he said. He added that it refers to abuse that occurred in the 1970s, which he said was more than 20 years before the Holy See first learned of the priest's actions.
The Vatican has argued that it isn't liable for clerical sex-abuse cases because according to canon law and the structure of the Catholic Church, bishops — not Rome — are responsible for disciplining pedophile priests.
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JMC Ministries Response
If they are going to do this then shouldn't they be sending out court papers to the leaders of the Muslim world when there people have gone on trial for killing thousands? It just doesn't make since. It seems they are trying to put the entire Catholic Faith on trial. No matter what religion you may be, there will always be people who do evil things. Satan gets a hold of peoples minds and put horrible evil thoughts that he eats a way at them with until they cave in and act upon those temptations.
Do we think the Pope is personally connected with this, no we don't. Just as other leaders in the Christian Faith are not connected with what this Pastor In Florida who is being accused of sexual abuse and is on Trial for. People make their own choices in life.
We are sure the Pope knows what is going on and is informed of this trial but what good is it to try and place him on the stand other than to ask him if he knew anything about this and what did he try to do to rectify the situation.
It is horrible that Children are being abused by people of the Christian Faith, and we must pray for them that they turn from this evil behavior that destroys lives and scars people from even wanting to be a Christian and go to church. These kind of things are just giving people more and more excuses not to go to church. We must pray for the pastors, bishops, priests and all that are in leadership in churches. That they be the example of Christ and share His love.
We must also pray for the victims of the abusers. That they be comforted by the Holy Spirit and that God bring healing to their bodies, hearts and souls.
There has been too many of these kinds of stories popping up around the Country and World. As Christians and people of Faith we must watch and listen and pay attention in our churches if we think abuse is going on, say something before it get's to this level. Abuse needs to stop and only through the Love of Christ and his guidance can there really be an end to it.