Do you remember the popular advertising slogan, “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen”? While good financial advice can boost your net worth, solid theology, biblical scholarship, and consistent application of the Word of God are infinitely more profitable. With that in mind, you will definitely want to listen closely as you view this timely and informative conversation featuring Dr. Robert Gagnon and Pastor Derek Buikema.

Beginning “in the beginning,” Dr. Gagnon presents an overview of what the Bible says about marriage by explaining the importance of the specific words that are used in the account of God’s creation of man and woman in Genesis 1 and 2. Dr. Gagnon also discusses complimentary otherness, human sexual ethics, and Jesus’ authoritative voice on the topic of divorce and remarriage.

As the conversation continues, Dr. Gagnon and Pastor Buikema address the scriptural prohibition against homosexuality, impurity offenses, the danger of compromise, tolerance, and acceptance within the church concerning matters of morality, and the proper motivation for discipline.

If you hesitate or struggle to confidently articulate or promote a biblical worldview regarding homosexuality, same-sex “marriage,” polyamory, and other perversions, I encourage you to watch this video – and share it with friends and family.

Dr. Robert Gagnon is a professor of New Testament theology at Houston Baptist University and the author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics.

Pastor Derek Buikema is the lead pastor at Orland Park Christian Reformed Church.

In his interview with Derek Buikema of Orland Park Christian Reformed Church, Dr. Allan C. Carlson discusses the current political climate as it relates to American Christianity and the family. Certain policies, for example, though promoted by the Republican party, are detrimental to the family. If replaced or improved, Carlson argues, conservatives could restore the focus on marriage, children, and the family in our country as well as improve the economy. Using examples from Hungary and other countries, Carlson delivers his opinions on reshaping conservative politics to more truly reflect Christianity, as well as his ideas on why Christians ought to be involved in politics at all at this time.

Dr. Carlson is President Emeritus of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society (previously known as the Rockford Institute). He is the John Howard Senior Fellow at the International Organization for the Family, and Editor of The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy.

Dr. Carlson is the author of the books, Family Questions: Reflections on the American Social Crisis; The Swedish Experiment in Family Politics: The Myrdals and the Interwar Population Crisis; From Cottage to Work Station: The Family’s Search for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age; The New Agrarian Mind: The Movement Toward Decentralist Thought in 20th Century America; Society, Family, Person; and The American Way: Family and Community in the Shaping of the American Identity.

Previously we have featured a series of video excerpts, but, as promised, we are now pleased to present the entirety of Pastor Derek Buikema’s recent interview with Rod Dreher, senior editor at the American Conservative and author of The Benedict Option.

Mr. Dreher begins by stating that one purpose of a Christian is to transform the world with the truth of the gospel – but how can that be accomplished when so many people don’t know what the faith teaches and lack spiritual discipline?

Pastor Derek and Rod engage in an in-depth discussion of the Benedict Option, detailing what it is and what it is not. Rod promotes the need for a “strategic” (not cowardly) retreat from anti-Christian culture in order to prepare and be strengthened to endure the persecution we know we will face.

The conversation continues with encouragement for Christians and the Church to be politically engaged and willing to fight for religious liberty, and Rod and Pastor Derek examine the value of distinctly Christian communities and institutions, especially institutions of higher learning. Rod concludes the interview with a personal example concerning the appropriate expression of righteous anger.

Please watch and share on social media:

One of the many remarkable aspects of this time in America is that all the forces of oppression about which George Orwell warned in his novel 1984 are present and growing, and many of the oppressors can’t see it. Ironically, many of the oppressors view themselves as paragons of virtue when, in reality, they’re paragons of virtue-signaling, which constitutes a performative cloak of invisibility that conceals their totalitarianism.

In Orwell’s portentous novel, he describes four government ministries, one of which—the Ministry of Truth—“concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts.” Orwell wrote,

‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ … All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.

While our news, entertainment, education, and fine arts are not institutionally linked to the government, they are ideologically bound together in an unholy alliance that seeks to indoctrinate society just as Big Brother does in 1984.

Today “progressives” are tearing down statues and renaming government schools to erase recognition of our Founding Fathers. Government schools are teaching the revisionist history of the 1619 Project and Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States.

Through falsified birth certificates and drivers’ licenses, the state colludes with mainstream news outlets, entertainment, and educational institutions to scrub history by identifying men and women as the sex they aren’t. Try looking for information on the actress Ellen Page. Within hours of Page’s recent announcement that she was no longer a woman, the disparate minions in the Ministry of Truth began scrubbing history, changing “Ellen” to “Elliot” and replacing all pronouns that refer to her with deceitful male pronouns.

Acts of hatred and deceit against the human person are now called “love” and “authenticity” by those practiced at the art of Newspeak.

Orwell wrote, “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”

It’s happening now, and it is terrifying, indeed. Now we have intrusive Big Government—including government schools—in cahoots with Big Tech to control the past, the present, and the future. Social media has created algorithms and inconsistently applied “community standards” to suppress the dissemination of not only ideas but also news.

Orwell explains that in the government-mandated language of Newspeak, “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” When I worked at Deerfield High School, two English teachers, Michael Wolf and Jeff Berger-White, sent a letter to the local press which was signed by half the department in which they argued,

It is difficult for … people … to simultaneously hold conflicting opinions. But this difficulty should not prevent us from attempting to do so. The best work we do in our classrooms is to highlight how multiple understandings are true, and that the validity of one idea does not necessarily negate the validity of another.

I’m pretty sure they read 1984 but seemed to have missed the point.

In their letter, they acknowledged that “certain doctrine” that “may not allow diverse and conflicting views to coexist” still have a “cherished place” in their classrooms—unless those doctrine are “malicious.” Guess which views on sexuality the gods of government schools have declared malicious.

The vehicle for our rocketing trip deep down into our subterranean Orwellian dystopia is “trans”-cultism. The world we’ve entered is the anti-science Transtopia where, in Orwell’s words, “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” The propellant that reality-denying “trans”-cultists and their fearful and/or foolish collaborators use is Newspeak.

Newspeak, like the speech rules leftists impose today, is intended to control thought:

It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable. … This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings. … [T]he special function of certain Newspeak words. … was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them.

In two now-famous quotes, Orwell illuminates the troubling views of tyrants about language:

“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

On December 8, 2020, the University of Michigan’s Information and Technology Services’ “Words Matter Task Force”—Ministry of Truth for short—issued its spanking new Newspeak lexicon. Acknowledging that “language is powerful,” the Ministers of Truthiness have published a document with banned words and “recommended” replacements along with a bewildering array of action steps to ensure widespread compliance. The banned list—which is “not exhaustive and will continue to grow”—are those words deemed by the Ministers of Truthiness (aka Thought Police) to “harm morale, and deliberately or inadvertently exclude people from feeling accepted” or “cause people to feel alienated.”

Here are a few of the alienating terms (left column) and their “recommended” Newspeakian replacements (right column):

I don’t know how fans of Masters of the Universe are going to feel about Primaries of the Universe.

This list reveals that the left is teaching people to be offended in order to maintain their cultural power through intersectional-identity grievance politics. My anecdotal experience with even leftists suggests virtually no one has been offended by most of these expressions as they are commonly used until the last five minutes of history. And the faux-offense now being asserted didn’t arise naturally. It had to be beaten into them by the hammer of tolerance wielded by far-left social justice warriors.

It also raises a question for leftists: If a word’s history is largely unknown and its current meaning is inoffensive, why eliminate it? Why not be thankful that the old ugly association has been supplanted by a new innocuous one?

If, on the other hand, we must commit to linguistic stasis, then shouldn’t we retain the historical meaning of, for example, pronouns?

And what if I’m offended by being commanded to use pronouns based on “gender identity” rather than on biological sex?  What if, because I’m deeply committed to science, reality, truth, and the First Amendment, I’m offended by attempts to socially coerce language compliance in the service of a political agenda?

Orwell wrote that “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” Yep, that pretty much describes what 16+ years of secular education does to children.

Under an article about the University of Michigan’s Ministry of Truth on the College Fix website, one waggish fellow left this perfect response to the banned words list:

Every member of the Words Matter Task Force has sold his or her ideals down the river. This black-and-white thinking only ever leads to blacklists, and shunning people off the reservation while the crazies enjoy a crippled picnic. To be thrown under the bus for being the low man on the social-justice totem pole is to be grandfathered into the ever-growing community of gypped guys and gals, excluded when the masters change the rules of polite society into one of a dummy society where every utterance is weighed for a privileged account. Even asking for a sanity check of these lunatic brown-baggers puts you at risk of being professionally, if not personally, disabled. They may start by cracking the whip rhetorically, but their rhetoric inevitably leads to insane physical realities sooner or later.

In short, kiss my grits, sweetie.

Remember this list next time you see the leftist American Library Association’s annual umbrage-fest called Banned Books Week. Leftists ban not only books, but also words.

Orwell said something else “progressives” will hate:

Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

When the Israelites finally came to the end of their desert wanderings following their exodus from Egypt, they faced the task of dividing the Promised Land among the various tribes. This division, as we read in Joshua 19, was according to families.

In other words, the family you belonged to determined your place in the land. It decided where you lived. That, of course, would then have an impact on various other aspects of your life. Simply put, to a large degree, your family determined your direction.

What was true in a practical sense for the Israelites is true for families even today in a spiritual sense. The direction of our children is largely defined by our direction as parents.

I don’t mean that God never intervenes and allows a child of lost parents to be saved and live a fruitful life. I also don’t mean that God’s grace, mercy, and love are limited by the faults and failures of saved parents. God has the right and the ability to intervene miraculously and pluck children from even the worst circumstances and create something beautiful in their lives.

But even so, I think we can acknowledge it to be true that the overall spiritual condition and direction of parents generally has a significant impact on the lives of their children and the direction they follow.

This isn’t by accident. God gave parents the responsibility to bring their children up in His ways. When parents use their influence well, it can have a profoundly positive impact on their children (spiritually and otherwise). That’s the way God intended it. Unfortunately, the reverse is true as well—when parents neglect or abuse their influence, the results can be tragic.

This truth ought to inspire in us a desire to walk closely with God so our children can see and learn from our example. Am I living in such a way that I would want my children to learn from and copy what they see in me? Am I providing them the daily example they need to see firsthand what a genuine Christian life looks like? Will they one day be able to look back at the legacy I leave behind to gain inspiration or instruction on how to live their own lives in a way that’s pleasing to God?

These are weighty questions.

Here’s another we could all ask ourselves: If my children grow up and never progress beyond my current level of spiritual maturity, would I be satisfied with that?

Put another way, if my children never outgrow my example, is that good enough?

(To be honest, I think there’s a sense in which our answer to that question should always be “no,” but I also think there are different kinds of “no.” A clear, emphatic “no” brought on by our realization that we’re not even close to where we ought to be spiritually is very different than a humble “no” given by a mature child of God who is very attuned to their daily shortcomings. We should always want more for our children, but an objective observer would discern a clear difference between these two scenarios.)

I definitely want my children to progress beyond where I am today. I’m aware that my example to them hasn’t been all that it should be, and that’s a convicting realization.

Now, the truth is, by God’s grace, our children may indeed go beyond us spiritually. But we don’t really have a right to expect that.

The good news, however, is that our spiritual life isn’t static. We don’t freeze in place when our children are born, never to take another spiritual step forward. Where I am today isn’t where I was when my first child was born, and where I am today isn’t where I hope to be five years from now.

I take comfort from Paul’s words in Philippians 1:6: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ . . .”

God has begun a good work in me, and I’m confident He’ll continue that work. Am I satisfied with where I am today? No. Am I a perfect example to my children of a vibrant Christian life? Absolutely not. God and I have more work to do together.

But even this growth—if it’s really happening—can be part of my example to my children. They can see that the Christian life isn’t someplace we park and stay—it’s a lifelong journey with the Savior.

That itself is a good example and a positive legacy.

By God’s grace, let’s press on in our walk with Him. And let’s seek to be a good example to our children—of growth, progress, and daily fellowship with God.

“Progressives” are variously amused, baffled, or outraged by talks percolating around the Internet about secession, viewing it as not only impracticable but also wacky. If, however, leftists would take a few moments from their narcissistic, navel-gazing search for their authentic selves, which often involve strange sexual preoccupations, to really listen to conservatives, maybe they could understand why many them no longer want to live under the progressively tyrannical rule of “progressives” who self-identify as open-minded, tolerant, and compassionate even as they seek to destroy fundamental rights and institutions.

Compared to the legal recognition of same-sex unions as “marriages,” double-mastectomies on healthy teen girls who wish they were boys, “neo-vaginas” for men forged by turning their penises inside out, and drag queen story hours for toddlers in public libraries, secession sounds not only sane but like a breath of fresh air after living chained to a wall in miasmic cave for decades.

Maybe “progressives” are furious about the quixotic idea of secession because it would mean a place would exist where they couldn’t control the dissemination of ideas or the indoctrination of children.

Maybe they’re enraged at the prospect of a country where imperfect, unwanted humans have a right to exist.

Maybe the existence of people anywhere on the planet who hold moral views that “progressives” can’t abide turns their stomachs—well, except for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) whose moral views leftists overlook as they eagerly collude with the CCP for fun and profit.

Maybe leftists are angry at the mere thought of not having conservatives to kick around anymore.

There’s no better illustration of all that’s wrong in America—all that has led to both the rise of populism and increasing calls for secession—than the tale of Hunter Biden and the collusion that covered up the Biden crime family’s enduring influence-peddling—until, that is, after the electors met on Monday.

It’s a tale of stunning and yet utterly commonplace corruption, hypocrisy, deceit, elitism, deep state bureaucratic rule, influence-peddling, greed, sexual immorality, and the corrosive effects of the collusion of Big Tech and the Fourth Estate to promote leftism.

Many have long known that Hunter Biden was kicked out of the military and lived a sexual life as irresponsible and unethical as his professional life—if leeching off his father’s career can be considered a “profession.”

I knew he had been married and had three children with his first wife. I knew he began a sexual/romantic relationship with his deceased brother’s widow shortly after his brother died. I knew that while he was in a relationship with his brother’s widow, he had a fling with a stripper from a strip club he frequented that produced a child whom Hunter denied was his until paternity testing proved otherwise. And I knew he married yet another woman who gave birth to his fifth child.

What I didn’t know was the whole story about his military history, so …

Once upon a time there was a 43-year-old man who decided he wanted a “direct commission” into the U.S. Navy Reserve, which, as explained by a man who pursued this path, is a “little-known entry point to get into the military; it’s mostly done for doctors, nurses and dentists. But age 40 is pretty much the brick wall for those outside of those disciplines.”

Wikipedia explains a direct commission in more detail that warrants some attention in light of the background of the hapless character at the center of this story:

A direct commission officer (DCO) is a United States uniformed officer who has received an appointed commission without the typical prerequisites for achieving a commission, such as attending a four-year service academy, a four-year or two-year college ROTC program, or one of the officer candidate school or officer training school programs. … Civilians who have special skills that are critical to sustaining military operations, supporting troops, health and scientific study may receive a direct commission upon entering service.

The problem was our hapless middle-aged man was three years past the permitted age of 40 and he had a prior “drug-related” incident. In addition, he had none of the usual special skills direct commission officers have. In fact, he had few skills other than lobbying and living parasitically off his father’s connections.

His first job out of law school in 1996 was with a banking holding company that was “one of the largest donors” to Joe Biden‘s U.S. Senate campaign. Hunter’s salary was over $100,000 with a signing bonus. Within two years, he was bored and done with practicing law, so it was time for Biden to find another one of his father’s connections to latch on to.  That connection was William Daley, a name with which all Chicagoans are familiar.

In a 2019 profile in the New Yorker, one of the beneficiaries of Hunter Biden’s “earmarking” skills, which go back decades, said that Hunter had, “a very strong last name that really paid off in terms of our lobbying efforts.”

And then there is this fascinating tidbit—fascinating at least to many unconnected deplorables:

By the mid-two-thousands, a growing number of lawmakers were criticizing earmarking as a waste of taxpayer money and a boon to special interests. Hunter was concerned about his future as a lobbyist, and his financial worries increased in 2006, when he bought a $1.6-million house in an affluent neighborhood. Without the savings for a down payment, he took out a mortgage for a hundred and ten per cent of the purchase price.

His life of leeching and lobbying continued, until one day he decided what he really wanted was some kind of military honor—but one that didn’t require any actual sacrifice or service. The problem was the honor he sought would require multiple, extraordinarily difficult-to-come-by exemptions for his advanced age, drug history, and absence of requisite skills.

Fortunately, he did have a special skill just for a situation like this: He knew how to ply the unctuous trade of feeding off connections, and by now his connections were really big connections. His father, the prevaricator and plagiarist Joe Biden, was the vice president of the United States. Joe Biden had the honor of administering his son’s “commissioning oath in a White House ceremony.”

For one glorious month, Hunter Biden served his country by acting “as a public affairs officer; mostly, he went to Norfolk, Va., once a month and did a weekend of service.”

Sadly, after all that arduous string-pulling, he was discharged a month after his service began when a urinalysis revealed cocaine, which Hunter Biden claimed was the result of smoking a cigarette borrowed from a friend that must have been laced with cocaine.

Yeah, that’s the ticket—a borrowed cigarette laced with cocaine. I guess he’s learned some other skills from dear old dad.

Now that the cognitively impaired Joe Biden has almost been ensconced in the sanctuary White House where no implacable reporters can access him and knowing the contents of Hunter’s infamous laptop will soon become known, the dis-informationists at CNN, the New York Times, and Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post feel it’s the perfect time to say, “What ho, Hunter Biden appears to have been on the take! Who knew?”

The Bidens are dishonest, inept, unethical profiteers, and the mainstream press, Facebook Overlord Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s otherworldly emperor Jack Dorsey, and CNN’s Jeff Zucker and his stable of minions run cover for them.

I know secession sounds crazy, but the reasons for desiring it are not.

Many Americans do not want to live in a country where neither they nor their children have free speech, the right to exercise their religion freely, or the right to bear arms.

They don’t want to live in a country where they can’t publicly say that homosexual acts are morally repugnant, that marriage is a sexually differentiated union, that cross-sex hormones and mastectomies don’t turn women into men, or that men have no right to participate in women’s sports or be present in women’s locker rooms.

They don’t want to live in a country where the state may legally appropriate children from their parents, if those parents won’t participate in and facilitate the fiction that their children are the sex they aren’t.

And they don’t want to live in a country where their hard-earned money is taken by the government and used to slaughter tiny, defenseless humans.

I know, I know, secession is too complicated, but a girl can dream about letting the tyrants go their own way and create their own hellhole untouched by rationality and morality. Maybe if they were to live for a time in the anarchical, debauched dystopia for which they long, they might come around to moral sanity. And until that time, the rest of us would be free people once again.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Why-Many-Americans-Want-to-Secede_audio.mp3

Parenting is a big job.

I know, I know—that’s the understatement of the year, right?

It would be more accurate to say that parenting—at least the way God wants us to do it—is an impossible job. At least for fallen, sinful humans like my wife and me.

God’s calling to parents is a weighty one. It’s no less than teaching, training, mentoring, and discipling the next generation in all facets of life. We have spiritual lessons to teach, character to develop, and practical skills to pass on—all while modeling through our own example what the Christian life looks like on a daily basis.

My wife and I aren’t up to that task. No offense, but you’re not either.

As a dad, I have moments when I feel like I’ve handled a difficult situation particularly well. I have moments when I know I’ve blown it. And I have a lot of moments in between.

But the truth is, my wife and I are inadequate to be the perfect parents we might want to be. At one level or another, we fail every single day.

This realization leads me to three conclusions.

#1: We Need God’s Power in Our Lives

First, I know that we need God’s sanctifying power to be at work in our own lives to help us become more of the mother and father He wants us to be.

We need His wisdom in dealing with the heart issues of our children.

We need His patience when the kids are pushing our buttons and we need to respond in the right spirit instead of in anger.

We need His strength to persevere each and every day instead of giving up.

We need His vision to see what He wants to do in the lives of our children, and faith to believe that He’ll bring it to pass.

We need His love to seek our children’s good instead of our own comfort and convenience.

We need His help every single day if we’re to have any hope at all of fulfilling our calling as parents.

#2: We Need God’s Blessing and Mercy

The realization of our inadequacy as parents leads me to a second conclusion: my wife and I need God’s blessings, both on our parenting efforts, and on the lives of our children.

We need His mercy to cover over our failings.

We need His blessing to multiply our often inadequate efforts to teach and guide our children.

We need His active involvement at every level. Without it, we’re in trouble.

#3: We Need God to Be at Work in Our Children

Third, I’m aware of our need for God to work directly in our kids’ lives.

God calls parents to teach their children in His ways. By God’s design, we have enormous influence on our children and it’s our responsibility to use that influence in the right ways.

But despite that God-given responsibility and influence, we can never be the Holy Spirit to our children.

In other words, as a father, I’m one of the vehicles God uses to reach my children’s hearts (and my wife is another). But I’m not the only one. God can reach our children directly—without using my wife or me as a go-between—through the working of the Holy Spirit.

We want Him to do that. We need Him to do that. If He’s not reaching directly into the hearts and lives of our children, they’ll never grow into the godly adults that we hope and pray they become.

The Bottom Line

I think of Psalm 127:1a regularly when it comes to parenting: “Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it . . .”

If God isn’t involved in our parenting—sanctifying my wife and me, blessing our efforts, and working directly in the lives of our children through the Holy Spirit—all our work is in vain. We can’t raise godly kids on our own.

We need God every single day.

Because godly parenting without God isn’t just hard—it’s impossible.

Let’s ask Him to get involved.

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

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

There is nothing new under the sun, and that holds true for Black Lives Matter (BLM), the anarchical organization hell-bent on cultural revolution, which means deracinating those institutions necessary for human flourishing. Marxism, feminism, and paganism were chewed up, swallowed, and vomited out as the bolus BLM.

Knowing that a divided house cannot stand and longing for the collapse of the house, BLM uses race to divide and destroy. Saturated with Critical Theory, which emerged from the desiccated carcasses of failed Marxist projects and flourishes in academia, BLM exploits identity politics—not to unify and free the oppressed—but to acquire power.

Mark T. Mitchell, dean of academic affairs at Patrick Henry College and author of Power and Purity: The Unholy Marriage That Spawned America’s Social Justice Warriors (Gateway, 2020), makes clear what so many Americans intuit about the BLM-spawned riots:

Is race really the central issue in what has been happening? . . . Most Americans are far less concerned about race than they are about providing for their families and living at peace with their neighbors. Something other than racism is driving these protests.

Mitchell goes on to diagnose the problem obscured by “mostly peaceful” BLM rioters chanting “Burn it down”…

Read the rest of the article at SalvoMag.com.

With the changes our nation* and world have experienced in the past four years, one might think that a video from the 2016 IFI Worldview Conference would be dated, but Dr. Wayne Grudem’s remarks are as pertinent now as ever.

To begin his presentation, Dr. Grudem defines a free-market system and lists the factors that determine the degree of freedom. He then details sixteen moral advantages of a free-market system and addresses the flawed objections to free-market economics. The video concludes with a brief Q&A session.

Dr. Wayne Grudem is Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary in Arizona. He is the author of twenty-two books and previously was a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. Additionally, Dr. Grudem was the General Editor for the ESV Study Bible.

*According to the 2020 Index of Economic Freedom, the United State’s economic freedom score ranks 17^th in the world, a decline from the rank of 11^th Dr. Grudem references in his presentation.

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By now many Americans have learned what slimy, deceitful hypocrites California governor Gavin Newsom and his wealthy, well-connected friends are. In a stunning act of arrogant “do what I say, not what I do, PEONS,” he and his privileged co-scofflaws dined at an exclusive restaurant in Napa Valley—indoors without masks—in violation of his own rules.

His co-scofflaws included Dustin Corcoran, the CEO of the California Medical Association, and Janus Norman, the group’s lobbyist and senior vice president. Apparently, some medical professionals don’t really think dining indoors mask-less with friends puts their lives at risk. Now I’m waiting for all of Hollywood, the Democrat Party, and the faux-journalists at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post to explode in paroxysms of sanctimonious rage and primal fear at the prospect of the imminent deaths of all the people these twelve scofflaws will infect.

But don’t worry, Newsom is very very sorry he got caught.

The reality is many—perhaps most—leftists don’t believe the alarmist claims they exploit for political—that is, anti-Trump—purposes. In the midst of the first COVID-19 surge, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot commanded her subjects to forgo haircuts, while she—unmasked—had her hair done because she wanted to look good in front of the cameras and because she cares about her “hygiene”—unlike, presumably, her subjects. After the election, she joined her subjects in the street for a victory celebration and then promptly put the kibosh on their Thanksgiving celebrations saying, “You must cancel the normal Thanksgiving plans, particularly if they include guests that do not live in your immediate household.”

She followed that up with her Thanksgiving “advisory”:

– Stay home unless for essential reasons

– Stop having guests over—including family members you do not live with

– Avoid non-essential travel

– Cancel traditional Thanksgiving plans

Not to be outdone in hypocrisy or authoritarian intrusiveness, Oregon’s “openly bisexual” governor Kate Brown has issued these commands, which, if not followed, can result in  fines up to $1,250 or 30 days in jail:

• Private Social Events—limited to two households or six individuals in a closed group (including Thanksgiving)

• Wear a mask in your own home on Thanksgiving, only removing it when eating

• Don’t leave your home during the two-week shutdown

So much for “our bodies, ourselves.”

While in June Brown said “she believes the use of tear gas against protesters is unacceptable,” she is now working with “state police and local law enforcement” to ensure compliance with her Thanksgiving orders.  Think about that for a minute.

This is the same governor who allowed the creation of the potential super-spreader rebel state of CHAZ/CHOP in six blocks of Portlandia and who allowed mostly violent potential super-spreader protests to ravage the rest of Portlandia. So, does bisexual Brown really believe gatherings of ten are highly likely to be lethal gatherings?

Privileged leftists who dine at uber-swanky, $350 per person ($35-45 per glass of wine) restaurants are utterly cavalier about destroying people’s livelihoods while they do not themselves believe that socializing mask-less puts everyone in mortal danger. Newsom and other privileged Democrats wield their inordinate power recklessly, destroying countless small businesses while sating their gourmet appetites on the finest food the monied can buy.

When I refer to “alarmist claims,” I’m not suggesting that the Wuhan Red Death is not alarming or that the death rate is not tragic. I’m suggesting that the claims of leftists about the virus are alarmist in that they are not balanced by either the inclusion of all relevant statistics or by a modicum of humility about what is known about treatment and prevention.

For example, while leftists blame Wuhan virus spikes on the evil mask-questioners who walk among us purportedly like Grim Reapers, they rarely if ever discuss the worldwide Wuhan spikes in countries with more stringent lockdown and mask mandates.

When areas lock down, virus infections stall. When lockdowns end, virus infections increase. But we can’t afford the social, psychological, physical, and economic consequences of locking down forever.

Rational people understand that a contagion like the Wuhan virus will spread. What is needed are good therapeutics and herd immunity achieved via a combination of infections and vaccines. Social distancing for those most at risk of serious complications and/or death is wise. Social distancing for healthy people under 60, school closures, and business lockdowns are foolhardy at minimum and downright dangerous for many people.

While COVID-infected people should mask if they must go out, evidence that widespread masking of healthy people prevents COVID is scanty. According to the New York Times, a recent, large, randomized study out of Denmark provides evidence for what many have been saying:

The researchers had hoped that masks would cut the infection rate by half among wearers. Instead, 42 people in the mask group, or 1.8 percent, got infected, compared with 53 in the unmasked group, or 2.1 percent. The difference was not statistically significant.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Henning Bundgaard, stated that his study indicated that “not a lot” is gained “from wearing a mask.”

Perhaps it’s past time for political leaders to abandon mask mandates for children and healthy adults under 60. And surely, it’s past time for the mask-obsessed among us to stop verbally attacking those who choose not to mask as irresponsible, ignorant, uncaring, selfish, evil killers.

As the nightmarish 2020 draws to a close, there are reasons for optimism. President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed has  resulted in the development of not one but two highly effective vaccines at warp speed. As of this writing, both Moderna and Pfizer have developed vaccines that are about 95% effective, and evidence suggests that vaccine-induced immunity may last years and be more effective than immunity that develops from contracting COVID-19.

So, we have reasons to believe that in a few months, life will be able to return to normal. In the meantime, school closures must end. There has never been any science suggesting that schools should have closed. If children contract COVID-19, the statistical likelihood that they will survive is 99.99998%.

Annually, about 4,000 children die in car accidents with 630 of those being 12 or younger; 800 children drown; and in the 2019-2020 flu season, 188 children died. So far about 130 children have died from COVID-19. Anytime leftists want to impose a restriction on the freedom of others, they ask, “Isn’t saving the life of even one person worth the sacrifice?” So, are we going to prohibit all children from riding in cars except for essential activities? Are we going to prohibit all children from swimming in pools, ponds, lakes, rivers, and oceans? Are we going to close schools every year during flu season? If not, why not?

Those parents whose children live in homes with at-risk family members can choose to keep their children home. Those teachers who are in an at-risk group can stay home. But all schools should open. Even leftist New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof recently and grudgingly admitted that Trump has long been right on school closures:

Trump has been demanding for months that schools reopen, and on that he seems to have been largely right. Schools, especially elementary schools, do not appear to have been major sources of coronavirus transmission, and remote learning is proving to be a catastrophe for many low-income children. …

Democrats helped preside over school closures that have devastated millions of families and damaged children’s futures. … In both Europe and the United States, schools have not been linked to substantial transmission, and teachers and family members have not been shown to be at extra risk. …  Meanwhile, the evidence has mounted of the human cost of school closures.

Leftists have provided ample evidence of their poor judgment, their Faustian willingness to abandon principles to acquire power, their Machiavellian abuse of power to circumscribe liberty, their hypocrisy, and their elitism. We better hope Americans awaken from their “woke” stupor before it’s too late.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Newsom-and-Lightfoot-and-Brown-Oh-My.mp3

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I don’t doubt for a moment that we still have race issues to address in America. And I don’t believe that, to date, we have fully overcome the legacy of hundreds of years of slavery and segregation in our history. At the same time, I do not accept former President Obama’s claim that the 2016 election of Donald Trump was, in part, a reaction to having a Black man in the White House.

In a widely reported excerpt from his forthcoming book Promised Land, Obama claims that “millions of Americans” were “spooked by a Black man in the White House.”

To quote him more fully, he argued that Trump “promised an elixir for the racial anxiety” of “millions of Americans spooked by a black man in the White House.”

These same Americans, we are told, were prey to “the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the modern Republican Party – xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward black and brown folks.”

Yes, he writes, “It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted. Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president.”

How should we respond to this?

There are certainly White racists in America, and they must have hated having the Obamas in the White House. (It may surprise you to know that I have never met such a person face to face, heard from them on my radio show, or, to my memory, interacted with them on social media. I’m sure they exist. I just don’t know any of them).

And, while I do not believe Trump is a racist, he surely knows how to push certain buttons to get people from different backgrounds in his camp.

But the fact of the matter is that there were no anti-Black, White supremacist, race riots when Obama was elected, nor were there any protesting his presidency during his eight years in office.

Not only so, but no one was boarding up stores in anticipation of his victory, which would surely have been the case had “millions of Americans” been “spooked” by his election and had his victory “triggered a deep sense of panic.”

Where, pray tell, was that panic? What evidence does the former president provide?

The reality is that in 2008, Obama received 43 percent of the White vote (compared with 55 percent for McCain), which hardly speaks of a racist nation in panic. In fact, going back to 1980, this tied for the highest percentage of White votes for a Democratic candidate.

Bill Clinton also received 43 percent of the White vote in 1996. Other than that, the percentage of White Democratic votes from 1980 to 2008 was: 1980, 36 percent; 1984, 35 percent; 1988, 40 percent; 1992, 39 percent; 2000, 42 percent; 2004, 41 percent.

And in 2012, despite fears that Obama would see a significant drop in White votership, the percentage only dropped from 43 percent to 39 percent.

The Washington Post even carried a November 8, 2012 headline reading, “President Obama and the white vote? No problem.” As the article noted, Obama “won a clear popular vote victory — with a majority of his total vote nationwide coming from white voters.”

Where was the deep sense of panic? Where was the extreme, racist reaction? Where were the many millions who were spooked by a Black man in the White House?

The reality in 2012, as in 2008, is that the majority of Obama’s total vote count came from White voters. That is a simple demographic fact.

But Obama’s claims are nothing new. He was, sadly, a divisive leader, specifically when it came to race.

This very eloquent, charismatic, and gifted leader who could have helped unite our nation only divided us further, promoting identity politics and playing the race card. President Trump simply deepened that divide and poured salt into the wounds (while at the same time increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of his base). That, to me, was a terrible missed opportunity from our first Black president.

Many Americans felt as I did, unable to vote for Obama because of policy but excited to have a Black leader in the White House.

Personally, I was hoping that that this was yet another step towards racial healing, feeling it could also bring great hope to Black Americans. Anything is possible. Dream your dreams. You could be president one day, too.

That’s how my trainer at the gym expressed things. A married Black man with a young son, he told me that he never expected to see a Black president in his lifetime. Now, his own son could see that anything was possible here in America.

Interestingly, earlier in the year, while taking a short flight on my way to California, I sat next to a Black bishop, leading to some wonderful interaction.

I asked him, “In your opinion, what was the aftermath of the Obama presidency?”

He replied, “White Americans said, ‘Never again!’”

I was shocked to hear that perspective from this very learned, spiritually sensitive brother, seeing that I had never in my life heard such a sentiment from a White colleague or friend.

Perhaps such sentiments do exist, and to the extent that they do, they should be exposed and denounced, loudly, clearly, and categorically.

But that is not why more than 70 million Americans voted to elect (or, reelect) Donald Trump. And that’s why Lawrence Jones, himself Black, was right to say, “I feel like President Obama has started to demonize some of the very people that voted for him.”

He added, “I don’t like the demonization … to paint 70 million people as just these cold-blooded racists. I don’t think that’s true.”

Indeed, “When you take the highest office in the land, you’re going to receive criticism and you can’t just say that it is deeply rooted in race.”

Well said, Mr. Jones.

Every survey I have done indicates that a solid, conservative Black candidate would garner far more votes from White conservatives than would a White leftist. No doubt about it. Ideology, not race, is the driving issue when it comes to our vote.

Unfortunately, just when former President Obama could have brought words of healing to a deeply divided, hurting nation, he has pushed identity politics again and insulted millions of well-intentioned Americans.

It looks like healing will not come from either Obama or Trump (or Biden). We’ll have to make it happen on our own (with God’s help).

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

Written by Joseph Parker

Your Word is a Lamp to my feet and a Light to my path (Psalm 119:105).

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ (Philippians 1:9-10).

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

Present-day political races are not about being a Democrat or a Republican.  It’s not about left or right.  It’s not about conservative or liberal.  And it’s not about being racist or not racist.

It’s about good or evil.  It’s about what is right or what is wrong.  It’s about what lines up most closely to the Word of God or what in greatest measure goes against the Word of God.

One may ask “Well if these issues are true, how can you have people who say they love the Lord on both sides of the political aisle?”  How can “believers” be on both sides of the present-day political picture?

One critical word that helps us see and understand matters correctly is – discernment.  Specifically, biblical discernment.  What does God’s Word have to say about the cultural issues that guide people in their thinking and in their perspectives?  And what are the cultural issues that help people to decide who they will support and vote for?

The reality is – so many believers have not sought to diligently determine what lines up most closely with God’s Word.  Many have not bothered to do their due diligence to find out and really research the issues in relation to the counsel of God’s Word.

The truth is – many “believers” are spiritually dull.  They really have no great commitment to finding out what honors God and what does not.  Many simply go with the flow of the crowd they run in.

How then have many decided on how they wish to vote?  Sadly, many have made this determination not by prayer and the study of the Word of God in relation to issues but have made their decision based on their personal preferences, their family’s traditional political persuasions, their community’s norms, and perspectives, etc. Some even decide on whims and feelings.

Sadly, some people vote for extremely shallow reasons.  “I don’t like his looks.” “I don’t like his personality.” “I don’t like her wardrobe.”  These and other silly reasons.

In reality, for too many, the Word of God has little to no influence in their decision making.

How tragic.

It is for these and other related reasons that some people who say they love God will find themselves on the completely wrong side of issues.  They find themselves acting and voting against the Word and the will of God.

A true disciple and follower of Jesus Christ is to be guided by the Word of God – period.  No other allegiance is to come before his or her commitment to Christ and God’s Word.

In the matter of lining up to support an issue or a candidate, it is the responsibility of a follower of Christ to find out what God’s Word says about the matter.  Once this person knows what the Word of God says, this individual should decide where he or she stands so as to stand aligned with the Word of God.

For the true follower of Christ, the Word of God is always the bottom line.  Always.

There are no perfect candidates running for any office in our nation.  The only perfect man is Jesus and He is not running for office.  He is God, and we don’t vote on that office.

So a wise and God-honoring strategy for voting is to look at the person’s character as best you can.  Look at what that person stands for.  Find out the party platform that this individual supports and lines up with.   Also, look at his or her track record or history, and see what this person has done in the past.  And observe what the candidate is doing – today.

Know too, that a person’s vote is a seed.  It is a tool to help accomplish a given task.  So how we each vote is actually very, very important.

When we vote for a person we are seeking to help that person come into a position of leadership, a position of influence that can affect the lives of many people. So whoever we vote for, we are taking responsibility for helping that person do what he or she seeks or will seek to do.  In other words, we take part responsibility for what that person does in office once we vote for him or her and that person receives the office.

So, as you vote for candidates in any given election, ask yourself this question:

“Am I supporting and helping a person who seeks to honor God in the way they will govern in office?  Or am I going to be an accomplice to a crime or wicked actions and activity?”

We are each wise to take the Word of God in evaluating the candidate, their lives, and what they stand for.

God’s Word is the bottom line.

This article was originally published by the American Family Association.

It’s undeniable. History shows a definite pattern of positive Christian influence on secular governments. The influence of Christians, both individuals and groups, has led to the abolition of slavery, polygamy, human sacrifice, and infanticide, as exemplified by the prohibition of abortion in the Roman Empire. Christian influence has led to a greater valuation of human rights, freedom of religion, and the concept of equality before the law. Even the acceptance of the right of an individual to own property is indebted to Christian influence.

The deeply-held Christian beliefs of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were crucial to the success of the civil rights movement that outlawed racial segregation and discrimination.  Likewise today, tens of thousands of Christians who believe that all life has value and is a gift from God, form the backbone of the pro-life movement.

All of the above are wonderful examples of how Christian influence has urged our society to choose that which is good. In fact, it can be argued that, in the absence of Christian influence, governments will have no clear moral compass. In How Then Should We Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer addresses this conundrum:

“If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man’s ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions.”

If Christians do not speak out publicly concerning moral and ethical issues facing our nation, who will provide the voice of moral guidance? If our government is devoid of Biblical guidance, where will it turn to determine right from wrong?  If we are unwilling to use God’s absolute standard, found in the Bible, to educate society as to what is morally and ethically right, where will society look to adopt moral standards? If Christians decline to champion ethics, will Hollywood, the mainstream media, or public schools and liberal universities insist that moral and ethical behavior must be an integral part of our nation’s DNA? Certainly not! In the absence of Christian voices, our adversaries rush in to fill the vacuum, and anti-Christian forces win the day.

Together with Dr. C. Everett Koop in their book Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Francis Schaeffer wisely observed that what would have been considered unthinkable to a previous generation becomes thinkable to the next. Actions and attitudes deemed “immoral, even unimaginable and too extreme to suggest” become acceptable as succeeding generations “slide into each new thinkable without a jolt.” Schaeffer and Koop were right. In the past 8-10 decades, we have witnessed the unthinkable become thinkable over and over and over.

So, what is a Christian’s responsibility in regard to Christian influence? Are we obligated to do more than go to the poll and vote our conscience? Absolutely!  There are several reasons why I firmly believe we have the responsibility to engage our culture by participating in some level of political activism outside of casting a ballot every year or so.

As Christians, we have the responsibility to exercise our influence because a Biblical view of love requires us to do so. If we desire to keep God’s command to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must advocate for good public policies and oppose bad policies, and we must champion and vote for godly candidates for public office. It is imperative that we want the best, not just for ourselves, but also for our neighbors because the eternal disposition of their souls depends on it.  James 1:15 tells us: “Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.” Knowing that God’s Word is true, how can we remain silent as our government, for which we will be called to give an answer, sets up stumbling blocks and promotes evil which will entice our neighbors into sin that leads to death?

If that reality isn’t enough to motivate us to a greater level of participation, let me appeal to our sense of self-preservation.  In Psalm 9:17, David writes that “The wicked shall return to Sheol, and all the nations that forget God. Nations that forget God are literally going to hell. Clearly, we cannot afford to distance ourselves from our government — a government that originates with the stirring words “We the people…”

Likewise, we cannot take silent refuge in our churches, because the church in America will be held to account. As our government embraces wicked policies that are an abomination to God, we must remain engaged and speak out.

Secondly, a Biblical view of stewardship requires that we exercise our Christian influence. When we acknowledge that God has given us the gift of self-government, we are compelled to use His gift in a manner that glorifies Him. If we fail to participate, engage, and utilize our government to bring glory to God, at the very least, we are taking His gift for granted and, at the worst, we are blatantly rejecting it.

Finally, a Biblical view of obedience commands us to exert our Christian influence. Numerous verses in the New Testament charge believers to be salt and light to a decaying and dark world. Our words are to be seasoned with salt and we are called to let our light — God’s light — shine before others. We cannot do what the Bible commands if we take cover in Christian huddles, moaning and wringing our hands!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” As Christians, who know the very Author of Truth, how can we refuse to inject truth into the public square? If we choose to remain silent and sedentary, God surely will not hold us guiltless.

The LORD is in all and He is over all.  If Jesus is your Savior, if He is your King and Sovereign, there is not one aspect of your life that is out of His jurisdiction!

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On October 25, Pastor Michael Johnson of Gospel Fellowship Church in Wheaton, Illinois preached a powerful sermon for such a time as this, titled “Christians in America: Persevering Faithfully (Part 1)” (Click here for video. Click here for audio.) regarding the blessing of self-government and how Christians should steward that blessing. Offering examples like the affirmation of abortion and homosexuality, tolerance for riots, and abuse of power by elected leaders, Pastor Johnson makes clear that we are living in a time in which evil is celebrated as good. He makes clear too that Christians have a responsibility to oppose evil and injustice. Pastor Johnson’s sermon is exactly the kind of sermon for which Christians all across the country pray their pastors and priests would preach.

At all times in history since the fall of man, the enemy has been on the prowl to devour Christians; to sever them from God; and to destroy individual lives, families, the church, and societies. But at different times and places, the enemy attacks different biblical truths with particular fervor and tenacity. For the past fifty years in Western civilizations, the enemy has been attacking biblical truths related to the nature of man and the proper ordering of sexuality with just such fervor and tenacity.

In addition, once the enemy pulled these foundational biblical issues through the mud and into the political square, he persuaded gullible Western man and woman that these issues are solely political and, therefore, the church ought not or dare not speak on them. But man, woman, marriage, sex, children, family, and government are all God’s creations, and Christians have an obligation to God and their neighbors to govern wisely on these matters.

C.S. Lewis concludes The Screwtape Letters with a warning from senior devil Screwtape to his nephew, the novice tempter Wormwood about how Satan wants politics to be used:

About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate. Certainly, we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster. On the other hand we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything — even to social justice.

Today, we see Satan’s success in persuading both theologically orthodox Christians to keep their Christianity from flowing over into political life and in persuading “progressive” Christians to use Christianity as a means to advance a malformed vision of social justice.

In Pastor Johnson’s stemwinder of a sermon, he argues for a biblically informed, balanced perspective on the obligation of Christians to be politically engaged through our words and deeds in order to love our neighbors well and bring glory to God. Please watch and share.

HELP: Our get-out-the-vote campaign is up and running. 

We are distributing the IFI Voter Guide to hundreds of churches and civic groups throughout the state..
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