Russia and the US: The irony of convergence?
It's probably a providential coincidence that I'm writing this week's column from a hotel room in Moscow. For the past two days I've been attending the Demographic Summit organized by the World Congress of Families, with the cooperation of the Russian Social University under the leadership of its founding president, Victor Zhukov. It was no coincidence that the Summit took place in Russia. It focused on the troubling specter of declining birthrates and consequent depopulation that threaten to overshadow the future of the Russian people as well as those elsewhere who are dealing with similar facts. I was invited to participate because of my involvement in the pro-life movement and my efforts to preserve and defend the integrity and rights of the natural family.
When I left the U.S. on Monday, fresh in the headlines was the New York legislature's vote to legitimize so called 'homosexual marriage." That event recurred to my mind again and again as I listened to speakers who impressed upon pro-life and natural-family representatives from 65 countries the sombre facts that document the enervation of natural family life in Russia, its damaging impact on the economic and social future of the country and the threat it poses to the very survival of the Russian people as such.
Russian participation involved representatives from both the public and private sectors, including clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church who, since the early 1990s, have been active in efforts to reverse the trends that are undermining the function and integrity of natural family life in Russia. I was struck by the fact that none of them failed to note that abortion and the breakdown of sexual mores were among the key factors contributing to the trend toward depopulation in their country. As a result, they did not shrink from making the common-sense observation that a restoration of moral standards had to be part of any strategy aimed at reversing it.
Since Russia has moved beyond the Communist era, even Russians working in the pubic sector are free to acknowledge that ideologically motivated government policies, such as Lenin's quick dismantling of the legal ban on abortions, were instrumental in producing the demographic crisis that threatens the Russian people. This stands in stark and refreshing contrast with the foreclosure of truthful discussion that presently prevails among America's domineering elites.
From experiencing the quality of courage required to overthrow a regime of totalitarian control, some Russians have apparently learned how to distinguish between intellectual integrity and intellectual cowardice in the application of scientific methods. The first adheres to the discipline of empirical science to achieve a clear account of facts. The second foreswears common sense and moral sensibility to avoid the damaging impact of a regime of ideological intimidation.
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Russian participation involved representatives from both the public and private sectors, including clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church who, since the early 1990s, have been active in efforts to reverse the trends that are undermining the function and
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Mad prophet says NY's gay marriage vote brings the US one step ...
AMERICA stands on the brink of collapse – not because of the avarice of US banks which played a key role in precipitating the global economic crisis, nor through the insane cost of the “War on Terror” which is expected soon to top more than $4-trillion.
Nope. America is in imminent danger of falling prey to the Antichrist – and subsequent “disgrace” – because New York voted to allow gay marriage .
The Israelites knew God had strictly forbidden homosexuality so the idea of trying to sanctify what God called an ‘abomination’ with marriage would be doubly offensive. Today we flaunt it among our notables as a perfectly normal bit of nascent social ethics. In fact we are very close to tempting God with our worst behavior and defying him to enter into judgment with us. This is dangerous territory … The condensed version of the pattern God uses is this; A call to repentance, a graduating scale of calamities, natural disasters and disruption of nature, a collapse of the powers and the economy of a nation. Need I remind anyone that America is already in stage three of this pattern? After this it gets far more serious, what exactly does that mean? My answer is both; you don’t really want to know and stay tuned there is more to come. I don’t need science to confirm my predictions … Suffice it to say that in my own calling not one revelation in some forty years has ever come up wrong. In real prophecy there is nothing to prove. Being right is not the purpose of prophets but reaching others before they go wrong has always been the urgent and most pressing purpose in any prophetic calling. Hurricane Katrina? That’s the only one I can think of. 2000 people died. That’s rough on them – but hardly a disaster on the scale of the Indonesian Tsunami. And what was “God” at in Japan. Wipe out Japan to get at the Americans – now that’s a whole new level of passive aggressive. The United States is relatively disaster free – and it’s just posturing to suggest otherwise. Pat Robertson: “There’s never been a civilization ever in history that has embraced homosexuality and turned away from traditional fidelity, traditional marriage, traditional child-rearing, and has survived.” You can cut out the middle bit. There’s never been a civilization ever in history that … has survived. Nothing lasts forever. Blaming it on whatever is like people banging pots and pans to bring the sun back after an eclipse … it works every time!
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