Forbidden Secrets of the Labyrinth - by Mark Flynn - Part 7

The Awakened Ones, The Hidden Destiny Of America, And The Day After Tomorrow

By Mark A. Flynn

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PART 7 - Gobekli Tepe... the Vatican... and Arcane Knowledge

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The southeastern Turkey archeological site known as Gobekli Tepe (Turkish: “Potbelly Hill”) was discovered in the 1960s by University of Chicago and Istanbul University anthropologists, but was dismissed as nothing more than an abandoned, medieval cemetery.[i] The German archeologist Klaus Schmidt reexamined the site in 1994 and realized that it was a temple complex. It has since been estimated to be more than 11,500 years old, making it the oldest temple structure ever found.

The areas that have been excavated so far have concentric-ring-shaped areas ranging from thirty-two to one hundred feet in diameter with T-shaped or ax-like limestone pillars that weigh ten to sixty metric tons and are evenly set within thick, interior walls of unworked stone. There are two taller pillars at the center of each circle, and many feature pictograms of animals and other unknown symbols. Some of the pillars have human arms, along with loincloths, carved on their lower halves.[ii]The pillars were transported from bedrock quarries located 330 feet from the hilltop that still has a remaining unfinished pillar estimated to weigh fifty tons. So far, only a tiny portion of the complex—around 5 percent—has been excavated.[iii] As of 2013, four of the circular structures have been excavated, and geophysical surveys show sixteen more, with each containing up to eight pillars—amounting to nearly two hundred pillars in all.[iv]

According to modern-day archeologists, humans living even twelve thousand years ago lacked metal tools and pottery, and they had not yet domesticated animals or invented the wheel. Consistent with this belief, researchers have wondered how the complex was constructed, since the rock would have had to been quarried and shaped using stone tools.

One of the most amazing discoveries made at the site was that it had been deliberately buried after its completion approximately one thousand years later. After more than twelve thousand years of erosion, the area wouldn’t have been distinguishable today if this hadn’t occurred. Archeologists have no clear ideas about why it might have been backfilled, but they conjecture that it might have been because of some religious dictate. 

                                                                                                                                            

The people who built Gobekli Tepe might have sought to preserve the complex from destruction. The area today has extensively eroded, as if a great amount of water inundated the area. Although it is now a desert wasteland, the types of animals and plant life depicted on the pillars show that the area was much different when it was built. Foreknowledge of a coming, great flood would have been a possible reason to bury the complex in order to preserve it.

The plateau where the site is located lies 337 miles southwest of Mt. Ararat, where legend says that Noah’s Ark rested, and which mimics the shape of a bull lying on its side, facing west. The temple area, viewed from above, is situated in a space with raised areas appearing to be ancient walls outlining the shape of a bull’s head and horns. The circular, maze-like structures are laid out in a pattern corresponding to where the Hyades star cluster resides in the head of the constellation Taurus. 

                                                                                                                                            

The belief that the builders of the temple lacked the technology to use wheels and relied on stone tools is not consistent with its sophisticated design, its construction, or the enormity of the site. It is amusing to see representations of the how the area might have looked eleven thousand years ago in illustrations in which artists stubbornly depict the builders as cave dwellers dressed in the height of animal-skin fashion.

 

Read the rest of this article at - http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/labyrinth7.htm

Contingent Divinity: The Golden Calf of the Universe

By Phillip Darrell Collins (August 1st, 2014)

Author’s note: The following is excerpted from the forthcoming book, Invoking the Beyond, which I am co-authoring with Paul David Collins.

In Romans 1:25, St. Paul pens the following comments concerning the practices of idolaters: “They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.” St. Paul’s identification of the “creature” as the idolater’s surrogate for God elucidates a parallel between the ancient world and modernity. To understand this parallel, one must first examine the etymology of the term “creature.” “Creature” is derived from the Latin word creāre, which means “created thing.” The material cosmos qualifies as a “created thing” and, within the dominant cultural milieu of modernity, it is the material cosmos that tends to occupy the lofty status of divine. Today, the idolatry of the ancient world is expressed through the Weltanschauung of naturalism and enjoys pseudo-scientific sanctions with evolutionary theory.

Naturalism holds that nature brought itself into being without a Creator and continues to arrange itself through purely organic processes. Of course, structure and organization imply design, which, in turn, implies a Designer. Since the naturalist views nature as the originator of its own structure and organization, he or she is tacitly deeming nature a de facto designer. Essentially, the material world is hypostatized. Within the context of this discussion, the term “hypostasis” is being invoked to denote a fundamental, self-sufficient rational entity upon which all else is contingent. Ironically, those who advance the hypostatic depiction of the universe typically contend that their immanent surrogate for the Divine is anhypostatic. Yet, given the irreducibly teleological nature of their cosmology, such an anhypostatic characterization of the universe is not logically sustainable. Invariably, the elevation of the sensate cosmos to the status of the Divine results in the hypostatizing of the contingent universe, a reality tacitly underscored by the anthropomorphic terminology that scientific materialists tend to invoke in discussions concerning the material world. This hypostatic depiction of the universe provides the basis for the virtual apotheosis of material agencies and the enshrinement of immanentism.

Russian Orthodox theologian Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov identified two core commonalities shared by materialism and immanentism. These are “the rejection of a transcendent God and of ‘contact with other worlds’” (Valliere 185). In the absence of a transcendent God and another world, the hypostatic view of material agencies gains the semblance of sense and human reason can be elevated to the status of divine revelatory agency. The denial of contact with a world beyond this one provides the basis for the Enlightenment’s self-sufficient portrayal of nature, which is supposedly explained through an incoherent narrative involving an infinite regress of contingent agencies imbued with the causative powers of the Divine. In turn, the denial of a transcendent God provides the basis for the Enlightenment’s apotheosized portrayal of reason, which supposedly uses the hermeneutical keys of fetishized science and logic to decipher the sublime mysteries of the inexplicably eternal universe. Conrad Goeringer articulates the Enlightenment’s symbiotic portrayal of reason and nature:

Reason, then, was the faculty for comprehending nature, the second important element in the Enlightenment triad. Nature was just that – the natural, real world. It was not the realm of the supernatural, the demonic, or the godly, but the empirical or rational “stuff” of which the universe was, and is, made. Nature could be understood through reason; through logic, scientific inquiry, and open mind of free inquiry, nature would yield her secrets. (“The Enlightenment, Freemasonry, and the Illuminati”)

These elements–a self-creating, self-sustaining natural world and an apotheosized human cognitive faculty–comprise an anti-metaphysical view of the universe that echoes the schools of occultism that populated antiquity, particularly the ancient Mystery religions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. All the elements are in place for the transplantation of divinity within the ontological confines of the physical universe, an interpretation of God that pervades pantheism, immanentism, and even naturalism. In fact, Perennial Traditionalist Rene Guenon contends that all three constitute “anti-metaphysical errors,” which are “closely interrelated” (The Reign of Quantity 288). All three fetter the Divine to material agencies, albeit through a variety of different conceptual frameworks proffered by different theoreticians. As much as some may object, this is just as much the case for naturalism.

St. Paul’s description of idolatry is equally applicable to the luminaries of Enlightenment thought and all of its ideational progenies. Radical empiricist and Enlightenment theoretician David Hume admits as much in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:

It were better, never to look beyond the present material world. By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that divinity, the better. (94)

Read the rest of this article at -  http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2014/08/01/contingent-divinity-the-golden-calf-of-the-universe/

Christians Are Being Slaughtered By Islamic Terrorists … But Sadly, the U.S. Is Supporting the Terrorists

by WashingtonsBlog

Christians Are Being Persecuted By Islamic Terrorists

Christians are being persecuted by Islamic terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

The “ISIS” Islamic terrorists have literally CRUCIFIED people in Iraq recently, and have marked the houses of Christians … presumably for execution.

They have told Christians in Mosel, “convert to Islam or die“. They have pulled down crosses at churches in Iraq.   Thousands of residents of Iraq’s biggest Christian town have been forced to flee their homes as the ISIS killers overran their town and said: “leave, convert or die“.

The ISIS terrorists are not only beheading adult Christians, but they are systematically beheading CHILDREN.

In Syria, rebels fighting against the Syrian government told Christians, “Either you convert to Islam or you will be beheaded.”   Syrian rebels slit the throat of Christian man who refused to convert to Islam, taunting his fiance by yelling: “Jesus didn’t come to save him!”  And – like the Islamic terrorists in Iraq – they’ve  CRUCIFIED Christians.

A former Syrian Jihadi says the rebels have a “9/11 ideology”.  Indeed, they’re literally singing Bin Laden’s praises and celebrating the 9/11 attack:

 

It’s obvious that the Islamic terrorists are threatening Christians. And they’re threatening Jews as well.

Our Government Is BACKING Islamic Terrorists

But did you know that irrefutable proof shows that our government is backing Islamic terrorists?
ABC News reports:

The Sunni rebels [inside Syria] are supported by the Islamist rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, as well as the U.S., France, Britain and others.

So the U.S. is directly supporting the terrorists … and close U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey France and Britain are also supporting them.

Read more of this article at - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/fellow-christian-brothers-sisters-know-government-supporting-islamic-terrorists.html

The Elite's Plan To Storm The Heavens And Become Gods: Foreseen By Orwell

By DANIEL TAYLOR
“Dreams of the far future destiny of man were dragging up from its shallow and unquiet grave the old dream of man as god…” – C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 1945

 

In 1945, George Orwell, famous for his stunningly accurate portrayal of a future police state in 1984, commented on prominent author C. S. Lewis’ book That Hideous Strength. Hideous Strength revolves around the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (NICE) and the organization’s plot to seize control of all life. Orwell’s commentary was published in the Manchester Evening News in 1945 with the headline “THE SCIENTISTS TAKE OVER.” Orwell wrote,

“All superfluous life is to be wiped out, all natural forces tamed, the common people are to be used as slaves and vivisection subjects by the ruling caste of scientists, who even see their way to conferring immortal life upon themselves. Man, in short, is to storm the heavens and overthrow the gods, or even to become a god himself.
There is nothing outrageously improbable in such a conspiracy. Indeed, at a moment when a single atomic bomb – of a type already pronounced “obsolete” – has just blown probably three hundred thousand people to fragments, it sounds all too topical. Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters, and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realisable.”

Do we live in an age when these dreams of power could become a reality? Lewis and Orwell have been proven very accurate in their portrayals of the future 70 years ago. Much of the momentum for the scientific developments that would create these formerly fantastical technologies began in the lifetimes of both Lewis and Orwell. They witnessed the rise of the science of molecular biology, initiated by the Rockefeller Foundation and other tax-exempt foundations who were interested in finding out how the human body operates, with an eye toward better controlling society. The eugenics and social control paradigms that sprung from this foundation sparked scientific revolution in the early 20th century are still in play today among the intelligentsia of western society.

Read the rest of this article at - http://www.oldthinkernews.com/2014/08/10/the-road-to-singularity-potential-annihilation-utopian-visions-will-liberty-prevail/

Farmer may hold clue to 36-year Frederick Valentich plane mystery

One of the most baffling cases in UFO lore, the Valentich disappearance is full of information, recordings, details, and the terrifying truth that the young pilot simply vanished, never to be seen again.  The photo below is tied to the disappearance.

Aaron Langmaid
Herald Sun, Australia

This photograph was taken off Cape Otway 20 minutes before pilot Frederick Valentich went missing. Picture: Supplied Source: News Limited

INVESTIGATORS have shed new light on one of ­Australia’s greatest aviation mysteries.

Almost 36 years to the month that Victorian pilot Fred Valentich vanished without a trace, an independent researcher says there is evidence suggesting the 20-year-old’s Cessna was spotted in the sky over South Australia — attached to a UFO.

The Victorian UFO ­Action group wants help to identify a farmer near Adelaide who reportedly ­witnessed the 30m craft hovering over his property the morning after Mr Valentich went missing.
It is claimed the Cessna was stuck to the side of the craft, leaking oil. The farmer even scratched the plane’s registration number on to his tractor but never came forward with the information because he was ridiculed by the few friends he told.

The theory has sparked furious debate as the nation’s leading UFO investigators prepare for a national conference in Melbourne next month.

Frederick Valentich. Source: Supplied

Lead investigator George Simpson, one of the last people to see the plane in the sky, says the farmer, if still alive, might have information to solve the mystery.

He conceded there was no proof, but said it was the best new lead for a case that had intrigued Australians for decades. “It’s easy for some to dismiss, but there are corroborating stories confirming that there was a UFO near Adelaide at the time,” Mr Simpson said.

Mr Valentich had been on a routine cargo flight to King Island in October 1978 when he disappeared.
In his last conversation with air traffic control, he ­reported an object hovering in front of him and said it was “not an aircraft’’. It was the last thing Mr Valentich said before a strange metallic clicking sound was heard and the transmission stopped.

Extensive searches failed to find any trace of the plane or the pilot.

Read the rest of this article at - http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/farmer-may-hold-ufo-clue-to-36year-valentich-plane-mystery/story-fni0fiyv-1227019116651?nk=fd00dcf2d636fb39ef77d132c81dbe5f

The Real First World War

The United States endless pursuit of wars should not come as a surprise, as our political and military leaders are simply following in the steps of their forefathers...

Bhaskar Menon
Global Research       

Torture has never gone out of fashion it seems

    

Europe's "Great War" of 1914-1918 does not deserve to be called the "First World War." That title should go to the first real global conflict, Europe's geocidal invasion of other regions that began in the final decade of the 15th Century. European historians have sought to downplay the ferocity, extent and significance of that earlier conflict by treating it as a diffuse historical process, but if we who were victims accept that view it disables our understanding of everything that has happened since then.

As few Indians are likely to know much about what actually happened, let me recount some salient points.

A decade after Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492, its indigenous people were extinct. They had done nothing to deserve that fate; Columbus in a letter to his royal sponsors in Spain said they were "loving, uncovetous people," with "good features and beautiful eyes," who "neither carried weapons nor understood the use of such things." Yet many were tortured to death in a vain attempt to get them to reveal non-existent hoards of gold and others worked to death or driven to suicide. Such gratuitous violence continued as Europeans extended their domains in the "New World."

Many of the smaller tribes followed the Arawak of Hispaniola into extinction while the populations of larger groups fell by as much as 85 percent, victims not only of indiscriminate violence but of induced famines and new diseases to which they had no immunity. The spread of smallpox through blankets distributed free to Native Americans and the wanton slaughter of the great herds of bison on which the "Plains Indians" depended for food, clothing and shelter were the most outrageous cases of genocide. Estimates of the numbers killed range up to 100 million.

In South America, the Conquistadores engaged in a zestful mass murder that has no equivalent to this day. Bartolomeo de las Casas (1484-1566), a Spaniard who went to the New World for fortune but was driven by the atrocities he witnessed to enter the Church, left a vivid description in Brevissima Relacion de la Destruycion de la Indias (Short Report on the Destruction of the Indies):

"One time the Indians came to meet us, and to receive us with victuals and delicate cheer, and with all entertainment, ten leagues from a great city, and being come at the place they presented us with a great quantity of fish and of bread, and other meat, together with all they could do for us to the uttermost." The Conquistadores put them all to the sword "without any cause whatsoever," more than "three thousand souls, which were set before us, men, women and children," committing "great cruelties that never any man living either have or shall see the like."

"The Christians, with their horses and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practice strange cruelty among them. They penetrated into the country and spared neither children nor the aged, nor pregnant women, nor those in child labor, all of whom they ran through the body and lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many lambs herded in their sheepfold. They made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they opened up his bowels. They tore babes from their mothers' breast by the feet, and dashed their heads against the rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers, laughing and joking ... They spitted the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords. They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in honor and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and burned the Indians alive. They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they burned them. They cut off the hands of all they wished to take alive. They generally killed the lords and nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of stakes, bound them upon them, and made a slow fire beneath: thus the victims gave up the spirit by degrees, emitting cries of despair in their torture."

Casas, writing as the Bishop of Chiapas, estimated that just in the Caribbean his compatriots had killed some 15 million Indians, leaving "destroyed and depopulated" the large islands of Cuba, San Juan [Puerto Rico], and Jamaica, and some 30 smaller islands.

In Australia and New Zealand, the killing was less zestful but it was more comprehensive, and there was no Casas to call attention to what happened. The Anglican Church and British authorities looked the other way as settlers in Australia hunted the Aborigines like animals, poisoned their food and water, raped their women and savaged their children, all in a deliberate campaign to reduce the indigenous population. The Aborigine numbered about 750,000 at the end of the 18th Century and about 30,000 a century later; both figures are estimates for they were not included in Australian censuses until 1971.

Australian policies to "protect" and "assimilate" the Aborigines continued the oppression into the second half of the 20th Century. It inflicted prison terms on adults for "crimes" ranging from "cheeky behavior" to "not working" to "calling the Hygiene Officer a big-eyed bastard." Government officials took infants from their parents and placed them in White families or orphanages. That "adoption" policy openly aimed at eliminating the Aborigines as a cultural group, the legal definition of genocide. In the face of mounting international criticism, the government discontinued the program grudgingly in 1970; it was not until 1997 that it noted the negative impact on the victims and their families.

In New Zealand, a country larger than Britain (103,738 sq mi to 94.526 sq miles), the first British settlers in the mid-1800s found a tribal population said to be around 100,000 - almost certainly an underestimate, for the newcomers were soon engaged in a series of "Maori wars" to expropriate tribal land. By 1896 the number of Maoris was down to 42,000.

In Africa and Asia the death tolls were far larger.

The slave trade out of Africa began with the first Portuguese explorations down the African coast in the 14th century and continued into the 19th. By the time it ended, slavers had taken an estimated 25 to 35 million Africans across the Atlantic and killed an equal number during capture and conveyance.

Within Africa too, wherever Europeans settled, they displaced and often enslaved the local population. The "Orange Free State" established by Belgium's King Leopold II in the Congo reduced the native population from an estimated 20 million to 8 million. Under the pretext of "civilizing the natives," his regime established a reign of terror, mandating wild rubber collection quotas for each village and punishing unmet targets by lopping off the arms of workers. Supervisors were required to bring in baskets of limbs to show they were implementing policy rigorously.

In Namibia, the Germans massacred the Herero. In Kenya, the British ran the Kikuyu off the best agricultural land in the country, pushing over a million people into lasting poverty. A movement to reclaim the land in the 1950s resulted in a second displacement as the colonial regime hunted down, tortured and killed over 100,000 "Mau Mau terrorists."

Read the rest of this article at - http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-first-world-war/5395497

Discerning The Demonic: Brainwashed Society, Ebola, Stripped Family Values, Fire Challenge

Ministry Site http://www.taliforgod.com FB http://www.facebook.com/nephtali1981c... & http://www.facebook.com/brothernephtali ROKU http://www.roku.com/channels/#!detail...

What is Transhumanism? - Doug Hamp

http://facelikethesun.com

What is Transhumanism?

These are edits from the interview with Douglas Hamp for AGE OF DECEIT 2: Alchemy and the Rise of the Beast Image https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfRzU...

In this video, Doug talks about the movement of Transhumanism and what it means.

Visit http://douglashamp.com to check out his work.

War On Christian Education About To Get Ugly

By Michael K. Lake, Th.D., D.R.E.

SPRINGFIELD – In a recent article, Michael Zigarelli (of the Christian Post) sounded an alarm that was heard around the Christian world.  The headline read, “The End of Christian Education.”  In this article, Michael shared: 

                                                                                                                                                                               

President Obama recently signed an executive order making it illegal for federal contractors to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees. Sounds innocuous enough, but an unintended consequence may be the closing of Christian colleges and schools. 

                                                                                                                    

The order doesn't directly affect private education, but its unprecedented refusal to exempt religious organizations surely will. Without this exemption the President has signaled to regulators that it's open season on faith-based institutions. 

                                                                                                                    

Here's one possible future: The order says if you want federal money you must hire gays. The US Department of Education decides that this applies to federal financial aid as well. Students are then prohibited from using their aid at colleges that do not hire gays. Christian colleges go out of business. 

                                                                                                                    

Here's another future: With the exemption gone, accrediting bodies take the cue and insist that all colleges include "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" in their non-discrimination policies, revoking accreditation for those faith-based schools that won't genuflect. Students are prohibited from using their aid at non-accredited colleges. Christian colleges go out of business.  [i] 

                                                                                                                    

What Mr. Zigarelli may not realize is that his revelation identifies one facet of the Elite’s stratagem to end most Christian education in this nation.  The tacit war of the Elite has been going on since the 1940’s.

 

My Own Background and Perspective on This Tacit War 

                                                                                                                    

Early on in my ministerial preparation, I was fortunate to have a mentor named, Dr. Thomas McLachlan (or Dr. Mac, as we all affectionately called him).  Dr. Mac had completed both his Master of Divinity and Doctor of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, and he was a retired U.S. Navy Chaplain.  During his long career, he had served on a committee with a regional accrediting association.  Those days on the committee were eye-opening for him.   He discovered that there were many anti-Christian agendas at play within the government and the regional accrediting association system. 

                                                                                                                    

Dr. Mac saw the gifting of God on my life for education.  While others were being trained for the pastorate in seminary, I was being trained to become an educator.  It was during our many discussions that he revealed to me that Department of Education approved accreditation and the Guaranteed Student Loan Program would eventually become instruments in the hands of the ungodly to first contaminate Christian education, and then to eventually close it down. 

                                                                                                                    

His influence on my life and the concepts he taught me about Christian education would forever alter how I developed the educational ministry that God was placing in my heart.  I created an educational system that was not embedded in the Elite’s system of educational control - no governmental accreditation and no participation in the Guaranteed Student Loan Program.   With the choke hold that the Elite maintain on education in America, it seemed like an impossible plan.  Yet, I was determined not to compromise in the vision and its execution for the Kingdom of God.

 

The Accreditation Pitfalls 

                                                                                                                    

Accreditation in America was originally nongovernmental by design.  Educational expert, Dr. H.R. Kells (from Rutgers University) wrote in his book, Self-Study Processes:  A Guide for Postsecondary and Similar Service-Oriented Institutions and Programs, a definition of accreditation: 

                                                                                                                                                                               

Accreditation is a voluntary process conducted by peers via nongovernmental agencies to accomplish at least two things – to attempt on a periodic basis to hold one another accountable to achieve stated, appropriate institutional or program goals; and to access the extent to which the institution or program meets established standards.[ii] 

                                                                                                                    

At one time, Dr. Kells’ book was required for any postsecondary school seeking accreditation.  It is unfortunate that the American Council on Education did not continue his work after the 3^rd edition. 

                                                                                                                                                                               

Originally, the institutions themselves established accrediting associations and sought to keep the long arm of the government out of the process.  Political agendas spread like the tentacles of a cancer into anything that is connected to government.   The Department of Education (USDOE) was established in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. [iii]  By 1958, its role had dramatically changed.  After World War II, the USDOE began overseeing the GI Bill.  Then came Title IV funding or the Guaranteed Student Loan Program.  With the millions of dollars that came with these programs, the influence of the USDOE and its approved accrediting system (regional accreditation) began to hold a powerful sway over all educational institutions in the United States.  A system that was perfect for the Elite to begin controlling and using for their own agenda. 

                                                                                                                    

Dr. Kells warns about the misuse of accreditation: 

                                                                                                                                                                               

Some of the uses of accreditation at times may not correspond well with the basic nature of the process.  An example, as explained earlier, is its use to transfer credit.  Some uses have made the realization of accreditation’s basic purposes more difficult.  Some people believe that the requirement that institutions be accredited in order to apply for federal funds, and furthermore the use of accrediting to enforce social policy, are examples of this misuse.  At times the uses may be expressions of raw political leverage unrelated to program quality or reasonable needs in light of circumstances.  That is, accreditation can be erroneously cited to promote or discourage change in a given setting.  [iv] 

                                                                                                                                                                               

This governmental or political leverage is a reality in many postsecondary Christian institutions today.   Many of our leading Christian universities, Bible colleges and seminaries have annual budgets that range from five to one hundred million dollars or more a year.  Meeting those budgets is dependent upon governmental accreditation and the Guaranteed Student Loan Program.  Compromise with the ever-increasing, anti-Christian agenda has become a game of survival for most Christian schools of higher learning.

 

Read the rest of this article at - http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lake.htm

St. Lawrence Grilled by Greedy Official

Will you go to Heaven and leave me behind?" Lawrence, one of the seven deacons of Rome, was genuinely upset. Was there some fault in him that God would send the rest of the church leaders to death but spare him?

Sixtus II, Bishop of Rome (pope) in the year 258, comforted Lawrence. God was keeping him back to undergo an even greater ordeal, said the bishop. "Be comforted, you will follow me in three days," he is supposed to have predicted.

The Roman emperor, Valerian, had ordered the death of all Rome's bishops, priests and deacons. The prefect (Roman magistrate) who carried out the order, however, knew that, as deacon, Lawrence had charge of the church's money. "I'll let you go free," he promised, "if you will turn the money over to me."

According to the oldest traditions we have, Lawrence agreed to bring the church's treasures to the prefect. "But it will take me a few days," he said. "The church is very rich."

Released to carry out his promise, Lawrence distributed the church's goods among the poor. He then gathered the city's lame, its blind, and its beggars. On the third day he appeared before the prefect. "Come out and see the wondrous riches of God," he said.

"What is the meaning of this?" raged the prefect.

Lawrence explained that these poor people would some day have new bodies and live forever in Heaven. The treasure of the Holy Spirit was hidden in them as if in jars of clay.

Thwarted from getting his gold and believing that he would be the laughing stock of Rome, the prefect ordered a slow death for Lawrence. On this day, August 10, 258, Lawrence was tortured by having his arms dislocated and then was laid upon a grill and slowly roasted to death. During his ordeal, he is said to have suggested his killers turn him over, remarking that he was "done" on the one side. He was so calm that the pagans who looked on were greatly impressed.

That is how the legends tell the story, but the facts are not easy to establish. What is certain is that Lawrence was martyred on this day. A hundred years later his story was so well known that the famous Bishop Ambrose of Milan wrote about him and so did others. By then, emperor Constantine had long since built a chapel in his memory. Later popes built other memorials and these became Rome's Church of San Lorenzo.

Bibliography:

1. Ambrose. "On the Duties of the Clergy," translated by the Rev. H. De Romestin. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 10. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
2. Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints.
3. Kirsch, J.P. "St. Lawrence." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
4. "Laurence, St." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
5. "Lawrence." http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintl02.htm
6. Various encyclopedia and internet articles, such as "St. Lawence, Deacon and Martyr." http://www.deacons.net/Deacons_before_us/ lawrence.html

Delivered from Fear

       Psalm 34:4–5

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.    NIV

     That’s the testimony of personal experience. It’s not theory, it’s not theology, it’s not even just a creed. It’s the testimony of a man who was in a terribly difficult and dangerous situation. He turned to the Lord, he sought the Lord in prayer and his testimony is, “The Lord answered me and delivered me from all my fears.”

     Are you oppressed with fear? I suppose the majority of people in our contemporary culture have some kind of fear that gnaws at them, that takes away their peace. Why not try David’s remedy? Why not seek the Lord, pray to Him, and ask Him to deliver you from all your fears?

     Then David goes on to say, “Those who look to Him [the Lord] are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame.” There’s a deep principle there – that whether we look to the light or the dark we will reflect what we are looking at. If we look to the darkness we’ll be somber and dark, but if we look upwards to the Lord, who is the light, our faces will become radiant with the Lord’s light. And the Scripture says, “We’ll never be ashamed, we’ll never be disappointed. The Lord will never let us down.”

     Why don’t you try that? Why don’t you call to the Lord, ask Him to deliver you and look to Him so that your face may be radiant?
 

—Derek Prince