The election is less than a month away!

Scrolling through our social media feeds, it can feel like we are being constantly bombarded with contradictory and confusing information on various candidates and voting. That’s why it is important that you and your like-minded friends to check out the 2020 Illinois Voter Guide. We’ve surveyed all the candidates and made their responses available to you!

The full 16-page version of the IFI Voter Guide is available for download HERE. You can order them in bulk to distribute in your church or neighborhood. They include positions on several issues from candidates running for President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, plus both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly.

We also have a brochure that compares the Democratic and Republican Parties, in their own words, on 6 issues: Abortion/Life; Marriage/Family; Immigration; Judiciary; Religious Liberty; and Education. View a printable version HERE. Spanish version HERE.

If you would like to get bulk quantities of the Voter Guide or the Party Platform comparison brochure (only in English) for your church, neighborhood or civic organization, please call IFI to order them at (708) 781-9328 or click HERE to send an email request.  Supplies are running low, so don’t delay.

We hope you will find this publication helpful, and we hope you find it useful in making the truth known about the candidates running.

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Written by Rick Claybrook, Esq.

The U.S. Supreme Court fall term begins this month, and, as of now, it does not appear to be as action-packed for religious liberty as this past term. However, at least one important case is in the hopper, and several are in the pipeline.  And, of course, all is overshadowed by the presumed replacement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

The case in the hopper is Fulton v. Philadelphia, dealing with whether Philadelphia can stop contracting with Catholic Social Services to perform foster care services because CSS refuses to place children with same-sex couples due to its religious beliefs. The case presents many interesting angles: practical, philosophical, personal.

a.) It is set to be argued on November 4.  Will Judge Barrett be confirmed by then?  If not, and there is a 4-4 split, will it be reargued?

b.) One issue presented is whether Employment Division v. Smith, Justice Scalia’s most notorious decision among many religious freedom advocates, should be overruled. Will Judge Barrett, a self-described Scalia acolyte, be inclined to overrule Smith?

c.) Of course, as we argued in our Fulton amicus merits brief, it is also quite possible to decide in favor of CSS without overruling Smith by taking the path of “hybrid” rights, i.e., that more fundamental rights are at stake than just free exercise.

d.) The city in its briefs before the Supreme Court has also shifted the focus of its defense, now principally arguing that there is much less religious freedom when the government is handing out contracts for a function for which it has primary responsibility.

A few petitions filed last term seem to have been held awaiting what the Court does with Smith in Fulton (if anything).  Foremost among them is Arlene’s Flowers (19-333), which involves a Christian florist who refused to provide floral arrangements for a same-sex “marriage” ceremony. This case has already been “gvr’d” (granted, vacated, and remanded) once for reconsideration in light of Masterpiece Cakeshop, and we argued in our amicus brief in support of the petition that, by requiring the florist to contribute to the ceremony on pain of penalty, she was being unconstitutionally compelled to speak and assemble in a ceremony to which she had religious objection.

Tensions between SOGI discrimination laws and religious freedom are also at play in several other cases in the pipeline. The petition in Patients for Privacy v. Barr (20-62) raises whether a school’s forced inclusion of opposite-sex identifying (“trans”) students in locker rooms violates other children’s bodily privacy rights and associated parental rights. Several lower courts have recently applied Bostock’s reading of sex to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in Title VII (employment) to Title IX (school sports). This issue was specifically reserved by Justice Neil Gorsuch in his Bostock majority opinion, and it would give an interesting read on a freshly minted Justice Barrett.

Several cases are in the pipeline that could raise whether one of Justice Ginsburg’s most notorious decisions, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, should be reconsidered and overruled. That 5-4 decision held that an “all comers” policy at a public university could trump a religious organization’s restrictions on its leadership. Putting to one side that there really is no such thing as a consistently enforced “all comers” policy at any public university (which almost all have fraternities and sororities, for example), the decision has received substantial criticism for violating the association/assembly rights protected by the First Amendment.  A Justice Barrett could provide the vote to overrule this precedent.

Another case that has been to the Court before and may shortly be back is Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which involves a Washington state high school firing a football coach because he refused to stop kneeling at the center of the field with head bowed, by himself, after football games. The Court refused to consider the case in a preliminary injunction context, with a concurring opinion expressing sympathy for the coach but saying that the record needed to be further developed. He has now lost again, on a full record, at the Ninth Circuit. If en banc consideration is not granted, it will almost undoubtedly be the subject of another petition at the Court. If granted, it may provide a first opportunity for a Justice Barrett to indicate her reading of the scope of the Establishment Clause and its interplay with the Free Exercise Clause.

Covid 19 has put the Free Exercise Clause to the test in many cases challenging restrictions on in-person religious services.  The decisions so far have been presented in a preliminary injunction context, and the churches have lost, 5-4, with Justice Ginsburg always in the majority, on the issue of whether churches have been treated in a non-discriminatory fashion. Cases will likely be subject to petition soon that are past the preliminary injunction stage and may present other issues. For example, a Romanian Orthodox church just lost in the Seventh Circuit its challenge to Illinois’s 10-person maximum for indoor services, despite its meeting space holding thousands. Is a one-size-fits-all requirement irrational, especially when free exercise rights are involved? And California in many counties has prohibited in-person religious services entirely. Would a confirmed Justice Barrett tip the scales 5-4 in favor of the churches?

Of course, the primary focus on Judge Barrett’s confirmation hearings, whether expressly or implicitly, will be her likely vote on abortion cases. Several cases are in the lower courts that could be the subject of successful petitions during the term, as states have had laws enjoined that, for example, move back the latest gestation date by which abortions can take place and prohibit abortion due to sex or disability. One pending petition (20-93) raises the issue of whether an unborn child is entitled to equal protection, which does not seem likely to be granted.

Until his retirement from his partnership in Crowell & Moring LLP, one of the country’s premier government contracts firms, Rick Claybrook specialized in bid protest and claims litigation. Throughout the 40+ years of his career, Mr. Claybrook has been active in pro bono matters involving religious liberty and life issues. His experiences in this area have been broad and varied, from hearings before a zoning board to defend a small house church to filing multiple amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court and other state and federal appellate and trial courts. For over a decade, he has been a member of the supervising committee of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, which is the advocacy arm of the Christian Legal Society. 

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As Christians, we often ask for God’s blessings on our food, our day, our endeavors, and the like. It’s easy to add a request for blessings to our prayers simply because it’s what we do. We say it by rote without really thinking about what it means.

But if we stop and reflect for a moment, we really do need God’s blessings. Our own efforts are never enough to achieve the fruitful, desirable outcome we’re looking for in our lives.

But what exactly is God’s blessing? I believe it’s a manifestation of His grace and mercy in our lives. But it’s also more than that. It’s a sort of multiplying power that takes us beyond what our own efforts can achieve and gives us something greater.

If that definition is correct, then it raises an important point. Although God is able to bless us even when we’re completely unworthy of it (and of course, none of us is ultimately worthy of any of His blessings), very often He blesses those who are giving Him something to bless. Put another way, God blesses faith-filled, obedient action, multiplying the result beyond what we would have accomplished on our own.

In Joshua 17:14-18, we read an interesting exchange that took place between Joshua and the descendants of Joseph:

And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one portion to inherit, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as the LORD hath blessed me hitherto? And Joshua answered them, If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill is not enough for us: and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron . . . And Joshua spake  . . .  saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power: thou shalt not have one lot only: But the mountain shall be thine . . . for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.

God had promised to give the land of Canaan to the Israelites, but they were expected to do their part as well. We can see that in a number of passages, including this one in Joshua 17. The Israelites couldn’t sit back and expect God to miraculously drive out the Canaanites with no effort on their part. Could God have chosen to do it that way? Of course. But He didn’t. The Israelites had to do battle for the land. God expected them to act in obedience to what He had called them to do and to put out some effort to achieve the desired result.

Was it that effort on the part of the Israelites that obtained the promise? Not exactly. They couldn’t have accomplished what they did without the blessing of God multiplying their efforts.

Properly viewed, our efforts to pursue God’s promises are an act of faith. And I believe it’s that faith that God wants to see more than our efforts themselves. Our faith sees the promise and motivates us to obey God to do what He calls us to do. This, I think, is the difference between faithful obedience and striving. An attitude of striving says that I have to accomplish everything on my own. An attitude of faith-filled obedience recognizes that we must do our part, but that God is the one who brings the results. Striving worries that it’s never doing enough; faith-filled obedience does its part and rests in God and His faithfulness.

If there’s one area of my life where I want God’s blessing perhaps more than any other, it’s parenting. I know my wife and I don’t have the wisdom, maturity, and personal character to guarantee our children turn out to be faithful followers of Christ. We fail. We make mistakes. We do things we shouldn’t and neglect to do things we should. If our own efforts are all that our children have going for them, who could say what the results would be?

We need God’s blessing. We need God to do the work in our children’s hearts that only He can do. We need His mercy to cover over our mistakes and His grace to multiply the impact of whatever good we might be doing.

I believe it’s God’s desire to see the children of His people grow up and walk in faithfulness to Him. He’s given me and my wife (and every Christian parent) a responsibility to train our children in the way they should go. We need to accept that responsibility and walk in it in faith-filled obedience. But at the same time, we need to cry out for God’s blessing on ourselves and our children. Because without it, our efforts are vain.

“Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

God is looking for faith and obedience in His people. He’s ready to bless. Are we ready to receive it?

While Saul Alinsky can be connected directly to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I’m not aware that such a clear connection exists between the founders of the BLM movement and Alinsky, who died in 1972. But there is no doubt that they share his philosophy of cultural revolution.

In his insightful, 2009 mini-book, Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model, David Horowitz quoted an SDS radical who wrote, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”

As Horowitz explained, “In other words the cause – whether inner city blacks or women – is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution. That was the all consuming focus of Alinsky and his radicals.”

When it comes to BLM, the purported issue, namely, that Black Lives Matter, is not the ultimate issue. Instead, a larger cultural revolution is the ultimate issue. (As many have noted, the founders of BLM are both Marxists and radical feminists, with two of the three women identifying as queer activists.)

And so, the mantra that “Black Lives Matter” specifically means blacks who are victims of white police brutality. Black lives in the womb do not matter. Blacks getting gunned down in gang violence do not matter. Black toddlers killed in random shootings do not matter. Not even blacks killed by black police officers matter – at least not nearly as much as blacks killed by white officers.

Those white officers, in turn, represent the larger system, which, we are told, is fundamentally racist. And it is that system that needs to be overthrown.

Thus, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”

If the issue was the issue, then BLM should have been applauding President Trump’s efforts to introduce police reform.

Instead, Trump is vilified as a white supremacist and racist, and BLM wants him removed. In fact, that is one of their stated goals.

As for the police, their very existence is part of the oppressive system. They must be defunded and abolished, and attacks on them are justified.

Of course, it doesn’t take a sociology professor to understand that the BLM movement is not primarily focused on the well-being of the black American community.

After all, what is the connection between police brutality and statues of Christopher Columbus?

There is no connection, other than the revolutionary logic which says: white police brutality is part of America’s racist heritage, which started with slavery. And Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, enslaved native inhabitants of the West Indies. Therefore, in the name of BLM, his statue must be destroyed (along with many other statues).

And what is the connection between police brutality and the vandalizing of synagogues and burning of church buildings?

There is no connection, other than the revolutionary logic which sees church buildings as symbols of an oppressive, discriminatory religious system that also must be overthrown.

And let’s not forget the statues of a white Jesus and a white Mary. They too must be toppled.

As for the synagogues, that’s easy. The Jews are always part of the oppressive system. The Jews are always evil. Everyone hates the Jews.

Terry Crewes was right to say to Don Lemon that, “There are some very militant type forces in Black Lives Matter and what I was issuing was a warning” that “extremes can really go far and go wild.”

Absolutely. We see the wild extremes on the streets of our cities every day. And plenty of the extremists are young whites, some of whom are more into revolution than into justice.

Diamond and Silk were right to tweet,

“If What Don Lemon says is true about BLM being only about police brutality, then why are they still protesting?  We don’t see police killing black lives. It’s black lives killing black lives.”

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced a bill that would allow Americans to sue companies such as Twitter, Google, and Facebook for censoring political speech. The bill comes as an activist NBC journalist contacted Google to demonetize The Federalist and then reported on it.

The Limiting Section 230 Immunity to Good Samaritans Act, which was introduced June 17 would amend Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, is co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Braun (R-IN), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA).

“Big Tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook,” Hawley said, “have used their power to silence political speech from conservatives without any recourse for users. Section 230 has been stretched and rewritten by courts to give these companies outlandish power over speech without accountability. Congress should act to ensure bad actors are not given a free pass to censor and silence their opponents.”

Under the terms of the bill, companies would be prohibited from receiving Section 230 immunity unless they “update their terms of service to promise to operate in good faith and pay a $5,000 fine (or actual damages, if higher) plus attorney’s fees if they violate that promise.”

It would also let users sue companies for breaching the terms of good faith and prohibit companies from discriminating when enforcing terms of service and failing to honor their promises.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is also preparing legislation that would remove legal protections from companies “when they facilitate or solicit content or activity from third parties that violate federal law.” According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ’s proposals will not only address the question of censorship, but also tackle social media’s facilitation of child exploitation, terrorism, cyberstalking, and other crimes:

The department’s proposal, for instance, would remove legal protections when platforms facilitate or solicit third-party content or activity that violates federal criminal law, such as online scams and trafficking in illicit drugs. The department also wouldn’t confer immunity to platforms in instances involving online child exploitation and sexual abuse, terrorism or cyberstalking. Those carve-outs are needed to curtail immunity for internet companies to allow victims to seek redress, the official said.

The Justice Department also will seek to make clear that tech platforms don’t have immunity in civil-enforcement actions brought by the federal government, and can’t use immunity as a defense against antitrust claims that they removed content for anticompetitive reasons.

Regarding the situation with NBC, Google, and the Federalist, the journalist from NBC made a complaint to Google about criticism of Black Lives Matter that appeared on The Federalist’s website. She then bragged about her “co-investigation” with Google getting the site demonetized. Everything was quickly sorted out, with Google claiming it never demonetized the Federalist.

This censorship issue will most likely continue to come up as the election season goes on. Twitter has been in the spotlight for slapping warning labels on tweets by President Donald Trump saying they violate the company’s policies forbidding abusive behavior. The president has responded that the company is trying to silence conservative voices and hurt his re-election campaign. An executive order he tried to put in place to ease social media restrictions on speech has been blocked in court.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact Illinois’ U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to ask them to support and/or co-sponsor S. 3983. The “big tech” social media giants should be held accountable facilitating federal crimes, including terrorism and child exploitation as well as for their anti-conservative bias (censorship) in moderating content.

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I am really torn about what to say about the upheaval going on in our nation. I have spent a lot of time reading, researching, and listening to various sermons, presentations, and articles on things like the social justice movement, intersectionality, racism, cultural Marxism and virtue signaling in our culture and in our churches…

I recently had a “discussion” with someone that almost instantly turned into my having to prove I am not racist . . .  as defined, of course, by his perceptions, not my heart, or my statements, or my actions.

I love America and I love the study of U.S. history. I thank the Lord that in His sovereignty he blessed me by ordaining my birth here in 1967. I almost never think of myself as “white.” I do often think of myself as American. I believe that I have American privilege. I am so thankful for it. I do not buy into “white privilege.” I cannot think of a better place for anyone of any ethnic background to live that offers more freedom, more equality, and more opportunity than the U.S.

I do not believe that in 2020 America is racist. More than any other country, America has sacrificed to correct the wrongs of our history. I am worried that too many people have been led to believe that America has not changed since 1865 or 1920. It has . . . but for many, the sins of the past can never be overcome or repented of enough. I do not believe this is Biblical, let alone secularly true.

I do believe that, even today, there are racist Americans, and that some people treat others poorly. (There are also racist police officers.) But I do not believe they are racist because they are Americans or even because they may be white. There are some racists among us, of all ethnicities, and all professions, because we are all humans with a sinful nature that utopian ideas cannot change. For this same reason, there are also liars, adulterers, thieves, rapists, and child abusers among us too. We have, and need, laws to address and deter these human sins.

Thankfully, we have passed a great deal of laws that have been successful as both a teacher and a protector, so that all Americans have opportunities in spite of our differences. We also have vital institutions like churches and schools to help us live above our base human tendencies.

There are people out there talking about “systematic racism” some saying that, as one professor declared on national TV, “America is a social experiment that has failed.”  If this is true, we are doomed. But it is not true. Venezuela and the USSR were social experiments that failed. America has been a very, though not perfectly, successful experiment in liberty in so many ways.

There are definitely economic inequalities in the U.S. for a variety of reasons. Yet, it should also be remembered that 71 percent of the world’s population has less than $10,000 in total assets. Americans are a prosperous lot, and globally, most of us would be considered wealthy and privileged. The typical American has as much wealth sitting in their driveway, as much of the world currently has in their entire life.

I say that only to say a self-hating society cannot last.

The loss of life of at least 17 people, mostly minorities, in these riots is horrific. To me, after this is the destruction of businesses and properties in the cities where serious social problems remain. A part of this destruction that deeply worries me involves an historic ignorance I see mostly among young white anarchists who have infiltrated and hijacked a legitimate concern over the death of George Floyd and police policies.

Last week, I mentioned the senseless painting of “Black Lives Matter” on the Indianapolis Soldiers and Sailors monument, which was built in large part to remember the lives and service given by Indiana’s Union soldiers in the Civil War. I think that outrage has now been topped in Boston.

Rioters vandalized the Shaw Memorial statue dedicated to the 54^th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry regiment. This was the all black Union regiment depicted in the Oscar winning movie Glory, starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. Authorities believe that rioters vandalized the memorial on Sunday, May 31^st – the 123rd anniversary of its dedication!   

This kind of stupidity, and total dismissal of the good things in American history that occurred to achieve equality, is baffling and scary. Too many of our nation’s young have been indoctrinated to believe everything bad about our nation with no historic or global perspective of the positive uniqueness of America. These senseless anarchists might as well vandalize the Selma, Alabama, Pettus Bridge too.

While I do not want to dismiss legitimate conversations, let me pass along a couple of facts that point to my title of this item.

• Today, 28 percent of all children adopted from foster care in the United States are interracial adoptions.  Another 21 percent of privately initiated adoptions in the U.S. are interracial adoptions.

• For children who are not Caucasian, 73 percent of their adoptions are to Caucasian parents.

• The percentage of international U.S. adoptions that are interracial is 84 percent.

• Fifty years ago, only 3 percent of marriages in the U.S. were interracial, but by 2015, 17 percent of newlyweds in the U.S. had a spouse from a different racial background. (For comparison, interracial marriages in Japan today are still just 3 percent. In 1978, China did not have one single interracial marriage registered among its 950 million people, which was a population three times the size of America today.)

• The percentage of interracial marriages involving a black spouse has tripled since 1980.

I am not wanting to overlook any concerns, but these are not the kind of major life decisions you would see of a people living under a “systematically racist” government.

America needs prayer, optimism, and unity right now; not lawlessness, self-loathing ignorance, and destruction.

This article was originally published at AFA of Indiana.

Written by Dr. Everett Piper

In April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his letter from the Birmingham Jail. In it, he argued that “there are two types of laws: just and unjust,” King went on: “A just law is a … code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with that moral law.”

King then said, “Any law that uplifts [the human being] is just. Any law that degrades human [beings] is unjust. All segregation is unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the [human being].

“Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber,” contended King, “substitutes an ‘it’ for a ‘thou’ … and ends up relegating persons to the status of things [such as a color or a race].

“Segregation is morally wrong and sinful. Sin is separation … and segregation is an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness.”

In other words, what King was clearly saying was this: When you divide what should be united, you are not an integrationist. You are a segregationist. And you are guilty of sin.

Voddie Baucham, dean of Theology at the African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia, says it this way,

“The concept of race is not a biblical idea; it is a constructed idea. You won’t find the idea of races in the Bible. [In Scripture], we are all the race of Adam. One race, one blood … The separations we have created — the racial categories — are artificial … They are not real … Racial distinctions are things that we have made up to divide ourselves … But the all-sufficient Word of God says to us, ‘That’s a lie, stop believing it!’”

The take-home from both King and Mr. Baucham is this. We are made in the image of God. He designed us and defined us, and when we compromise His description of who we are — when we hyphenate our identity through our contrived definitions and divisions — we not only compromise the dignity of man but also denigrate the very definition of God.

St. Paul says,

“There is ONE body … and ONE God. For in Christ … there is neither Jew nor Greek … You are all ONE [emphasis mine] in Christ Jesus.”

In Genesis 1:27, we are told that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him …” Moses is very clear. God did not say he created humanity and then divided us by categories. All men and women are created as a singular race that is a direct reflection of the unity of triune God himself. There is absolutely nothing here that suggests otherwise.

In the “moral law of God,” there is no black and white. There is no such thing as a hyphenated human being. There is no such division. The only definition of man that we have in the Bible is that God created us as a unified “thou,” not a bunch of divided “its.”

Any segregation of this image — of the Imago Dei — into separate categories based on the “color of one’s skin rather than the content of one’s character” is “an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness.”

The enemy of human dignity and human freedom knows this. He knows that all that’s necessary to conquer us is to divide us from each other and divide us from God.

Our nation’s seal says E Pluribus Unum and not E Unum Pluribus for a reason.

It is out of many, one! Not out of one, many!

United, we stand. Divided, we fall.

The consequence of abandoning this truth is always anarchy, not freedom. Lies always result in more and more bondage and less and less liberty.

Remember this in November.

Never vote for anyone shouting diversity rather than unity.

Never vote for anyone marching for “us” vs. “them.”

Never vote for anyone who focuses on black vs. white; the 99 percent vs. the one; the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie.

Never vote for anyone who implies that some “lives matter” and others don’t.

Never vote for anyone who is “out of harmony with the moral law of God.”

Never vote for dividing and segregating the Imago Dei.

Never vote for anyone who waves the banner of the “it” vs. the “thou.”

Such people care little for those they claim to defend. They only care about power.

Such people know that if they can divide us, they can control us by manipulating our anger, resentment and our desire for revenge.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew this. He understood not only the lessons of Scripture but also those of history. He knew that a message of division and retaliation rather than one of unity and repentance always brings the “guillotine” and blood flowing in the streets.

Dr. Everett Piper, former president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, is a columnist for The Washington Times and author of “Not A Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery 2017).

This article was originally published at The Washington Times.

There are a lot of really bad ideas swirling around our culture right now.  (That headline is one of them.)

Among many bad ideas, I am concerned about the things being embraced by various people and groups in a manner that has been termed “virtue signaling.” If you have not heard of this, think of Nike’s new commercials decrying racism, as if the whole world was eagerly waiting to know what a shoe company thinks. After all, we all know that the shoes we wear impact how we speak and behave towards each other. We must all think good things about Nike now. Their shoes care.

This is akin to white guilt.  It is something I also do not understand. I have enough of my own faults to deal with in the here and now. I do not need to take on the sins of people I never knew, people I had no impact upon, and people who did things 150 years ago that I wouldn’t ever do. I can declare such things as evil, but I feel no need to wring my hands and apologize for the wrongs of the ancient dead.

The problem of humanity is sin, and it is universal. Racism is a sin. It is not a sin unique to one’s color or to this point in history, and it is certainly not unique to America. (For starters, we did a lot wrong, but we are also one of the only nations to ever violently spill our own blood to end slavery.)  Yet, this issue has taken on almost a cultic status in some circles, including churches, as the be all and end all defining issue.

So, with the understanding that racism is wrong, how do we address it without embracing wrong ideas or ideologies?

To perhaps jump start your thinking on this . . .  I would encourage you and your family to make a point of watching the incredible thinker and speaker, Voddie Baucham, in this important talk titled, “Ethnic Gnosticism.” I believe you will find this educational and something helpful for discussion of this within your family.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

This National Day of Prayer, May 7, 2020, will be like no other. Since its inception in May 1952, under President Harry S. Truman, the day has been observed with large public events. While the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the shutdown of all public events, prayer has never been more essential and this important event will still take place – online.

Pastors from across the state told the Illinois Family Institute how important they feel it is to pray not only on the National Day of Prayer, but every day. Joey Krol, pastor of Galilee Baptist Church in Decatur shared, “One of the effective ways of measuring your spiritual walk is by examining how connected you are in prayer. Jesus said in John 15:5, ‘I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.’”

Krol urged during this pandemic, “Now is the time to be the Church. Now is the time to be on our knees. Now is the time to be a people of prayer. In this time of uncertainty, confusion and fear, let us be so connected to the Vine that when others see us, they will give their hearts to the Prince of Peace.”

Calvin Lindstrom, pastor of Church of Christian Liberty in Arlington Heights, pointed to the power of God. “So often we focus more on how feeble and inarticulate our words are rather than focusing on God’s mighty power,” Lindstrom said. “It is good that we know we have no power in our ourselves. It is good that we are humbled in the face of the problems we are facing. The power of prayer is that God has commanded His people to pray, and that nothing He determines to do can be frustrated.”

This National Day of Prayer comes at a perfect time as our nation faces a crisis like one not seen in generations. Sensing the urgency, Pastor Richard Giovannetti of Standing in the Word Ministries in Morris, told IFI, “With a desperate and hurting nation rapidly bleeding out her freedom, the words, ‘The Effectual Fervent Prayer of the Righteous Man Avails Much’ shout at us with critical urgency… ‘Is There Not A Cause?'”

Further calls for serious prayer came from Myles Holmes, pastor of REVIVE Church in Collinsville. “Seasons of national crisis call for Prophetic Prayer,” Holmes said. “Prophetic Prayer is intercession that calls for the purposes of God to be revealed so that His Kingdom will come and His Will is done. This includes help for His people, but is even more intent for His Glory to be revealed.”

David E. Smith, executive director of IFI, summed up why it is important we pray during this time. “We have a loving and merciful God of compassion who invites our prayers,” said Smith. “His Word tells us repeatedly to turn to Him in the midst of challenges and trials. We are encouraged to take shelter in Him as our refuge and our strength. He is our sure rock in the midst of any storm, the Light that pierces every darkness, and an anchor of hope for those who contend with despair. We should embrace every opportunity to bring our appeals before Him.”

Will Graham, an evangelist for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the grandson of the late Billy Graham, will co-host the live-stream along with the National Day of Prayer Task Force President Kathy Branzell from 7-9 p.m. central time. Guests include Harry Jackson, Nick Hall, Gabrielle Odom, Luis Palau, Michael W. Smith, Rick Warren, and others.

Watch the event online at NationalDayOfPrayer.org or at facebook.com/natlprayer. It will also be broadcast on television via GodTV and DayStar, in addition to radio over the Moody and Bott networks.

NOTE: The Illinois National Day of Prayer and Illinois Prayer Caucus Network have organized a conference call for Thursday at 11 AM – 12:15 PM. The call in number is (978) 990-5001 and the access code is 601577#. (They will be recording the call.)

This year’s theme is “Pray God’s Glory Across the Earth,” which is based on Habakkuk 2:14, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

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One of the nation’s leading religious freedom law firms, The Liberty Counsel, has recently reported that it is receiving a flood of complaints on behalf of pastors and ministry leaders in 30 states regarding heavy handed tactics singling out churches for punishment during shutdown orders. They are taking legal action in numerous situations to defend the constitutional rights of religious freedom.

One of the most incredible cases involves Pastor Kevin Wilson of Lighthouse Christian Church in Virginia. On April 5^th, before Palm Sunday, police entered the church telling those gathered that they could not have church.  They then issued the Pastor with a summons for violating Virginia Governor Northam’s COVID order. A crime that holds a year in jail or a $2,500 fine.

According to the police, the church was in violation for having 16 people, even though they were seated for social distancing, in an auditorium built to seat nearly 300.  The police said that if the church held a similar service on Easter everyone in attendance would be cited.

Before you make a judgment about this, it should be understood that Lighthouse Christian Church is an underprivileged church that does not have internet.  The church is known for helping people overcome drug addiction, poverty, mental illness and prostitution.  Many, if not most of their members, do not have internet.   Many members do not have driver’s licenses and they rely upon other members to take them to get food or to medical appointments.  The church has a history of helping its members with utility bills and physical labor needs at home.   The church is a vital part of their regular care.

Parking lots around Lighthouse on Chincoteague Island had hundreds of cars at various business establishment, but only this church was cited for having more than 10 people.

One of the problems with charging a pastor criminally for having 6 more than people in an order, is that in so doing, the government is subjectively saying that a church is non-essential while a liquor store or hardware store is essential.  It prevents responsible people from deciding what is essential to them. It also makes the increasingly common public policy mistake of overlooking the important role faith plays in people’s lives and the overall health benefits churches provide.

These clampdowns on churches trying to be compliant and safe while caring for their members, are occurring at a time when suicide and mental health hotlines are seeing a massive rise in calls.

One of the things that really irritates people are stories like this one where government authorities seem to lack an ability to think on their own and to make common sense adjustments to an arbitrary policy.  This strikes at the heart of what the RFRA issue was really all about.  It was an effort to force the government to balance its own interests with the rights of religious Americans and to take the least restrictive means possible, when necessary.

The dark side of these stories about church crackdowns is that it reveals a growing hostility to faith in America that many of you have probably observed in social media comments or other parts of our culture.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI, please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  It does make a difference.

Written by Patricia Mosley

As part of their COVID-19 response, the U.K. initially approved new measures to allow women to take the complete abortion pill regimen at home. Now, it appears that this measure has been reversed. The reasoning given was, “This was published in error. There will be no changes to abortion regulations.”

The abortion pill is a two-drug regimen that is basically a do-it-yourself method anyways, but normally, the woman would have some type of interaction with a physician by taking the first pill (mifepristone) under their supervision at the clinic and then going home to take the second drug (misoprostol) 24-48 hours later.

Because the U.K. considers abortion an “essential service” amid the pandemic, their response was to completely place the burden of abortion on women. These women would have been popping both pills at home with no physician oversight.

But this is what the abortion industry all over the world has been calling for even before the current pandemic—for abortions to be unrestricted, unregulated, and do-it-yourself. Gone are the days when they were calling for “safe, legal, and rare” to protect against desperate women performing their own “back-alley” abortions. Now abortion pills are the new back-alley method, credentialed by the world’s most prestigious medical institutions.

Because the U.S. has FDA restrictions (REMs) on the abortion pill (U.S. brand “Mifeprex”), it cannot be a “complete” DIY method, but either way, restrictions or no restrictions, the abortion pill method is set up to be an at-home, multi-day, traumatic process that comes with the risk of serious complications.

Chemical abortions carry four times the rate of complications compared to surgical abortions. The two side effects observed to be more prevalent during chemical abortions than surgical abortions were hemorrhage and incomplete abortion. An incomplete abortion means there needed to be surgical intervention to extract any remaining parts of the unborn child from the woman’s uterus. Prolonged hemorrhage requiring blood transfusion can occur. It’s already been reported to the FDA that over 500 blood transfusions, over a thousand hospitalizations, and 24 deaths took place as result of Mifeprex. And that is just what’s been reported.

Fortunately right now, the U.S. has strong pro-life leadership from the top down, so at a national level it’s unlikely that we will see abortion be declared an “essential service” at a time like this. However, that will not stop the abortion industry from demanding that it should be. Some states have already deemed abortion “essential.”

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and their allies have already put out a statement complaining that abortions are being left out of essential health care services that need to remain open at this time. Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio is at war with the state Attorney General and Health Department as they continue to perform abortions even though they have been directly ordered not to.

Planned Parenthood claims they can still achieve the goal of conserving medical resources for essential health care personnel combatting COVID-19 by remaining open. How would they do this? They didn’t explain.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to deduce that the abortion industry is likely dispensing abortion pills to pregnant women who are past the FDA-approved gestational age limit of 10 weeks. The abortion industry has already been experimenting with performing abortions past 13 weeks on vulnerable women in Burkina Faso, Columbia, and Mexico.

Even the once abortion-neutral humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders (DWB), with the approval of the World Health Organization, has instructional guidelines on how women can perform their own drug-based abortion up to 22 weeks!

Although they claim these instructional videos are for training their medical workers, they acknowledge that they expect women to go to the site in order to learn how to induce their own abortions.

The fact that chemical abortions already carry significant complications and that the rate of those complications only increase as the gestational age of the pregnancy increases shows that Doctors Without Borders are bordering on medical malpractice.

The complications that can arise from taking the abortion pill place women in life-threatening situations that may require follow-up visits to the abortion clinic and the emergency room. We are now likely to see scenarios where women who have taken the abortion pill regimen will need blood transfusions, treatment for infections, and possible follow-up surgery to complete the abortion, which means they will need to go to the emergency room and wait for treatment next to possible victims of the coronavirus pandemic. How is this conserving medical resources? How is this protecting the safety and health of women?

Thankfully, there are still some reputable medical leaders, such as AAPLOG, who refuse to put women in this type of danger by categorizing abortion as an “essential service.”

Killing innocent children in the womb should never be considered any type of “service,” in the midst of a pandemic or not. By encouraging women to self-manage an abortion up to 22 weeks and calling do-it-yourself abortion a “paid” service, the abortion industry has been and is currently showing us that they have no regard for human dignity whatsoever—for the child or the mother.

This article was originally published at the FRCblog.com.

Please join the Illinois Family Institute for our annual Worldview Conference on March 7th at the Village Church of Barrington. This year we are featuring two well-respected and fearless Christian theologians who will help us better understand and better respond to the ever increasing corrupting influences in our culture. You do not want to miss this special event with Dr. Michael L. Brown and Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon.

Summit Ministries defines worldview as “a pattern of ideas, beliefs, convictions, and habits that help us make sense of God, the world, and our relationship to God and the world.” Ligonier Ministries defines worldview as:

A person’s worldview represents his most fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the universe he inhabits. It reflects how he would answer all the “big questions” of human existence: fundamental questions about who and what we are, where we came from, why we’re here, where (if anywhere) we’re headed, the meaning and purpose of life, the nature of the afterlife, and what counts as a good life here and now.

Everyone has a worldview, and, sadly, even many Christians have a flawed worldview that falls short of God’s perfect standard. It is tragic to see how the incoherent ideology of humanism has captured the hearts and minds of many Americans and is destroying lives and families. Far too many Christians are ill-informed or misinformed on the issues of the day and consequently are buying the destructive lies the culture is selling.

We must work to correct our thinking and align it to the Word of God. It is vital that we intentionally pursue worldview training for ourselves, for our children and for our grandchildren.

Please join us to be become better informed about pernicious cultural trends and how we must respond.

2020 IFI Worldview Conference
Saturday, March 7th at Village Church of Barrington
1600 E. Main Street, Barrington, IL 60010
$20 per person / $50 per family / Lunch is not included.
Group pricing is available! CLICK HERE to Purchase your tickets online.

Morning Sessions: 10:00 AM —12:00 PM

Session 1: Dr. Michael Brown: “The Culture of Death: Abortion, Contraception, Euthanasia, Pornography & Childlessness”

Session 2: Dr. Robert Gagnon: “Is ‘LBGTQ’ Pressure Beginning to Crack the Evangelical House?”

Afternoon Sessions: 1:00 PM — 3:00 PM

Session 3: Dr. Michael Brown: “The Role of Christians in the Public Square”

Session 4: Dr. Robert Gagnon: “How to Make the Christian Case Against Homosexual Practice & Transgenderism”

Q & A Panel with our special guests: 3:00 PM

CLICK HERE to Purchase your tickets online.

Click HERE for more information about our speakers and a printable flyer.

Read more:

Why Worldview Training is Vital

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Written by Vijay Jayaraj

Greta Thunberg, in her latest opinion column for The Guardian, has called for an end to today’s business as usual. She believes current economic activity is a crime against humanity as it increases the global warming rate.

As a citizen of a developing country, I protest!

Greta and other schoolchildren camped at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Their primary objective was to peddle lies, demand economic suicide, and ridicule world leaders who are trying their best to uplift economies.

In her brief column, written as a forerunner to the World Economic Forum, Greta outlined her demands.

“We demand that at this year’s forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels,” she said.

“We understand and know very well that the world is complicated and that what we are asking for may not be easy,” she continued.

But in reality, Greta does not understand what she is demanding.

Almost all products we use in our everyday lives are made from or by means of fossil fuels. Yes! That includes your toothbrush, toilet seats, kitchen utensils, house paint, pens, mobiles (yes, your mobile phones and the rotating plastic toys that hang over infants’ cribs), computers, roads, vehicles, clothes, and thousands of other things that the majority of us—except forest dwellers—would not be able to live without.

Ironically, even Greta and her friends don’t live without them. The lettered placards used in their protests couldn’t have been made without fossil derivatives.

The boat Greta used to cross the Atlantic was also manufactured with the help of fossil fuels. Her recent train journey—about which she was caught lying—was also made possible only because of fossil fuels, even though the train was powered by what the company called “100 percent eco-friendly electricity.” Fossil fuels went into mining and transporting the minerals from which the steel of the cars and wheels and track were made, and into the composition and manufacturing of the plastics and most other materials in its cars.

Even worse, the very same energy technologies which Greta calls “clean”—solar and wind—are manufactured with the direct help of fossil fuels and fossil derivatives, besides releasing toxic substances into the environment.

Immediate, comprehensive disinvestment from fossil fuels would halt not just fossil fuel supply but the entire global economy. Even the countries that use the highest percentage of renewable energy cannot sustain their economies for a single week without the use of fossil fuel-based products.

Eighty percent of all energy consumed globally (2018) came from oil, natural gas, and coal. In 2015, 65 percent of all electricity produced came from fossil fuels.

More than 70 percent of the electricity consumed in China and India—for around 3 billion people—came from coal alone. Both these countries are adding more coal plants to their existing fleets, not shutting them down as Greta demands.

Given the extremely high inefficiency and costs of non-fossil fuel based energy sources, economies are nowhere close to increasing their dependency on “clean” energy. A call for disinvestment in fossil fuels is asking for humanity to cease functioning.

Not to forget, there are still 850 million people in the world (including hundreds of hospital patients in Africa) who do not have access to electricity at all—and many more whose access is highly unreliable.

Even without implementing any of Greta’s mind-boggling demands, the world is struggling to implement 100 percent electricity access in developing countries.

Greta herself enjoys the benefits of living in a developed country and continent whose economies were driven by the fossil-fuel based industrial era.

To turn a blind eye to those of us in developing countries, and those in much worse economic conditions, is certainly not admirable or praiseworthy. In fact, it is detrimental to the economic progress that billions in the developing world are aspiring to see in our lifetimes.

The mainstream media, especially the leftist leaning media from the West, must stop treating school dropouts like climate experts and economists.

In their sustained effort to promote climate alarmism, the positions Greta and the loony media are pushing might very well be destroying the hopes of those at the very verge of death in poor countries.

Vijay Jayaraj (M.Sc, Environmental Science, University of East Anglia, England), Research Associate for Developing Countries for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, lives in Udumalpet, India.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.

I wanted to share some good news with you about the $70,000 matching challenge we wrote about earlier this month. The response to this challenge have been positive, and we are making good progress toward our goal of raising a total of $140,000 before the end of the year.

Thanks to the generosity of our supporters – moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas of Illinois – we have raised more than 66 percent of our goal thus far.

We still need to raise approximately $26,000 over the next seven days in order to realize the full matching challenge.

Any donation given or mailed by December 31st will go toward this matching challenge.

In 2020, we will have tremendous opportunities to expose and challenge the radical anti-family agenda of left-wing regressive lawmakers in Springfield and Washington D.C. This is not merely a political fight between the right and the left or between Republicans and Democrats. This is the cosmic conflict between good and evil that has existed since the beginning of time. As Christians, we must gird ourselves as for battle. We must be prepared and willing to engage boldly in the public square.

Our opponents have three powerful allies on their side: academia, media, and the entertainment industry. They control the culture-shaping megaphones that relentlessly blare their body- and soul-destroying messages into the hearts and minds of Americans, specifically targeting our impressionable children.

We cannot compete against this evil with fearful, self-serving silence. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul exhorts the recipients, and us, to “be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.” Similarly, the Psalmist reminds us, to “be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.” Now is the time to toughen up and stop playing it safe; we must speak and act boldly, knowing that our mighty God stands with us!

I could cite many egregious examples of our enemy’s tactics, but let me reference just one. Regressive legislators and anti-life groups have tried to intimidate IFI into silence regarding Illinois’ radical abortion expansion bill – legislation that we, like many others, likened to the Jewish Holocaust. But we refuse to be silent. Christians cannot surrender the public square to those who celebrate the legal extermination of more than 60 million pre-born babies – human beings – whom liberals have deemed “unworthy of life.” Rather, we must boldly fight for what we believe, refusing to cower in fear or abandon the truth. (Read more HERE.)

We need your prayer covering and financial support!

If you haven’t already, please consider IFI in your year-end giving. Every donation – small, medium or large – brings us closer to our goal.  Don’t miss this opportunity to stand with the only full-time pro-family organization in Illinois!

Click HERE to make a secure online contribution today.

Here are some ways you can give your tax-deductible donation:

• Contribute online HERE.
• Give a gift of stock or appreciated assets. Contact Colleen Garcia, IFI’s Financial Administrator, at (708) 781-9328 or email her HERE.
• Mail your year-end gift. Send to: Illinois Family Institute, P.O. Box 876, Tinley Park, IL, 60477
• We also accept credit card donations over the phone at (708) 781-9328.

Thank you for your consideration. Your financial support and your prayers are what makes our mission to protect and preserve life, marriage, family and liberty in Illinois possible.  THANK YOU FOR STANDING WITH US!

Sincerely,

David E. Smith
Executive Director

P.S. Donations must be postmarked by December 31 in order to qualify as 2019 gifts. Now, more than ever, your gift will help us uphold the legacy left by our forefathers.

Don’t delay, please donate today!