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

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

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

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It’s Simple: Just Invite the Socialist to Talk

Isadore Johnson is a libertarian-leaning student at the University of Connecticut and a member of Young Americans for Liberty. Last fall, he asked Nathan J. Robinson, author of Why You Should Be A Socialist and Editor-in-Chief of the left-wing political journal Current Affairs, if he would answer a series of questions about socialism and capitalism for the university newspaper. Robinson obliged and you can read it all at Q&A With A Conservative Student on Socialism.

It’s rather long, but it’s worth reading carefully because Johnson has given us an excellent model to follow. Most political discussions across ideological divides amount to little more than two people talking past one another–opposing sides pushing their positions but giving little or no thought to the other. By contrast, what Johnson did is exactly the opposite. Seeking first to understand, he invited his ideological opponent to explain his position and elaborate at will.

And elaborate, he did. Following are a few points that came out. The statements in bold are my summations. The quotes aren’t meant to be scare quotes, but to draw out what Robinson said in his own words:

There is no definition of what socialism actually is. But this is not just a matter of socialists having disagreements. Disagreements are part of any political program. It’s that socialists have no objective grounding on which to define a political program. Socialism is primarily based on subjective feelings and desires about how socialists want the world to be, not objective facts about how it really is. Robinson thinks of socialism as a “sense of outrage” he feels when people are exploited or abused, and he said socialists don’t want people to go without their basic needs being met. Yet when he was asked for specifics about how these well-intended desires might be implemented, his answers took the form of “this is not a question with one answer,” “we do not yet know,” and “line-drawing is always hard.”

Socialism is based on feelings. Decent people of all political persuasions agree with his sentiments and understand that policymaking is complex and will often be a work in progress. But the problem of socialists’ inability to define their own program, let alone propose policy to implement it, is not just a matter of a few details to be worked out. The bigger problem is that socialism confuses subjective feelings for objective moral principles. This is a fundamental category mistake.

“Socialist ethics are feelings,” Robinson said. “I think of [socialism] first as a kind of instinctive egalitarian feeling.” He just assumes that his feelings constitute, ipso facto, “the principles of socialism,” and beyond that, the matter is not up for debate. “We’re saying that given that the principles of socialism are clearly sound, we have a question about how best they can be achieved. I think this is the right kind of uncertainty to have. I want the debates in the country to be about how socialist values are best put into practice, not about whether they themselves are good.”

No, this is exactly the wrong kind of uncertainty to have. Not only does he not want to discuss whether his “values” are, in reality, sound or good, he all but admitted that he doesn’t recognize any foundation for morality to begin with. Nor does he care to. This came out when Johnson asked him about rights. “Rights are a complicated question,” he responded. “Where do they come from? Are they simply conventions? Did human rights exist before people recognized them to exist? This gets us into the entire foundation of morality and I can’t begin to go into it here.” Respectfully, if he can’t identify this starting point, the rest of us are right to be wary about where he’s headed. Which leads to our third observation.

The remedies socialism proposes start out vague. Then, to the extent that they get specific, they are alarming. “Socialism means common ownership,” Robinson writes. He said he likes “decommodified things.” Here are some things that he wants “provided for all equally”: food, housing, education (including college), healthcare services, gyms, and swimming pools. These are things that should not be bought and sold. “I prefer a ‘commons’ because markets … are at the very least burdensome.” Before he’s done, he’s all but said he’d like everything to be free. “It’s a much worse experience when everything is commodified. Getting to roam freely without thinking about money is wonderful, which is why I’m in favor of robust commons.”

It’s one thing to say that you’d like everything to be free (wouldn’t we all?). It’s quite another to make that happen. The closest Robinson came to explaining how this might be done is to refer to the ideas of two socialist thinkers. He mentioned Fredrik DeBoer, who suggests “making it so that things aren’t ‘traded,’” and David Schweickart, author of After Capitalism, who argues for a kind of socialism by which “we just alter who owns the stuff.”

Robinson rattled off those two ideas and then blithely went on. But right there, he exposed the only way his “utopian concept” can come about: by altering “who owns” things. Outside of leftwing fog zones, this is known as theft. Food, housing, education, healthcare services–these things are the products of labor, in some cases highly skilled labor. They do not just “exist” somewhere in somebody’s warehouse, waiting to be distributed. They must be cultivated, built, or produced, which requires significant expenditures of input and effort. Socialists often talk about capitalists’ greed, but it is the socialist who wants to reap the rewards of other people’s labor without having to work for them, and to own “the stuff” that used to belong to other people without trading anything for it in return. This is the textbook definition of greed.

The best instrument for clearing up fog is sunlight. Similarly, the best way to expose the underbelly of socialism is to invite a socialist to explain it in as much detail as you can draw out. He may want to “own” other people’s stuff, but what the smart capitalist will do is make him “own” his own agenda.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’re Facing Our Vulnerability

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’re Spending Time with Our Families

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

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

We Have the Opportunity to Serve

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

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

God’s Timetable Isn’t Ours

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

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

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

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

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The events of recent days have thrown all of us into unchartered territory. With schools, restaurants, libraries, events, and even churches suspending normal operations, our lives have been disrupted in ways large and small. The impact is real, and depending on how long this lasts, it has the potential to deepen even further.

How should God’s people respond?

In Acts 10:38, in the midst of his sermon to Cornelius and his household, Peter tells us that Jesus “went about doing good.”

That’s an interesting—and compelling—description. Too often, I think we view Jesus’ ministry exclusively through the lens of spiritual redemption. Yes, that was His main point and purpose in coming to earth, but He underlined His concern for our spiritual well-being by meeting countless physical needs. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, raised the dead, and washed dirty feet. He mourned alongside Mary and Martha and cooked fish for hungry disciples. He was concerned about every dimension of the well-being of those around Him.

Likewise, the early church acted with radical self-sacrifice to help those with needs. The idea that Christians should only be concerned with the spiritual well-being of others isn’t found in Scripture. Yes, we should be concerned for the lost, but like Jesus, we can go about doing good—spiritually and materially. Sometimes helping others in the material realm will be the door God uses to allow us to minister spiritually.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers about how the church can serve our communities in a time of pandemic. There are cautions to be observed, to be sure—both for our own safety, and for the safety of those we would help. But even with those cautions, we can be alert to opportunities to meet needs around us. And when we do, we’ll not only be a blessing to our communities, we’ll be following in the footsteps of Jesus.

How can we serve? That’s a conversation my wife and I been having recently. We’ve made ourselves available to help one of our next-door neighbors with errands. He’s an older fellow believer who lives with a compromised immune system. Why should he go out to the store when he has young(er), healthy neighbors who can do it for him? I’ve also told our pastor that we’re available to help out other church members if there’s a need for a meal delivered or groceries picked up.

We’re also planning to assist my elderly grandparents in any way we can. My grandmother has been declining mentally for the past several years to the point that she’s become very difficult for my grandfather to care for. It used to be a relief to him to be able to get both of them out of the house a few times each week to meet friends or family at a restaurant for dinner. With all restaurants closed, he not only has lost that diversion, he also has the added burden of extra cooking. We plan to help ease that burden as we’re able.

These are small things, perhaps, but if we all take care of our own small acts of kindness toward those around us, perhaps we can lessen the burden of the coming weeks or months. Even a cup of cold water given in Jesus’ name is worthy of notice in God’s eyes.

Many families may also be facing financial hardships as the economic fallout builds. Perhaps there’s a single mom near you who just lost her job and doesn’t know how she’ll cover her bills. Or maybe there’s a small business owner who wants to keep his doors open after all of this is over but can’t pay the rent when he doesn’t have any customers due to the virtual shutdown. If God has given you the financial means to bless others, now would be a great time to look around to see who needs help. Ask your pastor, friends, or neighbors if they know of anyone who’s been hit hard and see what you can do.

I don’t know what additional opportunities we may have to serve others in the coming days. We all have our own families to think about and provide for, but I certainly want to be alert to opportunities as God brings them along. I challenge you to do the same.

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Still don’t believe sexual anarchists are coming for the hearts and minds of the nation’s children? Well, check out this just-released book published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin books, and geared toward children 10 and older: Middle School’s a Drag, You Better Werk Harder!, a book the publishers describe as a “hilarious, heartfelt story,” “full of laughs, sass, and hijinks” that “shows that with a little effort and a lot of love, anything is possible.”

Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?

Well, if you caught the allusion to “twerking” in the title, you may be a little less sanguine about children reading this hilarious, heartfelt story about love and possibility. For those who don’t know, “twerking”—as defined by the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary—is “sexually suggestive dancing characterized by rapid, repeated hip thrusts and shaking of the buttocks especially while squatting.”

Here’s more from the publisher:

In this heartfelt and hilarious new novel from Greg Howard, an enterprising boy starts his own junior talent agency and signs a thirteen-year-old aspiring drag queen as his first client.

Twelve-year-old Mikey Pruitt—president, founder, and CEO of Anything, Inc.–has always been an entrepreneur at heart. … Unfortunately, most of his ideas so far have failed. …  But Mikey is determined to keep at it.

It isn’t until kid drag queen Coco Caliente, Mistress of Madness and Mayhem (aka eighth grader Julian Vasquez) walks into his office … looking for an agent that Mikey thinks he’s finally found his million-dollar idea, and the Anything Talent and Pizzazz Agency is born!

Soon, Mikey has a whole roster of kid clients looking to hit it big or at least win the middle school talent show’s hundred-dollar prize. As newly out Mikey prepares Julian for the gig of a lifetime, he realizes there’s no rulebook for being gay—and if Julian can be openly gay at school, maybe Mikey can, too, and tell his crush, dreamy Colton Sanford, how he feels.

The author of this gut-busting novel about middle-school drag queens, Greg Howard, is a homosexual man in a pretend “marriage” to a third-grade teacher, who was inspired by the real-life child drag queen, the exploited “Desmond is Amazing” about whom I wrote over a year ago. Middle School’s a Drag, You Better Werk Harder! is being adapted for television by David Heyman, producer of all the Harry Potter films and Quentin Tarantino’s film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.

Howard’s first Young Adult (YA) novel for teens, titled Social Intercourse (available free online), is a pornographic story about two 17-year-old boys, one of whom was adopted by two lesbians after his father abused him and his drug-addicted mother. The other boy’s mother left him and his father after having an affair with the mayor. The adopted boy, Jax, is the handsome football star with a girlfriend with whom he regularly has sex, and the other, Beckett, is an out and proud homosexual. The book concludes with Jax and Beckett in a homoerotic relationship with the approval of all parents and most of the high school football team. The story also includes Beckett’s father having a sexual relationship with one of Jax’s lesbian moms; a hate-filled Christian pastor who engages in homoerotic acts with his music minister; egregiously obscene language; a description of a teen boy having his anus bleached; and references to masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, and a teen girl’s vibrator.

If this book isn’t obscene, then the word “obscene” is now meaningless.

The publisher of Social Intercourse, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers recommends this porn for kids ages 14+. Publishers Weekly, a publishing trade magazine that reviews books recommends Social Intercourse as a “funny and satisfying love story.” And Booklist, a book review publication of the leftist American Library Association, says this about Social Intercourse:

The language is raunchy, the innuendo is frequent, and the energy is irrepressible. Hand this debut to readers tired of problem novels who are looking for a hilarious romp.

We now have adults recommending a hilarious pornographic romp for teens that depicts evil as good. And on the basis of these recommendations schools and public libraries make purchasing decisions with public money. Social Intercourse is available at public libraries across Illinois, including in Algonquin, Arlington Heights, Batavia, Berwyn, Chicago, Decatur, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Dolton, Downers Grove, Ela, Elgin, Elmhurst, Evanston, Frankfort, Geneva, Glencoe, Grande Prairie, Green Hills, Indian Prairie, Kewanee, La Grange, Libertyville, Marion, Mattoon, McHenry, Naperville, North Aurora, Oak Lawn, Oak Park, Orland Park, Palos Heights, Pekin, Prairie Trails, Rockford, Skokie, St. Charles, Tinley Park, Waukegan, Westchester, Winnetka, and Woodridge. (This list is not exhaustive.)

Illinoisans, librarians whose salaries you subsidize have used your hard-earned money to purchase porn that your children can now access and read without your knowledge or permission. And don’t be naïve. This is not the only ugly, deviance-espousing material your taxes have purchased to ideologically groom your children.

Author Greg Howard’s main characters are less like pitiable heroes who conquer evil and more like Mr. Hyde—the wicked side of Dr. Jekyll whose freely chosen actions resulted in his usurpation by Hyde:

I became, in my own person a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind … a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and a body that seemed not strong enough to contain the raging energies of life. …

The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. … Jekyll … thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born. 

If we are going to allow homoeroticism to be depicted to children, then let the depiction reflect truth. If we love children—all children—then we will fight for truth.

In How to Read a Book, former University of Chicago professor, philosopher, author, and co-founder of the Great Books Foundation, Mortimer Adler warns,

The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is. Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business. Propaganda taken in that way is like a drug you do not know you are swallowing. The effect is mysterious; you do not know afterwards why you feel or think the way you do.

Do not underestimate the effect of stories on the hearts and minds of all humans, but especially impressionable children. Cultural regressives are fully aware that storytelling captures imaginations and through imaginations captures hearts and minds.

In describing biblically Christian art, Calvin Seerveld offers a lens through which we should view all art, including literature that we serve to children on a faux-gilded plate:

Art is Biblically Christian when the Devil cannot stand it. If the Devil can stand it or would hand out reproductions, then there is no Biblical Christian character to it. … The Devil cannot stand exposure of sin as sin, dirty, devastating misery for me; it unmasks him.

Greg Howard produces anti-art for children—anti-art that the Devil loves.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Ideologically-Grooming-Kids-Through-Storytelling.mp3

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Now and then I venture onto left-leaning websites and read some of their articles. On a visit to HuffPost.com earlier this year, I saw an article that caught my attention. The headline was “I Used To Be An Anti-LGBTQ Evangelical. Here’s What Finally Changed My Heart And Mind.”

The author, Brianna Bell, details her past as a Christian blogger who once stood up for Kirk Cameron after he faced backlash for comments he made to Piers Morgan about homosexuality.

Now she views her comments from back then as “blatantly careless and hurtful.”

My goal today isn’t to critique Bell’s opinions or her article. Instead, I want to draw a lesson from a point she raises in her essay as she describes her evolution on the issue of homosexuality.

After recounting how the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando was a “wake-up call” for her, Bell shared that the tragedy “was a starting point for my decision to accept and embrace the LGBTQ community, but my inner change of heart wasn’t instantaneous.” She spent the next few years “contemplating, studying, considering my beliefs and how they affected others. I explored the victimization of the LGBTQ community and read about the abuse that many in the queer community have faced and continue to face.”

It was at this point that Bell made a comment that caught my attention. Describing her continuing transformation, she writes, “I read books that featured same-sex relationships, and it was through these fictional worlds that my reality began to shift.”

This, I think, is an extraordinary testimony about the impact that stories can have on our culture. For Bell, it was these fictional narratives that had a tremendous role in changing her views on a critical subject.

Stories are indeed powerful, and most of us have probably been impacted—for better or worse—by a well-told story. But if that’s true, it brings into sharp focus the need for us to be discerning about the impact of stories both in our own lives and in the lives of our children. If even adults can be shaped by powerful stories, how much more susceptible are our children?

The concern about stories, of course, isn’t confined to those with messages about homosexuality. Our culture is telling stories about a variety of important topics with perspectives that compete with the truth of Scripture. In this age of constantly available media, practicing discernment is more important than ever before—both for us and our children.

Why are stories so powerful?

First, because they can cause us to let our guard down in a way that a lecture, commentary, article, or instructional book never would. These other things are overtly about sending a message, so we’re often more alert to what that message is. And if the message happens to be coming from a source we know promotes views different than our own, we’re even more likely to have our guard up.

But stories? Stories are how we relax. They’re how we enjoy a good time. Whether through books, movies, television, or YouTube, we often turn to stories to entertain us rather than make us think.

In addition to that (or perhaps partially as an extension of it), stories reach into our hearts. They draw our sympathies toward the characters of the author’s choosing, and in so doing, into sympathy with that character’s plight. Stories can also serve to normalize things that might be strange, unusual, or different to us at the start.

Again, that’s not all bad. It all depends on what is being normalized and what views we’re being drawn into sympathy with.

As an aside, it’s important for us to remember that, as Christians, we’re not called to look down on anyone or view anyone as less human, less loved by God, or more in need of redemption than we ourselves. We should never lose our Biblical convictions, but nor should we forget that we’re called to love our neighbors. Viewing anyone—regardless of their culture, beliefs, or sins—as somehow outside the realm of God’s grace or beyond our responsibility to love is incompatible with Biblical Christianity.

Stories have been told in a variety of ways down through the ages, but never before have we been so surrounded by narratives. It would be foolhardy to think that these stories have no impact.

As Justin Whitmel Earley writes in his book The Common Rule, “We become the stories we consume.”

Bell reflects that reality in her essay. “As I’ve evolved and shed many of my conservative view[s],” she writes, “I’ve had to wrestle with how to abandon an old ideology while remaining committed to my faith. While I am still a devoted Christian, I’ve had to work to untangle myself from doctrine that is harmful and strive to adopt an intersectional and inclusive theology.”

In other words, she had to abandon the straightforward teaching of Scripture because of how her views changed in response to the culture.

It’s easy to point and scold, but how easy is it for us to do the same thing in one way or another? We allow our hearts to get out of sync with good theology, and then, instead of using our theology to get our hearts back on track, we reorient our theology to fit our wayward hearts.

This, by the way, can happen to our children as well. And that’s why we need to not only be teaching them what the Bible says, but also helping them filter and sift and analyze the stories our culture is telling. Because stories are powerful, and our culture is full of them. If we don’t teach our children how to use discernment, they’ll easily be led astray by the power of a story well told.

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The third excerpt from Pastor Derek Buikema’s interview with Dr. Allan Carlson is a fascinating discussion of how public policies can be family-friendly–that is, can support and encourage the creation of natural marriage and childbearing—or family-unfriendly.

Dr. Carlson discusses how, despite the many, huge, and important benefits of capitalist market economies, there are ways that such economies negatively affect natural marriage and childbearing. By exploring policies implemented in Hungary and Poland to encourage the formation of natural and larger families, Dr. Carlson illuminates some of the ways such deleterious effects can be blunted here in the United States.

Watch the previous segments:

Part 1 – How to Win The Culture Wars

Part 2 – What Can America Learn From Other Christian Politics?

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A British man now living in Florida who freely chooses to be in a type of erotic union that is by design sterile believes it is his right to create children who will have no connection to their mothers and no certainty about who their father is. Here is his morally repugnant, convoluted story.

In 1999, then-30-year-old Barrie Drewitt-Barlow and his then-35-year-old partner whom he later “married,” Tony Drewitt-Barlow, purchased eggs from Tracie McCune and rented the womb of Rosalind Bellamy to acquire their first two children: a boy named Aspen and a girl named Saffron.

The fertilized egg that became Aspen split, so they froze Aspen’s identical twin, defrosted him four years later, and implanted him in the rented womb of another woman, Donna Calabrese. Aspen now has an identical twin brother Orlando who is four years younger than he is.

About nine years later, the millionaire Drewitt-Barlow fathers purchased yet more eggs, rented Calabrese’s womb again, and had two more boys, Dallas and Jasper, born in 2010. The biological mother is a “Brazilian model whom Barrie spotted on the catwalk and paid £35,000 for the privilege” of donating her eggs.

Both men contributed sperm to the selfish, dystopian reproductive project, and while they know which biological child each sired, they’re not telling the children. Apparently, the two men are entitled to children, but their children aren’t entitled to know who their biological fathers are.

In an interview with the Daily Mail in 2015, Tony, the older Drewitt-Barlow, proclaimed that their lifelong commitment was ironclad:

Barrie and I will never split up. We’re soulmates. But also we’d never do that to our children because of the pain it would cause.

Last October, Barrie and Tony split up.

The now-50-year-old Barrie began an erotic relationship with his daughter’s 25-year-old bisexual ex-boyfriend, Scott Hutchison. Barrie and Scott then bought eggs and rented a womb for the purpose of gestating their triplets who are due in October. Barrie announced,

Our family has too many boys and too much testosterone! So we used sex selection to even things out. We know we are having girls. … We found a beautiful, young, educated egg donor. … We met 15 egg donors at the Beverly Wiltshire hotel, the hotel in the film Pretty Woman. We decided that would make the perfect setting to find the woman who would add the part of the DNA for our baby girl. Once we found our surrogate we transferred three blastocysts (embryos), two girls fertilised by Scott and one girl fertilised by me.

Barrie, his young paramour Scott, his ex Tony, Aspen, Saffron, Orlando, Dallas, Jasper, and the triplets will all be sharing the same home—just one big, strange family created to satisfy the desires of selfish adults.

Barrie isn’t done yet with his profligate inseminating. He donated sperm to a lesbian couple in the U.K. who will be giving birth one month before his and Scott’s triplets are born here in the United States.

Barrie writes about the nature of the homoerotic relationship into which he’s bringing three babies:

I know people will think Scott is only after my money and all that — he is, after all, 25 years younger than me — but I don’t care. I’m going to enjoy every moment that I can, while I can. After all, you only have one life.

This is the toxic fruit of the sexual revolution that began the erosion of cultural taboos regarding sexual activity. Sexual revolutionaries severed sexual acts from procreation, sexual acts from marriage, and then sexual acts from sexual differentiation. The only purpose for sex became carnal gratification. Sex lost all meaning. While children gained sexual autonomy—the right to erotic gratification—they lost the right to be raised by both a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents.

The damage done to children’s rights and needs by the sexual revolution—from the denial of family through divorce and sperm and egg donation to the “trans”-cultic destruction of their hearts, minds, and bodies to their extermination in the womb—constitutes the justice issue of our time. How many presidential candidates who claim to care about social justice will address it?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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One of the often-cited claims that seems to have taken hold is that the divorce rate in the church is the same as outside of the church. Yet, is this really true? The claim overlooks what the research really says about church attendance and its impact upon both marriage and divorce rates.

Marriage and church attendance have been falling in America as rates of cohabitation and out of wedlock births have increased over the last 50 years. The decline of religion and marriage have received a lot of attention, but the link between the two has sometimes been overlooked.

Christianity generally encourages marriage and discourages divorce. It would be peculiar to assume that those beliefs would not have any impact on the marital choices of believers. To understand why the claim of equal divorce rates hangs on, it is necessary to look at the devout.

Those who attend church three times a month, call them the devout, and those who attend church once a month or less, call them the less devout, reveals a clearer picture of marriage and divorce. While 70 percent of Americans describe themselves as Christian, that number is roughly twice the number of the devout who regularly attend church.

The devout have higher rates of marriage and significantly lower rates of divorce than the less devout and overall general public. Thus, active Christians do have a divorce rate different from the secular or less devout. To read more about this, click HERE.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

Mandated Vaccines & the “LGBTQ” Agenda

A troubling trend is occurring in Illinois. It has happened mostly in the background but has become visible with the introduction of two new proposed laws concerning vaccines. If these proposed laws were to take effect, vaccines would be mandated by the state without religious exception. In addition, these bills apply to public and private schools, including Christian private schools and homeschools. Especially egregious would be the mandate for children to receive the HPV vaccine, a vaccine to protect a person from a sexually transmitted disease. Furthermore, and perhaps even more shocking, if this legislation passes, 14-year-olds will be able to receive vaccines without parental consent.

This isn’t the only erosion of parental rights in Illinois. “Progressives” in the Illinois legislature are also seeking to “teach” our children their “good news” on sex. Desiring to mandate a new curriculum on sex and sexuality through two new sex ed bills, there is a concerted push to normalize behaviors and a worldview starting in kindergarten that is anti-Christian. This includes teaching that novel “gender expressions,” pre-marital and non-marital sex, and non-monogamous heterosexual families are moral goods. If these bills become law, your kids will be indoctrinated with a new sexual ethic that is entirely different from that which has been taught for two millennia.

In Illinois, minors can receive an abortion without parental consent with only a judicial waiver. According to the ACLU, no judicial waiver has ever been denied.

If a minor enters into the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the state will provide “gender transitioning” medical treatment, mental health “LGBTQ” advocacy, and placement in “affirming” households whether or not the parents agree. On their website, DCFS states that every child deserves these “rights,” and that these rights include children not in the DCFS system. For now, the law stops them from imposing their worldview on non-DCFS kids. Unless the state’s expansive powers are stopped, it’s not hard to imagine something that should scare all of us. We are on a trajectory where children will be removed from their parents because the parents will not embrace a child’s decisions on his sexuality or “gender identity.”

There are other examples, but these should suffice to show you what Illinois believes. In a new school guidance report that was ordered by Gov. JB Pritzker, the authors assert that schools have an obligation to act as a parent. DCFS also calls itself a parent, and the judge permitting an abortion without parental consent is acting as a parent. The state of Illinois believes it has a stronger claim to parent your child than you do, but the state of Illinois is wrong.

Biological parents are almost always better situated to parent than the state. In his essay “Of Paternal Power,” John Locke has written the strongest and most enduring Judeo-Christian argument for the preeminence of parental rights in modern society.

Parents have the freedom to raise their children as they see fit because this freedom is from nature and is not a right given by the state. Locke writes that parents have “a power over their children and have as much right to their subjection as those who are in the state of Nature.”

For Locke, Nature is the order of creation, and natural laws flow from this order. One of Nature’s laws is that the couple who births a child is a “temporary government” for that child. In other words, in the same way an adult is subject to civil authorities, a child is subject to his parents while he is a minor. The state of Illinois is usurping one of the most fundamental relationships in human society. Its intervention is about the indoctrination of children with a leftist worldview that stands diametrically opposed to a Judeo-Christian worldview. In a state that has more corruption than it does farmland, the last responsibility it should have is the right to indoctrinate our children.

According to Locke, this “temporary government” is built upon parental obligations. The parents have freedom in raising their child because at the end of the day it is their responsibility to do so. Locke writes,

The power, then, that parents have over their children arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their offspring during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble … .

This includes the healthcare and education of the child. As a parent, I do not want my children exposed to “LGBTQ” ideology that normalizes what our faith says is sin. Based on science and common sense, “gender” isn’t a personal opinion or a subjective feeling. I will raise my children as the “gender” that is expressed in their sex; this is based on my understanding of gender being a gift from God and a revelation of the image of God in humanity.

My children are vaccinated, but I find it deeply offensive that Illinois would mandate a drug to prevent a sexually transmitted disease. The mandate gives sexual license to my children that I deeply disagree with. These legal mandates are the height of hubris. We must not give away our obligation to parent to the state. If it’s not obvious, Illinois has no idea what it is doing.

In the most serious error of the Illinois parental state, the child is being given adult rights without parental oversight. In what world can a minor be expected to make informed, rational decisions on deeply complex moral and life-changing choices? Locke writes,

Commonwealths themselves take notice of, and allow that there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore, till that time, require not oaths of fealty or allegiance, or other public owning of, or submission to, the government of their countries.

Children are not required to act as adults because they are not adults. Children need parents. This is because, according to Locke, they are in the period of “ignorant nonage.” Parents make the decisions “till reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble.”

The idea that the state would empower kids to decide on invasive medical procedures or embrace novel sexual expressions reveals a society collectively jumping off a cliff. By the very fact of being a child, they lack mature rationality and the ability to understand the effects of decisions, and they have an underdeveloped moral system. When the state intervenes, it interjects its opinions on life, sexuality, and marriage that are radically contradictory to a Christian view of the world. Such interventions are outrageous.

Dear parents in Illinois, please take notice of what is happening. Call your state lawmakers and Governor Pritzker to stop the two pieces of legislation concerning vaccines and the sex education legislation. Then, it’s time to take back parental rights. Our children are our responsibility. Their future, their faith and their well-being are dependent on us pushing back the intrusions of the state. It’s time for parents to fight for our children. Right now, the state is fighting harder for them.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative to ask them to vote against these bills: SB 3788, HB 4870 and HB 5012. Impressionable students in public schools should not be exposed to body- and soul-destroying messages that promote leftist beliefs about sexuality.

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

Here are the Facts on the HPV Vaccine Mandate

Earlier this month, State Rep. Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston) introduced a bill in the Illinois House that would require all students in public, private, and parochial schools to receive a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine before entering sixth grade and to complete the series before entering ninth grade. The vaccination (brand name Gardasil, manufacturer Merck Pharmaceuticals) consists of a series of 2-3 shots, depending on the age of the child. We’re already used to vaccination requirements for schoolchildren. Is this one additional requirement a good idea?

The Medical Facts of HPV:

First, a few facts about HPV and the vaccine. These come from the CDC, pediatrician Dr. Meg Meeker, or Gardasil:

• Genital HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. It is transmitted through skin-to-skin genital contact. Both males and females can be infected.

• There is no treatment or cure, and condoms provide little to no protection against it.

• Most people who are sexually active will have it at some time in their lives, often without knowing it. It often goes away on its own without causing any serious health problems.

• Approximately 14 million new HPV infections occur in the U.S. every year. About half of these are in 15- to 24-year-olds. For a female, the younger she is when she becomes sexually active, the more susceptible she is to infection and to subsequent development of cancerous changes if infected. This has to do with the way the skin over the cervix strengthens as it matures.

• There are more than 150 types of HPV. Nine of them are associated with high risk diseases. Those high risks diseases include cervical, anal, penile, oropharynx (mouth and throat), vaginal, and vulvar cancers.

• The Gardasil 9 vaccine, according to its website, “helps protect against” these nine types. (Notice that weasel word, “helps” – there is no guarantee, and data on the vaccine only goes back ten years.) Gardasil 9 does not protect against all the HPV strains associated with cancer.

• The CDC recommends children be vaccinated, starting at about age 11-12.

• The surest way to prevent HPV is to save sex for marriage and then keep it inside marriage.

A Pediatrician’s Advice on HPV Vaccination:

Now for a medical opinion. A mother of four, Dr. Meg Meeker practiced pediatric and adolescent medicine for more than thirty years. She says the vaccine appears to be safe so far as is known (but do your own research – ten years is a short data history, epidemiologically). Here is what she wrote in 2011, soon after the American Academy of Pediatrics added the recommendation that boys be vaccinated as well as girls:

Concerning the message that giving Gardasil to kids gives them the “green light” to be sexually active, I disagree. I think that when properly administered, the vaccine should be used to teach kids that sex is very serious stuff, that sex causes cancer when mistreated and that Gardasil doesn’t cover all HPV strains.

Here’s what I do in my office. When girls and boys are in the sixth or seventh, I begin to chat with them about what their friends are doing, specifically when it comes to sex and drugs. (The quickest way to find out what a child is doing is to find out what his/her friends are doing.) I ask if their friends are having sex and then tell them about the importance of avoiding sex. If they are open and comfortable, I talk with them about the fact that there are serious emotional and physical consequences to having sex. I ask if they know what Gardasil is and if so why doctors give it to kids. Then, I tell them what HPV is and why Gardasil (sadly) is needed in this day and age. In other words, I use Gardasil as a means to start very important conversations.

In a subsequent post, she gave some added advice:

I give young people the vaccine but with a few conditions. First, I don’t give it until they are ready to understand what it’s for and how to prevent getting infected (abstinence.) Then, I talk to them about being abstinent. Finally, for teens who tell me that they absolutely won’t have sex until they are married (and many will abstain until they are married) I tell them that they can still become infected if their spouse has been sexually active before they met. I have had patients who are virgins when they marry but become infected by their spouses. That’s why I give vaccines to teens who are virgins – I don’t want HPV to cause cancer or trouble in their marriages.

So, the general public health consensus is, the vaccine is believed to be safe and is being recommended for preventive health. And a trusted, Christian pediatrician-mom advises administering it when children are ready to engage in a discussion about what it is and why it’s being recommended, which includes beginning a healthy conversation about sexuality. So far so good. 

Now, for the Politics of HPV Vaccination:

There are two ways to look at this bill. One could read it as a well-meaning public-health initiative to protect children from the consequences of early sexual activity. Likely, some well-meaning voters, particularly those inclined to trust their government, will see it that way. The other way to see this is that it is yet another intrusive political move to sexualize children – with or without their parents’ consent.

I think there are good reasons to treat this move as the latter. Remember, HPV is an STD. It is transmitted by sexual contact. It is not airborne, it is not foodborne, and it has been linked to throat and mouth cancers only in connection with oral sex. Schoolchildren are not at higher risk of getting HPV just by being in a classroom with someone who has it. This alone nullifies any reason for making it a condition of enrollment in school. Furthermore, the fact that the bill requires HPV vaccination for private and parochial schools virtually smacks of government operatives sticking their finger in the eye of families who’ve opted out of their school system.

Here’s what this amounts to. Rep. Gabel and her cohorts are arrogating unto themselves the authority to make a personal, medical decision for every schoolchild in the state of Illinois. This is a brazenly bald usurpation of parents’ rights. It is also a violation of children in that it enforces a medical intervention on every schoolchild without allowing the child any say in the matter. The fact that the intervention is sexuality related only makes it more egregious and intrusive.

It is one thing to ask, Is HPV vaccination medically advisable? It is a whole other thing to ask, Should it be mandated by government fiat? Illinois State Rep. Gabel has one daughter. She is free to make the HPV decision she deems best for her own child. Let her and her cohorts leave other parents likewise free to make their own choices in consultation with their children and their children’s doctor. As they say in other medical contexts, let this decision be one that stays between patients their doctors.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state representative to let him or her know that you object to political officials usurping parental rights, especially on medical issues. This is an issue that should be between parents and their pediatrician. Public officials have no moral authority mandating controversial health treatments. Ask him/her to vote against HB 4870 if comes up for a vote.

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

Written by Rod Dreher

Last year, I spoke to a Soviet-born scholar who teaches in an American public university. I’m using a quote from our discussion in my forthcoming (September) book, Live Not By Lies. This morning, she sent me this e-mail, which I reproduce here with her permission:

I know from your blog that the work on your new book is going well and I’m glad because, boy, it’s so needed. I’m observing some disturbing developments on my campus, and we are really not one of those wokester schools for spoiled brats one normally associates with this kind of thing.

This academic year I’ve had an opportunity to work with some early-career academics. These are newly-minted PhDs that are in their first year on the tenure-track. What’s really scary is that they sincerely believe all the woke dogma. Older people – those in their forties, fifties or sixties – might parrot the woke mantras because it’s what everybody in academia does and you have to survive. But the younger generation actually believes it all. Transwomen are women, black students fail calculus because there are no calc profs who “look like them,” ‘whiteness’ is the most oppressive thing in the world, the US is the most evil country in history, anybody who votes Republican is a racist, everybody who goes to church is a bigot but the hijab is deeply liberating. I gently mocked some of this stuff (like we normally do among older academics), and two of the younger academics in the group I supervise actually cried. Because they believe all this so deeply, and I’d even say fanatically, that they couldn’t comprehend why I wasn’t taking it seriously.

The fanatical glimmer in their eyes really scared me.

Back in the USSR in the 1970s and the 1980s nobody believed the dogma. People repeated the ideological mantras for cynical reasons, to get advanced in their careers or get food packages. Many did it to protect their kids. But nobody sincerely believed. That is what ultimately saved us. As soon as the regime weakened a bit, it was doomed because there were no sincere believers any more. Everybody who did take the dogma seriously belonged to the generation of my great-grandparents.

In the US, though, the generation of the fanatical believers is only now growing up and coming into its prime. We’ll have to wait until their grandkids grow up to see a generation that will be so fed up with the dogma that it will embrace freedom of thought and expression. But that’s a long way away in the future.

I’m mentoring a group of young scholars in the Humanities to help them do research, and I’m starting to hate this task. Young scholars almost without exception think that scholarship is entirely about repeating woke slogans completely uncritically. Again, this is different from the USSR where scholars peppered their writing with the slogans but always took great pride in trying to sneak in some real thinking and real analysis behind the required ideological drivel. Every Soviet scholar starting from the 1970s was a dissident at heart because everybody knew that the ideology was rotten.

All of this is sad and very scary. I never thought I’d experience anything worse, anything more intellectually stifling than the USSR of its last two decades of existence. But now I do see something worse.

The book you are writing is very important, and I hope that many people hear your message.

Written by Peter Heck

We hear politicians talk a lot about pathways to success, or methods to improve economic outcomes, but one factor almost never mentioned is marriage.  In fact, traditional marriage is generally looked down upon in American culture today.

A record 55 percent of Millennial parents (ages 28-34) have put childbearing before marriage, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics. By comparison, a majority of Baby Boomers (67 percent) had entered into family life at the same age by marrying first. A much smaller share of Boomers had children before marrying (20 percent). Compared with the path of having a baby first, marrying before children more than doubles young adults’ odds of being in the middle or top income tier after adjusting for education, childhood family income, employment status, race/ethnicity and sex.

In fact, an incredible, 97 percent of Millennials who follow what has been called the “success sequence”— that is, who get at least a high school degree, work, and then marry before having any children, in that order – are not poor by the time they reach their prime young adult years.

This pattern holds true for racial and ethnic minorities, as well as young adults from lower-income families. For instance, 76 percent of African American and 81 percent of Hispanic young adults who married first are in the middle or upper third of the income distribution, as are 87 percent of whites. Likewise, 71 percent of Millennials who grew up in the bottom third of the income distribution and married before having a baby have moved up to the middle or upper third of the distribution as young adults.

In general, young people who marry first are more likely to be on track to realizing the American Dream than those who put childbearing first. To read more about research on this click HERE.

This article was originally published by our friends at AFA of Indiana.

We Have Slavery in our Midst – Here’s What You Can Do to Help End It

The following are all true stories. No names have been changed:

• Edie was four when her father died. When Bill moved in, she thought he would be her new Daddy. Instead, he started molesting when she was ten. Bill and her mother owned a butcher shop, and when she was twelve, he started selling her for sex out of the store. On any given day, she might be getting raped in a cooler in the back while customers were buying their dinner out front. If anyone ever noticed the signs of what was happening to her, they never took action.

• Lexie grew up in church. She was coerced into sex at age ten by a seventeen-year-old boy who was a friend of her uncle’s. With divorced parents and a distant father, she craved love and affection. She thought he loved her and that she was his girlfriend. He and her uncle then started selling her for sex to their high school friends at a neighbor’s house. She told her parents what was happening, but they didn’t believe her. She also told her youth pastor, but nothing came out of that either. Her situation continued until the two boys moved on. No one helped her.

• Brook was badly raped at age eleven. She and a friend, who had also been raped, ran away. Before long, they ended up dirty, disheveled, and hungry in a public area. A kindly, clean-cut couple approached them, bought them a meal, and then offered to take them back to their apartment for clean clothes. “We want to help you,” they said. The girls went with them, and before the night was over, Brook had been beaten, threatened, and taken out onto the street as a prostitute.

These are not outlying scenarios. This is the new face of human trafficking – also called modern slavery – in America. It’s happening in our cities, in our suburbs, and even in our schools during lunch and after school hours. And the children involved are getting younger and younger. Sometimes they’re physically held against their will (as in literal chains). Other times they are coerced under threat of harm to themselves or to someone they love. Lexie’s handlers, for example, told her if she didn’t cooperate, they would have her six-year-old sister take her place.

Often the trafficker is known to the child, as in the case of Edie and Lexie. Other times, it’s a predator who knows how to spot a vulnerable target and lure her into his net, the way Brook and her friend were easily eyed and ensnared. Social media has become a veritable hunting ground for children, as grown men posing as “friends” are continually casting for relationships with them online, gradually gaining trust until an opportunity arises to make a move. Another means of entry is the offer of a modeling or acting contract. (Believe it or not, adults fall for this on behalf of their children.) Boys are trafficked too. Studies vary, but estimates say 10-15 percent of trafficked children are boys. And as you can see, women can be complicit or actively involved as perpetrators.

Note also that these things are happening in America, not just “somewhere else.” In 2016, the U.S. led the world as a consumer of commercial sex. Massage parlors, dance clubs, and large-scale gatherings, such as major sporting events or conventions, are supply and demand breeding grounds, and it’s important to know that women of adult age working in legal sex establishments may not be there of their own volition. Some have been trafficked in and are being held under coercion or threat, and of those who weren’t, many still feel trapped because they see no way out. For those whose eyes have been trained to see it, America has become a nation of distributed red-light districts.

Geoffrey Rogers saw it, and in 2011, he left an executive position at IBM to take it on. Together with former major league baseball manager Kevin Malone, he co-founded the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking. He is also president of Ships of Tarshish Films, and Edie’s, Lexie’s, and Brooke’s stories are told in his film, Blind Eyes Opened: The Truth about Sex Trafficking in America. As the title implies, part of its purpose is to help us learn to see the signs of trafficking. That alone makes it important viewing, but it goes well beyond that. Six years in the making, Blind Eyes Opened is packed with information: preventive measures we all can take, what to do in the event we suspect someone is being trafficked, and how we in churches and communities can minister to those who’ve been entangled in this web, past or present.

Although the subject matter is difficult, it’s a beautiful and hopeful film – a full-throated call to the church to engage in this spiritual battle, minister to the wounded, and put an end to this evil in our midst. Blind Eyes Opened will be showing in theaters, one night only, on January 23^rd. Click here to see the trailer, or here for theaters and showtimes. If you can’t make a showing, click here to learn more about how you can join this fight.

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