Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I realize that there are many definitions of what a Christian is, but I am writing to those of you who have, like me, trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and have been born again.

We live in perilous times, and for the first time in hundreds of years on this continent, we face serious opposition and potential persecution.  It is not a pleasant thought, and we will find it very tempting to compromise truth, or just remain silent.  But that is not really an option!  Whether it will come to actual persecution as our brothers and sisters in China, North Korea and elsewhere face, only God knows.  Either way, it should not surprise us that we are hated by people of the world and especially by the Left.  Jesus noted when He was here that the world hated Him, and thus they would hate those who chose to follow Him.  In fact, He stated in Matthew 5, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.  Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven!” (Matt 5:11, 12 NKJV).  As poorly as we Christians have followed Christ, (and we must admit to failing Him), the aura of Christ still somehow shines through and those who hate Him also hate what they see of Him in us.  Interestingly, humorist Mark Twain noted that “there is nothing more irritating than a good example!”  Righteousness intimidates unrighteousness, and light angers those who love darkness.

America has been richly blessed beyond all other nations in history, and those of us who know our nation’s history, and are aware of how God has blessed the entire world through America, hate to see her attacked, and slandered.  Most people throughout time have lived under one type of tyrant or another.  Whether they were called kings, emperors, pharaohs, premiers, or comrades, the lives of average citizens were generally unpleasant, often miserable, and certainly not free.  Whether God, in His grace, renews our liberties or not hangs in the balance at the moment, but we must understand that Scriptures are clear that there will be no place like America during the final years of world history just prior to Christ establishing His kingdom.  We do not know God’s plan for this country, upon which He “shed His grace.”

However, this is not a call for passivity!  Because we do not know God’s mind, we should continue pleading for an extension of His grace to America.  But too many Christians appear to believe that merely asking for God’s blessing is sufficient.  I read and hear many people saying, “God bless America” without and reference to the fact that America has turned its back to God!  On what basis do we expect His blessings?  We should consider a relevant text found in II Chronicles where God specifically addresses this subject.  II Chronicles 7:14, while written for Israel and not the United States, still presents the theological pathway to a place where God might bestow His blessing, and that pathway begins with humility and repentance.  There is no reason for Christians to think that God will pour out His rich grace on America when multitudes of Christians live like the world and persist in activities and attitudes that are disgusting to His holiness!  Parents know better than to give treats to children who are disobeying them.  Do we think that God is not as wise as parents?

The “world system” is at war with God, and James warned in his letter that Christians who seek to please the world rather than God are like adulterers.  He noted, “he who would be a friend of the world makes himself the enemy of God!”  We cannot serve two masters; we must make our choice!  Twenty-eight-year-old missionary, Jim Elliot, who was martyred for his faith in 1956, wrote, “he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

Whatever gain you might make, or think you make by going along with the world will be short-lived at best and may cost you eternal blessings.  Christ said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. . . .” (Matt. 6:19 NKJV).  It is not surprising when those who see this world as all there is, have no scruples in taking for themselves whatever they want without regard to the impact and cost to others.  But we Christians ought to know better.  It is a foolish Christian who allows himself to be tricked into thinking this world offers more than Christ does, or that we can please both the world and God!

I would like to urge every Christian who reads this to do some honest soul-searching to determine to what length they have compromised God’s word and righteousness in order to get along and avoid the world’s displeasure.  In whatever way you have failed in obedience, repent today, and accept God’s grace.  Whether it has been overt sinfulness, or passive silence in the face of the wickedness of our culture, determine to stand now!  Bring your spiritual, cultural, political, and personal choices into harmony with God’s revealed will.  Rebuke the evils of the culture, reaching out with the compassion of Christ to those injured by the prevalent hedonism of the day, and point hungry hearts to Christ!  He alone can save and bring hope and peace!

If we equivocate with our message.  If we remain silent in the face of evil.  If we are passive in dealing with the lies being foisted upon America and especially the children and young people, we will be failing God, and we will be failing those whose lives are being destroyed.  Have you considered the despair that characterizes millions of American young people who hear nothing but the nihilism and hopelessness of secularism that dominates the educational establishment and contemporary culture?  Do the deaths of tens of thousands of children and young adults through drug poisoning and suicide every year mean nothing?  Are you aware of the innocent little children being exploited and groomed by the sexualized curriculum of public education and public libraries?  God calls us to “deliver them that are drawn onto death. . . . “  (Prov. 24:11 KJV).

We have no way of knowing whether God’s gracious face will shine once more upon America;  but if He does not revive the nation, if we have been faithful to the One who redeemed us with His own blood on the cross, He will welcome us one day to His home with a “well done, good and faithful servant!”

Few Christians have been given great wealth or power, but everyone of us has been called to point people to the cross of Christ where they find forgiveness, peace, and joy for eternity; and that is a great calling and is well worth whatever little it might cost us here.

But there may be some who read this and wonder what I mean by the term “born again.”  Unfortunately, the expression has been hijacked for a variety of other uses and has been maligned by many.  However, Jesus Christ, in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, stated that one must be “born again” to see and enter His Kingdom!  For that reason, it is very important that you know what it really means.

Paul, the Apostle, wrote that everyone enters this world spiritually “dead in trespasses and sin.”  Death, in this context, refers to our being separated from God.  God, being perfectly holy and righteous, must and did separate Himself from us sinners, for “there is none righteous, no, not one,” (Rom. 3:10 NKJV).  Death is alienation from God, life is to be in fellowship with, or connected to God.  Thus, we all begin at the same place: spiritually “dead.”  However, when we understand that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross in our place “paid” the penalty for our sin, and that He offers us forgiveness when we repent and trust Him, the pathway to life becomes available to us.  Therefore, if we turn from our sin, ask, and trust Him for forgiveness, we are “born again” and become His children! (John 1:12).  We are at that moment given spiritual “life” for the first time and will never die spiritually; that is, we will never be separated from God again!  “For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  (John 3:16 NKJV).

If you have spoken with God, asked for His forgiveness and asked Him to make you His child, based upon the fact that Jesus paid for your sin, we would love to hear from you!

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The esteemed evangelical Christian Wheaton College is really woking up. The administration has removed a plaque honoring Wheaton alumni and missionaries Jim Elliot and Ed McCully because it described as “savage” the indigenous Ecuadorian tribe that brutally and without cause speared Elliot, McCully, and three other missionaries to death in 1956. The plaque, which was donated 64 years ago by Wheaton classmates of Elliot and McCully, read:

For generations all strangers were killed by these savage Indians. After many days of patient preparation and devout prayer, the missionaries made the first friendly contact known to history with the Aucas.(“Auca” is the Quechua word for “savage” and was the name used at the time by indigenous people to refer to the Waorani tribe.)

Wheaton College president Philip Ryken, who appears to be either unable or unwilling to stem the efforts of Wheaton’s “social justice” faculty warriors to awoken Wheaton, said this about the decision:

Recently, students, faculty, and staff have expressed concern about language on the plaque that is now recognized as offensive. …The word “savage” is regarded as pejorative and has been used historically to dehumanize and mistreat Indigenous peoples around the world. … Any descriptions on our campus of people or people groups should reflect the full dignity of human beings made in the image of God.”

I guess no more calling people sinners with deceitful and desperately sick hearts on the Wheaton campus.

When President Ryken defends Wheaton’s decision by claiming the word “savage” is now considered a “pejorative,” he makes two errors. First, “savage” always was considered a pejorative. When in the history of the church, or America, or Ecuador did anyone consider the descriptor “savage” non-pejorative? It is not, however, an epithet like the “n” word.

Second, he errs by acquiescing to the woke mob who seek to dishonestly use Christianity as a weapon to silence all condemnation of sin. In so doing, he has inadvertently caved to relativism. Does President Ryken believe that Christians should refrain from using any and all terms that the world now views as “offensive”?

According to Wheaton spokesman Joseph Moore, this decision was made following the griping of a mere “dozen students and staff.” It would be interesting to know which staff members agitated for this change. Parents who may be considering spending a boatload of money to send their children to the increasingly woke Wheaton and donors who oppose the woke movement might find such information helpful.

The word “savage” means “not civilized” or “ferocious, violent, or brutal.” The tribe called the Waorani or “Auca” that brutally killed Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, and Pete Fleming was at that time, indeed, savage.

While the complicated story of what happened to the Waorani people since the savage murders of five missionaries is little known by many Christians who know the story of Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, the fact that the Waorani were a savage people in the 1950s and earlier is not disputed.

Retired Wheaton College associate professor of history and PCUSA-ordained minister Kathryn T. Long has written a well-reviewed book about the complex history of the Waorani people since the murders of the five missionaries. She makes clear that they were a violent (i.e., savage) people. In a review of her book, Professor John G. Turner writes,

More than 60 percent of Wao deaths during this period were violent ones, [Long] estimates, making the Waorani one of the most violent cultures on earth.

A 2008 paper co-authored by eight scholars including Long, describes the Waorani tribe:

The Waorani may have the highest rate of homicide of any society known to anthropology. … The Waorani (Huaorani, Waodani, Auca) of Ecuador, are known to be even more warlike than the Yanomamo. … Their reputation for ferocity was earned by violence against each other as well as outsiders.

Even one of the Waorani who killed the missionaries acknowledges the former savagery of the tribe:

We lived angry, hating and killing, ‘ononque’ (for no reason) until they brought us God’s markings. Now, those of us who walk God’s trail live happily and in peace.

The now-cancelled Wheaton plaque was clearly referring to a moment in history when the Waorani were savage, which they inarguably were. But the woke, like all doctrinaire propagandists, insist on manipulating history to advance their ideology.

The Roys Report interviewed a current Wheaton student on the plaque controversy who expressed some peculiar unbiblical notions about how Christians may talk about sin:

“Wheaton’s doing a better job of trying to be mindful of the language that they’re using and how it harms people, especially indigenous people. … I don’t think reducing them to their violent tendencies is humanizing because they’re still created in God’s image. It’s also holding them to a Christian standard when they’re not Christians. They’re still people and they’re living life that is not the same as ours. Holding them to our standards wouldn’t necessarily be fair.”

What would this student think of Jonathan Edwards referring to “wicked unbelieving Israelites”? Was he using language that harms people? Was he reducing them to their wicked tendencies and dehumanizing them?

May Christians call false prophets “ravenous wolves” as Jesus did?

Should Christians today abstain from criticizing the “trans”-cult—including “drag queens” who read stories to and twerk in front of toddlers—because they’re not Christians and, therefore, we ought not hold them to “our standards”?

Are standards regarding savage acts “ours,” or are they absolute, objective, transcendent standards applicable to all?

What about past slaveholders or contemporary neo-Nazis? If, when referring to their wicked beliefs and acts, Christians don’t include a comprehensive list of their good qualities, are those believers guilty of dehumanizing reductionism?

In Revelation, those who are not saved are called “dogs.” Peter describes false teachers—of which we have many in the church today—as “irrational animals … born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant. … They are blots and blemishes. … Accursed children!” Paul calls the Galatians, “foolish Galatians.” John the Baptist called the multitudes a “brood of vipers.” Amos called women fat “cows” and warned that God would take them away by harpoons or fishhooks. Paul wrote this to Titus: “As one of their own prophets has said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true.” In other words, Paul called Cretans liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Were John, Peter, Paul, Amos, and John the Baptist insufficiently mindful of their use of harmful dehumanizing language? Are they unfairly holding non-believers to “our standards”?

Paul wrote,

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.

In other words, he both held unbelievers to God’s standards and described believers by their past sinful acts. They were sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, greedy, drunkards, and swindlers.

As reported by the Associated Press,

Current student Caitlyn Kasper praised the decision to remove the plaque. “Plaques like that have caused pain to people and are almost a symbol of white superiority in their very presences and in how they make people of color feel unwelcome at Wheaton.”

Does such a plaque cause pain to people? Do people untutored in the doctrine of wokeness espoused in public schools via Critical Race Theory feel pain when seeing this historically accurate plaque? Or is it just the indoctrinated who claim to feel faux-pain?

Is there something intrinsically wrong about feeling pain when confronted by one’s own sin or encountering testimonies of past sinful acts committed by humans?

Was the plaque really “almost” a symbol of white superiority? And if this plaque was “almost” a symbol of white superiority, was it such a symbol or not?

Those who have connections to Wheaton College know that this is merely another step in its ongoing Great Awokening. Wheaton has been churning out social justice warriors since at least Obama’s presidential tenure. As the mother of two Wheaton graduates and mother-in-law of two, I say that with no pleasure.

I first wrote about Wheaton’s cultural capitulation in 2010 when the social justice manifesto of the Department of Education was discovered, a “conceptual framework” rife with the woke rhetoric polluting government schools everywhere today.

The comments from these two current Wheaton students point to the larger problems at Wheaton and raise important questions. How is it that Wheaton students are so biblically ignorant and so woke? Is Wheaton continuing in its abolitionist history of boldly confronting and opposing sin at any cost—especially those serious sins that currently find favor among the well-heeled and powerful? If so, why do we hear so little coming out of Wheaton College from either the administration, faculty, or students about the grievous harm and injustice being done to children by the homosexuality community and “trans” cult? Could it be that Wheaton is tutoring students in the ways of soft-peddling biblical views of sin while scratching itching ears?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Wokeness-at-Wheaton.mp3

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Colin Kaepernick, NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, has generated a dust-up over his refusal to stand during the “Star Spangled Banner.” Kaepernick said “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

While some “progressives” are defending his stunt, arguing that a verse of the National Anthem that is never sung—anywhere—has a racist message, Kaepernick didn’t mention the National Anthem, he referred to the flag.

For those who don’t know, Colin Kaepernick was adopted by a white family after his destitute, 19-year-old, white birth mother gave him up. His black biological father abandoned him and his mother before his birth. Kaepernick excelled at basketball, baseball, and football in high school and in addition to a football scholarship, he was offered multiple scholarships to play collegiate baseball. He has made millions playing for the NFL since 2011.

So, some questions for Kaepernick:

When you say the country, what exactly do you mean? The government? Every branch of government? Every department? Every elected official? The Constitution? Laws? Which laws? The police? Every police department? Every police officer? Teachers in government schools?

Does your assessment of the unworthiness of America include the sacrifices of soldiers who have given their lives to defend and protect people all around the world? Does it include men like my father who served and suffered during WWII? Does it include missionaries and medical personnel like Jim Elliot and Natalie Bullock who sacrificed the comforts you enjoy and sometimes their lives because they love people of color?

Could it be that the “country” that oppresses people of color is primarily constituted by Democrats?

• After all, it was Democrats who supported Jim Crow laws in the South.

• It was only 23 percent of Democrats in Congress who supported the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, while 100 percent of Republicans supported it.

• It was Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

• It’s Democrats who have been promoting policies and laws that have incentivized fatherless families, which has long been known to be the central cause of poverty and anti-social behavior.

• It was Democrats who through their demand that homoerotic unions be legally recognized as “marriages” have now institutionalized fatherless (and motherless) families.

• It’s Democrats who for decades have controlled virtually every major American city where schools are failing people of color and where crime destroys lives.

• It’s Democrats like Barack Obama who, while sending their children to elite, expensive private schools, deny school vouchers for inner city families of color whose children are instead forced into underperforming and dangerous schools. And it’s Democrats who protect teachers unions that enable terrible teachers to keep their jobs.

• It’s Democrats who support Planned Parenthood, the baby-killing machine that profits from the deaths of far more babies of color than colorless babies.

One of the many problems with public schools today is the imbalanced and dishonest way they address the entwined issues of race and American history. Leftist “agents of change” (also known comically as teachers) present a lopsided view of American history, emphasizing the injustices that mar America’s history while de-emphasizing America’s social and political progress and acts of justice and compassion that ignite the imaginations of oppressed peoples around the world. America undeniably has a troubling history with regard to race, but that’s not the whole story.

America also has a remarkable history of racial and ethnic integration and an admirable history of self-correction. Is there a country on the planet that has as successfully integrated as many diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups as America? Is it possible to walk through a mall or a public school in America without seeing interracial couples or interracial, inter-ethnic groups of teenagers chatting and laughing together? Can you enter a church without seeing families that are multiracial by choice through adoption?

This is a country whose founding principles and documents have made possible the kind of social progress that enabled a biracial baby to be adopted by a white family and go on to earn millions. This  is the country Kaepernick sees as “oppressive” and others see as a social and political marvel.

The American flag represents the greatest nation in history. It’s a country that countless people have died to defend or died in the attempt to arrive at its shores. While Kaepernick continues to publicly demonstrate his disappointment with our imperfect union, perhaps he could tell us which country’s flag he finds worthy of respect.

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Presenting “Laurie’s Chinwags”

IFI is pleased to announce a new feature we are calling “Laurie’s Chinwags.” In light of changes in the way many Americans prefer to access information, we’re adding podcasts to our articles. Podcasts will accompany both our new articles as well as previous articles that are of particular importance and relevance. As we add podcasts to previous articles, we will republish them for our subscribers’ convenience.

We hope this new feature will serve the needs and desires of IFI subscribers, and we would appreciate any constructive feedback.