400-408 – Ken Timmerman, contributing editor at newsmax.com/timmerman and author of Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, on Iran, Iraq, and the Middle East. Is Biden leaving tomorrow to meet with the Iranians in Europe? Stay tuned.
413-423 – • Barack Obama (2/5/09) Obama's Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.
(1:10) PO3-1, "[F]ar too often, we have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another - as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance. Wars have been waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of perceived righteousness. There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we're going next - and some subscribe to no faith at all. But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know." Someone explain this to the millions of Muslims working to complete the genocide of the Jews and the annihilation of Israel.
(1:43) PO3-2, "We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to "love thy neighbor as thyself." The Torah commands, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." In Islam, there is a hadith that reads "None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule - the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth. It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to believe, but to do - to give something of ourselves for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world.
(:53) PO3-3, "The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another - or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state. This work is important, because whether it's a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job-training to those who need work, few are closer to what's happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them. We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith."
(1:03) PO3-4, "I'm not naïve. I don't expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish. But I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding. This is my hope. This is my prayer. I believe this good is possible because my faith teaches me that all is possible, but I also believe because of what I have seen and what I have lived."
(1:08) PO3-5, "Prime Minister Blair shared a story of his awakening to his faith, perhaps like him, I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I've ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as I would want done. I didn't become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck - no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose - His purpose."
428-437 – • LAT (2/4/09) White House panel will guide faith-based programs: The 25-member council of religious and secular advisors will reportedly focus renewed attention on poverty.
• ABC News (2/5/09) Obama Names 26-Year-Old Director of Faith-Based Office: White House to Broaden Religious and Community Outreach. His name is Josh Dubois, a former associate pastor at a Pentecostal church in Massachusetts, with a Master's in Public Affairs from Princeton, who ran Obama's religious outreach during the campaign.
443-452 – Carl Moeller, is President/CEO of Open Doors USA (opendoorsusa.org), an affiliate of Open Doors International (founded by Brother Andrew) that supports and strengthens persecuted Christians in 45 countries, through its 20 offices worldwide and more than 350 employees. Open Doors celebrated 50 years of ministry in 2005. They announce the release of their 2009 Watch List.
458-508 – Rob Bernabe, (rob.bernabe@cox.net) 25-year veteran of the financial services industry who grew E*TRADE Mortgage from a start-up to the #3 in the nation, now runs the Mortgage Workshop at Saddleback (saddleback.org). He believes if America ever lived according to biblical principles – the economy would tank! – since we're so dependent upon consumer debt – i.e., greed. He encourages people to: 1) Refinance out of toxic debt NOW! 2) Beware of the false promises of loan modification companies since you can often do it yourself a lot cheaper. 3) How to be a shrewd steward of your mortgage debt: e.g., never buy a payment, and never refinance unless you can reduce the cost of your debt and commit to an accelerated pay down schedule.
512-523 – Rob Bernabe
TH 524 – [2:00] Don Rohde (818) 262-2092. For the past 36 years, Don has been a sales manager at Galpin, the #1 volume Ford dealer in the world for the past 18 consecutive years. Galpin has been family-owned and operated for the past 59 years, and 90% of their business is repeat or referral. Galpin offers Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, Honda, Mazda, Saturn, Volvo, Jaguar, and Aston Martin. Located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley at Roscoe and the 405.
528-538 – Ken Ham, is President and Founder of Answers in Genesis (answersingenesis.org), host of his daily radio program "Answers … with Ken Ham," heard on more than 1,000 stations in America (and dozens more overseas), author of many creationist books and articles, as well as curator of the high-tech Creation Museum near the Cincinnati Airport – which attracted over 400,000 visitors in its first year. We talk about the 150th anniversary this month of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. He's speaking this weekend at the Answers for Darwin conference at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, that starts Friday night at 6:30 p.m., and all day Saturday.
544-554 – Ken Ham,
558-608 – • (1:10) Gore to kids: "Parents try to tell their kids the right thing, you know. Usually. I do. And when our parents generation couldn't answer that question, that's when the laws started to change. There are some things about our world that you know, that older people don't know. What does that mean? Well, in a period of rapid change, the old assumptions just don't work anymore because they're out of date. New knowledge, new understandings are much more widely available sometimes to young people who are in school who aren't weighed down with the old flawed assumptions of the past. Now, don't get me wrong, your parents and relatives know a lot that you can gain from, but in a period of rapid change there are times when new understandings are more apparent to young people."
• Glenn Beck (2/4/09) Glenn Beck - Gore to 12 year olds: 'you know things older people don't know'.
612-623 – • Ekklesia (2/5/09) Tony Blair addresses Obama's first annual National Prayer Breakfast.
(1:05) TB-1, "It is an honour to be here. A particular honour to be with you Mr. President. The world participated in the celebration of your election. Now the hard work begins. And now, also we should be as steadfast for you in the hard work as in the celebration. You don't need cheerleaders but partners; not spectators but supporters. The truest friends are those still around when the going is toughest. We offer you our friendship today. We will work with you to make your Presidency one that shapes our destiny to the credit of America and of the world. Mr. President, we salute you and wish you well."
(1:37) TB-2, "After 10 years as British Prime Minister, I decided to choose something easy. I became involved in the Middle East Peace Process. There are many frustrations – that is evident. There is also one blessing. I spend much of my time in the Holy Land and in the Holy City. The other evening I climbed to the top of Notre Dame in Jerusalem. You look left and see the Garden of Gethsemane. You look right and see where the Last Supper was held. Straight ahead lies Golgotha. In the distance is where King David was crowned and still further where Abraham was laid to rest. And of course in the centre of Jerusalem is the Al Aqsa Mosque, where according to the Qur'an, the Prophet was transported to commune with the prophets of the past. Rich in conflict, it is also sublime in history. The other month in Jericho, I visited the Mount of Temptation. I think they bring all the political leaders there. My guide – a Palestinian – was bemoaning the travails of his nation. Suddenly he stopped, looked heaven wards and said "Moses, Jesus, Mohammed: why did they all have to come here?" It is a good place to reflect on religion: a source of so much inspiration; an excuse for so much evil."
(:37) TB-3, "Today, religion is under attack from without and from within. From within, it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. I am what I am in opposition to you. If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being. From without, religious faith is assailed by an increasingly aggressive secularism, which derides faith as contrary to reason and defines faith by conflict. Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive non-believers come together in unholy alliance.
(:58) TB-4, "And yet, faith will not be so easily cast. For billions of people, faith motivates, galvanizes, compels and inspires, not to exclude but to embrace; not to provoke conflict but to try to do good. This is faith in action. You can see it in countless local communities where those from churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, tend the sick, care for the afflicted, work long hours in bad conditions to bring hope to the despairing and salvation to the lost. You can see it in the arousing of the world's conscience to the plight of Africa. There are a million good deeds done every day by people of faith. These are those for whom, in the parable of the sower, the seed fell on good soil and yielded sixty or a hundredfold.
(:56) TB-5, "What inspires such people? Ritual or doctrine or the finer points of theology? No. I remember my first spiritual awakening. I was ten years old. That day my father – at the young age of 40 – had suffered a serious stroke. His life hung in the balance. My mother, to keep some sense of normality in the crisis, sent me to school. My teacher knelt and prayed with me. Now my father was a militant atheist. Before we prayed, I thought I should confess this. "I'm afraid my father doesn't believe in God". I said. "That doesn't matter" my teacher replied "God believes in him. He loves him without demanding or needing love in return."
(:42) TB-6, "That is what inspires: the unconditional nature of God's love. A promise perpetually kept. A covenant never broken. And in surrendering to God, we become instruments of that love. Rabbi Hillel was once challenged by a pagan, who said: if you can recite the whole of the Torah standing on one leg, I will convert to being a Jew. Rabbi Hillel stood on one leg and said "That which is hateful to you, do it not unto your neighbor. That is the Torah. Everything else is commentary. Go and study it."
(:08) TB-7, "Faith is not discovered in acting according to ritual but acting according to God's will and God's will is love."
(1:43) TB-8, "Examine the impact of globalization. Forget for a moment its rights and wrongs. Just look at its effects. Its characteristic is that it pushes the world together. It is not only an economic force. The consequence is social, even cultural. The global community – "it takes a village" as someone once coined it – is upon us. Into it steps religious faith. If faith becomes the property of extremists, it will originate discord. But if, by contrast, different faiths can reach out to and have knowledge of one another, then instead of being reactionary, religious faith can be a force for progress. The Foundation which bears my name and which I began less than a year ago is dedicated to achieving understanding, action and reconciliation between the different faiths for the common good. It is not about the faith that looks inward; but the faith that resolutely turns us towards each other. Bringing the faith communities together fulfils an objective important to all of us, believers and non-believers. But as someone of faith, this is not enough. I believe restoring religious faith to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future, is itself of the essence. The 21st Century will be poorer in spirit, meaner in ambition, less disciplined in conscience, if it is not under the guardianship of faith in God."
(:43) TB-9, "I do not mean by this to blur the correct distinction between the realms of religious and political authority. In Britain we are especially mindful of this. I recall giving an address to the country at a time of crisis. I wanted to end my words with "God bless the British people". This caused complete consternation. Emergency meetings were convened. The system was aghast. Finally, as I sat trying to defend my words, a senior civil servant said, with utter distain: "Really, Prime Minister, this is not America you know."
(1:43) TB-10, "Neither do I decry the work of humanists, who give gladly of themselves for others and who can often shame the avowedly religious. Those who do God's work are God's people. I only say that there are limits to humanism and beyond those limits God and only God can work. The phrase "fear of God" conjures up the vengeful God of parts of the Old Testament. But "fear of God" means really obedience to God; humility before God; acceptance through God that there is something bigger, better and more important than you. It is that humbling of man's vanity, that stirring of conscience through God's prompting, that recognition of our limitations, that faith alone can bestow. We can perform acts of mercy, but only God can lend them dignity. We can forgive, but only God forgives completely in the full knowledge of our sin. And only through God comes grace; and it is God's grace that is unique. John Newton, who had been that most obnoxious of things, a slave-trader, wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace". "Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear. And Grace, my fears relieved." It is through faith, by the Grace of God, that we have the courage to live as we should and die as we must."
(1:27) TB-11, "When I was Prime Minister I had cause often to reflect on leadership. Courage in leadership is not simply about having the nerve to take difficult decisions or even in doing the right thing since oftentimes God alone knows what the right thing is. It is to be in our natural state – which is one of nagging doubt, imperfect knowledge, and uncertain prediction – and to be prepared nonetheless to put on the mantle of responsibility and to stand up in full view of the world, to step out when others step back, to assume the loneliness of the final decision-maker, not sure of success but unsure of it. And it is in that "not knowing" that the courage lies. And when in that state, our courage fails, our faith can support it, lift it up, keep it from stumbling. As you begin your leadership of this great country, Mr. President, you are fortunate, as is your nation, that you have already shown in your life, courage in abundance. But should it ever be tested, I hope your faith can sustain you. And your family. The public eye is not always the most congenial."
(2:05) TB-12, "I finish where I began: in the Holy Land, at Mount Nebo in Jordan, where Moses gazed on the Promised Land. There is a chapel there, built by pilgrims in the 4th Century. The sermon was preached by an American, who spent his life as an airline pilot and then, after his wife's death, took holy orders. His words are the words of a Christian but they speak to all those of faith, who want God's grace to guide their life. He said this: "While here on earth, we need to make a vital decision ... whether to be mere spectators, or movers and shakers for the Kingdom of God... whether to stay among the curious, or take up a cross. And this means: no standing on the sidelines ... We're either in the game or we're not. I sometimes ask myself the question: If I were to die today, what would my life have stood for... The answer can't be an impulsive one, and we all need to count the cost before we give an answer. Because to be able to say yes to one thing, means to say no to many others. But we must also remember, that the greatest danger is not impulsiveness, but inaction." It is fitting at this extraordinary moment in your country's history that we hear that call to action; and we pray that in acting we do God's work and follow God's will. And by the way, God bless you all."
628-638 – • Politico (2/5/09) Sen. Stabenow wants hearings on radio 'accountability'; talks fairness doctrine.
This morning, radio host Bill Press brought up the recent closing of liberal station Obama 1260 when speaking with Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and talked about whether there needs to be a balance to right-wing talk on the radio dial.
BILL PRESS: Yeah, I mean, look: They have a right to say that. They've got a right to express that. But, they should not be the only voices heard. So, is it time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine?
SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I think it's absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it's called the Fairness Standard, whether it's called something else — I absolutely think it's time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.
BILL PRESS: Can we count on you to push for some hearings in the United States Senate this year, to bring these owners in and hold them accountable?
SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I have already had some discussions with colleagues and, you know, I feel like that's gonna happen. Yep.
Although Obama has been publicly opposed to reinstating the fairness doctrine, conservative radio has talked nonstop about the fear of it returning (or perhaps something like it with another name) while there's a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress.
UPDATE: A commenter points out that Stabenow is married to Tom Athans, a liberal talk radio executive.
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