First, they came for the George Washington mural in a school in San Francisco—because our first president had been a slaveowner. Later they came for his name on the same school, and as of last count, the name survived.

Then, they came for the statues of the father of our country during the summer of statue-toppling.

Now, the left wants to strip his name from his eponymous university.

Commentator Nick Nolte (not the actor) notes that The Washington Post, named after you-know-who, has published the opinion of a student at George Washington University, which is in the city of you-know-who, District of Columbia.

Nolte sums up the student’s article thusly: “This university is racist, and George Washington was racist, and while I didn’t find this offensive enough to pass up attending school here, harrumph, harrumph, harrumph, half-truth, half-truth, half-truth, I’m so virtuous, I’m so virtuous, I’m so virtuous…”

That student even wants Winston Churchill’s name removed from the library.

This is just another indication of how the left is at war with Western Civilization. If we continue down this path, there would be virtually nothing left of the great traditions of freedom and flourishing that the West has enjoyed, primarily because of our Judeo-Christian tradition.

Was George Washington a hero or a villain? Well, consider this. William Wilberforce was often called “The George Washington of Humanity.”

Alas, many don’t know who Wilberforce was. But he was a committed Christian statesman who served as a long-time Member of Parliament. With a team of colleagues and friends, he bitterly fought against slavery in the British Empire—and succeeded.

It took him more than half a century to accomplish this. And he did it in two stages. First, he fought against the slave trade itself. This stopped British ships from going to Africa, paying for slaves from Muslim slave-traders, who got them from other conquering African tribes.

Step one stopped the bleeding. Although they get virtually no credit for it, the founding fathers of America beat Britain in passing a law to stop the importation of slaves. As part of the original Constitution, they stipulated that in 20 years (1808) from the document being ratified (1788), there would be no more importation of slaves into the United States.

Step two in Wilberforce’s Christian crusade was to get all the slaves in the British Empire to be freed. He retired from Parliament in 1825, but others kept his crusade going through completion. Wilberforce received the news of the complete abolition of slavery in the British Empire on his deathbed in 1833.

Historian, retired professor, and bestselling author Dr. Paul L. Maier noted in our D. James Kennedy Ministries television special, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? that Wilberforce’s successful crusade helped ultimately lead to the end of slavery in America.

Maier says, “And then we also in our country on the basis of Christian principles, Abraham Lincoln and others, were able to do the same thing.”

William Wilberforce was one of history’s greatest heroes. And, again, this humanitarian leader was called “the George Washington of Humanity.”

What does that say about George Washington? That speaks volumes of our first president. He helped give birth to a nation that stands for freedom, under God. The Constitution he helped create had within it the seeds to one day overthrow the evil of slavery. And it happened.

At the cost of the lives of 700,000 men, but it happened.

Keep in mind a few facts about the father of our country. Washington voluntarily served his country when called on, relying on God to help him throughout.

Dr. Peter Lillback and I wrote a book many years ago about the faith of our first president, George Washington’s Sacred Fire.

 Lillback, the founding president of Providence Forum (for which I now serve as executive director), notes that Washington was a fourth-generation Virginia gentleman farmer. Slavery was built into that system. Washington inherited slaves by birth and later by marriage. When he died, Washington freed his slaves and made provision for them. He broke the cycle.

Both Washington and Wilberforce saw Jesus Christ as the ultimate hero. George Washington said in a famous letter that what America needs most is to imitate Jesus, “the Divine Author of our blessed Religion.” If we don’t, he warned, we can never hope to be a “happy nation.”

The Marxist iconoclasts of today, such as the triggered student at George Washington University, or the editors at The Washington Post, who promulgated such ideas to a wider audience, have no appreciation for the sacrificial contributions of those who went before us, that we might be free.

First, they came to remove Washington murals, then topple his statues. Now they want to rename the university named in his honor. What’s next? A call to rename the capital city?

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

November 11th marked the 400th anniversary of the signing of the Mayflower Compact. In the words of History.com, the Mayflower Compact was “the first document to establish self-government in the New World.”

Do you think the Pilgrims knew how significant that moment was? Of course not. Fully appreciating that moment would have been impossible for them because they didn’t know what the future held. How could they have known they were creating the first document of self-government in what would become a centuries-long tradition?

Whether they felt particularly noble or significant as they wrote and signed the Compact, I don’t know. Perhaps they did, or perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they were simply meeting the need of the moment. They could envision chaos if they didn’t take the necessary steps to prevent it, so they took action. They didn’t have the benefit of hindsight to see the significance of their actions and the place they were filling in history.

Could it be that some of us are filling a similar place in history without realizing it?

We live in a moment of great change in our culture. For those of us who call ourselves Bible-believing Christians, many of the changes are concerning and troubling. As a father of young children, I feel some trepidation when I consider the kind of world my children are growing up in. What challenges—even persecutions—might they face in their lifetimes?

The truth is, I don’t know. But what I do know is that our culture desperately needs parents who are willing to do what it takes to raise the next generation of Christ-followers. And that’s what I meant when I asked a moment ago if some of us are filling a radically important place in history without realizing it.

If our nation is to have a voice of truth in the future, someone needs to raise the children who can grow up to be those voices. Someone needs to teach, train, disciple, and equip those voices. If we fail to do so, I fear the future of our country will be even darker than it is now.

Just as the Pilgrims saw necessity, so do we. We see trouble on the horizon if we fail to meet this desperate need of the moment.

Also like the Pilgrims, our efforts may not feel particularly historic or heroic in the moment. We are, after all, just doing what needs to be done, often in the most mundane and ordinary of ways.

But also like the Pilgrims, our efforts may very well reverberate down through history. None of us as parents knows what our children will become. Could one of my children—or yours—be the next great evangelist who wins thousands to Christ? Or the William Wilberforce of our age who leads the fight to finally rid our nation of a great moral evil? Or a business titan who donates vast sums to the cause of Christ? Any of these are possible. I don’t know what my kids will become, and neither do you. Someone is raising the next generation of leaders and truth-tellers. Why not you and me?

And the fact is, even if my children don’t grow up to change the world on their own, our nation desperately needs an army of young people who grow up to be the godly, decent, ordinary, hardworking foot soldiers for the cause of Christ scattered throughout neighborhoods, factories, offices, and communities all across America.

The Mayflower Compact begins with the stirring words, “In the name of God, Amen.” Establishing a government was a good and godly task. It could be done in the name of God.

And so lastly, like the Pilgrims, raising our children to be the godly leaders and citizens of tomorrow is an endeavor we can undertake “in the name of God.” This is holy work. It’s vital work. It’s God-mandated and God-blessed work.

Let’s apply ourselves to this work with diligence. I know we won’t be perfect. We’ll fail at times. But with God’s help, let’s strive to raise a generation of young people who can go into the future prepared and equipped to be leaders, truth-tellers, and most of all, Christ-followers in a culture that has lost its way.

In the name of God, Amen.

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In Chicago Public Schools, captive students are being indoctrinated to believe that one of the very first societies in the world to end slavery was actually a monster defined by the evils of slavery — almost as if this monstrous nation had invented it.

This narrative is peddled despite the fact that the nation in question sacrificed hundreds of thousands of its finest men to eradicate slavery — not only ending it domestically, but eventually, worldwide, too.

And this slanderous lie is peddled despite the fact that institution of slavery has been ubiquitous throughout human history — at least until America and the Christian West put an end to it.

Indeed, in the African nation of Mauritania, slavery did not even become a crime until 2007, and the institution remains firmly entrenched there, as it does across broad swaths of Africa and the Middle East.

But supposedly, it’s America that is evil.

Welcome to the upside world of America’s “progressives” — the post-modernist absurdity where good is evil, evil is good, up is down, and truth does not even really exist.

During a recent visit to Chicago, self-styled “journalist” Nikole Hannah-Jones, a fringe left-wing race-monger, argued that the real history of America begins not with the Pilgrims in 1620, but with the almost unknown arrival of a slave ship the year before.

“It is a moment that is really at the basis for so much of American life, the very definition of American freedom, our culture, our politics,” claimed Hannah-Jones, founder of the so-called “1619 Project” and a prominent propagandist for the racist New York Times.

This absurd narrative has now been embedded into government schools in Chicago, with Hannah-Jones giving a “shout out” to CPS CEO Janice Jackson for forcing it on the child inmates under her control.

During an interview with the tax-funded “Chicago Tonight” show on WTTW, Hannah-Jones admitted that this is a “radical re-framing” of history.

Of course, it is also an absurd and shameful re-writing of history that turns reality upside down and deliberately misleads innocent children.

But in Chicago and beyond, radical anti-American activists have been working for decades to completely re-write U.S. history, literally flipping reality on its head for the purpose of undermining liberty and the United States.

In reality, America is a unique and special nation — perhaps the first to be founded on the biblical principles brought over by the Pilgrims.

This would lead directly to the creation of the first self-governing Godly republic since ancient Israel.

And eventually, this would lead to the ending of legal slavery worldwide and the near-universal acceptance of what America’s Founding Fathers said in the Declaration of Independence was a “self-evident” truth: the idea that “all men are created equal.”

Like virtually every society throughout all of human history, some Americans originally tolerated slavery.

However, it was because of America’s founding, and the biblical principles and worldview upon which it was founded, that this ubiquitous scourge was practically eradicated from the face of the Earth, beginning in the Christian West and then slowly spreading around the globe.

Before William Wilberforce in Britain would use God’s Word to explain why slavery was evil in the sight of God, many of America’s Founding Fathers were plotting to systematically end slavery for the first time in human history.

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, for instance, was one of the original and most fervent anti-slavery crusaders to ever walk on the planet up until that time.

Calling slavery a “national evil” and blasting the slave trade as “criminal conduct” and a “violation of the laws of humanity,” Madison demanded in 1810 that Congress devise “further means of suppressing the evil.”

This “1619 Project,” though, wants Americans — and especially children in government schools who don’t know any better — to believe that the great Christians who made this all possible are actually the culprits for the evils they helped eradicate.

Naturally, the half-baked project is being spearheaded by the New York Times.

Ironically, though, the Times has a long and sordid history of this sort of racism and deadly dishonesty.

In 2018, for instance, the Times hired virulent racist Sarah Jeong to serve on its editorial board. Among other outrages, Jeong admitted it was “kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.” She also argued that “white people” are “only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.” The raw, seething hatred shocked America, but the Times saw no problem with it.

Before that, Times “journalist” and Soviet apologist Walter Duranty helped the mass-murdering Bolshevik regime conceal its ghastly genocide of Ukrainian people via deliberate starvation. An estimated 10 million people were murdered while Duranty deceived Americans into believing everything was just fine.

Another Times “journalist,” Herbert Matthews, marketed mass-murdering communist butcher Fidel Castro to America as an “anti-Communist” so-called “freedom fighter,” even referring to him as the “George Washington” of Cuba. As a result, the nation of Cuba was enslaved and destroyed.

It is bad enough that a dying newspaper would peddle this sort of disgusting and dishonest propaganda to gullible “progressive” adults who pay to read that garbage.

But forcing these twisted lies on captive school children at taxpayer expense should be considered a crime. It is time for the people of Illinois to speak out.

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.

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

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

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

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

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Could a contrast between the American Revolution and the French Revolution be relevant to today’s conflicts? I think so. The attempt to demote historic icons, like George Washington, is a case in point.

George Washington grew up as a gentleman farmer in Virginia and was a fourth generation slave-owner. But by the end of his life, he had decided slavery was immoral and so at his death, he freed his slaves and made provision for them.

But in our day—where the alleged “right to not be offended” often seems to trump the constitutional right to free speech—some are calling for images of George Washington to be torn down, like statues of Confederates.

The dailywire.com (5/2/19) reports on how “George Washington High School” in Northern California is contemplating tearing down two 1930’s panels featuring George Washington because the pair of murals allegedly “traumatizes students and community members.”

This is in San Francisco, so the outcome seems likely.

How long will our historical iconoclasm last? The cultural Marxists are working overtime to cut Americans off from our history.

I believe that despite his flaws, including being a slave-owner, there are many heroic aspects of our first president. Dr. Peter Lillback and I wrote, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, which puts all this in context. Recently we discussed Washington and slavery.

Our founders fought the American Revolution, led by Washington, so that we could enjoy our God-given rights. Though slow in coming, recognition of those God-given rights eventually gave the slaves their freedom. What is happening in the culture wars today is a revival of the French Revolution, which waged war against God.

France in 1789 fought against injustice, even in the church; but their godless “cure” ended up being worse than the disease. The French Revolution was anti-God and pro-tyranny—leading to death in the streets. The American Revolution was pro-God and pro-freedom.

America’s founders mentioned God four times in the Declaration of Independence. They identified King George III’s tyranny as illegitimate—because he was violating our God-given rights. The founders, with a firm reliance on the Lord, laid down “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” in support for their declaration as a new nation.

When George Washington first read the Declaration to his troops, one of his first acts was to hire Christian chaplains—systematically, throughout the army. He felt that if we were to win this war, it would only be with God’s help.

And he and the other colonists felt that God did help. To paraphrase Washington in his First Inaugural Address, no people should be more grateful to the Lord than we Americans because God aided us at every step to become an independent nation.

Consider a few further contrasts between the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Our framers signed the Constitution in “the year of our Lord” 1787. The French Revolutionaries got rid of the Christian calendar; and so they declared 1791 as Year 1 of their new non-Christian calendar.

The French Revolutionaries desecrated Notre Dame Cathedral, disallowing Christian worship there and placed a half-naked woman on the altar, calling her “Reason,” whom they worshiped.

In contrast, our founders hired Christian chaplains for the military and also for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Since there weren’t enough church buildings in Washington, D. C., they held Christian worship services in the U.S. Capitol building. Presidents Jefferson and Madison attended those services.

The French Revolution eventually consumed its own. Since then, France has had 17 different governments, while the U.S. still lives under one—the U.S. Constitution.

I predict that today’s social justice warriors, who are consuming our past heroes, will one day be consumed themselves by future revolutionaries. Future generations could look back at us and say things like: “You had 4D sonograms documenting the humanity of the unborn and yet you allowed millions of abortions on demand?” or “Science has documented genuine differences between men and women, yet you allowed boys who claimed to be girls to compete and dominate in sports, winning valuable scholarships?”

Every generation has its flaws and blind spots. Our generation has yet to recognize its own.

Slavery was evil. Thank God for those strong Christians who defeated it. Thank God for William Wilberforce’s Christian anti-slavery crusade, which took him about five decades to complete. That crusade inspired abolition here in America. Interestingly, in his day, Wilberforce was sometimes called “the George Washington of Humanity.” Both men worked hard to liberate others.

Slavery has plagued humanity from the beginning of time and can even be found in some places today, places where the gospel of Christ has no sway.

Too bad the children of the French Revolution are rising up today to cut us off from our past heroes. There is a reason Washington continues to be a hero to millions. Enough with the historical revisionism.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

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

I recently posted this on my personal Facebook page:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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When you look at the history of Christianity in the West, it is largely defined (despite popular anti-Christian myth to the contrary) by Christians promoting social justice and charity for the poor and underprivileged. No other social group has been responsible for more positive social reform and improvements for the underprivileged, sick and downtrodden than Christians.

In early 19^th century, William Wilberforce, a Bible-believing Christian, campaigned his entire political career in the British Parliament for the abolition of slavery. Christian groups have founded scores of hospitals and medical clinics. According to the Catholic News Service, over 117,000 Catholic health care facilities exist around the world today, including hospitals, clinics and orphanages.

The abolitionist movement and the underground railroad were largely Christian movements. Quakers, Anabaptists and many ministers called for abolition and helped protect slaves as they made their way to Canada.

Christianity Supports the Common Good

Researchers who study philanthropy tell us: “Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household. There are many reasons for this American distinction. Foremost is the fact that ours is the most religious nation in the industrial world. Religion motivates giving more than any other factor.”[i]

Consider the amazing history of the humanitarian “Salvation Army” around the world since 1865. They have reached millions and millions with practical help and the message of the Gospel. Their mission statement is: “The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.” With a “heart to God, and a hand to man,” they model what true Christians have always sought to do throughout all time: Preach the Gospel and demonstrate God’s love to others.

One of the most revered Reformed American preachers of all time, Jonathan Edwards (a staunch theological conservative), advocated for radical, “liberal” generosity:

“It is the duty of the people of God to give bountifully for the aforesaid purpose. It is commanded once and again in the text, ‘Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy poor brother.’ Merely to give something is not sufficient. It answers not the rule, nor comes up to the holy command of God. But we must open our hand wide. What we give, considering our neighbor’s (needs), and our ability, should be such as may be called a liberal gift.”[ii]

What is Social Justice Theology?

With this background, it may surprise some when some Evangelicals refuse to support a popular fad within liberal church circles called, “Social Justice Theology.”

As with most things, it’s unfair to say that a complex ideology can be described in one mere sound-bite. However, in a nutshell, the primary objection that conservative Christians have with Social Justice Warriors (SJW) is their insistence that we should help people…with other people’s money! This is where the new postmodern, liberal version of Christianity parts from the historic Christian faith and practice.

Jesus taught his disciples to give generously, of their OWN money to the poor. SJW’s look to the civil government as the great savior of society. They advocate for socialistic programs that promote a forced redistribution of wealth through mandatory taxation and government-controlled welfare programs. It’s quite easy to be generous with money taken by force from others. The problem is, that isn’t truly loving.

Socialism is Not Love or Justice

Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once famously quipped:

“Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.”[iii]

In the end, Socialism always results in people losing their freedoms, as the government increasingly takes control of the mean of production and distribution. Ronald Reagan once said (speaking of the hip new packaging of Socialism as a social kindness), “Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx — first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a Government being Big Brother to us all. Hitler called his ‘State Socialism’ and way before him it was ‘benevolent monarchy.’”[iv]

If you want to know where this “benevolence” leads, it ends up with all citizens (except those in elite political — and corrupt economic — power), losing their liberty. History has played that story out again and again.

As true Conservatives, our desire is to see true justice and true charity. Neither of these thrive when people have their liberties decreased through an ever-expanding government monopoly. Nor does it thrive through the financial plundering (and soon disappearance) of the working middle class (because of excessive taxation for government welfare programs).

As Christians, we are for the Biblical and historic Christian church’s version of social justice (where people demonstrate kindness from uncoerced hearts). We are not for the new Neo-Marxist version of force and political aggression. The new Social Justice is simply Socialism, disguised under a thin “Christian” veneer. Advocates of true social justice will want nothing to do with it.

(For more study on this topic, I will refer you to the excellent essay, “Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus A Socialist?” by Lawrence W. Reed.)

[i] https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics/who-gives

[ii] http://www.biblebb.com/files/edwards/charity.htm

[iii] https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102953

[iv] The New York Times (27 October 1984)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

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De-Pornifying Culture

Looking at culture, it’s tempting to give up in despair. As the dad of little girls, for example, when I see the relentless objectification of women by celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, I’m tempted to think that any attempt in what William Wilberforce called a “reformation of manners” is futile. It seems that instead, in the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, we have to “define deviance down.”

But lately, there have been encouraging signs. It’s too soon to call it a “reformation of manners” but a backlash to what one recent author called our cultural vulgarity is already asserting itself—not via the boycotts of angry culture warriors but by some of the unlikeliest cultural allies in politics, the media, and the music industry. For example, several celebrities have spoken out who’ve been repulsed by the shameless pornification of “entertainers” such as Miley Cyrus.

Singer Sinead O’Connor warned her in a direct letter, “Nothing but harm will come in the long run from allowing yourself to be exploited…. It is absolutely NOT … an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued … more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent.”

And Joan Rivers said, “We get it: You’re no longer Hannah Montana … but could you do it with a little more grace?”

Media critics are also experiencing something of a moral gag reflex. Critic Lee Siegel of The Wall Street Journal, no prude himself, wonders how we became so coarse, in the process draining the mystery and pleasure right out of sex.

Feminist writer Naomi Wolf says that pornography is actually killing our desire for sex. Indeed, one study shows that couples may be having 20 percent less sex than they did ten years ago. With all the celebration of sex, I wonder why?

Jonah Goldberg writes, “Today, there’s nothing suggestive about Miley Cyrus. Nobody watching her twerk thinks, ‘I wonder what she’s getting at?’”

And writing for Glamour, a decidedly liberal magazine, television star Rashida Jones calls for a new conversation about the exploitation of Miley Cyrus: “This isn’t showing female sexuality; this is showing what it looks like when women sell sex,” Jones says. “Also, let’s be real. Every woman’s sexuality is different. Can all of us really be into stripper moves?”

And even some politicians are aggressively trying to draw some boundaries, at least overseas. A parliamentarian in Iceland, described as “ultra-liberal” by The Economist, is attempting to outlaw online pornography, believing it contributes to prostitution. British Prime Minister David Cameron hopes to change the default setting on online porn to blocked, unless a household specifically chooses to opt in. Porn in homes is, he says, “corroding childhood.” They’re seeing the consequences of bad ideas about sex in the real world.

Now, many of these new allies have little on which to base their revulsion of the new vulgarity other than their feelings. They know it’s destructive and hurtful to women, children, and families, but they don’t know why. And that’s where Christians can step in with a little gentle teaching about worldview. We might even be surprised at their response.

The culture’s growing acknowledgement of the hurtfulness of porn reveals, in the words of our friend J. Budziszewski, “The task of debate about morality is not so much teaching people what they have no clue about, but bringing to the surface the latent moral knowledge or suppressed moral knowledge that they have already.”

We can explain that our opposition to the pornification of culture is not because we’re afraid of sex, but because we abhor the consequences of its misuse for those created in the image of God. We can confidently tell them that the good gift of sex in marriage brings children, and intimacy, and allows us to learn something of the love of God for his people. The pornification of culture cheapens and obscures this valuable gift.

And that can help explain where all of this gagging has been coming from.

This article was originally posted at the BreakPoint.com website, and the audio broadcast originally aired January 7, 2014.

Written by Mike Riccardi

“Never, never will we desist till we . . . extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country.”

These words were spoken by William Wilberforce, the British politician who worked tirelessly to end the slave trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Though Wilberforce penned those words in reference to the centuries-old and universally-condemned practice of slavery, they very well could have been written today in reference to our own national “disgrace and dishonor.” I am speaking, of course, of abortion. The constitutionally protected right to murder one’s own unborn child is the preeminent social injustice of our day. Should the Lord Jesus choose to patiently prolong His coming, the history books will surely regard such a moral atrocity with the same shame and outrage that we experience as we read about the African slave trade or Hitler’s Holocaust, bewildered that such miscarriages of justice could have been allowed to persist in a civilized and educated society for so long. 

Forty-One Years Too Long

And yet it was on January 22, 1973 that the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Roe v. Wade that a child in the womb is not to be considered a human person. Since that time, over 50 million babies have died in America under the sanction of the law. Statistics tell us that one in three American women will have had an abortion by the age of 45. This illustrates that the right to take the life of a preborn child has been woven into the fabric of our cultural consciousness for an entire generation. It is now time for a new generation committed to the sanctity of life to stand against this injustice. As followers of Jesus Christ, we should be leading the way in defending the defenseless (cf. Prov 31:8) and in honoring the image of God in all people (Gen 1:27; cf.9:6).

Now, if you’re reading this and you name the name of Christ—if you profess to follow Jesus as the Savior from your sin and the Lord of your life—I pray that you have not been so deluded as to need convincing that abortion is evil, and that supporting it in any fashion is repugnant to the Father, grieves the Holy Spirit and is antithetical to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if I’m not going to spend this post arguing for that, what do I have to say to you?

Well, even we who abhor this wicked practice need to be encouraged and exhorted. See, some things are just so horrible that it becomes difficult for us to think about them for too long. It’s the same reason we turn our eyes away from a terrible car accident, or can’t dwell for too long on a particular national tragedy like 9/11. Our instinct of self-preservation can tempt us to avoid thinking about such things for the sake of our own emotional comfort or peace of mind. But this is where we need to be strengthened. As grisly as it is, Christians must be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 2:1), and face such a discomforting reality head-on. We need to feel the injustice of abortion and mourn the loss of life long enough that we might be stirred to action.

So What Can We Do?

Our first response to contemplating such an evil should be to pray that God would eradicate it. We must recognize first of all that this battle is not merely one of flesh and blood—of partisan politics or competing ideologies. There is no question that a nation whose feet are so swift to shed innocent blood—sacrificing our own children on the altar of convenience—is under the judgment of God, given over to the deluding influence of Satan. We must come to the realization that our struggle is against spiritual forces of wickedness (Eph 6:12), and, as a result, the weapons of our warfare must not be of the flesh, but must be divinely powerful (2 Cor 10:3–5). God alone is sufficient for such a task, and so it falls to us to pray that He would mercifully change the hearts of a nation who calls evil good and good evil (cf. Isa 5:20).

Secondly, we can support our local pregnancy resource centers. In his book, Answering the Call, Pastor John Ensor writes, “In practice, the best way to bring this winsome invitation to abortion-vulnerable women and couples in our neighborhoods is to partner with local pregnancy help ministries.” These pregnancy centers often offer free services and literature, and usually provide ultrasound free of charge. When an abortion-minded woman is presented with ultrasound imaging of the life growing inside of her, it becomes much less likely for her to follow through with ending their pregnancy. Our church comes alongside our local pregnancy center by hosting fundraisers, sending volunteers, and encouraging members to pray for and give to this ministry as they discern the Lord would have them to do.

Finally, we must proclaim the Gospel faithfully in our circle of influence. James tells us that the root of murder lies in the sinful desires that enslave the human heart (4:1–2). Therefore, victory in the pro-life cause will not ultimately come from a change in policy or new legislation. Though we would happily welcome that, the only remedy for the sinful human heart is the Gospel of Christ. If we want to change the thoughts, desires, and behaviors of the unsaved, we must first change their hearts. And the Gospel is the only thing that can do that. At this point, our compassion to protect innocent human life and our compassion to see sinners saved from eternal punishment come together in the church’s mission to preach the Gospel to all creation.

Not Theoreticians, but Heralds

In January 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated the third Sunday of every January as Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, to coincide with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. That’s this Sunday. So take some time this weekend to reflect, even if painfully, on the reality of this evil in our society, and mourn the loss of life that has been perpetrated in our midst under the protection of law. And along with praying for God to be merciful, prayerfully consider how you might strategically give of your time and talents in 2014 to bring the Gospel to bear particularly on the issue of abortion. As Ensor and Klusendorf have said,

“The world does not need highly developed pro-life theoreticians. It needs [Gospel heralds], people sensing the call of God on their lives and effectively appealing to the conscience of their generation. And it needs [those who will love their neighbors as themselves], ready to act on their convictions in practical lifesaving ways” (Stand for Life, 4).

May we who love Christ in this generation never desist until we have extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic.

 This article was originally published at thecripplegate.com blog.