If you have logged on to Netflix, Amazon, and other places recently, you have probably seen some of corporate America’s virtue signaling via banners in support of Black Lives Matter. By itself, it is a powerful slogan which no one can disagree with, even if you’d prefer to say all lives matter. However, there’s more to this than just a slogan.

The organization Black Lives Matter has some very specific goals and views that many casual observers may not know: it was founded to dramatically change America, and its leaders have not been shy about where they stand. Here are just a few of their policy positions with a couple of my comments in parentheses.

• Black Lives Matter supports abortion. It states: “We deserve and thus we demand reproductive justice that gives us autonomy over our bodies and our identities while ensuring that our children and families are supported, safe, and able to thrive.” (Aborted babies don’t thrive nor are they safe. Black babies are disproportionately terminated by the abortion industry which has racist roots stemming from Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.)

• Black Lives Matter supports the radical LGBT agenda. It states: “We foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.” (Two of the three founders of BLM describe themselves as “queer,” a rather radical term for a homosexual activist.)

• Black Lives Matter opposes the traditional nuclear family which is a vital sociological part of overcoming crime and poverty. It states: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.” (Villages without fathers are poor [literally] substitutes for communities with intact families.)

• Black Lives Matter supports reparations. It states: “Reparations for full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education…retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs.”

• Black Lives Matter supports the abolishment of police. It states: “We believe that prisons, police and all other institutions that inflict violence on Black people must be abolished…”

• Black Lives Matter claims to oppose racism, but it is an organization with anti-Semitic leanings. In 2016 BLM adopted derogatory policy statements about Israel. It described the nation of Israel as an “apartheid state” committing “genocide” and supports the boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel. BLM opposes any support of Israel by the United States government.

• Black Lives Matter’s activism is helping the presidential campaign of Joe Biden. If one goes to the BLM website and chooses to donate, he is redirected to a site hosted by ActBlue and prompted with the message: “We appreciate your support of the movement and our ongoing fight to end state-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy forever.” Joe Biden is the top beneficiary of ActBlue’s fundraising efforts.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

Written by Johnnie Moore

It seems that every day is met with a new atrocity stemming from the Islamic State. We’ve lost track of the executions, the crimes against women and children are incalculable and unconscionable, and it seems that every drop of innocent blood feeds a thirst for more.

Their particular taste for Christian blood is most alarming to many of us who’ve watched from afar at their unrelenting advance on ancient Christian communities that have –until now- thrived in Iraq and Syria for nearly two thousand years.

ISIS has displaced tens-of-thousands and burned their churches, targeted their pastors, sold their children as slaves, and murdered countless among them. One particular account I’ve documented in my book Defying ISIS describes how the terror group arrived in one Christian town along the Nineveh Plain waving daggers and swords as they screamed, “shall we start beheading women and children or start with the old and the disabled? … we will behead all of you unless you convert.”

Christianity was born in the east, not the west, and we are witnessing a once-in-a-thousand-year attempt at destroying it in the place of its birth; so, how should we as Christians in the west respond to the threat of ISIS against Christians in the east?

Educate Ourselves

A global lack of concern isn’t for a lack of information. Nearly every major news organization in the United States, and abroad, has given significant coverage to the threat of ISIS against Christians and other religious minorities. It’s time we pay attention to the news, and pay particular attention to those outlets based in Europe (like France 24, BBC, and Sky News) and in the Middle East (like Al Jazeera, and Rudaw). Follow reporters like Jane Arraf on twitter who are covering the situation from within the region, and follow non-profit organizations that give particular attention to the threats against religious minorities (like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and The Institute for Global Engagement.).

When you know what’s happening, and know the stories of those in harm’s way, it gives you empathy, inspires you to action, and prepares you to rally others to the cause. It also helps prevent you from underestimating or oversimplifying this crisis. I wrote Defying ISIS precisely to serve as an introduction to the issue for those who want to know more. Thankfully, Harper Collins Christian Publishing made the remarkable decision to release the eBook early because of their own corporate concern for endangered Christians.

Read it and recommend it to others.

Churches and Christians Must Pray As Never Before

We are witnessing one of the most severe and unrelenting attempts at Christian persecution in church history. It’s happening in our time – in our modern era – and on our watch. This isn’t a time for churches to dedicate a Sunday a year to praying for the persecuted church, but a time when every single Christian church in every single place ought to be praying without pause for our brothers and sisters in Christ who sit in the path of ISIS. There should not be a single Sunday or a single church where this isn’t a topic of focused prayer every day. This type of crisis happens once in a millennium, and it demands that we pray as we never have before, and that we pray as we hope others would pray for us.

Churches must also do as the early church in Antioch did when the church in Judea was suffering through a famine. They generously gave to help their brothers and sisters survive. Churches in the west ought to be collecting tens of millions of dollars to help those in the east who’ve been displaced and who are under threat. The humanitarian crisis caused by ISIS in Iraq and Syria has been deemed the “worst of our time” by the United Nations.

Every act of love on behalf of those whom ISIS hates is a dagger in the heart of ISIS. If those who’ve fled ISIS die for lack of food, medicine or shelter then ISIS wins anyhow. We mustn’t allow this to happen.

There are many wonderful organizations who are working at preserving and rebuilding these broken lives, organizations like: The Cradle Fund, World Help, Open Doors, the Preemptive Love Coalition, The Assyrian Aid Society, Samaritan’s Purse, Focus on the Family, and the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.

In a world of two billion Christians, surely we can do more good.

Let Us Be Known for Our Love

It has never been more important for the best of faith to shine brightly in the face of the worst of religion. There should not be a Muslim or mosque in any country in the world that hasn’t been subject to the exuberant, generous, and abundant love of the Christian community. They mustn’t know us by our religion or by our politics, by our prejudice or by our power. They must – as Jesus told us so clearly so long ago – “know us by our love.”

We ought to rush into the communities in our countries that have the potential to incubate extremism, and we must lavish them in Christian love and kindness. One of the great tragedies of our time is that despite living in an enormously diverse world, we rarely know the names, stories and beliefs of those who are different than us. This lack of relationship makes it easier to come to false and unhelpful conclusions about one another. It makes it easier for every Christian to think that every Muslim is a jihadist and for every Muslim to think that every Christian is a crusader. These are laughable conclusions, but the fact is that most Christians in the west haven’t a clue about Islam and they don’t know a single Muslim, and many Muslims in the west live their lives separate form the Christians in their communities.

Ironically, most of my own work in the Middle East on behalf of Christians started because kindhearted Muslims in the region invited me into their own concern about their persecuted, Christian neighbors.

Christians and Muslims must work together to defeat ISIS, and Christianity must be known around the world for our love, especially for Muslims.

We Must Not be Silent

This is not the time to sit idly by. This is a time to insist that people of influence and of affluence, people in politics and in places of power, feel unrelenting pressure to protect those who might be massacred and to utterly and thoroughly destroy ISIS as quickly as possible.

The fact is that the people who have the power to end this crisis often only react when they feel pressure from others. So, we must keep the pressure on.

Just the other morning, I received an email from deep within Syria just before the sun was rising in America. The email said that ISIS was moving towards another group of Assyrian, Christian villages along the Khabour River in Syria. Immediately, a small group of us who are involved in this issue started notifying congressmen, the press and the military. We insisted on a decisive response and a strong one. Within a few hours, we learned that coalition forces reacted with airstrikes, pushing ISIS back, and saving those Assyrian Christians who might have been kidnapped or killed.

We don’t know whether we made THE difference or not, but we do know that our voices mattered and we suspect that they applied the right pressure in the right places at the right time.

We must raise our voices every single day until this crisis ends. In so doing we will literally save lives.

Use #DefyingISIS when you do, and in turn we shall show the world that we care too much to quiet down. We will force leaders to act or shame them for their indifference.

Soon enough – if we do – I believe that “The God of peace will crush Satan under his feet” [Romans 1:16].

May it happen quickly, and may our brothers and sisters in Christ know they haven’t been forgotten.

Originally posted at ChristianPost.com.

Islam in America: A Christian Response

with Dr. Erwin Lutzer of Moody Church

May 7th, 2015

Medinah Baptist Church

More Information HERE

The politically correct or “progressive” crowd found a new target this week: outspoken Christian and Super Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy.

When asked about “out and proud” football player Michael Sam, the former NFL coach said he would not have drafted Sam had he still been coaching. “I wouldn’t have [drafted] him,” said Dungy. “Not because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it.  It’s not going to be totally smooth … things will happen.”

For this comment, ESPN commentator Keith Olbermann named Dungy the “Worst Person in the World” on Monday night. Condemnations of Dungy came from all over.

This is where the “progressive” movement is. If you hold a view that is not in agreement with theirs, you are to be demonized by them, the progressives, who, ironically, don’t believe in demons.

Why do they do this? Because they, the progressives, consider themselves morally superior to those of us who hold traditional values even though, again, ironically, progressives don’t believe in moral values unless they define them. They moralize against those who promote morality.

The progressive movement is out to destroy our country as it has existed. It is against patriotism. It is against religion in general and is in particular hostile to evangelical Christianity and traditional Catholicism. It is against borders. It is against capitalism. Dare I go on? Sure, why not?

It is for high taxation and government control and regulation of almost everything. It wants people depending on government so they can be controlled. It believes government debt is good. It is against our constitutional Bill of Rights, in particular the First and Second Amendments. It is for abortion on demand even through nine months of pregnancy. It wants to downgrade the American military. It rejects the idea that Western civilization is superior to other civilizations. And it most certainly is for promoting the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender movement and punishing people who dare speak against it.

Basically, what I have just described is the platform of the modern-day Democratic Party and the philosophy/agenda of much of the New York/Washington, DC, liberal media, Hollywood and most university campuses. When Barack Obama said he wanted to “fundamentally transform” America, what he was saying to his fellow hardcore progressives was: “I’ve got the wrecking ball ready.”

Sexually, God made man for woman and woman for man. It’s obvious. It’s natural. Progressives can’t stand this. So they are always trying to equate homosexuality with heterosexuality or elevate homosexuality over heterosexuality. When someone like Dungy makes a comment that can in any way be seen as challenging this narrative, then progressives believe that person must be immediately discredited or publicly shamed – no matter the truth of what he is saying.

By the way, having been a sports reporter for a few years I’ve been in many football locker rooms where the players walk around naked or half-naked, changing clothes and going in and out of the showers. Putting a man like Sam, who says he is sexually attracted to men, in with all that beefcake seems unfair to the straight players and a distraction to Sam. Would you put a heterosexual man in the locker room/showers with all the female cheerleaders? Would you tell the girl cheerleaders who objected to this man being in the locker room that they needed to end their bigoted and sexist attitude and treat the man with respect?

Tony Dungy will probably survive being the “worst person in the world.” But the fact that he is in the crosshairs of the PC Gestapo over this comment is chilling to free speech and free thinking.

It’s ironic that the people who now scream the loudest about tolerance have become the least tolerant among us.

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

Everyone else is excerpting it so I shouldn’t miss out. The title above belongs to an article in the Wall Street Journal written by former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney. Here is their subtitle: “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.”

It’s protocol, and an act of class, for a president to keep quiet about the actions of his immediate successor. George W. Bush has been admirably silent, even as his eight years in office is trashed regularly by Obama. Bush’s VP, though, hasn’t felt the need to hold his tongue.

For many of us who have been fans of the senior Cheney since the 1980s — his honestly about the pathetic nature of the Obama Administration has been a source or consolation in an era when political guts seem in short supply.

While I recommend (for the sheer fun of it) that you take a few minutes to read the entire article (it’s not behind the WSJ paywall), here are a few excerpts for your reading pleasure. Here is how Dick and Liz open their piece:

As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama’s past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. “If a J.V. team puts on Lakers’ uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant” (January 2014). “[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated” (August 2013). “So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding” (September 2011).

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is “ending” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America’s enemies are not “decimated.” They are emboldened and on the march.

…

On a trip to the Middle East this spring, we heard a constant refrain in capitals from the Persian Gulf to Israel, “Can you please explain what your president is doing?” “Why is he walking away?” “Why is he so blithely sacrificing the hard fought gains you secured in Iraq?” “Why is he abandoning your friends?” “Why is he doing deals with your enemies?”

In one Arab capital, a senior official pulled out a map of Syria and Iraq. Drawing an arc with his finger from Raqqa province in northern Syria to Anbar province in western Iraq, he said, “They will control this territory. Al Qaeda is building safe havens and training camps here. Don’t the Americans care?”

Here is how they close it:

American freedom will not be secured by empty threats, meaningless red lines, leading from behind, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies, or apologizing for our great nation—all hallmarks to date of the Obama doctrine. Our security, and the security of our friends around the world, can only be guaranteed with a fundamental reversal of the policies of the past six years.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan said, “If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.” President Obama is on track to securing his legacy as the man who betrayed our past and squandered our freedom.

Read more: Wall Street Journal