Looking back on 2022, I am deeply humbled by the amazing support that has helped us make progress toward our goals. We also treasure the encouragement you give us regularly. This year has passed quickly, and it is hard to believe that we have a few days left on 2022’s calendar.

We have seen many changes to the culture this past year:

• The Dobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision is saving thousands of lives each month. Tragically, Leftists have made Illinois  an abortion mecca. Illinois Democrats have already removed all protections for the unborn by repealing the Parental Notice of Abortion law. Now, they want physician assistants, nurses, and midwives along with other healthcare personnel to be able to legally commit abortions in Illinois in order to accommodate the flood of women coming across state lines. And they want to elevate the so-called “right” to abortion with an amendment to the Illinois State Constitution.

• Emboldened drag queens are grooming children at events in community libraries, Christmas parties, and other venues, including the White House signing ceremony to redefine marriage. This pernicious ideology teaches impressionable young children that we can redefine who God created us to be and that the pursuit of happiness is achieved by discovering and expressing one’s true inner “self.” Instead of parents and pastors teaching children the importance of cultivating virtue and becoming who God has called them to be, the LGBTQIA+ crowd and their allies are encouraging them to engage in unrestrained self-expression and explore dangerous, unnatural sexual activities.

• It is hard to believe that so many mothers and fathers are willfully exposing their toddlers and young children to this depravity. Do we understand that our unchanging God has declared cross-dressing to be an abomination? (Deuteronomy 22:5)

• Sexual deviance has a prominent platform thanks to the Biden Administration: Pete Buttigieg is the first openly homosexual person confirmed to serve in a president’s Cabinet; lesbian Karine Jean-Pierre is the White House press secretary; Dr. Richard Levine (aka “Rachel” Levine) is the assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; cross-dressing fetishist Sam Briton was, until recently, the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition; homosexual Joaquin Tamayo, a former high school teacher and principal, is chief of staff for Cindy Marten at the U.S. Department of Education. There are dozens more. To see a full list of the Biden administration’s LGBTQIA+ appointments, click here.

• The LGBT lobby is large, vocal, active, and very well funded. The Human Rights Campaign is located in Washington D.C. and lobbies Congress for their queer agenda fulltime. Equality Illinois does the same in Springfield. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is dedicated solely on using government schools to corrupt K-12 students. And the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) focuses on using media, including Hollywood, to indoctrinate Americans.

• Leftists are bold and proud about their wicked agenda. You may remember an article written by Laurie Higgins in 2021 about how a gay men’s choir published a video touting that they were “coming for your children.”

• A wide open southern border has allowed an invasion of millions of illegal immigrants into the United States over the past two years. These immigrants are not being screened for health issues or criminal records. We do not know if they are committed to the freedoms guaranteed to us in the U.S. Constitution or if they embrace a socialist worldview. How many anti-God, anti-family, and anti-capitalist Marxists are flooding in? How many violent MS-13 gang members? How many radical Jihadists?

In response, IFI is dedicated to increasing our efforts in 2023 to educate, encourage, and mobilize Christians in the Land of Lincoln. The prophet Hosea warned that “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge … because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” (Hosea 4:6) While the prophet was speaking about Israel, the principle hasn’t changed. If God’s people are ignorant of His laws, precepts, and commandments–if we disregard what is good, pure, noble, and true–then we cannot expect His blessings.

We know with certainty that in our post-Christian society Bible literacy is at an all-time low in America. Therefore, the Christian worldview is feeble in our culture. Now more than ever, we all need to be about the business of making disciples and teaching them about all that God has commanded us to do. (Matthew 28:19-20)

As it relates to public policy issues, this means that our work to uphold the sanctity of human life is just beginning. Proverbs 24:11 exhorts us to “deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.” We MUST respond with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ to rescue innocent children and their mothers.

This also means we must continue our efforts to rescue our children from government schools. Too many children in our families, in our churches, and in our communities are being discipled in ways that are contrary to what the Bible teaches. This must not continue. School choice must be embraced immediately. Homeschooling, private schools, micro-schools and co-ops are excellent alternatives.

Therefore…

We need you to be part of this year’s Matching Challenge Campaign to equip us for 2023.

It is only through your support that we are able to do this vital work.

Any donation given or mailed by December 31st will go toward
this dollar-for-dollar matching challenge and will be fully tax-deductible.

We know full well that the woke crowd doesn’t walk away from the battle. They are already planning lawsuits and executive orders, forming coalitions, and devising strategies to promote their ideology and agenda. They are preparing to redouble their efforts to promote their culture of depravity and death in the media, through pop culture, in our government schools, and in our legislatures and courts. And you can be sure that all of their efforts will be very well-funded.

We need both your prayer covering and financial support as we go into 2023!

If you haven’t done so already, please consider IFI in your year-end giving. Every donation–small, medium or large–brings us closer to our goal. Don’t miss this great opportunity!

Here are some ways you can give your tax-deductible donation:

• Contribute online HERE.
• Give a gift of stock or appreciated assets. Contact Colleen Garcia, IFI’s Financial Administrator, at (708) 781-9328 or email her HERE.
• Mail your year-end gift. Send to: Illinois Family Institute, P.O. Box 876, Tinley Park, IL, 60477
• We also accept credit card donations over the phone at (708) 781-9328 during normal business hours.

Thank you for your consideration. Your financial support and prayers are what makes our mission to protect and preserve life, marriage, family, and liberty in Illinois possible.  THANK YOU!

Sincerely,

David E. Smith
Executive Director

P.S. Donations must be postmarked by December 31 in order to qualify as 2022 gifts. 

Remember when homosexual activists lied with straight faces saying what they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms affects no one and, therefore, is no one’s business? And here we are today with the government recognizing non-marital unions as marriages, shameful parades polluting our streets, drag queens reading stories to toddlers in public libraries, a 4,000 percent increase in adolescent girls suddenly deciding they’re boys, and schools requiring faculty to use incorrect pronouns when referring to students who seek to pass as the sex they aren’t.

An NBC News article titled, “Biden administration on track to be most LGBTQ-inclusive in U.S. history” exults, “President-elect Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed to make LGBTQ rights a priority in his administration.” We now have leaders—grown men and women—who think it’s a noble achievement to pick administration officials based on what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms or because they pretend to be the sex they aren’t. Astonishing.

With that puckish grin, lost occasionally in his mental fog, Biden has cast aside character, knowledge, and experience as central employment criteria for his administration. All that really matters is sexual anatomy, erotic interests, and sex identification (oh, and skin color). Goodbye meritocracy. Hello intersectionality.

In the service of demonstrating his ardent commitment to unbiblical sexual deviance, Biden, the less ardent, self-identifying Catholic has so far picked a number of sexually dubious characters for administrative roles and other assorted functions.

Biden chose Karine Jean-Pierre, an “out lesbian” as his deputy press secretary. She may help speak on behalf of the cognitively impaired Biden or clarify the baffling things he says when his handlers allow him to speak. He chose Pili Tobar, another lesbian, to be the deputy White House communications director.  And he chose homosexual Carlos Elizondo to be the White House social secretary.

Elizondo is only the second man in the history of the United States to be chosen to be a White House social secretary. The first, Jeremy Bernard, was chosen by Barack Obama. Bernard too is homosexual and evidently not selected based on his educational background. Bernard, who didn’t finish college, along with his erotic partner at the time, Rufus Gifford, had been major fundraisers for Obama and were hugely influential in the homosexual community. Forget education, training, wisdom, and integrity. Money and sexual deviance will take you to the core of the Democrat machine.

Lesbian attorney Chai Feldblum and bisexual attorney Pamela S. Karlan, who is “married” to a woman, have been tasked with “reviewing the Department of Justice and related agencies for the Biden transition team … including the Federal Election Commission and the Commission on Civil Rights.”

Karlan’s name may be familiar to some. She is one of the three “progressive” law professors who testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in support of the impeachment of President Trump and was forced to apologize for using Barron Trump’s name to make a point. She is also one of the attorneys in the infamous Bostock U.S. Supreme Court Case that Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch bungled.

Homosexual Dave Noble “was named to two teams, one reviewing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the other the Office of National Drug Control Policy.”

Shawn Skelly, a man who now masquerades as a woman following his 20-year stint as a naval flight officer, “will be part of the team reviewing the Department of Defense.” Biden has vowed to reverse President Trump’s ban on gender-deluded men and women serving in the military. I guess Skelly believes that nothing strengthens the military quite like the presence of cross-dressing soldiers and forcing women to bunk and shower with men who cross-dress.

Axios has reported that 39-year-old failed former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and homosexual, Pete Buttigieg, is being seriously considered for the ambassadorship to China, America’s arch-enemy that unleashed the Wuhan Virus on the world and seeks worldwide economic and military domination.

But the homosexual rag The Washington Blade reports that Buttigieg wants nothing less than a Cabinet post. In the Blade piece titled “Frustration builds as Biden’s Cabinet includes no LGBTQ picks,” Chris Johnson writes,

In talks with the Biden transition team, one Democratic insider said the idea of Buttigieg becoming White House OMB director came up, but he rejected it and said he wanted a “real Cabinet” position, not a “staff-level” job.

Well, you can’t say the diminutive former small-town mayor lacks hutzpah.

Behind the scenes the homosexual community is fuming that Biden hasn’t yet chosen a Cabinet member based on his or her private bedroom activities. Johnson continues,

Some LGBTQ leaders are quietly expressing frustration that the movement hasn’t pushed more aggressively for representation in Biden’s Cabinet. …

Things might be changing in terms of ramping up calls for an openly LGBTQ Cabinet member. On Tuesday, the congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus made public a letter to the Biden transition team making the case for prominent LGBTQ appointees in his administration. “While your administration is on track to be the most diverse in American history, we ask that you continue your commitment to diversity by ensuring LGBTQ+ professionals are included in your Cabinet and throughout your administration. …”

Biden must discriminate based on erotic desires and sex-identification status to keep the most tyrannical demographic in America—“LGB” and “T” activists—sated and quiet. He also needs to feed their legislative and policy desires—most of which involve stripping conservative people of faith of their First Amendment rights.

For example, the country’s largest, most influential homosexual/“trans” activist organization, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), whose 2019 revenue exceeded $44.5 million, has published a 24-page “Blueprint for Positive Change 2020” with a staggering list of “recommendations” for Biden. I’ll mention just two.

The HRC recommends changing a regulation regarding charitable organizations that partner with the federal government to help those with diverse problems and needs. The HRC wants to make sure that any religious charity that receives federal funds to help the suffering be forced to hire homosexuals and cross-sex impersonators.

The HRC’s blueprint for religious oppression also wants to make it possible for college accreditation boards to deny accreditation to any college that has employment or student conduct criteria that reflect biblical standards on sexuality. Such a radical accreditation change would constitute, in theologian Al Mohler’s words, “an atomic bomb.”

If Christian colleges cannot be accredited, then students who want to pursue masters’ degrees, Ph.D.s, law degrees, or medical degrees that require undergraduate degrees from accredited schools would be forced to go elsewhere.

Leftists want to close all avenues to positions of influence for those who reject their sexuality ideology. So much for diversity and tolerance.

Biden has promised that his first order of business will be to pass the pernicious Equality Act, which will happen if Republicans lose the Senate. The Democrat-sponsored Equality Act—which as everyone knows has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with oppression—will deny conservative people of faith First Amendment speech and religious free exercise protections.

As I wrote 1 ½ years ago when the U.S. House passed it, the Equality Act would require federal law to recognize disordered subjective feelings and deviant behaviors as protected characteristics. Federal law would absurdly recognize homoeroticism and cross-sex masquerading as conditions that must be treated like skin color and biological sex.

It’s a remarkable feat of rhetorical and political legerdemain to use the ugly racial discrimination suffered historically by blacks to normalize discrimination based on race (i.e., against whites), sex (i.e., against men), mental health (i.e., against “cisgenders”), and erotic desire (i.e., against heterosexuals). Now it’s not only acceptable to choose not to hire people because they’re white, male, heterosexual, or who accept their biological sex, it’s de rigueur.

The real goal in the new and socially acceptable form of discrimination is to normalize homoeroticism and cross-sex impersonation by exploiting the instruments and institutions of power to silence public expressions of moral beliefs that leftists don’t like.

The first step is to confuse the issue by treating dissimilar conditions as if they were the same. So, conditions that are not genetically determined, in many cases fluid, and constituted centrally by freely chosen acts (e.g., homoeroticism and opposite-sex identification) are compared to conditions that are 100% heritable, in all cases immutable, and have no behavioral dimensions (e.g., skin color and biological sex). This is called a “category mistake.”

Leftists use this category mistake relentlessly in their effort to make it socially and legally impossible for Christians to exercise their religion and speech rights freely. They want to make it impossible to publicly express moral propositions about homoerotic acts or to conduct one’s business in accordance with religious beliefs. They want to make it impossible, for example, to refuse to hire a man who freely chooses to cross-dress.

Homoeroticism and cross-sex passing are moral issues about which it is entirely fitting to express views even if others disagree with or detest those views. Shouting “identity” and “authenticity” is not a “Get Out of Moral Assessment” free card. It doesn’t seem that leftists feel any shame about condemning my beliefs even if they derive from my authentic identity as a theologically orthodox Christ-follower.

“LGB” and “T” activists are far from done with their unholy work of transforming a once decent place to raise children into a moral sinkhole in which the government will soon appropriate children whose parents don’t toe the line drawn by regressive pagans.

I have long contended that there is no greater threat to First Amendment religious free exercise and speech protections than homosexual and “trans”-cultic activism. If Harris and Biden win the White House, and Democrats win the U.S. Senate, fasten your seatbelts, Christian conservatives, because it will be a bumpy night.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Harris-Biden-Administration-Sexual-Deviance-and-Religious-Oppression.mp3

We are committed to upholding truth while resisting and opposing the rising wave of delusional thinking and tyrannical laws/mandates that have afflicted our state and nation. IFA will continue to provide our supporters with timely alerts, video reports, podcasts, pastors’ breakfasts, special forums, worldview conferences, and thought-provoking commentaries—content that is increasingly hard to find.

We encourage you to join us in our efforts. Your support will help us to continue our vital work in 2021. A vigorous defense of biblical truth is needed more than ever in Illinois. 

In his recent Christianity Today (CT) blog post, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight defends recently retired CT president Mark Galli’s hubristic diktat about the necessity—in Galli’s view—of Trump’s removal from office:

Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

Trump’s removal from office would inarguably result in the election of a man or woman who endorses, among other things, human slaughter, the intentional creation of motherless and fatherless children for homosexuals, the chemical sterilization of gender-dysphoric minors, the sexual integration of private spaces, a diminution of religious liberty, and mandatory transpeak (i.e., the mis-sexing of cross-sex impersonators)—facts that cannot be ignored in this discussion.

In his blog post, McKnight tries unsuccessfully to recast Galli’s argument via the creation of a colossal strawman painted with an equally colossal brush. He argues that both support for and opposition to Galli’s argument—which in McKnight’s view was solely a moral judgment wholly devoid of political dimensions—reveals a philosophical commitment to “statism”:

At no time in my life have I seen the church more engaged in politics and more absorbed by a political story. … [M]ake no mistake, the American story is increasingly statism. … [S]tatism entails an inherent belief, either explicit or implicit, in the state. It is a belief that solutions to our biggest problems are found in the state and the Christian’s responsibility from the Left or the Right is to get involved and acquire political power. Statism as I am using it here is the idol of making a human the world’s true ruler. Statism exalts humans and human plans and voting. Statism centers its faith in the future on who rules in D.C. Statism makes government a god. … Those who think the CT editorial meant support for the other party are statists. Those who think it meant support for their party are statists. Neither was the case. It was a moral judgment.

McKnight’s strawman is constructed out of a dollop of redefinition, a smidge of ambiguity, and a dearth of nuance. Take special note of McKnight’s critical admission: “Statism as I am using it here” (emphasis added).

The church has always been deeply involved in political issues that are at their core, biblical. That’s why the church was involved in the abolitionist movement and the Civil Rights Movement, both of which created hostility and division within the country.

Statism is typically defined as “centralized government administration and control of social and economic affairs.” As such, deep concern by conservative Christians about the expansion of government, its encroachment into spheres of life where it doesn’t belong, and its promotion of evil as good is not tantamount to “statism.” In fact, such concerns and efforts to participate in the project of self-government to remedy these offenses against truth and liberty are the antithesis of “statism.” The desire to reduce the size and scope of government, to protect human life, and to strengthen support for the First Amendment so as to allow individuals, families, and churches to flourish cannot rationally be conceived of as “statism.”

While the belief that Galli’s editorial “meant support for the other party” may have been wrong, such a belief is not proof of statism. Moreover, while Trump’s removal from office may or may not signify support for the other party, it certainly means the other party will have even more opportunity to harm individuals, the family, and the church.

McKnight implies that Christians believe solutions to all our biggest problems are found in the state, whereas many Christians have more reasonable beliefs. They believe that elected leaders can pass policies and laws, make judicial appointments, and issue executive orders that embody and reflect either good or evil, truth or falsehood, wisdom or foolishness, and that either contribute to or undermine human flourishing.

They value religious liberty and speech rights. They seek justice for humans in the womb. And they are deeply thankful for the blessing of self-government that the oppressed from all around the world come to America to enjoy. And yes, they feel passionate about these issues, which, while political, are first and foremost, biblical, which makes their moral judgments sound.

But apparently McKnight sees the passionate desire of Christians to elect leaders who will protect humans in the womb, women in the locker room, and religious liberty as an idolatrous quest for power and proof of statist drives. Did he feel that way about William Wilberforce’s tireless efforts to end the slave trade in England or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s divisive efforts to end the egregious violations of the civil rights of African Americans?

Paul teaches that “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” So, who is the authority God has instituted here in America? We, the people, are. Christians who feel passionately about the importance of exercising the blessing of self-government through voting and who believe a flawed man who has implemented policy decisions wiser than the ones his opponents would implement are not making an idol of him or exalting human plans. They are properly exercising their authority instituted by God.

Mcknight also believes that “progressive” Christian Randall Balmer was right when he asserted that

Christianity operates best from the margins of power, not in its center. Too many today think the solutions to our problems are anchored to the one leading the White House.

I’m not sure who Balmer and McKnight hang out with because no Christian I know believes that “the solutions to our problems are anchored to the one leading the White House”—at least not all the solutions to all our problems.

Many Christians believe, however, that some of the solutions to some of our problems can be remedied by elected government leaders, including, of course, the president. Do Balmer and McKnight believe no solution to any problem can be found in the decisions of our president?

While many Christians supported candidates other than Trump during the primary, when the General Election arrived, the choices were between two morally flawed candidates—one of whom offered some glimmer of hope for decisions that would contribute to human flourishing. That candidate—Donald Trump—has made judicial appointments, issued executive orders, and implemented policy decisions that have surprised many conservatives—decisions for which they are thankful.

Appreciation for these good decisions no more constitutes “wholesale evangelical support” for Trump than presumably CT’s support for the work of Karl Barth constitutes wholesale support for this deeply sinful man.

In a 2017 article about Thomas Jefferson’s affair with his slave and theologian Karl Barth’s decades long affair with his assistant, whom he brought to live in his home despite the pain it caused his wife, Mark Galli wrote,

In light of these profound contradictions, what are we to do with the messages of each of these men? Does their behavior tarnish their ideas? … I don’t think so. … Like many, I’ve long hoped to find a heroic human figure whom I can admire unflinchingly. But time and again, I’ve had to discover there is no such person. Well, except the one known as the True Man, who dialectically enough has been known to use ignoble things to shine forth his glory.

Are Donald Trump’s achievements commensurate with those of Thomas Jefferson or Karl Barth? No, but that’s irrelevant to the arguments of Galli, and presumably Dalrymple and McKnight. Their arguments concern whether it is moral for Christians to vote for a morally flawed candidate with better policies than his opponent, and whether admiration for the good policies he has effected constitutes idolatry.

Balmer wants Christians to be marginalized except when he doesn’t. Balmer waxes enthusiastic about times when Christians “set the social and political agenda” for the country:

For years, I have argued in books, articles, op-eds and even a couple of documentaries that evangelicalism, in contrast to the Religious Right, has a long and distinguished history. Evangelicals set the social and political agenda for much of the 19th century. They advocated for the poor and the rights of workers to organize. They supported prison reform and public education. They enlisted in peace crusades and supported women’s equality, including voting rights.

Apparently, Balmer wants Christians on the margins of power only when he disagrees with their social and political agenda.

Still reeling from the 2016 election, Randall Balmer confesses,

I should be over it by now, but I confess that the number 81 continues to haunt me. Following the shock of Election Day 2016, the further news that 81% of white evangelicals supported Donald Trump was devastating to me personally. These were the same people who had been telling us for the past four decades that they were devoted to “family values,” but then they pivoted and, without hint of irony or apology, cast their votes for a twice-divorced, self-confessed sexual predator. … I was, well, devastated.

Here’s what Dr. King, a profligate philanderer—whom CT, with no hint of irony or apology, celebrates—said about Christians and political power:

I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between … the sacred and the secular.

…

There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. …  Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.” But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.

It’s a good thing the early Christians Dr. King described didn’t allow the “reputation” of the church to determine their actions.

McKnight, perhaps accurately, prophesies what Christianity “Tomorrow” will look like:

Evangelicalism … is shifting. … Christianity will be a justice-oriented evangelicalism.

Unlike many evangelicals, McKnight finds such a shift to be a good thing, citing favorably new CT president Timothy Dalrymple’s vision for both CT and evangelicalism:

Out of love for Jesus and his church, not for political partisanship or intellectual elitism, this is why we feel compelled to say that the alliance of American evangelicalism with this presidency has wrought enormous damage to Christian witness. It has alienated many of our children and grandchildren. It has harmed African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American brothers and sisters. And it has undercut the efforts of countless missionaries who labor in the far fields of the Lord. While the Trump administration may be well regarded in some countries, in many more the perception of wholesale evangelical support for the administration has made toxic the reputation of the Bride of Christ.

…

[Trump] is a symptom of a sickness that began before him, which is the hyper-politicization of the American church. This is a danger for all of us, wherever we fall on the political spectrum. Jesus said we should give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. With profound love and respect, we ask our brothers and sisters in Christ to consider whether they have given to Caesar what belongs only to God: their unconditional loyalty.

Some thoughts on Dalrymple’s thoughts:

• It’s out of love for Jesus and his church, not for political partisanship, that many Christians feel compelled to support President Trump. It’s out of their deep desire to protect those who are knitted together in their mothers’ wombs that many in the 81% that give Randall Balmer the heebie-jeebies feel compelled to support this presidency. It is out of love for God who created man male and female that Christians support Trump. Are those idolatrous statist desires?

• Has Trump’s presidency harmed African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian American brothers and sisters? How so? What’s Dalrymple’s evidence?

• For McKnight to cite Dalrymple’s concern for the “reputation of the Bride of Christ” is ironic because McKnight doesn’t view marriage —the earthly picture of Christ, the Bridegroom, and his church, the Bride of Christ—as an essential Christian creed:

The issue is that essentials of the faith and theological robustness speak to the Christian creeds and not to anything about marriage.  

In contrast, Professor Anthony Esolen, writing in Touchstone Magazine, says this about marriage:

The marriage of man and woman is an image of Christ’s union with his bride the Church (Eph.5:32, Rev. 21:20), and that is meant as no mere poetry. The madness of our time would reduce the Bible’s most exalted revelation of the nature of the divine image in man and of the union of God with man to a figure of speech.

Of course, it’s possible to believe the historical understanding of marriage is non-essential and still be concerned about the reputation of the bride of Christ in the world, but Dalrymple’s assertion and McKnight’s admiration for it raises the question, does the world hate evangelicals more for their support—often grudging—of President Trump or for their support for marriage as intrinsically and unalterably the union of one man—the earthly representation of Christ—and one woman—the earthly representation of the church? (If marriage is the picture of Christ and the church, what does same-sex “marriage” mean other than that there is no distinction in nature or function between Christ and the church? And how would that implicit claim be non-essential?)

• Since the alienation of children and grandchildren is offered as justification for abandonment of Trump in favor of morally flawed candidates who endorse evil policies, what do McKnight, Dalrymple, and Galli make of Jesus’ words from Matthew 10:

Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. … Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. ³⁶ And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

Now that’s some serious familial alienation Jesus has promised us.

Will McKnight, Dalrymple, and CT reject the non-essential understanding of marriage if it makes “toxic” the reputation of evangelicals in the world? Will they reject the non-essential biblically based understanding of marriage if it alienates many of our children and grandchildren?

• Voting for Trump does not demonstrate idolatrous worship of (or “unconditional loyalty” to) him anymore than voting for any of the candidates who heartily endorse human slaughter and soul-destroying sexual immorality would demonstrate “unconditional loyalty” to them.

How would the world respond if evangelicals supported someone as morally degenerate as Pete Buttigieg, whose degeneracy—one could argue—far surpasses Trump’s? The world would rejoice. By currying favor with the world, the church’s “reputation” would shine because the church would now be in the world and of the world. But that shine would not be from the true light of the True Man.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Are-Politically-Engaged-Conservative-Christians-Idolaters.mp3

IFI is hosting our annual Worldview Conference on March 7th at the Village Church of Barrington. This year’s conference is titled “Thinking Biblically About Our Corrosive Culture” and features Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Rob Gagnon. For more information, please click HERE for a flyer or click the button below to register for the conference.

Written by Cliff Kincaid

Billionaire George Soros was named “Philanthropist of the Year” by Inside Philanthropy magazine for his “…fight for academic freedom in Central Europe, and his resistance to the rising tide of authoritarianism worldwide.”  The former is a reference to gender studies programs and the latter concerns his ongoing campaign to undermine existing governments, causing chaos that makes more money for hedge fund currency manipulators and short-sellers like himself.

In the United States, he is best known for almost single-handedly creating a narco-nation through legalization of marijuana, causing human suffering and environmental devastation on a scale most people do not yet comprehend.

With the nation focused on the opioid danger, and President Donald J. Trump accusing China of pumping fentanyl into the veins of American victims through Mexico, the marijuana problem has gotten less attention. Indeed, liberal politicians and prosecutors, some of them getting Soros money, are treating the dope as a harmless substance and even a money-maker for local and state governments.

For one of the most sensational examples of a notorious pothead, consider Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL star who became a convicted killer and then killed himself in prison. The subject of a new Netflix series, “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez,” he was a chronic marijuana user throughout college and his NFL career who experienced brain damage from the drug. The case proves a direct link between marijuana, mental illness, and violence.

In California, legal dope was supposed to displace illegal dope. But illicit cannabis cultivation sites are proliferating, offering a cheaper product than the government-approved variety. The Siskiyou County (California) Board of Supervisors voted on a new Declaration of Local Emergency that refers to illegal growers being responsible for “hundreds of pervasive fire hazards, insecticides, pesticides, rodenticides, fertilizers, trash, and unsanitary conditions which severely impact health, safety and quality of life for countless county residents…”

It’s in Barack Hussein Obama’s state of Illinois that we see some of the recent damage being done.

Illinois last year became the first state to legalize the marijuana business through legislation rather than by referendum and placing excise and sales taxes on the “product.” We can already see the predictable result — marijuana-related emergency room visits are on the rise. The local ABC-TV station in Chicago quotes doctors as saying the most common symptoms of the new potheads in Illinois are restlessness, heart palpitations and anxiety, but that “In some cases we are seeing full on psychosis, agitation, hallucinations.”

Incredibly, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton was one of the first in line to purchase the dope. She bought clementine-flavored marijuana edible gummies and paid with cash. The scene was captured by CNN as she was pictured among hundreds of early-morning customers at a Chicago marijuana dispensary.  She probably went to the front of the line, but some people waited hours in order to buy their “recreational marijuana” and get “high.”

David E. Smith of the Illinois Family Institute comments, “Not only have lawmakers failed to do their due diligence before passing this marijuana law, but they also failed to heed the compelling research that indicates how regular use of marijuana affects young people, including an increased risk of psychiatric illnesses and a permanent loss of IQ points.”

In fact, this is the plan – dumb people down so they ruin their lives and then have to be dependent on the state for the rest of their lives. The potheads are fast becoming an important new constituency for the socialist-minded.

Before they actually navigate their way to the polls, they can relieve their pain by employing another “hemp” product – CBD or cannabidiol.  CBD is being hawked all over, even on the Rush Limbaugh show, and is being advertised as a treatment for “muscle soreness” and “everyday discomfort.” But many complaints have been filed with the FDA over the false medical claims made about CBD.

Dr. Kenneth Finn comments, “These products are everywhere, but there is little scientific evidence to support the hype that surrounds them.” He says unregulated CBD products hitting the market might be contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, insecticides, molds, E. coli, or fungus.

Official dope distribution is supposed to fill a financial gap. In Illinois, the sixth-biggest state, by population, Politico reporter Theodoric Meyer reports that it has seen its credit rating cut to near-junk status in the decade since the financial crisis. “Its bonds are now considered as risky as those of Russia and Romania,” he notes. “Its pension system is in worse shape than that of almost any other state.”

Writers Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner note that the population of Illinois dropped by 100,000 people between 2010 and 2018 and few of the state’s counties have been spared. “That means that 93 of the state’s 102 counties have shrunk since 2010,” they note. Adam Schuster, Director of Budget and Tax Research at the group, Illinois Policy, reports that 36 percent of the money the state allocates to education will be diverted away from teachers and students to meet required pension payments for retirees.

Former Illinois pension chief Marc Levine is quoted as saying a federal bailout may be required, making this a matter affecting all taxpayers, not just the saps remaining in Illinois.

The “progressive” politicians have virtually bankrupted the state, forcing thousands to flee, and have turned to the cruel exploitation of potheads as a sure-fire money-maker to stave off the final countdown to fiscal oblivion. But legalized dope means more wards of the state who need government help.

Now this is going national. “Once a politically dangerous subject,” notes Trevor Hughes of USA Today, “legal marijuana has become something of a de facto platform plank for the 2020 Democratic candidates: All support either legalizing or decriminalizing its use, and the differences lie in how far the candidates are willing to take it.”

Since 22.2 million people have used marijuana in the past month, this is fertile ground for votes. In a bid for votes, candidate Pete Buttigieg actually toured a “cannabis dispensary” in Las Vegas while commenting that he smoked dope a “handful of times a long time ago.”

President Trump, on the other hand, can just say no. He lost his brother to alcoholism and should consider speaking out against the Soros-funded marijuana craze before more lives are ruined and lost. His Surgeon General, Vice Adm. Jerome M. Adams, is already speaking out about the health risks of marijuana use. He needs the backing of his president.

Roger Morgan, author of Soros: The Drug Lord. Pricking the Bubble of American Supremacy, notes the elevated levels of mental illness, addiction, suicides, traffic deaths and the unseen mental and physical defects to babies and future generations from the use of marijuana and other mind-altering drugs.  He adds, “America can never be great again if a major percentage of its young people are brain damaged, mentally ill, addicted or dead.”​

This article was originally published at USASurvival.org. Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org

I’d like to offer a few words about the separation of church and state—a concept long abused by “progressives.”

The religion clauses of the First Amendment were intended to protect religion from the intrusive power of the state, not the reverse. The Establishment Clause states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” That does not mean religious convictions are prohibited from informing political values and decisions. To expect or demand that political decisions be divorced from personal religious beliefs is an untenable, unconscionable breach of the intent of the First Amendment which also includes the oft-neglected Free Exercise Clause which states that “Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.”

People from diverse faith traditions and no faith could all arrive at the same position on a particular public policy. For example, although Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Baptists, and atheists may all oppose abortion because they value human life, the reasons (or motives) for that valuation of life differ.

If there is a secular purpose for a law (i.e., to protect incipient human life), then voting for it—even for religious reasons—does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The source or motives of the various parties’ desires to protect incipient life are not the concern of the government. It would be not only absurd but also unethical for the government to try to ascertain the motives or beliefs behind anyone’s opposition to abortion and equally unethical for the government to assert that only those who have no religious faith may vote on abortion laws. Such an assertion would most assuredly violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Legal theorist Michael Perry explains that,

forcing religious arguments to be restated in other terms asks a citizen to ‘bracket’ religious convictions from the rest of her personality, essentially demanding that she split off a part of her self . . . [T]o bracket [religious convictions] would be to bracket—indeed, to annihilate—herself. And doing that would preclude her—the particular person she is—from engaging in moral discourse with other members of society.

To paraphrase First Things founder, Richard John Neuhaus, that which is political is moral and that which is moral, for religious people, is religious. It is no less legitimate to have political decisions shaped by religion than by psychology, philosophy, or self-serving personal desire.

If allowing religious beliefs to shape political decisions did represent a violation of the Establishment Clause and an inappropriate commingling of religion and government, then American history is rife with egregiously unconstitutional actions, for religious convictions have impelled some of our most significant social, political, and legal changes including the abolition of slavery, antiwar movements, opposition to capital punishment, and the passage of civil rights legislation.

“Progressives” seem to have no objection to people of faith participating in the democratic process so long as their views comport with “progressive” positions. “Progressives” never cry foul when Quakers or Catholics oppose war because of their religious convictions, and “progressives” do not object that Catholic opposition to the death penalty represents a violation of the separation of church and state. When conservative people of faith participate in the political process, however, suddenly the Establishment Clause has been violated.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is replete with references to his Christian faith which informed his belief about the inherent dignity, value, and rights of African Americans, a belief which he lost his life to see enshrined in law. He wrote what would now certainly generate howls of opposition if expressed by a conservative:

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

The same people who argue vociferously against the presence of religiously informed political decisions that are conservative in nature are curiously silent with regard to those Catholics, Jews, United Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Unitarians, and Episcopalians who were politically active in the movement to effect speech codes or revolutionize marital laws. One could argue that those who attend houses of worship that support legalized same-sex unions are similarly attempting to enshrine in law their religious beliefs.

When politicians like presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, former president Barack Obama, and Senator Rob Portman or celebrities like Jason Collins cite their Christian beliefs as the justification for their support for the redefinition of marriage, or fiscal policies, no one in the press or homosexual community accuses them of violating the separation of church and state.

Neuhaus argues persuasively in his book The Naked Public Square that a polity denuded of religion will be clothed soon enough in some other system that functions as religion by providing “normative ethics.” A democratic republic cannot exist without objective normative ethics that render legitimate the delimitation or circumscription of individual rights.

Historically, the sources of the absolute, transcendent, objective, universal truths that render legitimate our legal and judicial systems have been “the institutions of religion that make claims of ultimate or transcendent meaning.” Neuhaus explains that this “does not represent an imposition of the private into the public spheres, but rather an expansion or transformation or recollection of what is public.” He argues that when religion is utterly privatized and eliminated as a “source or transcendence that gives legitimate and juridical direction and form, something else will necessarily fill the void, and that force will be the state.”

If the body politic claims that there are no absolutes or delegitimizes religion as an arbiter of right and wrong, or good and evil, then the state will fill the vacuum, relativizing all values, and rendering this relativization absolute. Many would argue that there is little indication that society has heeded Neuhaus’ warning about the political implications of society’s rejection of religiously derived transcendent truths. And so, the coercive power of the state increasingly fills the space vacated by religious institutions.

Lawmaking absent an understanding that there exist moral truths that are objective and universal would represent an illegitimate and hubristic arrogation of power by the state. Acknowledging that there is objective truth regarding what is right and wrong and that it is universal and knowable is essential to democratic institutions. What sense does outrage at human rights violations make if we assert there are no universal, transcendent, eternal, objective truths? And if we agree that these truths exist and that they transcend the subjective opinions of any particular individual, then what is their source other than a supernatural, eternal, transcendent being?

Some argue that reason alone is sufficient to serve as the objective source of truth, but a recollection of Hitler’s eugenic reasoning reveals the problem with reliance solely on man’s reason. Claims of unalienable, self-evident rights, as our founding fathers understood them, both presume and require for justification, the existence of God. Robert L. Toms wrote that it was this understanding that generated “the concept that the state, the monarch, the dictator, the tribal leader, was no longer a deity to be obeyed unquestionably.” And the state neither creates ex nihilo nor confers our fundamental rights but, rather, provides legal protection for extant rights.

Charges of violating the separation of church and state are selectively hurled. Remember that next time a lefty tells you your political views must be severed from your religious views.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/cCHristians_church-and-state_audio.mp3

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It’s always nice to be able to point to the polls when they support your position. But polling, when done accurately, does nothing more than tell you what other people think. And just because you have the majority on your side doesn’t mean you are right. In fact, when it comes to morality, the majority is often at odds with the Bible, which sets the standard of morality for practicing Christians.

But this should come as no surprise.

After all, Jesus famously said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14).

As the related saying goes, the road to destruction is broad.

Ironically, a Gallup article from June, 2018 indicated that, “Forty-nine percent of Americans say the state of moral values in the U.S. is ‘poor’ — the highest percentage in Gallup’s trend on this measure since its inception in 2002. Meanwhile, 37 percent of U.S. adults say moral values are ‘only fair,’ and 14 percent say they are ‘excellent’ or ‘good.’”

So, almost half of the country thinks that the moral values of the country are “poor,” leading to an obvious question: Are we right about our morals being wrong? If so, then why are so many of us immoral?

Gallup reported in May of this year that, “A majority of Americans (63 percent) continue to say same-sex “marriage” should be legal, on par with the 64 percent to 67 percent Gallup has recorded since 2017.”

As recently as 1996, however, only 27 percent of Americans believed same-sex “marriage” should be legal.

As for same-sex relationships in general (outside of marriage), Gallup reports that in 1987, 57 percent of Americans said that consenting, adult relationships between gays or lesbians should not be legal while only 32 percent said they should be legal. By 2019, those numbers had more than flipped, with only 26 percent saying those relationships should not be illegal and 73 percent saying they should.

The Gallup chart is quite graphic, with the numbers crisscrossing somewhat through 2004 and then becoming an ever-widening gap from roughly 2005.

Are these numbers significant? Absolutely.

Do they point to major social shifts? Obviously, they do.

Are they great news for LGBT activists? Without a doubt.

Do they prove anything when it comes to determining what is moral? No, they do not.

During the time period from 2003 to 2017, support for polygamy in America rose from 7 percent to 17 percent, an even more dramatic shift from a statistical point of view. And it’s up to 18 percent in 2019.

Gallup noted that this “may simply be the result of the broader leftward shift on moral issues Americans have exhibited in recent years. Or, as conservative columnist Ross Douthat notes in his New York Times blog, ‘Polygamy is bobbing forward in social liberalism’s wake …’ To Douthat and other social conservatives, warming attitudes toward polygamy is a logical consequence of changing social norms — that values underpinning social liberalism offer ‘no compelling grounds for limiting the number of people who might wish to marry.’”

Gallup also observed that, “It is certainly true that moral perceptions have significantly, fundamentally changed on a number of social issues or behaviors since 2001 — most notably, gay/lesbian relations, having a baby outside of wedlock, sex between unmarried men and women, and divorce.”

Interestingly, Gallup also noted that there were social reasons that help to explain some of this larger leftward shift (including the rise in divorce and changes in laws; another obvious reason is that people have friends and family members who identify as gay or lesbian).

In contrast, “there is little reason to believe that Americans are more likely to know or be polygamists now than at any other time in the past. But there is one way Americans may feel more familiar with or sympathetic to polygamy: television.”

Written by Peter Heck

Let’s stop the pretense. Let’s break down the façade. Let’s retire the con.

Whatever it once was, the current LGBT political lobby has nothing to do with equal rights, has nothing to do with basic legal protections, and has nothing to do with the advancement and normalization of so-called “sexual minorities.” Instead, it has devolved into a fanatical fascist sect intent on wielding the gun of government to compel the cultural adulation and glorification of every aspect of their lives.

Any reticence and you will be bullied. Any resistance and you will be harassed. Any refusal and you will be punished.

Even if you’re gay.

Anyone who reads my work knows that I’m not one to defend South Bend Mayor and Democrat presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg. His politics are regrettable, and his galling effort to co-opt the language of Christianity to feign justification for those politics is repugnant.

Still, it’s merely a statement of obvious fact that his ascension to the presidency would represent a jaw-dropping affirmation of gay normalization and acceptance in mainstream American society. Anyone whose primary motivation was the advancement of the LGBT experience would be elated at such a prospect. Pete Buttigieg, in the realest sense, is the embodiment of everything such a person could desire: he is young, in a committed gay marriage, articulate, is disarming and mild-mannered, boasting a high quotient of electability.

But he’s not gay enough.

Don’t misunderstand – no one is accusing Mayor Pete of being a closet heterosexual. But remember, this modern LGBT political movement, one that liberal comedian Bill Maher once dubbed the “gay mafia,” isn’t impressed that a person checks even a majority of the boxes. You’re either all-in with their demands, or you’re out. That’s why this just happened:

2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was rebuked by LGBT advocates after a two-year-old photo surfaced of the South Bend mayor volunteering as a Salvation Army Christmas Kettle bell-ringer to collect money for the needy.

The LGBT website Out published the photo Tuesday, along with some angry reactions.

And those angry reactions spanned anywhere from “you ought to be ashamed of yourself” to “you’re dead to me.” So here you have an absolutely viable, openly gay presidential candidate, and yet the gay political lobby wants to destroy him because he doesn’t hate the Salvation Army enough? That’s crazy. Scary crazy, to be precise.

It defies logic until you understand that what drives this movement is not tolerance. It’s hate. Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan, a gay man who married his male partner over a decade ago, put it succinctly:

There’s no doubting the fact that Sullivan is right. And here’s why that should be so alarming to the sane among us. In 1932, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini outlined his doctrine of fascism, stating,

“The Fascist conception of the state is all-embracing; outside of it, no human or spiritual values can exist…the Fascist State…interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.”

In modern parlance that means they will determine where you can eat a chicken sandwich, what companies you’re allowed to patronize, whom you’re allowed to help raise money for, and whom you’re not allowed to associate with, even in goodwill. It means that there is no more goodwill.

In its place there is only force and intimidation, and a nefarious, painfully transparent attempt to harness the power of the state to demand we all think, act and believe like them. Even if, as in the case of Pete Buttigieg, we literally are them.

This article was originally published at Disrn.com.

You’ll definitely want to save the date for the next IFI Fall Banquet: Friday, November 1st. This year our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Decision Magazine, the “Evangelical Voice for Today,” which features solid scriptural teaching as well as cutting-edge stories about issues and events in today’s culture, from a biblical worldview.

Franklin Graham is recognized as one of our nation’s most outspoken Christian leaders who has consistently defended Judeo-Christian values, America’s religious liberties, and the importance of the traditional family as indispensable for a stable society. Rev. Graham has also continuously worked to defend the right to life for all Americans, including the unborn. And through Samaritan’s Purse, he has helped to meet the needs of poor, sick, and suffering people around the world.

As a speaker and author, Rev. Graham regularly addresses current moral and social issues, calling Christians to stand for biblical values and challenging them to make a difference in the world for the sake of the gospel. Recently, he used his Twitter platform to respond to South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s claim that his Episcopalian religion and homosexuality is not a conflict of identities, saying:

Late last year, Rev. Graham also weighed in on the Satanic Temple sculpture that was on display in the Illinois Capitol Rotunda, next to the Christmas tree and near the Nativity Scene and Menorah. According to an NPR article, this display was “a gift from the Chicago branch of The Satanic Temple.” The article reports that this sculpture was called “Snaketivity” and was accompanied by a sign that proclaimed, “Knowledge Is The Greatest Gift.” Rev. Graham sent out a tweet saying that he agreed with Illinois Family Action’s tweet on the controversy, saying

Save the Date!

You don’t want to miss this great opportunity to hear from this much loved Christian leader at the biggest annual pro-family gathering in Illinois!

More details will follow, and as an important subscriber to Illinois Family Institute, we don’t want you to miss the chance to attend what we expect to be a powerful evening. 

Thank you for your ongoing support of the work and ministry of IFI. We sincerely hope to see you at the Tinley Park Convention Center on November 1st!

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Event Details:

Illinois Family Institute
Faith, Family and Freedom Banquet

Friday, November 1, 2019
Tinley Park Convention Center

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