Canada and Prostitution

I am not sure if you have heard but the laws surrounding prostitution in Canada are being asked to be removed. here is a great article by a man named Royal Hamel. You can find his Blog here.
A smart man and worth reading...

"Did you know that legalized prostitution may soon be the norm in Canada? In 2007 two cases began working their way through the court system, one in British Columbia and the other in Ontario. Both cases seek to have the laws limiting prostitution overturned. To be sure no one knows how the judges will rule in these cases. But activist judges in Canada have certainly played a major role in reshaping societal mores in the past.

Justice Ted Matlow, who is presiding in the Ontario case, has recently created some controversy by disallowing two conservative Christian groups from participating in the proceedings. The Christian Legal Fellowship and the Catholic Civil Rights League argued that prostitution is damaging to society, and that there are good reasons why communities might want to restrict it. But Justice Matlow quashed their application to take part because, in his words, the Christian groups hold views that, “reflect the views of only small segments of Canadian society.”
Whoa, hold it right there. I know that Canada holds liberal views on many subjects. But I find it impossible to believe that only Christians would champion the view that prostitution is inherently harmful and degrading. Are we to believe that secular humanists, plain atheists, and agnostics have no moral code? Are people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens lining up with their daughters hoping to get them into one of the better brothels? It’s far more likely that Matlow himself holds elitist views that would not resonate with the average Canadian. Even with the moral bankruptcy of our times, I do not believe that the majority of my fellow citizens are going to applaud a decision to yank the prostitution laws in Canada.

In fact, I’m hoping against hope that Canadians will stand up and shout, “NO-WAY” to legalized prostitution. Let no one be confused about this. When prostitution is fully legalized and the sex trade industry has the entire stigma washed away from it, there is no telling how far the ripples of damage will spread. Will our high schools begin to feature courses like “Soliciting 101” or “How to run your own Bawdy House?” or “Pimping made Profitable”? Will unemployed women under a certain age be forced into job interviews with brothel owners if they want to keep receiving employment insurance? (Before you laugh an incident like this actually happened in Germany in 2005)

So why am I so exercised about this issue? It’s simple: I care about people, all people, prostitutes included. And I hate and abhor the practice of prostitution because of the hellish harm that it inflicts on women. The violence, the virtual slavery by brutal pimps, the rampant drug addiction, the actual danger of being murdered by some deranged john, the wide spread sex trafficking that occurs—I could go on and on.

Advocates claim that these are the very reasons why we need to legalize and regulate the practice. But they are wrong.

Countries like Holland that have had legalized prostitution for years are finally scaling back and passing new laws to discourage and limit the practice. They discovered that legalization didn’t guarantee safety; they learned that it only caused more unregulated street prostitution; they saw how organized crime came into the scene; and they saw that the foreign trafficking of women was all part of the scene. In short the people in Canada who are calling for legalization because of supposed harm reduction are dead wrong. They need to do their homework. Here’s hoping Canada will look at the negative, harmful experiences of other countries that opted for legalization and now wish they hadn’t.

I am hoping and praying that Canadians will be shocked and appalled so that there will be an outcry against the whole idea of treating women as meat to be bought and sold. But I’m afraid that we may now be at the stage where we are so morally challenged that we won’t give it a second thought. Please prove me wrong—let your voice be heard!
Just remember that if prostitution is legalized the brothels will have to be staffed. I can guarantee that those girls will be somebody’s daughters. Whose daughters? I assure you that they will be the trafficked and helpless daughters of some poor peasant in a far off country, or they will be our own daughters. I hope that either prospect makes you thoroughly sick to your stomach."

PRAY... and write our MP

-PK

THANK YOU!

Today I stood and watched the good people of LPC serve, as unto the Lord, at the funeral of Herman Dotschkat. I was SO proud of this church as we had about 275 people come for the funeral. THANK YOU to those of you for serving, singing, playing, providing SO much food, cleaning, setting tables, more cleaning, washing clothes and dishes and SO MUCH MORE
"1 Corinthians 3:8 says The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor."

God was honored, Sharon's family was blessed, LPC rose to today's ministry with GREAT skill and grace and poise. THANK YOU!

Your proud pastor...

-K

A Changed Life

Sometimes I forget how Christ can change, transform really, people's lives. In these days that we see so few people come to Christ it seems, that we forget the power of God in a life that has chosen to surrender to the Lord.

Last week I was doing some study on a famous sermon called The Expulsive Power of a New Affection . This, I discovered, was a famous sermon by 19th-century Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers. When I say the sermon is famous, I mean that it is reprinted even today in the books of great sermons. More on this sermon in another blog.

When looking for this sermon I ran across a blog titled from Beer to Eternity. It is a personal blog of a guy named Gary Morland. He is a DJ for a Christian radio station in the USA. He is a great writer... fun to read....

As I read... I was caught up in his story of how he came to Christ. Let me give you a taste of what he says in another blog, one connected with his work.
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"I didn't play baseball. I did get drunk -- every day when I walked out of that building [where he used to work long ago] at 3:30 I would stop at a liquor store and get three quarts of beer. I'd drink one on the way home and another when I got there. Then I'd fall asleep, wake up later and drink the third quart. Sometimes it was a six-pack or two, but that was the basic routine.

For twelve years. Every. Day.

That was a lifetime ago. You know how it says Jesus makes you a new creation and the old goes away and the new comes? That's what he did. Totally radical. Another planet radical.

And then a lot of time goes by and you forget more and more of the old planet stuff and then you see a picture and you suddenly flashback to the old planet and feel it right next to the new planet and you see how they're not even in the same solar system. And you go, was I really once a creature on that planet?

So now I sing a new song, which doesn't have a melody yet:

As for me, I was dead in my transgressions and sins,
in which I used to live
gratifying the cravings of my sinful nature
and following its desires and thoughts,
by nature an object of wrath.
But because of his great love for me,
God,
who is rich in mercy,
made me alive with Christ even when I was dead in transgressions—
it is by grace I have been saved."

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Ya!!! His life is a model of "The Expulsive power of a new Affection". A new affection for Jesus and how the is Power in that new Love that can transform us!

Thank you Lord... and help us to NEVER lose sight of our mission to see people fall in love with you... and be changed...

To read more of Gary's life... click here!

-PK

Oh Happy Day!

Yesterday, for those who were able to make it to LPC due to the freezing rain weather, I told you about this song... here it is for you to listen...

Maybe we can sing it soon?

-PK