Here it is: RANTS! & Raves!—your weekly opportunity to sound off about the week past.

Remember the rules:

• A Rave! is something that happened during the past week that you’re pleased about and is signified by the word “Rave!” and/or an appropriately peppy emoticon (see Website Help to learn how to use emoticons, aka “smileys”).
• A Rant! is something that happened during the past week that you’re ticked off about and is signified by the word “Rant!” and/or an appropriately grumpy emoticon.
• You may Rant! about something a person said, did, or wrote, but you may not Rant! about generally disliking a person. IOW, no personal attacks allowed.

Have at it!

Happy end of July.

Welcome to our weekend open thread, where you, the commenters, choose the topics of conversation.

Have a great Saturday and a blessed Lord’s Day.

Despite opposition and vetoes by its Democratic governor, North Carolina’s General Assembly and its Republican majority in both chambers has turned 2011 into a banner year for pro-life lawmaking in state, passing four laws that help protect the unborn.

This week, the House and Senate voted to override Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of the Woman’s Right to Know Act. The law requires an abortion facility to provide information about counseling, ultrasounds, adoption, and the legal responsibilities of the father. In addition, a woman seeking an abortion must now wait 24 hours after receiving counseling and an ultrasound before going through the procedure.

Gov. Perdue vetoed the bill on June 27, calling it “a dangerous intrusion into the confidential relationship that exists between women and their doctors.” She added that physicians should not be “overridden by elected officials seeking to impose their ideological agenda.”

On June 15, the General Assembly was able to override another Perdue veto, this time on the state budget, which cut funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. North Carolina became the third state to defund the organization, following Kansas and Indiana. Planned Parenthood is now suing all three states over the defunding.

Not all pro-life legislation in the state has met with opposition by the governor. In June, Perdue signed a bill that allows North Carolinians to purchase “Choose Life” license plates, with the proceeds going to the Carolina Pregnancy Care Fellowship, which will distribute the funds to pregnancy care centers in the state that provide alternatives to abortion.

Earlier in the legislative session, the General Assembly passed “Ethen’s Law,” or “The Unborn Victims of Violence Act.” Ethen’s Law recognizes unborn children as victims of violent criminal offenses. A perpetrator who murders or injures a pregnant woman in North Carolina will now be charged with crimes against both the mother and child.

The New York Times on Monday had a fascinating story, “Evolution Right Under Our Noses,” that profiled “a small but growing number of field biologists who study urban evolution—not the rise and fall of skyscrapers and neighborhoods, but the biological changes that cities bring to the wildlife that inhabits them. For these scientists, the New York metropolitan region is one great laboratory.”

The story gets us to continue reading by offering great bait: “White-footed mice, stranded on isolated urban islands, are evolving to adapt to urban stress. Fish in the Hudson have evolved to cope with poisons in the water. Native ants find refuge in the median strips on Broadway. And more familiar urban organisms, like bedbugs, rats, and bacteria, also mutate and change in response to the pressures of the metropolis.”

But then comes the switch: “In short, the process of evolution is responding to New York and other cities the way it has responded to countless environmental changes over the past few billion years. . . . Evolution is one of life’s constants. New species emerge; old ones become extinct.”

Excuse me? The New York Times story gives examples of microevolution (change within a species), not macroevolution (evolution above the species level, such as the origin of mammals). For example, almost all the tomcod in the Hudson River share a mutation in one gene that allows them to survive pollutants that cause deformities in fish larvae. Fish born without that mutation may be missing their jaws: Unable to eat, they die quickly.

It’s no surprise that fish born with the mutation would quickly become supreme. It would be big news if a fish started walking. Evolutionists defending the Times might say, “Of course we don’t have examples of macroevolution—that takes millions of years.” Fair enough: Let’s not pretend, then, that changes within a population of mud-dwelling worms supply evidence for evolution as the word is commonly understood.

Willow Creek Community Church has ended a decades-long partnership with Exodus International, the world’s largest ministry that addresses homosexuality in the church. The South Barrington, Ill., megachurch’s decision to split with the organization is one of a number of recent public separations from Christian organizations that promote a biblical perspective on same-sex relationships.

Though Willow Creek made the decision in 2009, it wasn’t made public until June.

Alan Chambers, president of Exodus, said he believes the separation occurred because Willow Creek gave in to pressure from gay activists. In recent years, Soulforce, whose mission is to persuade Christian organizations to accept homosexuality, had targeted Willow Creek.

“Willow Creek is a strong church,” Chambers pointed out, but he is nonetheless “deeply saddened to see that Willow Creek isn’t going to offer strong discipleship for people struggling with same-sex attractions.”

In a statement obtained by The Christian Post, Scott Vaudrey, Willow Creek’s director of pastoral care and leader of its elder response team, said, “It is true that Willow Creek discontinued its formal relationship with Exodus. In making this move, we were not making a social or political statement. We were simply in a season of reviewing and clarifying some of our affiliations with outside organizations.”

Exodus and Willow Creek’s relationship began in the late 1980s, with the megachurch being one of the first and largest churches to officially sign on with the organization. The relationship began as an informal partnership but became more formal when Willow Creek joined the Exodus Church Association.

Exodus helped Willow Creek leaders work with people experiencing same-sex attraction and would often refer people to Willow Creek’s ministries. Chambers spoke at the megachurch and attended several conferences there as well. He said that while the relationship had been positive, he believes Willow Creek eventually began to “rethink how they were being viewed.”

Other ministries have dropped Exodus as well, including New Direction, a Canadian ministry that chose to end its partnership with Exodus in 2009. A year earlier, two ministries that focus on issues of sexuality, Where Grace Abounds and Mastering Life Ministries, also split from Exodus. Representatives from Mastering Life said their decision was not over a doctrinal disagreement but was a private matter.

Exodus also recently lost its tax-exempt status in New Zealand.

In recent years, other organizations like Exodus that take a biblical position on sexuality have had a falling out with other groups that appeared to be like-minded. In Canada, the New Democratic Party petitioned the Canadian government to eliminate the charity status of all organizations that assist people battling same-sex attraction. The government has yet to rule on the matter. Also, TOMS Shoes chose to end a partnership it had formed with Focus on the Family in early July over Focus’ stance on homosexuality.

“It’s a disappointing trend within churches and Christian-owned ministries,” Chambers said. “[These ministries are] feeling the pressure to distance themselves from their Christian friends and are afraid to stand in the public market and say ‘this is what we believe.’ It’s a marker of things to come.”

There’s some hot debate right now about whether Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik is representative of Christianity, and of Christians. University of California, Santa Barbara, religion professor Mark Juergensmeyer believes we ought to call Breivik a “Christian terrorist,” at least so long as we call people like Osama bin Laden “Islamic terrorists.” Juergensmeyer writes of Breivik: “He would like to have a Christian army comparable to al-Qaeda’s Muslim militia.”

Meanwhile, Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister and head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, believes it’s fair to call Brievik a Christian, albeit one who lost sight of the essential role played by peace in our faith.

Sociologist Laurie Essig is far less charitable, blaming Breivik’s murders on the “far right,” which she defines in a rambling causal chain that links racists with people who believe journalists are left-wing: “Breivik’s philosophy is a lot like what many (white and male) people seem to be thinking.” While writer Sarah Posner claims Breivik’s violence is a natural extension of a Christian worldview.

Holy Cross religious studies professor Matthew Schmalz offers a voice of reason in response, rightly noting that it doesn’t make sense to call Breivik a Christian when Breivik himself distinguishes between his own “cultural Christianity” and the personal relationship with Jesus he lacks and attributes to “religious Christians.”

So we have a murderer who does not consider himself a Christian in any meaningful sense of that word, and who by his actions violates the central tenets of our faith, and yet enemies of conservatives or Christians or both want to call him a conservative Christian, because they cannot distinguish opposition to rampant immigration from, say, Nazi race theories.

But here’s the interesting question: Do Christians have a double standard here? If a crazed author of an Islam-referencing screed, one who called himself a “cultural Muslim” and who wanted to see an Islamic crusade against Christians, did what Breivik has done, would we parse words about whether he’s a Muslim terrorist?

I probably wouldn’t. Is that because I have an unreasonable prejudice against Muslims, or because I’ve grown so accustomed to seeing exploders of school buses and butchers of innocents proclaim Allah that I’m simply letting the data speak for itself?

Three employees of an abortion facility in Pittsburgh were arrested for illegally prescribing and receiving drugs Tuesday.

Charged were John Barrett, the medical director of the Allegheny Women’s Center; Alton Lawson, the center’s former medical director; and Mark Wagner, a lab technician. A former registered nurse, Karen Kane, also was arrested.

News of the arrests motivated pro-life groups to call for the shutdown of the abortion facility.

“Because of these arrests, we demand that the State close the Allegheny Women’s Center,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman. “Abortionists who break the law should not be allowed to continue business as usual.”

Barrett and Lawson were charged with providing Diethylpropion, a prescription weight loss drug, to Wagner. According to a criminal complaint, the abortionists provided Wagner with over 20,000 tablets over a period of several years. Wagner allegedly used the drugs to treat anxiety and depression.

The complaint also states that Wagner did not pay for the drugs because he regarded them as a form of compensation for working at the facility. Allegedly, Wagner received additional prescriptions and up to 12 bottles of Diethylpropion whenever he requested it.

Wagner also was charged for selling the Diethylpropion to Kane, who allegedly received up to six bottles at a time.

“Drug abuse and the illegal prescription drugs are rampant throughout the abortion industry,” said Newman. “We have seen arrests and disciplinary action like this with abortionists all over the country.”

In March, Harry Perper, an abortionist in Florida, was arrested and charged with racketeering, conspiracy, and drug trafficking related to Oxycontin, a narcotic pain-reliever, and other prescription pain medications.

Two months earlier, Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s abortion facility was raided by the local district attorney’s office after its investigation showed that Gosnell was the largest supplier of Oxycontin sold on the streets of Philadelphia. The investigation also found bodies of viable aborted babies, revealing that Gosnell was killing them after they were born alive. In addition to being charged with illegal distribution of drugs, Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, construction worker Frank Silecchia discovered a 17-foot-tall cross, made up of intersecting steel beams, standing amidst the rubble. It became an icon for many, a reminder of God’s presence even in the face of tragedy.

During the site’s cleanup, the cross was temporarily erected on the grounds of a nearby church in lower Manhattan.

Last Saturday, the cross was moved into the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Memorial president Joe Daniels explained that the cross is “an important part of our commitment to bring back the authentic physical reminders that tell the history of 9/11 in a way nothing else could.”

On Monday, American Atheists filed a lawsuit claiming that installing the steel beam cross in a government-funded museum is unconstitutional because it creates a “mingling of church and state.”

According to a report in The Christian Post, Dave Silverman, president of the atheist organization, is demanding that if a Christian symbol is included in the museum, others must be represented. “As a public accommodation, the memorial must allow us (and all other religious philosophies) to include our own display of equal size inside the museum, or not include the cross. Equality is an all-or-nothing deal,” he said in a statement.

First of all, no one is requiring Silverman, or other atheists, or those of other religions to walk into the museum and see those intersecting steel beams as a Christian cross. But those beams, in the shape of a cross, were the only things left standing at Ground Zero on that awful day. To exclude them from the museum would be wrong. And to include symbols of atheism and other religions—items that weren’t at Ground Zero—would also be wrong.

WASHINGTON—The Republican establishment in the nation’s capital is scrambling to salvage its debt ceiling legislation in the face of a Tea Party-fueled rank-and-file revolt.

As the nation moves closer to the White House’s Aug.2 deadline to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, financial markets continue to drop over concerns about Washington gridlock. But House Speaker John Boehner failed to collect enough votes Thursday for a plan to raise the spending cap while cutting about $1 trillion in federal spending.

The endgame for the debt-ceiling showdown seems a long way off.

Boehner and his GOP leadership team will try again on Friday—a third-straight day—to pass a bill that Democrats say has no chance in the Senate. Still, it is not Democrats who are giving Boehner’s team problems. Instead it has been an up and down ride for Boehner and the Tea Party, and the aftermath could irreparably damage the speaker’s leadership hold. . . . MORE >>

Read Edward Lee Pitts complete Web Extra report.

I had a procedure at the dentist the other day, all to the background music being piped into the operatory through some unseen surround sound speakers. I feel confident that neither the dentist nor the hygienist fully noticed it was on, though, of course, all would notice its sudden absence. Silence is almost intolerably uncomfortable in modern public spaces.

A dentist’s chair is a good place to do some thinking or praying. But the carefully calculated work of the audio architects and mood designers makes it hard to impossible to follow that inclination. You find yourself in the passive position (me, quite literally) of taking in an unwanted thought bilge of worldly philosophy. And unless you make a muscular effort to regurgitate it from your soul forthwith, it just sits in there somewhere. No one knows the effect of this onslaught day after day—in the supermarket, the restaurant, the department store, the car dealership, the funeral parlor showroom, and, most famously, the elevator.

As you can see, I have moved from thinking this modern cultural reality innocuous to thinking it pernicious. I see the fingerprints of Satan all over it. The Enemy of our souls is as content to use the subtle approach as the techniques of direct terrorism; it’s all the same to him, if he may, by any means, save some from salvation. (You will recognize the anti-gospel here.)

But as Christ said, whatever doesn’t gather with him scatters, however gently and with a smiley face. A teenager plugged into an iPod walking down the street, or incessantly texting banalities, is perfect campaigning weather for keeping him from the knowledge of that thin crust below his feet that Jonathan Edwards warned about in his sermon on sinners in the hands of an angry God.