From a recent article in the Newnan Times-Herald, Newnan, GA: “It is not wise to have photos of nude or scantily clad women on your phone, especially if your girlfriend will find them. But such was the case this weekend. And that ended up with the man and his girlfriend both being arrested on battery charges and ending up at the Coweta County Jail. Coweta County Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to the Forest Circle Apartments early Saturday to break up a fight.

According to Major Jimmy Yarbrough with the sheriff’s office, it all started when (the girlfriend), 21, got up to get a drink of water. ‘She heard her boyfriend’s phone go off and saw that the number was from another woman,’ Yarbrough said. ‘She then started going through the phone and saw photos of other women… in various stages of undress.’
‘That’s when things got ugly.’” Ah, the joys of modern technology.

Here’s what I simply do not understand: Why do women, and even teenage girls, allow men and boys to take nude or revealing photographs of them? Here’s the dirty little truth ladies —men show the pictures to other people! Oh, I know he promises that he won’t, but he will. The photos, you see, are trophies. They are like a school letter on a letter jacket. Guys assume they are meant to be shown off. When Bubba gets that 10 point buck, Bubba will brag about it, tell the story of the kill in great detail to anyone who will listen, and may even go from friend to friend and house to house with the dead deer in the bed of the pickup truck, proudly displaying the beast and boasting what a mighty hunter he is. They do the same thing with your nude photos. Trust me. They do.

If you are fortunate, they will only reveal your intimate poses (and your betrayed naïve trust) to their best buds. If you are not, millions of guys from every nation on the technological earth will view you in all your glory on the Internet for decades to come. There are even websites where men can go to post nude photographs of their wives, girlfriends, or ex-wives and ex-girlfriends.

Now to say that all guys will do this, I realize, is a generalization. Like, “all Japanese like rice,” or “all Southerners like grits.” It is, however, safe to say that the large and vast majority of Japanese like rice and that most Southerners like grits. Some minuscule few do not. It’s the same with guys and their trophy photos.

I also realize that this article will not make me popular with the men and teenage boys who have pressuring the females in their lives to let them take the nude pictures. However, I now have eight granddaughters whom I care about far more that the opinions of guys who do not care anymore about the women they want to photograph than they do the 10 point buck in the back of the pickup.

And, ladies, you think your husband would never, ever show these photos around? Well, maybe you are right. You better hope he never becomes your ex-husband. What if the photos get lost? And what if they are someday found by your kids—or grandkids?

Some things are not meant to be shared with the world. It’s one thing to be a trophy wife or a trophy girlfriend. It’s quite another to have these trophies displayed all over town or, worse, all over the world. Don’t take the chance. You may live to regret it. Stay dressed for the camera.

David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, 4881 Hwy 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA 30277. Services are held Sundays at 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. (www.ctkcec.org) He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese (www.midsouthdiocese.org) and is the mission pastor of Christ the King Fellowship in Champaign, IL. He may be contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.

The Cathedral of Christ the King
The Baptism of Our Lord
January 8, 2012

Sermon Link: Life Begins At Baptism

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Bruce Hebel

On Saturday, January 21st, the Division of Diocesan Ministry Development for the Diocese of the Mid-South of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, under the direction of Dr Judy Massey of Peachtree City, GA, hosted a Forgiving Forward Seminar at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Sharpsburg, Georgia which was attended by over 60 people and clergy from a number of churches from around the diocese.

Forgiving Forward was a special one day seminar “unleashing a revolution where people are helping liberate others through the Protocols of Forgiveness,” according to a spokesman. The seminar was designed to provide attendees with tools to receive freedom from the torment they experience because of past wounds. It also taught participants how to guide others in the forgiveness process.

The leaders of the seminar were Bruce and Toni Hebel who have served in pastoral ministry together for over 30 years. Rev. Hebel (Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary) is an international speaker who serves as President of ReGenerating Life Ministries and Adjunct Professor at Carver College. Mrs Hebel serves as Executive Director of ReGenerating Life Ministries and Associate Director of Touching Hearts Ministries. Together they lead Forgiving Forward Seminars and serve as ReGenerating Life Coaches. They have been married for 31 years and have three grown children who are all active in ministry. The Hebels reside in Fayetteville, GA.

What if you heard that a new law was passed that said that anyone named Bill could be legally put to death? Certainly, you would protest the “law” and say it was wrong. Wouldn’t we all come together at once to restore legal protection to all Bills? We could certainly say that this new law was against the Constitution, which claims to protect the rights of every person. But suppose that even the Constitution were changed to say that it’s okay to kill Bill. Would we then say it was really okay? No, it would still be wrong.

In other words, there is a right and a wrong no matter what the laws or even the Constitution says. Every law must obey a Higher Law that is written not on paper but on our hearts. That Higher Law says that every human person, no matter what his/her background or condition, has the right to life. Killing the innocent is wrong, and no law or Constitution can ever make it right.

The imaginary story about the “Bills” is not as imaginary as we think. Just change the word “Bill” to “Jew,” and we have what happened in Nazi Germany. The power of the State under Hitler declared that these human beings were not persons and therefore could be killed. Those who were involved in these atrocities were eventually tried before an international court at Nuremberg and convicted of crimes against humanity. Laws must obey the Higher Law.

Then again, change the word “Bill” to “slave,” and you will see the same mistake occurring in America in the last century. The Supreme Court in 1857 said that these people were not really full “persons,” and could therefore be treated like property. It took a Civil War, 600,000 deaths, an amendment to the Constitution, and a century of struggle to correct that mistake.

We are again falling into the error of saying that some human beings are not persons. Just change the word “Bill” to “pre-born baby” and look at what the Supreme Court said on January 22, 1973: Children in their mother’ wombs are not considered persons under the law, and therefore may be destroyed by abortion. The numbers of babies lost by this mistake are far greater than those lost under Hitler. Some 1.6 million a year are destroyed by abortion. That’s over 56,000,000 in the United States alone. By comparison, some 6 million Jews were killed in World War II with a global death toll of 50 million.

There were free men who said, “Slaves are no concern of mine.” Some Germans said, “Jews are no concern of mine.” If we are decent, caring members of a civilized society, then anyone who suffers in that society is our concern! The more defenseless the victim is, the stronger is our obligation toward him/her. The pre-born baby is certainly the most defenseless of all victims.

When we start taking the lives of one another, then nobody is safe. If society tolerates the killing of one group of human beings, what is to keep it from moving on to another group? If you can kill an innocent, unwanted child, then why can’t you kill an innocent, unwanted grandparent, or an innocent, unwanted neighbor? And what is to keep the neighbor from killing an innocent, unwanted You?

Either the right to life belongs to all, or it belongs to none. No government has the right to limit it and say it belongs only to some. Even our Declaration of Independence states that “All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. . . Among these are life. . . “The Creator gives the right to life. Governments exist to protect those rights.

The current laws on abortion, therefore, are seriously wrong. Every human being is a person. You cannot exclude slaves, or Jews, or pre-born babies. The babies destroyed by abortion are human persons. God said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you…” (Jeremiah 1:5). Whatever the nations’ laws say about slaves or Jews or unborn babies, God said that “he knew them” before they were even formed in the womb.

This weekend is the 39th anniversary of a very bad and horribly immoral decision that allowed the legal execution of a new classification of persons who were declared by the State to be “non-persons.” The death toll is 4,000 babies every single day.

God is the Giver of Life, and we have no right to take an innocent life any more than we have the right to kill every Bill.

David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, 4881 Hwy 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA 30277.  Services are held Sundays at 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. (www.ctkcec.org) He may be contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org. (Thanks to Father Frank Pavone for the inspiration for this article.)

This Saturday, January 21st, the Division of Diocesan Ministry Development is hosting a Forgiving Forward Seminar at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Sharpsburg, Georgia. What is Forgiving Forward?

Forgiving Forward is a special one day seminar unleashing a revolution where people are helping liberate others through the Protocols of Forgiveness. God is looking for partners to deliver the transformational truth of forgiveness. You can join Him and rescue people from the pain of torment, once and for all—guaranteed!

The Forgiving Forward Seminar is an opportunity to learn Heaven’s Protocols of Forgiveness and how to accurately apply them. The seminar will provide you with tools to receive freedom from the torment you experience because of past wounds. It will also teach you how to guide others in the forgiveness process. Using expository teaching from Scripture, the tools this seminar teaches will restore marriages, reunite families and unify churches.

The leaders of the seminar are Bruce and Toni Hebel. They have served in pastoral ministry together for over 30 years. Bruce (Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary) is an international speaker who serves as President of ReGenerating Life Ministries and Adjunct Professor at Carver College. Toni is a gifted communicator, and serves as Executive Director of ReGenerating Life Ministries and Associate Director of Touching Hearts Ministries. Together they lead Forgiving Forward Seminars and serve as ReGenerating Life Coaches. They have been married for 31 years and have three grown children who are all active in ministry. Bruce and Toni live near Atlanta, Georgia.

The seminar will run from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday, January 21st and will cost $18.00 per person which includes lunch and a workbook. If you are interested in attending this important seminary, please preregister by emailing Dr. Judy Massey at judymassey@earthlink.net

I found that liturgy and form in our worship, among many things, has an inspired and built-in safeguard– preventing our worship from getting off-track or becoming man-centered. There is no room for Elvis impersonators, trapeze artists, rodeo’s or illustrated sermons whereby the choir and congregants are dressed up in whatever football gear that can be summoned to provide a visual aid in the pastor’s sermon. Rather, worship must lean toward God-friendliness rather than seeker-friendliness. ~ Allen W. Christensen

Allen W. Christensen is a founding member of Christ the Redeemer Mission in Cookeville, Tennessee.  The above observation was initially made in a personal correspondence with his vicar, Father John Boggs.  With Mr. Christensen’s permission, the above quote from that correspondence is here shared by Father John Boggs for the edification and instruction of our diocese and readership.

The Cathedral of Christ the King
Feast of the Holy Name
January 1, 2012

Sermon Link: The Holy Name

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