The July Christian Courier can now be downloaded!

Click to download the latest edition of the Christian Courier. The special July issue is now available to download on this site.

Calling All Sr. Pastors and Christian Workers

   A special meeting will be held on June 10th at the Italian Conference Center, 631 E. Chicago St., Milwaukee from 10-11:30 a.m. This will be an informative meeting to examine the feasibility and the possibility of Franklin Graham, son of Dr. Billy Graham, coming to Milwaukee for an event called, “Rock the Lake” at Veteran’s Park on Milwaukee’s lakefront.  This will be a two or three day event including the top Christian musicians in the country performing with messages by Franklin Graham and others. This event promises to be life changing.

  It has been 30 years since Dr. Billy Graham held a crusade in the Milwaukee area at the old County stadium. Are we ready for another great event? Come out on June 10th to hear the prospects and voice your support if you think Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin is ready for another such evangelistic experience, with this one especially geared to the youth of our community. 

A similar event was held last summer called “Rock the River” when a number of major cities were set for a one day event and thousands upon thousands came out at each city and many responded to the Gospel message. A lasting impact was made on each city.

   That was Rock the River, now let’s Rock the Lake in 2011. Your input and support is needed. Get more information at info@rockthelakeswisconsin.com or call 414.344.7300.

Facebook and Google Under Fire

“New Level of Anger” Among Users – Expert

Mark Scheerer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Facebook is making its latest in a string of efforts to regain the trust of members concerned about the security of personal information on the site. The social media giant will reportedly simplify privacy control settings. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center is watching the drama unfold.

“But I think that strategy may not work this time. I think there’s a new level of anger and concern about Facebook.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has admitted his company made, in his words, “a bunch of mistakes.” However, Rotenberg believes Facebook has emerged as a powerful tool for social change, and to shun it because of concerns over privacy would be foolish.

“I think it’s a mistake for people to think that somehow they should boycott or turn off these services. They should be actively engaged, expressing their views and talking about how to make them better.”

With Facebook closing in on 500 million users worldwide, it has only a handful of competitors with meager resources. Google, in only 12 years, has become an Internet behemoth, so Rotenberg says his group and other watchdogs must remain vigilant.

“If we reach a situation, for example, where Facebook really is the only social network service or Google really does dominate all the essential services on the internet, there just won’t be much choice.”

On Tuesday, Rotenberg’s group called for a Federal Communications Commission investigation into Google’s Street View camera cars which gathered data about private citizens’ Wi-Fi hot spots.

For His Glory Bible College Class on Intercession

For His Glory Bible College at 17770 W. Cleveland Ave., New Berlin is offering a Spring Intensive Class on Intercession and Spiritual Warfare, taught by Rev. Donna Olson, on Thur. May 6th and, May 20th and, Saturday May 8th and, May 22nd. Thursdays at 6: 30pm and Saturdays at 8:30am. This class can be taken for credit 0r audited. For a registration form; call 262-754-9244 or go to www.fhglory.org.

Download the May issue of the Christian Courier!

You can now download the May 2010  issue of the Christian Courier! Read the Mother’s Day articles, check out the calendar of events, National and Global news stories, and don’t forget our fun Family page. Just click latest issue button – download times will vary depending on your internet connection.

No Court Can Keep Us From Praying

April 22 UPDATE, 12:40 p.m.— The Justice Department announced today it will appeal last week’s ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. The appeal would go to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Chicago to review the Wisconsin judge’s ruling

April 16, 2010—When a federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that our National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, it immediately generated widespread anger, heated debate and new rounds of legal maneuvering. According to Franklin Graham, the honorary chairman of this year’s National Day of Prayer, it also shows just how much our country needs God’s help.

“At a time when our country is waging two wars, approval ratings for Congress are at historic lows, unemployment is at a 70-year high and financial institutions have collapsed around us, I can’t imagine anyone seriously opposing a National Day of Prayer,” said Graham, who is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse.

Graham said he was puzzled by the judge’s logic. In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb wrote, “the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual’s decision whether and when to pray.”

“It sounds to me like even the judge in this case understands the power of prayer. But it’s voluntary. There’s no requirement that people pray,” said Graham. “To act like a National Day of Prayer is a bad thing or somehow subversive is ridiculous. Surely our country needs prayer now more than ever.”

Graham also points out that God commands us to pray for our leaders. “The Bible is clear on this. 1 Timothy says, ‘I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.’”

Prayer is nothing new to Americans, added Graham. “Our country has a long history of recognizing a national day of prayer. It’s something that dates back to the Continental Congress when it recommended that states set aside a day for prayer and thanksgiving. This is a significant part of our country’s heritage.”

“For me, the bottom line is this,” said Graham. “No judge can stop us from praying for our country and I pray that on May 6, millions of Americans will join me in praying for our President, all of our elected leaders, and even for this unjust judge and all those who rule from the bench—that God would guide them and give them wisdom.”

This year’s National Day of Prayer takes place May 6. For more information, visit NationalDayofPrayer.org.

Morning Star Drama: Damascus, Ohio

Federal Judge Finds National Prayer Day Unconstitutional

MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin federal judge on Thursday found the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional, saying it violates the First Amendment prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin was a victory for the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The group had sued the Bush and later Obama administrations in an effort to block the presidents from making their annual proclamations inviting Americans to set aside a day for prayer or meditation.

Anne Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, heralded Crabb’s decision as courageous.

“It’s an invasion of the freedom of conscience of Americans to have their president direct their prayer, or tell them to pray,” said Gaylor, whose organization claims a membership of nearly 15,000 freethinkers, agnostics and atheists across North America.

Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, which filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of 31 members of Congress, said he was confident the decision would be overturned on appeal.

“This is one district court judge,” said Sekulow, an attorney with the public interest law firm founded by evangelist Pat Robertson. “It’s not like it’s happening all over the country. In no way do we think this is the mainstream of judicial thinking in the United States.”

The decision is not expected to affect this year’s presidential proclamation, scheduled for May 6, because Crabb postponed enforcement of the decision until all appeals are exhausted.

The U.S. Department of Justice said it was reviewing Crabb’s ruling before deciding on a next step. The White House said President Barack Obama would make his 2010 proclamation as planned.

“We have reviewed the court’s decision and it does not prevent the president from issuing a proclamation,” spokesman Matthew Lehrich said in an e-mail to the Journal Sentinel.

In her ruling, Crabb acknowledged the deep divide over the role of religion in America, and the complex and often contradictory jurisprudence on the separation of church and state. She said the federal statute ordering the president to make the annual proclamation serves no secular purpose, casts non-believers as outsiders, and goes beyond the mere acknowledgment of religion to encouraging a practice best left to individual conscience.

Cobb said her ruling was not an attack on prayer but an effort to ensure religious liberty.

“The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy,” she said in the decision.

Tuesday’s decision traces the history of the day to a 1952 rally in Washington by the Rev. Billy Graham, in which he called for a national day of prayer and envisioned a “great spiritual awakening” for the capital with “thousands coming to Jesus Christ.”

It was introduced in the House the next day, then later in the Senate as a measure against the “corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based.”

In 1988, at the urging of Campus Crusade for Christ and the National Day of Prayer committee, Congress enacted legislation requiring the president to issue an annual proclamation declaring the first Thursday in May as National Prayer Day.

The role of evangelical Christians in the creation of the law and the shaping the annual proclamations, has raised concern among many non-Christians, according to a litany of cases cited in Crabb’s ruling.

Crabb’s decision drew a mixed response from Milwaukee faith leaders. Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who has spoken out against what he calls the “religion of secularism,” called it a “missed opportunity to acknowledge our nation’s identity, which was founded on our dependence on God.”

But others said they supported the ruling as a protection of the separation of church and state.

“I find it both troubling and dangerous that so many zealous believers in any religion want to legislate their particular understanding of faith and God for everyone else,” said the Rev. Dr. Janis J. Kinens of Advent Lutheran Church in Cedarburg.

“We don’t need to look far to see the horrific and devastating results of a theocracy form of government,” he said.

Seeing Heaven in Hell

by E. Basil Jackson, MD

Sometimes it is necessary to be in hell to fully appreciate the bliss and wonders of heaven.

Such was the experience of this author and his companion as they, with nineteen other dedicated professionals, most of whom were Christians, recently spent eight days in the devastated city of Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti.

The invitation to participate in the mission had come through Hope International Ministries (HOPE) of Florida after encouragement had been received from a government official in the neighboring Dominican Republic. This official was well-acquainted with the medical mission emphasis of HOPE, and he had deep concern for his neighbors on the Island of Hispaniola.

The team eventually arrived in Santo Domingo, normally 7 hours drive from Port-au-Prince. However, road conditions, patrols, and confusion at the border, extended the trip to eighteen hours in the equivalent of an open cattle truck through mountains replete with brigands and bandits.

Upon the fortune of securing an armed United Nations’ escort for part of the journey from the Haitian border to the capital, we arrived weary and exhausted near curfew, bone tired, in Delmas, a section of Port au Prince.

Excited and at the same time dismayed at the carnage and desolation all around us, we were thrilled by the prospects of being able to demonstrate the love of Christ to so many in need.

And this we did, working together as a team for eight days, in sweltering heat, lying on the hard ground, living on granola bars and warm, bottled water…all the time being personally energized by the Spirit, in the milieu of Christian fellowship.

We were overwhelmed and awed at the words of appreciation and thanksgiving expressed by patients who survived the disaster but who were abandoned with absolutely nothing except their faith.

There has been much reported in the national and local media as well as on the Christian Courier website on this dimension of our experience, but it pales to adequately render a full picture of this nation which had so little before the earthquake, and now suffers with even less.

It was a humbling experience to hear songs rising from a group of raggedly clothed Christians, living in the squalor of the remains of a filthy street, as they praised God and thanked Him for all the blessings that He had bestowed on them. The effect on the team members was to produce self-examination and personal scrutiny as to how often one might have complained about the inconsequential and relatively unimportant things of a privileged life in the US, when all the while, we should been full of thankfulness for the overwhelming abundance of our Father through His provisions.

Everywhere we cast our eyes we observed the rubble and remains of a forlorn and desperate city, beholding apocalyptic scenes on a magnitude rarely witnessed since the blitzkriegs of World War II.

Buildings were flattened like cardboard with ponderous concrete roofs lying on the ground like giant concrete sandwiches. Unfortunately these broken structures still entombed thousands of unfortunate Haitians.

The smell of death and dust permeated the air as rats as big as cats prowled the rubble to gnaw on decaying flesh. Daily survivors and corpses were extricated from the piles of stones, bricks, walls, twisted steel, and timbers.

Tenderly prepared graves were not observed but pits and mounds had been filled to capacity in the days following the quake. Bodies lay in the streets, intermingled with an accumulation of garbage until other depositories or outdoor crematoria could be arranged.

The total experience in some of us evoked a vision of just how the world might appear after the rapture of Christ’ church, but differed now from then in the Haitians’ dependence on faith.

Catatonic-esque frozen faces stared at us with unseeing eyes. Emotionally paralyzed responses were the norm for most Haitians. Many patients had not eaten nor drank water for two or three days. Children were terrified to sleep in case worse things happened and greater losses incurred, like loved ones suddenly gone.

Palpable despair filled the air and yet patient after patient attempted to lift their hands in the air and proclaim Jesus as Lord.

One patient had been found alive after spending four days in a makeshift morgue in which he had been consigned, considered dead from all appearances.

Another terrified child, having lost every living relative, clung tenaciously to team members, refusing to let go.

Everyone was requesting pastoral members of the team to pray for and with them.

A pastor who had lost his wife, his three children his church, his job and his home, left only with was his personal injuries and an infant, offered a heart-wrenching scene. One can hear the pathos of the experience in the agony of this man as he asked me if he could give the baby to me because he had no way to support himself or the child and no place to go when he left the tent hospital facility.

Another pastor asked for counseling and prayer as he struggled with overwhelming grief. One minute he had a church of 2500 members and the next he had 200 members, losing his associate pastor and indeed a close friend.

The magnitude of the stress and grief with which we on the mission team struggled every day was immeasurable. Team members were not exempt from traumatic stress. They became exhausted through lack of sleep, lack of nutrition, and the ambience of emotionally-charged agony, pain and suffering which surrounded them.

It became increasingly difficult to sleep on the hard ground and even the night hours suffered from persistent intrusion of the horrendous experiences of the day. Cognitive slowing and affective freezing as well as physical fatigue became the order of the day. The use of hastily dug and not very hygienic latrines added to the discomfort.

Yet, as we gathered to begin the weary journey home, one and all of the team members reported an increased appreciation for the plight of others, more careful self-examination, and an increased thankfulness for the blessings we all receive from our bountiful Lord. He has persistently and continuously deluged us with such a plethora of evidence for His love and care that we often take it and Him for granted.

At the end of the mission trip, as we all wended our way homeward, we were in agreement that we will never be the same again, gaining a renewed sensitivity for the less fortunate and for those who are hurting. We have a personal testimony of bottomless need and increased dependence on the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who loves us as none other. We are grateful for the safe travel, the opportunity of service, and the joy of being available and used in His plans.

I have been asked “What is God’s purpose in Haiti?” and I am compelled to answer, “His purposes are as numerable as the lives affected by the earthquake, and just as diverse.”

Visions of heaven penetrated the Stygian darkness of physical and emotional hell in Haiti, and eventually won the day, erupting into an exhilarating and brilliant glorious praise and worship.

Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible Lecture Series at Milwaukee Public Museum

MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee Public Museum has announced a series of educational lectures on the Dead Sea Scrolls which will run from now through June 3, 2010.

 Feb 18 5:30 & 7:30 PM Shalom Paul, PhD

Chair of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation and Professor Emeritus/Bible Dept at Hebrew University – Birth of Christianity

Mar 4 7:30 PM Lawrence H Schiffman, PhD

Edelman Professor of Hebrew 7 Judaic Studies at New York University – Israel at the Time of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Mar 18 7:30 PM Jodi Magness, PhD

Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Dept of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill – Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Mar 25 7:30 PM Martin G Abegg, PhD

Co director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute and Ben Zion Professor of Dead Sea Scrolls Studies at Trinity Western University – The Stories of the Milwaukee Public Museum Dead Sea Scrolls

Apr 15 7:30 PM Wesley Williams, PhD of the Michigan State University – God among the gods: Divine Plurality in the Quran and in the Light of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Mythic Tradition

Apr 29 7:30 PM Brent Sandy, PhD

Chair & Professor of Biblical Studies at Grace College – In Search of the Holy Grail: How much difference would it make if we found the original handwritten copies of the New Testament?

May 6 7:30 PM Andrew Teeter, PhD

Asst Professor of Hebrew/Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School – The Scriptures and their interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls

May 27 5:30 & 7:30 PM Emanual Tov, PhD

Mahnes Professor of Bible at Hebrew University – The Scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Jun 3 7:30 PM Deirdre A Dempsey, PhD

Assoc Professor in the Theology Dept at Marquette University

For tickets or more information contact the Milwaukee Public Museum at 414.278.2728.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE BIBLE EXHIBITION TEACHER GUIDE

Teachers of archeology, history, language, religion, art, anthropology and other various subjects will find Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible an excellent supplement to their curriculum. The link is http://www.mpm.edu

POETRY COMPETITION

The Museum is hosting the American Institute for Archaeology(AIA)-Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) Archaeology Fair on March 5 and 6, 2010 MPM and is sponsoring a poetry competition for Wisconsin elementary and high school students from grades 3 through 12. This program will encourage creative expression and the development of written language skills while providing teachers with a context within which to meet the WMAS for English Language Arts. (B4.1, 4.2, B8.1, 8.2; B12.1, 12.2.)

Theme: Archaeology: the study of past human life and culture through the things—pottery, tools, mummies, buildings and tombs, among others—that people leave behind.

 Deadline: February 16, 2010 (see http://www.mpm.edu/education/special/poetry-competition for more submission details)

 Who is eligible: The competition is open to all Wisconsin students in the following three grade categories: Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, and Grades 9-12.

 Criteria: Entries will be judged on creativity, originality, imagery, artistic quality, and sense of poetic expression.

 Poetry reading at the Museum: The winners will be invited to read their poems at the Museum during the AIA fair on Saturday, March 6, 2010.