An interesting study from Kansas State University, as reported at the Oregonian:
Christian employees who talk about their religious beliefs at work are happier on the job than those who keep quiet…
The reasoning may surprise you: Read more
Late in 2014 Michael “Mikey” Weinstein filed his required IRS documentation for 2013 — and it revealed he had a banner year. For the first time, his Military Religious Freedom Foundation topped $700,000 in total income.
MRFF Total Revenue: $701,535
For his part, Mikey Weinstein gave himself a nice raise (literally, since he says he votes on his own pay package), for his highest take home pay ever from the “charity” he founded:
Weinstein compensation: $299,634
In other words, 42.7% of every “charitably donated dollar” the MRFF brought in during 2013 went to Mikey Weinstein’s compensation. That’s slightly less than the 46.8% he took the year prior.
To be “fair,” Weinstein also claimed an increase in work hours, saying he puts in 105 hours a week. That’s up from 80 hours a week the year prior, and works out to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, every single week. That’s what Weinstein filed; given the low output of the MRFF, it is difficult to say what he actually does for 105 hours a week. (It is also unclear whether Weinstein dissolved his other company, MIBON Consulting, which presumably also takes up a substantial amount of his time to bring in more than $100,000 a year.)
The general breakdown of funding below his paycheck is Read more
Chaplain (Capt) Emil Kapaun was memorialized with a monument at Camp Walker, South Korea, in December.
After decades of efforts, President Obama presented Read more
Update: Dr. Al Mohler makes the same argument as below, saying
We are now witnessing a direct and unavoidable collision between religious liberty with what is rightly defined as erotic liberty — a liberty claimed on the basis of sexual identity and activity. Religious liberty is officially recognized in the Bill of Rights — even in the very first amendment — and the framers of the American order did not claim to have established this right to free religious expression, but to have recognized it as a pre-existent right basic to citizenship.
Erotic liberty is new on the scene, but it is central to the moral project of modernity — a project that asserts erotic liberty, which the framers never imagined, as an even more fundamental liberty than freedom of religion.
FoxNews broke the story of Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, who was recently fired after he wrote a book on Biblical morality for his men’s group at church — which had a half-page on homosexuality some activists found offensive.
Despite the fact only the expression of his beliefs got him fired, Atlanta council member Alex Wan — who is homosexual — said he
support[ed] Cochran’s termination and said it “sends a strong message to employees about how much we value diversity and how we adhere to a non-discriminatory environment.”
So, a person who was not discriminating against anyone was discriminated against in order to provide a non-discriminatory environment? One wonders if councilman Wan knows what the word “discrimination” really means.
Georgia Equality, a homosexual activist group, also Read more
As reported at Christianity Today, Open Doors’ World Watch List details
the top 50 countries “where Christians face the most persecution,” aiming to create “effective anger” on believers’ behalf.
Alongside North Korea, Syria, and Iran are two notables: Read more
Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has demanded (PDF) an immediate retraction of Mark Stricherz’s article, claiming Stricherz
stated, or quite deliberately inferred that Mr. Weinstein did not work in the Reagan White House, that the examples of anti-Semitic emails…were somehow fabricated and that his salary with the Foundation has somehow been set in contravention of appropriate legal guidelines.
Weinstein’s argument falls flat right out of the gate.
First, Stricherz didn’t state or infer Weinstein didn’t work at the White House. He examined the strength of Weinstein’s own claims about what he did at the White House, citing a former legal counsel in the White House who said Read more
Mark Stricherz at aleteia (tagline: “Seekers of the Truth”) wrote a lengthy exposé on Michael “Mikey” Weinstein and his self-founded charity, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, entitled “Meet “Mikey” Weinstein, the Questionable Critic of the Pentagon’s Religious Policy.” (It was repeated at Newsmax as “Man Leads Effort to Scrub God From Military.”) While some of the article is a mere statement of Weinstein’s positions or status, Stricherz does an excellent job of revealing Weinstein’s reliance on hyperbole and showmanship (even Weinstein’s wife admits he goes “overboard“) — something that undermines Weinstein’s credibility in a meaningful way.
For example, Stricherz starts off with Weinstein’s opening statement to November’s congressional hearing, in which
Weinstein made an opening statement in the familiar manner of those who testify before Congress.
It was a fairly droll narration of a prepared statement. But that’s not how Weinstein portrayed it later [emphasis added]: Read more
Chaplain (Major) Alfred Grondski is currently serving troops in Liberia in support of Operation United Assistance (the anti-Ebola “military operation”). Chaplain Grondski notes that troops are often closer in faith while deployed than at home:
I minister closely with people I work with…That usually doesn’t happen back in the states like it is here, because in garrison a lot of the Soldiers go to their home church; there isn’t a home church here. This gives us an opportunity to come together as a Family and worship.
He also made an interesting obersvation about the host Liberians:
I see smiles on their faces, lots of places of worship – their spiritual morale is very high.