Protect Children & Taxpayers From Radical Gender Ideology

On May 15, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced two bills to the U.S. Senate—one that would prohibit federal funds from supporting gender transition procedures, and another that would altogether ban such procedures on minors.

These bills are so radical in light of contemporary opinion, yet so simple and straightforward in achieving their goals, that when I read their respective texts, I was awed that the U.S. Senate still contains the type of statesman who will stand for the truth in this way.

And Marshall isn’t alone; co-sponsoring one or both of these bills are U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mike Braun (R-IN), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Steve Daines (R-MT), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Mike Lee (R-UT), Markwayne Mulllin (R-OK), James Risch (R-ID), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

On the one hand, the End Taxpayer Funding of Gender Experimentation Act of 2023 (S. 1595) would prohibit several of the current ways that federal dollars can fund gender transition procedures. Under this bill’s provisions, federal funds may not directly fund gender transition therapy or surgery. Neither may they be shuttled into health care plans that include such practices in their coverage.

Further still, no health care service that is furnished by a physician employed by the federal government or even furnished in a facility owned by the federal government may provide gender transition procedures.

The bill does clarify that non-federal health care providers would be free to provide such treatment, and that customers would still be free to seek out separate (non-federal) plans that cover such treatment should they want it. Yet, the federal government must stay out of it.

On the other hand, the Protecting Children From Experimentation Act of 2023 (S. 1597) takes it a step further when dealing with minors; it would ban gender transition procedures for minors in almost all cases—excepting rare medical situations. Under its provisions, any physical or mental healthcare professional would be fined (or face up to five years in prison) for performing or even referring a gender transition procedure.

The bill makes sure to clarify that minors may not be prosecuted for receiving such treatment; however, recipients of the treatment are allowed to bring civil action for relief against the physician who performed it.

Marshall and his colleagues’ stand for the truth deserves three whole-hearted cheers. They are daring to suggest that physicians performing supposedly “essential” gender transition care should be imprisoned! While it seems harsh, it is not any less harsh than the “care” they are purporting to provide—nothing less than a 21st-century version of the self-mutilation practiced in pagan rites for millennia, an abomination which defiles God’s created order bestowed to each one of us since our conception.

Now, it’s one thing to sit back and cheer for U.S. Senators who are willing to take stands like this, drawing clear lines between black and white in a world filled with multitudinous shades of grey. But politics is not a spectator sport. “The people” are more than just the hypothetical but fictitious “12th man” on the football team. “The people” send the players onto the field, tell them how to play, and recall them when they don’t do their jobs right.

Many of Marshall’s colleagues are assuredly shocked at his audacious proposal. But it’s audacious when viewed from a worldview that presupposes society has already settled the question—or at least the toleration—of gender transition procedures.

Thankfully, U.S. Representative Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) has introduced the same legislation in the U.S. House (H.R. 3328 and H.R. 3329), which has 40 co-sponsors, including U.S. Representatives Mike Bost and Mary Miller from southern Illinois.

If we all called or emailed our representatives right now and let them know that we—their very own constituents—agree with Marshall’s stand for the truth, the excuses to dismiss his position as audacious and radical, will start disappearing. Let them know that you sent them on to the field to represent you, and you will not tolerate government support of lies.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to U.S. Senators Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth and your local U.S. Representative to ask them to support or even co-sponsor these two bills. Impressionable children should not be making life-altering, body-mutilating decisions about their sexuality and adults should not be pushing woke sexual anarchy either.

U.S. Representative LaMalfa rightly points out in his press release,

let kids be kids and wait until adulthood to make a choice they likely wish they hadn’t as a child. Adults and the medical field shouldn’t be allowed to coerce this “woke” agenda onto them when they should be their protectors. Adults need to realize that their coercion is abuse, and should face appropriate consequences.

Nothing opens your mind to new worlds and new possibilities better than a book. Stories can communicate ideas, themes, and lessons considerably better than a lecture does. Children love to act out the stories of their favorite characters, adopting their mannerisms and wishing to be them. You probably can think of a book that has impacted you deeply and maybe even encouraged you to change your behavior in some manner.

Stories are incredibly powerful, sometimes bringing about great change in a culture.

Throughout history, various groups and organizations have banned books for a myriad of reasons: they were deemed inappropriate or immoral, the ideas proliferated were considered dangerous or heretical, or a tyrant thought they would stir up unrest and opposition to his rule.

Book banning is not a good thing. Because of the innate sinfulness of humanity, banning one book opens the door for unjust people or groups to ban anything they choose.

Lately, so-called book banning has been forefront in the news; a story complicated by the narrative the media is spinning. In 2020, when everything shut down due to Covid, public schooling moved to Zoom, and parents could see what their children were being taught and the material they were assigned, including the books their kids were reading.

At some point during all of this, it was discovered that there are books in elementary through high school libraries that are highly pornographic. This is not an exaggeration. If you don’t believe me, watch this video posted by a concerned mother  (WARNING: graphic content).

Understandably, parents began forming groups to advocate for having more of a say in what their children are learning in public schools and began rightly contesting books such as Gender Queer, All Boys aren’t Blue, and Lawn Boy, reading them out loud at school board meetings, requesting that schools remove them from their libraries, and asking that they provide age-appropriate reading material only.

Now the media is attacking parents and parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty. The story is being framed to make it look like these parents are trying to ban books because they are bigots who don’t want their children exposed to “diverse” ideas. They’re comparing concerned parents to Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984 (which is ironic, since in 1984 it was Big Brother that was providing people with porn).

Without coming right out and saying it, they’re purporting that schools should have these books in their libraries precisely because parents don’t want their kids to read them. The idea seems to be, “What if those poor kids feel uncomfortable with who they are and need a place to express themselves and learn about every aspect of the LGBTQIA agenda without the involvement of their mean, strict parents?”

Not only is this a twisted spin on the facts, but it is a downright lie. Banning a book means that the book is banned. It’s illegal to buy, sell, read, or own, and anyone caught with it would face punishment. That isn’t what these parents are requesting. Asking that a book be removed from a school library because of inappropriate content doesn’t vilify the parent.

Similarly, we wouldn’t blame a parent for taking a phone away from their child who is doing things he or she isn’t supposed to with it. Children aren’t allowed to go to tattoo parlors or tanning salons, and we rate movies based on the content because there are things children (and people in general) should not see.

Requesting only age-appropriate content in public schools doesn’t constitute a ban.

Much of the reasoning behind the media’s spin of the story is because most, if not all, of the contested books are LGBTQIA+ related. Our culture is obsessed with self– personal autonomy, total unrestricted freedom, and the pursuit of making oneself happy. It’s a worldview that says, “Anything goes, but if you get in the way of my anything, you need to go.”

But freedom in this world isn’t unlimited. Free societies still have laws and legal consequences for breaking them because people do bad things. If those things were allowed to continue without repercussions, society would collapse. Insisting on having the freedom to gratify the desires of the flesh ends up in slavery to death and eternal destruction.

The backbone of true freedom is Biblical morality.

Some things absolutely should be illegal. In reality, the LGBTQIA+ movement has to do with a grotesque focus on sex. It’s openly targeting children, who, be they seven or seventeen, ought to be guarded against, not exposed to pornography. Adults shouldn’t be filling their minds with it either.

Stories have the power to change minds, for good or for evil. Requesting that a school provide only age-appropriate material is a good thing, and very different from book banning.

On May 2, the town of Danville, Illinois became what some have called a “sanctuary city for the unborn.” After Planned Parenthood staff announced plans to open an abortion clinic in the town, the city council reacted by narrowly passing an ordinance (8-7), citing a section of federal law that forbids the mailing of abortion paraphernalia.

Danville’s recent ordinance does not quite make it a “sanctuary city”—at least not in the same sense that Seattle is a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants on the run from federal immigration officials. Danville’s ordinance is actually a reverse “sanctuary” provision that enforces federal authority in the township, in the face of state law. And herein lies the convoluted back-and-forth of legal argumentation, as both the pro-life and the pro-choice movements have exposited the law to support their side.

The pro-life ordinance makes a clear-cut appeal to the U.S. Constitution, citing Article VI which makes all federal laws the “supreme Law of the Land.” The ordinance further references a section of federal law, U.S.C. §§ 1461–62, which prohibits using the mail system to deliver abortion paraphernalia. Thus, the ordinance explains, since 1) the Danville City Council is “bound by oath to support and defend the Constitution,” 2) the Constitution makes federal law the supreme law of the land, and 3) federal law prohibits mailing abortifacients, therefore Danville is upholding the Constitution in passing this restriction.

The pro-abortion-rights side is not backing down easily, however. According to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Danville’s new rule violates Illinois state law. The state’s Reproductive Health Act prohibits local governments from restricting abortion rights tighter than the state law does, so he claims that Danville simply lacks the legal authority to pass such a regulation.

This article is not intended to endorse or refute either legal argument. Either way it turns out in court, the pro-life movement can still learn a valuable lesson from the Danville controversy.

Roe didn’t get rid of abortion—it made the national discussion that much more tangled.

Pro-lifers cheered as Dobbs struck down the blanket national ruling which said “the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” Immediately, state governors and legislators went to work to pass pro-life or pro-abortion laws, depending on the state.

I’m sure some of us, cheering for Dobbs, were tempted to view ourselves as the reasonable states-rights defenders, in opposition to those big, bad authoritarian federal mandates and rulings. But being “pro-states-rights” really only truly works for the pro-life cause when the state you live in is already pro-life. In states like Illinois, being “pro-states-rights” actually seems to be more like being “pro-choice,” at least in the Danville case.

So states’ rights is not our savior, if it ever was. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a worthy principle, enshrined in our nation’s founding, and one that works well for our side in many places, especially right when the Dobbs ruling came down and various states started banning abortion right and left. But those states only did so because they were already pro-life. The cultural and political groundwork was already in place. In states where these prerequisites are not already in place, “states rights” is just a further justification to keep and expand the abortion restrictions they believe in.

Dobbs was not the end of the pro-life fight. It just moved the battle to a different battlefield, one that is currently focused more on individual skirmishes in particular states than mass movements of troops on the national stage. The dispute over Danville’s ordinance shows us much more clearly how important the local cultural battle is. Overturning U.S. Supreme Court precedent is a major step, but it was only the first step.

Influencing culture and educating the populace who will in turn vote for next year’s lawmakers is the way to ensure the breakthrough we won with Dobbs will actually bring pro-life wins to our states’ laws.

When it comes to the abortion debate, our local neighborhoods are now the new Supreme Court chamber.

We’ve all seen the bumper sticker that spells COEXIST by combining the symbols of major world religions in a convenient order. The bumper sticker seems reasonable; after all, isn’t it just representing the world as it is—people of many religions all existing side by side in the same space? If that were all the bumper sticker meant, then I might consider putting one on my car; it’s an obviously true fact about the world. However, the sticker means much more than that—it doesn’t just commend the idea of people of many different religions all living in the same space, it preaches the doctrine that the ideas promoted by many different religions must be appreciated at the same level.

The distinction between accepting people and accepting ideas is a subtle yet fundamental concept when it comes to discussing tolerance, and today’s world has gotten it exactly backwards. The unruly protest sparked by Riley Gaines‘ talk at San Francisco State University earlier this month is a case in point.

Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer who has held the All-American champ title 12 times, gave a talk at San Francisco State University on April 6 to speak out against the inclusion of transgender women in female sports. Given that Gaines’ message is unpopular in many universities, it was entirely to be expected that she would have received some pushback and perhaps had to engage in some difficult conversations. And one wouldn’t expect much different to occur at a university — an institution ostensibly dedicated to pursuing and disseminating truth, which often requires a clash of conflicting ideas.

But Gaines received far more than uncomfortable conversation—she received a shouting attack. Angry supporters of women’s-sports-trans-inclusion got so verbally violent and physically intimidating that city police had to arrive to help Gaines safely exit the campus. View a short video of the ugly interaction here (this video does contain profanity), which shows an irate trans supporter shouting the mantra “trans rights are human rights” mixed with foul language.

How can an ideology so dedicated to “tolerance” produce adherents who are so obviously intolerant? Herein lies our critical distinction tolerating ideas and tolerating people are two entirely different things. When people praise “tolerance” as a virtue, much of its appeal comes
from the traditional understanding of the word. Tolerance traditionally means that when there are other people who disagree with you, you ought to respect them as fellow human beings, even if you don’t agree with their ideas.

Under this interpretation of tolerance, people can vigorously argue, debate, and refute each other, but at the end of the day they all realize that they each retain special dignity by virtue of simply being human beings created in God’s image, and they can part ways still respecting each other.

However, the contemporary interpretation of “tolerance” flips things on its head. To many, the word still deceptively retains the dignity associated with its noble meaning, but it is now completely redefined: tolerance means that when there are other people who disagree with you, you must accept their ideas as if they were worthy of belief. Attempting to refute, persuade, or even advocate ideas contrary to someone else’s beliefs thus becomes aggression and intolerance.

The problem with this interpretation is that there really are no grounds for accepting all ideas equally. I can accept and respect all other human beings because they are fellow human beings created in the image of God, but should I be forced to readily accept all ideas by virtue of them being… well… “fellow ideas” with my own? To say such implies that all ideas—by virtue of simply being ideas—are worthy of acceptance or respect. But, unlike people, ideas can be stack-ranked according to value. The idea that “gravity is real” is a whole lot more valuable than the idea that “gravity isn’t real.”

Unfortunately, this contemporary definition of tolerance is often accompanied by intolerance of people—the exact opposite of its traditional definition. The protestors at Gaines’ talk disagreed with her ideas, but translated that into attacks on her as a person.

Our culture desperately needs to recover the proper virtue of tolerance—accepting all people, but not all ideas.

If you’ve never heard of Jimmy Donaldson, more commonly known by the moniker Mr. Beast, ask your child who he is. He (or she) likely knows. Mr. Beast is a highly popular YouTuber with multiple channels dedicated to various things, such as friendly competitions, gaming, and philanthropy. He has 146 million subscribers on his main YouTube channel and anywhere between 12.8 million to 32 million on each of his spin-off channels.

Mr. Beast’s videos, which are designed to look like a group of friends hanging out and filming as they go along, generally revolve around giving away large sums of money. For example, a few of his videos are titled, “Survive 100 Days In Circle, Win 500,000,” “I Built Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory!” or “Last To Take Hand Off Jet, Keeps It!”

Mr. Beast is incredibly popular among youth, especially teenage boys. His videos have over 100 million views each.

The first time many adults heard of Mr. Beast was a couple of months ago when he received a lot of flak (mainly from the Left) for a video detailing how he paid for cataract surgery for 1,000 blind people. Now Mr. Beast is in the news again, but unfortunately, it’s for something a lot less philanthropic.

Chris Tyson is a member of Mr. Beast’s cast of friends. Over the past couple of months, viewers noticed that Tyson has started to look and act differently in videos. The reason why became clear when Tyson revealed on Twitter that he has been going through hormone treatments to try and ‘transition’ into a girl. What makes this even sadder is that Tyson has a wife and son, who now must deal with the inevitable fallout of Tyson’s decision.

Tyson’s transition can be directly linked to an apparent addiction to pedophilic anime pornography, illustrating just how powerful influences can be. Tyson went from a typical, regular man, to a confused-looking guy in girl’s clothing.

Parents will want to know that Mr. Beast has given his full support to Chris Tyson in the form of a tweet that uses foul language:

Unless something changes, Mr. Beast’s channel is now a wolf in sheep’s clothing; another place for the LGBTQ+ agenda to be normalized and funneled into your kids. The things you watch and read and listen to really do influence you. The catalyst for Chris Tyson’s change was the porn he is reportedly addicted to and watching.

This should serve as a warning for each of us individually, and especially for parents when it comes to what they let their children watch or have access to. Finding porn online is as easy as mistyping a web address, and even if what you watch is not as evil as porn, the things you fill yourself with – books, movies, TV shows, etc., – really do influence and change you.

Bad company ruins good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33), and if what you keep company with is sinful, you’ll find yourself warped by it. Mr. Beast is sending a message to millions of kids around the world through his acceptance of Tyson’s change. Even if he doesn’t make a big deal of it and simply keeps Tyson on the show, kids all around the world are going to see that someone they look up to, admire, and wish to be thinks this is okay and normal.

This news provides a great discussion opportunity for you and your kids. Sin is awful, especially sexual sin, and those who are caught in it become slaves to it. These are chains that are incredibly difficult to throw off.

Chris Tyson is bound by the chains of this sin. We need to pray for him, Mr. Beast, and the rest of the Mr. Beast crew to see the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(Picture of Tyson’s transition)

Last December, we published an article about how American Girl went woke, pushing gender ideology and the LGBTQ agenda through their dolls and books. Sadly, American Girl isn’t the only generationally beloved toy company to have embraced the way of the world. The latest toy company to have gone full woke is Lego, and as in the case of American Girl, this isn’t a sudden switch.

In 2021, Lego released a set called, “Everyone Is Awesome.” Inspired by the LGBTQ flag, it was released in honor of pride month. (See the featured picture above.)

In 2022 they launched a campaign entitled “The A-Z of Awesome,” with the tagline stating, “This is the A-Z of Awesome, a colorful alphabet of identities built from LEGO bricks, created by our incredible LGBTQIA+ fans!”

This seems to have flown mostly under the radar until Lego posted it to their Instagram page about a week ago, sparking frustration in parents who don’t want their children exposed to the pervasion of the LGBTQ agenda.

For the campaign, Lego invited people who identify as LGBTQ+ (including a man pretending to be a woman) to build something related to a letter in the alphabet that they felt represented them and their “identity.” Among others, you will find “C for Coming Out,” “I for Intersex,” “L for Lesbian,” “N for Non-Binary,” and “Q for Queer” (see photos).

Lego also said they would be donating to “LGBTQIA+ charity partners” as part of the campaign.

It’s incredibly sad when yet another company – especially one that has touched so many childhoods – falls prey to the religion of the world. In Matthew 12:30, Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Even though a secular company may appear to uphold Christian values for a time, the company is against Christ and will eventually show it.  Lego is following the world because it doesn’t have eyes to see what God’s law says.

“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” (Ephesians 4:18-19)

In short, Christians shouldn’t be surprised when a secular company goes the way of the world.

What makes Lego’s story more tragic is that Ole Kirk Kristiansen, Lego’s founder, was a Christian (and by some accounts a very devout one, praying with his employees before work and holding company-wide Bible studies). Even though the current owner of Lego is Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s grandson, the company didn’t retain its Christian heritage, evidence that it doesn’t take much for a family, organization, or country to lose faith. Parents must make a point of training their children up in the Lord, encouraging them in faith, and teaching them Christ. In a sin-dominated world, parents aren’t the only ones seeking to train their children.

Every time a secular company goes woke, it should serve as both a warning and a reminder. Christian, this world needs Jesus so desperately. We are going to stick out more and more as aliens in this world while companies that seemed trustworthy capitulate to godless ideologies. By God’s grace, let’s use our non-conformity to shine the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ into this present darkness with the hope and prayer that hearts turn back to Him.

Population alarmists have been violently ringing the doomsday bell about overpopulation for generations. For decades, they have been predicting a population boom that would result in famine, chaos, and war, with too many people vying for too few resources. But as generation after generation has marched on with no sign of these outcomes, people have started to wonder. What if we were being alerted to the wrong thing? What if the problem isn’t too many people, but too few?

The creators of Birthgap, a documentary film, set out to warn viewers about the declining population, traveling all over the world to visit and talk to government officials, professors, and laymen. The documentary seeks to answer a series of questions: Do people know about the birth gap? Are they concerned about it? Are they doing anything about it? Should something be done? Why is the birth gap so large?

The data is staggering. Most developed countries have an over 50% birth gap, meaning that there is a ratio of 1:2+ of children born to elderly citizens. If this trend continues – and that is pretty much guaranteed – fewer children will be born and adults will continue living longer. This isn’t sustainable for a nation. When there are more elderly people than working adults, social systems fail. There aren’t enough people to care for the elderly, schools close, businesses start to fail, and as a result, countries decline economically. Using graphs and data, Birthgap presents this worldwide problem with stark clarity.

Please watch and share this on your social media platforms:

Although this documentary is produced from a secular worldview, there is no denying that this problem should concern Christians. It is also a problem that becomes understandable once it is viewed through a Biblical lens.

A question that is frequently raised throughout the documentary is simply, “Why? Why is this happening?” Those to whom the question was posed had a difficult time answering it. But as believers, we know that when countries ‘forget’ God and rebel against Him, they will also despise what He values. We know God values children and that one of His first commands to mankind was to be fruitful and multiply. As Biblical morals decline, leading to the breakdown of the institutions of marriage and family, people increasingly prioritize what they want and feel they need more than children.

Having kids is a blessing, but it also requires sacrifice. Especially in the developed world, those of childbearing age are increasingly focused on self: What I want. What I prefer. What makes me happy. What’s best for me. A mindset like this is directly opposed to a desire for or love of children. As Birthgap demonstrates, the ramifications of this shift in priorities will be devastating.

This documentary is a must-see, so click the link and head on over to YouTube to watch Birthgap!

For the last century, the United States of America has engaged in a great secular experiment: what if we pretended that God was irrelevant? What if we pretended that we could make laws that ignored God? Could the ‘public square’ be a place of free, rational discourse—free from claims about the implications of Christian theism on public life? This pretended neutrality has served to reveal one thing: that the line between secularism and paganism is dangerously thin. I’ll revisit that point later, but let’s first take a brief diversion into the hazy world of Cannabis and Constitutionalism.

The International Church of Cannabis (yes, you read that right) is in the midst of a battle with the city of Denver, Colorado, over what the ‘church’ claims to be its First Amendment rights to religious freedom. The battle began after the ‘church’ was ordered to remove an eleven-foot, bright pink statue that it erected on their property, a street corner in a residential area.

Striking, isn’t it? A religious group dedicated to smoking weed is appealing to the U.S. Constitution on the grounds of the First Amendment, an amendment designed to protect the Christian conscience. Now, without getting into debates about originalism versus living Constitutionalism, what does this tells us about the state of our nation? More than anything else, it indicates that the Constitution is no longer fit for the American people. Or perhaps it is more appropriate to put it the other way: the American people are no longer fit for the Constitution.

The Constitution has very little to say about God—it only mentions God indirectly, noting that the document was drafted ‘in the year of our Lord, 1787.’ While some might want to read this as a latent atheism in the Founders (or at least an etiolated deism), there is another way to explain the apparent lack of God. As John Adams famously said, “the Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people, and is wholly inadequate for any other.” That is to say, the Constitution presupposes widespread belief in God and the accompanying Christian social behaviors that stabilize a society.

Nevertheless, the lack of explicitly Christian language in the Constitution has been exploited as a ‘get out of morality free’ card by progressives for the last 150 years. And that’s just how we find the International Church of Cannabis appealing to their ‘Constitutionally-protected’ religious freedoms. Because our nation—Christians included—has gone along with the belief that the Constitution, and consequently all law, can exist and preserve social order without a Christian foundation, we now find ourselves confronted with open paganism.

Why is this the case? Why does a silent secularism end up manifesting itself as open paganism? Because nature abhors a vacuum. If there is a moral vacuum, something has to fill it. Man is homo adorans, he was created to worship something, so when God is stripped of his public relevance, the public will find other things to worship, like cannabis, or himself, or whatever that thing on the courthouse in New York is.

Secularism is never truly secular. There is always a god of the system. In a liberal democracy such as our own, the god is demos, the people. Just listen to any political pundit invoking Omniscient Polls and Almighty Consensus—such things are imbued with godlike characteristics, and everyone must fall down and worship before demos.

Christians must reclaim the public square, not ceding an inch to secularism. We must not buy into the notion that laws can be value-neutral. Law, morality, and social order have no rational basis other than the Triune God of Scripture.

I’ve often heard the term “worldview” compared to a pair of glasses—your worldview is the lens that sits right in front of your spiritual eyes and affects the way you see everything. If your glasses are scratched, the whole world will look scratched. If your glasses are smudged, the whole world will look smudged. And if your glasses are pink-tinted, the whole world will look pink. And so, the best way to deal with someone who insists the world is pink is not to endlessly debate back and forth about any particular object whose color you disagree about, but rather to change out their glasses for a pair that lets them see the world as it really is.

But your worldview is similar to your glasses in another way—both require intentional effort to maintain. Give someone a new pair of lenses, and they can quickly become scratched and smudged if they aren’t consciously taken care of and maintained. And in our fallen world, we encounter scratches and smudges in our culture every day.

The same is true of our worldview. Our fundamental beliefs about God, creation, man, sin, redemption, and the trajectory of history all prompt us to bend the information we receive in one way or another. Using the wrong worldview, we’ll see the world in a distorted, discolored, or downright smudgy manner. Using the correct worldview, we’ll see the world clearly as God sees it. But—just like with your physical glasses—merely starting off with a correct worldview does not guarantee a lifetime of wisdom. Your worldview must be guarded against the scratches of half-truths and compromises that will cause it to deteriorate over time. Such seems to be the case in America today.

A recent poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC) reveals saddening trends in the American worldview. Although the study was not explicitly a “worldview survey”—it covered a wide variety of topics ranging from the economy to childbearing—a few of the poll’s questions shed light on how Americans’ deep worldview principles have changed over recent years.

Of today’s Americans, only 39% say that religion is very important to them, as opposed to 62% in 1998. Even as recently as 2019, approximately 50% of Americans affirmed this. Further, only 30% of today’s Americans say that having children is very important to them, a sharp decline from 1998’s count of approximately 60%. And since 2019’s percentage was still in the low 40’s, much of this decline appears to have happened just over the last three years. These declining numbers point to a decline in major tenets of the Christian worldview—God is the center of life and the most important focal point of it, and man is called to be fruitful and multiply.

Other factors, which are not as directly tied to one’s spiritual worldview, but important nonetheless, have declined as well: patriotism is “very important” to just under 40% of Americans (as opposed to almost 70% of 1998 America), and community involvement is approaching a meager 20% (contrasting with almost 50% in 1998).

Why are such principles—historically assumed to be “American values”—now on the decline? WSJ offers a possible explanation:

A number of events have shaken and in some ways fractured the nation since the Journal first asked about unifying values, among them the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent economic downturn and the rise of former President Donald Trump.

Well, that seems to be a decent partial explanation, especially for factors such as community involvement in the post-Covid world. However, it’s important not to take such materialistic explanations too far and think that as long as the country is clipping along in relative peace and prosperity, then Americans will begin to seek God again. One of the most repeated messages in the history of the Old Testament is that prosperity is actually a pitfall for godliness—when a nation is prosperous, she tends to forget God, because she assumes He is now unnecessary. And if a nation truly fears God, hardship will prompt her to call on Him in her distress. America’s declining Christian worldview is not merely a product of troublesome times. It is a symptom of spiritual decay.

So what is the spiritual solution? How do you restore something as fundamental as a nation’s worldview? Only the work of the almighty God can do that, but thankfully, God tends to leave the same sorts of fingerprints where He works. Dr. George Barna and Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center have identified seven basic beliefs strongly correlated with a biblical worldview; 80% of adults who adhere to them are classified as having a biblical worldview. As ACU puts it, they are:

1) An orthodox, biblical understanding of God.
2) All human beings are sinful by nature; every choice we make has moral considerations and consequences.
3) Knowing Jesus Christ is the only means to salvation, through our confession of sin and reliance on His forgiveness.
4) The entire Bible is true, reliable, and relevant, making it the best moral guide for every person, in all situations.
5) Absolute moral truth exists—and those truths are defined by God, described in the Bible, and are unchanging across time and cultures.
6) The ultimate purpose of human life is to know, love, and serve God with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul.
7) Success on earth is best understood as consistent obedience to God—in thoughts, words, and actions.

On the one hand, none of these should be surprising. Didn’t I just list 7 biblical teachings? So am I not just basically saying “if you want a biblical worldview, you need to believe the Bible?” In a way, yes—the answer doesn’t get much more simple than that. God offers no substitute for repentance, and He offers no alternative framework for reality than His own inspired Word. If America is going to recover a Christian worldview, it will simply have to start believing the Word of God again, and it doesn’t get much simpler than that.

On the other hand, however, these seven tenets do provide us with a clarified look at the problem we face. The generalized and slightly nebulous question, “how well does my family/community/government believe the Bible?” can mean many different things to many different people. But these seven principles help us examine the specific ways in which our community is falling short, and thus specific directions for preaching the truth to those who need to hear it. Once we identify the individual scratches in a pair of glasses, it’s a lot easier to deal with them.

With these specific cornerstones of a biblical worldview identified, ACU found that only 3% of adults currently adhere to all seven. This means that 97% of adults have a sub-Biblical worldview. We have a lot of work to do.

In Proverbs 8:36, Lady Wisdom declares that “All who hate me love death.” Those who scorn wisdom, who are wise in their own eyes, are not merely prideful, they have a death wish. Wisdom comes to us in many forms — primarily through God’s Word and his Church, but also through the traditions of our family, culture, and nation (Prov. 6:20, 22:28). When a nation rejects these forms of wisdom, it will be a nation soaked with blood.

A recent poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NORC (the “Nonpartisan and Objective Research Organization” at the University of Chicago) showed that a mere 38% of Americans surveyed said that patriotism was important to them. This was down from 70% in 1998, when the same poll was last conducted. Now, patriotism is a difficult thing to preserve in an age when abortion is available on demand (or even through the mail) and homosexual “marriage” is the law of the land. But turning against our own nation is also dangerous.

What does this have to do with wisdom? God has appointed nations and cultures as a means of passing down wisdom from generation to generation. A nation that has turned against itself, placing little value on patriotism, is a nation that has shut itself off from a vital God-given source of wisdom. The traditions of a nation and culture, insofar as they are righteous traditions, are the collected wisdom of our fathers and mothers, and to consciously disregard these traditions is to undermine the stability of the social order.

The United States of America has little love for its own traditions, supplanting its once-Christian moral foundations with openly pagan laws and customs. In a word, the United States hates wisdom.

Returning to the point made at the beginning of this article, those who hate wisdom love death. We should not be surprised, then, to see this reflected in the same WSJ-NORC poll that only 23% of adults under age 30 said that having children is very important. A culture that does not value children is a culture that is soon to die off. Failure to marry and procreate is, quite literally, cultural suicide. Already, sociologists and statisticians are warning about the impending crisis that low fertility rates will bring about.

Of course, the same demographic that is eschewing the duty to marry and rear the next generation is still engaging in promiscuous behavior. And so, hundreds of thousands of babies are slaughtered each year. All who hate wisdom love death.

What is the answer to this crisis? Real patriotism. We need a generation of American citizens who love their nation enough to speak against it, condemning the ghoulish practice of abortion and the abomination of homosexual “marriage,” transgender contagion and cross-dressing. We need a generation of American citizens who will commit to abstinence until marriage and then raise children faithfully in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We need a generation of American citizens who love God and the nation He blessed us with enough to preach the Gospel Truth, boldly calling our government and populace to repentance and righteousness.

The work of reformation will be difficult and laborious, and to those on the outside may appear decidedly un-patriotic—the proclamation of the Gospel is a proclamation of grace, but also judgment on sin. But such a message is necessary if we are to tear down our nation’s unfruitful practices while preserving our most valuable traditions.

Read more:

America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It (WSJ)

Most Americans don’t believe the US is the greatest country in the world, poll finds (Fox News)

Religion, Patriotism and Having Children Diminish in Importance for Americans (NCR)

Gallup recently released poll results showing that 7.2% of American adults identify as “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual.” When Gallup first started measuring LGBT statistics in 2012, this number was 3.5%, which means that the LGBT community as a proportion of the U.S. population has doubled over the last ten years.

However, the poll displays a more nuanced result when this 7.2% of the population is  broken down proportionally by age group. Only 1.7% of the Silent Generation, 2.7% of baby boomers, and 3.3% of Generation X identify as LGBT, which leaves the remainder of the U.S. population’s 7.2% to be made up by millennials and Generation Z: a significant 11.2% of the former and a staggering 19.7% of the latter. So according to Gallup’s numbers, not only is 1 or 2 in every 20 U.S. adults lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or “other LGBT,” but 1 in every 5 gen-z-ers is. We’ve come a long way over the last 50 years. Flash back to 1972, when the American Psychiatric Association was classifying homosexuality as a mental illness; now, in 2022, 1 in every 5 of young adults place themselves outside of the traditional heterosexual paradigm.

For some, this poll reflects an admirable shift in American culture. As society becomes more accepting and affirming of the lifestyle—celebrating it as an important aspect of a person’s identity and normalizing it to the younger generation—more and more of the nation’s young people go off to explore their sexualities in these sinful ways while they are young and impressionable and those who should be seeking help for this sexual disorder now feel legitimized in this broken lifestyle. Cathy Renna, the National LGBTQ Task Force communications director, seemed to convey this sentiment in her remarks to USA TODAY:

Who we are is rooted deeply in us and is something young people – growing up in a culture that has finally been able to tell them that they are aren’t alone [sic], that they are beautiful and perfect exactly as they are – will never turn back from now.

Sadly, however, Renna’s remark is truer than she might think. When young people grow up in a culture that tells them they are perfect “exactly as they are,” they might very well never turn back from it.

In Generation Z’s results, we now see the cumulative effects of the steady push to legalize, then normalize, then praise these sinful lifestyles. There’s a reason almost no one in the Silent Generation answered the Gallup poll as LGBT—they were all born before 1945, in a world which was not perfect by any means, but which was definitely more true to biblical standards of sexuality than ours is today. As the generations rolled on, the push to affirm the LGBT lifestyles got louder and louder, but it wasn’t until the most recent generations that we could really say that young people have “grown up” in such a sin-affirming world.

Most of us have a hard time imagining what the world would be like without cars, because we all grew up in a world saturated with them. We no longer think about whether they are beneficial or detrimental, as I’m sure many people did at the turn of the 20th century; we just accept them as a matter of fact, because they are an integral part of our world and they are here to stay. Likewise, I think many of the younger generations are now going to have a hard time imagining what the world would be like if heterosexual marriage were the universal norm. Vigorous debate does still persist right now, but if trends continue like they have been, then it’s going to be harder and harder to get people to believe the biblical paradigm. Perversion will be an integral part of our world and here to stay—or, as Renna put it, young people “will never turn back now.” For her movement, it’s a trend of liberation. But this is not liberty—this is bondage.

The Bible frighteningly describes how societies slip into this kind of sexual perversion—as a form of bondage, rather than a form of liberation. For those who want to see our nation avoid cultural self-destruction, this trend should bring us to our knees. Here’s the basic outline: God has made Himself plain to everyone, so that we are all without excuse if we try to deny Him (Rom. 1:19–20). Nevertheless, unbelievers refuse to acknowledge God; although they know God, they neither glorify Him as God nor are thankful to Him (Rom. 1:21).

So what is God’s response? Does God try to reveal Himself harder? Give people more signs? Make people think more clearly? No, the opposite is true. While God definitely extends His grace to many, and no one is beyond His saving power, Paul explains the natural trend of the unbelievers that refuse to glorify God: their thinking will become futile and their hearts will be darkened (Rom. 1:21). This is not liberation; this is debilitation. Even though they might claim to be wise—maybe even “woke” to all the injustices that no one else can see—unbelievers become fools. They exchange God’s glory for mere images (Rom. 1:22–23).

But the consequences don’t stop there. Not only does sin affect the mind, as unbelievers will claim to be wise while actually becoming fools, but rejection of God also affects sexuality. The very next step is that God gives them over—the same word used when Jesus predicted his betrayal—to sexual impurity, degrading their bodies (Rom. 1:24). They will exchange God’s truth for lies, and slip further into bondage. The unbelievers no longer serve God, but serve creation (Rom. 1:25).

This only spirals downwards, because God then gives them over—there’s that phrase again—to vile lusts (Rom. 1:26). And what are these vile lusts? Then come the chilling words:

For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error (Rom. 1:26–27, ESV).

It may sound cold to some, but here’s the harsh truth: homosexuality is not an immutable identity—it was never the way humans were ever supposed to be. Rather, when it is prevalent in a society, it is an enslaving consequence of rejecting God.

A society that openly accepts sin is far, far down the broad and wide road, and accordingly, Paul ends this passage by listing a series of evils, and then criticizing those who “not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32, ESV, italics mine). Which is what Renna, along with an increasingly vocal portion of our society, is now doing.

The increasing population proportion of the LGBT community and the promulgation of its acceptance are feeding each other in a vicious cycle. Renna hit the nail exactly on the head when she observed that a culture of acceptance will mean youth will never turn back. But that is precisely what is so frightening. Youth will never turn back if youth is enslaved by sexual perversion, having been “given over” to it as a consequence of sin. Our society is already far down the Romans 1 path that begins with rejecting God and ends in enslaving debauchery.

Only by a miracle of God can it be redeemed.

But our God is a God who answers prayer, and He is also a God of miracles.

On January 9, 2023, U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) introduced H.R. 128, also known as the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2023, to the U.S. House of Representatives. This proposal would restrict the federal funds Planned Parenthood receives for abortion (except in cases of rape or incest or danger to the woman’s life) for one year to redirect $235 million toward community health centers. Currently, 40 representatives have cosponsored the bill. The Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2023 was referred to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce on January 9th, the same day it was introduced, and has not moved since.

In the official press release from Rep. Boebert’s government website, she’s quoted as saying,

The nation’s largest abortion provider has no business receiving taxpayer dollars. Planned Parenthood claims these funds go to healthcare for women, but last year, Planned Parenthood performed a record number of abortions while also reducing the number of well-woman exams and breast cancer screenings it performed. Instead of funding Planned Parenthood, my bill will redirect this funding to community health centers that actually meet the health needs of women across the country.

Millions of dollars of federal money, many of which are taxpayer dollars, go to Planned Parenthood every year. A lot of this money is poured into expanding abortion access, prioritizing it above caring for women in real ways, such as through cancer screenings or prenatal care. Rep. Boebert’s bill would redirect $235 million to community health care centers that work to provide real health care.

As Illinois strives to become the abortion capital of the world, we need to pray that this bill goes through. If Planned Parenthood were to lose its funding, it would be just that much more difficult for them to continue opening and operating new abortion mills.

The forty U.S. Congressmembers who have co-sponsored this important bill include Republicans Mary Miller and Mike Bost of southern Illinois. To read the full text of the bill and the list of cosponsors, click here.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your federal representative to ask him/her to vote for this legislation when it comes up for a vote. Urge them to support this legislation that will take steps to stop abortion and significantly limit Planned Parenthood’s federal funding.

Please, support this life-saving bill.

We’ve already given Stanford’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI) a word or two over their confused categories of “ableist language” and “racist language” but the horse we’re beating is not quite dead yet. It’s one thing to stigmatize normal phrases because their connotation or origin supposedly evoke offensive topics, as the Stanford harmful language list did with those two categories. It’s another thing to stigmatize normal phrases because their grammatical structure evokes insensitivity. But believe it or not, academia at the highest level has managed to do just that with the advent of “person-first language.” Grab onto the seat in front of you as we plummet to new depths of ridiculosity.

• “Convict” is politically incorrect. One ought to say “person who was incarcerated.”

• “Immigrant” is harmful language. One ought to say “person who has immigrated” or “non-citizen.”

• “Disabled person” is best left unsaid. One ought to say “person with a disability.”

• “Homeless person” is a no-no. One ought to say “person without housing.”

But why, you ask, are we no longer allowed to use these basic nouns and adjectives in their organic form? Stanford explains that person-first language “helps to not define people by just one of their characteristics.” Apparently, using the noun “convict” defines the convict according to his criminal record, while using the relative clause “person who was incarcerated” emphasizes that there is more to the convict than his criminal record—he is merely a person who has done jail time. Similarly for “immigrant,” etc. Get the picture? In case you didn’t, the EHLI even meticulously spells it out when it addresses “disabled person:” the phrase “implies that the disability defines a person, whereas ‘Person with a disability’ gives the ownership of the disability to the person.”

Sigh. As I said in my earlier analysis of ableist language, I hope you sense the confusion of an average English-speaker striving to justify the way language has worked for, well, forever. Let’s address this assumption that using nouns to refer to people is equivalent to defining them.

The way the world is structured, it is full of categories and subsets. The category of “father” refers to any male who has a child, and if I have a child, I now am a subset of the category “father.” The category of “manager” refers to anyone who supervises employees, so if I run the local grocery store, I am now a subset of the category “manager.” The category “comedian” refers to anyone who is repeatedly making people laugh, and if I am that kind of person, I now am a subset of the category “comedian.”

Now, there may be many other managers in the world besides me. So, if you were asked to pick me out of a crowd—and all you knew was that I was a manager—you wouldn’t be able to single me out without more information. “Manager” is not a definition of me, because there are many other managers besides me and a definition is neither too broad or too narrow for what it’s defining. Furthermore, “manager” isn’t even a defining characteristic of me; I could easily change my occupation status and remain the same kind of person I was before. Rather, when you say that I am a manager, you are saying that I am a particular member of the larger category of “those who supervise employees.”

This is true for many more such words. Saying that someone is an “immigrant” is not “defining” them by their immigration status; it’s just observing that such a person is a member of the larger category of “all people who have changed their country of residence.” Etc., etc. People can belong to zillions of categories without being defined by any of them!

There is no moral difficulty with using our current terms. But now let’s look at what Stanford’s list has revealed with all its politically-correct mumbo-jumbo: person-first language is just bad writing. If I am a firefighter, the “person-first” way to describe me would be as “a person who fights fires.” If I am a thief, my “person-first” designation would be “a person who steals things.” And beware if you are ever a person who patrons a bank, talking to the person who performs the teller’s duties, when a person who likes to steal comes in, demanding cash from all the people who have money. Yikes.

If this reminds you of your seventh-grade English class, it should. We were all coached to not use more words than we need to. Filling your prose with relative clauses—when simple nouns will do just fine—clogs up your writing. So, we all learned, refuse to continue to be the kind of person who does not allow himself to diminish the number of words that he types as he draws up a draft of the assignment that his teacher told him to come up with! In other words, just write concisely.

Let academia continue to obfuscate.

If anything G. K. Chesterton wrote is worth quoting once, it’s worth quoting twice. In our recent discussion about the theological and political significance of words, I quoted Chesterton as saying thus:

“If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you
going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies
always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.”

And as we’ve seen in the world of academia, the Left has recognized that words are the battleground of the mind and advanced into the fray with weapons swinging. Journalism is not far behind.

The Associated Press Stylebook, a preeminent reference guide for English grammar and journalistic principles and style—used by both educators and journalists—has chosen some eyebrow-raising guidelines for how reporters ought to address the topic of abortion in their reports. These guidelines show us, on a much more subtle level, how fiddling with words is fiddling with minds. Let’s look at one specific example in detail: the difference between “unborn baby” and “fetus.” (While this article won’t be using direct quotes from the AP Stylebook, the full text of the abortion topical guide can be accessed here.)

When referring to a baby before he is born, reporters are warned that terms such as “fetus” or “unborn baby” have been politicized by both sides of the issue (pro-life advocates argue that “fetus” devalues a human life, and pro-abortion-access advocates argue that “unborn child” equates abortion with murder). Therefore, the AP counsels us, we are to write with appropriate clarity and sensitivity. But the AP then provides a little more detail about what “appropriate” means.

“Fetus” is preferred in many instances (especially in scientific and medical contexts) when we are discussing a baby after 10 weeks of the mother’s pregnancy. “Embryo” is the appropriate term for a baby up to 10 weeks of the mother’s pregnancy. So when are we allowed to use “unborn baby?” Ahh, that’s a term that we to be used when “fetus” would seem too clinical for the context. E.g., “Sarah loved her unborn fetus more than anyone else in the world” sounds quite weird. So while the AP doesn’t explicitly say so, the examples they provide us seem to indicate what they think is “appropriate:” use the more clinical terms “fetus” and “embryo” in most cases, except for when they sound too clinical for the context, such as a mother loving her unborn baby. Saying “fetus” in such contexts doesn’t evoke the proper emotional reaction.

Yet that’s the whole point! The reason pro-life advocates insist on using the term “murder of an unborn baby” is precisely because saying “demise of a fetus” sounds too clinical! It doesn’t evoke the proper emotional reaction. Think of the difference between saying “the underdeveloped hominoid life form was severed with a sharp dividing instrument” and saying “the little girl was beheaded with an axe.” The more clinical our language, the less we feel natural emotional responses, which is why the abortion industry insists on “terminating pregnancies” instead of “dismembering unborn babies.”

The AP is onto the right principle: we ought to use “unborn baby” when omitting to do so wouldn’t evoke the right emotional response. However, the AP isn’t applying this principle evenly—they recognize the beauty of maternal affection but not the horror of abortion. By writing a topical guide that suggests we use “embryo” and “fetus” as our default terms when writing about abortion, they are suggesting we “clinicalize” a topic that is anything but clinical.

The AP also presents a few other eyebrow-raising guidelines, such as:

• Use “anti-abortion” instead of “pro-life,”
• Use “abortion-rights” instead of “pro-choice,” and
• Use “anti-abortion counseling center” instead of “crisis pregnancy center.”

Yet again, we have stumbled onto the vocabular battlefield and found pairs of competing words fighting over the same subject. And yet again, the difference lies not in the subject we are referring to (we’re talking about the same clinics and procedures either way); the difference lies in the connotations we pin onto it. We might be tempted to give way and just use the politically correct vocabulary, consoling ourselves in our heart of hearts that “we’re referring to the same thing either way,” but we’re not using the same connotations either way. And thus, in the end, we really aren’t meaning the same thing either way.

“Happy holidays” technically refers to the same time of year as does “Merry Christmas”—but removes Christ from the picture. “Transgender” technically refers to the same condition as the phrase “someone who is confused about their sex”—but acquiesces to the lie that sex is mutable. And “termination of a fetus” technically refers to the same procedure as “murder of an unborn baby”—but implies nothing more than a clinical separation of cells, rather than the horrific death by dismemberment or poisoning it really is. Just like “happy holidays” allows us to talk about Christmas without mentioning Christ, this connotation swap allows us to talk about murder without mentioning its horror. It further cements the idea that abortion is benign, first into our vocabularies, and then into our minds. When a whole generation can grow up talking about Christmas without thinking about Christ, or talking about abortion without thinking about murder, the vocabular battle will finally have been won.

And that world will be a scary place.

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