And there was war in Heaven….

Or at least in Canberra.

Saturday the 17th of October was an amazing day of history making for our nation of Australia as around 200 Christian prayer warriors from across the country converged on our capital city Canberra to pray and repent on Mount Ainslie, a strategic high place considered to be the headquarters of satanic activity. All glory to our Most High God as the spiritual warfare prayer mission was very successful in enforcing the victory of the Cross of Christ over the forces of darkness through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit!
As hundreds and perhaps thousands of Christian men, women, and children from nearly every denomination gathered in strategic high places, churches and homes across the nation with the same focus to repent, pray and declare Australia for Jesus, Satan’s kingdom of darkness was thrown into complete confusion as it was so clearly demonstrated on Mount Ainslie in Canberra!

Other reports from the battlefield differ. At the very least, Satan’s minions weren’t leaving without a fight.

Apart from a protest and pious people gathered on a hill, what does one expect of an exorcism? It was very easy to conjure up Hollywood associations, spinning heads and all. The reality was the weirdest festival you’ve ever been to. The crowd of 200 divided neatly into about a third Catch the Fire followers, another third gay and atheist activists, Wiccans and metal t-shirt wearing young people and the remainder were a bewildered group of observers in the circus. These three groups, I wager, will never likely be seen together again.
Entering into the crowd of Nalliah devotees, Christian and Australian flags waving, was akin to going to a pokies venue on Christmas eve – people desperate, alienated and confused participating in something that gives them hope. Nalliah at the centre of it dressed in white suit jacket, shades and a small mega phone permanently in front of his face spoke much of forgiveness and healing of the nation, interjected only with the odd “hallelujah” and “praise Jesus”. Many in the crowd spoke in tongues or mumbled prayers, the first of a series of communions on different parts of the hill, the relocation of the prayers perhaps to do with the spiritual mapping (which would be?).
In the background near the “black altar” – a communication tower further up the hill – were protesters singing It’s Raining Men and waving placards. Into the middle of the Catch the Fire group walked a young gay man who stripped down to his underwear and threw his arms in the air, facing off with Nalliah and his entourage. Other protesters adorned themselves in rainbow flags, witches’ hats and t-shirts with slogans: “I am what you are afraid of”

As to what sparked this divine offensive (from a prebattle report):

According to my colleagues from News Ltd.’s Satan Watch desk in the parliamentary press gallery — well, actually, I think that’s been the mission statement for Lord Rupert’s entire gallery contingent since the Ruddbot and his devil-worshipping cabal of devil worshippers drew their first pentagram on the big table in the Cabinet Room — well, anyway, they reckon that the Rev. Danny reckons that, “there is a spiritual fight over the nation of Australia being fought in the heavens” and that although most people don’t believe in the Devil he is like, totally real, and just look at the number of divorced politicians if you don’t believe him.
Pastor Danny, a former running mate of Family First Sen. Steve Fielding, is headed Canberra way this weekend to lead a prayer meeting of at least a handful of Christians concerned about the discovery of a “Black Mass altar” on Mount Ainslie recently.
“The type of altar discovered on Mount Ainslie pointed to a black mass and the work of dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and Federal Parliament,” according to Nalliah. Actually what it probably points to are a couple of discarded condoms and Nudie juice bottle bongs. But what the hell, I’m going to be in Canberra this weekend, and it’s not often you get to battle Evil with a capital ‘E’.

And yes indeed this Pastor Danny does blame the downfall of Australian society on all those divorced politicians.

Asked what evidence of Satan there was in parliament, Mr Nalliah said: “The number of politicians who have serious marriage problems.”
Legislation supporting homosexuality, abortion and a push for a bill of rights were other areas where the devil was having influence.

Pictures of the battle in progress can be seen at the CatchtheFire link.

H/T Lucymonster

A matter of compatibility

Someone who blogs under the name “whyevolutionistrue” goes to great pains to make sure that Richard Dawkins is absolutely opposed to any kind of religion other than atheism, in case any of us thought otherwise, and at the end writes this:

Now that Dawkins has verified this, it would be nice to see Rosenau, Mooney, and Kirshenbaum correct their postings. And they need to stop pretending that the existence of religious scientists and religious people who accept evolution proves that science and faith are compatible. We settled that issue long ago. The issue is philosophical compatibility. Is that really so hard for anyone to understand?

What he fails to understand is that far from being incompatible, science needs religion–or more precisely, needs God the Creator of the Universe.

It boils down to this: if there is no God, then the universe is simply an accumulation of matter that at its core is utterly random and chaotic; what came to be, came to be simply by pure chance and accident, and the apparent orderliness which we perceive is simply an illusion, an island of order in an megaocean of chaos. Sheer probability will tell us that in a sufficiently large area of chaos, there will appear small areas of apparent order. (And we won’t get into the ramifications of the fact that probability itself assumes a fundamentally ordered universe.)

But science is based on the premise that the universe is indeed ordered, that it can be coherently investigated and explained–and that therefore it was created.

Along the same lines we can make an updated version of Pascal’s wager: if there is no God, then any order and meaning we give to it is arbitrary and imposed on existence by our minds, and not by any internal characteristic of existence. Therefore, we may as well believe in God, since if we are wrong, we are merely adopting one out of a number of possible arbitrary impositions of meaning.

E. M. Kennedy

Probably it’s fitting that he died during Elul, the runup to the Days of Awe.
On the New Year’s Day it is inscribed, and on the Day of Atonement it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die… as the Usenah Tokef says, before going on to list some of the ways that people might die. But then it goes on to say: But prayer, repentence and good deeds avert the severe decree.

As for Mary Jo–presuming she’s in Heaven, I rather suspect that she’s got more important, and more pleasant, things to think of than whatever misdeeds were inflicted on her by those behind her in the admission queue . And Divine Justice may think it appropriate that she be the one to give him the orientation tour. We Jews know that God has a strange sense of humor.

Anchoress has a suitably Catholic post–and sometimes much more suitable than some of the comments, by the way. She reflects on the probable use of Kennedy’s death on the campaign for Obamacare.

Given a grim diagnosis in May of 2008, Kennedy managed, with the help of some of the best care available, to see another Christmas, another spring and even another summer. It’s entirely possible that what Kennedy’s death will really do is bring into stark relief the fact that under Obamacare, this overweight 77 year-old man with liking for the drink would probably have faced treatment rationing and an offer for “physician aid-in-dying”. Kennedy’s death will emphasize yet again that our elected “public servants” enjoy one of the best health insurance plans in the world, while they are trying to force something much less comprehensive (and life-affirming) onto their constituents.

I happened to catch part of a CNN tribute to him, including a clip of him speaking at one or another Democratic convention on the topic of health care. Whatever else be said, he was not hypocritical about receiving better than average health care: citing his father’s last seven years, and noting that his family was rich enough to afford high quality care when most others were not, and that he received above average health care because he was one of the people who were “on the tip of the iceberg”.
Of course, for him that was an reason to socialize medicine, and he said nothing that was close to admission that socializing medicine would mean poorer quality health care, not better.

“The Rock, His work is perfect. Blessed be He Who judges in truth.”