Gunman Killed after Shooting at NYC Church during Christmas Concert

 

A man was fatally shot in the head by police on the steps of a landmark New York City cathedral Sunday afternoon after he began firing two semiautomatic handguns at the end of a Christmas choral concert, police said.

A detective, a sergeant, and an officer fired 15 rounds after the man started shooting just before 4 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said.

“It is by the grace of God today,” Shea said, that no one besides the gunman was struck.

Witnesses told police the man was yelling “kill me” as he fired, Shea said. The man’s name was withheld pending positive identification.

The man had a lengthy criminal history and was carrying a backpack containing a can of gasoline, rope, wire, tape, knives, and a well-worn Bible, Shea said. The police commissioner called the actions of the officers “heroic.”

The 45-minute concert had just concluded and people were starting to walk away when a series of shots was heard, sending people running down Amsterdam Avenue screaming and diving to the sidewalk.

The gunman was dressed in black with his face obscured by a white baseball cap and a face mask. He held a silver pistol in one hand and a black one in the other as he stepped from behind a stone column at the top of the staircase.

A video posted on social media by one bystander showed officers crouched behind trash cans yelling “drop the gun!” and firing carefully aimed shots at the man for at least a minute and half as he darted in and out from behind a pillar.

Some terrified civilians lay prone at the bottom of the steps, clutching each other during the gunfire. Others cowered behind a lamp post. They ran for safety after the gunman was felled by an officer's shot.

Before the gunfire began, the concert featured members of the cathedral choir standing far apart on the stone steps wearing masks because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It was just beautiful, and then at the end this person started shooting. Everybody is in shock,” a cathedral spokeswoman, Lisa Schubert, told The New York Times. “The shooter could have killed a lot of people. There were hundreds of people here and he shot at least 20 times.”

It wasn’t clear if the gunman was aiming at people or firing in the air.

“It is horrible that our choir’s gift to New York City, a much-needed afternoon of song and unity, was cut short by this shocking act of violence,” cathedral spokeswoman Iva Benson said by email.

The cathedral is one of the world’s largest. Construction began in 1892 and is still incomplete. The church has been connected to many New York luminaries and notable events over its long history. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a trustee. It hosted the memorial services for puppeteer Jim Henson and choreographer Alvin Ailey, and speakers over the years including South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Feeling anxious? Follow the peace

 

I know I’ve been writing about anxiety a lot this year. But my goodness, it feels like I honestly can’t catch a break from it. It feels like the nature of 2020. At the beginning of the year I, like many others, chose a word to define my year, and I truly can’t remember what mine was, but I can most certainly tell you what it has become – anxiety. With a steady, constant flow, I have felt tossed about by fear on many levels. In my entire life I haven’t dealt with as much worry surrounding as many wide-ranging topics as I have during this long, turbulent year. 

Even with weekly therapy sessions, journaling, and regularly making space to process, I still feel like I am trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. 

I keep trying to make this year into something it is not. I have continued to try and keep up with others’ expectations by trying to figure out a way to do it all. I have continued to max myself out in an attempt to be everything everyone else needs me to be: friend, mother, wife, daughter, and employee. All of this at the expense of my most important relationship – self. 

I have stretched myself past my limits to accomplish what I think everyone else needs, and completely lost touch with my mind and body screaming at me to STOP.

Out of a fear of feeling the loss that came with stillness and the ache that comes with saying no, I have ignored and forsaken the invitation to rest in the margin this year extended to me.

Can you relate? Recently God has been pressing an age old truth on my heart: follow the peace.

Things are looking worse here with Covid, not better. That is not me being a pessimist, just a realist. And with that, our fear and anxiety is probably here to stay, at least for a bit longer. I have often wondered how do you find peace in a world that’s not peaceful? Can you find rest in a restless world? 

Maybe we have to stop waiting for circumstances to change, maybe we need to find the peace in the midst of them.

The fatigue I’ve felt around decision making and meeting status-quo this year has left me utterly exhausted and on edge. But, going forward, I’m going to apply this principle of following the peace. Where is peace? What decisions bring peace? Check! Seek those, they are a yes. Which decisions or opportunities bring confusion or a feeling of unsettling? Negative! No thanks, maybe later, but definitely not right now.

What activities bring peace to you? Getting outside for a walk? Calling a close friend or relative? Therapy? Cancelling plans? Saying no? Saying a meaningful yes? Follow the peace those activities or actions bring. And value keeping your peace above all else.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” –John 14:27

A lot of this year is completely out of our control. And if we focus on the control we don’t have, it will completely overwhelm us. But we have a choice, to focus on what we can control. We can control our decision making and how we spend our time. God is inviting us into a place of rest where we follow his peace for us in every decision. And we fully let go of the things in our lives not offering us that place of rest. 

In times as traumatic as these, there is no space for unnecessary burdens and losing touch with ourselves. Today I will take some time to figure out where God is highlighting his peace in my life, and I will cut away at what does not. 

Will you join me?

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Only those who attended church frequently escaped downward mental health trend in 2020

 

According to a Gallup Poll released Monday, those who attend church frequently were the only group of Americans that did not see the state of their mental health decline in 2020.

The results of Gallup’s November Health and Healthcare survey, conducted annually since 2001, reveal that the share of Americans who classify their mental health as “excellent” has reached an all-time low of 34%. The share of Americans who describe their mental health as “excellent/good” has also reached a record low of 76%. Nearly every demographic subgroup saw the state of their mental health decrease from 2019 to 2020.

However, among Americans who attend religious services weekly, 46% classified their mental health as excellent. That figure is an increase from the 42% who saw their mental health as excellent in 2019.

Those who attended church services weekly were also the group of Americans with the highest share of people who rated their mental health as excellent in 2020. Americans who made more than $100,000 a year came in a close second, with 45% describing their mental health as excellent.

This represents a change from 2019, when Americans making $40,000 or more, white Americans, those over the age of 50, Americans who attend church services almost weekly or monthly, Republicans, political independents, married people and men all had higher shares of people who classified their mental health as excellent than the most religious Americans.

In 2019, the share of frequent church attendees who believed that their mental health was excellent was actually identical to the share of Americans who seldom or never attend church services who said the same. The only groups where a lower share of respondents said that they had excellent mental health were women, Democrats, non-white Americans, unmarried people, people younger than 50, and those who made less than $40,000 a year.

The increase in the number of religious Americans who identify their mental health as excellent comes as churches across the country have seen their ability to hold in-person worship services hindered by coronavirus restrictions imposed by the governors of their respective states. Religious Americans have seen some victories in recent weeks, with U.S. Supreme Court rulings striking down worship restrictions in New York and California.

A recent survey conducted by the law firm Becket found that 74% of Generation Z respondents, the youngest group of Americans that have reached adulthood, described their faith as “somewhat important” during the pandemic. In a lawsuit challenging the forced closure of Christian schools in Lucas County, Ohio, attorney Brian Fox pointed to religious schools as a source of students’ “purpose, faith, and abiding hope.”

Meanwhile, the share of Americans who attend religious services “nearly weekly/monthly” or “seldom/never” that reported excellent mental health declined 12% and 13% from 2019 to 2020, respectively. All other groups saw their mental health decline over the past year, with the highest drops in those describing their mental health as “excellent” among Republicans (-15%) and those making $40,000 or more (-12%).

Among seniors, white Americans, women and unmarried people, the share of people who described their mental health as excellent dropped by 10%. All other groups saw single-digit declines in the share of people who saw their mental health as excellent.

“The latest weakening in positive ratings, from a Nov. 5-19 poll, are undoubtedly influenced by the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to profoundly disrupt people’s lives, but may also reflect views of the elections and the state of race relations, both of which were on Americans’ minds this year,” the Gallup survey concluded.

A random sample of 1,018 American adults living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated in the survey, which had a margin of error of +/- 4%.

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Harvard now refers to women as 'birthing people'

 

In a tweet promoting one of its panel discussions, Harvard Medical School referred to women as “birthing people” to be more inclusive of those who identify as nonbinary or transgender. 

In a Nov. 8 tweet, Harvard Medical School’s Postgraduate and Continuing Education proclaimed that “Globally, ethnic minority pregnant and birthing people suffer worse outcomes and experiences during and after pregnancy and childbirth” as it promoted a panel discussion about “Maternal Justice.”

The use of the term “birthing people” to describe women resulted in negative reactions from many commenters. “During slavery black women were referred to as breeders. This experiment to dehumanize women & to deconstruct us into nothing more than holes & body parts for men to use, started with black women. This is regressive and not progressive. Stop perpetuating this nonsense!” one Twitter user wrote.

“Reducing us to ‘birthing people’ is vile but also shows, glaringly, why women are underserved in medicine. Your contempt for us couldn’t be more apparent. We are women, and we will not be swept aside,” said another.

Another Twitter user who describes herself as a feminist responded to the tweet by describing it as “Foul foul foul. Say the word WOMEN!! WOMEN!! This is dehumanizing and sickening.”

In another post in its Twitter thread highlighting the panel, which came in response to the backlash, Harvard acknowledged that “the webinar panelists used the term ‘birthing person’ to include those who identify as non-binary or transgender because not all who give birth identify as ‘women’ or ‘girls.’”

“We understand the reactions to this terminology and in no way meant for it to erase or dehumanize women,” the university said.

Harvard’s embrace of “inclusive” terminology is not a new phenomenon. Many conservatives, including YouTube personality Sydney Watson, have reacted to the push for inclusive gender terminology with disgust for quite a long time.

Earlier this year, Watson posted Motherboard's list of “Suggested (Inclusive) sexual health language” on her Instagram page. 

The list suggests that the phrase “persons who menstruate” be used instead of “female/women,” “persons who produce sperm” instead of “male/men,” “pregnant persons” instead of “pregnant women,” “chest-feeding” instead of “breastfeeding” and “birthing persons” instead of “mother.” Some of those phrases have also become more widespread and have even drawn the ire of self-proclaimed feminists.

Sarcastically responding to an op-ed talking about “people who menstruate,” Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling tweeted: “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” Rowling received intense backlash for the tweet, with critics calling her “transphobic.”

When Healthline published an article with the term ‘vulva owners’ in the headline, Watson responded by saying, “Actually, we prefer to be called women.”

“Isn’t it amazing that women’s rights have progressed SO far that we’re no longer even referred to as ‘women,’ or even ‘females?’ So glad I’m now characterized as a ‘birthing person’ and a ‘vulva owner,’” Watson said in a subsequent tweet.

In a lengthy essay released shortly after she expressed disapproval of the phrase “people who menstruate,” Rowling seemed to agree that the inclusive language is actually dehumanizing to women:

“The ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanizing and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.”

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Preach Christianity's Weird Stuff

 An agnostic historian just offered some interesting advice to Christians who want to be heard in a skeptical culture: “Preach the weird stuff.”

In a recent video interview with Glen Scrivener of Speak Life, Tom Holland, award-winning historian of the ancient world and author of the book Dominion, said that Christians shouldn’t shy away from the things that make the Faith unique. For example, the idea that Jesus of Nazareth is both God and man, said Holland, “sets everything on its head.” In fact, it is the Incarnation that provides what Holland calls Christianity’s “strange singularity.”

Christians, especially in light of modern sensibilities, are tempted to downplay the supernatural dimension of the faith. Yet Holland asserts that Christians should insist on things like angels, demons, and miracles. Not only are these beliefs non-negotiable within historic, confessional Christianity, they are foundational to much of the world’s great art and literature. Christianity’s greatest contributions, the ones that literally transformed the world, as Holland documented in Dominion, are grounded in “the weird stuff” of Christianity.

Even better, these truths have stood the test of time. Perhaps that’s because they’re true.

In the early third century, the church father Tertullian wrote that the death and resurrection of Christ “is entirely credible, because it is unfitting . . . [and] it is certain, because it is impossible.” Tertullian understood that Christianity makes claims that people will find, at best, weird, and, at worst, offensive. And even back then people tried to make Christianity more palatable to contemporary ears. For example, the Gnostics, thinking the Incarnation and bodily resurrection were philosophical non-starters for the pagan world, remade Jesus into a sage and dispenser of hidden wisdom, and His physical resurrection into a spiritual one.

Fifteen hundred years later, in the so-called “Age of Enlightenment,” Christian ideas like the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, miracles, and the authority of Scripture were deemed to be insurmountable stumbling blocks for sophisticated minds. So, attempts were made, once again, to reinvent Jesus and Christianity to suit the spirit of the age: Jesus was a great teacher but not Divine, miracles had reasonable explanations, and Scripture could be scientifically scrutinized but still teach good morals.

Of course, the Jeffersonian attempts to remove the supernatural left no reason to accord Jesus a higher status than any other moral teacher or philosopher, despite the best attempts of people such as Friedrich Schleiermacher to win the intellectual approval of Christianity’s “cultured despisers.”

In other words, reimagining Jesus and Christianity to appeal to skeptics and unbelievers is nothing new. The result is always the same: We end up with a Jesus who looks nothing like the Jesus of history but looks an awful lot like the person doing the reinventing.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many American churches attempted to become “relevant” by embracing fashionable political causes while downplaying and even denying historic Christian orthodoxy. These churches have been hemorrhaging members ever since. Today, many have chosen to reimagine Jesus into the image of a social revolutionary or as a champion of the sexual revolution. Many of these churches face extinction.

Scholars may debate (and they do) whether or not the loss of members is caused by these attempts to be relevant, but a church that merely repeats the New York Times doesn’t give anyone a compelling reason to get out of bed on Sunday morning. Why sit through a boring sermon when there’s NPR?

What’s relevant to the larger culture will always be a moving target. As William Inge, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, once put it, “Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.” Trying to win the approval of non-Christians by changing the message of Christianity is as much of a waste of time as it was in Tertullian’s day. Plus, the message of Christianity is True, which means we don’t have to make it relevant. It already is relevant—to reality!

Tom Holland is right. Let’s preach the Truth. God exists. Miracles happen. Jesus is God incarnate. He actually rose from the dead. That He cares how we live. That He’s coming again to judge both the living and dead. You know, all that “weird stuff.”

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Gambling on God

 

To the gambler, fate offers a lifetime of chances and grants the gambler special abilities to control them. Although the very meaning of the word “chance” implies lack or loss of control, the gambler believes he or she is a member of an exclusive class of people to whom this does not apply. 

Now, what “game of chance” attitude could possibly overwhelm unthinking Christians about faith and salvation? It is this. Christianity is about faith in its Founder, Jesus Christ. However, many people do not realize that much of today’s attitude in the Church is based on the very same “game of chance” that seduces and overthrows the chronic secular gambler.

When it comes to obedience, submission, and compliance with the Lord’s will, some Christians see God as a slot machine or game table that can be outmaneuvered. They behave and respond to God as they have the option to risk control of the costs, coins, or cash in order to bet on his will.

Much of what the modern believer today holds to about the faith of Jesus Christ is very similar to the faith that drives the gambler’s soul. Think about how many times you may have said in your own heart, “I just have to do this, and I’ll just repent for it later.” This reveals something of the gambling spirit lodged within your soul. When you take chances with no more logic or forethought than that God owes it to you, the same spirit that seduces the gambler to trust Lady Luck is tempting you.

When what God has written and bound Himself to has no effect on what you desire and pursue, it is a sign of the gambler’s spirit at work in you.

Each time you conclude that salvation is a matter of how you decide to negotiate or navigate it in a given situation, you are taking as great a chance with your eternal redemption as the gambler takes with his or her livelihood. 

The Christian’s gambler’s attitudes and beliefs surface somewhat like this:

1.     God said all that I had to do was ___________.

2.     The Lord has to honor His Word about ___________.

3.     I will just do ___________ and let the Lord work it out.

4.    I don’t believe that a loving God would (or should) ___________.

5.    In this situation, if I were God, I would ___________.

6.    I am a parent, and I would not do ___________ to my children. God is better than me, so He also should not.

7.     All I have to do after this is to repent, and I know the Lord will forgive me ___________.

All of these comments breed from a gamer’s heart. Willfully, Christians every day ignore the Apostle Paul’s words: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). 

Many Christians are just as reckless about their blood-bought faith in Jesus Christ as the betting gambler is about his or her uncertain riches and games of chance.

Many believers even delight in their ongoing games of chance with the Lord. Constantly, they spin luck’s roulette to excuse (or superficially shield) themselves from God’s immutable truths and inviolable righteousness. Regularly, they create and wage godless bets on His character, words, grace and mercy. With something akin to the roll of a dice, they presume upon His forgiveness so that they can commit some offense that they are unwilling to keep themselves from doing.

If you contend that the Lord is more responsible and duty-bound to you than you are to Him and believe that because of this, He must work out your deliberate mistakes, you are risking the biggest gamble of all.

Is your faith in Lady Luck or in the Father God and His Savior Jesus Christ? Search your heart and motives to discover the basis of your faith. Does your faith indeed rest on God’s eternal word as manifested by Jesus Christ in Him, or is it a ‘knock-off’ of the world’s gambling system that was religionized for our deception?

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Abortion clinic places forceps on Christmas tree

 

An abortion clinic employee shared a now-deleted picture of a Christmas tree topped with forceps on Twitter

A pro-abortion activist has deleted a tweet featuring a picture of a Christmas tree at an abortion clinic with forceps on top instead of the customary star or angel.

Pro-abortion activist Michael Saenz wrote in the caption of the now-deleted tweet, “IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO TOP OUR TOPPER.” Saenz also used the hashtags #ProAbortion, #Abortions and #Christmas.

Conservatives and pro-life activists were quick to denounce the social media post, with Ben Shapiro tweeting, “‘Celebrate the birth of Jesus with this implement used to dismember babies in the womb’ is a take I didn’t see coming.” 

Lila Rose, founder of the pro-life group Live Action, described the forceps-topped Christmas tree as “horrific.”

Captures of Saenz’s now-deleted Twitter profile reveal a link to the Twitter account for the company We are Pro-Abortion. According to the Nebraska Secretary of State Business Regulation, Saenz is the “registered agent” for the company, which sells clothes emblazoned with phrases such as “I’m cool with abortions,” “abortions are magical” and “abortions today tomorrow and forevermore.”

Saenz’s now-deleted Twitter biography also features a link to the Twitter page of the Clinics for Abortion and Reproductive Excellence.  A report from Live Action confirmed that Saenz is an employee at CARE, which specializes in late-term abortions and operates in Maryland and Nebraska.

The medical director of the clinic, LeRoy Carhart, is one of the most well-known abortionists in the United States. He successfully sued Don Stenberg, then the attorney general of Nebraska, after the state implemented a partial-birth abortion ban. His case went all the way up to the Supreme Court and the Stenberg v. Carhart ruling, issued in 2000, found Nebraska’s ban on partial-birth abortion unconstitutional.

In 2003, then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which banned the procedure at the federal level. Carhart filed another lawsuit seeking to strike down the law and the case went to the Supreme Court.

Sandra Day O’Connor, the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justice who provided the fifth vote for the majority in Stenberg, was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito by the time the case of Gonzales v. Carhart that challenged the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act made its way to the court. Alito voted with four other Republican-appointed justices in the 2007 case to uphold the federal law, which remains in effect today.

Several years after the partial-birth abortion related Supreme Court decisions, Carhart remains in the spotlight. In 2013, undercover video footage captured by Live Action showed Carhart likening abortion to “putting meat in a Crock-Pot.”

During a 2019 interview on BBC’s “Panorama,” Carhart used the term “baby” as opposed to fetus when referring to unborn children. When journalist Hilary Andersson pointed out his word choice, Carhart maintained, “I think that it is a baby.” Andersson asked Carhart if he had a problem with “killing a baby,” to which he replied, “Absolutely not. I have no problem if it’s in the mother’s uterus.”

Topping a Christmas tree with forceps is not the first attempt of the pro-abortion crowd to promote the procedure during the Christmas season. Beginning in 2010, pro-abortion activists sold abornaments, plastic ornaments designed to resemble unborn babies at various stages of pregnancy.

In the past, Planned Parenthood has sold “Choice on Earth” Christmas cards, which former Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt described as “an inclusive seasonal message for people of all faiths.” In addition to displaying the phrase “Choice on Earth,” the cards featured references to political causes the pro-abortion movement associates the procedure with. Such phrases included “human rights,” “equality” and women’s health.”

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