TheCall goes out: Redeem America
50,000 gather, pray on Mall
They came, they fasted and they prayed.
Thousands of people, including many youths, spent a marathon 12 hours on the Mall yesterday for TheCall DC, a combination Christian rock concert and day of prayer and fasting to God on behalf of the nation.
"Can you imagine how this moves the heart of heaven?" Lou Engle, organizer of the rally, asked the crowd midway through the gathering.

With her Bible open, Brianne Fife, 17, from Bradenton, Fla., prays Saturday in front of the stage at the 12-hour event.
"Set your face toward this," he said by way of encouragement to the sweltering thousands sitting in the blazing sun. "I know it's hot, but thank God He's given us a breeze. We are not here for our convenience, but to move heaven. I did not come here to have a nice meeting while America is going to hell."
Organizers estimated 50,000 people were at the rally, a gathering point for corporate prayer for America, the coming elections, the reformation of American Christianity and an end to abortion. Worship music began at about 8:30 a.m., and the prayers and speeches were slated to last past 10 p.m.
Various speakers, including one-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, prayed for the country and its leaders. Others prayed against "addictions to sexual immorality," and at around noon, ushers passed out "purity covenants" that pledged the signee to confess to a trusted friend any time he or she viewed pornography or had extramarital sexual contact.
"Today there is a widespread tolerance of immorality in the church, from church leaders to the newest believer," said the Rev. Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. "God is wanting us to draw closer to Him on this. There is a spirit of glory about to be poured out on the church in this nation, but with that must come purity."
Promise Keepers founder Bill McCartney led prayers for "godly men" and asked the crowd to pray for "a father's blessing" over the men present.
Organizers had projected several hundred thousand people to attend, but Mr. Engle said during the rally he was "thrilled" with the turnout. "I didn't expect 100,000," he said.
He spoke from a stage flanked with black and white banners showing an arrow pointing upward. Dozens of people wearing Jewish prayer shawls swayed back and forth; many others prayed facedown on mats or prostrate on the ground.
A delegation of 60 to 70 people from New Life Christian Center in Norfolk had set up a large cross — draped with a red cloth — among the trees.
"We're here to pray for the restoring of the principles on which our country was founded," said co-pastor Nancy Gerry. "I want to be part of history," stated her son, Christian, 10, holding a Spider-Man figurine.
Fellow church member Dwight McDowell said his 17-year-old daughter persuaded him to come. "The air here seems almost different," he mused. "If we get back to praying for our leaders, they might make wise and good decisions."
A variety of denominations were there, including a bus full of Catholics from Philadelphia who took turns holding up a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Two men holding it up said some Protestants had questioned them about it.
"People told us she is dead and gone," said Chris Dounas Lane, one of the two men. "But Our Lady is pregnant in this picture. She is our mother."
The Rev. Frank Pavone, founder of Priests for Life and the only Catholic speaker, prayed for an end to abortion and for the parents of aborted children.
"One drop of the blood of Jesus forgives all the abortions in the world," he said. As Father Pavone came up to speak, Mr. Engle brought an applauding crowd to its feet, he said, to thank the Catholic Church for fighting abortion.

Photographs by Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times A crowd estimated at 50,000 takes part in TheCall DC, a Christian rock concert and day of prayer and fasting, Saturday on the National Mall.
Across Third Street from the rally was a sign proclaiming "3,500 Americans aborted daily," along with dozens of baby shoes, with tags, placed on the grass. "In loving memory to my daughter Moriah, I miss you so much," one tag read. "To my baby girl Pearl Ruby aborted at 12 weeks in March 1973," said another

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/17/thecall-goes-out-redeem-america/

China confiscates Bibles from American Christians August 17, 2008 - 10:16am
By GILLIAN WONG Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - Chinese customs officials confiscated more than 300 Bibles on Sunday from four American Christians who arrived in a southwestern city with plans to distribute them, the group's leader said.
The Bibles were taken from the group's checked luggage after they landed at the airport in the city of Kunming, said Pat Klein, head of Vision Beyond Borders. The group, based in Sheridan, Wyoming, distributes Bibles and Christian teaching materials around the world to "strengthen the persecuted church," according to its Web site.
The group arrived in China on Sunday and had intended to distribute the Bibles to people in the city, Klein told the AP in a telephone interview while still at the airport.
"I heard that there's freedom of religion in China, so why is there a problem for us to bring Bibles?" Klein said. "We had over 300 copies and customs took all of them from us."
The move comes as China hosts the Olympics in Beijing, where false media reports last year claimed Bibles would be banned from the games. The state-run China Daily reported last month that 10,000 bilingual copies of the Bible would be distributed in the Olympic Village, which houses athletes and media.
Bibles are printed under the supervision of the Communist government. The officially atheistic country only allows them to be used in government-sanctioned churches and in some big hotels catering to foreigners.
A woman who was on duty at Kunming airport's customs office confirmed over the telephone that 315 Bibles were found in the passengers' checked baggage.
The officer, who would only give her last name, Xiao, denied confiscating the Bibles. She said authorities were just "taking care" of them and provided no further details. She later said she was not authorized to speak to the media and referred questions to the national customs headquarters in Beijing, which did not answer phones on Sunday.
"We're not selling them; we give them free to the people," Klein said. "We didn't come to cause trouble, we just came to bring Bibles to help out the Chinese Christians."
The Bibles were printed in Chinese, he said.
Klein said the customs officers had told him that they could each have one Bible for personal use and not more than that. He said the officers had videotaped them and were insisting that they leave the airport.
"We don't want to go without taking those books. It cost us a lot of money to bring them here," Klein said. "They're saying that it's illegal to bring the Bibles in and that if we wanted to, we had to apply ahead of time for permission."
China faces routine criticism for its human rights violations and its repression of religious freedom. Religious practice is heavily regulated by the Communist Party, with worship allowed only in party-controlled churches, temples and mosques, while those gathering outside face harassment, arrest and terms in labor camps or prison.
A Chinese Christian activist was detained Aug. 10, the opening weekend of the Olympics, on his way to a church service attended by President Bush in Beijing. A rights group said later that the activist, Hua Huiqi, a leader of the unofficial Protestant church in Beijing, had escaped from police and was in hiding.
Police have denied any involvement in Hua's disappearance.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1461454

Police say pastor moved wife's body, impregnated daughter
By Gary McElroy, Religion News Service
MOBILE, Ala. — Itinerant preacher Anthony Jujuan Hopkins killed his wife and buried her in a shallow grave, but dug her up and put her in a home freezer when her bloating body began to crack the ground, police told a judge on Wednesday.
Investigators testifying in Hopkins' preliminary hearing also stated that one of the family's daughters — the same daughter who turned Hopkins in — is five months pregnant and claims Hopkins is the father. She told police that Hopkins:
• Convinced her to have sex with him eight years ago by citing Old Testament passages.
• Killed her mother, Arletha, by strangulation four years ago during an argument.
• Hid the woman's body in the woods, later moving it to church property in Clarke County. When the ground there began to crack, Hopkins made the daughter help him move her mother's body to the freezer in the family's home in Mobile.
As the daughter was leading police last month to her mother's body, Hopkins was preaching a sermon in Jackson.
Approached by police there, Hopkins asked what was up, according to Wednesday's testimony. They told him that they were there about a body being found in a freezer.
Hopkins then uttered an expletive, said Mobile police investigator Kent Quinnie.
By the time Hopkins' preliminary hearing ended before presiding District Judge Charles McKnight, the judge announced he had heard enough to send the criminal cases to a grand jury.
Hopkins also spoke publicly for the first time since his arrest, responding in a cheerful tone when McKnight asked how he was doing. "Real well, sir," Hopkins said.
Investigators told the judge that shortly before going to police, the daughter ran away from the home she shared with Hopkins and seven siblings.
"Don't be telling my business," Hopkins told his daughter, then suggested that she wanted him sexually, which caused her to want her mother dead.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-08-14-hopkins-accused_N.htm


Many think God's intervention can revive the dying August 19, 2008 - 1:35am
The Compassionate Friends Executive Director, Patricia Loder, is seen in her Milford, Mich. home Friday, Aug. 15, 2008. Loder holds a photo of her late 5-year-old son Stephen, and 8-year-old daughter Stephanie, both of whom were killed in an automobile accident in 1991. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)
By LINDSEY TANNER AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO (AP) - When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans.
An eye-opening survey reveals widespread belief that divine intervention can revive dying patients. And, researchers said, doctors "need to be prepared to deal with families who are waiting for a miracle."
More than half of randomly surveyed adults _ 57 percent _ said God's intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. And nearly three-quarters said patients have a right to demand such treatment.
When asked to imagine their own relatives being gravely ill or injured, nearly 20 percent of doctors and other medical workers said God could reverse a hopeless outcome.
"Sensitivity to this belief will promote development of a trusting relationship" with patients and their families, according to researchers. That trust, they said, is needed to help doctors explain objective, overwhelming scientific evidence showing that continued treatment would be worthless.
Pat Loder, a Milford, Mich., woman whose two young children were killed in a 1991 car crash, said she clung to a belief that God would intervene when things looked hopeless.
"When you're a parent and you're standing over the body of your child who you think is dying ... you have to have that" belief, Loder said.
While doctors should be prepared to deal with those beliefs, they also shouldn't "sugarcoat" the truth about a patient's condition, Loder said.
Being honest in a sensitive way helps family members make excruciating decisions about whether to let dying patients linger, or allow doctors to turn off life-prolonging equipment so that organs can be donated, Loder said.
Loder was driving when a speeding motorcycle slammed into the family's car. Both children were rushed unconscious to hospitals, and Loder says she believes doctors did everything they could. They were not able to revive her 5-year-old son; soon after her 8-year-old daughter was declared brain dead.
She said her beliefs about divine intervention have changed.
"I have become more of a realist," she said. "I know that none of us are immune from anything."
Loder was not involved in the survey, which appears in Monday's Archives of Surgery.
It involved 1,000 U.S. adults randomly selected to answer questions by telephone about their views on end-of-life medical care. They were surveyed in 2005, along with 774 doctors, nurses and other medical workers who responded to mailed questions.
Survey questions mostly dealt with untimely deaths from trauma such as accidents and violence. These deaths are often particularly tough on relatives because they are more unexpected than deaths from lingering illnesses such as cancer, and the patients tend to be younger.
Dr. Lenworth Jacobs, a University of Connecticut surgery professor and trauma chief at Hartford Hospital, was the lead author.
He said trauma treatment advances have allowed patients who previously would have died at the scene to survive longer. That shift means hospital trauma specialists "are much more heavily engaged in the death process," he said.
Jacobs said he frequently meets people who think God will save their dying loved one and who want medical procedures to continue.
"You can't say, 'That's nonsense.' You have to respect that" and try to show them X-rays, CAT scans and other medical evidence indicating death is imminent, he said.
Relatives need to know that "it's not that you don't want a miracle to happen, it's just that is not going to happen today with this patient," he said.
Families occasionally persist and hospitals have gone to court seeking to stop medical treatment doctors believe is futile, but such cases are quite rare.
Dr. Michael Sise, trauma medical director at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, called the study "a great contribution" to one of the most intense issues doctors face.
Sise, a Catholic doctor working in a Catholic hospital, said miracles don't happen when medical evidence shows death is near.
"That's just not a realistic situation," he said.
Sise recalled a teenager severely injured in a gang beating who died soon afterward at his hospital.
The mother "absolutely did not want to withdraw" medical equipment despite the severity of her child's brain injuries, which ensured the child would never wake up, Sise said. "The mom was playing religious tapes in the room, and obviously was very focused on looking for a miracle."
Claudia McCormick, a nurse and trauma program director at Duke University Hospital, said she also has never seen that kind of miracle. But her niece's recovery after being hit by a boat while inner-tubing earlier this year came close.
The boat backed into her and its propeller "caught her in the side of the head. She had no pulse when they pulled her out of the water," McCormick said.
Doctors at the hospital where she was airlifted said "it really doesn't look good." And while it never reached the point where withdrawing lifesaving equipment was discussed, McCormick recalled one of her doctors saying later: '"God has plans for this child. I never thought she'd be here.'"
Like many hospitals, Duke uses a team approach to help relatives deal with dying trauma victims, enlisting social workers, grief counselors and chaplains to work with doctors and nurses.
If the family still says, "We just can't shut that machine off, then, you know what, we can't shut that machine off," McCormick said.
"Sometimes," she said, "you might have a family that's having a hard time and it might take another day, and that's OK."
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Archives of Surgery: http://www.archsurg.com/

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