Beacon2Light

First it was Tunisia. Mostly working-class young men protested the government's corruption, repression and high unemployment. Tunisian security forces killed several dozen protesters. Authoritarian President Zine el Abidine ben Ali is believed to have fled to Saudi Arabia and a new government is being formed. In Egypt, Facebook and Twitter appear to be major factors in galvanizing a similar revolt. Even the former U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, has stated his plans to join the protesters on the street. Egyptian police and security forces have fought the protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons. Demanding an end to the three decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak, the resistance is complaining about runaway inflation, lack of jobs, and the violent lack of tolerance for dissenting opinions against government actions. In less than 24 hours, 55,000 responded in support of a page on Facebook announcing Friday's protest! And these two countri...

I am sure you have heard the story of Carlina White. 23 years ago, she was kidnapped from a Harlem hospital where she was taken due to a fever. Her parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, were understandably devastated at the loss of their nine day old baby girl. How could someone just come along and snatch someone's baby? That someone was Ann Pettway. After changing Carlina's name to Nejdra Nance, Ann Pettway raised-the child as her own 45 miles away in Bridgeport, Connecticut then in a community in the Atlanta area. For twenty-three years she got away with it. However, a resourceful person would discover the truth and reunite her with her biological parents. That resourceful person was Carlina White. She became suspicious when she didn't look like anyone in Pettway's family and all the more so after she was unable to get a birth certificate or social security number. She often searched the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website. She struck ...

Passions are running high in the aftermath of the horrible massacre of innocents in Arizona. However, there are points upon which, I think, we can all agree. Whether we are pro-gun or pro-gun control or somewhere in between; Republican or Democrat; liberal, conservative or libertarian; I think we can find agreement on these points: 1) What happened is just plain evil 2) The young man, if found guilty upon the evidence, is responsible for his actions (okay, maybe those on the liberal side would say not if he is mentally ill, but most Americans lay the blame squarely on his shoulders). 3) He should never have been able to get any weapon above that of a squirt gun 4) Somehow the system failed to diagnose him, treat him and track him 5) Whatever their politics, no one who was shot that day deserved what they got but they do deserve our compassion and prayers Let me know what you think

Many of us are guilty of it. We don't even realize the consequences. How often we have trivialized the fear of the LORD. He is awesome we say; majestic, full of splendor and we should be awed by His presence. That is as far as we go. We dare go no further. One of the consequences of such a take on the fear of the LORD is that we too casually enter His holy presence. He's our Heavenly Bud, Our Big Brother, our Tolerant Father. We may not use these words but they adequately express our attitude to the LORD of Hosts. When we talk of the fear of the LORD, we often forget about Nadab and Abihu and the fire from heaven that devoured them (Leviticus 10). Our minds don't revisit the Spirit's reaction to Ananias and Sapphira's lying spirit and their judgment in Acts 6, a New Testament example of God's wrath on sin. Even much of Revelation escapes our notice, yet all of these provide a fierce context to that which we do focus and it represents the black vel...

Several years ago, after talking to a Haitian minister I know and had the privilege of helping begin a ministry here in the USA, I discovered the problem of rape in Haiti. Now, post-earthquake Haiti is experiencing an epidemic of sexual assaults on their most vulnerable citizenry, young girls and women clustered together in camps. The Breitbart story (you can access by clicking on the title of this post) shows the prevelance of these attacks and why but, like Amnesty states, the real toll is much higher. Brother Ansy, my Haitian pastor friend who has been back to Haiti a few times since the earthquake, tells me that 80% of girls from about 12 and up have been raped in the country. Another startling fact is the amount of girls and women who have prostituted themselves in order to provide for their basic needs. Haiti has recently experienced a cholera outbreak and a disputed presidential election that may lead to a civil war. Real evil exists in Haiti. Perhaps, we can help bes...

Moving, it's a necessity of life. The pure logistics of doing so is a nightmare in itself. All of the organizing, quick decision-making, and dealing with, "No, not that!" and other sundry reactions is enough to make one's head spin. There is even the let's do this while a certain family member is not present/looking, who isn't even a member of this household, mind you. Fortunately, for me, most of my children are at a much more reasonable age. While there are some treasures, we were able to move out 8 bags of mostly toys. You read right, 8 bags just this morning. So how does one accumulate so much? Think dollar stores. Think McDonald's happy meals stretched out over more than a decade with four children. Think well-meaning relatives who think that more is more and love to bury the children underneath them all every birthday and Christmas. And then there's me. Buying books brand new, at discounts, at yard sales, online and at bookstor...

Harold has done it again. He is predicting the end of the world. On Fallacy Radio's website (oh, did I spell that wrong?), Mr. Camping engages in more of his favorite activity: Scripture-Twisting. The following headline appears (cue ominous music): THE END OF THE WORLD IS ALMOST HERE! HOLY GOD WILL BRING JUDGMENT DAY ON MAY 21, 2011. Never mind that the Bible says that no one knows the day nor the hour. Such truth doesn't stop this self-taught Bible scholar. If only I could get people who listen to family radio for the music (can I throw up now?) to see that Camping and Family Radio are inseparable. To listen to the music is to support the man and his mission: to build a modern day Tower of Babel out of Family Radio and to empty our churches of undiscerning but sincere congregants. Using a very questionable formula that applies the "seven days" until judgment that God had warned Noah concerning to the 2 Peter 3:8 passage of "one day is as a thousand...