The View from Here

What is the Gospel?

2008-11-21T16:29:31Z

A terrific article today by my friend T.M. Moore, Dean of the Centurions Program of Breakpoint Ministries and Principal of the Fellowship of Ailbe. T.M. has developed the Centurions into a terrific worldview training program - registrations are open now.

NEAR CHRISTIANITY
By T.M. Moore
11/6/2008
Any Other Gospel Is Not the Gospel at All
"As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:9)
I keep saying to myself that there has to be an explanation why so many millions of people claim to be born-again followers of Jesus Christ, attending nearly 250,000 churches--around 3,000 of those mega-churches--with a vibrant and growing Christian subculture of music, television, books and literature, education, Internet presence, and even their own Yellow Pages.

As I said, there has to be an explanation why, given all this, the morals and culture of America continue to decline away from the teaching of Scripture, the young are abandoning their Christian upbringing in growing numbers, and the public square continues devoid of any far-ranging, seriously taken Christian voice. There simply has to be an explanation for this.

And I think I have it. It harks back to a Chesterton comment back around the turn of the 20th century. It's not that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been tried and is simply found wanting. It's that the Gospel of Jesus Christ--the Gospel of the Kingdom--has not been tried.

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
Jesus came preaching a particular message to the people of His generation. The gospel writers refer to it as "the Gospel of the Kingdom." The Good News that Jesus announced had as its focus an objective reality that the New Testament refers to as the Kingdom of God (Matthew 4:23; 9:35). What is that?

The Kingdom of God is the divine rule that Jesus came to bring into the affairs of men. It is an administration of righteousness, peace, and joy which we may enter by the Holy Spirit, through the new birth which comes by grace through faith (Romans 14:17; John 3:1-16). The Kingdom of God centers on Jesus, who is its King, and His call to follow Him in a life of self-denying service to the glory of God (Mark 10:42-45).

To enter this Kingdom is to be born again to a life set apart for God, characterized by obedience to the Law of God (1 John 2:1-6). God gives His Kingdom to those who truly love Him, who renounce the desires, doodads, and deeds of the world and the flesh, and who invest their strength in becoming rich in faith (James 2:5).

The Kingdom of God is not just a reality to be acknowledged and confessed; it is a realm of power, real spiritual power, in which, increasingly, all things are made new and every aspect of a person's life is reconciled to God, unto the praise of the glory of His grace (1 Corinthians 4:20; 2 Corinthians 5:17).

They who enter this Kingdom may be identified by their fervor in seeking to realize more of its presence and power (Matthew 6:33), their prayers for its coming on earth as in heaven (Matthew 6:10), their dutiful obedience to the holy and righteous and good Law of God (Ezekiel 36:26,27; Romans 7:12), and their faithfulness in living as witnesses to their risen and reigning Lord (Acts 1:8).

Where the Kingdom of God takes root in a person's heart, transforming grace begins to exert real spiritual power to make all things new, and to turn a person's world upright before the Lord.

It is altogether understandable, therefore, why the sum of Jesus' preaching and teaching is often reported as consisting in the words, "The Kingdom of God is at hand; repent, therefore, and believe the Good News."

Jesus announced that a new era had begun in human affairs, in which a new King was on the throne of heaven and earth, unfolding a new economy, according to a new agenda, demanding that all who would follow Him embrace a new priority, and offering a new hope to men--the hope of the glory of God.

The Good News in this astonishing announcement is that, by entering into the Kingdom of God, men can know liberation from sin--its power, effects, and condemnation. Thus free from the shackles of sin they experience the grace and truth of God with transforming effects in every area of life. They begin to bear new kinds of fruit through the work of the Spirit of God within them, fruit consistent with righteousness, peace, and joy. They experience power that makes all things new, enabling them to reconcile every area of their lives back to God for His pleasure and glory. And, by virtue of the ongoing, increasing realization of this Kingdom reality, they know assurance of everlasting life with God in a new heavens and a new earth.

Truly, the announcement concerning the Kingdom of God is Good News--Gospel!The Gospel of the Kingdom is the true Gospel. Anything other or less than this is another gospel, which, as Paul makes plain, is no gospel at all.

ANOTHER GOSPEL?
Liberal Christianity, most readers will agree, is not Christianity at all, or, at best, a corrupt version. As J. Gresham Machen argued so eloquently in the last century, liberal Christianity has many appealing features, and much to commend it. In many ways it is a quite fascinating and alluring religion. It even uses all the language of Christianity and holds Jesus in high esteem. But for all that, liberal Christianity just isn't Christianity. Indeed, Machen argued, it's not even close.

What about the gospel that is heard in so many churches today? The gospel that says, "Jesus died to forgive your sins and to bring you to heaven when you die"? Is that the Gospel? Rather, is that the whole Gospel? The Gospel of the Kingdom? While that statement is certainly true, it doesn't sound as rich, full, comprehensive, and all-engaging as what we outlined earlier as the Gospel of the Kingdom. And it is not widely apparent that those who have embraced this message are evidencing the kind of whole-life transformation Jesus demonstrated and promised, or that those first turn-the-world-upside-down Christians experienced.

But is it not true that the Gospel says that Jesus died for our sins so that we could go to heaven? Yes it does. But that is not the same as saying that Jesus' death to grant forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe is the whole Gospel. And if that's not the whole Gospel, then can we say that it's the Gospel at all? The proclamation that Jesus died for our sins so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life is not, in fact, what C. S. Lewis referred to as mere Christianity--Christianity at its most basic. Rather, I would say that this message that promises forgiveness and eternal life to all who merely profess belief in Jesus--this gospel which is roundly proclaimed in the vast majority of churches throughout the land--should be referred to as near Christianity.
It's rather like saying that the Good News is that Jesus provided an example for us to follow. Is that true? Of course. But is it the Gospel? Hardly. Or it's like saying the Good News means you have a reason to do good works on behalf of others. Is that true? Certainly. But is it the Gospel? Not at all.

The Good News that Jesus and the apostles proclaimed is a message so comprehensive, so altogether new and radical, that it requires deep-seated, heart-felt repentance, complete surrender to the risen Christ, and whole-hearted belief leading to obedience in every area of life. It is the message of theKingdom of God. Anything other than the Gospel of the Kingdom is not the Gospel at all, but a form of near Christianity that holds out promises germane to the Kingdom, prescribes means related to the Kingdom, but holds back on making the full vision and demands of the Kingdom clear to those who would enjoy the conditions of blessedness.

Near Christianity, therefore, leaves little in the way of Kingdom evidence in the lives and churches of those who embrace it. It leaves what it promises, and what people who embrace it desire: a sense of forgiveness, and the peace of mind that accompanies that, and a tentative hope of going to heaven when we die. As for power to transform sinful lives into beacons of holiness, goodness, beauty, and truth--well, that's something to affirm, but not necessarily something toseek.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel . . ." (Galatians 1:6). Did you catch that verb--deserting? It wasn't that the Galatians denied that Jesus was Savior. Not at all. Or even that He was Lord. They simply chose to minimize the power of His saving grace by adding to the Gospel in certain ways and detracting from it in others. So, their professions of faith notwithstanding, Paul said that they were deserting the true Gospel, the Gospel of the Kingdom.

In our day he might say to the churches in America, "I am astonished that you who profess to believe in Jesus evidence so little of the reality of the Gospel of the Kingdom. What did you believe when you believed in Jesus? From what did you turn, and to what, when you repented? What do you hope for, if not to know God in His glory and be transformed to live out that glory in every detail of your life?" He might well conclude that our generation has settled for a form of nearChristianity, not the Gospel of the Kingdom which he and all the apostles, following Jesus, proclaimed with such boldness, and at the risk of their lives.

Anything other than the Gospel of the Kingdom may be like Christianity, or nearChristianity, but it is not the Good News of Jesus and Paul. Near Christianity is not the Christianity of Scripture and, therefore, is no Good News at all.

FOR REFLECTION
Have you received the Gospel of the Kingdom? To what evidence in your life might you point to convince someone that that is true?

T. M. Moore is dean of the BreakPoint Centurions Program and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of 20 books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are Culture Matters (Brazos) and The Hidden Life, a handbook of poems, songs, and spiritual exercises (Waxed Tablet). Sign up at his website to receive his daily email devotional Crosfigell, reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. T. M. and his wife and editor, Susie, make their home in Hamilton, Va.

The World Has Not Come to an End

2008-11-05T14:11:39Z

I will admit to being a little depressed this morning... But, I hope that disappointed conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, do not offer the impression that our hope is dashed. It is not, for at least two reasons.

First, it was never in this election to begin with.

I was reminded of this last night by a good friend, who is also a good father. Our families watched the election results together. When the winner became obvious, his young son looked concerned. Todd's wise response: "It's a good thing our salvation isn't in politics, right son?"

Second, most elections in the history of the world - especially those as hotly debated as this one - are accompanied by violence and death. Elections in the U.S., including yesterday, are never accompanied by violence and death.

I was in Jamaica during an election in 1997. Walking through Montego Bay the days before the election, I came across several political rallies that were nothing more than shouting matches. On the rooftops were armed soldiers with assault rifles. I was warned not to go out of the house the day of the election (or the day after). The Peace Corps instructed their people not to go out that day, either. Because only eight people were murdered during that election, the election was hailed as peaceful and considered a strong step forward, as compared to previous elections.

Now don't get me wrong. I am decidedly not optimistic about America's direction or future. Not because it will change all that drastically, despite the words of our new President-elect. My fear is that it will accelerate in the direction it is headed, which is the social and economic direction of Europe, which is currently committing suicide.

But, the Kingdom of God will outlast the United States, Europe, Western Civilization, and the Presidency of Barack Obama. As my friend Barrett Mosbacker wrote in his blog entry this morning:

The church of Christ is the focal point of history, with Christ being preeminent. God superintends the affairs of men in such a way as to establish genuine free moral agency and personal responsibility, for the good of His people, and for His glory. Ultimately, this election is for our good and God's glory. This does not mean that everything that occurs will be good but God promises to work all things together for the good of His people.

Pray, rest in God's wise providence, respect those in authority, work for what is right, model dignity in word and deed before your students and teach them how to think, how to love, and how to Glorify the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

Barrett's entry is excellent and should be read by all. You can find it here.

Ten Reasons Not to Vote Today

2008-11-04T16:56:43Z

"Everyone should vote," or so they say. I disagree. Here are ten reasons why you should not vote today:

1. If your main reason for registering to vote was "cash and cigs."

2. If you can identify a picture of Judge Judy, but not Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

3. If you don't know who selected Sarah Palin as their running mate,

4. If your main source of political information is Saturday Night Live, Late Night TV stand-up, Bill Maher, Steve Colbert. The View, or Keith Olbermann. (However, if you actually are informed but still enjoyed Tina Fey's spot on Palin impersonation, it's ok to vote).

5. If you think Republicans and Democrats should come together, but have no clue why they should, how they can, what they should accomplish, or even who they are.

6. If the reason you give for your selection of the next leader of the free world is any of the following: (a) "I just like him better," (b) "He seems more presidential," (c) "He is a better speaker than the other guy," (d) "He speaks to my needs" or (e) "He's just so inspiring."

7. If, during this election, you have never asked yourself of any political candidate, including your own, this question: "What did he really mean by that?" and "Is that true?" Or, in other words, if you cannot tell the difference between an assertion and an argument.

8. If you think that the reporting of this election has been unbiased.

9. If you are not familiar with any or all of the following, or if you have heard of them but have no clue what/who they are: (1) Roe v. Wade, (2) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, (3) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (4) Vladimir Putin, (5) the $700B bailout, (6) the Supreme Court, or (7) the United Nations.

10. If you really think that "every opinion counts," including those that are stupid, uninformed, and dangerous.

And, two more for good measure:

11. If you feel there is no difference between the presidential candidates.

12. If you think voting is your "right," without remembering how you got it, why you have it, and what "responsibilities" are.

Not Up For Debate, and Never Has Been

2008-10-30T04:03:39Z

In recent weeks, both Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have suggested that there has been a lack of consensus in the Roman Catholic church on the issue of when life begins. Therefore, there is room for Catholics to take different stances on abortion. Both received quick, and appropriate, rebukes from their bishops. Here is the response from Bishop Malooly of the Diocese of Wilmington, DE, in a letter to the editor of the Delaware Online from 26 October:

In his interview with The News Journal published Oct. 19, Sen. Joe Biden presents a seriously erroneous picture of Catholic teaching on abortion. He said, "I know that my church has wrestled with this for 2,000 years," and claimed repeatedly that the Church has a nuanced view of the subject that leaves a great deal of room for uncertainty and debate.

This is simply incorrect. The teaching of the Church is clear and not open to debate. Abortion is a grave sin because it is the wrongful taking of an innocent human life. The Church received the tradition opposing abortion from Judaism. In the Greco-Roman world, early Christians were identifiable by their rejection of the common practices of abortion and infanticide.

The Didache, probably the earliest Christian writing apart from the New Testament, explicitly condemns abortion without exceptions. It tells us there is a "way of life" and a "way of death" and abortion is a part of the way of death. This has been the consistent teaching of the Church ever since.

It was also the position of Protestant reformers without exception. It was the teaching of Pope John XXIII as well as Pope John Paul II. It is the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI and the bishops of the Church, including me as shepherd of this diocese.

Some ancient and medieval theologians did see a difference between early abortions and ones that occurred later in term because with the limited medical knowledge of the time they did not know then what we scientifically know now: that a fetus is a living human being from conception.

Nevertheless, they universally condemned all abortions.

Of course, we now know that a fetus is a living human being from the very start. Thus, abortions take innocent human lives no matter when they occur. Since there is no gradation in the Church's teaching on abortion, there is no way the medically obsolete division of pregnancy into three trimesters by Roe v. Wade can have any bearing on the rightness or wrongness of abortion. Taking an innocent life in the womb is wrong at any stage of pregnancy.

The Declaration of Independence lists life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as God-given rights. Life is listed first, and it is the principal function of the state to protect the lives of citizens. This understanding of the state's primary obligation to protect human life is also fundamental to Catholic social doctrine to which the senator points. Without life all other rights are meaningless.

If only some of our emergent evangelical brethren understood enough church history to get this one right...

Thoughts on Religulous...

2008-10-27T16:46:57Z

Bill Brown, President of Cedarville University and co-author of Making Sense of Your World: a Biblical Worldview had some terrific thoughts today on Bill Maher's new movie Religulous. Worth the read and you can find it here.

Resurrection Today

2008-10-13T14:51:14Z

Mike Adams, professor at UNC-Wilmington and Town Hall columnist, had a terrific entry today: "Growing Out of Atheism." Mike, who joined us at one of our Colorado Sessions this summer is sharp and quick-witted, and engaged in the battle of ideas on the campus where he teaches.

Today, he talks of the personal nature of this battle of ideas. In the article, Mike mentions a video by Gary Habermaas, who has done extensive work on the historicity of the resurrection. Gary's scholarship is excellent and is recognized even outside the Christian community (Anthony Flew mentions Gary as an influence in his book about his move from atheism to theism.)

Gary, a professor at Liberty University, spoke for us this summer at our Summit-VA conference. His session on the resurrection was excellent, of course. Still, the session I heard the most about was his session on doubt and personal struggle. In fact, one student came to faith in Christ as a result of that session. Why was it so powerful? Because the session is Gary's own story about struggle and loss - his wife died of cancer several years ago. The resurrection that Gary had studied extensively became all the more personal through his loss. The resurrection matters today.

He describes this in the video that Mike mentions in his column. You can watch it here.

The Bible as One Story

2008-10-09T15:33:54Z

Among National Geographic's Honorable Mentions for the best pictures of 2008 was this one, entitled "Visualizing the Bible." The picture was an entry of Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison and German Evangelical Lutheran pastor Christoph Romhild in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge and shows how interconnected the text of Scripture is:

The Bible's 1,189 chapters are plotted along the horizontal axis at the bottom of the image, with each bar's length determined by the number of verses. The arcs above the graph show the 63,779 cross-references between each chapter.

Now, if only we would read it like this...

Producing Vision - some ideas...

2008-10-08T15:50:59Z

I have become a fan of what is happening at Prestonwood Christian Academy. Why? Well, first, we have had some of their grads at our summer conferences. One of those graduates, Bryce Taylor, is a sophomore philosophy student at Yale. However, he is not just a student, he is engaged in actively living out and proclaiming the Christian worldview on that Ivy League campus. Check out his latest adventure with the Yale Daily News here. And, don't miss the article he wrote as a freshman here.

This is the sort of grads Prestonwood, and Summit, is seeking to produce. Students who realize that Christianity gives us more than a way out of this world - it gives us a vision for active engagement with, influence over, and transformation of it.

Unfortunately, many times Christian students get the impression that we are merely saved from, and not to. They miss the "re" part of the salvation words that sprinkle the Scriptures: renew, regenerate, reconcile, redeem, etc. They miss that Christ not only came to save us from death, he came to save us to life - and abundant life at that!

This, of course, is a central reason for the comfort level so many "Millennials" (and X'ers too) have with living duplicitous lives. Happy to claim Christ, but live as if He is irrelevant; committed that Jesus is their Savior, but uncomfortable with concepts like truth and morality and absolutes. It's all very Seinfeld-ish actually: life is a series of disconnected episodes with no flow or story line or consistency. Proverbs warning is clear: "When there is no vision, the people cast off restraint."

What's the answer? Larry Taylor and Dan Panetti at Prestonwood get it: give students a vision of how the faith they have makes sense of the world. Push students out - teach them to engage ideas and social issues, challenge them, etc. Through their Student Leadership Institute they are doing this. And, they can teach you to do it, too, through their conferences and training seminars designed for other Christian schools and organizations. FInd more about it here.

Eight Talking Points on the Bailout

2008-10-02T02:13:43Z

From Laura Ingraham today... eight great questions...

Laura's E-Blast
http://www.LauraIngraham.com
October 1, 2008

Eight Bailout Questions

How many times over the last few days have we heard politicians, talking heads and other self-proclaimed "experts" tell us the reason the $700 billion bailout is so wildly unpopular is that we just don't understand it. The economy is complicated. Just trust Congress, President Bush and his royal highness, Hank Paulson. They'll fix it. Don't worry about that $700 billion number. It only sounds high.

Well. If that's the case - if we're really too dumb to understand what's happening - perhaps Congress can show us how much they know. To start, here are some questions I'd like answered.

1) Since the White House introduced the bailout last week, a number of alternative ideas have been proposed. For one, Michigan Republican Thaddeus McCotter wrote a 10-point plan that carries no cost to taxpayers. Others, like George Soros', are significantly less expensive and, in his estimation, likelier to be effective. Can you explain why this bill is the best option, despite being the most expensive?

2) We're told the bailout could actually turn a profit for taxpayers. Assuming that's true, how can we be sure the money actually ends up back in taxpayers' hands? For years the Social Security system took in more money than it paid out, yet instead of putting the surplus revenue toward future benefits, Congress snatched that extra cash for general expenditures. Likewise, Fannie and Freddie's "profits," were used for congressional pet projects. With this track record, how can we trust that this program will be any different?

3) The McCain campaign yesterday pointed out that the most recent housing bill gave the government nearly $1 trillion to purchase mortgages. If this is true, why exactly does Congress need to pass this monstrous legislation?

4) Does the latest version of this bill still "allow the government to purchase troubled assets from pension plans, local governments, and small banks that serve low- and middle-income families"? Americans are having a hard enough time swallowing the idea of a bailout for irresponsible home, car, and student lending. The notion that we'll be on the hook for insolvent pension plans administered by awful, union-controlled lawmakers in cities like Detroit and New York is simply insane.

5) Does the bill's preamble still proclaim that the law "provides authority to the treasury secretary to ... ensure the economic well-being of Americans?" Does anyone know if there are limitations to this seemingly unbridled authority? Otherwise, what prevents the Treasury secretary from becoming a de-facto dictator? This strikes me as especially worth discussion.

6) Are there still no meaningful curtailments of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Does the bill contain anything even hinting at accountability?

7) What concrete assurances do taxpayers have that the turmoil's provenance - Carter and Clinton-era social-engineering dictums that upended safe-lending practices in favor of higher minority home ownership - will forever be outlawed? How do we know taxpayers won't be asked to finance another $700 billion bailout in 10 years? What has Congress learned from its past mistakes?

8) After Enron's collapse, former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, then-CEO Ken Lay, and then-CFO Andrew Fastow, were called to testify before Congress. According to the Business and Media Institute, Fannie's and Freddie's overstated earnings were 19 times larger than Enron's fake numbers. So when can we expect Congress to call Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and the rest of Fannie's and Freddie's enablers to testify before Congress?

More and More Evidence of Perpetual Adolescence

2008-09-29T16:35:14Z

I just completed two books that had been on my list for a while: Dianna West's The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization (thanks to Jeff Myers for the recommendation) and George Weigel's Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action (thanks to Hugh Hewitt and Kevin Bywater).

The timing was better than I anticipated. One of the fascinating things about West's book is that she began writing it before 9/11. At that point, her thesis was that sometime during the fifties things were put in place (in pop culture, advertising, and education) for a significant cultural shift. The result: we moved from a culture in which children aspired to be adults to a culture in which adults aspire to remain children. This was done primarily, West suggests, through the introduction of a stage of life we now assume has always existed: adolescence. Adolescence, however, is merely an invention. In practically every other culture in human history, there was no transitional stage to adulthood after childhood.

The great tragedy of adolescence, however, is not its invention as a transitional stage. It's much worse than that. The great tragedy is that it is no longer a transitional stage! The excuse made for adolescence is "they'll grow out of it." The problem is that too many "theys" are not growing out of it. In our culture, adolescence is not a stage of life, it is the goal of life.

As West was writing her book, 9/11 happened, and her thesis intensified. Her expanded thesis suggests that since we are a culture addicted to adolescence, we are thoroughly incapable of dealing with the threat of radical Islam.

Enter Weigel. His book offers fifteen lessons that we should have learned from 9/11 but which, he fears, we have failed to learn. Weigel's examples offer in a disturbingly clear manner, that West may indeed be right. Quoting Bernard Lewis in the introduction, he gives a striking contrast between the cultural mentality during World War II and today. During Word War II, Lewis suggested,

"we knew who we were, we knew who the enemy was, we knew the dangers and the issues. It is different today. We don't know who we are. We don't know the issues, and we still do not understand the nature of the enemy."

We don't know who we are (identity crisis; not taking responsibility for ourselves; wanting freedom without consequences). We don't know the issues (unwilling to engage in ideas; preferring to be spoon-fed, entertained, and "bailed-out"). We don't know the enemy (self-absorbed naval-gazing, thinking we are invincible; assuming the enemy thinks like we do).

Sounds like adolescence to me...

Sanger, Eugenics and Baby Rowan

2008-06-29T23:41:47Z

The legacy of Margaret Sanger, founder and warmly remembered hero of Planned Parenthood, is more than legalized abortion. As Jonah Goldberg has documented in his excellent new book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, her legacy is eugenics - and this was her plan all along.

Through birth control and forced sterilization, she hoped to decrease the population of the "less fit." In fact, her magazine, The Birth Control Review, became a mouthpiece in America for the Nazi eugenics program in the mid 1920's.

As editor of The Birth Control Review, Sanger regularly published the sort of hard racists we normally associate with Goebbels or Himmler. Indeed, after she resigned as editor, The Birth Control Review ran articles by people who worked for Goebbels and Himmler. For example, when the Nazi eugenics program was first getting wide attention, The Birth Control Review was quick to cast the Nazis in a positive light, giving over its pages for an article titled "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need," by Ernst Rüdin, Hitler's director of sterilization and a founder of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene.

For Sanger, the African American population was a primary target of her program. In 1939, she initiated the "Negro Project," which intended to curb the African American population, especially the segment of it she considered least fit to reproduce. As Goldberg writes:

The project's racist intent is beyond doubt. "The mass of significant Negroes," read the project's report, "still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes...is [in] that portion of the population least intelligent and fit."

Despite the rhetoric of "freedom of choice," eugenics remains a central part of the pro-choice platform. From Liberal Fascism:

In 1992 Nicholas Von Hoffman argued in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Free cheap abortion is a policy of social defense. To save ourselves from being murdered in our beds and raped on the streets, we should do everything possible to encourage pregnant women who don't want the baby and will not take care of it to get rid of the thing before it turns into a monster...

Later that same year, the White House received a letter from the Roe v. Wade co-counsel Ron Weddington, urging the new president-elect to rush RU-486 -- the morning-after pill -- to the market as quickly as possible. Weddington's argument was refreshingly honest:

[Y]ou can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country. No, I'm not advocating some sort of mass extinction of these unfortunate people. Crime, drugs and disease are already doing that. The problem is that their numbers are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies to people who can't afford to have babies. There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true, but we only whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we view any program which might treat the disadvantaged as discriminatory, mean-spirited and... well... so Republican.

[G]overnment is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations and abortions. . , . There have been about 30 million abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade. Think of all the poverty, crime and misery . . . and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario. We lost a lot of ground during the Reagan-Bush religious orgy. We don't have a lot of time left.

How, exactly, is this substantively different from Margaret Sanger's self-described "religion of birth control," which would, she wrote, "ease the financial load of caring for with public funds . . . children destined to become a burden to themselves, to their family, and ultimately to the nation"?

So, how successful has Sanger's vision been in curbing the African American population?

Abortion ends more black lives than heart disease, cancer, accidents, AIDS, and violent crime combined. African Americans constitute little more than 12 percent of the population but have more than a third (37 percent) of abortions. That rate has held relatively constant, though in some regions the numbers are much starker; in Mississippi, black women receive some 72 percent of all abortions, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Nationwide, 512 out of every 1,000 black pregnancies end in an abortion. Revealingly enough, roughly 80 percent of Planned Parenthood's abortion centers are in or near minority communities.

So, it was encouraging to see The Washington Times report on group of black pastors and activists, including MLK's niece Alveda King, call abortion what it is and demand action from both political parties.

On a side note, another legacy of abortion is utter cruelty. Saturday morning, our Summit VA students were taught by Matt Staver, president of the Liberty Counsel and Dean of the Law School at Liberty University, who argued this point based on several cases he is currently involved in. For example, Staver is representing the mother of Baby Rowan, who was born alive at the abortion clinic despite a botched attempt in killing him. When the frantic mother saw her baby boy struggling to live, she begged for someone to help her baby survive.

When those at the clinic ignored her cries for help, she used her cell phone to call 911. Emergency workers rushed to the clinic where they were promptly turned away by nurses at the clinic who claimed that there was nothing going on but a hysterical mother. Rowan died a few minutes after emergency workers left the scene. So much for choice.

Read about and support the work of Matt Staver and the Liberty Counsel here.

You Can't Fuel All the People All the Time

2008-06-26T15:47:28Z

The sometimes caustic, but always insightful Ann Coulter hit a home run today in her column. You can read it here:

"You Can't Fuel All the People All the Time" by Ann Coulter

"As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else..."

2008-06-19T20:32:00Z

Two brilliant examples today of why silly phrases such as "Everyone can choose their own morality/religion/worldview, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else" fail what I called in my book "The Test of the Real World." Some ideas sound great when you hear them, or look fine on paper, until they meet the real world of the human predicament.

My day began with a phone call from one of our Summit speakers, who needed to change his time slot for an upcoming conference. A former Muslim who converted to Christianity, he now speaks nationally and internationally on why Christianity is true and Islam in not. The reason he could no longer make the time and day we had scheduled him for is because a meeting "came up" with the FBI. The situation: an Islamic group had emailed him threatening to behead him, his wife, and his two children. They identified his family in the threat by name.

Later today, I received the following email from Kevin Bywater, director of our Summit Oxford program:

Some people ask what harm there is in gay marriage. After all, they claim, the homosexuals are hurting anyone (but perhaps themselves). This naive perspective fails to see the political and legal strategy of homosexuals, and it fails to appreciate the ramifications of acknowledgement and affirmation.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91486340&sc=emaf

This is something you must read or listen to. There is a coming storm -- indeed, it is here -- and homosexuals are winning many court cases that force acknowledgement, affirmation and virtual promotion of their deviation. We know this already, of course, but this program caught my attention. The audio is about 8 minutes long. The article is a transcript.

The reality is that worldviews collide. Contrary moral beliefs collide. Ideas aren't merely esoteric wrestlings of the intelligentsia. They matter. They matter deeply. They matter deeply for real people, cultures, and nations.

What an interesting day...

Amused to Death?

2008-06-17T22:06:05Z

Two sessions have been completed in Colorado, and I am just returning from my second trip to Ohio to speak to the Summit Student Conference there. What great students we have had so far!

I first learned of the Summit from Jeff Myers. His description was something like this: "It is a conference where high school and college students come for two weeks during the summer, sit in class for 6-7 hours a day, and hear lectures on worldviews, apologetics, philosophy, and cultural issues." I immediately responded: "Who comes to this thing?"

Well, for another summer, I have met those who come. Students who (even many who forced to come by their parents) within just a few sessions embrace the challenge of learning how to see and engage their world. What we put these students through defies many contemporary ideas about youth ministry: "entertain them" or "keep the teaching to a minimum" or "put everything on the bottom shelf."

Frankly, these contemporary ideas are foolish at best and dangerous at worst. The students we meet at the Summit have been waiting to be challenged. They want to know how their faith connects to the real issues in the world, and how their lives can make a difference. Many are tired of the games, the entertainment, and the lack of depth. Others had no idea what they were missing, but once they get it - they are hooked.

But beyond what the students want, we have to consider what the students need. Why is it that so many students abandon or disconnect from their faith once they leave home? Why is that so many years in youth group, church, and Christian schooling gets left behind within a few weeks or months for students all over America? Students face a battle for their hearts and minds, and most are completely unaware of what postmodernism, deconstruction, humanism, moral relativism, radical feminism, theological liberalism, or anti-metanarrative revisionism even is, much less how to deal with it.

Neal Postman wrote in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death that entertainment has made us silly. Not every form of entertainment per se, but once entertainment becomes the primary means of any and all communication then the important is swallowed in the trivial. Entertainment is addictive, make us care about things that do not matter, while distracting us from things that do matter. Sure, Christian entertainment may have less cussing, sex, and violence in it. But that is not the primary issue. Postman is right. Entertainment has made us a silly culture. I would add that our addiction to Christian entertainment has replaced any real sense of true discipleship, has distracted a generation of youth ministries, and has failed a generation of students. In short, Christian entertainment has made us silly Christians.

I am so encouraged when I see students wanting more. That is a big reason why I love the Summit. Tomorrow, I will be back in Colorado for Session 3. Friday, the family and I will head to Summit Virginia. It will be good to see a few more of these students. If you know of any others that might like to join us this summer, there is still room to fit them in.

P.S. The addition of our Virginia Summit necessitated that we buy a bus to transport our staff from Ohio to Virginia to Tennessee. On Sunday, the motor completely died on that bus! We have found another and it should be up and running in 2 weeks. Many things have been complicated by this little fiasco (and it was a $10k expense we were not expecting too!), but all staff and students were not put in danger by it so we are thankful.

Please pray that we can get the bus up and running soon and that it will make it through the rest of the summer!

The Media and Barak Obama

2008-06-08T00:59:28Z

A few weeks ago, Saturday Night Live did a parody of how the media swoons over Barak Obama. It was really, really funny. Basically, the skit was a debate between Obama and Hillary. After the reporter asked Hillary Clinton a very tough policy question, the question for Obama was "Can I get you a glass of water." When Obama replies, "No," then the follow up question is "Are you sure?"

It is amazing how true this scenario is. The media (and Bill) derailed Hillary. They love Obama - someone who has little to no qualification to run a country.

As I write this, I am sitting near a TV tuned to CNN at the Atlanta airport. They just aired a special on the life of Obama, and how amazing his life has been, and how special it is that he is now the potential President. Unbelievable... I need to go find an airsickness bag.