This and That

Joel Thornton, president of the International Human Rights Group told WND that fears the state will use those court-approved tests to destroy the family of Melissa Busekros are very valid.

“The trouble is this emboldens the state again, only now it’s at a higher level, and the courts still are agreeing with them. This could put Melissa back into the psychiatric system where she could disappear from sight entirely,” he said.

[…]

The family’s five other children also are endangered now because of potential court rulings that could be based on any evaluation of the parents, he said.

The appeals court ruling came despite the fact that all three of the lawyers representing Melissa Busekros clearly stated in their request to the court the family had accepted a compromise offered by a lower court for her to return home under government supervision.

“In spite of [that] … the appeals court held that the family refused the court’s initial compromise to let Melissa become an outpatient,” Thornton said.

For the Busekros family, it’s a huge setback.

“[A] fear is that Melissa will be returned to the psychiatric clinic system in Germany and ‘disappear.’ This would leave the family with no way to know where Melissa is or how she is doing. She could become a ward of the state and completely lost to her family,” Thornton said.

Besides the other children in the family, there are further ramifications, too, with the decision raising questions of larger government attacks on homeschoolers in Germany, where that choice of education is illegal because the government wants to stamp out any “parallel” societies utilizing a worldview different from the state’s.

[…]

Members of the German homeschool community previously have taken their battle for the right to teach their children Christian basics to the Human Rights Court for the European Union, asking for affirmation of the statement in the European Convention on Human Rights that: “In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”

However, that court just last year affirmed a German court which had ruled the parental “wish” to have their children grow up without anti-Christian influences “could not take priority over compulsory school attendance.”

The international court said schools represent society and “it was in the children’s interest to become part of that society.”

The German government’s defense of its “social” teachings came to light during an earlier dispute on which WND reported, when a German family wrote to officials objecting to police officers picking their child up at home and delivering him to a public school.

“The Minister of Education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling…,” said a government letter in response. “You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers… In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement.”

In Melissa’s case, the local Youth Welfare Office arrived at the family home with about 15 uniformed police officers to take her into custody. They had in hand a court order allowing them to take her into custody, “if necessary by force.”

Where is God when an angry person shows up at school with a gun? How could God allow these ugly school shootings? Where is God when we hurt? The human mind clamors for answers.

Our country was shocked when violent death struck in a rural Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania. Even there?

The response of the Amish was the next surprise, and the nation talked about it for a long time. Courageous, deliberate, unsolicited forgiveness–some seemed surprised that such a thing exists.

While many were vaguely familiar with the culture of the Plain People (as they are often called), few thought much about their way of life. But after bullets buffeted one community of Plain People, the country listened and tried to watch (the government very graciously assisted in assuring that the Amish were unbothered by media cameras) while grieving families forgave.

However, one ministry is thanking God for protection. AMG International works in Indonesia. AMG’s Roger Thomas says, “We have 23 child care projects in Indonesia, serving over 500 children and a number of church planters working with young congregations.”

The National Security Council has issued an updated travel warning that urged Israelis to leave virtually every country in the Middle East.

Gingrich said the subject of his two divorces, including an affair that took place as he led impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, is a “very painful topic and I confess that to you directly.”

Dobson told Gingrich he knew him to be a “professing Christian” with whom he has prayed, but said that when they discussed the subject privately in Washington a few weeks ago, “you spoke of it with a great deal of pain and anguish, but you didn’t mention repentance. Do you understand that word, repentance?”

Gingrich replied, “Absolutely,” adding he was raised Lutheran and became a Southern Baptist in graduate school.

“I believe deeply that people fall short and that people have to recognize that they have to turn to God for forgiveness and to seek mercy,” Gingrich said. “Somebody once said that when you’re young you want justice and that when you get older you want mercy. I also believe that there are things in my own life that I have turned to God and have gotten on my knees and prayed about and sought God’s forgiveness. I don’t know how you could live with yourself and not end up breaking down if you didn’t find, try to find, some way to deal with your own weaknesses and to go to God about them.”