It’s easy to look around at everything taking place in our nation today and get discouraged.

The coronavirus and related economic impact are lingering into the summer. Some states are experiencing record numbers of new cases, suggesting the fight could continue for some time.

The George Floyd killing and its aftermath have brought racial issues in America to the foreground once again. Although America has done a lot to move beyond the problems of our past in relation to race, there’s undoubtedly more that can be done. But we’ve also seen the unfortunate truth that some elements in our society will exploit such tragedies for their own purposes.

On top of that, we’re in the middle of an election year in which some of us see no good choices, at least at the top of the ticket. I know that’s a controversial statement to make, but for those who are concerned about both policies and personal character, both choices leave much to be desired.

As I said, paying attention to the news these days can be a recipe for discouragement if we’re not careful.

Where does all of this leave us as God’s people living in troubled and changing times?

First, I think it’s important to remember what hasn’t changed. Amidst all the upheaval, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The word of God still stands. The promises of God are still as reliable as ever. The blood of Jesus still saves.

No matter what happens around us, it’s good to know that our God is still faithful and we can still turn to Him as our ever present help in times of trouble.

Our calling also hasn’t changed. As God’s people, we have two fundamental responsibilities that are true for every child of God.

First, we’re all called to walk faithfully with God in an ever-deepening relationship with Him. That stays the same regardless of our external circumstances.

Second, we’re called to be fruitful in good works. This can include anything from sharing the gospel with the lost, to delivering a meal to a shut-in, to mowing an elderly neighbor’s lawn, to volunteering at a soup kitchen, to raising our own children for Christ, to a thousand other possibilities. Times change, but God’s people are always called to love and serve others.

Putting these two callings another way, we’re to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Those are the universal commands that apply to all of us at all points in history, good or bad.

There’s no doubt that we live in complicated times with some complicated issues to examine. How God’s people interact with those issues and how we work to solve problems within our culture are questions we’ll most likely all need to wrestle with at one level or another.

But I’d like to draw our attention (mine included) to one more truth that is unchanging: this earth is not our ultimate home. For those of us who have believed on Christ, we look forward to a better home. We look forward to a time when all the hurts and sufferings and injustices of this world will be put aside and we’ll live forever in a perfect place called heaven.

That doesn’t mean we don’t work to solve problems now. It doesn’t mean we don’t try to alleviate suffering, fight against injustice, and stand up for what’s right while we’re still inhabitants of this earth. Indeed, those things are part of loving God and our neighbor. But when the darkness seems more powerful than the light, when wrong seems to triumph over right, it’s good to be reminded that there is something beyond what we see and experience in this world cursed by sin. One day the curse will be removed and we’ll rejoice with Him forever.

For those of us who are interested in politics, it’s easy to look for political solutions to the problems of our times. And lest I be misunderstood, let me say that I think it’s appropriate for God’s people to be involved in government with a view toward enacting policies that honor God and allow His people to lead the quiet, peaceable lives Paul speaks of.

But if there’s one drawback to our representative form of government, it’s that once every four years, many of God’s people seem to forget Who is really in control and instead look to man for the answers. We think that if only such-and-such a candidate is elected, victory will be ours. The curse will be lifted and God’s kingdom will advance.

But let’s not forget where our true hope lies: not in the halls of governmental power, but in Jesus Christ.

I know it’s easier said than done when the headlines are filled with gloom, but let’s focus on loving God and loving our neighbor. Do the work God has called you to do, whatever that might be. Walk with God each day and be fruitful in good works.

And remember that Christ has won the victory.

Subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel
and never miss a video report or special program!

My fellow-Americans, we are being sold a bill of goods. Race is not what is dividing us. Rather, we are being divided by competing ideologies. Let us put our focus where it belongs.

Listening to the news, you would think that racism is deeply entrenched in every neighborhood in our country. That racial hatred is the norm. That judging people by the color of their skin is what the average American does.

But I do not believe that for a second – and I say that while fully acknowledging the very real racial issues we continue to face.

A caller to my radio show on Monday said he was born in Hong Kong. Then he lived in Ghana, in West Africa. Then in Ireland. And now in America.

He said that America was by far the least racist place he lived. (The call starts here.)

One week earlier, I had interviewed Prof. Craig Keener, a dear friend and one of the world’s foremost New Testament scholars.

He is white but was ordained into the ministry in a black church in America, and he is married to an African woman and they have a son. Craig has also co-authored two books on race relations, together with a black co-author.

He is acutely aware of racial issues and does not downplay them for a minute.

But he said that his wife, a highly educated woman who speaks fluent French, suffered real discrimination while living in France. She would arrive for a job interview, for which she was well qualified. But when they met her, they would say, “We don’t hire blacks.”

She never experienced that here in America.

Not only so, but Craig told me that the worst racism she ever faced was within her home country in Africa, where the racism had nothing to do with skin color, since everyone was black. It had to do with where you came from or what strata of society you lived in.

Racism no knows no bounds.

That being said, I do not believe racism is the norm in America.

On June 11, I polled my Twitter followers, asking, “Would you be completely at home having a neighbor of a different race?”

Now remember, even though my Twitter followers (a little over 41,000, so not particularly large) are roughly equivalent to the national averages when it comes to demographics, they are quite conservative. The strong majority are probably Trump supporters as well.

How did they respond to the poll?

Just under 97 percent said, “Absolutely.” (The exact number was 96.8 percent.) Yes, almost 97 percent said they would absolutely “be completely at home having a neighbor of a different race.”

Only 2 percent answered with, “Depends on which race.” Only 1.2 percent said, “Absolutely not.”

And remember: this is an anonymous poll, so people can vote freely.

As for the results, they didn’t surprise me in the least, especially in Christian circles. (The vast majority of my social media followers identify as Christian.)

Many of our churches are multi-racial, especially if they are in multi-racial locations. And when they are not, joining together for multi-racial gatherings is often considered a highlight. And in cities across America, pastors work together in multi-racial coalitions.

And just ask yourself about your own circle of friends or co-workers. How common is racism in your midst?

Getting back to the poll, I was inspired to do the “neighbor” poll by a 2013 article by Max Fisher in the Washington Post. It was titled, “A fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries.”

Fisher reported the results of a major study by two Swedish economists who felt the number one way to determine racial attitudes was this: “The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors.”

What were their findings?

“Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant. People in the survey were most likely to embrace a racially diverse neighbor in the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America.”

Conversely, “India and Jordan by far the least tolerant. In only two of 81 surveyed countries, more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbor of a different race. This included 43.5 percent of Indians and 51.4 percent of Jordanian.”

So, America is one of the least racist countries on the planet?

To repeat. This does not mean that we do not have problems to address. And, as I have stated before, to the chagrin of some of my conservative friends, I have no problem asking if there is still systemic racism in America. (If not systemic racism, then system inequity.)

My point in this article is to stress that our biggest issues in America are not race-based. They are ideologically based. And right now, those pushing a radical leftist agenda are the most divisive among us, by far.

Of course, if the radical right (which includes the “alt-right”) had a bigger platform today, they would be just as divisive. But they do not. They have been largely marginalized, and for that I am glad.

Instead, it is the radical left (which includes the BLM movement and its Marxist-fueled agenda) which has become dominant, championed by a complicit (or foolishly naïve) media. They are the ones dividing us.

On a personal level, I will continue to listen to people of color as they their share perspectives with me (like a caller on Monday who told me he started picking cotton at the age of 5 and that I had no idea what his life experience was like; he is correct). And I will continue to ask God to show me my blind spots.

But I will not allow cultural radicals to paint a false picture of our nation.

We are far from perfect. But we are hardly a country that is deeply divided by race.

Let us join together then and stand as one for what is right.

I truly believe that is what the great majority of Americans want to do.

Do you agree?

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

The ideology of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and other “social justice” organizations teaches that all whites are racist oppressors, thereby justifying verbal attacks on people who are deemed inveterate racists and justifying riots to destroy everything that has emerged from an allegedly irremediable racist system. In promoting an explicitly racist ideology, BLM and other “social justice” organizations institutionalize racism, and we are suffering the fruits of that poisonous ideology.

In the hell-bent quest by America-hating revolutionaries to destroy America by destroying its institutions and history, 60 monuments have been removed, ordered removed, defaced, or torn down. In addition, according to Reinsurance News,

While no estimates of the costs of the damage is available yet, a look back at the costliest U.S. civil disorders shows that there’s potential for claims from the current riots, which are in multiple cities, to have easily run into the billions of dollars already.

Worse still, this BLM-led revolution has resulted in 25 deaths, hundreds of injuries—including injuries to 700 law enforcement officers—and the establishment of a rogue nation in the midst of downtown Seattle with the blessing of the incompetent mayor who called the squalid, uninhabitable, and dangerous encampment a free-love street festival.

The culture-destroyers are not done yet. Well-known racist activist Shaun King, whose purported racial identity and numerous fundraising projects are questioned by even leftists, recently tweeted,

Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been.

and

All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down. They are a gross form white supremacy. Created as tools of oppression. Racist propaganda. They should all come down.

BLM, with whom King was previously associated, is a destructive revolutionary group leading a Maoist-like cultural revolution, and many conservatives don’t seem to understand that. Those who support BLM and its skin-pigment-obsessed divisive, separatist, elitist ideology are de facto racists, no matter their skin color.

In National Review, Kyle Smith describes the white liberal BLM disciples as “the White-Guilt Cult”:

Amidst nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, a black man and woman are seated on a park bench while a white woman … takes to her megaphone. “We repent on behalf of, uh, Caucasian people,” she says. A small crowd of white people comes to kneel before the two seated black folks, who are co-pastors of a local church. Some of the kneelers wash the feet of the black people. … Several people start audibly weeping, or keening, as the speaker continues. Roughly a dozen people join in the gesture and kneel before the black couple. “We have put our necks, put our hands, our knees, upon the necks of our African-American brothers and sisters, people of color, indigenous people.” …

The original sin in the White Guilt Cult, the New Church of Anti-Racism, is to be, “uh, Caucasian people.” … If anything, the Great Awokening’s response to the George Floyd killing seems to be bolstering racial barriers rather than eradicating them. By making a religion of anti-racism, white people carry on with the longstanding project of “othering” black folks. … Take the principles of Woke in vain and you invite instantaneous ritual chastisement—the most thrilling, ecstatic element of the woke religion. The techno-narcissistic innovation of the Wokesters is that they have made themselves, as a collective, their own godhead, equipped with the authority to wield and unleash the thunderbolt of righteousness on blasphemers here and now, on their own authority. …

“White silence equals violence” is one new precept gaining currency. …  How exciting it must be to upend the meanings of words in service of the greater cause of smiting one’s perceived enemies, or even whatever suspected counterrevolutionaries there may be among one’s sworn allies. No one dared to be the first to stop applauding a Stalin speech. 

Even Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy has joined the anti-biblical white-guilt Cult, last week calling for white people to pay penance for sinful acts of racism that they never committed by shining the shoes of black people.

The ideology of BLM grows out of Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is essentially repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. CRT like that espoused by BLM and scores of other organizations and ideologues emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. Those whose worldview has been shaped by CRT–also known deceptively as “social justice warriors,” seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

CRT focuses on race, sex, class, “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity.” It encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics, dividing groups into “oppressors” and “oppressed.” Those who are identified as “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. CRT promotes the idea that “institutional racism,” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals, is the cause of differing lots in life.

“Social justice” activists cultivate the racist, sexist, heterophobic belief that whites (especially males and heterosexuals) are oppressors—a belief that robs minorities of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives, telling them that their lots in life cannot improve through their own efforts but only through endless confessions of guilt on the parts of the purported oppressors. CRT cultivates a sense of perpetual victimization and powerlessness on the parts of minorities and an irrational and illegitimate sense of guilt on the parts of whites (or men or heterosexuals).

Finally, social justice theory is distinctly anti-American and hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings. CRT diminishes or ignores the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

Racism peddlers—including colorless racism-peddlers and profiteers like Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility—disseminate their cancerous ideology everywhere. Many Americans view our colleges and universities as the primary indoctrination centers, but they should look at government middle and high schools, because indoctrinating the next generation begins long before college.

Through “professional development”—which are the teacher training workshops, seminars, and conferences that take place during summer breaks, institute days, and late-arrival days—teachers are being coached and pressured by administrators and colleagues to adopt the beliefs of “anti-racism” and diversity trainers whose hefty fees are paid for by the public.

Teachers are forced to attend these indoctrination workshops, which never include resources or experts that challenge the assumptions of “anti-racism” trainers. Teachers are then expected to incorporate these revolutionary, leftist, and dubious beliefs into their classroom instruction. Our taxes are being used in government schools to teach children to hate America.

The predatory “anti-racism” scammers profit from peddling guilt to whites, shaming them into falsely believing—or pretending to believe—they are racists. The snake-oil salesmen and women do that in two ways. First, they redefine racism. Racism no longer refers to the belief that people with brown or black skin are by nature inferior. Nor does it refer to individual acts of incivility, unkindness, oppression, or violence. It refers to being white in a culture whose power structures used to be controlled by whites. Whites are guilty of racism and oppression based on nothing more than the color of their skin. This repugnant redefinition is the antithesis of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream for America. It is also unbiblical.

The second way snake-oil salespersons peddle their ugly wares is equally sneaky. They recast all criticism of or opposition to their ideology as something negative, thereby making those who disagree reluctant to express their opposition. Robin DiAngelo insultingly describes the denials of white-skinned people that they are racists as “white fragility.” Those whites who  aren’t racists don’t want to deny being racists because if they do, they’ll then be charged with non-existent white fragility on top of their non-existent racism.

When I worked at Deerfield High School, the district hired expensive racism huckster from California, Glenn Singleton, to teach District 113 employees about their racism. At his first lecture to the entire district, Singleton pre-classified his audience as falling into three categories according to their potential responses to his theories: The first group were those who would agree with him immediately. The second group were those who would be on the fence and need to be convinced. And the third group were those “who are gifted at subverting reform.” Singleton cunningly attempted to prevent criticism by pre-labeling pejoratively those who disagreed with him. This dishonest labeling tactic works because conservatives let it.

Organizations, resources, and profiteers that provide “anti-racism” propaganda to government schools are numerous, but here are some that taxpayers should watch out for:

• The 1619 Project—a much criticized revision of American history by the New York Times and racism-peddler/activist Nikole Hannah-Jones

• Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center

• Deep Equity

• White Privilege Conference

• Pacific Education Group/Courageous Conversation About Race—founder Glenn Singleton

• National SEED Project (Seeking Education Equity and Diversity)

• “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”—essay written by Peggy McIntosh

• The People’s History of the United States, a revisionist history written by Howard Zinn

It is not racist to criticize the loathsome and radical BLM that is explicitly committed to “disrupting ” the “Western-prescribed nuclear family structure led by a father and mother, and to normalizing homosexuality and “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices. Such justifiable criticism does not become racist just because leftists shriek over and over and over that it is. Their epithet-hurling is not a magical incantation that turns truth into ugliness. It is a means of intimidation that leftists use all the time because conservatives quake and crumble in its wake.

Snap out of it, conservatives or you feed and strengthen the belching behemoth.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Fomenting-Racism-in-the-21st-Century_audio_01.mp3

Subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel
and never miss a video report or special program!

In light of recent events that have led to racial unrest, protests (both peaceful and riotous), looting, and calls for sweeping societal changes, Dr. Voddie Baucham asks the question that every Christian today must consider and answer: “Is the Bible sufficient for racial reconciliation?”

In his 2019 address at the Southeast Founders regional conference, Dr. Baucham relates his own experience and approach to racial reconciliation and contrasts the “new hermeneutics” and “new canon” with the supremacy and sufficiency of the Bible for all matters of faith and practice. Drawing from Ephesians 2, he proclaims that God has already broken down all divisions, ethnicities, and classifications in reconciling us through the blood of Christ.

Dr. Baucham is Dean of Theological Education at African Christian University in Zambia, and is an author, conference speaker, and former pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas.

Please watch Dr. Baucham’s powerful presentation and make it a priority to share this timely video with friends and family.

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift.
We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. 

IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

Written by Dr. Everett Piper

Dear woke evangelical pastors,

What in the world is wrong with you? Why in God’s name would you stand in solidarity with an organization that seeks the destruction of Christianity?

You are supposed to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the evangel, and it’s good news. You are supposed to believe in sola Scriptura and the inerrancy of the Word. You are supposed to believe in personal sin, personal confession, personal repentance and personal holiness.

What happened to you? When did you lose your conviction? When were you given over to a reprobate mind? When did your heart of flesh become a heart of stone? When did you lose your soul?

There was a time, oh, let’s say about five minutes ago when you were defined by preaching salvation, not social justice. The world knew you for your revivals, not your riots. You were characterized by your piety, not your politics. It seems like just yesterday that your belief in God distinguished you, not your worship of government.

How in the name of all that is right and holy could you possibly now march with an organization that laughs in the face of all that Jesus taught and died for? How could you be so ignorant? How could you be so arrogant? How could you be so wrong?

Have you not taken the time to do a 30-second Google search of the mission statement of the organization with which you now align?

Here’s what Black Lives Matter explicitly says about itself on its own website:

“We … do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege. We build a space that … is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered. We dismantle patriarchal practices … We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure … We foster a queer-affirming network … with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking …” 

And they are rabidly anti-Semitic and pro-abortion to boot!

Have you not read this stuff? And if you have, do you not care?

How can you stand with an organization that mocks God, denies the Bible, belittles men, demeans women and subjugates generations of black children to the dysfunction of fatherless families?

You claim to be Christian leaders, but you stand in solidarity with a group that promotes anger and revenge, one that calls for revolution rather than repentance, one that waves a banner of pride rather than penitence, one that foments resentment and laughs at forgiveness.

How can you be so blind?

Have you not read your own Bibles?

The broken ideas of BLM are not godly, and they are not Christian, and any pastor suggesting otherwise diminishes the imago Dei to little more than a hyphenated construct of division rather than unity.

Your cooperation in the lie of intersectionality and racial conflict is sin, pure and simple.

Why aren’t you telling your followers that to be a Christian is to be born again, not born that way, that we have died to self, that we are new creations, that we are neither “Jew nor Greek,” and that we are all one Body in Christ?

Why aren’t you preaching that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God — not just whites and not just blacks — but all?

Why aren’t you telling people that the only solution to this mess is personal repentance rather than casting blame?

Why aren’t you preaching confession rather than conflict?

Why?

Your complicity in the enemy’s deceit has encouraged tens of thousands to play the “hater” card rather than confess their own hate. Your apostasy is rife. There is a reason that culture has cast you out and trampled you underfoot. Your salt has lost its savor. Your light is extinguished. There is a reason your churches are empty and dark.

What are you thinking? Jesus never told us to harbor resentment and stew in the emotions of how we’ve been wronged. In fact, he told us to do the exact opposite. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors is not about fixating on who has harmed us. It is about forgiveness and shame on you for preaching otherwise.

Archbishop Vigano recently said,

“There are [now] mercenary infidels who seek to scatter the flock and hand the sheep over to be devoured by ravenous wolves …; a deep church that betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God.”

“Mercenary infidels … A deep church that betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God.”

Hmm.

Someone else once suggested the same: “In the last days there will come … men who oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith … Their folly will be plain to all …” ~St. Paul

Dr. Everett Piper, a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery).

Written by Dr. Everett Piper

In April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his letter from the Birmingham Jail. In it, he argued that “there are two types of laws: just and unjust,” King went on: “A just law is a … code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with that moral law.”

King then said, “Any law that uplifts [the human being] is just. Any law that degrades human [beings] is unjust. All segregation is unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the [human being].

“Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber,” contended King, “substitutes an ‘it’ for a ‘thou’ … and ends up relegating persons to the status of things [such as a color or a race].

“Segregation is morally wrong and sinful. Sin is separation … and segregation is an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness.”

In other words, what King was clearly saying was this: When you divide what should be united, you are not an integrationist. You are a segregationist. And you are guilty of sin.

Voddie Baucham, dean of Theology at the African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia, says it this way,

“The concept of race is not a biblical idea; it is a constructed idea. You won’t find the idea of races in the Bible. [In Scripture], we are all the race of Adam. One race, one blood … The separations we have created — the racial categories — are artificial … They are not real … Racial distinctions are things that we have made up to divide ourselves … But the all-sufficient Word of God says to us, ‘That’s a lie, stop believing it!’”

The take-home from both King and Mr. Baucham is this. We are made in the image of God. He designed us and defined us, and when we compromise His description of who we are — when we hyphenate our identity through our contrived definitions and divisions — we not only compromise the dignity of man but also denigrate the very definition of God.

St. Paul says,

“There is ONE body … and ONE God. For in Christ … there is neither Jew nor Greek … You are all ONE [emphasis mine] in Christ Jesus.”

In Genesis 1:27, we are told that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him …” Moses is very clear. God did not say he created humanity and then divided us by categories. All men and women are created as a singular race that is a direct reflection of the unity of triune God himself. There is absolutely nothing here that suggests otherwise.

In the “moral law of God,” there is no black and white. There is no such thing as a hyphenated human being. There is no such division. The only definition of man that we have in the Bible is that God created us as a unified “thou,” not a bunch of divided “its.”

Any segregation of this image — of the Imago Dei — into separate categories based on the “color of one’s skin rather than the content of one’s character” is “an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness.”

The enemy of human dignity and human freedom knows this. He knows that all that’s necessary to conquer us is to divide us from each other and divide us from God.

Our nation’s seal says E Pluribus Unum and not E Unum Pluribus for a reason.

It is out of many, one! Not out of one, many!

United, we stand. Divided, we fall.

The consequence of abandoning this truth is always anarchy, not freedom. Lies always result in more and more bondage and less and less liberty.

Remember this in November.

Never vote for anyone shouting diversity rather than unity.

Never vote for anyone marching for “us” vs. “them.”

Never vote for anyone who focuses on black vs. white; the 99 percent vs. the one; the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie.

Never vote for anyone who implies that some “lives matter” and others don’t.

Never vote for anyone who is “out of harmony with the moral law of God.”

Never vote for dividing and segregating the Imago Dei.

Never vote for anyone who waves the banner of the “it” vs. the “thou.”

Such people care little for those they claim to defend. They only care about power.

Such people know that if they can divide us, they can control us by manipulating our anger, resentment and our desire for revenge.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew this. He understood not only the lessons of Scripture but also those of history. He knew that a message of division and retaliation rather than one of unity and repentance always brings the “guillotine” and blood flowing in the streets.

Dr. Everett Piper, former president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, is a columnist for The Washington Times and author of “Not A Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery 2017).

This article was originally published at The Washington Times.

Black lives do matter, but not because they’re black—which, as “progressives” continually tell us—is just a social construct. Black lives matter not because of the color of their skin but because they are human lives created in the image and likeness of God and endowed by God with unalienable, intrinsic rights.

Since society is composed of fallen humans with desperately wicked hearts, many forces conspire against blacks, including some toxic systemic forces that demand solutions. Few if any of these solutions are proposed by Black Lives Matter (BLM), Antifa, or the Democratic Party. In fact, in the grimy, grasping quest for power of BLM, Antifa, and “progressives,” they double-down on the policies and cancerous ideologies that undergird those policies, thereby increasing their own political power and the suffering of those whose votes they covet.

Because black lives matter, here are some ideas for uprooting or transforming malignant systemic dysfunction that harms black (and red, yellow, brown, and white) lives:

• Because black babies matter, we should end the barbaric practice of feticide that results in a disproportionate number of black babies being slaughtered every year.

• Because black women matter, we should create a public service campaign like no other—one that encourages men to marry women before having sex with them, or to marry women they impregnate.

• Because black children matter, this public service campaign should urge mothers and fathers to stay together. There is no greater protection against poverty and criminality than being raised by both a mother and father in an intact family. Fatherless homes reliably produce boys vulnerable to gangs who are tutored in the ways of criminality and then grow up to commit violent crimes against their own communities, thereby demonstrating that black lives don’t matter to them.

• Because black families matter, tax policy and public aid should incentivize marriage and employment.

• Because black families matter, they have a right to safe schools and to school choice. Black families living in deteriorating and dangerous urban communities (most of which have long been run by Democrats) should have choices regarding where their children are educated.

• Because black children matter, teachers’ unions must be eradicated. Teachers’ unions protect the jobs of terrible teachers, and through excessive pensions are impoverishing already cash-strapped states which then pass these costs on to taxpayers.

• Because black children matter, government schools should not propagate as truth ideologically biased ideas like those found in The 1619 Project or Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. Teaching erroneous history and/or teaching that America is a country of unparalleled oppression and racial bigotry in which blacks cannot positively affect their own futures does a grave disservice to blacks and truth. Such inaccurate resources foster divisiveness rather than unity or love of the principles on which this country was founded. Untruthful depictions of America’s history in either direction—intensification or minimization of failures— are wrong. It is leftist ideas embedded in “teaching for social justice” that foster hatred of America and racial division. These ideas cultivate feelings of bitterness, resentment, and envy on the parts of “people of color” toward colorless people who have never harmed them. And these ideas cultivate the false belief in communities of color that improving their lots in life is impossible unless colorless people who have committed no sin of racial oppression take the knee.

• Because black lives matter, police unions that protect brutal police officers must be reformed. In a recent National Review article titled “It’s Past Time to Examine How Police Unions Protect Bad Cops,”  John Fund draws attention to an article in the Stanford Law Review in which Katherine Bies writes,

[D]uring the rise of police unions to political power in the 1970s, police unions lobbied for legislation that shrouded personnel files in secrecy and blocked public access to employee records of excessive force or other officer misconduct. Today, these officer misconduct confidentiality statutes continue to prohibit public disclosure of disciplinary records related to police shootings and other instances of excessive force. … [P]olice unions often strategically frame any opposition to their agenda of secrecy as endangering public safety and harming the public interest. However, police unions often conflate “the public interest” with the private interests of police officers. … Additionally, police unions have established highly developed political machinery that exerts significant political and financial pressure on all three branches of government.  

• Because black women, men, and children matter, we should address the existence and easy accessibility of pornography that is destroying families.

• Because black families matter, we should rethink legalized gambling and recreational marijuana that are hurting families economically and spiritually.

• Because black lives matter, celebrities should throw their hefty influence behind all these life-affirming proposals through their music, films, streaming programs, and tweets.

Because black lives matter, theologically orthodox Christians must better employ their creativity and tenacity in figuring out how to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” Because black lives matter, they—like people of all colors and no color—must hear the good news that in Christ “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

Pastor Doug Wilson exposes the worldly “rival reconciliation project” that exacerbates  division and arouses hatred:

[B]ecause secular man has rejected the one in whom we all live and move and have our being, all his attempts are of necessity a downward integration into the void. Their proud project of universal toleration consistently spirals downward into the acids of hatred and violence.

In America, because of our Christian heritage, this project is an attempt to reconcile the trappings of traditional Christianity with the central dogmas of cultural Marxism, and it represents the high water mark of duncical folly. It is an attempt to reconcile squares and circles, good and evil, light and darkness, folly and wisdom, God and the devil. The cosmic reconciliation purchased by Christ has nothing whatever to do with this sort of monstrosity. …

The reason the streets of Minneapolis are on fire is because secular man in his pretended wisdom has been trying to reconcile two completely different methods of reconciliation — the way of atonement through the blood of Christ together with his way of accusation, recrimination, reparations, and retribution. …

But there can be no peace between the God of forgiveness and the god of recrimination, the God of no condemnation and the god of all condemnation.

Should we reconcile blacks and whites who were caught up in bitter enmity with each other? Of course. That is what the gospel does. Should we try to reconcile the world’s way of reconciling with God’s way of reconciling? Of course not. The world’s way only foments more and more bitterness, while God’s way breaks down the middle wall of partition. The world’s way is impotent, and God’s way saves to the uttermost.

There are many Christians who do not see what is happening, and who do not understand a blessed thing about it, but who are trying to help out with this monstrosity by decking out the secularist approach to reconciliation in the language of Christian reconciliation. They point out that ethnic reconciliation is a good thing in Scripture, which is true enough, but then they want to drape the Christian language of reconciliation over the secular way of doing it, which contains no authority, no sap, no salt, and no blood.

The short form of this atrocious compromise is this: Because the blood of Christ puts all ethnic enmities to death, we think we can just go straight to the group hug, declare all ethnic enmities a form of bigotry and a violation of America’s core values, and dispense with the blood of Christ. And then we wonder where all this hatred is coming from.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Because-Black-Lives-Matter_audio.mp3

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift.
We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. 

IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

Late last month we sent email alerts to churches and pastors to let them know that we were organizing lawsuits to challenge Gov. J.B. Pritzker‘s illegal “shelter-at home” Executive Orders, and invite them to join us in making a case against his abuse of authority.

Big box stores, Planned Parenthood clinics, “medical” marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores are considered “essential” by the governor, while church services have been banned. This sets a dangerous precedent. The First Amendment specifically protects our religious liberties from tyrannical government forces. It doesn’t take much foresight to realize how similar future orders could be mandated and extended in the name of “safety.”

In response to our email, we received replies from 24 interested churches across the state. We’ve been able to match up 7 churches with local Christian attorneys who will file their complaints, hopefully this week, in circuit courts in Lake County, Grundy County, Montgomery County, Winnebago County and Madison County.

We are still looking for other attorneys to help represent churches in 9 other counties. Therefore, we covet your prayers for these items and more at this time.

Please Pray:

• That the cases that have been or will be filed would find the presiding judge to be sympathetic and responsive to the complaints presented on behalf of pastors/churches.

• That the attorneys would be winsome and persuasive in presenting the cases and answering questions.

• That the judges hearing the cases would clearly see how Gov. Pritzker’s orders violated state law and Illinois Christian citizens’ constitutionally protected civil rights.

• That additional attorneys would come forward to offer their legal assistance to churches not yet represented.

Pray for the Trump Administration:

• That God would bless President Donald Trump, Mike Pence, the president’s Cabinet and his close advisors with wisdom and discernment in every situation.

• That they will recognize how dependent they are on almighty God in administering their duties for the American people.

• That God would show President Trump’s medical team how to wind down COVID-19 restrictions and Trump’s economic team how to reboot the American job market.

• That God would use President Trump to safeguard and even advance religious liberty in the United States and around the world.

• That God would show President Trump how to deal with our adversaries: China, North Korea, Russia and Iran.

Pray for the Church:

• That as God shakes the world with this COVID-19 pandemic, families would run to God as their fortress and high tower. Pray that our friends, neighbors and relatives would cling to Him instead of inadequate worldly solutions.

• That God would convict the church of areas were we have failed or fallen short. Pray that the church would recognize and become resolved to heed God’s call to repent and reform.

• That God would bring a third great awakening in America, which can only come after true repentance. May God use His remnant of faithful servant leaders and followers to advance His Kingdom. May His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

• That God would raise up rigorous gospel-minded leaders who will boldly proclaim the truth and seek to advance God’s will on earth.

Pray for Families:

• That God would instill in us a desire to serve and bless others within our own local church and in our communities. Pray that families would work together to be the hands and feet of Jesus to meet physical and spiritual needs of their neighbors.

• That God would continue to turn the hearts of fathers to their children. Pray that every father realizes they are the pastors of their own households, and it is their responsibility to point their children to God and His Word as often as possible, to impress upon them God’s perfect precepts and commandments, and to testify to His amazing work in our lives.

• That God would help mothers realize the sway they have in their children’s lives and use it to edify and equip their children to be godly and productive citizens who love and follow the God of the Holy Bible. We know how much influence mothers have in the lives of their children. The old adage tells us that the hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world.

• That God would inspire and encourage grandparents to be the mortar in the bricks of their children’s families, filling in gaps and helping to cement bricks together. Pray that God would give them a vision for their role in the training of their children and wisdom on how to instill a Biblical worldview.

• That God would have mercy on those who are considering abortion. Pray that He would convict the hearts of mothers to choose life for their babies. Pray that God would provide a strong and visible support system for these women.

Miscellaneous Prayer Requests:

• Pray for the Illinois Christian Home Educator’s free online conference that starts today. Pray that Christian families abandon government schools and explore home education as a much better way to instruct, equip and train their children to thrive as independent and productive adults.

• Pray for the General Election and for godly candidates who must find ways to get their campaign messages out during this time of social distancing. Pray that a large wave of pro-life/pro-family candidates would be triumphant in November at the state level as well as on the federal level.

• Pray that the federal government’s investigation into political corruption in Illinois would root out self-serving wicked incumbents and government employees.

• Pray for the financial demise of Planned Parenthood International. Pray specifically against their new abortion mills in Flossmoor, Fairview Heights and now Waukegan. Pray that more and more abortion employees would see abortion for what it truly is and quit. Pray that they cannot fill these positions and are forced to shut down.

• Finally, pray that God will draw more and more people to Himself during this time of uncertainty. Pray that He would use our families to spread the light of the Gospel.

The works of His hands are truth and justice;
All His precepts are sure.
They are upheld forever and ever;
They are performed in truth and uprightness.
He has sent redemption to His people;
He has ordained His covenant forever;
Holy and awesome is His name.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
A good understanding have all those who do His commandments;
His praise endures forever.
(Psalm 111:7-10)

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift.
We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. 

IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

Written by Ignatius Amadeus

No, you’re not crazy. They just want you to feel that way.

There is a special flavor of cognitive dissonance experienced by those confronted with the dawning of a collectivist utopia. It’s found in the twilight between luminescent NuThink and the benighted remainders of objective reality that we plebs cling to so bitterly.

Allow me to illustrate.

Recently, as I perused the social media headlines about the present plague year, I came across a news item whose image featured the governor of Pennsylvania and his secretary of health, Dr. Rachel Levine, who is, in fact, a man. It struck me because the news was not about Dr. Levine’s chimeric redefinition. Rather, it was a serious news piece about a serious issue, and the doctor was peripheral to the point of it. The presentation of such an incongruity–an appointed official whose gender LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) is only slightly more convincing than that of Corporal Maxwell Klinger–without the slightest batting of an eyelash, is the whole game in a nutshell.

You see friend, it requires no acknowledgement, since there is nothing of note here. Only the grotesquely gauche would stumble. We have serious business to do here. Please focus.

The deadpan delivery leaves you feeling gaslit by the reality being proffered. The implicit assertion is not truth, but the situation itself is reality, formed by consensus, and presented without comment.

But, it’s democratic gaslighting.

This collective lack of acknowledgement, cemented by the integration with serious business being done, makes anyone who is tripped up by the disjoint feel that they are on the outside. Anyone hampered by a pedestrian tethering to pre-postmodernism is made to feel the keen edge of their status as other.

It’s akin to walking into a business meeting and finding one of the participants is wearing a bear suit. “What’s with the bear suit?” you ask. You are simply met with cold stares.

This feat of quiet ostracism, this sudden sense that one is an ideological castaway, coalesces all of a sudden. A breeze blows through you, and you realize the season has changed.

You are being gaslit but not by a sociopathic manipulator. The growing psychic pressure is the constricting consensus of an increasingly popular fabricated reality. You are on the business end of a casual conspiracy of complicity. There is a new set of tracks that your train of thought just doesn’t run properly on. You are given two choices: reconfiguration or derailment.

You keep entering business meetings, to be silently greeted by a fellow in a bear suit.

You’re going to keep getting this lesson until you learn it. Capisce?

In After the Ball, a diabolically masterful turnaround strategy created to take American homosexualism from reviled to revered, authors Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen laid out a pathway to bring us to this present moment of bear suit ubiquity. It began with desensitization, progressed through leveraging perceived commonalities, and promised powerful acceptance.

When you’re very different, and people hate you for it, this is what you do: first you get your foot in the door, by being as similar as possible; then, and only then – when your one little difference is finally accepted–can you start you start dragging in your other peculiarities, one by one. You hammer in the wedge narrow end first. As the saying goes, Allow the camel’s nose beneath your tent, and the whole body will soon follow.

This was published in 1989.

Once the concept of tolerance was deformed to mean acceptance, and love was refashioned to include things for which it was not designed, it was clear that The Plan was getting far more cultural traction than anyone had dreamed possible. As the sea change continued, the launching of Same Sex Mirage was a fait accompli. Always, you will note, brought to market in the carefully constructed context of simulated normalcy.

The weight of normalcy packaging + the momentum of previous acceptance = the psychic force applied to dissenters who note the incongruities.

This simulacrum of normalcy, coupled with the raised stakes of whatever novel idea is being introduced, creates an uncanny valley of experience. It’s designed to camouflage the situation such that it sufficiently approximates reality for the initiated, but to the sober-minded, the differences create dissonance. That dissonance is designed to cleave off the bitter clingers–to refuse entry to the non-compliant, and convince them that they are the ones failing to grasp this democratically elected reality.

The pressure can feel immense at times–not the Lilliputian arguments for NuThink–but their collective power to layer up, entangle and enervate. Yes, you can see each point where things got ratcheted up, but the cumulative effect–that you feel.

The most recent gut punch happened when I (virtually) encountered “Dr. Glitterbear,” a Rutgers University professor, in his unicorn-jammie-and-white-pumps ensemble. He had apparently led the charge to have a fellow PhD’s published paper about gender anarchy retracted due to its NuThink compliance failure.

“What’s with the unicorn suit?” Cold stares.

Yea, though I walk through the uncanny valley, I will brook no evil.

As has been noted by those who have experienced totalitarian rule, this immense pressure to conform to a synthesized consensus exerts a real toll on the non-compliant. Presented with each new escalation, the mind struggles like an up-ended turtle wriggling to regain its feet.

It can be exhausting and disheartening to keep the turtle righted.

First, know what the truth is and why it is the truth. If you’re reading this, I will assume that you’re likely well-engaged in this process. Understand that we are in an ontological crisis where millions are being swept out to sea. Know how to anchor to the fixed bedrock of actual truth. While this battle is presented as a quibble over small changes, you must understand that it’s actually a conflict over whether reality is already defined or ad-libbed. For anyone adhering to a belief in Logos and Creation, the definitions are fixed and non-negotiable.

Second, don’t lose your equilibrium. When wading through strong opposing forces, it’s easy to overcompensate. Movements become exaggerated, and overreactions can abound. It’s oh-so-easy to become shrill, alienated, or paranoid. It’s simple to get knocked back into reflexive overreaction. Learn to find grace under pressure, and don’t allow yourself to be distorted by your exertion against the onslaught.

Third, encourage and invest in others to strengthen the bulwark against this flood of Dionysian dissolution. Maintaining relationships with other people who are also committed in their fidelity to truth is important. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend, and a cord of three strands is not easily broken.

Finally, do not think it strange, this fiery trial which is upon us. Be encouraged that the Truth Himself was similarly opposed, and so we now share in that same suffering. Having done all, stand. Simply bearing witness to truth in a raging sea of illusion, is a Kingdom act.

“Ignatius Amadeus has been a brand messaging professional for over two decades, and his writing focus is on society, culture, and communication. His desire is to examine, understand, and express what is happening in our nation in order to clarify and see things move in a restorative direction. A typical Gen-Xer, he is most at home in a mashed-up kaleidoscope of the banal and sublime. His interests range from theology to cinema to fine art and music. Oh, and obsolete technology. He thinks that’s fun, too.”

At the Illinois Family Institute’s 2016 Worldview Conference, theologian Dr. Wayne Grudem discussed the book he co-wrote with economist Dr. Barry Asmus titled The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution, which examines the reasons for poverty and the reasons for prosperity.

Dr. Grudem shared that “Wealth and poverty are primarily determined by policies and factors that affect whole nations.” In order to reduce poverty and increase prosperity, gross national product and per capita income must be raised. The question is how to achieve those goals.

Dr. Grudem critiqued the commonly recommended solutions for eliminating poverty, including foreign aid, debt forgiveness, discovering natural resources, transferring goods from one person to another, printing money, attributing poverty to outside factors, and purchasing Fair Trade products.

Dr. Grudem also looks to the Bible for guidance on how countries can reduce levels of poverty, and how Christians should respond to urgent needs in impoverished countries.

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift. We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

Donations are tax deductible. $10 minimum for all donations.

One of the featured speakers at IFI’s recent Worldview Conference was Dr. Michael L. Brown, professor, author, radio host, and apologist. Dr. Brown’s presentation, The Culture of Death: Abortion, Contraception, Euthanasia, Pornography, and Childlessness, cites the actions and characteristics of the Jezebels of the Old and New Testaments to draw a parallel with America’s depraved culture – a culture that proclaims as freedom that which is truly enslavement to sin and the devil. Referencing Ephesians 6, Dr. Brown encourages Christians to prepare for spiritual battle, equipped by the strength of the Lord, in order to overcome the weaponized spirit of fear wielded by Satan and our increasingly pagan culture.

Please watch this timely video and share it with family and friends. While our nation is confronting the global pandemic of COVID-19, another threat, a demonic pandemic, is ravaging America spiritually, morally, and culturally. We cannot afford to face either fight unprepared.

Dr. Brown is the founder and president of Fire School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina. He is also a radio and podcast host of The Line of Fire and a prolific author. Jezebel’s War With America: The Plot to Destroy Our Country and What We Can Do to Turn the Tide is his latest book.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI,
please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.

We have a loving and merciful God of compassion who wants us to turn to Him and take shelter in Him as our refuge and our strength. He is our sure rock in the midst of any storm, the light that pierces every darkness, and an anchor of hope for those who contend with despair. We should embrace every opportunity to bring our appeals before Him.

Prayer Guidance Points:

Pray for Revival: We may not be able to see it now, but God is working good in this season of COVID-19 (Romans 8:28). Pray that people around the world would seek God during this pandemic and economic shut down. Pray that the lost would find great hope and eternal peace in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

For the Glory of God: Pray that this crisis would be a wake-up call to lukewarm believers and would-be seekers. Pray that God would draw people to Himself in a powerful way. Pray for the spread of the Gospel. In this time of great anxiety and uncertainty, pray that God’s people would be ready to meet the world with the comfort and hope that only the good news of Jesus Christ can offer.

For those in Authority: As they decide how to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, pray for President Donald Trump and his teams of health and economic advisors. Pray for Governor J.B. Pritzker and his advisors. Pray for local city officials throughout the state. May the Lord give them an abundance of wisdom and discernment so that the “stay in place” order will quickly diminish and life can get back to normal.

Peace: May God Almighty reach out to all those who fear that they are sinking beneath waves of anxiety. May they receive that courage, resilience, and healing grace that can only come from the Prince of Peace.

Greater Faith: Pray that through this we would better understand what it means to “walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). Scripture teaches that God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control (2 Tim 1:7). Pray for enduring faith during this season of heightened fear, anxiety, and confusion. Appropriate precautions should be taken, but Christians must continue to rely on God and trust His purposes and plans (Rom. 8:28).

Medical Workers: Pray for healthcare workers and first responders who are on the front lines. Pray for protection for their health and protection for the health of their families.

News Media: Christians should pray for those in the news media. Pray that reporters and journalists would accurately report updates about the status of the virus and not seek to peddle conspiracies, politicize the threat, or stoke fear where it is unwarranted.

Subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel
and never miss a video report or special program!

One Illinois lawmaker is calling for a state-wide day of prayer on April 24. Citing the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to look toward the future, State Representative Darren Bailey (R- Louisville), issued the call in a media release.

“I understand addressing the immediate health consequences of the virus is a priority, but we must not lose focus on what we need to do to restore Illinois to prosperity and inspire recovery,” said Bailey. “Also, calling out to God for help is simply accessing a Divine resource that is ours for the asking.”

Drawing from Matthew 18:20, Bailey said, “We know from Scripture, the Holy Word of God, the Lord hears us when we call out.”

The three main focuses of the Day of Prayer are,

1.) Pray for our nation and its leaders (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

2.) Pray for those struggling with anxiety (Philippians 4:6-7)

3.) Pray for those in need (Psalm 22:4-5, 19)

While noting the immediate priority to focus on the virus, “we must not lose focus on what we need to do to restore Illinois to prosperity and inspire recovery,” said Bailey. The release pointed to research by the Illinois Policy Institute that ranked Illinois 47th out of 50 states in having the worst private-sector economies in the nation in 2019–losing 13,100 manufacturing jobs.

Bailey recommended steps to get the economy back on track including taking the graduated income tax proposal off the ballot in November and putting the state on a diet. “We need less spending and smaller government,” Bailey said. “When times are tough for families, they tighten their belts, save their money, and do with less. If such commonsense solutions are good enough for working families, it ought to be good enough for government.”

Written by Scarlett Clay

As we suffer to different degrees during the pandemic, Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver recalls a familiar quandary. The story is set in a dystopian society where disease, suffering, and death have been eliminated, and the problem of pain has been solved.

How?

By the elimination of free choice. For the comfort of safety and security, human freedom is traded for a society in which every aspect of life is controlled: childhood, career, family, even language.

By the end of the story, one young member of the community realizes the safety they enjoy comes at a high cost. While the community is free from the negative aspects of human life, they’ve eliminated love, joy, and beauty in the process. The young man rebels, makes a free choice, and flees the community in search of a new life. After traveling on foot with a small child for many days in harsh winter weather, his strength is almost at an end:

The wind was bitterly cold. The snow swirled, blurring his vision. But somewhere ahead, through the blinding storm, he knew there was warmth and light. Using his final strength, and a special knowledge that was deep inside him, Jonas found the sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill… the hill was steep but the snow was powdery and soft, and he knew that this time there would be no ice, no fall, no pain. Inside his freezing body, his heart surged with hope. They started down. Jonas felt himself losing consciousness and with his whole being willed himself to stay upright atop the sled, clutching Gabriel, keeping him safe. The runners sliced through the snow and the wind whipped at his face as they sped in a straight line through an incision that seemed to lead to the final destination, the place that he had always felt was waiting, the Elsewhere that held their future and their past.

Lowry suggests utopian efforts are futile, but she stops short of telling us why. Thankfully, we can turn to the Bible to fill in the blanks.

The Bible tells us that in the beginning, God created a perfect world. When Adam disobeyed God, he brought sin into the world, and the perfect creation came to an end. As Biola University Associate Professor of Apologetics Dr. Clay Jones says, “We’ve been attending funerals ever since.”

All efforts to create a world without sickness, pain, and death will ultimately fail because the problem of Adam cannot be solved by human efforts. Sin wrecks everything. Lowry ends her novel with ambiguous hope for the future, but the Bible tells us where true hope comes from. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to solve the problem of sin. He died for the sins of the world and offers a restored future paradise to those who repent and put their trust in Him.

Regardless of how many restrictions are put upon human freedom, we will never eradicate sickness, disease, or death, and the pursuit of universal safety is an illusion. Christian philosopher Cornelius Van Til noted, “Looking about me I see both order and disorder in every dimension of life. But I look at both of them in the light of the Great Orderer Who is back of them.” And that’s the key to making sense of life in the midst of a pandemic. We do all we can while acknowledging that “order and disorder” are part of the world we live in, and only God has provided a way out.

How can we find a perfect world? “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). By trusting in Jesus, we have hope for the future: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

At the end of the film version of The Giver, we hear the sound of soft voices in the icy air singing “Silent Night” as the sled approaches a warmly lit cabin at the bottom of the hill. Though not an explicitly Christian film, the end points to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

First published on Scarlett Clay’s blog Blue Purple and Scarlett.

In his letter to the Philippian church, the Apostle Paul shared how God was using the difficult circumstances of his life to bring about tremendous good:

But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14)

Paul’s perspective is remarkable. Despite what he endured, he was able to look past it to see what God was doing through it. His own suffering mattered less than the good things God was accomplishing as a result.

That’s not an easy perspective to have, and certainly not one I’ve mastered. But as we face an uncertain future, I think this mindset will help us focus on God and what He’s doing in the midst of circumstances that are a challenge to all of us.

The truth is, God works through trying times to bring about good that would never be accomplished during “business as usual.” He does that on an individual basis, and I believe He can do it on a state, national, or even global basis as well.

With that perspective in mind, let’s consider a few things that are happening and their potential for good.

We’re Facing Our Vulnerability

My brother brought up this point recently, and I thought it was a good one.

In America, we’re largely accustomed to feeling invulnerable to widespread disaster. Yes, we have localized disasters such as a hurricane in Florida, wildfires in California, or an outbreak of tornadoes in the Midwest.

But with the coronavirus, we’re facing a potential disaster reaching from coast to coast. Basic staples are in short supply as store shelves have been emptied. The economy is suffering and we don’t know how long it will all last or what the implications will be for various industries.

All of this is forcing us to face the realization that America, despite our wealth, power, and prestige in the world, isn’t completely immune from these kinds of situations. Who would have thought a few weeks ago that toilet paper, bread, or other basic supplies would be so scarce?

What will we do with this feeling of vulnerability? Will it drive us to new levels of trust in God, or will it push us to defeat and despair? What if the situation stretches out for weeks or months and conditions worsen?

To be clear, I’m not hoping for that, but I do have to admit I would probably learn lessons of trust under those circumstances I might not learn any other way.

We’re Spending Time with Our Families

To be honest, the “shelter in place” order currently in effect here in Illinois isn’t affecting me and my family as much as many other folks. I already worked from home as a freelance graphic designer before all of this came up, and my wife already homeschooled our children. We’ve been practicing for this moment for years!

Our case aside, many families are together under the same roof to an extent they’ve perhaps never been before. What will that mean? I don’t know. Will these families—suddenly thrown together under stressful circumstances—discover that spending time together is actually good? Will relationships be strengthened and deepened? I hope and pray so.

We Have the Opportunity to Serve

A crisis can bring people together or it can drive them apart. So far, we’ve seen some of both. There have been reports of people fighting over supplies in stores, but there have also been reports of people serving others.

As the body of Christ, we’re called to serve, and this is an opportunity to (carefully!) do just that. If we let it, this can be our moment to bless others in real, tangible ways. 

God’s Timetable Isn’t Ours

We don’t know how long this situation is going to last. Will it be over in a few weeks, or will it drag on for months? That has yet to be seen. 

As I was praying and reflecting on all of this recently, it struck me that, as much as I’d like to see a quick return to business as usual, that may not be God’s plan. He may be doing a work that needs time to bring to fruition. A rapid return to life as we knew it before the virus may not allow that work to be completed.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we need to hope for the crisis to stretch on. The timing is in God’s hands. But if we don’t see a quick resolution to these new circumstances, we can at least recognize that we serve an all-powerful God who has a bigger plan than any of us can see. He may be doing exactly what’s necessary to bring about some kind of revival or transformation in our society.

Like Paul, let’s keep our eyes open to what God is doing. And whether the time is short or long, let’s pray for God’s will to be done.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI,
please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.