My wife and I have four young children. As any parent knows, raising kids is hard work. It’s rewarding when we see progress in an area we’re working on—a character quality we’re trying to build, a habit we’re trying to establish, or a spiritual lesson we’re trying to teach. But sometimes progress comes slowly.

At a family Thanksgiving a few years ago, a relative who has children with similar ages as ours asked if our kids do a good job of eating vegetables. The honest answer is that one of our little guys was really struggling with that, so I said, “It’s a work in progress.” Then I added, “Sometimes more work and less progress!”

That’s the way it goes sometimes. I could list other areas of life where our parenting efforts appear to be marked by more work than progress. You can probably relate.

For those of us who find ourselves in that season of the parenting journey, I’d like to share a few thoughts (and yes, these are as much for me as for anyone else!).

Faithfulness Counts

I firmly believe that faithfulness over time is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children. We’ll never be perfect parents, but with God’s help, we can be faithful parents. I believe that faithfulness, spread across the years of parenting, goes a long way toward smoothing over our frailties and imperfections.

Our children need us to faithfully invest in their lives. They need us to faithfully model the Christian life for them, to show them what a godly Christian marriage looks like, to be an example of integrity and decency on a day by day basis. They need to see us living out our values day in and day out—not perfectly, but consistently. That’s huge.

When we’re in a season of more work and less progress with our kids, we can remember that staying faithful to what God has called us to do is vitally important.

We Can’t See Everything

I think it’s also good to remember that we can’t see directly into our children’s hearts and we don’t know everything that’s going on in there. At a time when we don’t see much progress, perhaps it’s simply a matter of time before visible changes start happening.

Have you ever planted seeds and waited for them to grow? We can’t see beneath the level of the soil, but things are happening down there we’re not aware of. And one day, if we faithfully take care of them (there’s that faithfulness again!), we’ll wake up one morning and see a little seedling popping up where just plain dirt was the day before.

In a season of “more work and less progress,” remember that things may be happening in the soil of your children’s hearts that you don’t fully realize.

Pray

God is able to do what we cannot. He’s able to reach directly into the hearts of our children and work on them in ways that are beyond our ability. Yes, He chooses to use us as our children’s day-to-day teachers and caretakers, but we need His power to be at work in their lives.

It’s good to pray for our children in a broad and general way, but we also need to pray for their specific areas of struggle. This is something I need to grow in. It’s easy to ask God to bless my kids and to help me be a good father to them, but I need to bring their specific struggles to God more consistently.

We also need to continually ask God for wisdom and guidance in our parenting journey and for the strength to parent our children well. After all, we need God’s working in our own lives as much as our children need it in theirs!

Training is a Process

If you’re working in your own life to change a bad habit or start a good one, how quickly do you see results? How many times do you fail and have to get back on track? How long does it take for someone else to notice your progress?

The fact is, training is a process. Growth is a progression. That’s true for both adults and children.

Tedd Tripp, author of Shepherding a Child’s Heart and co-author (with his wife) of Instructing a Child’s Heart, emphasizes this truth when he points out that training our children is a process, not an event. As much as we might prefer to be able to explain something to our children once and then expect them to “get it” and never make that mistake again, that’s not the way it works. We need to embrace the process and realize that patience and faith are valuable assets in the midst of the day-to-day challenges of parenting.

Evaluate

Sometimes we need to step back and evaluate how we’re handling a problem area with our kids. If we’ve given our current approach a fair trial and it’s not working, we might need to make some tweaks. Or maybe we’ve been inconsistent in our teaching, training, and correction, and need to step up our own efforts. Whatever the case, a periodic review can be useful.

Remember That God Cares

It’s easy sometimes to wonder if progress will ever come in a challenging area. And if you’ve got multiple children—each with their own challenges and struggles—it can feel overwhelming at times. In addition to the thoughts above, remember that God cares about you and your family. He loves your kids even more than you do. We need to trust Him to be at work even when we can’t see what’s happening.

Moving Forward in Faith

Like I said, these thoughts are for me as much as for anyone else. I’m reminded of my own failings and shortcomings as a father on a regular basis. Sometimes I look at my kids and feel like there’s so much work to do that it’s impossible they’ll ever grow up to be responsible, decent, godly human beings! But God wants to work—both in them, and in me and my wife. If you believe that too, then let’s move forward in faith, doing what God calls us to do, and counting on Him to bring the results in His good time.

A Night With Rev. Franklin Graham!
At this year’s annual IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st. You don’t want to miss this special evening!

Learn more HERE.

Last Thursday night, District 211—the largest high school district in the state with 12,000 students and five high schools—held a board meeting to discuss Superintendent Daniel Cates’ boneheaded proposal to allow students who “identify” as the opposite sex to have unrestricted access to the locker rooms of opposite-sex peers. Expecting a large crowd, the district moved the meeting to Palatine High School. The Daily Herald reported that 25 speakers were randomly selected, 16 of whom opposed the proposal, which is well over 50 percent.

Several years ago, when the district was first sued by a biological boy who was self-“identifying” as a girl, Cates allowed him to use the girls’ locker room as long as he changed clothes behind a privacy curtain. Cates steadfastly opposed this boy’s request for unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room. That was then, this is now. Now Cates proposes allowing boys and girls who pretend to be the sex they aren’t to have unrestricted access to the locker rooms of their opposite-sex peers. Perhaps Cates is spineless and follows the path of least resistance, which now leads into darkness. Perhaps he has morally devolved as so many school administrators have. Or perhaps his retirement at the end of this school year has freed his authentic inner corrupt self to emerge.

Cates couldn’t do this dirty work alone. It takes a village and at least four board members to indoctrinate children with an incoherent, irrational, and harmful ideology. One of those sorry villagers is the newly elected, morally corrupt, and unpleasant District 211 board member Kim Cavill, who is a sex “educator” when she’s not promoting feckless locker room policies.

If her name rings a bell, it’s because I mentioned her in an article about former District U46 school board member Jeanette Ward, a fearless, wise, and gracious woman who endured egregiously disrespectful treatment from fellow board members Traci O’Neal Ellis, Veronica Noland, and Melissa Owens. In an online post, Cavill referred to Jeanette Ward as the “High Priestess of the Order of Moron.” Oddly, that comment has been scrubbed from the Internet. Maybe she thought such a comment wouldn’t help her get elected to the District 211 board. Sounds a wee bit intolerant and hateful.

The curious story of the April 2019 election of Kim Cavill actually goes back to the even curiouser story of the 2017 school board election. Three well-qualified people who opposed co-ed private spaces for minors were running against three people who supported co-ed private spaces for minors. The three well-qualified challengers were,

Jean Forrest, a Chinese-American woman with an MA in economics who works as an actuary

Katherine Jee Young David, a Korean-American woman with a BS in Business Administration from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Ralph Bonatz who has a degree in electrical engineering and is a global quality control manager for an international corporation

On March 22, 2017, just 13 days before the 2017 election, LaSaia Wade, a 29-year-old “black trans woman” (i.e., a biological man), and Daye Pope, another biological male who passes as a woman, set up a Super PAC called Trans United Fund Illinois. Pope is the organizing director for a 501(c)(3) called Trans United Fund.

Two days later, on March 24, 2017—11 days before the 2017 election—Kim Cavill and her sister Lindsay Christensen set up a Super PAC called Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education (PNQE).

Just days after the founding of Trans United Fund Illinois, donations from some surprising people came pouring in:

• Matrix Director “Lana” Wachowski, a biological man who pretends to be a woman and lives with his dominatrix wife in Chicago, donated a whopping $10,000.

• Far left Illinois State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago) also donated $10,000.

• Homosexual Clark Pellet, a retired attorney and development chair for the “LGBTQ” Center on Halsted who lives in Chicago, donated $5,000.

• Executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, Dana Beyer, a man who pretends to be a woman and lives in Chevy Chase, MD donated $1,000.

• Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) who lives in Brooklyn, NY donated $500.

• Homosexual Douglas Hattaway, president and CEO of a Washington D.C. strategic communications firm who lives in D.C., donated $500.

• Architect Kira Kinsman, a biological man formerly known as Kyle Kinsman who lives in Wilkes Barre, PA, donated $250.

The more than $26, 000 in donations for a school board election from donors who don’t live in District 211 then went to—you guessed it—Cavill’s Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education.

Enquiring minds may wonder why Cavill and her sister set up PNQE, since Trans United Fund Illinois was already established. Why the extra step to fund the defeat of conservatives? The answer to that question might be found in mailers and yard signs. State law requires that campaign mailers and yard signs identify the groups that pay for them. Signs must say “Approved by….”

Which sounds better—and by “better” I mean less likely to arouse suspicion: “Approved by Trans United Fund Illinois” or “Approved by Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education”?

Flush with filthy lucre, the Cavill sisters got busy smearing good people with nary a backward glance.

As reported by the “LGBTQ” newspaper Windy City Times, a local mom (Who could that have been?) reached out to Trans United Fund, “a national trans-led advocacy group,” who agreed to help them defeat the three candidates who supported single-sex locker rooms:

Trans United Fund (TUF) and a group of local parents, youth, and allies, worked together to launch the first trans-led, trans-focused independent expenditure in history. TUF assembled a powerful team of thoughtful allies to quickly build and execute a research-informed and strategic plan to help the parents and youth get their message out. TUF supported the parents’ efforts through digital, mail, phone banking and helping to train volunteers to reach their neighbors at the door.

The Windy City Times made clear this campaign was a smear campaign in which good people who believe locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to biological sex were vilified. District 211 community member Tracey Salvatore, spewing venomous lies said this about the good people who were defeated:

We are fed up with this small group of vocal, transphobic people guided by a national hate group [Alliance Defending Freedom] wreaking havoc in our community…. Our District 211 community will not tolerate adults bullying kids or intimidating us for one more day. The ADF-inspired slate of candidates ran with the agenda of inserting a hate-based, national agenda into our schools. They didn’t care that their policy changes would increase bullying and violence against kids…. So we reached out to Trans United Fund and they helped us to get our message out to our neighbors and community members. (emphasis added)

Neither Salvatore nor anyone affiliated with PNQE felt the ethical obligation to provide evidence that the three candidates feared or hated “trans”-identifying students, or that they bullied kids, or that they intimidated community members, or that ADF has a “hate-based agenda,” or that single-sex private spaces for minors increase “bullying and violence.” Why try to provide impossible-to-find evidence when hate-mongering rhetoric does the job.

The belief that biological sex is the source of feelings of modesty and the right to privacy when undressing does not constitute hatred of persons no matter how many times people like Salvatore and Cavill spread their repugnant lies.

I wonder if Salvatore spreads these same ugly and false lies about feminists—including lesbians—who oppose biological males in women’s private spaces. Perhaps Salvatore is unaware of the growing schism in the “LGBT” alliance. Just a week ago, a group of influential supporters of the “LGB rights” movement in the United Kingdom, including Stonewall UK founder Simon Fanshawe, published an open letter in the Sunday Times in which they criticize Stonewall and suggest it’s time for the formation of a new organization that is “committed both to freedom of speech and to fact instead of fantasy.” Here’s an excerpt from that letter that Salvatore, Cavill, and Cates should ponder:

Last October a group of LGB rights supporters asked Stonewall to “commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate rather than demonising as transphobic those who wish to discuss, or dissent from, Stonewall’s transgender policies.” Since then, Stonewall has refused repeated requests to enter into any such dialogue…. We believe it has made mistakes in its approach that undermine women’s sex-based rights and protections. The most worrying aspect of this is that all primary-school children are now challenged to review their ‘gender identity’ and decide that they may be the opposite sex if they do not embrace outdated gender stereotypes.

Does Salvatore demonize teens as hateful transphobes if they don’t want to undress in the presence of male peers? What about female teachers who don’t want to undress in front of male colleagues? Does she accuse them of hate-based bullying?

Almost immediately after the school board election and defeat for all three good candidates, Cavill and her sister deactivated their Super PAC. Malignant Mission Accomplished.

And now we return our story to the school board election of April 2019. Kim Cavill, the person who orchestrated the ugly and deceitful campaign smear of three good people by creating a Super PAC front for a Super PAC financed by “LGBTQ” donors from out of the district, ran for the District 211 board and won. Is she really an emblem of good government and transparency?

If you are not yet convinced of her unfitness for serving on a school board or her unfitness to serve as a role model for children, here are just a smattering of quotes from her sex ed podcasts for children and teens.

From her podcast for tweens and teens on anal sex titled “All About Anal”:

Before trying anal sex, people need to talk about their own and their partner’s boundaries like any other type of sex. It should be preceded by a conversation about what the people participating in sex are consenting to, what they aren’t consenting to, how they’re expecting sex to go, and how they’re going to communicate during sex to make sure everyone’s still on the same page. Anal sex also requires a lot of lube.

From her podcast for “tweens and teens” titled “Let’s Talk About Porn”:

Porn can certainly cause relationship problems but so can a lot of other things. Porn causing relationship problems isn’t inevitable, it depends on the relationship and it depends on how the people in that relationship feel about porn…. [T]he evidence says that if you think porn’s bad, it is, and if you think porn’s fine, then it is.

One thing notable from sexpert Cavill’s podcasts is how studiously she avoids the words boy, girl, man, and woman. Even in her podcast explaining how babies come into existence, she never mentions men and women. Instead, she describes a “grown-up with a penis” and a “grown-up with a vagina.” Huh. I wonder what those are.

There are two lessons to be learned from this incredible story:

1. Local communities no longer control their own school boards and, therefore, their schools.

2. Cultural regressives are targeting the hearts, minds, and bodies of other people’s children—your children—and they’re using your money to do it.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Incredible-Story-of-District-211-School-Board-Elections_AUDIO.mp3

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-and, please-

It’s no secret that vast numbers of America’s evangelical teenagers are anemic in their faith. There are undoubtedly many factors involved, but one that shouldn’t be overlooked is education.

Too often as Christians in America we overlook the significance of education. It’s not that we believe education is unimportant. On the contrary, we all know it is important, and we encourage our children to get the best education possible.

Our problem isn’t that we think education is unnecessary, but that we typically overlook how transformational it can be and is meant to be. We view it as purely intellectual, detached from all other aspects of our children’s being.

This comes, I believe, as a result of buying into some dangerous myths that have already done tremendous harm to Christian families, the church, and our culture at large. Left unchecked, they will continue their destructive work.

I call these false beliefs the Neutrality Myths.

Myth #1: Neutrality Is Possible

The first of these three myths says that neutrality in education is possible—that children can be taught without any agenda, bias, or worldview getting in the way of a plain presentation of raw academic facts.

But is this true? Is it really possible to provide our children with an education that’s rigorously factual and simultaneously devoid of personal or institutional bias? In a word, no.

That’s not to say that certain subjects—math being the most obvious example—are necessarily worldview-heavy. But when we take K-12 education as a whole, bias can’t be eliminated. Neutrality isn’t possible.

To suggest otherwise is to overlook how pervasive worldviews are and how they impact our entire lives. At the very least, an acknowledgment or lack of acknowledgment of God will communicate a message to the students and place the lesson outside the realm of neutrality.

Twentieth-century theologian Gordon Clark made the following statement:

Public schools are not, never were, can never be, neutral. Neutrality is impossible. Let one ask what neutrality can possibly mean when God is involved. How does God judge the school system, which says to him, “O God, we neither deny nor assert thy existence; and O God, we neither obey nor disobey thy commandments; we are strictly neutral.” Let no one fail to see the point: The school system that ignores God teaches its pupils to ignore God; and this is not neutrality. It is the worst form of antagonism, for it judges God to be unimportant and irrelevant in human affairs. This is atheism.

Christ Himself left no room for neutrality, telling us plainly in Matthew 12:30 that we are either for Him or against Him. The existence of God and the reality of Christ’s lordship demand a response: we either acknowledge it, deny it, or ignore it. None of these options is a neutral choice.

But beyond this, the public schools of America have taken overt stances against neutrality. Whether it’s the theory of evolution taught as fact during science class, or “health” classes that embrace unbiblical views of morality, or questionable reading selections in Language Arts, the schools have gone beyond simply ignoring God’s existence and are instead actively teaching concepts that are contrary to God’s truth.

Simply put, neutrality isn’t possible.

Myth #2: Neutrality Is Acceptable

A second myth believed by Christian parents is that neutrality is acceptable. Ignoring for a moment that neutrality is possible, would it even be desirable to Christian parents concerned about how God says we should raise our children? Again, the answer is a simple no.

As Christians, Scripture is to be our guide. Search the Bible and find one verse commanding—or even recommending—neutrality in any aspect of training our children. I have yet to find one. God’s model banishes any hint of neutrality and instead mandates that education be unashamedly, unreservedly centered on Him and His truth. Period.

In other words, neutrality isn’t desirable even if it were possible.

Consider the very concept of neutrality. If an education could be truly neutral, it would have no position, no conviction beyond raw facts. It would offer no worldview, no perspective on reality beyond what is indisputably verifiable. It is convictionless.

Why would we want to embrace such an empty, vapid approach to teaching our children?

Take history as an example.

We could attempt to teach this subject in a completely neutral way, which would require us to reduce the study to absolutely no more than a collection of names and dates—the fodder of notoriously boring historical study.

Or we could teach from a distinctively biblical worldview. The scriptural perspective is not that history is simply the unfolding of random events, nor that it’s the story of economic factors and class warfare or the outworking of other geopolitical or socioeconomic factors. It’s the story of God working out His eternal purposes in His creation. It’s the story of human agents promoting goodness, justice, and righteousness while others promote wickedness, malice, and hate. It’s the ongoing account of a great conflict centered around an eternal standard of right and wrong that is rooted in the holiness of God Himself.

Which is more exciting? The lifeless collection of names and dates parading under the banner of attempted neutrality, or an epic story of right versus wrong in which the student himself is an active participant?

Beyond the excitement factor is the issue of reality. We can try to separate God from history, but we won’t get a true picture when we do. In other words, our view of reality will be skewed.

This brings us to a third myth we must debunk, which we’ll look at in Part 2.

A Night With Rev. Franklin Graham!
At this year’s annual IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st. You don’t want to miss this special evening!

Learn more HERE.

Years ago, one might have assumed that new technology would simply replace the home telephone as a primary means of communication between the sexes.  For decades the stereotypical teenager spent hours on the family phone talking to a boyfriend or girlfriend while the parents worried about their phone bill or their own missed calls.

However, not only has technology changed communication, it has also changed how couples meet and date.

According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Michael Rosenfeld, of Stanford University, compared the results of surveys conducted in 2009 and 2017, using them to track the ways people met their partners against the years in which the meetings took place.

The research found that online dating is going through the roof while the more traditional ways people meet are on the decline.

As the Institute for Family Studies observed, “It used to be that technology just helped us communicate more efficiently with our preexisting acquaintances, family, and coworkers. Now it helps us find and connect romantically with total strangers. In the 2017 survey, 90 percent of those who started their relationships online had no other connections to each other. Increasingly, it’s not our friends, siblings, and churches that serve as mediators between us and potential partners; apps and websites and their algorithms do.”

Research on this phenomenon is new and sparse and therefore may not yet be conclusive. However, a 2013 study, found that “marriages that began on-line, when compared with those that began through traditional off-line venues, were slightly less likely to result in a marital break-up (separation or divorce) and were associated with slightly higher marital satisfaction among those respondents who remained married.” A 2017 study similarly found that “meeting online does not predict couple breakup.”  It also found that marriages occur quicker through online dating services.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

A recent report reveals that nearly 9 out of 10 young adults aged 16-29 in the United Kingdom say their life lacks purpose or meaning. The average across all ages is only slightly lower at 80 percent.

Digging further into the numbers, it’s easy to find some clues about why this might be the case.

According to a report about the survey on the website of the British newspaper The Sun, “When it comes to the bigger questions, such as the meaning of life, over half of Brits (51 percent) believe we were put on the earth to be as happy as we can be, while 37 percent say we should make people around us happy.”¹

The Sun also reports that “according to the study of 1,500 Brits, conducted by Yakult UK, the biggest barrier to finding purpose and achieving greater happiness is a lack of finances (45 percent).”

While there’s certainly nothing wrong with being happy, and although it’s also true that a lack of financial resources can cause stress and hardship, it appears that our friends across the Atlantic are looking in the wrong places for purpose and meaning.

That’s not really surprising. Christianity has been on the decline in British culture for many years. When a society removes God from its worldview and daily life, consequences are sure to follow.

In the case of this recent survey, the results seem to suggest—again, unsurprisingly—that many of the respondents are adopting a materialistic, me-first approach to finding purpose, meaning, satisfaction, and happiness. And needless to say, that’s not the right approach.

The key to satisfaction and meaning, I would suggest, is found in following God’s two greatest commandments: loving Him wholly, and loving our neighbors. (Loving God properly, of course, includes exercising saving faith in His son, Jesus Christ.)

A secular worldview is unable to fulfill the first qualification. God is either denied, or at best doubted—certainly not loved, obeyed, and followed. And in denying or doubting God, secularists don’t know a real relationship with God through Christ.

What about the second qualification—loving our neighbor? Unbelievers are certainly capable of acts of service. But let’s drill down into that a little further.

A selfish person is an unhappy person. But without God—or, at the very least, a broadly Christian worldview that emphasizes service to others—we have very little reason to put the needs of others ahead of our own.

Christianity makes the best case for loving our neighbor. Other worldviews may stumble onto the idea that serving others leads to greater happiness compared to simply living for ourselves, but Christianity offers the best rationale for doing so: by living for the good of others we’re following the example of our Savior and making investments that will pay off in eternity.

People may discover the blessings of service as a matter of practical truth, but this is because God has constituted the world in such a way that truth is universal, and living according to truth will bring a degree of benefit even if we don’t have (or follow) all the truth. In other words, human life is more satisfying when we serve others because God made it that way—and that’s true regardless of your other beliefs or worldview.

The disintegration of a Biblical perspective in our modern culture, however, has removed the philosophical or moral groundwork for living a satisfying life. In its place stands the allure of sinful, selfish pleasures that will never ultimately satisfy—an allure that, frankly, can be powerful even when we have the right worldview and beliefs. How much more so when the basis for resisting these temptations is removed?

And yet, what else can a secular worldview offer? It provides no basis for satisfaction or happiness beyond the temporal. To the extent that some unbelievers discover the reality that serving others leads to greater happiness, they’re simply living according to borrowed truth (and, sadly, missing, overlooking, or rejecting the basis of the truth).

Of course, all of this leads to a challenge for those of us who are Christians. Are we following God’s formula for a meaningful life? Are we loving Him above all else? Are we loving others? These are questions I need to ask myself as well. It’s one thing to know the truth; it’s another to live it.

How are we doing?

¹“MILLENNIAL MELANCHOLY Nine in ten young Brits believe their life lacks purpose, according to shocking new study,” The Sun, accessed online on 8-29-19.

Early Bird Special Expires MONDAY!
We are looking forward to welcoming Rev. Franklin Graham to our annual fall banquet on November 1st to share his faith, concerns about the secular culture and his vision for our country. Don’t delay in getting your tickets, as our early bird special expires on Sept. 2nd!

Learn more HERE.

Written by Michelle Thomas

If you remember the late, great financial teacher Larry Burkett, your life is likely the better for it. I worked with Larry for several years in his Gainesville, Georgia headquarters of Christian Financial Concepts (and continued to work for the organization from home for many years after my children started coming along). In my mind, he ranks right up there with some of our Founding Fathers in his wisdom, love for this country, and amazing foresight in economic and political issues. He even left this world on the same patriotic day as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe—on Independence Day, 2003, at the young age of 63. His teachings, which were straight from Scripture, changed my life and bent the twig for my children and hopefully future generations.

The department in which I worked was tasked with answering constituents’ financial questions, so I had to be quite the student of Larry Burkett. In preparation for answering a certain e-mail, I had the opportunity to skim through the pages of Larry’s 1991 best seller, The Coming Economic Earthquake. The book was updated in 1994 to reflect the happenings of the Clinton era, and it’s amazing how accurate Larry was in his foresight of what was coming for our economy and for the nation, in general. He touched on many topics in the book, but some jumped out at me as especially relevant for today.

In light of the battles over the Common Core agenda that was shoved down the nation’s collective throat, Larry said, “Check out the curriculum being taught in your local schools and see if it is anti-free-market. It would shock most Americans to realize that a great deal of the economic information being fed their children in elementary schools, high schools, and especially state universities is blatantly socialistic, if not openly communistic.”

He went on,

The only place that communism still seems to flourish is in the American classroom. It is often labeled ‘socialism’ but, in reality, it is the same doctrine that was taught in the Soviet Union prior to the communism collapse: Government is the protector of the downtrodden; capitalism is inherently evil; people deserve decent incomes, regardless of their desire to work or not; and last, the government is a better purveyor of the nation’s resources than the wage earners are.

Sound familiar? The very issues that Larry saw as major problems 25 years ago have escalated at an alarming rate.

The government takeover of health care that was attempted during the Clinton administration was delayed only a few years until Obama came into power and had the political backing to force it onto the nation. Larry had great wisdom and forethought in this matter: “Let me say that if the federal government is allowed to take control of health care, which represents approximately 14 percent of our total economy, it will be the stake in the heart of our free enterprise system. The government cannot solve our health care problems—it is the problem!”

Larry continued,

Only twelve cents of every government dollar spent on health care now actually reaches a patient. It is a grossly inefficient system. There are two old sayings in Washington that describe what will happen to health care as soon as the political system gains control of that area too: ‘A camel is a horse designed by a government committee,’ and ‘An elephant is a mouse designed to government specifications.’

Wow. If only we had heeded his warning, maybe we wouldn’t be facing the disastrous effects of the government hijacking of our health care system.

Regarding abortion coverage, Larry said, “I rather suspect that, if abortion is accepted as a ‘necessary benefit,’ there would be heavy pressure put on those who oppose abortion to participate or be subjected to financial penalties.” Isn’t this exactly what we’re seeing today? Ministries and faith-based companies (Hobby Lobby and James Dobson’s Family Talk are some of the most recognizable) have been forced to sue the federal government over the abortion mandate in Obamacare. Larry added,

Christians will have to take a stand on this issue, regardless of the consequences. We should have acted with one voice when the Supreme Court decided that somehow an unborn human has no rights. Once abortion is funded through a national health care plan, the number of abortions will likely escalate. God’s people must wake up to this offense now! There is no nation that will survive God’s wrath for long, if and when it decides to kill its young (and old).

When writing The Coming Economic Earthquake, Larry reported that at the current rate of growth, the national debt would swell to $8.7 trillion by the year 2004. Even Larry couldn’t anticipate the rate of reckless spending by the most liberal president in the history of our nation–Barack Obama. Thanks to democrats and republicans alike, I believe Larry would be utterly shocked to know that the national debt is now nearly three times his predicted 2004 level, and it is higher than the Gross Domestic Product of our entire nation.

Writing about the forecasted 2004 national debt of $8.7 trillion, Larry said,

There has never been anything approaching this level of debt funding in the history of mankind in so short a period of time, even on a percentage basis. The effects of this will be felt throughout the U.S. and ultimately the world’s economies…..Either the government will take the necessary steps to control the budget and reduce the deficits drastically, or they will resort to monetizing the debt by printing massive amounts of new currency.

We know which option our leaders chose.

Larry went on to say that,

Logic and common sense seem to play small parts in our present society….The answer [to these and all other issues] is found in God’s Word. All of these things are but symptoms. The real problem is that we have removed God from the decision-making process in America today. When any nation does this, evil will prosper. This is not the fault of the politicians; they are responding to the wishes of the most vocal groups. It is that the unprincipled people around us seem to be more committed to their agenda than the true ‘moral majority’ is to theirs.

Larry urged us to get involved in the political process and the issues of the day so that we could make a difference for the better. I would add that if we want to leave this great nation intact for our children and grandchildren, we have no choice but to hold our leaders accountable for their foolish decisions and force them to make changes that will lead us back to the founding principles that made us exceptional.

Some wise thoughts that Larry left us:

The one certainty is that God is still in control no matter what happens….However, knowing that God is in control does not remove our responsibility to do everything possible to change what is happening or to prepare ourselves for some difficult times. As Proverbs 16:9 says, ‘The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.’

We are to witness to those around us that God is sufficient in all things….God desires followers who will serve Him regardless of the costs. Adversity seems to strengthen us, whereas prosperity tends to weaken us. As the Prophet said in Proverbs 30:8-9, ‘Keep deception and lies far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, lest I be full and deny Thee and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God.’

Larry Burkett left this earth entirely too soon. We need his wisdom now more than ever.

Michelle Thomas is a Christ follower, wife to Trevor Thomas, and homeschooling mom of four. Her books include a devotional for moms, Lord, I Need You, a book about her grief journey, Through Deep Waters, and a chronicle of their financial journey, Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. Her website is KingdomCrossing.com, and her email is michelle@kingdomcrossing.com.

This article was originally published at TrevorGrantThomas.com.

I’m learning an important lesson about raising children

It’s taken me several years of fatherhood to learn an important lesson, but I think it’s finally sinking in.

Are you ready for this nugget of wisdom?

Okay, here we go.

Kids need to be taught everything.

That’s everything as in everything.

I know, I know. You probably had that figured out a long time ago. Maybe I’m a slow learner. I just didn’t realize before we had kids exactly how much teaching my wife and I would need to do.

Take table manners, for example. Apparently, children are born as total barbarians with no sense of etiquette. They’ll play with their food, talk with their mouths full, hit their brother, or interrupt adult conversation without giving it a second thought. It’s up to their mother and me to teach them some civilized habits.

Or take vocabulary as another example. Children need to be taught the meanings of even simple words that I use without thinking. And when I try to define a tricky word for them, I end up using synonyms they also don’t understand. It’s hard to boil some ideas down into words a five-year-old can grasp.

We also have practical skills, like bike riding, tooth brushing, hand shaking, clothes folding, and so many more. Kids aren’t born knowing how to do any of those things. They might learn some of them by watching us, but most we’ll need to teach.

And don’t forget general knowledge about the world around us! That provides the fodder for countless questions and conversations. Why do we stop at red lights? Does it cost money to run the water? It does? Why? Does everything cost money? (Yes.) What happens if we don’t brush our teeth? What’s poison ivy? Every day, from one topic to another, we’re teaching, teaching, teaching.

Then we come to the most important issues of all: character, virtue, and spiritual truths. Again, everything must be taught: why honesty matters, what obedience is and why it’s important, the importance of thinking of others and not just ourselves, why you shouldn’t hit your brother, how God expects us to live, why we need a Savior. Again, the list of topics goes on and on.

Because kids need to be taught everything.

Everything. 

And if that sounds like a huge job—one that will take an enormous amount of time, energy, creativity, patience, perseverance, wisdom, commitment, and divine help—well, that’s because it is and will.

Think about it. Raising our children isn’t the same as teaching an animal how to behave or do clever tricks. We’re teaching and training little people who have hearts and souls—little people who will grow up and replace us some day; little people who will impact others for good or bad; little people who will eventually spend eternity somewhere.

Shame on us if we don’t do our best to equip them for all God has for them to do. Shame on us if we neglect their education and don’t train them in the ways they should go.

With all of the above in mind, here are a few simple takeaways:

• Take responsibility! If we want our kids to know something, we need to take the lead. After all, God gave your children to you, and He also gave you the responsibility to teach them. Others might play supporting roles, but you carry the greatest burden.

• Teaching needs to happen again and again. We can’t expect our kids to “get it” after just one lesson on a given topic. As Tedd and Margy Tripp point out in their book Instructing a Child’s Heart, training is a process, not an event.

• We must focus on our children’s hearts, not just their behavior. (For more on that, check out Tedd and Margy Tripp’s book mentioned above, plus Tedd’s book Shepherding Your Child’s Heart.) Our goal isn’t simply to modify or manipulate behavior, but to shape and mold our children’s hearts (with God’s help, of course).

• This is a long-term process. Lessons learned at age five aren’t the same lessons that will need to be learned at age 15. The practical skills, general knowledge, and spiritual lessons will all be different. We have to be in this for the long haul.

Kids are born with virtually no knowledge, but a nearly limitless ability to learn and grow. They have curiosity. They have qualities to be shaped and honed. It’s up to us to take them as they are and teach them.

Everything.

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
The early bird deadline is right around the corner. You do not want to miss this opportunity to get tickets to the IFI annual banquet as this year’s featured keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

In 2016, there were 11,004 gun homicides in the United States, Additionally, 10,497 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes. Why do leftists demonize guns but are silent when it comes to alcohol’s role in DUI deaths?

Some big government types want new legislation severely restricting gun purchases. But it won’t work.

On August 12th, a convicted felon walked into the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago and open fired with a rifle; that same day in California, a convicted felon shot and killed a Highway Patrol Officer; and on August 14th, another convicted felon with an extensive criminal history of weapons opened fire on Philadelphia police officers, wounding six.

Current gun laws did not stop these criminals who are already legally barred from possessing a firearm from using guns to attack others.

We should stop the feckless politicking and political correctness and admit that we have a cultural problem. We should look at the rise in secularization, family breakdown, drug abuse, mental illness, identity-politics and demand personal responsibility and accountability.

By the way: With the legalization of weed, the numbers of intoxicated drivers and deaths will certainly increase in the coming years, as will violence-related marijuana-induced psychosis.

Forgetting God and his ways have consequences.

Read more: Guns Are Not the Ultimate Cause of Mass Killings (by Laurie Higgins)

Early Bird Special Expires Soon!
We are looking forward to welcoming Rev. Franklin Graham to our annual fall banquet on November 1st to share his faith, concerns about the secular culture and his vision for our country. Don’t delay in getting your tickets, as our early bird special expires on Sept. 2nd!

Learn more HERE.

Illinoisans shouldn’t need a reminder of how committed Illinois politicians are to using tax dollars and government schools to indoctrinate other people’s children, but Governor J.B. Pritzker just gave them one last Friday when he signed the “LGBTQ” school indoctrination bill into law. This law, which takes effect in July 2020, requires that all children ages 5-18 in public schools be taught about the deviant sexual proclivities of men and women who have made some significant cultural contributions. Well, not all deviant sexual proclivities are included. Only the deviant sexual proclivities currently and publicly approved by homosexuals and cross-sex pretenders will be included—for now.

When the time is right, those who identify as polyamorous—er, I mean, “sexually non-monogamous”—or as hebephiles, ephebophiles, kinksters, zoophiles, or infantilists will claim their proclivities constitute a “sexual orientation” and will demand to have the “roles and contributions” of fellow deviants be included in curricula. They will one day rise up against the intolerant, ignorant, hateful bigotry that has resulted in their exclusion and oppression. And then those with other disordered identities—not necessarily sexual in nature—like “amputee-wannabes” (i.e., Body Integrity Identity Disorder) will plead for inclusion.

The reason all these groups will battle for the “roles and contributions” of people like themselves to be taught to our young, impressionable, and vulnerable children is that the central reason for teaching children about the disordered desires and deviant acts of cultural contributors is to normalize deviance. It happens in three ways:

1.) Exposing children repeatedly to a set of beliefs about, for example, homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation from age 5 on up desensitizes children to deviance.

2.) Positive portrayals of deviance from age 5 on up from teachers who are role models shape children’s moral views of deviance.

3.) When, for example, homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation are associated with admirable qualities like achievement, creativity, intelligence, or bravery, the good feelings children have for these admirable qualities are transferred to homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation. And that’s exactly what “progressives” seek.

Of course throughout human history there have been cultural contributors who experienced all manner of perverse and sinful desires and engaged in all manner of perverse and sinful acts, but historically teachers discussed only their contributions—not their perverse and sinful desires and acts. Now, however, a segment of the population has concluded that two forms of sexual activity are neither perverse nor sinful and are using government schools, tax money, and captive audiences to eradicate all dissenting beliefs.

Equality Illinois, Illinois’ foremost organization for promoting perversion, said this about Pritzker’s most recent offense against decency:

“We thank Gov. Pritzker for signing the Inclusive Curriculum Law and ensuring that LGBTQ youth will now see themselves in the history they are taught….” An inclusive curriculum can have positive, affirming benefits.

Since when is it the role of taxpayer-funded government schools to provide “affirming benefits” to children, and what specifically constitutes an “affirming benefit”? Before concluding that affirmation of homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation is a benefit, lawmakers and government-employed “educators” had to have concluded those phenomena are morally good, which is decidedly not their right to do in their professional roles when it comes to highly arguable moral issues.

Moreover, when teachers affirm the unproven, non-factual, subjective beliefs of the “LGBTQ” community, they are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) condemning the beliefs of many people of faith.

Another of Illinois’ sexual deviance cheerleaders, Mary F. Morten, board chair of the deceptively named Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, said this about the “LGBT” indoctrination law:

Gaining a greater knowledge and understanding of the contributions of various underrepresented communities benefits all of us. 

Does inclusion require affirmation of all beliefs, ideas, feelings, and volitional acts? Are those who identify as polyamorists, ephebophiles, zoophiles, and kinksters part of the “underrepresented communities”? Why should homosexuals and biological sex-rejectors be the only sexually deviant groups to “see themselves in the history they are taught”?

Equality Illinois claims it “builds a better Illinois…. where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.” Don’t believe them. They want to ride roughshod over people of faith and deride them as hatemongers.

Remember too that this brazen effort to use government schools to promote “progressive” sexuality assumptions and eradicate the beliefs of countless people of diverse faith traditions is bolstered by the efforts of not only Equality Illinois and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance but also by the Human Rights Campaign; the Illinois Human Rights Commission; the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, the National Education Association; and Pritzker’s recently appointed “trans” task force.

Conservatives, if you don’t have a plan to exit the state of Illinois, you’ve got 11 months to come up with a plan to exit Illinois public schools. The inept and corrupt miscreants who run the state want you to stay put for two reasons: 1. They want your money, and 2. If they weren’t able to kill your children in the womb, they want to corrupt their hearts and minds via government schools and your money.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Look-Whats-in-Store-for-Public-School-Students-in-Illinois_audio_01.mp3

IFI depends on the support of concerned-citizens like you. Donate now

-and, please-

Written by Jerry Newcombe

Everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out what has gone wrong when disturbing stories break of more attacks by young men killing strangers at random. We are reeling as a nation in the wake of these mass shootings and wondering what has gone wrong.

Our cultural elites have led us down a path of unbelief, and now we are reaping the consequences.

I’m reminded of the story about Voltaire, the famous French skeptic, who helped grease the skids for the bloody French Revolution. When one of his skeptical guests was talking loudly at his home, Voltaire asked him to lower his voice. He didn’t want the servants to hear their godless philosophy, lest they steal the silverware.

It’s the morality, stupid. Of course, this phrase piggybacks on the unofficial campaign slogan of Bill Clinton in 1992: “It’s the economy, stupid!” This simple phrase kept them focused, eventually on to victory.

In today’s crisis, which is not something brand new, it’s been brewing for decades in America: It’s the morality, stupid And what’s the cause of this morality? We have driven God out of the public arena.

Unbelief assumes there is no divine accountability. When there is no fear of God in the land, then people do whatever they feel like doing—even if it inflicts mayhem on others. As an atheist character in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov put it: “…since there is no infinite God, there’s no such thing as virtue either and there’s no need for it at all.”

America is ultimately an experiment in self-government. After the founding fathers hammered out the Constitution in the convention in 1787 in Philadelphia, a Mrs. Powell of that city asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government they gave us. His answer was classic: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

The founders knew that the only way we could sustain this self-government was by the people being virtuous, acting in a moral way. And how would that morality be sustained? Answer: through voluntary religion.

The man who spoke more than any other at the Constitutional Convention was Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania. He is credited with writing some of the Constitution, including the preamble (“We the people”). He noted that religion is necessary for morality:

“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.”

George Washington said in his Farewell Address that it is religion that sustains morality. If you undermine religion, you’ll undermine morality.

That is precisely what has happened to America. Beginning with a whole series of misguided U.S. Supreme Court decisions, religious influence—frankly Christian influence—in society was restricted more and more. By the 1960s, God was effectively kicked out of the public schools.

When he was 14 years old, William J. Murray was the plaintiff in one of the key anti-school prayer cases on behalf of his atheist mother, Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Today, Murray is a born- again Christian, ruing the terrible decision and its consequences.

He once told me, “I would like people to take a look at the Baltimore public schools today versus what they were when I went to those schools in 1963 and my mother took prayer out of the schools. We didn’t have armed guards in the hallways then when we had God in the classroom. But I’ll guarantee you there are armed guards [now]. In fact, the city school system of Baltimore now has its own armed police force.”

We lack a fear of God in our land. Young people have no idea that after they die, they will have to give an account to Jesus, whom the founders called in the Declaration of Independence, “the Supreme Judge of the World.”

In the mid-19^th century, one of the Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives was Robert Charles Winthrop, a descendant of John (“a City on a Hill”) Winthrop, the Puritan founder of Boston.

Robert Winthrop gave an address in 1849 at the Massachusetts Bible Society, in which he noted, in effect, our choice is clear: Christianity or violence?

Here’s what Winthrop said:

 “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint.

“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

Would that we choose the Bible today, as the settlers and the founders of our nation chose to do.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

What is social justice? Is it a virtue, a philosophy?

Social justice encompasses economic justice. Social justice is the virtue which guides us in creating those organized human interactions we call institutions. In turn, social institutions, when justly organized, provide us with access to what is good for the person, both individually and in our associations with others. Social justice also imposes on each of us a personal responsibility to collaborate with others, at whatever level of the “Common Good” in which we participate, to design and continually perfect our institutions as tools for personal and social development. ^[1]

Or is it pretty much just action?

Social justice is open doors.

It is not a bunch of privileged academics patting themselves on their backs and making pronouncements that are so vague that you cannot figure out what was promised. It is not yet another institute named for another community leader that produces nothing tangible.

Social justice is a belly full of wholesome food – every single day.

Scholarships, jobs, good schools, full- access to quality health care, peace, etc., that’s social justice . Social justice is the foundation on which productive lives, sound families and strong communities are built.^[2]

Whatever a speaker means by “social justice”, is there any actual justice in it? Let’s find out.

Justice for all

An online dictionary defines “justice” as:

1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause.
2. rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice.
3. the moral principle determining just conduct.
4. conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment.
5. the administering of deserved punishment or reward.
6. the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings: a court of justice.^[3]

That is, justice means having some standards by which your deeds or work will be measured, and then being impartially judged against those standards.

In the United States our laws, our justice, are based on English common law.^[4] In turn, this comes from a Bible-based culture. America still expects its laws to agree with what the Bible says about right and wrong.

Our laws bring individuals before the courts, to judge them innocent or guilty. We don’t try groups of people, but rather charge each individually. There is no legal concept of group guilt or “it is society’s fault.”

What distinguishes justice from mere courtroom proceedings is the expectation of even-handedness. The participants expect that the judge, and jury if there is one, will impartially examine the facts and rule on them. They must not favor a person because of wealth, fame, power, or race. The Bible has plenty to say about having honest courts.^[5]

Social Justice is not Justice

Regardless of how of Ms. Silva^[6] feels about it, if social justice is to rise above mob violence then we have to define it. Wikipedia says this about social justice:

Social justice is a concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges.^[7]

There are many other definitions like it. They don’t deal with standards for behavior, about right and wrong. Rather, they care about transferring money and privilege between groups.

The social justice definitions amount to roughly this: Social justice is merely a conversational label. A potent one, but a label. Through this phrase listeners are encouraged to uncritically accept the speaker’s assertion about just how society must be overhauled.

This is so unlike justice. Justice is an act of examining a combination of individuals and deeds, then rendering an impartial judgment. Social justice, however fine the sentiment, amounts to a campaign speech.

Why is the Social Justice phrase so powerful?

There is magic in these words. By them you can convince yourself, and perhaps others, that your desires are legitimate, and that society must be bound by them. But the old political rules still apply, for you need a lot of people to all articulate the same thing. In brief, lobbying for change.

You see “social justice” most often out of people and organizations paid for social advocacy. From Wikipedia:

In the current global grassroots movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets and economic justice.^[8]

That, and perhaps the smell of fresh government subsidies, are what brings the Center for Economic and Social Justice,^[9] CARE,^[10], the United Nations,^[11] and the San Diego Foundation^[12] out to sell us social justice.

How is Social Justice being used right now?

If you say “social justice” often enough, you get people to think you’ve something profound to say. You can shame your opponents as being unjust. And you can deflect criticisms about just how bad your ideas really are. For example:

Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal rights and opportunities —this includes the right to good health. Yet today, there are inequities in health that are avoidable, unnecessary and unjust. These inequities are the result of policies and practices that create an unequal distribution of money, power and resources among communities based on race, class, gender, place and other factors. To assure that everyone has the opportunity to attain their highest level of health, we must address the social determinants of health AND equity.^[13]

Yet we know, time and again, that getting the government involved only makes things worse in every way.^[14] But non-government solutions get shouted down because they don’t conform with an overall goal of transforming society.

Conclusion

Social justice isn’t a virtue at all. It is merely a phrase meant to self-justify a social proposal. In fact, you must look even harder at the proposal attached to the phrase. The words “social justice” are meant to numb your sensibilities.

Getting a just society is entirely another matter. Start with learning what justice truly is. The Bible is a good start. Everyone has a role in preserving a just society, and everyone can convince his or her neighbor, a business, a leader, and a judge, to do their own parts.

Learn more: Grievance Scholars Expose the Trojan Horse of Social Justice in Faith & Academics

Endnotes

1. Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice, Center for Economic and Social Justice, https://www.cesj.org/learn/definitions/defining-economic-justice-and-social-justice/ ↑
2. Silva, Candelaria, What Social Justice Means (to me), January 28, 2014, http://candelariasilva.com/what-social-justice-means-to-me/ ↑
3. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/justice ↑
4. Gardner, Jonathan, Christianity and English Common Law, Federal Way Conservative, https://fwcon.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/christianity-and-english-common-law/ ↑
5. http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-7-number-1/biblical-foundations-limited-government ↑
6. Silva, Candelaria, What Social Justice Means (to me), January 28, 2014 ↑
7. Bandow, Doug, Biblical Foundations of Limited Government, Acton Institute, July 20, 2010, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice ↑
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice ↑
9. Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice, Center for Economic and Social Justice ↑
10. https://www.care.org/work/poverty ↑
11. International Forum for Social Development, 2006, https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/ifsd/SocialJustice.pdf ↑
12. TSDF, What Is Social Justice?, The San Diego Foundation, March 24, 2016, https://www.sdfoundation.org/news-events/sdf-news/what-is-social-justice/ ↑
13. Social Justice and Health, American Public Health Association, https://www.apha.org/what-is-public-health/generation-public-health/our-work/social-justice ↑
14. Merline, John, $586 Billion Later, Health Care Is Worse Than Before Obamacare — Thanks Obama, Issues & Insights, June, 2019, https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/04/586-billion-later-health-care-in-bigger-state-of-crisis-thanks-obama/ ↑

This article was originally published at FixThisCulture.com.

Science Uprising Pulls back the Curtain on Pseudo-Scientific Posturing

In the 1980s, Madonna captured the image of one girl’s shallow, self-absorbed life with her pop song, “Material Girl”:

You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl.

The era’s personal materialism of “I like stuff” or “Stuff is all that matters” was also captured in TV teen Alex Keaton of the sitcom Family Ties. Individuals may not be so enamored today of material things, but there’s another kind of collective materialism that holds undue sway in our culture. I’m talking about “materialism” as a philosophy.

Materialism as a philosophy is simply the idea that the material world is all there is. Put differently, materialism is the belief that matter and energy, interacting according to the laws of chemistry and physics, constitute the sum total of reality. Philosophical materialism, then, is a belief about the nature of reality.

Sometimes, we hear it stated overtly, such as when celebrity scientist Carl Sagan intoned, “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” Most often, though, it’s subtle. It is assumed but not stated. This is especially true in the realms of the natural sciences. Consider, for example, the children’s book You Are Stardust, which encourages young children to feel good about themselves because the atoms that make up their bodies were forged in the stars. Author Elin Kelsey doesn’t come right out and say, “There is no God” or “The universe is all that exists.” She has simply assumed that materialism is the truth about reality, and then written a whimsical children’s book from that philosophical perspective.

Today, philosophical materialism is almost universally conflated with science. You Are Stardust is categorized as a (what else?) science-based picture book for children. We can also discern this conflation behind statements like, “I don’t believe in God; I believe in science,” as if theistic belief and science are inherently incompatible. But they’re not incompatible, and despite what celebrity scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye the Science Guy might say, there’s nothing that says materialism and science necessarily go together.

So, the question thinking people should be asking is, Why should materialism enjoy such a privileged, unquestioned position in our culture? And the answer is, it shouldn’t.

Enter Science Uprising, a project of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Science Uprising burst onto the scene this past summer with a series of short, edgy videos challenging this materialistic metanarrative on the ground it’s been squatting on for far too long: the natural sciences. The first episode sets things up by explaining what materialism is, demonstrating how its pretensions have become deeply embedded in our culture, and showing how it actually runs counter to many aspects of life we all believe to be true and value. Subsequent episodes look at neuroscience and the reality of the mind, DNA and the reality of coded information in the cell, evolutionary biology and the failure of the neo-Darwinian hypothesis, and more. The upshot of it all is that philosophical materialism fails to adequately explain reality as we know it and live it. Moreover, it fails when put to empirical tests.

How do such concepts as love, compassion, justice and the human soul fit into a narrative that says only matter and energy are real? They don’t. And this should be our first tipoff that maybe materialism isn’t the whole truth about reality. No one–not even materialists themselves–actually lives as if materialism is true.

You don’t have to be a working scientist to think for yourself about science. Research shows that a big reason young people are abandoning Christianity in droves is because they’ve been told it’s incompatible with science, when the truth is, it’s materialism that is incompatible with both Christianity and science. We are instructed in Scripture to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5), and if ever there were a lofty pretension lifting itself up against theistic belief, then materialism should be crowned as king of the whoppers.

Thankfully, the consumeristic materialism of the 1980s has less appeal to youth today. The task for today is to pull back the curtain on this whopper of a lie about reality, an idol of the mind that is even more destructive to the soul. So, check out Science Uprising here, and let the demolishing begin.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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A recent article in the liberal magazine, The Atlantic, suggests that those who are married are more socially isolated than their single counterparts.  The scholars who wrote this used two national data sets to show that marrieds have a diminished social life when compared to those who are single or previously married.

The Institute for Family Studies has reviewed this information and found it to in fact show a modest gap between these groups. However, they point out that the data used presented an incomplete picture. They note that the data does not suggest that marriage is isolating, but responsible for some less time spent with friends.  They note that if one can get companionship from your spouse it is logical that they would be less likely to seek it outside the home.

IFS notes that when other data is considered, there are more positive marital findings. For example, married Americans are more likely to volunteer for a charity than their unwed counterparts.  Married Americans are substantially more likely to attend a church, synagogue, or mosque than are their unwed counterparts. Among those who attend more than a few times a year, 19% say that at least half their friends regularly attend services with them. That number jumps to 41% among those who attend several times a month or more.

IFS concludes, “The only measure of outside engagement they [marrieds] fare less well on is how often they hang out with friends—and it only feels natural that people hang out less with other friends when they’re living with the person presumed to be their best friend.”

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana. 

In 2 Corinthians 6:14, Paul gives an important instruction to us as God’s people: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” (ESV)

Why is this important? Paul answers that question as the verse continues: “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”

In other words, the reason we shouldn’t be unequally yoked is that we don’t have anything in common—from a faith and worldview perspective—with unbelievers.

Paul continues that line of reasoning in verses 15 and 16:

What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Is this a prohibition against having any dealings at all with unbelievers? I don’t believe so. Instead, I believe it’s referring primarily to areas of life where our beliefs, values, and convictions will come into conflict with the beliefs, values, and convictions of unbelievers.

In other words, working alongside unbelievers (i.e., being yoked together with them) to accomplish something inherently tied up with our Christian beliefs and worldview is going to be not only unfruitful but also unwise and contrary to God’s calling on our lives. (As Paul continues in verse 17, “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you….”)

Let’s consider a couple of examples to gain some clarity.

Participating in a neighborhood clean-up day at a local park wouldn’t be a violation of this command. The relationship is temporary and informal, and the task at hand isn’t dependent on your faith, worldview, values, or convictions. Yes, you might be motivated to participate because of your faith and your desire to be active in your community, but the tasks involved in cleaning up the park will be performed the same regardless of your faith and worldview. In other words, there’s no fundamental conflict with unbelievers.

On the other hand, teaming up with members of non-Christian religions to host a community day of prayer would be a different matter. In this case, the objective is inherently spiritual and the differences between the various perspectives would be entirely relevant to the planned activity. This would be a case of trying to achieve something spiritual alongside people who hold completely different beliefs about God, His revelation to man, and our relationship with Him. This would be an instance of being unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

In the first example, our Christian worldview may be what gives us the reason and motivation to seek the good of our community, but the tasks involved will be performed the same regardless of the religious beliefs of the person carrying them out. In the second case, the religious considerations are front and center and can’t possibly be separated from the planned activity.

With those examples in mind, let’s consider a common scenario Christians face today, and ask ourselves whether or not it’s a case where this command would apply: Does it violate Paul’s admonition against being unequally yoked together with unbelievers to entrust our children’s education to a secular institution?

To answer that question, let’s begin by asking ourselves a few additional questions:

1.) Does an education that encompasses all subject areas—e.g., math, language, literature, health, history, government and political science, biology—intersect with spiritual and moral issues, or is it morally neutral?

2.) Does the worldview of a teacher or curriculum impact what is taught and how it is taught?

3.) If so, is the worldview in our secular schools different from your worldview as a Christian? Will your beliefs and convictions be reinforced or undermined?

Here’s how I would answer those questions. First, raising, training, and educating children is a necessarily and unavoidably spiritual endeavor.

Second, the worldview of the curricula and often the teacher matters, and the worldview taught in our schools is far different than that of theologically orthodox Christians. Whether it’s the theory of evolution taught as fact or the promotion of “alternative lifestyles” (or the simple fact that teaching is the most liberal job in America), secular schools have an ideological perspective, and it’s not a Christian one.

That Illinois recently passed legislation mandating that all students in K-12 public schools be taught about the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators should alone tell Christians to exit public schools. This is a direct assault on traditional Christian teaching about sexual morality. The simple fact that government schools leave God out indicates their view that He’s either nonexistent or irrelevant to education. That’s far from a neutral position.

If those are your answers to the above questions as well (and if they’re not, I would suggest that you haven’t been paying enough attention to what’s happening in our schools today), then I hope some clarity is beginning to develop around the question of whether or not sending our children to a secular school is a case of being unequally yoked. If sending our children to government schools doesn’t violate this command, then about the only thing the command does mean is that we shouldn’t go to church at the local pagan temple.

Raising and training our children is one of our most important priorities as Christian parents. Properly understood, it’s a deeply spiritual process, and one that is heavily rooted in our worldview and convictions. Can we really partner (i.e., yoke together) with a system that completely leaves God out and think we’re not violating Paul’s command?

Please note that Paul doesn’t say we shouldn’t yoke together with unbelievers unless we think we can counteract the harm, in which case it’s fine. He also doesn’t say it’s fine if we think we can accomplish some good while being unequally yoked. He simply tells us not to be unequally yoked in the first place.

As we saw earlier, the reason he gives is simple: From a faith and worldview perspective, we don’t have anything in common with unbelievers. Our faith and values are completely different, so why would we try to accomplish something inherently related to that faith and those values alongside someone who is going to be pulling in the opposite direction?

Paul’s words echo those of God Himself in Amos 3:3: “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (KJV)

The answer, of course, is no. And in that case, we would do well to heed the admonition of 2 Corinthians 6:17: “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord….”

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
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Learn more HERE.

For years, the Left has claimed to be the party of science, while casting religious conservatives as ignorant, superstitious louts.

But evidence is mounting that it’s the other way around, and has been for some time.

After all, who are the ones claiming that we should ignore biology and redefine a man as a woman if he feels like it?

Who still claims, despite graphic ultrasound evidence, that a growing human being in a womb is a baby, that because we don’t really know, we can dispose of it?

Underlying this defiance of science is the claim for a purely material, evolutionary origin of life without any creative design. Based on speculation, it depends heavily on ignoring things like irreducible complexity.

That’s when something could not logically have developed piecemeal but had to have come into being with its complex machinery intact.  Anything less would actually reduce a creature’s viability and survivability.  Think of an underdeveloped wing, without feathers.  Until fully able to assist in flight, the wing would be a burdensome appendage that could hobble a creature fighting off predators.

The bombardier beetle has a canister holding a hot, deadly chemical spray that is released at near boiling point.  Imagine this system developing gradually, just by chance mutations.  Does the bug get a beautifully engineered protective container first just in case it ever produces a toxic weapon?

For more concise examples, check out Michael J. Behe’s theory of irreducible complexity in his groundbreaking 1996 book “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.”

The sheer beauty and complexity of the universe indicated to Albert Einstein and other great scientists like Isaac Newton evidence of intelligent design, i.e., a Creator God who is outside our conception of time and space.  Without a Creator, the Big Bang makes no sense whatsoever.

To believe that life itself came from nothing, you have to believe that random chance and time somehow magically create fantastically complex things like the human cell.  It’s like insisting that a Mercedes Benz convertible could turn up on the moon just by chance and enough billions of years.

Beginning with the union of egg and sperm, a human cell rapidly reproduces into millions and then billions of cells. Within two weeks, the cells differentiate in order to become everything from the retina to an earlobe. It all happens via DNA, which remains a mystery as to how it works.

In his remarkable book, “More than Meets the Eye,” Richard A. Swenson, M.D. presents a tsunami of facts about the human body and brain that leaves one open-mouthed in wonder. That is, unless you are unimpressed by analogies like this, concerning the constant destruction and reformation of the 10 to 100 trillion cells in the body:

“If your body were a house, and the house were the size of Texas, imagine knocking down the walls in a million rooms every second and hastily rebuilding them again with new materials.”   Every second.

If that’s not enough, consider the body’s use of its two to four pounds of calcium.  Nearly 99 percent is stored in the bones and teeth, but the rest is used in blood clotting, nerve transmission, muscle contraction and heart function. Here’s the neat part. When the body needs some calcium for one of these applications, it draws from the “exceptionally large total surface area of the tiny mineral crystals within the bone, equal to one hundred acres.”

Meanwhile, marrow in those bones, of which the body has about 200 to go along with 600 muscles, creates a trillion blood cells daily that travel through 60,000 miles of blood vessels.

As for the brain, it holds 10 to the 14^th power bits of information with a storage capacity 1,000 times that of a Cray-2 supercomputer.  This means it can hold information equivalent to 25 million books, enough to fill a bookshelf 500 miles long.

Ah, but how to use all that?   The brain apparently performs a “thousand trillion computations per second,” according to Dr. Swenson, who notes that, “it makes you wonder why balancing the checkbook is so hard.”

What might help us have more patience with our fellow human beings is the growing body of knowledge of how we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” in David’s words in Psalm 139.

I thought about this while scanning social media, with all the insults, name calling and utter lack of appreciation for differences of opinion.  The sheer level of vitriol is stunning.

Yes, there are violators on both sides, but I’ve found that it’s the Left more often than not that’s working overtime to shut down honest discussion and to deny scientific truth when it interferes with their brave new world of sexual anarchy, earth worship and socialist economics.

There’s nothing on the right comparable to the black-hooded thugs of Antifa, for instance, or the white-coated “scientists” who characterize anyone questioning extreme claims of manmade climate change as “deniers” who should be barred from public forums.

When we see people with whom we deeply disagree, it tempers our anger to ponder that they, like us, were created by a God who loves people in spite of our rebellious pride and wants only the best for us.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.