Ryan: "Simply put, I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government"
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What Does Catholic Social Teaching Have to Do with the Presidential Race?
“The preferential option for the poor means have an economy that is growing and have an economy that is wired, so that people who are in pockets of poverty that have never seen growth and economic opportunity before get it.”
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The Fellowship of Suffering
Reprinted with permission from Baptist Bulletin July/August 2012. All rights reserved.
Chaplain Stan Beach was not supposed to be here, not climbing up the narrow trail toward Nui Cay Tri Ridge near Vietnam’s Demilitarized Zone.
Four months earlier, the Navy had given him orders to report to the South Pole. It would have been a cold, quiet way to spend 1966, a nice place to wait out the war. But after the chaplain from Cass City, Mich., received his papers, he had petitioned the Navy for a transfer—to Vietnam.
Now he was walking toward another no-name hill in the jungle, a place the Marines called “Mutter’s Ridge” in their radio call-signs. The southern boundary of the DMZ was marked by an east-west line of mountains, Razorbacks, named for crests that might only be 15 yards wide. Tough territory to defend. And the trail, the only way up, was an obvious target.
The Marines pass by a bloody fatigue jacket, then a skull impaled on a stake. Having fought for this real estate before, they were now challenged by reinfiltration. The North Vietnamese Army was somewhere, everywhere, dug in and hiding.
Discussion
"The national Democratic Party's platform committee has endorsed gay marriage for the first time."
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The document says Democrats support “marriage equality” and the “movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples.” The platform is a broad statement of the party’s priorities and next goes to the national convention next month in North Carolina. Story
Discussion
Voyle Glover: "Apparently, they’ve forgotten the lessons of ... the previous pastor"
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Pastors who put churches at risk: Jack Schaap and the First Baptist Church
The church has been victimized. But, I suggest that they bear much of the fault … they’ve forgotten the lessons of their rather recent history which involved closed doors and “alone times” with another woman by the previous pastor
Discussion
“Is Westboro ‘Baptist Church’ a cult? Yes, it is ... Westboro is neither ‘Baptist' nor a ‘church.’”
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Is Westboro “Baptist Church” a cult? Yes, it is
“By definition any group who says ‘We do not exist to lead people to Christ’ or ‘We are the instruments of God’s hate’ is not a church whatever else they may be.”
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