St. Maximos' Hut

As one whose television watching consists mostly of flipping between reruns of the Simpsons, EWTN and the History Channel (often hopelessly conflating them), my contact with the cable television industry largely consists of lamenting the bill. However, our friends over at the Acton Institute report that,

A battle is raging between competing evangelical groups over proposed legislation which would require cable providers to offer the choice to consumers to subscribe to cable TV on a channel by channel basis. On the one side, conservative Christian and pro-family organizations like Concerned Women for America and the Parents Television Council favor the so-called “a la carte” plan, arguing that it would allow families greater control over the type of content that is piped into their homes.
On the other side, broadcasters such as the Trinity Broadcasting Network and Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, argue that the ability for customers to individually choose the channels to which they subscribe would undermine their ability to reach non-Christians.

In an article entitled The Ties that Bind: Cabled Christianity , Associate Editor Jordan Ballor gives an excellent account of a struggle that has pitted these groups against one another on the field of consumer choice in media. In a nice bit of commentary on the situation, Mr. Ballor invites us to, "Imagine the time and financial resources that might be used in service of God’s kingdom if the Christian concern with cable TV were placed in proper perspective."

Perhaps the same can be said about the time and resources people of faith squander on merely watching the effluent that passes for most cable programming (with the exception, of course, of the Simpsons, EWTN and the History Channel).

The good (and I use the term quite loosely) folks at Ship-O-Fools-the Magazine of Christian Unrest maintain a bit of the web called the Fruitcake Zone. They have hit on a remarkable site NonRaptured.com which is billed as follows:

Jesus will come for the saints any day now, and your odds of being among them are not good. Non-Raptured.com is your guide to making the most of being left behind. Speculate to accumulate on that volatiile tribulation economy. Get soon-to-be-raptured friends to leave you their worldy goods to stop them falling to the worldwide government of Antichrist.

A must-not-miss is the map of how the big day will affect US politics. As well, how will estates practice will be affected as well as financial planning practices?

Christianity Today reports that "global trafficking in women and girls for purposes of sexual exploitation rakes in $7 billion every year" and that,

Human-rights groups are understandably outraged by Germany's decision to make prostitution a spectator sport at the World Cup. Germany, which legalized the world's oldest profession in 2002, already has an estimated 400,000 legal prostitutes. Apparently that's not sufficient to satisfy 3 million visiting soccer fans. So Germany's World Cup cities have issued extra prostitution licenses and approved "sex huts" (complete with condoms and snacks) to be set up like portable potties around stadiums.

Anti-trafficking activists say these initiatives will bring 40,000 more women into the country.

The article, available at Christianity Today's website, is a useful insight into the link between "voluntary prostitution", human trafficking and sexual slavery with some notable observations by Pastor Martin Luther on the topic.