Thus says the Lord:
"Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens
because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are false.
A tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an axe by the hands
of a craftsman. Men deck it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move" (Jer. 10:2- 4)
“Our faith is the basis of our lives,” said Mr. Fowler, a soft-spoken professor of philosophy. “It means that Jesus is the Lord of our household, that we resolve differences peacefully and through love.”
“If by gay evangelical is meant someone who claims both to abide by the authority of Scripture and to engage in a self-affirming manner in homosexual unions, then the concept gay evangelical is a contradiction,” Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said in an e-mail message.
“Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely and counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice,” Dr. Gagnon said. “I trust that gay evangelicals would argue otherwise, but Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture.”
Kevin and Nancy Peter. Ben was in preschool when the Peters faced the question that bedevils middle-class city-dwellers: public school or private?
Many in their Mount Airy circle had chosen private, and probably assumed the Peters would, too. But Nancy had attended the neighborhood school, C.W. Henry, as a child - before transferring to private school - and decided to check it out.
"My big 'Aha!' was that it was a great school," she said. "The only thing wrong with it was perception: Middle-class families didn't consider it, so it became less of a viable option for other middle-class families."
The school was largely African American in a largely white neighborhood.
To encourage others like them - people with resources and contacts - to look at Henry, Nancy and Kevin began hosting monthly meetings in their living room. Four years later, Ben, 8, is a trumpet-playing, sports-loving Henry third-grader and the Peters are slowly winning converts at their gatherings.
"We want to help them make informed choices," said Nancy, 50. "We also want to make the school better for people who don't have a choice."
One family that switched to Henry took their private-school tuition money and bought sports equipment for the school. Other parents landed grants for a music program and a lunchroom overhaul.
Such involvement, said Kevin, 42, "is going to strengthen the school for all the kids."
Nancy, a doctoral student at Penn and director of the university's Out-of-School Time Resource Center, and Kevin, who helps under- and unemployed Philadelphians at the Metropolitan Career Center in Germantown, have been accused of putting their politics ahead of their son's education.
"People say to us, 'You're sending your kid to public school? How could you?' " Nancy said. "We couldn't be happier at Henry."
Endless visions fill my head – this man – as large as life
And instantly my heart mourns for his angels and his wifeBut that was where he had it right – I guess he always knew
Yes the more I care to think of it – the more he had it right
As sure as ‘Crikey!’ fills the sky
