One of the favorite things I learned while in an Eastern Orthodox Christian monastery was the term "fool for Christ." These "fools" were simply, and often simple, spiritual people who had truly found their connection to God, to a higher order. It changed their lives, but in doing so it often cost their lives. The "fools" would confront what they perceived as non-Christian behavior in even the powerful, both within the church and the State. And for doing so, were often executed or persecuted for their efforts. Many of the Orthodox saints were "fools for Christ"

I CAN'T FIND A BETTER WAY TO MEASURE HOW GAY A SOCIETY IS
THAN TO SEE OR MEASURE HOW MUCH DETERRENT THEIR OWN LEADERS FEEL THEY NEED TO PREVENT GAY SEX FROM BREAKING OUT ON THE CAPITAL STEPS

If churches must proselytize I wish that they would do it on their own dollar and not at the expense of the American taxpayer. While evangelicals fight the "War on Science" at home, they are giving out lifesaving medications in the name of Jesus abroad.

The Boston Globe just published the first part of an excellent series on the use of faith based programs as a part of foreign policy under the Bush administration. The details are shocking

PLHeart wrote a recent diary entitled, "Why I Won't Become a Muslim."  The diary, unfortunately, is filled with a number of errors and misperceptions about Islam and Muslims; however, I'm not writing today to call PLHeart out.  More than enough people have already done that, and it appears that PLHeart him or herself accepts that his or her diary could have been better written.

   There is of course increasing pressure on Iran by the US over alleged concern about Iran's purported nuclear development program, which Iran maintains is peaceful for energy development and the US professes concern over military development. The curious development to follow in this saga is how an evangelical missionary group finds itself caught up in the nuclear politics in the struggles between the nation-states.
    The group in question is The New Tribes Mission, of Sanford, Florida, a non-profit which aims to bring the Christian evangelical message to all 3,000 or so indigeneous tribes in the world (Continued).
   

We have had Akha language information and Akha Language Books on the Rosetta project website for some time.

http://www.rosettaproject.org

A couple of weeks ago we were updating our links and noted that someone had put the Bible book of Genesis up on line, had a link to it.

Not a problem for us, we use a different script but the more work on a language the better.

Well other people didn't see it that way.
We checked today and the Rosetta Project had deleted our entire account, Akha language books and all.

I grew up in a time when Wycliffe was an outfit that helped print and distribute Bibles. Education is useful, the Bible is literature, and one thought it was good. That it was about seeking a better life, a better way, an ideal to guide one's mind, feet and hands, to guard one's tongue. I grew up learning that you hope, that you try for the best, that you hope not only for yourself but for others. That if you are to help someone, it should not take a rocket scientist to tell you that you don't destroy them first.

But those were the days before I learned what SIL was often doing in South America and other places, their close connections to the CIA.

I grew up learning that if you damage something, you try to fix it and learn from it or take more of your life repairing things that maybe you didn't even break, but that other people broke, to repair the breach.

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