While we continue to press forward, it is beneficial to pause and look back.  There is much we can learn and apply to life today from the victories and failures of the past.

In his address at a past IFI Faith, Family and Freedom Banquet, author, speaker, and radio host, Eric Metaxas, recounts William Wilberforce’s victory in changing how England viewed slavery. He also describes Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s failure to awaken the German church to the truth of Hitler’s evil intentions.

Five years later, Metaxas’ message of hope and encouragement is as timely and needed as ever, and his questions: “Are you giving God everything you have?” and “Are you longing for heaven?” are still deserving of our thoughtful contemplation.

If you were privileged to hear Eric Metaxas speak in 2014, you will enjoy revisiting this heartfelt and humorous address. If you haven’t heard his presentation, you will definitely want to view the video and share it with family and friends!

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-and, please-

I’m all for environmental stewardship, and there’s something to be said for a biblically-based ecology. But I find it beyond ironic that a staunchly liberal seminary which supports a woman’s “right” to abortion held a special chapel service to confess to plants. So, it’s fine to take the lives of unborn babies in the womb, but we must confess our sins to the plants. May God help us.

On September 17, Union Theological Seminary tweeted, “Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.

“What do you confess to the plants in your life?”

What, exactly, did these confessions sound like?

One seminarian tweeted, “Here was my confession. ‘I confess that even as I’ve waxed poetic and theological about how indispensable you are, I’ve privileged my own comfort and convenience over your wellbeing.’”

So, it’s not just a matter of white privilege. It’s now a matter of human privilege. How unkind we have been to the plants!

In sarcastic response to the chapel service, singer and songwriter Bob Bennett penned a penitent hymn, beginning with,

I confess my unbelief

To my leafy brethren

I’ve given you such grief

While you give me oxygen

Like a prodigal come home

An errant journey I was on

Now no more to roam

I’ll no longer mow my lawn.

But the seminary was taking this quite seriously, releasing a series of 10 tweets defending their plant confessional.

The first tweet stated, “We’ve had many questions about yesterday’s chapel, conducted as part of @ccarvalhaes’ class, ‘Extractivism: A Ritual/Liturgical Response.’ In worship, our community confessed the harm we’ve done to plants, speaking directly in repentance.

“This is a beautiful ritual.”

Interestingly, although I’ve served as a visiting or adjunct professor at 7 leading seminaries, I don’t recall ever hearing of a class on “Extractivism: A Ritual/Liturgical Response.”

In fact, I don’t recall encountering the word “extractivism” before. (It looks like my spell checker never saw it either.) I guess I’m still in the theological dark ages. Really, a pity.

Others, however, chimed in their support of Union, including Kaitlyn Curtice, a Native American Christian author. She tweeted:

“Christians have historically mocked/punished Indigenous peoples for having a relationship to Segmekwe, Mother Earth, and our creature kin.

“It hasn’t changed much.

“I’m grateful to @UnionSeminary for stepping into this space.

“Church, there is so much learning & unlearning to do.”

Well, here’s the thing.

I’m all for caring for our plants and wildlife. And I’m all for responsible environmentalism. But I’m not going to pray to Mother Earth. And I’m not going to confess to plants. Nor will I look to plants as “the beings who sustain us.”

There is one Being who sustains us (and the plants), and I will make my confession to Him.

But the purpose of this article is not primarily to mock what took place in this chapel service. Instead, it is to point out the theological (and moral) bankruptcy of a seminary once it throws out the full inspiration of Scripture and denies the uniqueness of Jesus’ work of redemption.

Accordingly, a seminary spokesperson explained that, at their chapel services, you might encounter a Muslim prayer service one day, a traditional Anglican service another day, then a Buddhist meditation the next. Yes, “given the incredible diversity of our community, that means worship looks different every day!”

That’s why, back in 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who attended Union and then briefly taught there, could note that, the students

“are completely clueless with respect to what dogmatics is really about. They are not familiar with even the most basic questions. They become intoxicated with liberal and humanistic phrases, are amused at the fundamentalists, and yet basically are not even up to their level.”

And that was 1939!

Bonhoeffer remembered that “students ‘openly [laughed]’ at a lecture on sin and forgiveness, and accused the seminary of having ‘forgotten what Christian theology in its very essence stands for.’”

What would Bonhoeffer think today?

Not surprisingly, and in keeping with the radical left ideology that esteems the life of a tree above the life of an unborn baby, Union Seminary tweeted this message on July 1:

“‘In Numbers 5 you actually have an account about how a priest is supposed to assist an abortion…In Jesus’ time, women used all sorts of means—as they have throughout history—to deal with unwanted pregnancies.’ – @SereneJones on abortion and the Bible.”

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.

Illinois is morally, fiscally, and intellectually bankrupt, and you know what some lawmakers in swampy Springfield are doing with their time and taxpayers’ money? They’ve crafted a stunning resolution titled “Illinois Family Action-Hate Speech” (HJR 55) condemning Illinois Family Action (IFA) and Illinois Family Institute (IFI), falsely accusing us of bigotry and engaging in “hate speech” because in two articles we compared the abortion holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust.

The ten “progressive” sponsors of the resolution falsely accuse IFA of distributing “multiple anti-Semitic, homophobic, threatening, and hateful posts on their official social media page, callously belittling the most appalling tragedies of the Holocaust and recklessly comparing those who disagree with their extreme agenda to Nazis.”

Chicago attorney Joseph A. Morris, who is also a leader in B’nai B’rith and other Jewish and interfaith organizations, served from 1995 through 2001 as the President of B’nai B’rith in the Midwest, and was founder and first Chairman of the B’nai B’rith International Center for Public Policy, said this about the disputed analogy:

I’m Jewish, and not only am I not offended by the comparison between the German Nazi Party’s National Socialism and the U.S. Democratic Party’s Democratic Socialism but I think the comparison is accurate. Wise, principled, and humane Democrats should welcome having their attention arrested by the facts.

The bill’s sponsors filed this resolution just days after a crowd of 4,000 pro-life Illinoisans showed up in Springfield to urge their state senators and representatives to oppose the radical anti-life policies sponsored by these lawmakers and other “progressives”—an event singled out for criticism in the resolution.

Apparently, our anti-constitutionalists in Springfield have forgotten the First Amendment’s protection of speech, assembly, and the right to petition our government for redress of grievances, which is “the right to make a complaint to, or seek the assistance of, one’s government without fear of punishment or reprisals,”—you know, like hateful resolutions.

The resolution is a crock of unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks glued together with more unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks, innuendo, irrelevant red herrings, non sequiturs, and a risible reference to the ethically impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center—an actual hate group.

The central issue is not whether the Nazi Holocaust is an apt analogue for America’s feticidal holocaust. The central issue is whether humans in the womb are persons with intrinsic and infinite worth. If they are, the analogy does not belittle the extermination of Jews by Nazis. If humans in the womb are persons with intrinsic and infinite worth, calling their extermination “health care”—as the resolution’s sponsors do—is an appalling horror.

Since logic and evidence still matter to some Illinoisans—resolution-signatories excepted—let’s don our rhetorical hazmat suits and waders and trudge through the murky, fallacy-infested resolution.

Resolution’s false allegation of “anti-Semitism”

The posts to which they refer are presumably one by Teri Paulson titled “Why is Legalized Abortion Called a Holocaust” and one by this writer titled “Leftist Hysteria and Their Language Rules” in which there is not one sentence that is anti-Semitic or that “callously belittles” the appalling horrors of the Holocaust. None of the sponsors has explained how comparing the egregious horrors of the slaughter of 61,000,000 humans in the womb to the egregious slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews and others in the Nazi Holocaust constitutes a callous belittlement of the Holocaust.

Quite the contrary, comparing the feticidal holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust does the opposite. It amplifies and illuminates the horrors of both. No one who compares the feticidal holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust would make such a comparison if they did not view the extermination of Jews as an incomprehensible horror. Can the Springfield ten really not comprehend that?

When asked whether he finds the analogy offensive, Orthodox Jew David Blatt said,

No. How is it any different? It baffles me that my liberal co-religionists endorse abortion-on-demand given the legacy of the Shoah.

Will the gang of ten in Springfield condemn Mr. Blatt as an anti-Semite?

The analogy is not reckless, nor is it new. Those who object to it do so because they have concluded that the product of conception between two humans is not a human created in the image and likeness of God and endowed by his or her Creator with certain unalienable rights, chief among them the right not to be exterminated. IFA and IFI reject the ontological and moral assumptions of “progressives” on incipient human life.

We reject the worldview that asserts that women have a moral right to have their offspring killed. We reject the worldview that asserts that mentally or physically imperfect humans are less worthy of life than their mental or physical “superiors.” Perhaps those who are enraged at IFA/IFI can explain how the pro-feticide philosophy regarding “defective” humans in the womb differs from the Nazi principle of  “life unworthy of life”?

Perhaps the sponsors can explain exactly why the comparison of a society in which the government has granted to mothers the absolute legal right to have any or all of their children exterminated for any or no reason to a society in which the government exterminates citizens because of their race is so evil that making it—that is, the comparison—must not be permitted and anyone who does make it should be condemned by the government.

Resolution’s false allegations regarding hatred and “callous belittling”

If there is any callous belittling being done, it’s by “progressives” toward humans in the womb. If there are hateful words being expressed, it’s by “progressives” who shriek “hater” at anyone who dares to challenge their beliefs and actions with the same conviction, boldness, and tenacity that they demonstrate.

Resolution’s false allegation of “homophobia”

Once again for the obtuse and/or demagogic “progressives” among us: no matter how many times you charge conservatives with “homophobia,” criticism of volitional homosexual acts or relationships does not constitute fear or hatred (i.e., “homophobia) of those who identify as homosexual. IFA and IFI hold theologically orthodox views of marriage and homosexual acts and relationships—views that are shared by the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and many Protestant denominations. We have a constitutional right to express those views without being harassed, intimidated, and bullied by Springfield “progressives.”

IFA and IFI even have a right to quote, recite, and post what St. Paul says about homosexuality:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Resolution’s false allegation of IFA/IFI threats

There’s really nothing to say other than neither of the “posts” that inflamed the resolution’s sponsors or any other posts written for IFA/IFI include any threats. We unequivocally denounce the use of violence. If the resolution sponsors cannot provide evidence to support that pernicious claim, they owe IFA/IFI an apology (Weather reports say it’s still hot in hell, so…).

Resolution’s false allegation of bigotry

The term “bigot” refers to a person who is “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.”

Clearly, there is a distinction between bigotry and moral views. Bigotry cannot simply refer to holding moral views, for if it did, everyone but sociopaths would have to be considered bigots because everyone but sociopaths holds certain behaviors as moral and others as immoral.

The word “obstinacy” in the definition of “bigot” warrants some discussion. First, “obstinate,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, connotes “unreasonable rigidity.” I would argue that conservative views on, for example, homosexuality are completely reasonable, and that conversely, liberal views are woefully unreasonable.

In order to determine whether a tenaciously held conviction reflects obstinacy requires an evaluation of the content of the belief and the justifications for that belief. For example, few would characterize the act of tenaciously holding the belief that female genital mutilation is wrong to be a manifestation of obstinacy or bigotry.

Moreover, “obstinate” cannot be severed from the other parts of the definition. Bigotry is the obstinate devotion to uninformed inclinations, especially ones that result in hatred of members of a particular group.

The key phrase for distinguishing between bigotry and moral conscience is that a bigot’s opinions are “uninformed,” and the bigot “regards or treats the members of a group… with hatred and intolerance.” Certainly, there are those in society who demonstrate this kind of behavior, but true Christ-followers do not treat anyone with hatred.

I neither treat people who self-identify as homosexual with hatred or intolerance, nor do I feel any hatred for them. My beliefs about homosexual conduct in no way diminish the love I feel for those who self-identify as homosexual, the respect I have for their admirable qualities, the pleasure I take in their company, or the recognition I have of their infinite worth.

I would argue that the views of “progressives” on homosexuality are uninformed, while those of IFA/IFI employees are fully informed.

Tolerating, respecting, or loving people does not require affirming all their feelings, beliefs, or actions. Neither does it require withholding criticism of their beliefs or those actions impelled by their feelings and beliefs.

Resolution’s smelly red herring (or is it a non sequitur?)

The sponsors of the resolution dangle a big, fat, smelly red herring in front of Illinois lawmakers, apparently assuming they’re too foolish to tell the difference between relevant evidence and a big, fat, smelly red herring plumbed from the depths of the swamp where the sponsors live and move and have their being.

The sponsors cite as part of the justification for their resolution the 2004 murder of an unarmed Capitol guard by a  schizophrenic young man who had stopped taking his meds and was hearing “voices and thought members of an underground society in Eastern Europe were controlling him” at the time of the murder as part of the justification for the resolution falsely accusing IFI and IFA of “hate speech and threats.”

Say whaaat?

Let’s see if we can make sense of this: Fourteen years ago, a schizophrenic man who was off his meds murdered an unarmed Capitol guard, so there should be a “formal investigation” into IFA’s/IFI’s non-existent “hate speech and threats,” and our lobbyists’ credentials should be revoked pending the outcome of the investigation.

Nope, can’t do it. Still doesn’t make sense.

Resolution’s risible reference to the Southern Poverty Law Center

Now we come to the resolution sponsors’ appeal to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as some sort of arbiter of moral authority. Yes, that SPLC—the infamous “hate-group” tracker/real hate group—the one embroiled in yet another ethics scandal, the one that makes beaucoup bucks off “progressives” by labelling as “hate groups” any organization that holds theologically orthodox views of sexuality.

In contrast to the aforementioned wholly irrelevant Capitol shooting, the SPLC’s fake hate-groups list has been the actual cause of a shooting. In 2012, Floyd Corkins showed up at the offices of the theologically orthodox Family Research Council, intent on killing the staff. He shot and wounded a security guard who was able to stop him. Corkins said he was inspired to commit acts of violence by the SPLC’s hate-groups list.

Just wondering, does hurling epithets at IFA/IFI employees, falsely accusing them of issuing threats and of being anti-Semitic, homophobic, hateful, and bigoted constitute hate speech? Might it result in violence against us?

Conclusion

It’s a routinely issued diktat that one must never compare the Holocaust or Nazism to, well, anything. I respectfully disagree. Not all analogies that include Nazism, the Holocaust, or Hitler constitute reductio ad Hitlerum fallacies. Some analogies are, as Joseph Morris asserts, accurate.

If we’re permitted to revisit ideas as settled by science and commonsense as women don’t have penises or men can’t become pregnant, surely, we can revisit the arguable claim that there are no points of correspondence between the slaughter of humans in the womb and the Holocaust. And if there are points of correspondence, then surely we can revisit the unwritten law of “progressives” that no one may point them out.

Maybe, just maybe, “progressives” want to censor the comparison of the feticidal holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust because they fear it’s true. What if God wants us to see the abortion holocaust as analogous to the Nazi Holocaust? What if it’s Satan who wants to blind our eyes to the similarities and silence our tongues from identifying them? What if those lawmakers and citizens who react in anger (or tactical faux-anger) are doing the bidding of the father of lies? And what if  conservatives who buckle when “progressives” hurl epithets at them are “now seeking the approval of man” rather than that of God?”

Joliet Diocese Bishop Daniel Conlon requested that all churches in the diocese play a recorded message from him in which he said in part,

The state of Illinois is currently facing a crisis far greater than anything economic. It is truly a matter of life and death. Legislation is being considered in the Illinois General Assembly that would permit abortion anytime during pregnancy; right up to the moment of natural birth all nine months…. I need your help in convincing our elected officials that this proposed legislation is just plain wrong…. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a courageous critic of Nazism wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak, is to speak.”

In the eyes of “progressives” in Springfield, is Bishop Conlon guilty of anti-Semitism and callous belittlement of the appalling tragedies of the Holocaust for his implied comparison of the abortion holocaust to the Holocaust? Will they add his name to the resolution condemning “hate speech”?

This unsubstantiated, malignant resolution constitutes a reprehensible abuse of power by morally corrupt lawmakers to silence speech. Every decent lawmaker, especially those who value the lives of the unborn and the First Amendment, should vote against it.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state senator and representative to ask them to reject this dangerous resolution. Ask them to vote down HJR 55 and the unprecedented and tyrannical action being taken by extreme partisans in the Illinois General Assembly.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/HJR55.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

In the past several weeks, we’ve seen a hard progressive push toward more radical legalizations to abortion.  The state of New York recently passed a law that would permit abortions up to the moments of birth.  There have been discussions to allow the ability to have an “abortion” even moments after birth.  (Process that with me for a moment).  As a Christian husband, father and a Pastor, I am terribly saddened, disgusted and broken over the moral DNA of our culture and most of our officials in Washington.

So, what are we to do?  How can we respond?

Here are 5 ways to properly respond to the Pro-Choice Movement:

Pray

In the book of Esther, we read how the Jewish people were on the verge of annihilation by a horrific plan by Haman.  Queen Esther had a plan to stop it, but before she did anything, she called for 3 days of prayer and fasting.  This is a not battle that could be won through the means of flesh and blood.  This is a spiritual battle and we need to put on our armor.  F.B. Meyer once said, “The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.” Let’s be sure to pray!

Speak up and engage

Everyone has on opinion on the matter of Abortion.  However, there is only one opinion that truly matters and that is God’s.  He has called us to be the carriers of His message of truth.  Proverbs 31:8-9 says, “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” We need to speak up and engage in conversations with our friends, family and those around the water cooler and be a voice for the voiceless. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Volunteer/Support Crisis-Pregnancy Centers

We are thankful for those who are on the frontlines in our community for the Pro-Life Movement.  Crisis pregnancy centers work to educate, love, and counsel pregnant women against having an abortion.  These are organizations that work with limited resources and depend on those who financially support and volunteer.  Let’s support those who are on the frontlines.

Vote

I don’t ever tell anyone who to vote for.  However, let me bring some commonsense here.  If you want to stop abortion, stop voting for those who are for abortion.  It’s that simple.  (The next election is April 2nd!)

Respond with the Gospel

Look at any study, and you will find that women with a history of abortion have higher rates of anxiety, depression, alcohol use, marijuana use, and suicidal behavior, compared to those who have not had an abortion. Despite what you see on social media, brokenness is wrapped around the one who has had an abortion.  And the best way to respond to that brokenness is with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 

No one is too dirty that Jesus can’t clean him. No one is too far for Jesus to save. Let’s choose to respond with the gospel of grace.  The Apostle Paul once said of the Gospel, “…for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

God is the author of life.  He values life and so should we.  Let’s choose to be His hands, feet and voice in our culture today.

Join us for the annual SpeakOut Illinois pro-life conference on Saturday, March 9th!

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5: 10, 11)

I recently posted this on my personal Facebook page:

How many conservatives say or do anything about their public schools teaching positively about homosexuality or the “trans” ideology in English classes, health classes, or in purported “anti-bullying” activities?

How many say or do anything when their local schools allow “trans”-identifying students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of opposite-sex students?

How many conservative teachers—including conservative Christian teachers—in public schools refuse to use incorrect pronouns when addressing “trans”-identifying students, choosing instead to lie?

How many conservatives show up at school board meetings to publicly oppose the indoctrination of children with Leftist sexuality dogma on the public dime?

How many conservatives would show up at a library board meeting if librarians decided to host a “drag queen story hour”?

Oh yeah, we complain to each other where it’s safe. But that’s about it. Most Christians will say and do nothing unless they’re guaranteed it’s cost-free. And then we wonder how we got here.

We are the Christians who said nothing during the slave era. We are the Christians who said nothing during the era of Jim Crow laws. And we are the Christians who said nothing when the Nazis hauled off Jews to the gas chambers.

How do we reconcile our cowardly capitulation with these words of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ: “… whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

So, while doctors are amputating the breasts of 13-year-old girls who pretend to be boys, Christians largely say nothing because saying something is costly. We should be ashamed. Our thankfulness for Jesus’ suffering that we might live eternally with him doesn’t extend much beyond our comfort. It certainly doesn’t extend to those children whose hearts, minds, and bodies are being destroyed.

In response I received this Facebook message from a friend (emphasis added):

Regarding your post. What your average normal non activist taxpayer needs is a way to do what you ask. It’s very intimidating to go against a fascist bureaucracy. If we had a sheet of talking points of provable facts with links to the studies or articles of proof, normal busy people might feel more empowered to do so. But it’s so easy to be labeled a hater and a bigot.

Example: Oprah declared that you’re born gay. Yet we know of multiple studies proving otherwise.

Parents need to be able to point to articles saying transgender encouragement and surgery is child abuse and here’s why. Make it easier for parents to make a stand and we’ll do it. But no one wants to stand up to be shot down without any help. Then your reputation in community is shot.

I’m responding to this message publicly because I believe it reflects the thoughts and feelings of many Christians.

First, IFI (and many other websites) has provided refutations of leftist claims—including publishing articles about research that refutes them—and our refutations are condemned as bigoted, hateful, and disreputable. Sound research will not protect against epithets.

Second, there are no provable facts that are immune from challenge—not on our side or the other. How does one prove that humans ought not be compelled to undress or go to the bathroom in the presence of or near people of the opposite sex? What provable and inarguable facts can be marshaled to support the claim that homoerotic acts are immoral or that couples in naturally sterile homoerotic unions ought not acquire children, or that government schools ought not proselytize for the “LGBTQ” movement? Sure, there’s social science research demonstrating that children fare best when raised by a mother and father in an intact relationship and that homoerotic unions are more unstable on average than heterosexual unions, but such research is disputed and scorned by Leftist ideologues. Any organization that challenges the assumptions of the “LGBTQ”-ideology will be vilified and mocked because it challenges the “LGBTQ”-ideology, no matter how reputable the doctors or research is: If you cite them, your reputation will be shot down.

The best arguments against pro-“LGBTQ” claims are based on first principles and logic—not provable facts. The reason those are the most effective arguments is that Leftists have not made such astonishing cultural headway via arguments based on indisputable or provable facts. They’ve made such cultural headway by appealing to emotion and name-calling. The research they appeal to is flawed and their propositions irrational and contradictory.

Third, this friend evidently missed my whole point: We should be willing to be shot down and have our reputations ruined. No one can make this battle easy or cost-free. I and many others do our best to equip people to do battle, but we can’t make it easy.

Would we today admire people like William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer if they had said, “I’ll speak out when I can be guaranteed no one will call me names and my good reputation will remain intact”? As long as we say we are unwilling to speak truth if it harms our reputation, we will remain not only complicit in the grievous harm being done to children, but we will also remain profiles in cowardice for our children and grandchildren.

It won’t be easy for Christians today or tomorrow or next year to take up their crosses and follow Jesus. Feeling anxious about our reputation is not a justification for keeping our cross in the closet; it’s a rationalization.

And it’s a rationalization for Christians who don’t want to do this hard work to claim they aren’t “called” to do it.

Do they really believe that when their taxes are used to teach Leftist beliefs about homoeroticism and the “trans” ideology through novels, plays, essays, health class, “social and emotional learning standards,” and “anti-bullying” activities, God calls them to silence? Do they really believe that when their schools have children sharing private spaces with opposite-sex peers, God calls them to silence? Do they really believe that when their public libraries host drag queen story hours, God calls them to silence? It’s weird that God calls so few people to oppose the anti-science, anti-truth “LGBTQ” ideology, which affirms the chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation of children.

Finally, standing up for truth about children’s needs and children’s rights is a Christian duty—analogous to standing up for the dignity and rights of blacks during the execrable time of slavery and the era of Jim Crow laws—and fulfilling that duty does not in any way violate the separation of church and state. Christians must not let “progressive” ideologues deceive them that it does.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” (John 15: 18-21)

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Cross_Carrying2.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

There are some battles in which all Christians and all who are committed to truth are called to engage: all Christians should have opposed slavery; all Christians should have fought for the civil rights of blacks; all Christians are called to oppose abortion; and we are all called to oppose the rancorous, pernicious demands to affirm the pro-homosexuality/pro-“trans” ideologies.

In his book Kingdoms in Conflict, Chuck Colson writes about the failure of the church to oppose the extermination of Jews and the government usurpation of control of the church in Nazi Germany. Immediately following the naming of Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, the persecution of the church began in earnest. In response, a resistance movement sprang up headed by Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Initially, they had the support of the dominant Protestant group, the German Evangelical Church, but as the persecution increased, so did the cowardice and concomitant rationalization of cowardice on the parts of most church leaders. In Germany only a remnant, who came to call themselves the Confessing Church, remained standing courageously in the gap for truth.

The German Evangelical Church acted in ways virtually all Christians now view as ignoble, selfish, and cowardly:

• Pastors resigned from the resistance out of fear that they might lose their positions in the church.

• Frightened by the boldness of the resistance movement, church leaders issued public statements of support for Hitler and the Third Reich.

• Some pastors believed that a “‘more reasonable tone would be more honoring to those with different views.'” One bishop told Martin Niemoller that those pastors who refused to join the resistance were “‘trying to bring peace to the church'” rather than “‘seem like… troublemakers.'” In response, Niemoller asked “‘What does it matter how we look in Germany compared with how we look in Heaven?'” The bishop responded, “‘We cannot pronounce judgment on all the ills of society. Most especially we ought not single out the one issue that the government is so sensitive about.'”

• In a conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one young pastor justified capitulation like this: “‘[T]here are no pastorates for those of us who will not cooperate. What is the good in preaching if you have no congregation? Where will this noncooperation lead us? We are no longer a recognized body; we have no government assistance; we cannot care for the souls in the armed forces or give religion lessons in schools. What will become of the church if that continues? A heap of rubble!'”

What is alarming about the account of the German Evangelical Church’s reprehensible failure is its similarity to the ongoing disheartening story of the contemporary American church’s failure to respond appropriately to the spread of radical, heretical, destructive views of homosexuality and biological sex. Don’t we today see church leaders self-censoring out of fear of losing their positions or their church members? Don’t we hear churches criticizing those who boldly confront the efforts of homosexual and “trans” activists to propagandize children and undermine the church’s teaching on sexuality? Aren’t the calls of the capitulating German Christians for “a more reasonable tone” and a commitment to “honor different views” exactly like the calls of today’s church to be tolerant and honor “diversity”? Don’t pastors justify their silence by claiming they fear losing their tax-exempt status (i.e., government assistance)? Don’t they rationalize inaction by claiming that speaking out will prevent them from saving souls?

What is even more reprehensible in America, however, is that church leaders don’t currently face loss of livelihood, imprisonment, exile, or death, as they did in Germany, and yet they remain silent.

The church’s failure to respond adequately to the relentless and ubiquitous promulgation of profoundly sinful ideas reveals an unbiblical doubt in the sovereignty of God; an unconscionable refusal to protect children; a willful ignorance of history; and a selfish unwillingness to experience the persecution and hatred that God has promised the followers of Christ that we will experience and that we should consider joy.

But who do we look to for inspiration today? Is it the cowardly, apostate, accommodationist, jejune, impotent, emasculated church that feebly attempts to justify its refusal to speak, or is it God’s church, that which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., William Wilberforce, Martin Niemoller, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer loved and sacrificed their comfort and lives to defend?

We reassure ourselves that if we had lived during the age of slavery or in Germany during the rise of Nazism or during the post-Civil War era when virulent racism still poisoned American life, we would never have stood idly by and done nothing, but I’m not so sure. Look at the church’s actions today when homosexuality and gender confusion are affirmed to and in our nation’s children through our public schools using our hard-earned money. Where is the church when confused and deceived men are being castrated? Where is the outrage when teens are being chemically sterilized and children are forced to share locker rooms with opposite-sex persons? Where are the church leaders who rejoice in being persecuted?

I’ve asked this question before and I will ask it again: How depraved do the ideas have to be and how young the victims to whom these ideas are disseminated before the church, starting with those who have freely chosen to assume the mantle of pastor or priest, will both feel and express outrage at the indecent, cruel, and evil practice of using public money to affirm body- and soul-destroying ideas to children?

Will the contemporary American church rise to this occasion to defend children and biblical truth, or will we become like the acquiescent church that failed to help William Wilberforce battle the slave trade, or the atrophied “moderate white church” that failed to help Martin Luther King Jr. battle racism, or the apostate Protestant church in Nazi Germany that failed to help Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer battle Nazism?

I have learned over the past nine years that many “progressives” are inept at thinking analogically or logically, so I want to make clear what I’m saying and not saying. I am not comparing homosexuals and “trans”-identified persons to Nazis. I’m comparing cowardly, rationalizing religious leaders in Germany during the Nazi reign of terror to cowardly, rationalizing religious leaders in America today who would face little to no persecution for speaking truth to power.

The question as to why so many Christians, including church leaders, refuse to engage in this battle is a vexing question. Leon Podles provided one answer to that vexing question in an article entitled “Unhappy Fault: on the Integration of Anger into the Virtuous Life” that  appeared in Touchstone magazine in 2009. Podles, author of the books The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity and Sacrilege, senior editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, and founder of the Crossland Foundation, argues that “Christians have a false understanding of the nature and role of anger. It is seen as something negative, something that a Christian should not feel.” This false understanding infects the church and prevents it from being salt and light in a fallen, suffering world and that renders the church complicit in the destruction of countless lives.

He expresses what should be obvious: we should “feel deep anger at evil, at the violation of the innocent, at the oppression of the weak.”

Podles describes the suppression of hatred and anger as “emotional deformation” and exhorts the church to remember that “growth in virtue,” which must include the integration of “all emotions, including anger and hate,” is the “goal of the Christian’s moral life.”

Dr. Podles quotes Catholic psychiatrist Conrad Baars who had been a prisoner under the Nazi regime:

‘[T]here is a difference between a person who knows solely that something is evil and ought to be opposed and the one who in addition also feels hate for the evil, is angry that it is corrupting or harming fellow-men, and feels aroused to combat it courageously and vigorously.’

How often do we hear in our churches anything akin to the idea expressed by early church father John Chrysostom: “‘He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong.'”

And wouldn’t the church and society look very different if they embodied Dr. Podles’ conviction that “sorrow at evil without anger at evil is a fault.”

Please read his critical article, forward it to friends, and send it to your church leaders.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Anger-and-the-Church.mp3

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Nazi monster Dr. Josef Mengele is known to have ordered the murder of over 400,000 Jews at Auschwitz from 1943 to 1945. Thousands more he kept alive and mercilessly tortured to death during experiments intended to create an Aryan super-race.

Much of Mengele’s “medical research” was conducted on children and newborns – especially twins. One witness described what happened after Mengele once delivered a Jewish “fetus”: “But when he saw that there was only one baby and not twins, he tore the baby right out of the mother’s uterus, threw it into an oven and walked away,” she said. “We saw this.”

Cryin’ shame. Were he alive today and working for Planned Parenthood, Mengele’s abortion could have easily yielded an extra $300 for this “intact specimen.” Sell baby’s body parts separately, and the profit margin goes up. That’s good money toward a Lamborghini.

Such a waste.

In 1990 attorney and author Mike Godwin coined the concept that has come to be known as “Godwin’s Law.” It holds that, “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” The first person to compare another to a Nazi or Hitler, as it goes, loses the argument.

But what of that rare occasion when the Nazi comparison is 100 percent accurate and the best available analogy for a given set of circumstances? In that instance, Godwin’s Law must properly be suspended.

That instance is now.

Indeed, there is nowhere else for Planned Parenthood and its “pro-choice” supporters to hide. No more “clump of cells” euphemisms, no more denials about Planned Parenthood’s human-chop-shop-for-profit schemes, and no more nonsense about “reproductive freedom” and “women’s rights” in the context of the wholesale slaughter of babies.

The jig’s up, you cold, calculating, modern-day Mengeles. The amazing investigative journalism of The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) has exposed smoking-gun proof that you intentionally and illegally profit, in the millions, by “crushing,” dismembering alive and otherwise torturing to death our most innocent fellow human beings, and then selling their body parts for Mengelesque “medical research.”

These are babies, and you know it. You’ve always know it. Even so, and with a conscience seared black by the father of lies himself, you simply don’t care.

Neither did the Nazis.

To be sure, in CMP’s fourth video release, investigators reveal “undercover footage [that] shows Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains’ Vice President and Medical Director, Dr. Savita Ginde, negotiating a fetal body parts deal, agreeing multiple times to illicit pricing per body part harvested, and suggesting ways to avoid legal consequences.”

“When the actors request intact fetal specimens,” continues CMP, “Ginde reveals that in PPRM’s abortion practice, ‘Sometimes, if we get, if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then we are intact.’”

Yes, you read that right. This is a high-ranking Planned Parenthood official admitting that they “sometimes” deliver live babies, murder them and then sell their “intact” bodies for “medical research.”

“It’s a baby,” Ginde admits to the undercover investigators while pointing at various body parts on a tray.

“And another boy!” jokes her medical assistant.

This is a holocaust no less real, no less evil than that perpetrated by the Nazi regime. We’ve simply moved from the gas chambers to the abortion chamber – from Auschwitz to Planned Parenthood.

To live under Roe v. Wade is to live in shame. To live under pro-abortion leadership is to live under the Fourth Reich.

Whereas the Nazis were responsible for the wholesale murder of more than 6 million Jews, those today who support the practice of abortion homicide are no less complicit in the systematic slaughter of 55-million-and-counting equally precious human beings post Roe v. Wade. The parallels are undeniable and the science unequivocal. Murder is murder whatever stage of development the human victim.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who famously faced the gallows for his efforts to end the Nazi holocaust and assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was likewise an outspoken abortion opponent and pro-life advocate.

“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life,” he once wrote.

“To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder,” he concluded.

Indeed, Psalm 139:13 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

If pro-life advocates like those at CMP are modern-day Dietrich Bonhoeffers, and they are, then what does that make abortion supporters and providers? In the years leading up to and during World War II, many Germans who were otherwise generally good people succumbed to Nazi propaganda and acquiesced to the horrific Jewish persecution that escalated from a slow boil to a red-hot torrent around them. In effect, they bought into exactly the same kind of dehumanizing, euphemistic, semantical garbage embraced by those who today call themselves “pro-choice.”

In the heart of Washington D.C. sits the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum. Someday, Lord willing, there will be an Abortion Holocaust Museum nearby, and on that day people will walk through it and experience the same sense of shame, sadness and disgust felt by those who today visit the Nazi Holocaust Museum.

There remains good and evil in the world.

Hitler, Josef Mengele, Nazis and Nazi supporters were evil.

Cecile Richards, Savita Ginde, Planned Parenthood and its “pro-choice” supporters are evil.

They are one and the same.

If you consider yourself “pro-choice,” you are woefully deceived. As did many of the German people before you, you support mass murder. You embrace a culture of death. History will not treat you well. Repent now and join the culture of life.

If you are an individual supporter or corporate sponsor of Planned Parenthood, then shame on you. Stop! You are helping to finance this holocaust. The blood of millions of innocents is on your head.

If you are an elected official, no more excuses. Immediately withholding all taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood is a no-brainer, but it’s only the beginning. These crimes against humanity must cease, and Planned Parenthood officials must be thoroughly investigated and, where supported by the weight of the evidence, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

This is your Nuremberg, Planned Parenthood.

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Initiated by the Pro-Life Action League

When an influential political leader states that, when it comes to abortion, our “Deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed”; when a New York Times columnist tells us we need to remove homosexual practice from our “sin list”; when the Solicitor General tells the U.S. Supreme Court that, potentially, religious schools could lose their tax exemption if they refuse to redefine marriage – when statements like this are being made on a regular basis, don’t tell me I’m overreacting when I sound the alarm.

Recently, after I posted yet another “wake up” call online, a woman accused me of “fear mongering” and called me “Chicken Little” on my Twitter feed.

Ironically, she claimed to be a truth-based realist in her bio, yet it seems that her personal, anti-Christian biases had robbed her of her ability to think clearly, since it is anything but fear mongering to tell American believers that we had better come to grips with the most aggressive assault on our faith in our nation’s history.

I’ve often pointed out that, 10 years ago, when I began to say that, whereas gay activists came out of the closet in the late 1960s, they now want to put us in the closet, I was greeted with mockery and derision. “No one wants to put you in the closet!”

A few years ago, I noticed a change in sentiment, with people now saying, “Bigots like you belong in the closet!”

Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court potentially poised to make same-sex “marriage” the law of the land (this is not a foregone conclusion but could well happen), believers are still saying, “What’s the big deal? How does this affect me?”

How can so many of us be so self-centered and blind?

Cultural commentators like John Zmirak have recently posted articles with provocative titles like, “Gay Totalitarianism and the Coming Persecution of Christians,” with subtitles declaring, “Hatred of the Gospel is boiling over into the vilification of Christians. State violence won’t be far behind, history teaches.”

Another Zmirak article proclaims, “If the Supreme Court Imposes Same Sex Marriage, You Could Lose Your Church,” noting that “Obama’s Solicitor General admits that the feds will treat orthodox Christians like racists.”

A few weeks ago, I posed the question, “Could Biblical Preaching Be Outlawed in America?” Not a few of those responding to the article answered, “Yes!”

After all, if our religious liberties could be eroded so dramatically in a matter of years, who can predict what’s coming next – unless we wake up and start doing what is right today.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote that, “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”

What kind of world are we leaving to our children?

When our kids or grandchildren ask us one day, “What were you doing when they changed America?”, how we will respond?

Thankfully, there is still time for us to turn the cultural tide, and there are many leaders and individual believers who have refused to capitulate or throw in the towel.

But there are many more who are still slumbering blissfully in the midst of the storm, content with their cozy, non-offensive gospel churches and their meaningless, “Who am I to judge?” mantras.

That’s why I raise my voice as often as possible, seeking to arouse my fellow Americans from their slumber, urging them to see that an anti-Christian tsunami is already flooding the country.

The good news is that, sooner or later, they will recognize I (and others) have been telling the truth without exaggerating or overreacting. The bad news is that by then it could be too late.

This article was originally posted at the Townhall.com website.