Charismaniac entertainment centre church in Jacksonville presents jazz festival

Faith Christian Center in Jacksonville, Florida is a typical Word of Faith church, as can be inferred from the About Us section of their website:

Faith Christian Center (FCC) was founded in August 18,1996 by Bishop Keith A. Butler, Founder and Pastor of Word of Faith International Christian Center (WOFICC). FCC is part of the Word of Faith International Christian Center vision to open Word-based ministries throughout the United States and abroad.

Bishop George L. Davis was serving as an Assistant Pastor at WOFICC when he was called by God and appointed by Bishop Butler to open and Pastor the Jacksonville, Florida church. He and his beautiful wife, Pastor April Davis, relocated from Detroit, Michigan with a small contingent to begin what would grow into a vision to spread the good news of Jesus across seven cities in Florida, which we call "Impact 7"...

...Since its inception, Faith Christian Center continues to experience significant growth by the awesome power of God. In 2002 we launched our dedicated 26,000 square foot youth facility to minister to our next generation of Godly leaders. Consistent with our mission of fully equipping our members for a victorious life in Jesus, we go beyond our Thursday and Sunday services. FCC has been blessed to host such dynamic and anointed speakers as our Grand-Bishop Keith A. Butler, Marilyn Hickey, Peter Daniels, Dr. Don Colbert, Tim Storey, Dr. Creflo Dollar, Bill Winston, Rev. Jesse Duplantis, Mark Hankins, Myles Monroe, Dr. Phil Goudeaux, Keith Moore and many others.

In addition to the bishop's beautiful wife being listed as Senior Pastor, the list of "dynamic and anointed speakers," some of whom will be familiar to anyone who's been following the Word of Faith movement in recent years, should suffice to indicate that Faith Christian Center isn't characterized by sound doctrine.

I don't know if this might be classified as "community outreach," but Faith Christian Center is in the business of presenting jazz festivals, as reported by Victoria Poller in Examiner.com, April 16, 2013 (links in original):

Because of the array of talent and the desire of the masses, Faith Christian Center’s “Jazz Under the Stars” Spring Jazz Bling will be open to married couples and singles too. The price will remain the same and the good times will roll for all.

So bring your blankets, lawn chairs & picnic baskets filled with good eats and enjoy a night out under the stars while listening to the great smooth-jazz sounds of: Marty Kizer, David & the Groov Band, Akia Uwanda & Jarell Harris in concert.

View slideshow: JAZZ under the stars at Faith Christian Center

The festivities will be held outside on the church grounds Friday, April 19, 2013 from 7:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. Pick up your tickets today! It promises to be an evening filled with, fun and great fellowship.

FCC Covenant Partners presents:
“Jazz Under the Stars” Spring Jazz Bling
Date: Friday, April 19, 2013
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Tickets: $10.00 per person in the FCC Bookstore or at the event

Location: Faith Christian Center (on the lawn at FCC)
8985 Lone Star Rd.
Jacksonville, Florida 32211
(904) 725-3636
Bishop George & Pastor April Davis – Senior Pastors

Just one question, Chief: What does any of this have to do with the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel?

World Bank approves a canal to save the Dead Sea

As reported by Michal Bleibtreu Neeman in The Epoch Times, April 17, 2013:

EIN GEDI, Israel—The World Bank approved a rescue plan to save the Dead Sea, which is drying up at a rate of about three feet annually, but environmental groups argue the plan will result in ecological disaster.

After a decade of debates, the World Bank confirmed in January the feasibility of building a canal between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea at a cost of $10 billion...

An average of more than 10 bombings a day in the United States...

A prediction? Nope--that's the way it was, according to the United States Treasury Department:

...the Treasury Department estimated that there were over five thousand bombings across the country from January 1969 through April 1970 alone.

Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Doing It: The Rise and Fall of the Weather Underground, in Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties, 1989, p. 106.

The Treasury Department estimated that only 8 per cent involved regular criminal schemes like extortion or insurance fraud.

Enric Volante, Former FBI agent ends lengthy silence: The Mafia Bombings, Arizona Daily Star, Feb. 4, 2004

It should be kept in mind that the terrorists in those days weren't foreign Muslims, but mostly home-grown, spoiled, white baby bombers boomers. The Weather Underground was the most notorious of the late-1960s-early 1970s New Left terrorist organizations in the United States. On March 6, 1970, three of their members were killed when one of them, Terry Robbins, was building a bomb in the basement of their town house in New York City's Greenwich Village when he mistakenly crossed two wires, and the building was blown to smithereens. As Messrs. Collier and Horowitz put it (p. 101):

They had found the apocalypse they'd been looking for; they'd finally managed to break on through to the other side; what they found there, however, was not an epiphany of the new revolutionary self but the mundaneness of death.

The chapter on the Weathermen in Destructive Generation is definitely worth reading, especially when one sees the names Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, two of the movement's most prominent members. They were away at the time of the explosion--Mr. Ayers was doing some organizing in Ann Arbor, Michigan--but Mr. Robbins was Mr. Ayers' best friend. If the names Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn--the movement's leading floozy "babe"--seem familiar, it's because they are among the people pulling the strings of advising current White House occupant B. Hussein Obama.

Matter and antimatter baffle scientists

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV)

As reported by Sally Appert of The Epoch Times, March 27, 2013:

U.S. researchers have captured individual protons and antiprotons to measure their magnetic charge with unprecedented accuracy.

Antimatter is like ordinary matter, except its particles have the exact opposite charges and magnetic properties. When matter and antimatter meet, they destroy each other.

“One of the great mysteries in physics is why our universe is made of matter,” said study lead author Gerald Gabrielse at Harvard University in a press release. “According to our theories, the same amount of matter and antimatter was produced during the Big Bang.”

“As the universe cools down, the big mystery is: Why didn’t all the matter find the antimatter and annihilate all of both? There’s a lot of matter and no antimatter left, and we don’t know why.”

The passage in Colossians cited above tells us why matter doesn't find antimatter and annihilate everything--because the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is holding everything together. Go here for the abstract of the original article by DiSciacca, Marshall, et al in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 110, No. 13, March 29, 2013.

25 years ago: The Assemblies of God defrocks Jimmy Swaggart

Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?
For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written. Romans 2:22-24

Now the overseer must be above reproach...temperate, self-controlled, respectable...
...He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. I Timothy 3:1,7 (NIV)

...but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Hebrews 13:4b

On April 8, 1988, 47 days after Rev. Jimmy Swaggart had addressed an audience of 6,000 at his Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and had resigned from his ministry, admitting an unspecified sin and asking forgiveness, the Assemblies of God defrocked Mr. Swaggart, and he resigned from the church.

On February 22--the day after Mr. Swaggart's resignation--leaders of the Family Worship Center had barred Rev. Swaggart from the pulpit for three months and imposed a two-year period of rehabilitation after seeing photographic evidence that the Assemblies of God pastor had been less than faithful in living up to his marriage vows.

Mr. Swaggart had loudly (and correctly) denounced the sin of televangelist Jim Bakker when his ministry had been brought down in a sex scandal the previous year. Mr. Swaggart had also accused fellow Assemblies of God pastor Marvin Gorman of adultery. Mr. Gorman had responded by hiring a private detective, who obtained photographs of Mr. Swaggart at a motel in New Orleans frequently used by prostitutes. Mr. Gorman handed the evidence over to Assemblies of God leaders.

The AoG had suspended Mr. Swaggart from preaching for a year, but he refused to accept the punishment, arguing that it would cripple his ministry and his Bible college. Obviously, Mr. Swaggart didn’t think that the standards laid down in the Bible applied to him, so he took his balls and went home.

Mr. Swaggart decided to continue in the ministry, becoming a non-denominational Pentecostal pastor and turning Family Worship Center into a non-denominational church. He was caught with another prostitute in 1991, and stepped down from his leadership position temporarily. In 2013, Family Worship Center is still in business, with Jimmy Swaggart's name prominently displayed at the top of the home page.

"Gate to Hell" discovered by archaeologists in Turkey

As reported by the Toronto-based National Post, April 2, 2013:

Archaeologists have discovered a “gate to hell” at a dig site in Turkey.

The ruin is known as Pluto’s Gate, and was fabled as the doors to the underworld in both Greek and Roman traditions. The gate is known as the Plutonium in Latin.

The cave where the ruins were located emit dangerous and poisonous gasses, much like the gate was said to do in Greek mythology...

Go here for the original Discovery News article.

This "Gate to Hell" is similar to the "Door to Hell" near Derweze, Turkmenistan; it was discovered by Soviet geologists in 1971 when they drilled into a natural gas chamber and ignited the gas, which has been burning ever since. The urban legend site Snopes doesn't mention it, but I wonder if the Soviets' discovery of the "Door to Hell" may be connected (in addition to the Russian well mentioned by Snopes) with the "Well to Hell" urban legend that was popular in charismatic circles circa 1989-1990, according to which geologists in Siberia had drilled a hole so deep into the Earth that when they lowered microphones down the well, they could hear the screams of tormented souls.

4,000-year-old building complex discovered near Abraham's homeland in Iraq

And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees...
...And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. Genesis 11:26-28, 31

As reported by Associated Press, April 5, 2013:

BAGHDAD — British archaeologists said Thursday they have unearthed a sprawling complex near the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, home of the biblical Abraham.

The structure, thought to be about 4,000 years old, probably served as an administrative center for Ur, around the time Abraham would have lived there before leaving for Canaan, according to the Bible.

The compound is near the site of the partially reconstructed Ziggurat, or Sumerian temple, said Stuart Campbell of Manchester University’s Archaeology Department, who led the dig.

“This is a breathtaking find,” Campbell said, because of its unusually large size – roughly the size of a football pitch, or about 80 metres on each side. The archaeologist said complexes of this size and age were rare.

“It appears that it is some sort of public building. It might be an administrative building, it might have religious connections or controlling goods to the city of Ur,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview from the U.K.

The complex of rooms around a large courtyard was found 20 kilometres from Ur, the last capital of the Sumerian royal dynasties whose civilization flourished 5,000 years ago.

Campbell said one of the artifacts they unearthed was a 9-centimetre clay plaque showing a worshipper wearing a long, fringed robe, approaching a sacred site.

Beyond artifacts, the site could reveal the environmental and economic conditions of the region through analysis of plant and animal remains, the archaeological team said in a statement.

The dig began last month when the six-member British team worked with four Iraqi archaeologists to dig in the Tell Khaiber in the southern province of Thi Qar, some 320 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Decades of war and violence have kept international archaeologists away from Iraq, where significant archaeological sites as yet unexplored are located. Still, the dig showed that such collaborative missions could be possible in parts of Iraq that are relatively stable, like its Shiite-dominated south.

Campbell’s team was the first British-led archaeological dig in southern Iraq since the 80s. It was also directed by Manchester University’s Dr. Jane Moon and independent archaeologist Robert Killick...