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The Columbia University professor who gained widespread attention last fall after a noose was found hanging on her office door was fired on Monday after months of wrangling over charges that she plagiarized the work of two former students and a former colleague. Madonna G. Constantine, a professor of psychology and education with a focus on racial issues at Columbia’s Teachers College, was sanctioned in February, after an 18-month investigation into the plagiarism charge, but allowed to stay in her job and to appeal the ruling that she had violated the university’s academic standards. But over the last five months,...

In his historical novel Helena, Evelyn Waugh paints the mother of the Emperor Constantine as a Briton, the daughter of King Cole of Colchester, and a tardy convert to Catholic faith. She is already an old woman by the time she begins her search for the True Cross in Jerusalem, and by Christmastide is fatigued by her labors almost to the point of delirium. During the lengthy Epiphany Mass her exhaustion causes a semi-swoon that is part meditation, part reverie. At a time when many Catholic statesmen, and their chaplains, beamingly connive at assassination of the unborn and elderly, at...

Space impact 'saved Christianity'By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Did a meteor over central Italy in AD 312 change the course of Roman and Christian history? About the size of a football field: The impact crater left behind A team of geologists believes it has found the incoming space rock's impact crater, and dating suggests its formation coincided with the celestial vision said to have converted a future Roman emperor to Christianity. It was just before a decisive battle for control of Rome and the empire that Constantine saw a blazing light cross the sky and attributed...

Occupied Jerusalem - Sheikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi, the chief justice of Islamic courts in Palestine, denounced in a statement on Wednesday, the anti Islam slogans extremist Jewish settlers of Shafat neighborhood, north of occupied Jerusalem, scribbled on cars and shops. Tamimi considered that activity a crime that reflects hatred and hostility towards the Arab residents and a flagrant, provocative assault on all Muslims. He called on all Arabs and Muslims to adhere to their religion and defend its sanctity, holding the occupation government accountable for such criminal actions. He also asked it to restrain those extremist groups in order to put...

Constantine Wrote Matthew 28:19 Into Your Bible! What Did Matthew Actually Write, "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," OR "Go ye, and make disciples of all the nations IN MY NAME"? This article is based on a publication which was originally written in 1961 and titled “A Collection of the Evidence For and Against the Traditional Wording of the Baptismal Phrase in Matthew 28:19”. The author was a minister, presumably Protestant. He signed his work simply as A. Ploughman. He lived in Birmingham, England. The author had not encountered...

July 29, 2005 Emperor's decline and fall By Richard OwenA 2,000-year-old treasure reached an ignominious end A SEWER might be no place for an emperor, but that is where archaeologists have discovered a marble statue of the head of Constantine, one of Rome’s greatest leaders. Eugenio La Rocca, the superintendent for Rome’s monuments, said that archaeologists found the 61cm (2ft) head while clearing an ancient drainage system in the Roman Forum, the centre of public life in the ancient city. Signor La Rocca said yesterday that officials were unsure why the statue was in the sewer. One possibility is that...

CONSTANTINE, TO THE RESCUE? New Republican Archive -- April 2005 Has Warner Brothers finally released a film that takes Roman Catholic doctrine seriously? If you believe that then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. WB is the firm that promoted the overtly anti-Christian and pro-Communist "revolutionary virtual" trilogy called The Matrix. That blockbuster science fiction trilogy starred Keanu Reeves in the role of a "Neo" (actually false) Jesus Christ who rejects Christian and Western culture in favor of Nihilistic revolution to save a Bolshevik-influenced "Zion" by imposing a revolutionary Eastern "order" controlled by an Indian goddess ("Sati")...

SCOTT Savol, who seems to be the most unlikely finalist on "American Idol" this season, just keeps hanging on. And viewers are beginning to wonder exactly how Savol, the pudgy kid from Shaker Heights, Ohio, is managing to pull it off, while fan favorites like Constantine Maroulis get the boot, as he did Wednesday night. Some point to the efforts of a Web site called votefortheworst.com, which considers "Idol" a joke and encourages viewers to cast their votes for Savol because, it says, "he is the worst." "I think our site definitely has some effect on the results for 'Idol,'...

ST. MARTIN I 649 - 654 AD  The man chosen to face the storm raised by the Emperor Constans was Martin from Todi, of noble birth, learned, experienced, and above all a man of solid virtue. He had served as ambassador to Constantinople and had had dealings with the Byzantine bureaucracy over the question of the deposition of Pyrrhus. He was to need all his experience and all his virtue to face the imperial fury.Scarcely had Martin been consecrated on July S, 649, when he was bombarded with appeals to make a downright condemnation of Monothelism and a ringing declaration...

Synopsis: John Constantine has been to hell and back. Born with a gift he didn’t want, the ability to clearly recognize the half-breed angels and demons that walk the earth in human skin, Constantine (KEANU REEVES) was driven to take his own life to escape the tormenting clarity of his vision. But he failed. Resuscitated against his will, he found himself cast back into the land of the living. Now, marked as an attempted suicide with a temporary lease on life, he patrols the earthly border between heaven and hell, hoping in vain to earn his way to salvation by...

Is the Bible from God or Men?By Perry B. Cotham   Introduction The Bible is either the inspired word of God or it is not.  If it is, then it is true and must be believed and obeyed.  If it is not true, then it is of human origin and the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetrated, since it claims to be from God.  By the Bible, I mean the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.  This is not a study as to which books are canonical or if other books should be included in the Bible. ...

You would like me to tell you what 666 means, wouldn’t you? I have to confess that I don’t know. But I am certain that there are more than 666 interpretations as to what is meant! This was written for the benefit of those who will be alive in that day. And believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in the day of the manifestation of the man of sin will have a very clear identifying sign that the one that has come to world power is Satan’s great masterpiece.1 J. Dwight Pentecost, 1961 Yet how could I be sure of...

Several years ago, enterprising Christian ministries on college campuses around the nation began showing The Matrix and hosting discussions afterward regarding the nature of reality. They saw the film as a conversation-starter about the big issues of life: What is truth? Is there purpose in life? What is reality? The new movie Constantine may end up being the next film to prompt an incendiary discussion on campus — namely, heaven and hell, angels and demons, salvation and damnation. There seems to be quite an interest in such issues. Prancing through a theological minefield, several spooky spi-fi (spiritual fiction) films such...

Dear ..., To thank you for your continued support of The Teaching Company, we have commissioned two free, 30-minute lectures on "Fact and Fiction in The DaVinci Code" from biblical expert Professor Bart D. Ehrman of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of our most popular professors, Professor Ehrman (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is a 15-year teaching veteran at UNC and winner of several teaching awards. These lectures are a free gift to you. You may access these free lectures online any time between now and Labor Day, September 6, 2004. Click here to access the free...

Victory for Free Speech at William & Mary WILLIAMSBURG, VA— After pressure from and public exposure by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the College of William & Mary (W&M) has reversed course and allowed an "affirmative action bake sale" to proceed without interference. A student group, the Sons of Liberty, saw its satirical protest unlawfully halted by W&M in November; it was one of many such protests nationwide that were shut down on campuses this past fall. While W&M allowed the group's bake sale to proceed without incident this time, W&M President Timothy J. Sullivan issued a...

Archeologists say they have traced the origins of the first Christmas to be celebrated on 25 December, 300 years before the birth of Christ. The original event marked the consecration of the ancient world's largest sun god statue, the 34m tall, 200 ton Colossus of Rhodes. It has long been known that 25 December was not the real date of Christ's birth and that the decision to turn it into Jesus's birthday was made by Constantine, the Roman Emperor, in the early 4th century AD. But experts believe the origins of that decision go back to 283 BC, when, in...

'Asteroid impact could have prompted Constantine's conversion' An asteroid which exploded like a nuclear bomb may have converted the Roman emperor Constantine to Christianity it is now being claimed. Scientists have discovered an impact crater dating from the fourth of fifth century in the Italian Apennine mountains. They believe the crater in the Sirente mountains, which is larger than a football field, could explain the legend of Constantine's conversion. Accounts from the 4th century describe how barbarians stood at the gates of the Roman empire while a Christian movement threatened its stability from within. It is said the emperor saw...

QUESTION: How do I handle professors that don't like to hear "King James only" arguments? They are evaluating using a certain Bible version. They say that they'll listen to evidence about other Bible versions, but do not want the King James mentioned specifically. What do I do?

It would be extremely beneficial at this point if we could simply produce the original autographs for examination. This would greatly simplify the operation of establishing correctly the New Testament Text. But this simply cannot happen. It has long been acknowledged by scholars that we no longer have the "originals." They have long since passed from the scene. This is due to the fact that scribes were known to destroy worn out MSS after they had copied them. Apparently the church valued the WORDS of the original more than the original itself. Therefore, the readings of the originals must be...