The circumstances of your conception cannot change the value of your worth. Life is a precious, precious gift. Whether planned or unplanned, every human life has purpose.

These truths are what Ryan Bomberger, cofounder of the Radiance Foundation, speaks on at Cornerstone Chapel in this wonderfully encouraging video. Bomberger combats the idea that unplanned means unwanted and explains the principles of L.I.F.E. – Love one another, Identify the lie, Fight the lie, Expect the victory.

He illustrates the Radiance Foundation’s application of this in their fight to illuminate, educate and motivate believers. Bomberger, who was himself adopted, also speaks on the blessings of adoption, reminding us that it was God who created adoption so that we could be adopted into His family.

His talk is incredibly encouraging and often humorous, providing a breath of fresh air in a battle that so often focuses only on the negative. Please watch and share. You won’t regret it!

In an interview with ESPN last September, Michigan Wolverines Coach Jim Harbaugh (and former Chicago Bear quarterback) openly shared that he tells his family, team, and staff that if any of them is faced with a crisis pregnancy, he and his wife Sarah will adopt that child.

I’ve told [them] the same thing I tell my kids, boys, the girls, same thing I tell our players, our staff members, I encourage them if they have a pregnancy that wasn’t planned, to go through with it, go through with it. Let that unborn child be born, and if at that time, you don’t feel like you can care for it, you don’t have the means or the wherewithal, then Sarah and I will take that baby.

Any player on our team, any female staff member or any staff member or anybody in our family or our extended family … that doesn’t feel like after they have a baby they can take care of it, we got a big house. We’ll raise that baby.

As a public figure and a natural born leader, Harbaugh is not merely a tremendous witness for his faith and the sanctity of life, but he is showing us how it’s done; how to walk-in-faith, winsomely bold and with integrity.

Pastors and church leaders should take note of Coach Harbaugh’s witness. His genuine loving, proactive offer to help his players and/or staff should they face an unexpected pregnancy and willingness to adopt the baby is an example that should be replicated in churches nationwide.

Pro-life Church leaders should have a conversation with their church family and prepare a list of volunteer families who would be willing to step up to be that adoptive family for women facing an unplanned pregnancy. Once this is done in advance it could be announced to the church family:

“We love you and your unborn baby. We want to minster to you during this critical time of your life. A family here at our church is willing to adopt and raise this precious child in the faith so that he/she has a chance to live and serve Almighty God.” 

This need not conflict with the message of abstinence and marriage as God’s standard for Christian life. In fact, this cornerstone of biblical marriage and family should be a frequent matter of discussion in our homes and in our churches. Far too many victims of abortion and perverse sexual ideologies have to deal with the consequences of their actions precisely because these things haven’t been discussed in their homes or by their church leaders. “I didn’t know” is a heart-breaking chorus and excuse.

Yet young women or couples who fall short of abstinence and find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy should know that fellow believers want to extend mercy and forgiveness to them.

Moreover, they should know that the church family is willing to rally around both mom and her pre-born baby. This offer of loving help should also be extended to birth moms who plan to raise their baby themselves.

Make Sure They Know

Imagine if churches across the nation made a Harbaugh type offer to families in their congregations and/or even to families in their immediate communities? The option of “terminating” a crisis pregnancy could be virtually eliminated. The mother and her family would understand that they have a real, life-giving choice to give that child a future.

Imagine the lives that would be saved both physically and spiritually!

Imagine what a powerful witness this would be to our abortion-centered culture as Christians “walk the walk” to lift up Jesus, shining Jesus’ light in our dark culture. The selfless offer to love our neighbors would likely shock many in the culture.

Imagine if “The Harbaugh Pledge” was taken up by churches coast-to-coast. Imagine the how it would become a beacon of Christ to our culture by offering to love them both by facilitating private adoptions, which are much less expensive than going through an agency.

The fact that there is an IRS adoption tax credit of $14k should more than cover any expense incurred. On top of that, Illinois offers tax “refunds of up to $5,000 for a child adopted in Illinois, and up to $2,000 for a child adopted outside the state,” according to a Chicago Tribune article. I assume states across the nation offer similar tax incentives.

For those who may not want an adoptive family from the local church, churches could network within their own denomination or with like-minded independent churches outside of the state.
My prayer is that thousands of churches across the nation take this pledge publicly before their congregations. They could even extend the offer of adoption and discipleship to an area in their community that routinely struggles with out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

Jesus promised that if He be lifted-up, all men would be drawn to Him. “The Harbaugh Pledge” could become a powerful way to lift-up Christ in our culture and may even lead to our long-awaited spiritual revival as we repent from our sins of apathy and abortion.

It should come as a surprise to no one that the formally Christian childcare agency Bethany Christian Services has fully capitulated to homosexual activists and Big Brother—also known by Jesus as Caesar—in deciding to place children in the homes of homosexuals for fostering and adoption in all 32 states where it operates.

It should come as no surprise because the 77-year-old Bethany Christian Services, “the largest Protestant adoption and foster agency in the United States,” began capitulating several years ago when homosexuals began demanding children from Bethany, first in Philadelphia and then in Michigan.

What might surprise Christians is the sophistry Bethany now employs to rationalize their decision that will inarguably harm children temporally and likely eternally.

In a Christianity Today article on this story, Bethany vice president Nate Bult makes this astonishing claim:

Faith in Jesus is at the core of our mission. But we are not claiming a position on the various doctrinal issues about which Christians of mutual good faith may disagree. … We acknowledge that discussions about doctrine are important, but our sole job is to determine if a family can provide a safe, stable environment for children.

Word to Bult, faith in Jesus should never be separated from the work of Christians. It should inform every decision they make, especially in the kind of work Bethany does. Faith in Jesus requires accepting God’s Word as unalterable, objective, transcendent, eternal truth and includes everything the Bible says about homosexuality, marriage, and raising children.

We learn in God’s holy Word that God destroyed two cities, centrally because of rampant homosexuality. We learn how serious a sin God views homosexuality because he includes it in verses about two other serious sins: bestiality and incest. We learn from Jesus himself that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. We learn that those who engage in homosexuality will not see the kingdom of heaven. And we are commanded to train up our children in the way they should go.

Two men or two women who believe marriage has no intrinsic nature central to which is sexual differentiation and who believe homosexual acts are moral acts cannot possibly raise up a child in the way they should go. In reality, they will raise up children to believe that evil is good. They will teach children the lie that “love is love”—a lie that if affirmed as good and true may cost children their eternal lives.

Doctrinal issues regarding the ontology and teleology of marriage and the morality of homoerotic acts are not issues about which “Christians of mutual good faith” may disagree. They are foundational issues, and those who disagree with theologically orthodox views are apostates or heretics.

Marriage is a picture of Christ—the bridegroom—and the church—his bride. A homoerotic union composed of two people of the same sex suggests that there is no difference in nature or function between Christ and the church, which is a heretical notion.

But no worries to Bethany leaders. They get to keep Caesar’s money if they render unto Caesar what is God’s.

The New York Times reports that Bethany president Chris Palusky claims that Bethany’s decision to place infants and children in the homes of men and women who affirm acts that God detests is consonant with remaining “steadfast” in its “Christian faith” and “furthers” its mission to provide “safe homes” to vulnerable children.

How does Palusky define “safe”? Clearly, the eternal lives of these vulnerable children don’t factor into his understanding of safety. And clearly, raising children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord doesn’t factor into Bethany leaders’ understanding of remaining steadfast in their Christian faith.

Interesting side note about Palusky: He held a senior leadership position with World Vision in 2014 when World Vision announced its controversial decision to hire employees in homosexual relationships. The decision was so controversial, World Vision reversed it in two days. Four years later, in 2018, Palusky unfortunately landed at Bethany Christian Services.

Bethany passed an “inclusivity” policy this past January that omits this position statement in place since 2007:

God’s design for the family is a covenant and lifelong marriage of one man and one woman.

Would an organization that remains steadfast in its Christian faith and whose faith in Jesus remains at it core remove Jesus’ definition of marriage and replace it with a policy that permits children to be placed in the homes of unrepentant homosexuals?

In making its decision to render unto Caesar God’s children and, in practice, to embrace heretical doctrinal positions, did Bethany consult Scripture? Nope. Bethany hired the Barna Group to poll 667 “self-identified” Christians:

Barna found 55% of Christians said either that sexual preference should not determine who can foster or adopt, or that it was better for children to be in an LGBTQ home than in foster care. The survey also found that 76% of self-identified Christians agree, at least somewhat, that it would be better for Christian agencies to comply with government requirements pertaining to the LGBTQ community rather than shut down.

Well, there you have it: a childcare organization at the core of which is purportedly Jesus uses a poll to help determine whether it should place children in the homes of men and women who affirm sin as good.

The belief of 507 of 667 self-identified Christians that Bethany should comply with Big Brother, and the belief of 367 of 667 self-identified Christians that it is better for vulnerable children to be raised by homosexuals than by heterosexual foster parents persuaded Bethany leaders of the position they already held.  Perhaps it would have been wiser to poll 667 theologically orthodox, non-apostate Christian pastors on this momentous decision.

A false dichotomy appears to be implicit in the questions posed to the 667 self-identified Christians. The choices available to Bethany are not limited either to capitulating to homosexuals and Caesar or shutting down.

There is a third option available to organizations for whom steadfast faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ is truly central to their mission: They can disengage from Caesar. Bethany could refuse government money and all its attached un-sanctifying, damning strings dangling so temptingly before them.

Enquiring minds want to know if Bethany—fully committed to Christ and his kingdom as it is—will soon place children in the homes of men who pretend to be women? What about in the homes of homosexual “throuples” like the one from San Diego (whose book Amazon is not banning)? This particular “throuple”—three men who fought successfully to have all three of their names listed on their children’s birth certificates—didn’t need to adopt. Instead, they purchased genetic material and rented wombs. But other “throuples,” “quadrouples,” or “septouples” may not have the resources for purchasing genetic material. Will Bethany one day place vulnerable children with such families? If not, why not?

Why not place children in the homes of polyamorists with five adults of assorted biological sexes and sexual interests? If the sex of adopting parents is irrelevant, why is the number of partners relevant? Come to think of it, if love is love, why does blood kinship matter? Why not place children in the homes of brothers in romantic/erotic unions?

While a Barna poll may show over half of self-identifying Christians currently oppose such placements, just wait awhile and poll them again.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/BCS.mp3

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Good job, David French, Ed Stetzer, Christianity Today, Lincoln Project, and other assorted Never-Trumpers. The senile, morally corrupt President-Elect of the once great United States of America just nominated a delusional man with a cross-dressing fetish to be the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services. Now decent people won’t be able to teach their young children about our president’s Cabinet. With Dr. Richard “Rachel” Levine‘s appointment will come Big Brother’s prohibition of “misgendering” Levine. In other words, Big Brother and his minions will command all Americans to mis-sex the burly Dr. Levine. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.

Oh, but that’s not all.

Biden has a plan to spread the leftist sexuality ideology within the United States and export it to infinity and beyond. Biden—the self-identifying Catholic—chooses to offend the God he claims to serve rather than offend the gods of homosexuality and “trans”-cultism he actually serves. In terrifying rebellion against God, Biden calls theologically orthodox biblical beliefs about homosexual acts “hatred,” specifically identifying Mike Pence’s beliefs as such.

Further, Biden says, “defeating” those beliefs “is an essential first step” in achieving the leftist goal of full societal approval of homosexuality, which he fallaciously calls “equality.”

Biden has committed to passing the Equality Act, which has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with eradicating First Amendment protections of religious free exercise. Biden has said that through the Equality Act, he will force women’s shelters to house biological men who pretend to be women. Those places where abused women and their children take refuge, often from abusive men, will under Biden, house men.

Biden has committed to reversing the ban on sexual passing in the military. In other words, female soldiers will be forced to bunk and shower with men who pretend to be women, and U.S. taxpayers will be forced to subsidize elective cosmetic procedures and ongoing cross-sex hormone-doping for delusional soldiers.

Biden has committed to forcing Christian adoption and foster care agencies to place children in the homes of homosexuals or lose access to all government funds. In other words, Biden will discriminate based on religion when funding adoption agencies.

Biden has promised that on his first day in office he will require all public schools to allow “trans”-identifying students to have full access to the restrooms, locker rooms, and sports of opposite-sex students. I’m sure that will go over well with Muslim parents.

We can’t forget that Biden has promised to restore funding to America’s abattoirs, Planned Parenthood. With Biden ensconced in the Oval Office, Christians from sea to shining sea will be forced to fund human slaughter. But at least now that the uncouth, boorish Trump is gone, Never-Trumpers will be able to sleep at night.

And this is just the tip of the cold, dark iceberg, Biden and Never-Trumpers kept hidden during the campaign.

Never-Trumpers, besotted with dreams of Downton Abbey’s Lord Grantham (without the white skin, biological sex, or elitist title, of course) running for president, couldn’t abide the coarse, abrasive, pugilistic Trump winning a second term, so they colluded with leftists to kneecap him.

Never mind that Joe Biden is an inveterate liar and plagiarist. Never mind that he inappropriately touches women. Never mind that he has been accused by Jill Biden’s first husband of having an affair with her when Joe’s wife was still alive and Jill Biden was still married. Never mind that he was accused of digitally raping a staffer years ago. Never mind that there is good evidence that Joe and his corrupt son and brother colluded to line their pockets with the filthy lucre of America’s chief enemy. Never mind that with a straight but slightly confused face, he lied during election season, telling voters that he knew nothing about Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings. To Never-Trumpers, Biden’s plans to destroy America are trivialities to be ignored.

While facilitating the election of Joe Biden—a man who will enact policies that destroy the bodies, minds, and hearts of children—apparently has no bearing on our Christian witness, voting for Trump does—or so goes the argument of Ed Stetzer, dean and professor at Wheaton College and contributing editor at Christianity Today.

Stetzer thinks the dim view the world has of evangelicalism has everything to do with gullible, non-thinking, Trump-voting evangelicals. No mention of the hatred the world has for the word of God when it comes to homosexuality and sexual passing.

No mention either of the unconscionable cowardly silence of theologians and pastors who have said next to nothing as the world captured the hearts and minds of children in their own houses of worship and whose silence contributed to the spread of evil so dark and ugly that many evangelicals, when faced with the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, believed rightly that Trump was better.

Trump offered hope to parents who didn’t want their daughters sharing locker rooms with boys. He offered hope that Planned Parenthood would be defunded. He offered hope for a Supreme Court that would protect their religious liberty.

In Stetzer’s myopic view, expressed in a USA Today editorial devoid of nuance, “far too many [evangelicals] failed to live up to their promise of speaking truth to power.” Perhaps. But there are tens of thousands more evangelicals who voted for Trump than there are well-known evangelicals who had access to Trump to speak truth to power, and Stetzer lumps them all together.

What about the well-known evangelicals who have had opportunities for decades to speak truth to power about the poisonous, enslaving “LGBTQ” ideology and have said nothing either to the powerful or publicly. How does Stetzer think the world—whose opinion he seems to care so much about—would think about evangelicalism if every well-known evangelical spoke truth to power publicly about the “trans”-ideology and homosexuality?

Has Stetzer considered that maybe evangelicals wouldn’t have been so attracted to Trump’s muscular rhetoric, if evangelical leaders had not been speaking in such emasculated tones for so many years?

Maybe Stetzer doesn’t know any, but there are scores of evangelicals who see with clarity Trump’s flaws and who worship no political (or evangelical) leader. Those evangelicals were careful to distinguish between Trump the man and the policies of his administration. Given a choice between a corrupt man with terrible policies and a corrupt man with better policies, they chose the latter.

The dark shape of things to come

The 1619 Project has changed the date of America’s founding. All summer, Orwellian monsters—also known as Biden voters—rampaged through our cities, tearing down statutes and demanding that buildings and streets be renamed and artwork replaced. Birth certificates are now legally falsified to indicate a biological male was identified at the time of his birth as female. Birth certificates will now identify a biological woman who was impregnated by a biological man and birthed a baby as the “father.” Within a nanosecond after the announcement by a Hollywood starlet at age 33 that she will henceforth pretend she’s a man, the Internet was scrubbed of any past references to her by female pronouns. Her history was erased.

In the novel 1984, George Orwell wrote,

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

As I wrote several weeks ago, “Leftists See Orwell’s Novel 1984 As a Blueprint for Progress.”

So, tell me again, Mr. French, Mr. Stetzer, and Christianity Today, how exactly does facilitating the election of the patently corrupt Biden who heartily endorses sexual perversion, religious persecution, human slaughter, and the erasure of history enhance the witness of theologically orthodox Christians?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/auThe-Shape-of-Things-to-Come.m4a

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The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed new rules that would end regulations put in place by the Obama Administration that prohibited faith-based child welfare providers from receiving federal funding without abandoning their beliefs.

The current regulations were put in place just after President Obama’s election. They prohibit faith-based institutions that receive federal funds from refusing to place children in homes with unmarried partners, same-sex partners, and same-sex married couples. Illinois also passed such a law in 2011.

Zach Pruitt is senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit legal organization that advocates for religious freedom. Pruitt submitted comments supporting the proposed new rules Dec. 19.

“Every child deserves a chance to be raised in a loving home. That’s why ADF supports HHS’s revision of its regulations to allow both secular and faith-based providers to compete for federal grants on an equal footing. Tragically, there are currently over 430,000 children in the foster care system and 125,000 eligible for adoption, and faith-based adoption and foster care providers play an integral role in serving these vulnerable kids.”

Priutt commended HHS for seeking to “protect a diversity of providers to ensure the greatest number of children find a permanent, loving family.” A 2014 study by Barna Research found practicing Christians (5%) are more than twice as likely to adopt than the general (2%) population. Catholics are three times as likely and evangelicals five times as likely to adopt than the average adult.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently wrote a Wall St. Journal op-ed in support of the rule change. “The foster-care system is burdened, with children who need parents enduring tragically long waits for placement,” Moore wrote. “Genuine civic pluralism means everyone—secularists, atheists and agnostics, along with religious people of all sorts—should care about these children.”

According to HHS, which made the announcement Nov. 1, the new rule would be in accordance with “nondiscrimination provisions passed by Congress and signed into law.” It also puts the agency in compliance with U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the administration of grant funding.

Progressive groups immediately attacked the announcement. The Human Rights Campaign tweeted Nov. 3rd:

“The Trump-Pence White House has proposed a horrific federal regulation that would permit discrimination across the entire spectrum of @HHSGov programs receiving federal funding.” – @HRC President @AlphonsoDavid https://t.co/I0ik3S4KMo

— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) November 3, 2019

The time for submitting comments closed Dec. 19 and will now undergo a review period before going into effect. There’s no word on whether any opponents will seek legal action.

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Earlier this month the Trump administration announced the reversal of an Obama-era rule regarding the role of faith-based organizations in providing foster care and adoption services.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed new rules Nov. 1 allowing faith-based providers to continue serving their communities in a manner consistent with their religious beliefs. According to a conference call between Vice President Mike Pence’s office and the media, the Obama rule jeopardized the ability of faith-based providers to continue serving their communities, penalizing them for their deeply held beliefs. It did so by forcing these providers to either place children in the homes of same-sex couples or discontinue care.

Pence’s office contended that by “excluding thousands of willing organizations and families, the Obama rule threatened the well-being of children in search of a good home.”

HHS reports there are approximately 443,000 children in foster care nationwide, with more than 100,000 awaiting adoption, and that number has risen for five consecutive years, fueled in part by the opioid crisis.

“Allowing faith-based organizations to provide an enhanced role in foster care will take the pressure off some states who are need of additional foster families and foster care capacity,” Pence’s office claimed.

However, it’s too early to celebrate. Lori Windham, a religious liberty lawyer at Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, tweeted, “it’s a smart thing to do, but it would only fix part of the problem.” She shared that state and local governments can use similar rules to try to close faith-based agencies. In Illinois, faith-based agencies are only affected if they accept government funding.

Windham tweeted further, “Ultimately, we need not just better regulations, but a clear answer from the courts. @BECKETlaw has asked #SCOTUS to ensure that these critical social services are no longer jeopardized. The petition for Fulton v. Philadelphia has been conferenced for Nov 15.”

Brittany Raymer at Focus on the Family pointed out, “The Equality Act, which has been passed by the U.S. House but not the U.S. Senate, would have amended the Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. This would mean that even if this new regulation is in effect, the potential passing of the Equality Act would still force agencies to place children with same-sex couples or close unless there are religious freedom protection.”

The announcement also reversed Obama Administration policy denying federal disaster aid to houses of worship.

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According to its most recent annual report (July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010), the Planned Parenthood Federation of America received more than $487 million taxpayer dollars and performed nearly 330,000 abortions.

Several members of Congress attempted to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding during 2011 budget negotiations, but were not successful. Some states, such as Indiana, also attempted to reject federal money for Planned Parenthood, but were ultimately forced by the Department of Health and Human Services to accept it or risk loss of other federal revenue.

Planned Parenthood’s recent annual report is a wake-up call for pro-life Americans.  They continue to claim that no federal money is spent on providing abortions and that their government funding is essential to their services. They also claim that only 3-percent of their services relate to abortion, but the numbers don’t add up.

While Planned Parenthood says it offers all types of “family planning” services, the same annual report revealed that the organization made only 841 adoption referrals out of 3 million clients served, while performing nearly 1,000 abortions per day in its clinics.

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