Saints is relative

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (26.8.1919-5.9.1997); at a pro-life meeting in 1986 in Bonn, Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the world of man we can find lots of people who are venerated. Many are called saints and are worshipped as very import people who could bring us closer to God. But is that reallly so.

Are the many idols which even get churches made for them, like Elvis Presley, Christopher Columbus, Cervantes and many others, really such holy figures?

In 2003 the Catholic Church beatified Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu who was born in albania and spend most of her life in India as Mother Teresa. She made niceties with right-wing Haitian Dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and accepted money from him which had been stolen from Haiti’s poor. Duvalier was known for stealing millions from Haiti’s poor so that he could maintain his own lavish lifestyle and profited from drug trafficking and selling the body parts of deceased Haitians.

also questions are posed by the way she gave treatment and medical care to the sick and poor in her hospices which were observed to be wholly unsanitary. Of some of them it is said they were wholly insufficient, and had inadequate crucial pain management for the dying. Her hospices were found to not even distinguish between terminally ill patients and those who could be cured. Consequently, patients with curable illness died from the poor, unsanitary treatment they received from Mother Teresa’s facilities.

Read more about it:

10 Secrets The Catholic Church Hopes You’ve Forgotten

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Mennonite’s first same-sex wedding

In December last year two Mennonite ministers in Canada have officiated the denomination’s first same-sex “wedding,” holding the service publicly in a “church” building in Saskatchewan.
Anita Retzlaff and Patrick Preheim of Nutana Park Mennonite Church officiated the ceremony for Craig Friesen and Matt Weins on Dec. 31, which was held at Osler Mennonite, the childhood congregation of Friesen.

“For us, a wedding is supposed to be a celebration of our commitment to each other in front of our faith communities, our other communities and God,”

 Friesen told CBC News.

 “It wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t get married in the Mennonite church.”

I do wonder if the change in their denomination also has something to do with their interpretation of love for each other? They namely do have a new series  “Abounding in Love,” which they call an engaging journey through the book of the bible, First Thessalonians.
Though in it they see Paul modelling Jesus’ passionate and compassionate heart for those he is mentoring. There are many ways they analyse this passage. 

>

Canadian Mennonites Officiate First Same-Sex ‘Wedding’

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Miniature ofrom Folio 8r of the Syriac Bible of Paris shows Moses before Pharaoh. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Who is on the Lord’s side?”

(February 20)

Moses’ challenge rang out, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” After all the dramatic experiences and evidence of God’s power as they escaped from slavery in Egypt and then witnessed the destruction of the Egyptian army that followed them – and then experience the dramatic physical happenings as they encamped before the mountain of God at Sinai, the majority of the people still had not perceived the special and wonderful nature of the one true God they were privileged to know in such a way that they were becoming “his people”.

He was asking them to have a relationship with him, but the great majority of them failed. When Moses was not physically present for 40 days they reverted to human ways of thinking and doing; they looked for a physical representation of God – finding it more satisfying to worship a representation of something he had made – than the Creator himself.

Moses is mortified – he becomes so greatly distressed that he breaks the stone tablets God engraved when he was in his presence on the top of the mountain. He comes down the mountain and his challenge rings out, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Wonderfully the Levites responded to the challenge and stood with Moses – yet, among them, as we will soon read, there was to arise the experience of being unable to serve God properly. The Lord says to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book” (verse 33).

This is the first time we learn that God has a “book”! There are references to God’s book in different parts of Scripture which climax near the end of the last book in the Bible when, what is called “the book of life” (Revelation 20:12) is opened and “if anyone’s name is not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (verse 15). Obviously this lake symbolizes the trashing of all those who have had the opportunity to be “on the Lord’s side”, but decide to serve themselves rather than God and His Son. Are you on the Lord’s side?

- Christadelphian Today's thought

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Hotbed of Satanism or the Satanic capital of Britain

The Sigil of Baphomet: emblem of the Church of Satan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the most recent census, 17 people in Bolsover wrote Satanism as their religion.
This suggested it had the highest concentration of Satanists in England and Wales.
But the Church of Satan believes many people had lied on their census forms because they "think it is funny".

> Read: Bolsover 'hotbed of Satanism' claims dismissed

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American religious right will be quaking in their boots

Pie chart of religions of African Americans (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The religious right will be quaking in their boots, or perhaps saying that atheists are lying, when they read a new report (PDF) from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life. A third of Millennials, particularly the under 30 group, are declaring themselves religiously unaffiliated. That is an unprecedented number, and it is on the rise. Right now, according to Pew, 46,000,000 Americans are non-religious. Now, more than ever, America is on the road to eradicating religion. Perhaps the rabidly religious know this, too, which could be why there has been so much gnashing of teeth regarding “sins” such as abortion and marriage equality lately.

writes  Shannon Barber in

Pew Research Report: A Third Of Millienials Have No Religion

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