Archive for category: News

There was a time when people thought an educated person was someone with lots of information. But information is easy for everyone these days, too easy. Most people struggle to finish reading a post like this one because they know they’re just clicks away from the latest post about their favorite celebrity. (Thankfully, you’re not like most people!) Everyone has information. But most people still lack something that only education—true education—can give.

What is that something?

It’s the ability to look at information and see it in proper perspective. It’s the ability to sift through the piles of data that all of us slog through and discern what’s true and what’s really important. It’s the ability to know how to take what is most important and put it to use so that success—lasting, satisfying success—is achieved. It’s wisdom.

How do you get something as precious as wisdom?

Proverbs has the answer: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

Fear? Modern secular education tells us to abandon our fears. Learning is possible, we are told, only if we are willing to call everything into question—our sexuality, our beliefs about where we came from, our beliefs about God. But such advice is a lie. The wise person has come to accept that some questions need not to be asked. He knows that God is to be feared. This doesn’t mean that the wise man runs away from God in terror. But it does mean he takes God seriously.

What else does wisdom require?

Proverbs says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. You can’t be wise without fearing God, but you can’t be wise without a lot of other things too.

Anyone who would be wise must also be a learner, a careful observer, a student. With the fear of God firmly in his heart, a person needs to study the world all around. He cannot make wise decisions unless he has a great deal to be wise with. So he’ll have to know about science, math, language arts, and social studies.

But he’ll have to know about these from the perspective that only the fear of the Lord can provide. He’ll need to understand that science is a powerful tool for ruling over God’s world under God’s greater rule over him. He will have to see math as a way to model God’s world for God’s purposes. He’ll need to understand that human communication is the result of humans having been made in God’s image and therefore it must be used to imitate God’s character and deeds. And he’ll have to learn about society with the understanding that government exists to ensure justice—justice on God’s own terms.

Where does a person develop this kind of understanding?

All the way through life in whatever situation he finds himself. But the best way to begin is through education. Not just any education, of course. A Christian education. An environment where Christian parents, students, and textbooks all work together to produce something far more profound and useful than mere information.

To find more information on Christian Education, please visit HERE

To listen to a “Stand in the Gap Weekend” program on this topic, please click HERE

In a culture that desperately needs godly light and truth shed on the country’s many pressing issues, the American Pastors Network’s radio programming, “Stand in the Gap,” is expanding, with the addition of several new stations and a new web site being unveiled today.

Currently, several stations throughout Pennsylvania air “Stand in the Gap Today,” including WFYL-AM Philadelphia, and several more are adding the program today: WFBM 90.5 FM in the Beaver Springs and Richfield areas, WFBM 90.1 FM in Selinsgrove and Sunbury, and WFBA 90.5 FM in Mt. Carmel and Frackville. All three stations will air the program live daily beginning 12:05 p.m. and cover about 12 counties in central Pennsylvania.

“Over the past three months since ‘Stand in the Gap Today’ debuted, we’ve covered a multitude of crucial topics on the air,” said APN President Sam Rohrer. “As our culture moves further and further from the truth, Christians desperately need to apply a biblical and constitutional view to the matters that affect all of us every day. That’s why it’s so important that quality programming like ‘Stand in the Gap Today’ grows and reaches even more Americans throughout the country.”

Beginning today, seven radio stations in Texas will also air “Stand in the Gap Today.” The stations in the Kingdom Keys Network of Christian Radio cover a large portion of northern Texas. Also airing the program are WJSM-FM 92.7 in Altoona, Pa., and WJSM-AM 1110 in Martinsburg, Pa.

“Stand in the Gap Today” is a one-hour live daily radio program that addresses the cultural and moral issues of our time from a constitutional and biblical perspective. With issues like same-sex marriage, the possibility of a nuclear Iran, and Islamic radicalism daily in the news, how should Christian Americans think?

The program communicates to listeners the importance of applying a biblical and constitutional worldview to every aspect of their lives, provides tools to respond to attacks against biblical truth in the culture, and encourages them in their critical responsibility, as ambassadors of Christ, to speak truth in the culture.

The program is hosted by Rohrer, along with Gary Dull, APN board member and executive director and vice president of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network, (PPN, www.papastors.net), and Dave Kistler, president of the North Carolina Pastors Network (NCPN, www.ncpastors.net). Daily, “Stand in the Gap Today” considers current hard news topics from a biblical, pastoral point of view making it unique amongst other radio programs in the U.S., and welcomes guests, including caller comments during “Phone-In Friday.”

Today, “Stand in the Gap” is also unveiling its new web site, found at www.StandintheGapRadio.com, where visitors to the site can listen live to “Stand in the Gap Today” each day at noon through WFYL 1180-AM. The new site also details all three APN radio programs, which include “Stand in the Gap Minute,” a daily one-minute radio feature that airs daily on more than 40 stations, and “Stand in the Gap Weekend,” a one-hour program on Sundays that features a sermon from an APN pastor, followed by a short commentary with Rohrer and others. The weekend program airs on more than 150 stations, including the American Family Radio Network.

June’s Supreme Court decision overturned the definition of marriage that had previously stood for millennia. Now, a group of lawmakers is working to wipe out the terms “husband” and “wife” from the landscape of America—all in the name of equality.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) has introduced the Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act of 2015 that would strike the use of gendered terms such as “husband” and “wife” from the federal code and replace them with more gender-neutral terms, such as “spouse” or “married couple.” So far, there are 23 original co-sponsors to the bill, Capps reports on her web site.

This latest proposed legislation is just one example of the many ways America is demonstrating a shredding of the moral fabric on which the country was founded, says Sam Rohrer, president of the American Pastors Network and the Pennsylvania Pastors Network (PPN, www.papastors.net). 

First, marriage was redefined throughout the nation, and Americans’ freedoms were taken away though the passage and subsequent protection of a severely flawed government health care plan. Then, an abortion industry scandal erupts after Planned Parenthood leaders casually talk about the body parts of unborn babies over dinner. Although the undercover video has outraged many, Rohrer says it’s an entirely different culture when conversations like these would even occur in the first place.

Rohrer recently talked about the moral change in America on APN’s daily one-hour radio program, “Stand in the Gap Today,” as the homosexual agenda advances at breakneck speed.

“It’s telling that as an example, Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church have claimed the moral position regarding family and sexuality and clearly linked the U.S. and the West to moral depravity,” Rohrer said. “I recently talked about this on our radio show, ‘Stand in the Gap Today,’ and cited an article in the Free Republic outlining how Russia is battling ‘gay fever.’ Redefining the terminology in marriage of ‘husband and wife’ is further indication of the insatiable appetite of a culture that has rejected the authority of God, redefined eternal Truth into ‘what feels good at the moment’ to seek the complete destruction of concept of  marriage between one naturally born man and one naturally born woman. 

“If everything that marriage represents is eliminated, including the language, why not just settle for civil unions?” Rohrer continued. “Instead, those who wish to throw off God’s design for human sexuality will continue to push until marriage as this nation has known it will be completely unrecognizable. There can never be moral parity nor is there anything equal between a man and a woman getting married, and two homosexual men or two lesbian women getting married.”

According to Rep. Capps web site, the Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act would not only “ensure that the code reflects marriage equality, but it could also make several positive changes to the U.S. Code by removing areas of gender discrimination written into federal law. For instance, it is currently illegal to threaten the President’s wife—but not the President’s husband. Capps’ bill would update the code to make it illegal to threaten the President’s spouse. The bill would correct a number of these types of discrepancies in the code.”

Rohrer added that the very notion that terms God created—male and female, that He created them, according to Matthew 19:4—are now being targeted in order to wash them out of society is confirming proof of the downward moral spiral of America.

“While the SCOTUS ruling embracing same-sex marriage has, in part, contributed to a constitutional crisis, it has confirmed to the world that America is no longer the moral leader,” Rohrer said. “And while a constitutional crisis has been exacerbated by the SCOTUS opinion embracing same sex marriage, it nonetheless has difficult but definable solutions. The moral crisis created around the globe is far deeper and may prove fatal to the future of America.”

APN’s Stand in the Gap Today” is a daily one-hour program hosted by Rohrer, along with Gary Dull, APN board member, executive director and vice president of the PPN, (www.papastors.net), and Dave Kistler, president of the North Carolina Pastors Network (NCPN, www.ncpastors.net).

Daily, “Stand in the Gap Today” considers current news topics and welcomes guests, including guest comments during “Phone-In Friday.” “Stand in the Gap Today” can be heard on several stations throughout Pennsylvania, via satellite and streamed lived online at www.1180wfyl.com or can be heard after each broadcast at www.americanpastorsnetwork.net/resources.

 

American Pastors Network President, Sam Rohrer recently spoke with KDKA Radio’s Mike Pintek about some of the pressing issues and pertinent ramifications of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on same-sex marriage.

Rohrer, who is also President of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network (PPN, www.papastors.net) said the Court’s recent 5-4 decision will eventually force churches and other religious organizations to either compromise their faith convictions or face the specter of losing their tax-exempt status.

“Everyone should be aware that there’s more than a moral consideration to this marriage ruling. Because the Court usurped and stepped over their Constitutional authority, vis-à-vis the matters of the 10th Amendment—the ability for states to make laws that are within their jurisdiction and to rule them all out of order—is a violation of civil law, the Constitutional law!” Rohrer said on the Pittsburgh radio program. “I would submit that every aspect of freedom as we know it, being the range of the First Amendment or the Second Amendment or any of the Amendments, have now been violated by the actions of this Court because they’ve made themselves the law over and above the Constitution. So, every aspect of what we consider civil freedom or religious freedom has been jeopardized by the action of this Court.”

Rohrer went on to say that those working to defend and protect religious liberty may look to the freedom of religion clause of the First Amendment—but the First Amendment may protect religious freedoms only to a point. The Supreme Court essentially overruled the 10th Amendment by overriding the laws already set forth by the states and voters within those states. Therefore, Rohrer says, all other Amendments are open to attack as well.

“Do we not think, therefore, that any of the other Amendments are not equally jeopardized?” Rohrer told Pintek. “Just as Justices Thomas and Scalia indicated, there was no jurisdiction for the Court to rule; they had no power; they had no right. And yet they exercised their will in trying to make this kind of application when, in this case, it has nothing to do with any kind of historical precedent. And as Justice Scalia said, there is no precedent in the history of the Court to rule such kind of an action on this type of a matter, which, in the case of marriage, has been established, as (Justice) Roberts said, for millennia.”

Rohrer added that he would expect litigation against religious colleges that decline to provide housing for same-sex couples, faith-based adoption agencies that have policies against matching children with same-sex couples, and eventually, pastors and churches who will not perform or host same-sex weddings.

Additionally, even if litigation is not successful, the government could attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status for those organizations that do not comply with the new Court opinion, Rohrer added.

“All of these are absolutely legitimately predictable because of the nature of the ruling,” he said. “It will be a matter of ‘you cannot discriminate against, therefore, you must permit.’ This is how it will go; you can see it. The ramifications of this law are broad and deep. The fact of the matter is, the very people who think this is a win will find out that their own civil freedoms have been jeopardized by the actions of this Court. It’s just the nature of the ramifications of undoing law as we have had them in the Constitution. This is a big deal,” Rohrer concluded on the Pittsburgh and surrounding area radio program.

The fundamental rights of the U.S. Constitution were at the core of today’s Supreme Court announcement of its long-awaited landmark same-sex marriage ruling. And the Court chose to declare that gay marriage was indeed a fundamental right, thus stripping states and voters of their rights to make their own marriage decisions.

Sam Rohrer, President of the American Pastors Network  and the Pennsylvania Pastors Network , says the ruling puts churches and pastors in a difficult position.

“This landmark decision had deep biblical, historical and constitutional roots, and unfortunately, our justices chose to redefine marriage for the entire nation, ignoring other constitutional rights and opening the door to a dangerous infringement on religious liberties,” Rohrer said. “The fact that this issue even made it to the Supreme Court of the United States was an indictment against American Christians and against American churches. Even though some churches have sought to blend into the culture rather than change it, this ruling serves as a wake-up call for pastors and churches who are committed to being the salt and light of our society and standing up for truth.

“This is just the beginning,” Rohrer added, “and as the culture continues to change—and move even further away from the truth of God’s Word and from our constitutional roots—it is crucial that pastors and churches know the truth, speak the truth and live the truth, doing all they can to preserve God’s Word and protect the religious liberties of Christians across the nation.”

Attorney Jeff Mateer of the Liberty Institute, who was a featured speaker at PPN’s “U-Turn” conference this spring, attended SCOTUS’s oral arguments in April and called same-sex marriage “the issue of our generation.”

For the case, the Liberty Institute filed a brief on behalf of the National Religious Broadcasters, Billy Graham and Franklin Graham, Samaritan’s Purse, In Touch Ministries, along with several seminaries and theologians, stating that “for millennia,” we have believed in marriage between one man and one woman—and there has never been another definition of marriage. Mateer added that today’s decision will eventually violate the religious liberty rights of many and intrude on the workings and beliefs of the church.