Written by George Weigel

Francis Eugene George was many things: a dedicated missionary priest; a first-rate intellectual; a shrewd observer of the public square; the first native of the Windy City to be named archbishop of Chicago; a great reformer of the Archdiocese of Chicago. But when word of his death came early this afternoon, my first thought was that he was, in the Lord’s mercy, no longer in pain.

His sister once told a Chicago priest that, if he wanted to understand her brother, he should remember that “he’s always in pain.” A polio survivor from the days of the iron lung, Francis George spent his entire adult life with his legs encased in dozens of pounds of steel. Then he was struck by bladder cancer and lived for years with what he called, ruefully, a “neo-bladder.” He beat that challenge, but then another form of cancer struck, and his last years were filled with new pain, more pain, different pain. Yet not once, since I first met him three decades ago when he was Father Francis George, did I ever hear him complain about the pain — or about the sometimes strange ways God has with those He has blessed in so many other facets of their lives. Francis George could live in chronic pain because he conformed his life to Christ and the Cross. And now, I firmly believe, he is pain-free. For the Lord he served so long and well has welcomed home his good and faithful servant.

Perhaps the most appropriate Gospel passage to ponder at times like this, and when thinking about lives like that of Cardinal George, is the story of the Transfiguration. For in preserving the memory of the transfigured Christ, whose “face shone like the sun” and whose “garments became white as light” (Matthew 17:2), the first generation of Christians was bearing witness to its hope for the human future. The transfigured Christ not only prefigured the Risen Christ, in whose Eastertide Francis George died; the transfigured Christ prefigures the life that awaits the friends of the Risen One in his Kingdom, at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. There, there is no polio, and no post-polio syndrome. There, there is no cancer, no gut-wrenching chemotherapy, no diminishment of vigor. There, there is only fullness of life, with palsied limbs made whole in a wholly new way.

That is the future in which Cardinal Francis George believed. That that is the future in which he now shares is the consolation of those who loved and admired him.

The American hierarchy has not, these past two centuries, been noted for scholar-bishops — unlike, say, the Catholic Church in Germany. But in Francis Eugene George, the Catholic Church in the United States found itself with a leader of world-class intellect, with two earned doctorates yet with none of the intellectual deformities associated with the contemporary academy. He was, in the best sense of the term, a free thinker: one who thought independently of the reigning shibboleths, yet within the tradition of the Church and its intellectual heritage. His was a thoroughly modern intellect; yet how appropriate that he died on the day when the Church reads the Johannine account of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000, with the Lord’s admonition to “gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost” (John 6:12), for Cardinal George’s fidelity to the tradition was in response to that admonition. He knew that the tradition had something to teach us today; he practiced what Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead.”

That Johannine reference works in other ways, too. For when Francis George became archbishop of Chicago in 1997, there were a lot of fragments to be gathered up. Six months after his appointment, we were together in Rome, and I asked him what he’d learned so far about what had long considered itself the flagship archdiocese of the United States. “I’m 60 years old,” he said, “and in the 15 years I’ve got left I’ve got to get people going back to Mass again and I’ve got to get priests hearing confessions again.” He worked hard to do that, and he did so with effect. And if some of the notoriously difficult Chicago clergy never quite got it, a lot of the people of the Archdiocese of Chicago did — and in the brief months of his retirement, the cardinal often remarked in our conversations on how touched he was by people coming up to him in parishes and thanking him for what he had done for the archdiocese.

We spoke several times since, but what turned out to be our final meeting was last November at Mundelein Seminary, which he had thoroughly reformed. (Something of the flavor of the larger-than-life quality of old Chicago Catholicism can be gleaned from the story about the coat of arms of Cardinal George William Mundelein, founder of the seminary. The motto on his arms read Deus Adjutor Meus [God Is My Help], which local clerical wags translated as “God Is My Auxiliary [Bishop].”) The current rector, Father Robert Barron, had built a new daily-Mass chapel for the growing seminary community. The chapel was to be dedicated to the newly canonized Pope St. John Paul II, and Father Barron had invited me to give a public lecture on the late pope after Cardinal George consecrated the chapel — which he did, walking with difficulty on crutches, rubbing great swaths of holy chrism into the altar and then celebrating the first Mass offered there. It was another example of Cardinal George’s extraordinary physical courage — but he was determined to keep his commitment to consecrate the chapel, in no small part because of his love and esteem for John Paul II.

Like the Polish pope — another man determined to “gather up the fragments” and then re-knead them into a contemporary synthesis of Catholic faith and practice — Cardinal George was a keen observer (and critic) of the Western-civilization project. And his concerns about the trajectory on which that project seemed headed were neatly captured in a sound bite, excerpted from a lengthy discussion with his priests, in which the cardinal said that he expected to die in bed; he expected his successor to die in prison; and he expected the following archbishop of Chicago to be a martyr in the public square.

It was a deliberately provocative formulation, intended to get the priests of Chicago thinking seriously about the challenges posed by what Pope Benedict XVI had called the “dictatorship of relativism.” To some it bespoke resignation, even surrender. That misimpression was due to the fact that the cardinal’s hypothetical was always cut short in the reporting of it. For what he said, in full, was that he expected to die in bed; his successor would die in prison; that man’s successor would be publicly executed; and his successor would “pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”

Like John Paul II, Francis George knew that the Catholic Lite project — the unhappy dumbing down of the vibrant progressive Chicago Catholicism of the 1930s and 1940s — was unfit either to fight the zeitgeist in the name of freedom rightly understood, or to “gather up the fragments” and help rebuild the American experiment after the zeitgeist had done its worst. But it would be a great disservice to his memory to suggest, as some undoubtedly will, that Francis George was at war with “liberal” Catholicism. In the first place, he refused to think of the Church as something that could be defined in terms of “liberal” or “conservative.” As he said at his first Chicago press conference in 1997, the Church is about true and false, not left and right. Moreover, he knew that Catholic Lite was dying of its own implausibility, so why waste energy battling it? Rather, “gather up the fragments” — including the fragments of good in the once-vital reform Catholicism of Chicago — and get on with the task of re-evangelizing both the Church and the Great American City.

That could be done, the cardinal was convinced, only by what you might call All-In Catholicism: a Church that offered both mercy and truth; a Church that was both pro-life and committed to the effective empowerment of the poor; a Church that could make Catholicism compelling in a culture that was too often simply indifferent to what religious communities had to say. That apathy would not be met by surrendering core Catholic understandings of what makes for human happiness to the zeitgeist. But neither would it be met by argument alone. Arguments were important, this man of intellect and culture knew; but so was witness, and that was why he put such energy into defending the Church’s institutions for empowering the poor — its schools, health-care facilities, and social-service centers — against the encroachments of a government trying to use the Church for its own purposes.

When the U.S. bishops elected Cardinal George their president in 2007, they were acknowledging a change in the dynamics of Catholic life in America that is irreversible. The liveliest centers of Catholicism in America — the parishes, the dioceses, the seminaries, the lay renewal movements, the growing orders of consecrated religious life — are those that have embraced what John Paul II called the “New Evangelization” and what Pope Francis has called a “Church permanently in mission.” The old post-conciliar battles are, largely, over, and the course has been set. Francis George helped set that course. And when it comes time to write his story in full, he will be remembered as the most consequential archbishop of Chicago in the modern history of the Church — and a leader in American Catholicism whose intellectual and physical courage was instrumental in making the Church in the United States, for all its challenges and problems, the most vital in the developed world. He is now where he has always wanted to be.

He is without pain, whole and healed. He has met Christ the Lord, and he is living in the presence of the Thrice-Holy God — to whom I give thanks for his life, his witness, and our friendship.

— George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. Originally published at NationalReview.com.

Over this past weekend, Christians were shot and killed, beheaded and drowned because they refused to abandon their faith in the face of venom-filled Muslim jihadists.

In one case, twelve Christians were thrown overboard to their deaths in the Mediterranean when a young Nigerian Christian refused to stop praying to God for help when the rubber boat began to sink. Witnesses said Nigerian Muslims on the dinghy “went mad” and began screaming “Allah is great” before they threw the Christians to their deaths. The remaining Christians formed a human chain and protected themselves against the attackers by clinging to the dinghy, the Daily Mail reports.

On Sunday, the Islamic State released a video of ISIS jihadists killing thirty Ethiopian Christians in Libya. The video shows about 15 men being beheaded on a Mediterranean beach and another group of the same size being shot in their heads somewhere in the Libyan desert.

The video referred to both groups of martyrs as “worshipers of the cross belonging to the hostile Ethiopian church,” the Jerusalem Post reports.

In February, 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded in Libya.

Two months earlier, the Vicar of Baghdad, Andrew White, told the Christian Post of four Iraqi children that ISIS jihadist beheaded.

“ISIS turned up and they said to the children, ‘you say the words that you will follow Muhammad.’ The four children, all under 15, said, ‘No, we love Yashua [Jesus]. We have always loved Yashua. We have always followed Yashua. Yashua has always been with us,'” White recalled.

“[The militants] said, ‘say the words!’ [The children] said, ‘no, we can’t do that.’ They chopped all their heads off,” White told the Christian Post.

And then there is Pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been imprisoned in Iran for nearly two-and-a-half years, shaken when six of his fellow prisoners were executed in early March. Pastor Saeed is accused of proselytizing Muslims to Christianity and being involved in underground church activities that “endanger Iran’s national security.”

Were any of these tragedies a reason for pause and prayer when you freely met with other Christians to worship or study God’s Word this weekend?

Scripture instructs fellow believers in Hebrews 13:3 to:

“Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them;
and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.”

As the Church, are we doing that?

Naive skeptics say what ISIS jihadists do across the world is no threat to American Christians. “It will never happen here,” they say, sighing that only the hysterical and paranoid believe anyone will suffer for their faith in America.

Indeed.

But Jewish-American writer Elie Wiesel isn’t so sure. During his 1985 acceptance speech after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Wiesel shared a conversation he had with a young Jewish boy that asked him how the Holocaust could have happened.

“… I explained to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation,” Wiesel said.

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe.”

“The center of the universe …”

Not pleasant thoughts to have on a bright, sunny Sunday morning, though, are they?

American Christians must not remain silent about what our Christian brothers are enduring. Our own religious freedoms are already being eroded by secularists that demand we must abandon Biblical principles and Church teachings in the public aquare. Instead, they want political correctness to prevail as a new national belief system.

History shows that when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, they were met with little resistance. Swastika flags waving, Austrians lined the parade route as the Nazis entered their homeland. Right away, the Nazis instituted anti-Jewish policies and banned Jewish Austrians from participating in community events.

Jewish store owners were required to publicly identify their businesses. Austrians knew they were to avoid the businesses with “Jud” painted on outside walls if they didn’t want to antagonize their Nazi rulers.

It wasn’t long after synagogues were robbed and destroyed, that Austrian Jewish resisters were killed and innocents sent to Dachau and Bechenwald death camps.  Estimates are that 65,000 Jewish Austrians perished from 1938 to 1942.

Americans were made aware of the Austrian Jews’ peril during the late 30s and early 40s, but the tragedies were overseas and surely, they had nothing to fear from Hitler’s evil plans to conquer the world.

It would never happen here, they thought. And thankfully, it did not, because Allied Forces defied the abuse. Eastern Europe became “the center of the universe” for almost a decade.

Christian American business owners are now being forced to abandon their religious beliefs if they clash with America’s national religion of political correctness. If a business owner dares to live out his faith by standing for one-man, one-woman marriage or honoring life as sacred, he makes himself vulnerable to ridicule, boycotts and even bankruptcy – simply because his religious beliefs make others uncomfortable.

A recent movement is crossing America that advocates Christians wear orange to church on Sundays to identify with the orange-jump suited Christian prisoners that ISIS has beheaded over the past several months.

It’s time for Christians in Illinois to remember those that are in bonds, as if we – as fellow believers – were imprisoned with them. We need to bear the burdens of Christian brothers and sisters that are suffering for righteousness’ sake. We need to pray earnestly for them, repent of our inattention and speak out about the atrocities.

We need to demand action from authorities that affect public policy.

It’s time for Christians to break their self-consumed silence and speak out, pray, and at the very least, don the color orange in solidarity with those suffering for righteousness’ sake – starting next Sunday.

It’s the least we can do.

SAVE the DATE:

“Islam in America: A Christian Perspective”
with Dr. Erwin Lutzer
May 7th

CLICK HERE for Details

Growing numbers of voices are telling Christians “Keep your views to yourself!” “Stay out of the public square!” Well, what if we did?

Frank Capra’s classic Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” showed a despairing George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, learning how the world would be without him. Well, perhaps we need a similar cinematic telling for all those currently telling Christians to stay out of the public square and to keep their thoughts about marriage, religious freedom, and the dignity of human life to ourselves. And maybe a few wobbly-kneed Christians need to see it too.

Just like George Bailey was stunned to discover what Bedford Falls would look like had he “never been born,” I think it may be similarly shocking to see what the world would look like today without Christianity’s influence.

For one thing, we wouldn’t have thousands of volunteers working in prisons to help incarcerated men and women return to their communities as productive citizens. We’d certainly see fewer hospitals and free clinics. After all, I’ve seen a lot of Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Catholic hospitals, but I can’t remember any Buddhist, atheist, or New Age ones, or for that matter food kitchens, or rescue missions, or adoption agencies, or disaster relief organizations, or entrepreneurial training programs. And good luck sustaining free, public education to the millions of students once religious schools shut their doors. When Christians “keep it to ourselves,” everybody loses.

Though many in the media don’t get that point, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof does, and good for him. “In liberal circles,” Kristof recently wrote, “evangelicals constitute one of the few groups that it’s safe to mock openly. And yet the liberal caricature of evangelicals,” he continues, “is incomplete and unfair. But I’ve been truly awed by those I’ve seen in so many remote places, combating illiteracy and warlords, famine and disease, humbly struggling to do the Lord’s work as they see it, and it is offensive to see good people derided.”

To make his point, Kristof points to just one example. On a recent trip to the war-torn nation of Angola, he met medical missionary Dr. Stephen Foster, who has been working there—without the world’s acclaim—for 37 years. The white-haired doctor, who is now 65, has stood firm against six-foot cobras, enraged Marxist soldiers, and horrible health and working conditions. One of his sons contracted polio; a daughter survived a cerebral hemorrhage. As Kristof relates, his son Rob says, “For a while I blamed my dad and his high-risk dedication to others. Today . . . I am no longer bitter or resentful. If me getting polio meant that thousands of lives were either saved or immeasurably improved by my father’s work, then so be it.”

So we should keep our faith to ourselves?

Or consider those like Dr. Kent Brantley or other Christian medical professionals, who courageously fought and are fighting Ebola at great personal risk. Should they leave the public square and stop acting on the basis of their beliefs? Are the guardians of so-called “civil rights” willing to go in their place?

Now it’s true that sometimes we Christians undermine our witness by wrong words and deeds, but it’s also true that we’ve brought a lot more to our neighbors and communities than many folks realize.

A few years ago, for instance, a University of Pennsylvania researcher found that urban congregations, such as First Baptist in Philadelphia, provide millions of dollars in services to their communities in everything from marriage counseling, to helping people off drugs and alcohol, to providing K-12 education.

So like Bedford Falls and George Bailey, our society really will miss us if we are cowed into a privatized faith that keeps religion safely inside the four walls of our own churches. Christianity is not only to be believed; it must be lived—and not just for our own benefit, but for the good of our neighbors. And now of all times, we must increase our work of restoration in our communities. But that doesn’t mean be silent. Like Jesus, let’s be about the business of sharing it, both in word and in deed. Even when others tell us to keep it to ourselves.

Originally published at BreakPoint.org.

The English language is filled with hundreds of phrases that people use in everyday conversation without ever giving a thought to their origin. Phrases such as handwriting on the wall, wolf in sheep’s clothing, and charity begins at home are colloquial expressions that are widely utilized and understood.

If asked, most people would probably say that the phrase, stand firm, was initially uttered by a great ruler or leader, quite possibly a military leader, as an encouragement to his subjects or troops. But as with the previous phrases, stand firm also has its genesis in the Bible. In fact, depending on which version you consult, stand firm (or a variation thereof) occurs at least 34 times in Scripture. Christians should be very familiar with the well-known usage of stand firm as it appears in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints – and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel … ~ Ephesians 6:10-19

This passage of Scripture is very timely. In the same way that Paul exhorted the Ephesians, we must stand firm today. Christians have a responsibility to stand for what is right in regards to our culture. This responsibility is even more crucial in a nation whose government is “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It used to be easier for Americans to exercise their responsibility to stand for what is right; however, it is now increasingly difficult to take that stand.

Daniel Webster wisely remarked, “Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.” If we are true followers of Christ, we should also be the best citizens in the United States because we will stand unashamedly for what is right. Even when the world attempts to tell us we are wrong, we will continue to stand firm for what we know is right and true.

When the apostles were warned not to preach in Jesus’ name, they ignored the warning. They were dragged before the magistrates and rebuked, “Didn’t we tell you? You can no longer preach in Jesus’ name!” Acts 4:19-20 records Peter and John’s response: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” In other words, Peter and John were saying, we cannot help it, no matter how much you warn or threaten, we must obey God. These disciples of Christ did not retreat and they did not compromise; they firmly stood their ground.

We need to gird ourselves and do likewise — stand boldly for the truth of God, His Word, and the principles found therein. As Christians we must engage the culture. Though the 2014 elections are behind us, we cannot make the mistake of relaxing or letting our guard down for the 12-18 months until the next election cycle comes around. Opportunities to engage the culture — opportunities to stand firm against the prevailing, politically-correct winds — constantly surround us NOW.

If what I’m describing sounds as if we are heading into battle, we are. Consider the equipment Paul tells us to pick up and put on: breastplate, shield, helmet, and sword — armor! We must be suited up and prepared to “fight the good fight of faith” that Paul writes about in 1 Timothy 6:12.

While Paul isn’t referring to a fight involving guns, bullets, and bombs, he is describing a fight to defend a set of core principles that impel us, despite the incredible odds against us, to stand firm against wickedness and the lies of Satan. Fighting the good fight requires us to stand up and say, NO! This is wrong!

Sadly, we live in a day when the Church has become spineless and cowardly. We’ve allowed political correctness to silence her message and dilute her effectiveness because we are afraid of how the godless will label us and we are afraid of what taking a stand will cost. Because we fear the enemies of God more than we fear God Himself, the Church has ceased to be a courageous example of how to stand firm against encroaching wickedness.

It is imperative that the Church remember that Jesus tells us He did not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ~ Matthew 10:34-37

It is clear in this passage, if we believe what God says and if we are willing to stand up for it, we will not have much peace. Our life will be taken up in battle and we will need to put on the armor of God that is required to stand firm and fight the good fight.

Please do not misunderstand me — I am not issuing a call to enforce Biblical principles at the edge of a sword as if waging a sort of Christian jihad. But standing firm for what is right will almost certainly cost us friendships, family relationships, employment opportunities and more.

The Bible describes many actual battles that resulted in death and destruction, and the battle we are called to fight and the stand we must take will also result in real and painful losses and casualties. Still, the cost of trying to fly under the radar, attempting to remain neutral, and ignoring the evil that permeates the culture is even higher.

Scripture is clear. The Lord is AGAINST those who do evil. Our God does not have a moderate or undecided position in regard to sin and evildoers. Yet today, too many Christians are searching for a middle ground compromise that says we are for God, but not totally against evil. We have only to look at the Church of 1930’s Nazi Germany to see the horrific results of a strategy of compromise.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul instructs the believers how they ought to fight against the evil that surrounded them. Two thousand years later, his words apply to us as well.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . . ~ 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

So, what should our response be to the evil days in which we live? Should we go along in order to get along? NO! Should we ignore the rapid decline of the culture and remain silent? NO! Our responsibility and calling are to stand firm and fight the good fight. We must engage the culture in order to be involved in the debate.

Therefore, in order to pull down strongholds and cast down arguments, we can do nothing less than take an unwavering stand for righteousness. The Church, the body of Christ, cannot afford to hide behind the doors of her houses of worship. We must prepare and pray mightily as we put on the armor of God, step onto the battlefield, and stand firm in the fight for what is right.

Stand Firm

In a shocking turn of events, cowardly, ignorant Republican lawmakers in Indiana have proposed an amendment that turns the Religious Freedom Restoration Act upside down. The Associated Press is reporting that Indiana Republican lickspittles are offering the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment as a propitiatory sacrifice to the angry “gay” gods:

The amendment to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act released Thursday prohibits service providers from using the law as a legal defense for refusing to provide services, goods, facilities or accommodations. It also bars discrimination based on…sexual orientation[or] gender identity….

Matt Barber, attorney and editor-in-chief of the political website BarbWire, makes clear the implications of this noxious amendment:

What was intended as a shield to protect religious liberty has now become a sword to destroy it. What was intended to defend people of faith against being forced by government, under penalty of law, to affirmatively violate their First Amendment-protected liberty of conscience, has now been turned into a government weapon that compels people of faith to violate that conscience. This is a complete 180. If this is the final version, it would be better if this “RFRA” had never even been introduced. Pence must veto this and clarify that no person with a sincere religious belief against sin-based “gay marriage” may be compelled in any way, shape or form, to participate in that counter-Christian event. If he does not, then he has become an enemy to religious liberty.

To witness an embarrassing display of flabby political  spin and public emasculation, click here to see Indiana Republican flim-flammers genuflect before America’s new ravenous and brutish idols who have plundered marriage, children, churches, schools, rainbows, and now the Constitution.

What happens when citizens buy the lie that “all that matters are fiscal issues”? Fools, cowards, and worse get elected.

It’s a good thing our founding documents were not written by these Indiana Republicans.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send an email message to Gov. Pence to ask him to stand strong for true religious liberty and against the prevailing politically incorrect winds.  Gov. Pence needs to know there is near universal disagreement with this move, from the Christian pro-family movement.

If the link above does not work, please use this email address:  mpence@gov.in.gov.

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details

Written by Doug Wilson

In 1992, Pat Buchanan put the phrase “culture war” on the map with his speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. Since that time, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge, but — we should be careful to note — it is all the same river.

One of the things you may have noticed lately is that various Christians of various stripes have been trying to put distance between themselves and this culture war. They are “tired” of it. It just seems to go on and on, and what’s the point? Instead of all this, the Church should be focusing its energies on things like furrowed brow concern over climate change — something that will garner applause instead of sneers.

When it comes to the culture wars, I would like to begin by making a distinction between those who are tired from being on the right side, and those who are tired of being on the right side. The former have been faithfully doing their part in these culture wars, which means worshiping God, bringing up kids, providing them with a Christian education, volunteering at the crisis pregnancy center, voting faithfully, composing music, painting beautifully, and so on. If you want a naval war, you have to build ships, and if you want a culture war, you have to build a culture. And whether it is Rome or any other city, it is not done in a day.

But they are doing all this in a fallen world, and some of their fellow “culture warriors” are fools and others are hypocrites, and some of the generals are lunkheads. Some think that everything will be settled if they write shrill and counterproductive blog posts, and it turns out that’s not true. And suppose the staff member responsible for abstinence lectures at the crisis pregnancy center is getting it on with her boyfriend. Okay, that’s a problem. My father-in-law served with honor and distinction in the Pacific theater, and was wounded at Guadalcanal, and yet simply being on the right side did not make it all a matter of Simple Valor. He told me that one time he was up at the headquarters on that embattled island, and one of our generals was trying to function up there while flat out plastered. Couldn’t hit the ground with his hat.

Paul tells us that in a great house there are many different kinds of vessels (2 Tim. 2:20), and the same thing is true of a great army. There are many faithful Christians who have served in just the ways God calls us to serve in times like these. They are tired from serving in the culture wars, tired from betrayals, tired from mismanagement, tired from apparent lack of success, and the only thing they need is a word of encouragement.

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 15:58).

“For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister” (Heb. 6:10).

But there is the other category, the people who are tired of being on the right side. They are tired of the scorn they receive from the other team, and they have a deep hunger to somehow get in with the cool kids. And because there is absolutely no way to get in with the cool kids so long as you remain in any way in clear opposition to the sexual revolution, they have begun the process of dialing everything way back. What they are doing is looking for the first clear opportunity to go over to the other side. So the word that is necessary to deploy here is not encouragement, but rather repentance. The problem here is not that they object to our opposition to everything going to metaphorical hell in a metaphorical handbasket, but rather that they are acting in such a way that shows they want to go to the actual Hell.

People in this category chide and rebuke the conservative church for having misplaced priorities. Why so combative? Why the polemics? Why the constant us/them construal of everything?

Well, the last I checked, we are still dismembering little children by the million, and doing so in the name of James Madison. And last I checked, quisling black “leaders” were going along with a genocidal targeting of the black future, and all to white hipster golf applause. And God set forth Sodom and Gomorrah as an example to every generation of the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7), so that we all might have something to consider before giving way to our lusts. And yet we still live in a time when the secular state, in one of its many paroxysms of tolerance, is demanding that we all give our formal approval of detestable acts. And we also live in a time when the social justice gimmie gimmie graspers have a poorer understanding of property rights than a dog with a chew toy does. I could go on for a long time, for there are many examples.

So to those who are “tired of” all the culture war rhetoric, I have one last point to make.

If North America were one vast pagan empire, and the apostle Paul just arrived here, what would he do first? I quite grant that he would not start by circulating petitions against the gladiatorial games. He would start with the foundations, which would be planting churches, establishing worship around the empire, and teaching Christians to live like Christians in their families and congregations. We are going to judge angels, so let’s start by learning self-government. If the meek will inherit the earth, you don’t start with the inheriting part — you start by learning meekness, which can only be learned through the gospel. So that’s where he would start.

But if one day we got to the point where there were tens of thousands of churches, and millions of Christians, and the gladiatorial games were still going on merrily, and new stadiums were being built every year, then the only possible conclusion would be that the churches in question were diseased.

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matt. 5:13).

This article was originally posted at DougWils.com.

Richard Dawkins recently made one of the most ironic statements I’ve heard this week. During an interview for The Irish Times Dawkins, speaking about children, said:

“Children do need to be protected so that they can have a proper education and not be indoctrinated in whatever religion their parents happen to have been brought up in.”

The irony of the statement is found in the fact that Dawkins is one of the world’s foremost atheists, which is just another “religious” ideology.

I suppose people don’t often consider atheism a religion, but rather than absence of or rejection of religion. But that is a misnomer. Religion, at its core, is a framework of convictions and beliefs that are intended to guide ones thinking and give direction to one’s life. It’s a sort of roadmap for living each day. Considering this simple but fundamental definition of religion it is easy to conclude that atheism is just another religion.

If I were to ask Dawkins if he thought children should be brought up Christian, or Jewish, or Mormon, he would probably say no. Dawkins would tell me that they should be allowed to make their own decision and that parents should not force their religion on their kids. However, if I asked Dawkins if he would encourage atheism via scientific exploration, philosophy, and thinking critically and logically with his own kids, he would almost certainly say yes.

In making this admission Dawkins would be proudly declaring that he would push his own personal religion on his kids while saying other parents – Christians, etc. – should not do the same. But, somehow the irony and hypocrisy have escaped Dawkins.

The fact is, every person lives by a set of core principles and convictions that influence their daily lives. The question is, whose principles and convictions do you live by? You either live by a set of core principles and convictions that you make up on your own, or you they come from someone else. So the real question is “what is truth and where does it come from?”

Dawkins would have us believe that truth comes from man and should be determined by science, reason, logic, analysis, and opinion. The problem with that theory of course is that every person can come to a different conclusion. Put into practical terms this means that whoever holds the power is the ultimate decider of truth. But, if truth is transcendent it means that certain truths are unalterable and must be accepted regardless of one’s personal opinion.

For example, when does life begin? According to science, which Dawkins is a huge fan of, life begins at conception. Cells that split, grow, and develop are, according to science, living. And yet Dawkins and many other atheists like him believe that abortion is acceptable. By definition, the killing of another without just cause (self-defense) is murder. So how is it that an advocate of science denies science in order to support abortion? Simply put, abortion is a core value of an atheist worldview. It’s part of his religion.

The result?

Dawkins would advocate caring for trees, which have no cognitive brain function, but would deny the same protection to living human beings. That sort of twisted lack of logic and reason is hard to fathom. For a man like Dawkins to be in favor of it while warning that children need protected from their religious parents is especially egregious.

I can’t help but chuckle when someone says “don’t legislature your morality!” I want to reply “so you want me to legislate my immorality?” The truth that needs to be understood is that someone’s “morality” is constantly being pushed. Either a morality based on absolute, transcendent truth, or a morality based on popular opinion and cultural winds.

Dawkins, though apparently ignorant to the fact that he holds to a “religion” as ardently as any Christian I’ve known, makes it clear that atheism doesn’t think parents should be parents in the lives of their kids. Atheists, if they agree with Dawkins, believe that others – presumably atheists, would do a better job of raising kids. Because I believe God created all things rather than a big bang my kids, according to Dawkins, need protected. And yet science can’t figure out what caused the big bang. (They’re just absolutely certain God didn’t do it.)

So a bunch of people paid a bunch of money to hear a “religious” speaker tell them how kids need protected from religious parents. And yet one of them saw the irony in it all. I feel bad for them. I feel bad for Dawkins who seems so angry at God that he has dedicated his life to disproving Someone he doesn’t believe exists. Perhaps Dawkins should heed the words of the Bible from a man that wasn’t convince Jesus was the Messiah either.

A Pharisee, one that lived by the law, reason, logic, once told his fellow Pharisees that wanted to fight against Christians to leave them alone. He said:

“I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” (Acts 5:38-39)

Perhaps Dawkins should adopt the same strategy. Either way, one day, He will know the truth and will be required to give an answer to God.

Intellectual frustration is boiling over—mine, that is.

Opponents of RFRA laws would like these laws to protect religious liberty as long as religious liberty protections never trump the wishes of those who affirm a homosexual identity. Homosexual activists seek to effectively neuter the First Amendment. They seek to enshrine in law the right to discriminate based on religion and then have the audacity to say—as Apple CEO Tim Cook has—that RFRA laws “go against the very principles our nation was founded on.” Say what? Last time I checked, this nation was founded on religious liberty—not homoerotic privilege.

“Progressives” fret with feigned hysteria that Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act is really about homosexuality, which points to the unsavory truth that the only current threat to religious liberty in America is posed by the social and political movement to normalize homoeroticism. If the jackboot fits, homosexual activists should just wear it.

Here are my responses to two of the fatuous arguments that the Left produces in their effort to amend the Constitution without having to go through the work of amending the Constitution. Getting rid of that pesky First Amendment Free Exercise Clause would be oh so tedious and intellectually challenging. It’s much easier to hurl epithets, concoct absurd analogies, and redefine terms trusting that few will bother to think carefully about the glittering new redefinitions.

Bad argument 1. This law is designed to discriminate against “gays.”

Christian owners of wedding-related businesses are not refusing to serve homosexuals, nor do they desire to refuse to serve homosexuals.  Some are refusing to use their gifts, labor, and time in the service of a type of event that God they serve abhors.

Barronelle Stutzman, the elderly florist in Washington state who is being sued because she wouldn’t make floral arrangements for a same-sex “wedding,” had served the homosexual man who requested flowers for his faux-wedding. In fact, she was friends with him and had sold him flowers on multiple occasions knowing that he was homosexual.

There is a huge difference between discrimination against persons and discrimination between types of events or actions—a difference liberals refuse to acknowledge for strategic reasons.

Refusing to sell pastries or tulips to a customer who happens to be homosexual or bisexual (or black or white or a man or a woman) would constitute an immoral, unbiblical, indefensible act. Refusing to create and provide a cake or floral arrangement for an event that celebrates a union that your faith teaches is abhorrent to the God you serve is a biblically warranted, morally defensible act.

The Left claims that since both homosexual couples and heterosexual couples are requesting the same product, the discrimination present in the refusal to provide goods or services for a homosexual “wedding” constitutes discrimination based on their “sexual orientation.” But such a claim requires assent to the embedded, unspoken proposition that a homosexual “marriage” is, in reality, identical to a sexually complementary marriage. Orthodox (small “o”) Christians reject that claim as false.

What “progressives” are really claiming is that outside their homes and pews, orthodox Christians may enjoy religious liberty, but they, “progressives,” get to define all the terms of the debate. If they, “progressives,” claim that there are no ontological differences between non-marital, same-sex “weddings” and marital, sexually complementary weddings, then abracadabra, there are no ontological differences. In the faith-based, presuppositional, totalitarian universe of “progressives,” refusal to provide goods or services for the celebration of non-marital, same-sex “weddings” is not discrimination between two different types of events (because the Left has ordained them identical), but, rather, discrimination against persons. Very tricksy rhetorical game.

Homosexual “weddings” are not identical or equivalent to true weddings. In reality, they are the anti-thesis of true weddings. Homosexual “weddings” imitate or, rather, mock true weddings. When two men asked Baronelle Stutzman to make floral arrangements for their “wedding,” they were asking her to make a product she had never made before: an anti-wedding floral arrangement.

Bad argument 2. (ad nauseum) This RFRA law is the equivalent of Jim Crow laws that permitted restaurants to refuse to serve blacks.

For the umpteenth time, homosexuality is not analogous to race. Race is 100 percent heritable and immutable in all cases. Most important, race is not constituted by subjective desire or volitional acts.

In contrast, homosexuality is not 100 percent heritable, is in some cases mutable, but most important, homosexuality is constituted centrally by subjective desire and volitional activity, which is perfectly legitimate to assess morally. Much better analogues for homosexuality are polyamory or consensual adult incest.

Therefore, if homosexuality is included as a protected category in anti-discrimination policy and law, shouldn’t other conditions constituted by subjective desire and volitional acts be included in anti-discrimination law? Shouldn’t polyamory and consensual adult incest (or paraphilias which too are constituted by powerful unchosen and seemingly intractable desire and volitional acts) be considered, alongside race, as constitutionally protected categories? Shouldn’t business owners be compelled to use their gifts to help them celebrate their polyamorous and incestuous commitment ceremonies?

And what about bisexuality, which has been deemed a “sexual orientation”? Should Christian bakers, florists, and photographers be compelled to create and provide goods or services for a commitment ceremony between two women and a man who identify as bisexual?

As a fix, some conservatives are recommending that Indiana pass a law that prohibits discrimination based on “sexual orientation.” Such laws are misguided for three reasons:

• First, “sexual orientation” really means homosexuality and bisexuality because in any objective sense, all humans are heterosexual, and, therefore, discrimination based on heterosexuality is nonsensical.
• Second, as mentioned, laws that specifically protect one condition constituted by subjective desire and volitional acts (e.g., homosexuality or bisexuality) open the legal floodgates to other conditions similarly constituted.
• Third, homosexuals will use such laws to prohibit people of faith from discriminating among different types of actions and events, as is happening to Christian owners of wedding-related businesses.

Not including “sexual orientation” in anti-discrimination laws no more constitutes legal carte blanche to refuse service to homosexuals or bisexuals than does the absence of the categories of paraphilias, polyamory, gluttony, or adultery constitute legal carte blanche to refuse to serve frotteurists, zoophiles, polyamorists, gluttons, or adulterers.

As a Christian, I shouldn’t refuse to serve whites, but I should refuse to provide cakes for a celebration of white superiority.

I shouldn’t refuse to sell tulips to a woman who affirms a bisexual identity, but  I should refuse to create and provide floral arrangements for her commitment ceremony to a man and woman.

I shouldn’t refuse to serve Muslims, but I should refuse to photograph a pro-ISIS rally.

I shouldn’t refuse to sell a pastry to a homosexual, but I should refuse to bake a cake for his anti-wedding.

By the way, remember this news story next time someone asks, “How will same-sex marriage hurt you?”

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

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Written by Anugrah Kumar

Urging Presbyterian Church USA to “repent and be restored to fellowship,” the National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), which represents 34,000 churches from 15 denominations, has declared it has severed ties with PCUSA after it amended its constitution changing their definition of marriage to include same-sex couples.

“NBCI and its membership base are simply standing on the Word of God within the mind of Christ. We urge our brother and sisters of the PCUSA to repent and be restored to fellowship,” NBCI President Rev. Anthony Evans said, according to Charisma News.

“PCUSA’s manipulation represents a universal sin against the entire church and its members. With this action, PCUSA can no longer base its teachings on 2,000 years of Christian scripture and tradition, and call itself a Christian entity in the body of Christ. It has forsaken its right by this single wrong act,” added the head of the coalition, which represents 15.7 million African-Americans.

Last year, PCUSA approved a vote on an amendment to change their official definition of marriage from “a man and a woman” to “two people, traditionally a man and a woman.” And earlier this month, the proposed change to PCUSA’s Book of Order got the necessary number of presbytery votes.

“Apostle Paul warns us about this when he declared in Galatians 1:8 that there are those who will preach another gospel,” Evans said.

“No church has the right to change the Word of God. By voting to redefine marriage PCUSA automatically forfeits Christ’s saving grace,” he added. “There is always redemption in the body of Christ through confession of faith and adhering to Holy Scripture.”

Evans said PCUSA “deliberately” voted to change the Word of God and the interpretation of marriage between one man and one woman. “This is why we must break fellowship with them and urge the entire Christendom to do so as well.”

At the PCUSA General Assembly held in Detroit, Michigan, last June, a majority of delegates voted for a recommendation to amend the Book of Order regarding marriage definition.

“A proposed amendment to change the constitution to include same-gender marriages in the church’s constitution passed the General Assembly but must be ratified by a majority of the church’s 172 regional presbyteries,” explained PCUSA in a FAQ document. “Presbyteries have one year to vote on the proposed amendment. If a majority ratifies the amendment, it would take effect June 21.”

This is not the first time that PCUSA has hit the headlines on its move toward greater acceptance of homosexuality within the church.

In 2010, the PCUSA General Assembly approved a measure that allowed for presbyteries to approve the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals – after which more than 150 congregations voted to disaffiliate from the mainline denomination.

This article was originally posted on the ChristianPost.com website.

Written Chris Woodward

A longtime Christian leader says the issue of homosexuality and homosexual marriage are acting like a “truth serum” for evangelical churches.

“Either you believe the Bible and you do not accept the morality of homosexual behavior, and you do not accept homosexual marriage,” Dr. Richard Land said Monday in an AFR Talk radio interview. “Or you have taken a position that you’re going to decide which parts of the Bible you’re going to accept, and which parts you’re not going to accept,” Land said, “and you accept homosexual behavior as moral and you accept homosexual marriage.”

Land made his comments Monday on American Family Radio’s “Sandy Rios in the Morning.”

Jackson and Land were discussing Weatherly Baptist Church in Alabama, whose pastor recently announced his support of homosexual “marriage” after a member of the church staff officiated at a homosexual wedding.

The church’s website describes the church as “inclusive,” which sometimes refers to a church that holds liberal views on homosexuality – and excludes more traditional ones.

Land is currently president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in North Carolina after leading the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, a part of the Southern Baptist Convention.

A lot of churches and institutions that have historically been evangelical and Bible-believing have drifted under the influence of the culture, Land claimed.

“Unfortunately, instead of being salt and light, they have been salted and lit by the culture,” he told the radio host. “They are now going to have the truth about them revealed by the way they respond to this issue.”

Land described the issue of homosexuality as a “truth serum.” That’s because it’s forcing churches to deal with the issue, and how the Bible addresses it, after churches have ignored it for many years, he said.

Some churches claim that the Bible isn’t clear on homosexuality since Jesus never denounced it in the New Testament.

“[Jesus] also said, ‘What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,” Land pointed out. “So a lot of evangelical churches have already ignored what the Bible teaches about divorce. So why would they not ignore what the Bible teaches about homosexual marriage?”

Originally posted at OneNewsNow.com.

When the most basic truths and institutions are under relentless attack, it should hearten many to know that a gargantuan cultural counterstrike is taking shape in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol dome.

In a city obsessed with power and money, with the latter facilitating and corrupting the former, the Museum of the Bible figures to be a mighty rebuke to the secular kingdom whose jealousy knows no bounds.

If the debauched Woodstock rock festival in 1969 was, as Rabbi Daniel Lapin observed, “a finger in the eye of God,” the Museum of the Bible will be a finger in the eye of the dark master of this world and a gentle reminder to the “world’s only superpower” that we exist at all only at God’s pleasure. Also, that we mock His commandments at our own peril. Not a bad thing to ponder in the Age of Obama.

Slated for opening in November 2017, the museum is the brainchild of Steve and Jackie Green, whose family owns the Oklahoma City-based, Hobby Lobby chain of 572 craft stores.

At a special exhibition last week at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium, Mr. and Mrs. Green, along with Museum President Cary Summers gave several hundred guests a multimedia – and nonpolitical – preview of what is to be “the greatest museum in the world.” The event included a solo performance by Christian recording star Michael W. Smith.

Here are a few facts:

A $400 million budget for a 430,000 square-foot, 10-story building;

More than 40,000 biblical relics, including fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament passages from 300 A.D. and writings from Abraham’s time (1,800 B.C.);

Floors devoted to biblical study, from beginning level to world-class scholarship;

The world’s largest video screen on the ceiling, with constantly changing images;

“Immersive, theatrical” animated biblical narratives, from Abraham to Jesus;

A Disneyesque simulated flight through Washington’s buildings and monuments that feature Scripture;

A reproduction of the ornate Vatican Library;

Traveling exhibits, which have already been featured in Jerusalem, the Vatican and in Cuba;

A rooftop Biblical garden with plants from the Holy Land under a Torah scroll-like transparent covering;

A massive entrance flanked by two, 40-foot-high bronze panels of Hebrew Scripture.

Situated at 300 D Street SW, two blocks from the National Mall and within a three-minute walk of the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of the Bible is being built on the site of the Washington Design Center, which was originally a brick, refrigerated warehouse built in 1923.

Mr. Green, an evangelical Christian whose most recent claim to fame was winning a Supreme Court challenge to the Obamacare directive to Hobby Lobby and other Christian-owned companies to provide abortions and abortifacients in employee health plans, bought the property in 2012 for $50 million. He and his wife have been collecting artifacts for years, and were exploring several locations. They decided on Washington because, he said, “it’s the city of museums” with the most in the world.

In ancient Israel, the center of village life was the synagogue, the impressive building that housed the Torah scroll. The synagogue’s prominence, much like the cathedrals and village churches of Europe, left no doubt as to what the people worshiped.

Today, in many places, especially in the United States, the most impressive building is a shopping mall, dedicated to commerce, not worship of God.

Not that commerce is in itself bad. Far from it. America became the world’s most prosperous, free nation by following biblical principles that allow capitalism’s dynamic wealth creation. The Bible clearly supports the market, the rule of law, property rights, hard work and honest money – along with charity. But the Scriptures also caution against idolatry, with the clearest warning in the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3).

Jesus put the government in its place when He held up a coin and said, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Caesar is entitled to some tax money, but has no business in matters of the soul.

It’s fascinating to try to surmise what impact the new museum will have when it opens two years hence. Will it lead to a revival of interest not only in the Bible but in Christianity and Judaism? Will it build respect and support for Israel and better understanding of its neighbors?

At the least, it is likely to change individual hearts. Imagine if Fox Television’s producers spent several hours in such a place a few years ago and then brainstormed on the name for a new show. Would they still have come up with something like “American Idol?”

Originally posted at TownHall.com.

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

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Written by Joe Carter

In a recent interview in which she announced she had joined the Episcopal Church, Rachel Held Evans said,

Just about every denomination in the American church— including many evangelical denominations — is seeing a decline in numbers, so if it’s a competition, then we’re all losing, just at different rates.

Many Americans, both within and outside the church, share Evans perception of the decline of denominations. But is it true? Are most denominations truly seeing a decline in numbers?

Before we answer the question, we should clarify what is meant by “decline.” We could, for instance, say that Protestantism has been on the decline since the 1970s. That would be true. We could also say there are now more Protestants today than there were in the 1970s. That too would be true.

The fact is that the percentage of people identifying as Protestant has declined since the 1970s while the total number of Protestants has increased (62 percent of Americans identified as Protestant in 1972 and only 51 percent did so in 2010). Yet because of the population increase in the U.S., there were 28 million more Protestants in 2010 than in 1972.

So did Protestantism in America decline since the 1970s? Yes (percentwise) and no (total numbers).

What about when we drill down to the denominations that comprise Protestantism in America? Here the differences depend on whether we look at short-term or long-term trends.

If we look at the short-term (year-to-year) trends, we may be able to detect a decline in some groups, especially in large denominations. For instance, the membership of the Southern Baptist Convention—the largest Protestant denomination in America—declined by 105,708 from 2011 to 2012. While that sounds like a lot of people, the denomination could lose that many members every year for 150 years before the pews in SBC churches would be completely empty.

In the case of the SBC, and other conservative denominations, the trend seems to be that they’re losing members to other conservative denominations, especially non-denominational ones. As of 2010, four percent of Americans (12,200,000) worshipped in a nondenominational church. There are almost as many members of nondenominational churches as there are members of the SBC—and almost as many as in all of the mainline churches combined. A decline in a conservative denominational church is often offset by an increase in a conservative non-denominational church.

When tracking changes to gauge the overall health of a denomination, it makes more sense to look at long-term trends. If we look back 50 years (to 1965) we can see a clear and unequivocal trendline: liberal denominations have declined sharply while conservative denominations have increased or remained the same.

Here are the primary mainline denominations, every one of which has seen long-term decline in membership:

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

In 1965, the CC(DoC) had 1,918,471 members. In 2012, the membership was 625,252, a decline of 67 percent.

Reformed Church in America

In 1967, the RCA had 384,751 members. In 2014, the membership was 145,466, a decline of 62 percent.

United Church of Christ (Congregationalist)

In 1965, the UCC had 2,070,413 members. In 2012, there were 998,906 members, a decline of 52 percent.

Episcopal Church

In 1966, the TEC had 3,647,297 members. By 2013, the membership was 1,866,758, a decline of 49 percent.

(Those numbers should be even lower, though, since those figures by the TEC include breakaway churches trying to leave the denomination.)

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (PCUSA)

In 1967, the PC(USA) had 3,304,321 members. In 2013, the membership was 1,760,200, a decline of 47 percent.

United Methodist Church (UMC)

In 1967, the UMC had 11,026,976 members. In 2012, the membership was 7,391,911, a decline of 33 percent.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)

In 1987, the ECLA had 5,288,230 members. In 2013, the membership was 3,863,133, a decline of 27 percent.

(Note: The ELCA was formally constituted in 1988 as a merger of the Lutheran Church in America, the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches and the American Lutheran Church.)

American Baptist Churches

In 1967, the ABC/USA had 1,335,342 members. In 2012, the membership was 1,308,054, a decline of 2 percent.

(Note: The ABC/USA has been able to stem its decline among white congregants by replacing them with African American and Hispanic members.)

Now let’s look at a few of the primary non-mainline denominations, almost every one of which has increased in membership since the mid-1960s.

Church of God in Christ

In 1965, the CoG had 425,000 members. In 2012, the membership was 5,499,875, an increase of 1,194 percent.

Presbyterian Church in America

In 1973, the PCA had 41,232 members. In 2013, the membership was 367,033, an increase of 790 percent.

(Note: The Presbyterian Church in America was founded in 1974 by conservative members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States who rejected that church’s merger with the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.)

Evangelical Free Church of America

In 1965, the EFCA had 43,851 members. In 2013, the membership was 372,321 , an increase of 749 percent.

Assemblies of God

In 1965, the AoG had 572,123 members. In 2013, the membership was 3,030,944, an increase of 430 percent.

African Methodist Episcopal Church

In 1951, the AME had 1,166,301 members. In 2012, the membership was 2,500,000, an increase of 114 percent.

Southern Baptist Convention

In 1965, the SBC had 10,770,573 members. In 2013, the membership was 15,735,640, an increase of 46 percent.

Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod  

In 1965, the LCMS had 2,692,889 members. In 2012, the membership was 2,163,698, a decline of 20 percent.

Mainliners may try to comfort themselves by claiming that every denomination is in decline, but it’s simply not true. While conservative churches aren’t growing as quickly as they once were, mainline churches are on a path toward extinction. The mainline churches are finding that as they move further away from Biblical Christianity, the closer they get to their inevitable demise.

Originally published at TheGospelCoalition.org.

Written by Chelsen Vicari

The last few weeks have seen a lot of commentary on pastors leading the same-sex “affirmation movement.” Church leaders like the infamous unorthodox author and speaker Rob Bell, evangelicals Stan Mitchell of Gracepointe Church in Franklin, Tennessee, and Danny Cortez of New Heart Community Church of La Mirada, California are just a few of the movement’s leading affirmation pastors.

So when a pastor takes a public stand to say, “I have a deep pastoral concern that Christians and churches are flinching all across our culture” it makes us ooh and aah a bit in wonder and admiration. This was the reaction to Dr. David’ Platt’s keynote address at the annual National Religious Broadcaster’s Convention held in Nashville, Tennessee last week. What should be the norm for Christian leadership is increasingly becoming the exception.

Platt, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board and author of the books Radical and A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture, began his address by pointing out the hypocrisy of Christians who advocate for less controversial social issues while avoiding others like life, morality and marriage altogether. “We are passionate against poverty and slavery, injustice that we should stand against, but issues that don’t bring us into conflict with culture around us. Yet on issues like abortion or so-called same-sex marriage, issues that are much more contentious in the culture around us, instead of being passionate, we are strangely passive.”

“Ladies and gentlemen the gospel does not give us that option. We cannot choose to pick and choose which social issues to apply Biblical truth to,” Platt said. “The same gospel that compels us to war against sex-trafficking compels us to address sexual immorality in all of its forms.”

“We must apply the gospel consistently, compassionately, and courageously,” said Platt as he went on to lay out four biblical foundations that have significant culture implications when denied God’s truth:

1) God Creates Us as a Demonstration of His glory
2) God Designs Man and Woman for the Display of His Gospel
3) God Judges Us by His Righteous Law
4) God Pursues Us with His Redeeming Love

“These four truths together form the essence of the gospel,” said Platt as he pointed towards the implications when Christians accommodate culture.

“Culture implication number one, based on Biblical foundation number one, we oppose abortion as an assault on God’s creation and affront to God’s glory.” Christ followers cannot hide from the truth that abortion is morally wrong because of the gospel. Platt explained, “People say abortion is such a complex issue…but if that which is in the womb is a person formed by God, this issue is not complex at all. You cannot believe God’s word and sit back passively on this issue.” If we ignore the genocide of unborn babies murderously dismembered, Platt firmly explained, then we deny with our actions the very Biblical truths we claim to embrace.

The second Biblical implication is that God creates man and woman for the display of His gospel, “so culturally we flee sexual immorality in our lives and we defend sexual complementary in marriage for the sake of the gospel in our world.” Platt continued, “The gospel is most clear…so if we want the gospel to be clear in our culture then we must flee sexual immorality in all of our lives. We must do 1 Corinthians 6:18, run from sexual immorality. Not reason with it, not rationalize it, but run from it.”

Platt’s fiercest statement came during his second point, noting “Homosexual activity is a pervasive topic today. But we must be careful not to be careful of selective moral outrage in our culture.” He continued, “If we roll our eyes and shake our heads at court decisions in our country, yet we turn the channel to stare uncritically at adultery in a drama, watch the trivialization of sex in movies, look at seductive images on reality TV shows and the internet or virtual prostitution and advertisements that sell by provoking sexual interests in us, then we’ve missed the whole point.”

Platt’s most emotional, convicting moment came during his last points as he described the reality of death for sinners and the horrific reality of Hell. Undeniably, the urgency to share the good news with unbelievers is yet another issue where Christians have become passive. “What is it going to take for the concept of unreached people to become totally intolerable to us in the Church?”

The battle is raging over the very souls of our neighbors. “Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved,” said Platt. “In our leadership let’s be clear. The gospel of Christ compels contrite, compassionate, courageous action on a multiplicity of culture issues. So let’s apply it consistently across our culture while spreading this gospel intentionally across all cultures.”

Originally published at ChristianPost.com.

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details

Last month, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone published a statement on Catholic teaching derived from the Catechism of the Catholic Church that he intends to add to the faculty and staff handbook that governs four Catholic high schools in his diocese. This much-needed statement has generated a nationwide dust-up. He has received both support and opposition, but as usual the usual “progressive” suspects are the most cacophonous.

Here’s an excerpt from Cordileone’s statement, which makes clear what is required of administrators, faculty, and staff:

As effective professionals in a Catholic School setting, we all—administrators, faculty and staff—are  required and expected to avoid fostering confusion among the faithful and any dilution of the schools’ primary Catholic mission. Therefore, administrators, faculty and staff of any faith or of no faith, are expected to arrange and conduct their lives so as not to visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths. To that end, further, we all must refrain from public support of any cause or issue that is explicitly or implicitly contrary to that which the Catholic Church holds to be true.

Further, those who identify as Catholic have even more rigorous expectations, especially teachers:

[A]ll administrators, faculty and staff who are Catholics, and particularly those engaged as classroom teachers, have an even higher calling, according to which they must not only avoid public contradiction of their status as professional agents in the mission of Catholic Education, but are also called to conform their hearts, minds and consciences, as well as their public and private behavior, ever more closely to the truths taught by the Catholic Church.

Apparently, faculty and staff are shocked, shocked to find Catholic doctrine going on in Catholic schools. Now, 80% of them have signed a petition objecting to the requirement that Catholic teachers affirm Catholic doctrine.

And to which tenets of Catholic doctrine do these teachers in Catholic high schools object? Apparently, their objections focus on Catholic teaching related to sexuality and abortion.

It should come as no surprise to regular IFI readers to learn that an English teacher is among the dozen teachers who created the teacher petition opposing Cordileone’s statement. Jim Jordan, chair of the English Department at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco, expresses these deep thoughts:

As teachers, we are not only seeking to preserve a safe and vibrant community that supports education and the free exchange of ideas, but the safety and well-being of our students. This language in this judgmental context undermines the mission of Catholic education and the inclusive, diverse and welcoming community we prize at our schools. It is an attack not only on teachers’ labor and civil rights, but on young people who are discovering who they are in the world.

Several thoughts about Jordan’s thoughts:

1.)  Requiring Catholic teachers in private Catholic schools to affirm Catholic doctrine does not prohibit the free exchange of ideas on the parts of students. Nor does it prevent teachers from exposing students to multiple points of view. It simply requires that teachers publicly affirm Catholic beliefs as truth.

2.)  Students are not made “unsafe” upon hearing in a Catholic school that Catholic doctrine views contraception as “morally unacceptable,” or that “adultery, masturbation, fornication, the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations” are “gravely evil,” or that “human life is sacred and must be protected”  Students may be uncomfortable when exposed to ideas with which they disagree or that point them toward life choices that oppose unchosen desires, but such discomfort constitutes absence of “safety” only in the infinitely expansive rhetorical universe of homosexualists. And in an academic context in which the “free exchange of ideas” is valued, discomfort should be expected.

3.)  Jordan refers to but does not define student “well-being.” Catholic doctrine has the same goal as Jim Jordan and his pedagogical posse. The Catholic Church understands that God opposes, for example, fornication, feticide, and homoerotic activity, and, therefore, such acts vitiate human flourishing and put at risk eternal life. Affirming that which God condemns undermines student well-being.

4.)  Jordan finds vexing the “judgmental context” of a restatement of Catholic doctrine in a handbook for teachers who teach in Catholic schools. Would Jordan feel similarly incensed if Cordileone required teachers to affirm Catholic teaching on consensual adult incest, which is called a “grave offense” that “marks a regression toward animality”? Would Jordan argue that such judgmental language inhibits the free exchange of ideas or undermines student well-being and safety or that it constitutes an attack on teachers’ civil rights?

5.)  Being a welcoming community does not require the affirmation of all beliefs, all feelings, and all behavioral acts. Certainly, Jesus did not think so.

Catholic moral teaching does, indeed, make judgments about what constitutes moral behavior—as do Jim Jordan and his fellow petition signatories. The problem is that Jordan and his compatriots base their judgments on something other than the Bible.

Jordan feigns opposition to “judgmental contexts” even as he creates a judgement-dripping petition for his colleagues to sign—one which states that “the recently proposed handbook language is harmful to our community and creates an atmosphere of mistrust and fear.”

Since they’re working in Catholic schools, it would behoove these teachers to know that central to the mission of Catholic education is the forging of distinctly Catholic identities in their students. And the mission of Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory’s mission is “to prepare our students to become service-oriented leaders with a commitment to living the Gospel.”

An equally outrageous action has been undertaken by a local governmental body.  The bumptious buttinskies of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who seek to impose their moral beliefs on even Catholic schools, unanimously voted for a resolution  that dogmatically proclaims Cordileone’s statement “contrary to shared San Francisco values of non-discrimination, women’s rights, inclusion, and equality for all humans.” There may have been a typo in their resolution. I think they meant to say “Sodom”—not San Francisco.

The supervisors object specifically to the parts of Cordileone’s statement that identify homosexuality, extra-marital relations, fornication, contraception, pornography use, masturbation, and assisted reproductive technologies as violations of Catholic doctrine.

The supervisors fret that if teachers in Catholic schools should be expected to “conduct their public lives so as to not visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths,” their personal lives would be impacted. Heaven forbid that Catholic teachers should be expected to refrain from engaging in behavior that God abhors.

Further, the supervisors in all their glorious humility proclaim that “San Francisco is known around the world as a place of inclusion, tolerance, and acceptance of individuals and their life choices, regardless of their…religion.” [emphasis added]

Anticipating that the irony in such a claim might be noticed, the supervisors in all their glorious humility sought to define all religion for all the world: “All religion is rooted in the idea that God is love, which is in parallel to our shared San Francisco values of inclusion.”

I’m not sure how these supervisors arrived at the conclusion that God’s nature “is in parallel to” San Francisco values, but they certainly didn’t arrive at it via the Bible. One of God’s attributes is love, but it’s not the kind of love that involves gentle people wearing flowers in their hair at a San Francisco love-in.

God’s attributes are inseparable. God’s love is inseparable from his holiness, his justice, his immutability, his sovereignty, his wisdom, and his goodness. In 1 Corinthians 13, the “Love Chapter,” we learn, among other things, that love “does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.”

And how do we foolish, fallen humans know what is true? God tells us in his Word what is true. God has told us that homoerotic activity, fornication, adultery, looking at others with lust (i.e., porn use), and murder (e.g., abortion) are wrong.

The supervisors may be correct in one regard. The Catholic beliefs to which Cordileone’s proposed changes allude likely do not comport with “San Francisco values” regarding abortion, homoerotic activity, porn use, and marriage. And apparently San Francisco values don’t comport with San Francisco values regarding non-discrimination, because a lot of San Franciscans endorse discrimination based on religion if the religion in question is Catholicism (or orthodox Christianity).

Here’s another radical proposal: Those who hate Catholic doctrine should seek employment at non-Catholic institutions.

Folks, the Left means it when they say the free exercise of religion extends only to “hearts, homes, and pews.” They desperately want religion out of even religious schools. Translation: in this brave new world, the exercise of religion is not free at all.

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