What does it mean to be a Conservative? Historically, issues of faith and family that reflect traditional morals and values – the sanctity of life, heterosexual marriage, and belief in God and in His Word – have been the primary hallmarks of conservatism. But today, a new type of Conservative is emerging, one that identifies as an atheist, transgender, or gay. How (or can) we reconcile our established definition of conservatism with the views presented by these new, non-religious, non-traditional, self-proclaimed Conservative voices?

Dr. Michael L. Brown contrasts the foundational importance of faith, family, and freedom to the traditional conservative position with the new conservatism that espouses a redefinition of marriage and LGBT activism. Please watch and listen to this important 5 minute video as Dr. Brown asks: Is it possible to be a true Conservative if one does not adhere to the most fundamental values of conservatism?

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Two years ago on BreakPoint we told you about a promising young Christian football player. On Monday, he was the hero of Alabama’s national football championship win.

Alabama’s stunning come-from-behind NCAA championship victory over Georgia was fueled by freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. In a remarkably humble interview after the game, especially given what he’d just accomplished on national television, he said: “I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. With him all things are possible.”

Now two years ago, on BreakPoint, I talked about Tagovailoa’s faith—back when he was still in high school. Here’s a part of that broadcast from 2015:

Sports Illustrated recently told the story of Tua Tagovailoa, who is considered to be the best high school football player in Hawaii. The junior quarterback at Honolulu’s Saint Louis High School is drawing comparisons to the school’s most famous alum, Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota.

On the surface the comparison is understandable. Besides playing for the same high school, both quarterbacks share a similar style that makes them a threat on the ground and in the air. And like so many great players in Hawaii, they share a Samoan heritage.

And it’s this last bit that’s the most intriguing and inspiring part of the story, at least for Christians.

At the heart of the Sports Illustrated story about Tua is his relationship with his late grandfather. It’s a story about a Christian from one generation passing a spiritual legacy to the next generation. The article is filled with Bible verses. It tells readers that the entire Tagovailoa clan gathers “every evening for prayer and teaching,” and to sing a Samoan hymn that “asks God to be present in everything they do.”

This is something that Tua has in common with his hero, Marcus Mariota. Mariota, as we’ve said before on BreakPoint, is also a Christian whose goal is “to go out and show the world that Christ lives.”

Football fans have long noted the disproportionate number of Samoan players in the NFL and in big-time college football. By one estimate, “a Samoan male is 56 times more likely to play in the NFL than an American non-Samoan.” Football greats like the late Junior Seau and Troy Polamalu are only two members of this illustrious line.

Less known, and even more important, is the role that Christianity has played in the lives of so many of these players and in Samoan society as a whole. Stories like that of Tagovailoa, Mariota, Polamalu, and former Raiders quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo are a testimony to the extraordinary success that 19^th and 20^th century missionaries had in converting the Samoan people to Christianity.

When the first missionaries from the London Missionary Society arrived in 1830, they found that there were already some Christians on Samoa. In keeping with Polynesian culture, it arrived via longboat, probably from places like Tonga and Tahiti, where Wesleyan missionaries had already been at work.

Western missionaries then built on the Samoans’ attraction to Christianity. By 1855 the entire Bible had been translated into Samoan. And before long, native Samoan religion had been replaced by Christianity.

Today, virtually every Samoan self-identifies as a Christian of some sort. More than 60 percent describe themselves as “very religious.” Prominent Samoans frequently refer to Samoa as a “Christian nation.” The preamble to Samoa’s constitution describes Samoa as “an independent State based on Christian principles and Samoan custom and traditions.”

What’s more, 91 percent of all Samoans agree with the statement that Samoa is “one of the most religious nations on Earth.”  Thus, Christianity’s influence on Samoan life and culture is hard to dispute. This legacy and heritage are on display in stories like that of Tagovailoa’s. The missionaries who brought Christianity to the Polynesian world wound up transforming an entire society.

Now, I’ve got no idea whether Tua Tagovailoa is the next Marcus Mariota on the field. But what matters is that he seems to be following an even more important Samoan tradition off of it. And that is worth celebrating.

This article was originally posted on BreakPoint.org.

A new controversy has erupted in School District U-46, and this time it doesn’t involve compulsory co-ed locker rooms or offensive statements from board member Traci O’Neal Ellis. This time 18 local religious leaders have objected to school board member Jeanette Ward’s Facebook post about a controversial article on religion assigned in a sixth-grade class.

A teacher had her sixth-graders read an article by Australian history of religion professor and agnostic Philip Almond and then answer questions based on that reading. Here are some of the controversial statements from that article:

“Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three of the world’s major religions. While they have many differences, they all believe in the same God.

“Some of the prophets that Jews follow were Noah, Abraham and Moses. Christians follow these prophets too. They also think that Jesus was another prophet of the same God.”

“Jesus, Muhammad and the Hebrew prophets all described the same God.”

“The God of the Old Testament can be both good and evil.”

“Like the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus predicted a day when God will punish humankind and will be merciless in doing so.”

 “Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the same complex God. But each religion believes that its books and teachings reveal the true nature of that God. This disagreement has shaped the course of history. The followers of each religion believe that only they will be saved by God. They see all others as damned. This way of seeing people, as damned by God and beyond saving, has led to violence and hatred.”

After reading the assignment, Ward posted the entire article by Almond along with these innocuous comments:

Do you know what your children are being taught: Muslims believe in the same God as Christians and Jews?

My 6th-grader came home with this assignment today. She was supposed to read the article and answer the questions. (She will not be completing this assignment). The full text of the article is below. Quiz questions are depicted in the pictures. This article is utterly incorrect and false on many levels. This is one of the many reasons I voted no on this curriculum resource.

In response to Ward’s Facebook comments, a statement signed by 18 religious leaders—mostly from apostate denominations—was read at Monday’s school board meeting (see names and affiliations below*). They began by mildly critiquing Almond’s article for its lack of “nuance” and “generosity”:

None of us saw our faith traditions represented in their fullness in the article as represented from the school’s curriculum.

The central problem with the article was not lack of “nuance,” “generosity,” or  “fullness.” The central problem was theological errors taught to children as facts. For many Christians such theological errors are offensive, and having government employees present such errors to their children as facts compounds the offense.

Then, with insufficient nuance and generosity, these religious leaders criticized Ward’s Facebook comment:

[W]e feel that more important than the content of the article is the question of how we are to engage with inevitable differences of opinion, theology, and world view. Here, we strongly take exception to Ms. Ward’s approach… We believe that these instances represent a valuable opportunity to practice civil discourse and to express our differences with both respect and humility.

Seriously? Ward’s “approach” is more important to purported Christian pastors than a public school presenting resources that teach children that the God of the Old Testament is evil and that Allah and Jesus are the same?

Moreover, what specifically did Ward write that is uncivil, disrespectful, or prideful? Maybe these faith leaders could tell everyone exactly what the permissible ways to “engage with inevitable differences of opinion, theology, and world view” are.

One wonders why these religious leaders didn’t publicly chastise school board member Veronica Noland when she referred to opponents of co-ed locker rooms as “narrow-minded fear mongers.” And why didn’t they condemn school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis’ “approach” when she three times referred to Republicans as the equivalent of KKK’ers. Curiouser and curiouser.

This theologically imbalanced coterie of critics next claimed it’s the job of some unnamed persons to correct the misinformation provided to young middle schoolers by government employees:

[W]hen such articles and statements are presented to our children, we believe it is helpful to use these instances as opportunities to teach our children why we disagree with the information being presented and how to do so with respect and humility. Indeed, we believe teaching our children to identify, understand, and even challenge ideas with which they do not agree is helpful training for them as students, citizens, and people of faith.

The subject of their recommendation remains unclear. Who should teach children that the material presented at school is incorrect? Religious leaders? Parents? How can religious leaders or parents engage in the work of correcting misinformation if they don’t know that such misinformation was disseminated to their children?

This raises critical questions: Who selected this article? Did a department chair and curricula review committee read it? And why are teachers using resources that present arguable assumptions and errors as facts?

Continuing their criticism of Ward under the guise of offering their definition of proper leadership, the faith leaders inadvertently revealed their fealty to government employees as opposed to parents and other taxpayers:

[F]aithful, respectful leadership means engaging teachers and administrators directly.

This may be the most troubling part of their troubling statement. They failed to mention that the primary responsibility of school board members is to directly engage parents and other stakeholders—you know, the people who elected them and for whom they work.

How can Muslim, Jewish, or Christian parents have the kind of conversations with their children that this group of mostly “progressives” recommend unless a school board member or members engage directly with those parents to inform them of what was taught? Clearly the teacher didn’t do that.

From working for a decade in a public school, I learned that there is an unwritten principle that teachers, administrators, and board members cling to as if it were sacred. The rule is that if parents have a concern with resources, they should first express their concerns to teachers, and then if unsatisfied with the response, move up the food chain. In my humble opinion, that’s an arbitrary, socially constructed rule that parents need not honor.

Ironically, teachers, administrators, and board members who believe there’s no need to honor the practice of segregating boys from girls in restrooms and locker rooms think parents must honor the practice of keeping controversial resources on the down-low in order to avoid controversy. How “progressives” arrive at their ethical and moral imperatives is baffling.

Unfortunately, given the desire of “progressives” in government schools for absolute autonomy and their self-identification as “change agents,” controversy is both inevitable and necessary. To borrow from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

[W]e who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

There’s a lesson to be learned from this mess. It’s that “progressives” control schools in part because they act. Perhaps at the next board meeting, 20, 25, or 30 theologically orthodox Christians could make a statement about the problem of using taxpayer money to teach young children that Jesus and Allah are the same God or that the God of the Old Testament is evil. Surely there are a few pastors in the Elgin area who find such teaching objectionable. And surely  there are some who feel empathy for Jeanette Ward who stands in the gap for children when no other school board member does.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Faithless-Faith-Leaders-Protest-Jeanette-Wards-FB-Post_01.mp3

*Lois Bucher, associate pastor, First Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), Elgin; Richard T. Carlson, pastor, First United Methodist Church, Elgin; David Daubert, pastor, Zion Lutheran Church, Elgin; Marlene Daubert, deacon, Zion Lutheran Church, Elgin; Dr. Paris Donehoo, senior pastor, First Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), Elgin; The Reverend Dr. Nathaniel Edmond, Second Baptist Church, Elgin; Rev. Donald J. Frye (“married” to a man), rector, St. James Episcopal Church, West Dundee; Sulayman Hassan, Baitul Ilm Academy, Streamwood; Ed Hunter, chaplain, Presence Saint Joseph Hospital, Elgin; Margaret Frisch Klein, rabbi, Congregation Kneseth Israel, Elgin; Steven J. Peskind, rabbi and chaplain, Streamwood; Fred Rajan, reverend (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and vice president, Office of Spiritual Care, Advocate Hospital; Karen Schlack, reverend, First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Elgin; Jill Terpstra, reverend, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Kane County; Katie Shaw Thompson, pastor, Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren; Rev. Denise Tracy, president, Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders President, Elgin; George Wadleigh, Christian Scientist; and Mark Weinert, pastor, First Christian Church, Elgin.

End-of-Year Challenge

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $160,000. That’s right, a great group of IFI supporters are colluding with us to provide an $80,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2018!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

A recent study by Barna reveals the truth about what the spiritual climate in America is currently like. The study was conducted over 7 years, ending in 2016, and focuses on the most post-Christian cities in the US. According to Barna, “To qualify as ‘post-Christian,’ individuals must meet nine or more of our 16 criteria… which identify a lack of Christian identity, belief and practice. These factors include whether individuals identify as atheist, have never made a commitment to Jesus, have not attended church in the last year or have not read the Bible in the last week.”

The results might surprise some, Barna says:

The most post-Christian city in America is Portland-Auburn, Maine (57%). In fact, New England and the Northeast—considered the foundation and home-base of religion in America—figure prominently: Eight of the top 10 most post-Christian cities are in this region. The next six cities on the list are Boston, MA-Manchester, NH (56%), Providence, RI-New Bedford, MA (53%), Burlington, VT-Plattsburgh, NY (53%), Hartford-New Haven, CT (52%), and New York, NY (51%). Next up are two big West Coast hubs: San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA (50%), and Seattle-Tacoma (50%).

The percentage of people dedicated to Christianity has changed significantly in the last 50 years, causing the religion to lose much of its influence in our everyday lives. Although the Barna survey revealed that the most post-christian cities are generally concentrated in the New England area, according to The Blaze, Barna conducted a study earlier this year which revealed “that San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose, California, is the most unchurched metro area in the country, with 60 percent of respondents saying they ‘have not attended a church service in the past six months.’” A Gallup survey from December found that 21 percent of Americans have no religious identity — up from the 15 percent of respondents who said the same in 2008.

As research seems to show, we may be approaching not only a post-Christian, but a post-religion era. A country once focused on God seems to be moving rapidly closer to a godless society. This leaves us begging the question, what will the children of these post-christian people believe? Will our country continue its journey towards forgetting religion all together, or will the next generation bring the rebirth of Sunday school, Bible studies, and church picnics as a regular part of life?

According to Christian Post, “Gallup also found that church and other religious attendance has been declining. While 73 percent of respondents said in 1937 that they were a member of a church, only 56 percent said the same in 2016. Additionally, 72 percent of of those surveyed in 2016 said that religion is losing its influence on American life.”

Ask any young adult how many of their friends and co-workers regularly attend church, and you’ll likely realize that this grim statistic is true. The question is, why? Why are people rejecting Christianity, and religion altogether? Why are certain parts of the United States more “post-Christian” than others? What can be done about this disheartening trend?

The answer lies in you and me. Only we have the ability to turn this tide. It is time to pray fervently again for our country, and for our loved ones. Change does not happen overnight, just as America did not become a nation that is hostile to Christianity overnight. Change is still possible, but it begins with you and I standing up and refusing to let our faith merely take a supporting role in our lives any longer. Our nation must return to its origins of “One nation, under God”, or live with the consequences of a nation without God.

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Written by Richard Ostling

Suddenly transgender rights is the hot “culture wars” topic. Religious folks with traditional convictions about such matters have been largely silent, or else many newswriters haven’t yet figured how to locate them in order to report the other side of this crucial debate.

Thus, there’s useful sourcing in the strongly-worded “Transgender Identification Ethics Statement” issued by the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

This group is made up of 16,000-plus professionals who affirm “the divine inspiration and final authority of the Bible as the Word of God.” CMDA had Big 10 origins at the University of Illinois and Northwestern and went national in 1941. It’s one of many such U.S. fellowships for vocational and academic specialists. Most of these were launched by Evangelical-type Protestants but have long since welcomed Catholic and Orthodox participants.

The transgender statement, approved at a CMDA conference April 21 but publicized only recently, urges doctors to treat these patients with understanding and grace. On the other hand, CMDA champions professionals’ right to freedom of conscience, asserting that it is not “unjust discrimination” if a physician in conscience declines treatment that is considered “harmful or is not medically indicated.”

On the religious aspect, CMDA contrasts the Old and New Testament belief that “God created humanity as male and female” with current “confusion of gender identity.” “Gender complementarity and fixity are both good and a part of the natural order,” it says. The “objective biological fact” is that sex “is determined genetically at conception” and is “not a social construct arbitrarily assigned at birth or changed at will.”

The statement focuses on transgender persons whose psychological “gender identity” is the opposite of biology and genetic makeup – the current public issue – and distinguishes this syndrome from medical treatment of rare abnormalities in which the sexual phenotype and chromosomes conflict (e.g. ambiguous genitalia, androgen insensitivity syndrome, congenital adrenal hyperplasia).

That is, “the purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not to collaborate with psychosocial disorders. Whereas treatment of anatomically anomalous sexual phenotypes is restorative, interventions to alter normal sexual anatomy to conform to transgender desires are disruptive to health.”

CMDA leaders think physicians should be aware of evidence that persons who identify as transgender, use cross-sex hormones, or undergo sex reassignment surgery, generally suffer more depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors. The organization is especially critical of doctors who prescribe hormones for a biologically healthy child in order to block normal growth and fertility. On sex-change surgery, CMDA says the medical evidence on outcomes is incomplete but there are potential dangers there as well. In addition, “transgender designations may conceal biological sex differences relevant to medical risk factors.”

Such professional concerns, which have received little media notice thus far, provide good fodder for interviews with transgender advocates, physicians included.

Meanwhile, CMDA is involved in another developing story, the federal lawsuit filed July 19 by the Alliance Defending Freedom against Vermont’s Board of Medical Practice and its Office of Professional Regulation. The suit charges that these agencies interpret “Act 39,” the state’s 2013 suicide law, to require death-by-doctor counseling, in violation of medical ethics and conscience rights.

Resources:

– CMDA media office in Bristol, Tenn.: 423-844-1000.

– Transgender affirmation from the Human Rights Campaign.

– The former chief of psychiatry (and a Catholic) explains why the Johns Hopkins University hospital halted sex-change surgery.

This article was originally posted at GetReligion.org

Written by John Kristof

Our country has never been so parched for prayer, yet we never have found praying harder.

Prayer is too hard for us, so our country withers.

Our culture’s health intertwines with our prayers, and both contribute to the other’s success.  We conservative Christians are quick to point our fingers at our public school system for discouraging prayer, but how many of us pray for our schools?  We complain about the decline of church leadership in the public square, but who is praying for their leaders’ humility and wisdom?

For the sake of clarity, I do not wish to suggest prayers—or the lack thereof—causes whatever happens in the public square.  God rules the nations (Psalm 22:28, 47:8, Job 12:23), which includes the United States.  No decisions made by voters, church leaders, or elected officials surprise God, nor do they deter him from accomplishing his ultimate mission, the reconciliation between God and man (Romans 5:10, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Ephesians 2:16, Colossians 1:20). God delegates responsibilities to his Church, however, and those with integrity and obedience answer his call.

How does God expect the Church to affect the world?  Throughout Scripture, we see God expects us to, among other things, pray.  For Jesus and his disciples, the need for prayer was so self-evident that Jesus focused on instructing them on how believers should pray.  At Gethsemane, though he prophesied the disciples would abandon him (Matthew 26:31), he begged them to “watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). One of the Apostle Paul’s shortest charges is to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), suggesting that we should never hesitate to speak to God, nor should we ever cease heeding words he has for us.

Why is prayer so important to a sovereign God?  This is a deeply theological question, but what’s important for believers to grasp is found in James 5:16—“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”  Perhaps the greatest example of the power of prayer took place during the birth of the Church.

Just before his ascension, Jesus instructed his disciples to remain in Jerusalem for a time.  We read that the disciples, Jesus’ biological family, and some unnamed women constantly prayed together in a house just outside the city.  Although we don’t know everything they were praying about, it’s fair to assume they were fervently praying for God’s Spirit.  At the Last Supper, when Jesus is explaining to his disciples that he must leave them, he promises to send his followers the Spirit, who will be with them forever (John 14:16, 16:7).  He reiterates this promise just before his ascension, so the coming of the Spirit of God is fresh in the disciples’ minds.  “Jesus is gone, Lord,” I can imagine them praying. “We need your Spirit!”

According to Acts 2, the believers were still gathering together the morning of Pentecost.  At that time, they were “filled with the Holy Spirit,” just as Jesus promised.  As pilgrims to Jerusalem (which were many at this time in the Jewish calendar) began to gather around the commotion, every person was able to hear Peter preach the Word of God, no matter their native tongue.  The Gospel so moved the crowd that three thousand of them believed and were baptized.

How’s that for a revival service?

Indeed, this is the kind of growth Christians today wish to see in America.  In a sense, we work hard for a revival.  We hold conferences and special revival services, we send our children to church camp, we vote for officials who seem to hold Judeo-Christian values. In no way do I intend to denigrate these choices; in fact, I think they are almost always good things.  But I tell the story of the Church’s birth to convey a point vital to the Church’s mission: prayer precedes revival.  

Like the rest of you, I wish to see our culture turn its face toward Truth, to see society adopt a moral code that extends farther than personal desire, to be led by people who genuinely seek to serve their subordinates.  You and I want our fellow Americans to have the same relationship with God that we strive for, but we also understand that achieving such a revival is far beyond our capabilities.  We want to see God work in our culture.  But, as musician NF reminds us, “It’s hard to answer prayers when nobody’s praying to you.”

I therefore call upon the Church to pray.

John Kristof is an intern at the Illinois Family Institute who currently studies economics, humanities, political science, and business administration at Indiana Wesleyan University.  He occasionally blogs and tweets.

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In the wake of England’s historic Brexit vote, and during America’s own Fourth of July celebrations, we’re reminded that man’s longing for individual freedom is a contagion, and that to declare independence from overreaching governmental control is a big part of the cure.

Still, while the UK’s recent “Declaration of Independence” from a decidedly socialist European Union was largely driven by socio-economic considerations, not to mention a desperate attempt to remedy Britain’s demographic suicide cocktail of political correctness, multiculturalism and deadly immigration jihad, America’s own freedom revolution was driven by a longing for both fiscal independence, and, to a larger extent, an effort to secure the unalienable right to individual and corporate religious liberty – particularly the free exercise of Christianity.

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity,” observed John Adams, our second U.S. President. “I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

At our founding America at once declared independence from tyranny and reaffirmed our dependence on the one true God of the Bible.

We must do so again.

Or perish.

The historical record is irrefutable. Consider this formal statement issued by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 1854: “Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle… In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity… That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”

Sadly, today’s secular left has indeed declared war against Christianity, the “religion of the founders of the republic,” which was “expected [to] remain the religion of their descendants.”

And the war has reached fever pitch. It’s high time this anti-Christian “revolution” was “strangled in its cradle.”

Indeed, contrast the above Judiciary Committee declaration with one recently made by Hillary Clinton: “Rights have to exist in practice – not just on paper,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee recently said in the context of some phantom “right” to sacrifice undesirable infants on the altar of “choice.” “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed (emphasis mine).”

“Religious beliefs have to be changed.” And change them (or, more accurately, criminalize them) they intend.

As I detail at length in my latest book, “Hating Jesus: The American Left’s War on Christianity,” God’s natural created order, His immutable, scientific and transcendent moral precepts, as well as the very lives and livelihoods of Christian Americans, are under vicious attack today at a level unprecedented in American history.

This is, in every way conceivable, anathema to what the founders, and the U.S. Constitution, intended.

“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. … What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!” pined John Adams. “Without [Christianity], this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company: I mean hell,” he added.

Yet it bears repeating: Jesus continually warned that this anti-Christian war declared by the pagan left would occur: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. …” (John 15:18-20)

So what should we do?

Jesus commands His followers to be His hands and feet – to be salt and light in a rotting world that loves darkness (Matthew 5:13-16).

While it is true that salt preserves; in an open wound, it also burns. Today’s anti-Christian, moral relativist culture is an open wound.

While it is true that light’s bright glare can be illuminating to those eager to see, it is likewise blinding to those whose eyes have become adjusted to darkness. When the light of Christ is shined, it sends lovers of evil scurrying for the shadows.

For this reason, Christ also warned, “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22).

For Christians, those times when the right people call us the wrong things are among those times we should “rejoice in our sufferings.” I received two emails this week alone that have given me great cause to rejoice. Because, as John Adams put it, I very publicly advocate the “general principles of Christianity,” I receive from those who hate Jesus, dozens of the following types of communications each month.

“Your fate is the same fate as ISIS. The only difference between you and them is the religious symbol on your armband and the fact that in their countries they can get away with murdering those who do not and will not bow down to their perversion of religion,” emailed someone identified as Mark Anderson (MA1779@gmail.com). “ISIS deserves to die and so do you,” he continued, “and when the United States government puts both of you rabid savages down the world will be a better place.”

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

Someone calling himself Anthony Marks (AM999@aol.com) continued with the same theme: “You, Matt Barber, deserve to be riddled with the same bullets that took down the Orlando Terrorist. You deserve to hang at the neck just as Heinrich Himmler would have had the anti-LGBT savage not killed itself before it could be punished for its crimes against humanity. You deserve to be burning in Hell. … You are a non-human abomination worthy of death and you will get what you deserve…you disgusting barbarian filth.”

Thank you, Mr. Marks.

People ask me, “How do you take this kind of hatred day in and day out? Does it frighten you? Does it upset you?”

To which I reply, “No, I count it all joy.”

In fact, while I’m always buoyed by notes of encouragement, it’s the vile hate mail and death threats that lift my spirits more than anything else. They bless me. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (Matthew 5:11).

I pray for these people. They’re not my enemies. They’re lost. I hurt for them. I want those who hate Jesus to come to know Him as their Lord and Savior.

Their eternity depends on it.

And then I once again declare my dependence on God.

This article originally posted in Town Hall.

Written by Ravi Zacharias

President Barack Obama’s address at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015 has reverberated through the corridors of the world and provoked shock and dismay in numerous quarters. Even a professor at the University of London commented on his shallow understanding of the Crusades. I hesitated to write anything on the subject because it would drag me into politics or into a sobering critique of Islam. I am not sure that at a time like this either distraction would be wise, so let me keep it to the minimum.

For those who did not hear the talk, it is sufficient to say that it was the most ill-advised and poorly chosen reprimand ever given at a National Prayer Breakfast. I have been to several and have never, ever heard such absence of wisdom in a setting such as this. ‎I wasn’t at this one but have heard the speech often enough to marvel at the motivation for such thoughts. President Obama basically lectured Christians not to get on a moral high horse in their castigation of the ISIS atrocities by reminding them that the Crusades and slavery were also justified in the name of Christ.

Citing the Crusades, he used the single most inflammatory word he could have with which to feed the insatiable rage of the extremists. That is exactly what they want to hear to feed their lunacy.  ‎In the Middle East, history never dies and words carry the weight of revenge.

There is so much I would love to say in response but shall refrain. The President obviously does not understand the primary sources of either faith for him to make such a tendentious parallel. The predominant delight in his remarks would be in the Muslim world and the irreligious. The next day Geraldo Rivera, opining favorably, made the oft repeated lie that more people have been killed in the name of God than in any other cause.

Try telling that to the Chinese and the Russians and the Cambodians and the victims of the Holocaust! ‎Such intellectual ignorance gains the microphone with pitiable privilege. If a thinking person doesn’t know the difference between the logical outworkings of a philosophy and the illogical ones, to say nothing of the untruth perpetrated, then knowledge has been sacrificed at the altar of prejudice.

But let me get to the President’s final statement, after he had wandered off into erroneous territory. That final remark was true. He said, “It is sin that leads us to distort reality.” He was right. In fact he embodied it in his talk. But there is good news for the President. At least in the Christian message forgiveness is offered for sin. In Islam it isn’t. You must earn it. May I dare suggest that if Christians had been burning Muslims and be-heading them, he would have never dared to go to Saudi Arabia and tell them to get off their high horse. He unwittingly paid a compliment to those who preach grace and forgiveness. That is the dominant theme of the Gospel. That is why we sit in courtesy listening to the distortion of truth, the abuse of a privilege, and the wrong-headedness of a message.

I cannot recall when I have heard such inappropriate words at so important an occasion, in such a time of crisis. The world is burning with fear and apprehension. We need a message that will inspire and encourage and redeem. Ironically, two years ago when Dr. Ben Carson spoke and made some comments about our medical plan and the tax system, the White House demanded an apology from him for straying into controversial terrain, because it felt his comments showed disrespect for the President.

This year’s National Prayer Breakfast speech was a blunder in thought. But there was a silver lining. In the end, President Obama blundered into the truth. Sin distorts… and only Jesus Christ restores the truth. Christ will ever rise up to outlive His pallbearers. Even presidents will have to get off their high horses then and recognize the Lord of life and hope and peace. There will be no speech making then. Only a prayer of surrender… which is what the National Prayer Breakfast was meant to be in the first place.

Originally published at RZIM.org.

The mask is off. All pretense has been dropped, and the anti-Christian left’s boundless depth of hatred for individual liberty, our First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is now on full display.

I wrote last week about the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby opinion, a rather tepid acknowledgement of every American’s non-negotiable right to religious free exercise (yes, that includes Christian business owners). I observed, among other things, that “the secularist left’s utter meltdown over having but a small measure of control over others wrested away is highly instructive.”

The meltdown continues. This week brings two new developments: 1) Democrats in Congress have readied a legislative “Hobby Lobby fix” that stands exactly zero chance of passing and would be struck down as unconstitutional even if it did, and 2) The ACLU, AFL-CIO, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal and a hodgepodge of other left-wing extremist groups have withdrawn support for the ironically tagged “Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” the crown jewel of homofascism, because the bill’s paper-thin “religious exemption” does not adequately outlaw the practice of Christianity.

The Hobby Lobby ‘fix’

Addressing the high court’s Hobby Lobby decision last Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., fumed, “We have so much to do this month, but the one thing we’re going to do during this work period – sooner rather than later – is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men.”

To which Justice Clarence Thomas replied, “Say what, honky?”

“This Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous,” continued Reid, “and we’re going to do something about it.”

Well, “do something about it” they shall try. TalkingPointsMemo.com reported on legislation Democrats introduced Thursday that would do away with religious liberty protections altogether:

“The legislation will be sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Mark Udall, D-Colo. According to a summary reviewed by TPM, it prohibits employers from refusing to provide health services, including contraception [and abortion pills], to their employees if required by federal law. It clarifies that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the basis for the Supreme Court’s ruling against the mandate, and all other federal laws don’t permit businesses to opt out of the Obamacare requirement.

“The legislation also puts the kibosh on legal challenges by religious nonprofits, like Wheaton College, instead declaring that the accommodation they’re provided under the law [there is none] is sufficient to respect their religious liberties.”

This reactionary response to the Hobby Lobby ruling is, of course, little more than an election year fundraising scheme for the Democratic National Committee.

Withdrawn support for ENDA

The Washington Post reports, “Several major gay rights groups withdrew support Tuesday for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would bolster gay and transgender rights in the workplace, saying they fear that broad religious exemptions included in the current bill might compel private companies to begin citing objections similar to those that prevailed in a U.S. Supreme Court case last week. …

“But the groups said they can no longer back ENDA as currently written in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last week to strike down a key part of President Obama’s health-care law. The court ruled that family-owned businesses do not have to offer their employees contraceptive coverage that conflicts with the owners’ religious beliefs,” concluded the Post.

Gary Glenn is a candidate for the Michigan State House. He’s also president of AFA Michigan. Glenn has been a national leader in defense of religious liberty for well upon two decades. In an email, Glenn wrote, “The extremely limited religious exemptions typically included in discriminatory homosexual and cross-dressing ‘rights’ laws have always been mere window-dressing with no real protection or effect, as witnessed by the ongoing persecution and discrimination under such laws against Christian business owners and community organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, and even the United Way.

“But now that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision threatens to give real teeth to such exemptions, the AFL-CIO’s in-house homosexual activist group has announced it will no longer support discriminatory ‘sexual orientation’ legislation that includes even limited exemptions for religious institutions.

“If this zero tolerance stance spreads to larger groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force [it now has], this could become the sticking point which hamstrings future attempts to pass federal, state, and local homosexual ‘rights’ legislation. These supposed religious exemptions, which the AFL-CIO’s homosexual lobby at least now says it will no longer support, have been a key propaganda point in blunting the opposition of churches and citizens concerned about the obvious threat such laws pose to religious freedom.”

According to its leftist proponents, ENDA would merely insulate people who choose to engage in homosexual conduct (sexual orientation) or those who suffer from gender confusion (gender identity) against employment intolerance. In truth, however, this legislation effectively would codify the very thing it purports to combat: workplace discrimination.

Though in its current form ENDA contains an extremely weak religious exemption that might – and I mean might – partially protect some churches and religious organizations (until they’re sued by “gay” activists), this so-called exemption would leave most others, such as Bible bookstores and many Christian schools and para-church organizations, entirely unprotected. It would additionally crush individual business owners’ guaranteed First Amendment rights.

Any “religious exemption” is meaningless. Last year Harry Reid promised homosexual pressure groups that Democrats would remove all protections for Christians and other people of faith on the flipside – after ENDA passed. The homosexual news site Washington Blade reported that homosexual activist Derek Washington of “GetEqual” confirmed Reid’s promise. In a conference call with homosexual activists, Washington admitted that Reid vowed, as goes any religious exemption, “the main thing to do was get the vote taken care of, and then deal with it later. As oftentimes happens, you don’t get something perfect the first time around, you go back and fix it later, so that was basically his take on it.”

According to the Blade, “That account was corroborated by Faiz Shakir, a Reid spokesperson, who said the Democratic leader understands the concerns, but wants to get the bill passed first, then go back and address the exemptions.”

They’ve stopped pretending, folks. This is about criminalizing Christianity. The Hobby Lobby decision has merely made secular liberals forget themselves momentarily. It’s blown back the propagandist curtain to expose their truly sinister aims. Hobby Lobby hasn’t put the “culture war” to rest. It’s taken a gavel to the “progressive” hornets’ nest.

Break out the popcorn and Jujubes. It’s about to get interesting.