—

Abortion: When Does Life Begin? – R.C. Sproul

Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race? Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)

C. Everett Koop
13th Surgeon General of the United States
In office January 21, 1982 – October 1, 1989

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 1 | Abortion of the Human Race (2010)

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 2 | Slaughter of the Innocents (2010)

Image<img class=”i-amphtml-blurry-placeholder” src=”data:;base64,

Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.

September 8, 2021

President Biden  c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.

In the past I have spent most of my time looking at this issue from the spiritual side. In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

__________________________

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? which can be found on You Tube. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.

Today I want to respond to your letter to me on July 9, 2021. Here it is below:

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

July 9, 2021

Mr. Everette Hatcher III

Alexander, AR

Dear Mr. Hatcher,

Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts on abortion. Hearing from passionate individuals like me inspires me every day, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter

Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21^st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

As we move forward to address the complex issues of our time, I encourage you to remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story. We need your courage and dedication at this critical time, and we must meet this moment together as the United States of America. If we do that, I believe that our best days still lie ahead.

Sincerely

Joe Biden

___________________

I wanted to reach out to you because of some of the troubling moral issues coming out of your administration.

John MacArthur gave a sermon in June of 2021 entitled “When Government Rewards Evil and Punishes Good” and in that sermon he makes the following points:

INTRODUCTION AND DISCUSSION OF ROMANS 13

GOVERNMENT CAN FORFEIT ITS AUTHORITY

THE WORLD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOSPEL

ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY IS PROGRESSING TOWARD A GLOBAL KINGDOM UNDER THE POWER OF SATAN

ONE FALSE WORLD RELIGION IS FINAL PLAY BY SATAN

REAL PERSECUTION CAN ONLY BE DONE BY GOVERNMENT

PERSECUTION IN BOOK OF DANIEL

THE LAW IS KING AND NOT THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA

GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME PURVEYOR OF WICKEDNESS

THERE IS A PLACE FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

DOES GOVERNMENT WIN?

Let me just share a portion of that sermon with you and you can watch it on You Tube:

THE LAW IS KING AND NOT THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA

The point that I want to make out of this is it’s always in the power of monarchs to do damage to the people of God, always. That is why Proverbs 16:12 says, “It is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness,” because it turns everything upside-down. Only in righteousness is a throne established.

Look, in Acts chapter 4, the Jewish leaders said to the apostles, “Stop preaching!” In Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar said, “Stop worshiping!” Again, in Daniel 6—we didn’t read it—the rulers said, “Stop praying, or we’re going to throw you into”—what?—“the lions’ den.” The governor of California says, “Stop singing! Stop hugging!” But God’s people don’t stop because no—listen to me—no human authority is absolute. No human authority is absolute. I’ll say it again: No human authority is absolute. All human authorities are only authorities as long as they function in the way God designed them; and when they don’t function that way anymore, but they turn it on its head and do it in the reverse form, they yield up that God-given authority. Obviously the fallout is horrendous.

I love this little paragraph by Doug Wilson talking about Peter. He said, “The man who [told us to submit to the government] was soon to be executed by the magistrate as someone who was a grave threat to the civil order. This [is] the same man who was broken out of jail by an angel, . . . who disappeared from the book of Acts as a wanted man. The guards who lost him were executed because of his disappearance. This was the man who was in jail in the first place because he was a leader of Christians, and who earlier had told the Sanhedrin that he [would not] quit preaching, no matter what they said. And he was the man who was writing this letter to prepare law-abiding Christians for the time of persecution that was coming, in which time they would be accused of being [rebellious]. So whatever his words in chapter 2 mean, they [had] to be consistent with the life of the [man] who wrote them.” You submit when the government functions in the way God designed it.

So we are beginning to see persecution from government. This is the most formidable persecution: COVID, LGBTQ, transgender, social justice—all these new ideologies are now going to become the only acceptable moral standards. And if you don’t accept them, you’re going to be the enemy of the government. Truth, the Bible, Scripture is going to be canceled. The government’s taking control; they want to take control of absolutely everything. The church has become the main enemy of the government—nothing new.

Some helpful insights from Tim Cantrell over in South Africa, one of our missionaries: “In July 1933, during Hitler’s first summer in power, a young German pastor named Joachim Hossenfelder preached a sermon in . . . Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin’s most important church. He used the words of Romans 13 to remind worshippers of the importance of obedience to those in authority.” This is 1933. “The church was [all decked out] with Nazi banners . . . its pews packed with the Nazi . . . faithful [and soldiers in uniform].” Earlier that same year, Friedrich Dibelius, “a German bishop and one of the highest Protestant officials in the country” also preached on Romans 13 “to justify all the Nazi seizure[s] of power and [brutal] policies,” and misquoted Martin Luther himself about the powers of the state. “Three days” after this sermon by Dibelius, “the German parliament dissolved,” and Hitler took over. Within a few years, six million Jews had been slaughtered, and the world devastated by World War II.

Throughout history, even in the Western world, people lived under what was called the divine right of kings. Kings were believed to have had a divine right. This was absolute monarchy. What broke that was basically the Reformers. The Reformers—a little phrase was “the law is king,” not the man. Because of the myth of the divine right of kings, it became the justification for the slaughter and the massacre of countless children of God.

—

Recently I read this:

Joe Biden Leaves God Out of the National Day of Prayer

By KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZMay 10, 2021 6:30 AM

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Joe Biden Leaves God Out of the National Day of Prayer

By KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZMay 10, 2021 6:30 AM

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President Joseph Biden mentions his Catholic faith frequently. We’ve heard him cite both the pope and Saint Francis. At his inauguration, he ran through a litany of promises about love and healing and decency, and other things no one could object to, prefaced by, “Before God and all of you, I give you my word.” But when it came time for his first proclamation for a National Day of Prayer, his administration chose to leave God out of it.

—

Take a look below in these words by Francis Schaeffer concerning our founding fathers and their view of how God should be in a center place in our nation!

John MacArthur’s statement The Reformers—a little phrase was “the law is king,” not the man is also referred to in this in the book CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO by Francis Schaeffer.

Francis Schaeffer noted:

Chapter 2 FOUNDATIONS FOR FAITH AND FREEDOM

Excerpted from

A Christian Manifesto

by Francis A. Schaeffer

 *

John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence

The Founding Fathers of the United States (in varying degrees) understood very well the relationship between one’s world view and government. John Witherspoon (1723-1794) has always been important to me personally, and he is even more so since I have read just recently a biography of him by David Walker Woods. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister and president of what is now Princeton University, was the only pastor to sign the Declaration of Inde­pendence. He was a very important man during the founding of the country. He linked the Christian thinking represented by the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) with the work he did both on the Declaration of Independence and on countless very important committees in the founding of the country. This linkage of Christian thinking and the concepts of government were not incidental but fun­damental. John Witherspoon knew and stood con­sciously in the stream of Samuel Rutherford, a Scots­man who lived from 1600-1661 and who wrote Lex Rex in 1644. Lex rex means “law is king”—a phrase that was absolutely earthshaking. Prior to that it had been rex lex, the king is law. In Lex Rex he wrote that the law, and no one else, is king. Therefore, the heads of government are under the law, not a law unto them­selves.

[Thomas] Jefferson, who was a deist, and others, knew they stood in the stream of John Locke (1632-1704), and while Locke had secularized Lex Rex he had drawn heavily from it. These men really knew what they were doing. We are not reading back into history what was not there. We cannot say too strongly that they really understood the basis of the government which they were founding. Think of this great flaming phrase: “certain inalienable rights.” Who gives the rights? The state? Then they are not inalienable be­cause the state can change them and take them away. Where do the rights come from? They understood that they were founding the country upon the concept that goes back into the Judeo-Christian thinking that there is Someone there who gave the inalienable rights. Another phrase also stood there: “In God we trust.” With this there is no confusion of what they were talking about. They publicly recognized that law could be king because there was a Law Giver, a Person to give the inalienable rights.

The election of William Linn as first Chaplain of the House on May 1, 1789, continued the tradition established by the Second Continental Congress of each day’s proceedings opening with a prayer by a chaplain.

Most people do not realize that there was a paid chaplain in Congress even before the Revolutionary War ended. Also we find that prior to the founding of the national congress all the early provincial con­gresses in all thirteen colonies always opened with prayer. And from the very beginning, prayer opened the national congress. These men truly understood what they were doing. They knew they were building on the Supreme Being who was the Creator, the final reality. And they knew that without that foundation everything in the Declaration of Independence and all that followed would be sheer unadulterated non­sense. These were brilliant men who understood ex­actly what was involved.

Saying grace before carving the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner in the home of Earle Landis in Neffsville, Pennsylvania. (1942)

As soon as the war was over they called the first Thanksgiving Day. Do you realize that the first Thanksgiving Day to thank God in this country was called immediately by the Congress at the end of the war? Witherspoon’s sermon on that day shows their perspective: “A republic once equally poised must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty.” Don’t you wish that everybody in America would recite that, and truly understand it, every morning? “A republic once equally poised must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty.” Earlier in a speech Witherspoon had stressed: “He is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting pure and undefiled religion.” And for Witherspoon, and the cultural con­sensus of that day, that meant Christianity as it had come to them through the Reformation. This was the consensus which then gave religious freedom to all— including the “free thinkers” of that day and the hu­manists of our day.

This concept was the same as William Penn (1644-1718) had expressed earlier: “If we are not governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants.” This consensus was as natural as breathing in the United States at that time. We must not forget that many of those who came to America from Europe came for religious pur­poses. As they arrived, most of them established their own individual civil governments based upon the Bi­ble. It is, therefore, totally foreign to the basic nature of America at the time of the writing of the Constitu­tion to argue a separation doctrine that implies a secu­lar state.

When the First Amendment was passed it only had two purposes. The first purpose was that there would be no established, national church for the united thir­teen states. To say it another way: There would be no “Church of the United States.” James Madison (1751-1836) clearly articulated this concept of separation when explaining the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty. He said that the First Amendment to the Constitution was prompted because “the people feared one sect might obtain a preeminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.”

Nevertheless, a number of the individual states had state churches, and even that was not considered in conflict with the First Amendment. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, nine of the thirteen col­onies had conferred special benefits upon one church to the exclusion of others. In all but one of the thirteen states, the states taxed the people to support the preaching of the gospel and to build churches. It was not until 1798 that the Virginia legislature repealed all its laws supporting churches. In Massa­chusetts the Massachusetts Constitution was not amended until 1853 to eliminate the tax-supported church provisions.

The second purpose of the First Amendment was the very opposite from what is being made of it today. It states expressly that government should not impede or interfere with the free practice of religion.

Those were the two purposes of the First Amend­ment as it was written.

As Justice Douglas wrote for the majority of the Supreme Court in the United States v. Ballard case in 1944:

PAGE 434

The First Amendment has a dual aspect. It not only ‘forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship’ but also ‘safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion.’

Today the separation of church and state in Amer­ica is used to silence the church.

When Christians speak out on issues, the hue and cry from the humanist state and media is that Christians, and all religions, are prohibited from speaking since there is a separation of church and state. The way the concept is used today is totally reversed from the original intent. It is not rooted in history. The modern concept of separation is an argument for a total separation of religion from the state. The consequence of the acceptance of this doc­trine leads to the removal of religion as an influence in civil government. This fact is well illustrated by John W. Whitehead in his book The Second American Revo­lution. It is used today as a false political dictum in order to restrict the influence of Christian ideas.

 As Franky Schaeffer V says in the Plan for Action:

“It has been convenient and expedient for the secular humanist, the materialist, the so-called liberal, the feminist, the genetic engineer, the bureaucrat, the Supreme Court Justice, to use this arbitrary division between church and state as a ready excuse. It is used, as an easily identifiable rallying point, to subdue the opinions of that vast body of citizens who represent those with religious convictions. ”

To have suggested the state separated from religion and religious influence would have amazed the Found­ing Fathers. The French Revolution that took place shortly afterwards, with its continuing excesses and final failure leading quickly to Napoleon and an authoritative rule, only emphasized the difference be­tween the base upon which the United States was founded and the base upon which the French Revolu­tion was founded. History is clear and the men of that day understood it. Terry Eastland said in Commentary Magazine:

As a matter of historical fact, the Founding Fathers be­lieved that the public interest was served by the promotion of religion. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which set aside federal property in the territory for schools and which was passed again by Congress in 1789, is instructive. “Reli­gion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good gov­ernment and the happiness of mankind,” read the act, “schools and the means of learning shall forever be encour­aged.”

Chief Justice of New York:
“We are Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity.”

In 1811 the New York state court upheld an indictment for blasphemous utterances against Christ, and in its ruling, given by Chief Justice Kent, the court said, “We are Chris­tian people, and the morality of the country is deeply en­grafted upon Christianity.” Fifty years later this same court said that “Christianity may be conceded to be the estab­lished religion.”

The Pennsylvania state court also affirmed the convic­tion of a man on charges of blasphemy, here against the Holy Scriptures. The Court said: “Christianity, general Christianity is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania . . . not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; nor Christianity with an estab­lished church and tithes and spiritual courts; but Christian­ity with liberty of conscience to all men.”

The establishment of Protestant Christianity was one not only of law but also, and far more importantly, of culture. Protestant Christianity supplied the nation with its “system of values”—to use the modern phrase—and would do so until the 1920’s when the cake of Protestant custom seemed most noticeably to begin crumbling.

—

As we continue to examine the question of law in relation to the founding of the country, we next en­counter Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780). William Blackstone was an English jurist who in the 1760s wrote a very famous work called Commentaries on the Laws of England. By the time the Declaration of Inde­pendence was signed, there were probably more copies of his Commentaries in America than in Britain.  Commentaries shaped the perspective of American law at that time, and when you read them it is very clear exactly upon what that law was based.

To William Blackstone there were only two founda­tions for law, nature and revelation, and he stated clearly that he was speaking of the “holy Scripture.” That was William Blackstone. And up to the recent past not to have been a master of William Blackstone’s Commentaries would have meant that you would not have graduated from law school.

There were other well-known lawyers who spelled these things out with total clarity. Joseph Story in his 1829 inaugural address as Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University said, “There never has been a period in which Common Law did not recognize Christianity as laying at its foundation.”

Concerning John Adams (1735-1826) Terry East­land says:

. . . most people agreed that our law was rooted, as John Adams had said, in a common moral and religious tradi­tion, one that stretched back to the time Moses went up on Mount Sinai. Similarly almost everyone agreed that our liberties were God-given and should be exercised respon­sibly. There was a distinction between liberty and license.

What we find then as we look back is that the men who founded the United States of America really understood that upon which they were building their concepts of law and the concepts of government. And until the takeover of our government and law by this other entity, the materialistic, humanistic, chance world view, these things remained the base of govern­ment and law. (PAGE 436)

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

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Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race? Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)

C. Everett Koop
13th Surgeon General of the United States
In office January 21, 1982 – October 1, 1989

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 1 | Abortion of the Human Race (2010)

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 2 | Slaughter of the Innocents (2010)

Image<img class=”i-amphtml-blurry-placeholder” src=”data:;base64,

Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.

September 7, 2021

President Biden  c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.

In the past I have spent most of my time looking at this issue from the spiritual side. In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

__________________________

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? which can be found on You Tube. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.

Today I want to respond to your letter to me on July 9, 2021. Here it is below:

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

July 9, 2021

Mr. Everette Hatcher III

Alexander, AR

Dear Mr. Hatcher,

Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts on abortion. Hearing from passionate individuals like me inspires me every day, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter

Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21^st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

As we move forward to address the complex issues of our time, I encourage you to remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story. We need your courage and dedication at this critical time, and we must meet this moment together as the United States of America. If we do that, I believe that our best days still lie ahead.

Sincerely

Joe Biden

___________________

President Biden, you asserted:

I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter.

DID YOU ACTUALLY MEAN THAT? President Biden, your Buddy the Governor of California has attacked the freedoms of churches and specifically GRACE COMMUNITY CHURCH!!!

HOW ABOUT TODAY AND THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ATTITUDE TO OUR CHURCHES? Francis Schaeffer comments in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO in 1981 after the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan:

I hope the window does not close. I hope those with a humanistic world view who have increasingly controlled our culture for the last twenty, thirty, forty years, something like this, cannot close the open window with all their efforts. But if they do, if they take over with increased power and control, will we be so foolish as to think that religion and religious institutions will not be even further affected than they have been so far?

I wanted to reach out to because of some of the troubling moral issues coming out of your administration.
Your liberal buddy the Governor of California tried to shut churches down and had some success back in 2020, but now churches like GRACE COMMUNITY CHURCH are open. Below is a story from last summer when religious freedom was being suppressed:

How 5 Justices Botched the California Church Case on COVID-19 Restrictions

Zack Smith  / @tzsmith / June 04, 2020

Chief Justice John Roberts, pictured at the State of the Union, sided with the court’s four liberal members, and said that although “California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.” (Photo: Leah Mills/Reuters/Pool/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Zack Smith@tzsmith

Zack Smith is a legal fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Today’s news reads like it’s ripped straight from the pages of the Old Testament. Plagues and protests dominate the headlines.

But unlike Moses, who received his law directly from God, ours today derives from mere mortals. It’s mostly good, but still fallible.

As a result, sometimes an individual’s views of God’s law and man’s law are in tension, and a debate has been simmering about how much protection the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause provides when these situations arise.

>>> When can America reopen? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, is gathering America’s top thinkers together to figure that out. Learn more here.

The recent rash of coronavirus-related restrictionson churches and other religious communities has brought this simmering tension to the surface.

Late on the evening of May 29, the Supreme Court released an important, but easily overlooked, order in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom denying a California church’s request for an injunction against the state’s phased reopening plan.

The church alleged that the plan violated its First Amendment free exercise rights by treating similarly situated, nonreligious businesses and activities more favorably than religious ones.

That prompted a debate among the justices.

Is going to church more like going to the movies or going to the office? Is it more like going to a play or going to a restaurant? Attending a ballgame or shopping at the mall?

Unfortunately, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s four liberal members, and said that although California’s guidelines “place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings … .”

The court’s four conservative members disagreed. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a dissent that Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined. (For some unknown reason, Justice Samuel Alito didn’t join Kavanaugh’s dissent. We can only speculate as to why).

Kavanaugh wrote, “I would grant the Church’s requested temporary injunction because California’s latest safety guidelines discriminate against places of worship and in favor of comparable secular businesses. Such discrimination violates the First Amendment.”

On its face, the order appears to turn simply on a disagreement among the justices about which activities are most like going to church. If it’s more like going to a movie or a play, or attending a ballgame, no problem. California had restricted those activities in a similar way to church gatherings.

If it’s more like going to the office, a restaurant, or shopping, there’s a problem. California would have been treating similarly situated, nonreligious activities more favorably than religious ones.

But the disagreement among the justices and its implications might run deeper and highlight an important issue left unaddressed by—but at the heart of—the ruling: What’s the proper level of scrutiny to apply when deciding free exercise claims?

It’s true that this case came to the court from a unique procedural posture—requesting immediate and preliminary relief—so it might be difficult to read too much into it.

The chief justice asserted that such a request “demands a significantly higher justification” than others and that the “legal rights at issue [must be] indisputably clear,” and even then, the relief requested must be used “sparingly and only in the most critical and exigent circumstances.”

It’s also true that the case came up to the court during a pandemic, something that clearly weighed heavily on the mind of the chief justice, who wrote that the Constitution “principally entrusts” elected officials to deal with health crises and other “areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties.”

As is common in these types of orders, the other four justices in the majority didn’t make their reasoning or rationales known. But given Roberts’ statements and rationale, it’s also probable that the same decision would have been reached had the majority explicitly applied rational basisreview to this matter.

In other words, so long as California’s government had a rational reason for adopting the rules it did and the rules treated everyone equally—even equally badly or restrictively—those rules would survive constitutional scrutiny, even if other less restrictive means for accomplishing those same goals had been available.

After all, the chief justice wrote, “The precise question of when restrictions on particular social activities should be lifted during the pandemic is a dynamic and fact-intensive matter subject to reasonable disagreement.”

The minority disagreed. In his dissent, Kavanaugh explicitly applied strict scrutiny to resolve the matter. He would have required California to show a “compelling government interest” in its rules and to show that it had “narrowly tailored” those rules “to advance that interest.”

Who cares? This sounds like an esoteric argument among nine justices far removed from the humdrum of everyday life. But it’s far from it.

This distinction is fundamentally important. Why? Under rational basis review, the church lost. Under strict scrutiny, the church would have won.

Currently, the court’s precedent, specifically Employment Division v. Smith (1990), requires courts to apply only rational basis review for many—if not most—free exercise claims under the First Amendment. It applies only when courts are reviewing neutral laws (or rules) of general applicability.

If churches are targeted for discriminatory treatment, a different analysis, one applying strict scrutiny, applies. The Supreme Court clarified that in its Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah (1993) decision. Still, Employment Division v. Smith  upended the court’s precedent and practice of applying strict scrutiny—even if it didn’t explicitly call it that—in most prior free exercise cases, such as Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), Sherbert v. Verner (1963), and Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940).

Because Congress was rightly unhappy with the court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith, it passed (with broad bipartisan support)—and President Bill Clinton signed into law—the Religious Freedom Restoration Act requiring courts to once again apply strict scrutiny to religious freedom claims.

The court struck down significant portions of that statute, too, limiting its application only to claims against the federal government and not to those against the states.

That’s where we stand now: Rational basis review rules the day.

Fortunately, the tides may be turning. In January 2019, Alito wrote a concurrence in a denial of certiorari in which he lamented that the court in Employment Division v. Smith had “drastically cut back on the protection provided by the Free Exercise Clause.” Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh joined that concurrence.

It’s worth noting that these are the same four justices who dissented in the current case.

More importantly, in February, the court agreed to hear a case that explicitly asks it to revisit its decision in Employment Division v. Smith and to replace it with “a standard that is true to the text, history, and tradition of the Free Exercise Clause.” Who wouldn’t want that?

As John Yoo and James Phillips have pointed out, the court in Employment Division v. Smith went wrong in part because “its author, [then-Justice Antonin] Scalia, failed to engage with the original meaning of the free-exercise clause. While normally persuaded by historical arguments, Scalia instead worried about cabining judicial discretion.”

This same concern comes through in Roberts’ concurrence denying relief to the California church.

Scalia was a legal lion, but he got Employment Division v. Smith wrong. With the hindsight of history, Roberts would do well to avoid making the same mistake, by seizing an opportunity, perhaps during a calmer time, to correct Scalia’s rare misstep and restore religious freedom to its proper place in our constitutional order.

John MacArthur gave a sermon in June of 2021 entitled “When Government Rewards Evil and Punishes Good” and in that sermon he makes the following points:

INTRODUCTION AND DISCUSSION OF ROMANS 13

GOVERNMENT CAN FORFEIT ITS AUTHORITY

THE WORLD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOSPEL

ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY IS PROGRESSING TOWARD A GLOBAL KINGDOM UNDER THE POWER OF SATAN

ONE FALSE WORLD RELIGION IS FINAL PLAY BY SATAN

REAL PERSECUTION CAN ONLY BE DONE BY GOVERNMENT

PERSECUTION IN BOOK OF DANIEL

THE LAW IS KING AND NOT THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA

GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME PURVEYOR OF WICKEDNESS

THERE IS A PLACE FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

DOES GOVERNMENT WIN?

Let me just share a portion of that sermon with you and you can watch it on You Tube:

REAL PERSECUTION CAN ONLY BE DONE BY GOVERNMENT

“Woe”—verse 19—“the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she had been laid waste!” Verse 20, “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her.” This is where Satan is taking the world. Again, Satan has many strategies; but he has one goal, and that is to collect the world around one final Antichrist, empower him to defeat God. In the process, he persecutes the saints; he seeks to kill them.

Now let me remind you of something. We talk about persecution and we sometimes experience it in the sense that somebody doesn’t like us because of our Christian testimony. You might have trouble with a professor in a university class because of your testimony; you might get a bad grade. You might lose your job because of your convictions and your testimony. And that’s a measure of persecution. But mark this: Real persecution, which means imprisonment or execution, can only be done by government, right? Only government does that. There can’t be a group of atheists who go out and imprison Christians; only government can do that. God has given government the sword, the power; and when they prostitute that power and they begin to punish those who do good and protect those who do evil, they wield that power against the people of God.

Satan knows that in order to kill the saints he has to have the one legitimate earthly power, and that’s the power of the government. So government is, and always has been, and always will be the ultimate persecutor of the church. It is government—authority, power constituted in rulers and leaders—that has essentially done all the damage to the church through its history. And so I say what I said at the beginning: The greatest threat to truth and virtue in this country is the government because they have totally prostituted their God-ordained design. All through history, government is the ultimate persecutor of people. Satan has to get ahold of government; and that’s where he operates—always work through government.

Go back to Isaiah 14. Isaiah 14, the prophecy of Isaiah spoken to the king of Babylon, the king of Babylon. It’s a judgment against the king of Babylon—chapter 14, verse 4, a “taunt against the king of Babylon,” judgment against the king of Babylon. But notice how interesting it is. This judgment, down in verse 12—something more than just the king of Babylon appears to happen here: “How are you fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn!”

Has the king of Babylon fallen from heaven? No, but who is fallen from heaven? Lucifer. So who is behind the king of Babylon? Lucifer. He goes from talking about judgment on the king of Babylon to going behind the king of Babylon to the “star of the morning, the son of the dawn”: “You’ve been cut down to the earth, you have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart”—this is what Satan said when he was in heaven—“‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God’”—the angels of God—“‘I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” “‘I will, I will, I will, I will.’” This is Satan’s rebellion. And so Isaiah shows us that it is Satan himself, the fallen one, who is energizing the king of Babylon, controlling the king of Babylon.

There is a similar section of Scripture, Ezekiel 28; I want you to turn to it. Ezekiel 28, verse 11, “And the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Son of man’”—that was God’s name for Ezekiel—“‘take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre.’” Now we’re talking about the king of Tyre; Tyre was another pagan kingdom, persecuted the people of God. But notice how this seems to be something more than just the king of Tyre: “Thus says the Lord God, ‘You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God’”—wait a minute, the king of Tyre? He wasn’t in Eden. Who was in Eden? Who was prowling in Eden? Satan.

“You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the ruby, the topaz, the diamond; the beryl, the onyx, the jasper; lapis lazuli”—which is a beautiful blue stone—“the turquoise, the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day you were created they were prepared. You were the anointed”—what?—“cherub who covers.” Now you can see, Satan in Isaiah is working behind the king of Babylon; here in Ezekiel he’s working behind the king of Tyre. This is because Satan does his great work against the people of God using political leaders—kings and rulers.

“You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God and walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. By the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God, and destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings, that they may see you, the multitude of your iniquities.” He goes back to talking about the king of Tyre with almost not missing a beat. The judgment on the king of Tyre is also a declaration of the judgment on the one who is behind the king of Tyre.

Satan always works through evil rulers to persecute the people of God. In the book of Exodus it was Pharaoh. When the children of God left Egypt, it was the Canaanites, it was the powers of the Philistines. It was the rulers of Assyria then, and then it was the rulers of Babylon. And you come into the New Testament, and the persecutors of the people of God were the official leaders of Israel, the Sanhedrin. And then it was the Roman Empire. Destroying the people of God is always a government enterprise.

—-

HOW ABOUT TODAY AND THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ATTITUDE TO OUR CHURCHES? Francis Schaeffer comments in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO in 1981 after the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan:

I hope the window does not close. I hope those with a humanistic world view who have increasingly controlled our culture for the last twenty, thirty, forty years, something like this, cannot close the open window with all their efforts. But if they do, if they take over with increased power and control, will we be so foolish as to think that religion and religious institutions will not be even further affected than they have been so far? I wonder how many of us are aware of the cases that the churches have faced in the last ten years in various places. The things that have been brought into courts of law should make our hair stand on end. Do you think that in such a case as I have portrayed (and may it not happen!) that the Christians and the Christian institutions will not be even further affected?

Robert L. Toms, an attorney-at-law, lists the issues pending this year and which are up for final adjudication during the coming decade before the United States’ courts, administrative bodies, executive departments, and legislatures:

1. Is a minister of the gospel liable for malpractice to a counselee for using spiritual guidance rather than psychological or medical techniques?

2. Can a Christian residence house in a college have the same standing as a fraternity and sorority house for purposes of off-campus residency rules?

3. Can Christian high school students assemble on the public school campus for religious discussion?

4. Can Christian teachers in public schools meet before class for prayer?

5. Can Christian college students meet in groups on the state university campus?

6. Can HEW require a Bible college to admit drug addicts and alcoholics as “handicapped persons”? …

7. Can a church build a religious school or a daycare center in an area zoned residential?

8. Can parents who send their children to religious schools not approved by a state board of education be prosecuted under the truancy laws?

9. Is an independent, wholly religious school entitled to an exemption from unemployment taxes as are church-owned schools?

10. Will the State enforce antiemployment discrimination laws against a church which in accordance with its stated religious beliefs fires a practicing homosexual staff member?

11. Can seminary trustees refuse to graduate a practicing homosexual?

12. Can a city continue its forty-year practice of having a nativity scene in front of the city hall?

13. Can zoning laws be used to prevent small group Bible studies from meeting in homes?

14. Can a court decide which doctrinal group in a church split gets the sanctuary?

15. Must a religious school accept as a teacher an otherwise qualified practicing homosexual?

16. Can a church be fined by a court for exuberant noise in worship?

17. Can a state department of health close a church-run juvenile home for policies that include spanking?

18. Can religious solicitation in public places be confined to official booths?

19. Is an unborn fetus a “person” and entitled to Constitutional protection?

20. Can the Ten Commandments be posted in a public classroom?

21. Can students in public education have a period of silent meditation and prayer?

22. Can Christmas carols be sung in public schools?

23. Must an employee who believes he should worship on Saturday be permitted a work holiday on that day in order to worship?

24. Can the graduation ceremony of a public high school be held in a church?

25. Can a State official seize a church on allegations of misconduct by dissident members and run the church through a court-appointed receiver?

26. Can the State set minimum standards for private religious school curricula?

27. Is religious tax exemption a right or privilege, and, if it is a privilege, are the exemptions an unwarranted support of religion by the State?

28. Should churches be taxed like any other part of society?

29. Can Federal labor laws be used to enforce collective bargaining rights and unionization in religious enterprises?

30. Can the State require a license before a religious ministry may solicit funds for its work?

31. Are hospitals, schools, counseling groups, halfway houses, famine-relief organizations, youth organizations, homes for unwed mothers, orphanages, etc., run with religious motivations or are they secular and subject to all controls secular organizations are subject to?

He [attorney Robert L. Toms] further says:

… two U.S. trial courts have recently ruled that a group of college students who wish to discuss religion could not meet in the context of a public state university, that religious speech must go on elsewhere since it might “establish religion” on the campus….The State must screen out religious speech from the otherwise free speech practiced on a university campus.

We might differ as to what the ruling should be in some of these cases, but that does not change the weight of the whole. It should be said that it is not only Protestants who are facing the implications of the above list, but Roman Catholics and Jews as well.

And for Christians who are in the habit of drifting complacently, a case presently before the courts should be a loud-sounding alarm bell. As I write, Samuel E. Ericsson, an attorney-at-law, is defending Grace Community Church, the largest Protestant church in Los Angeles County, in a clergyman malpractice suit. This suit was brought by parents because the pastors of that church cared for their son (who had later committed suicide) instead of turning him over to professional psychiatric and psychological care. Obviously if the church lost this case, all religions would be greatly affected. In fact, anyone who tried to help someone with questions or fears could be sued if he or she did not fall under the category of professional psychiatric and psychological competence. And to make matters more complicated, no one has thought how to set standards acceptably for professional psychiatric and psychological competence!

Samuel Ericsson has put the case in the proper perspective when in a letter to me dated May 1, 1981, he wrote: “I believe that clergyman malpractice, or more accurately spiritual counseling malpractice, is going to present the secular courts with a head-on clash between the two competing world views, secularism and Christianity.”

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

—

Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race? Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)

C. Everett Koop
13th Surgeon General of the United States
In office January 21, 1982 – October 1, 1989

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 1 | Abortion of the Human Race (2010)

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 2 | Slaughter of the Innocents (2010)

Image<img class=”i-amphtml-blurry-placeholder” src=”data:;base64,

Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.

September 6, 2021

President Biden  c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.

In the past I have spent most of my time looking at this issue from the spiritual side. In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

__________________________

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? which can be found on You Tube. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.

Today I want to respond to your letter to me on July 9, 2021. Here it is below:

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

July 9, 2021

Mr. Everette Hatcher III

Alexander, AR

Dear Mr. Hatcher,

Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts on abortion. Hearing from passionate individuals like me inspires me every day, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter

Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21^st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

As we move forward to address the complex issues of our time, I encourage you to remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story. We need your courage and dedication at this critical time, and we must meet this moment together as the United States of America. If we do that, I believe that our best days still lie ahead.

Sincerely

Joe Biden

___________________

I especially noted this from your letter:

Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more OPTIMISTIC for the future of America.

President Biden, you have chosen to abandon your Christianity and pursue humanist concerns!! So how can you say humanism has an OPTIMISTIC POINT OF VIew?

H. J. Blackham was the founder of the BRITISH HUMANIST ASSOCIATION and he asserted:

“On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility“( H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).

I wanted to reach out to because of some of the troubling moral issues coming out of your administration. I recently read this article about the Humanist group that enthusiastically supported you for President:

‘Humanists for Biden-Harris’ to mobilize nonreligious vote

The group hopes to reach atheists, agnostics and other religiously unaffiliated voters who make up the largest belief group in the Democratic Party.

Materials line a table during a gathering of atheist, humanist and secular leaders in Temecula, California, for the first SoCal Secular Leadership Summit, which was held from March 1-3, 2019. Photo courtesy Heather AdamsSeptember 28, 2020By Jack JenkinsShareTweetShare

(RNS) — A new group is launching an effort to court nonreligious voters for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, hoping to mobilize a fast-growing — and deeply liberal — community to benefit Democrats in November.

The “Humanists for Biden” group, a project of the Secular Democrats of America, unveiled its plans on Monday (Sept. 28). The group is chaired by Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“The humanist and nonreligious community is poised to be a very significant part of this presidential election in that we represent maybe 30% or so of Democratic voters,” Epstein told Religion News Service.

The group also announced a slate of co-chairs that includes Sarah Levin, who also co-chaired the Democratic National Convention’s Interfaith Council and heads Secular Strategies, an organization that mobilizes secular voters.

“Humanists for Biden marks the first time representatives of the nation’s growing number of secular Americans have been invited to participate in a coalition of communities of faith and conscience, working together on a Presidential campaign,” read a press release from the group. “The Biden-Harris campaign is working to create the most inclusive campaign and administration in the history of American politics, and we are honored to take part in this effort.”

Epstein said Humanists for Biden hopes to reach a broad swath of atheists, agnostics and other religiously unaffiliated voters who make up the largest belief group in the Democratic Party, constituting around 28% of its members, according to political scientist Ryan Burge.

While some are atheists and agnostics, other unaffiliated Americans still believe in God or pray regularly, according to a 2019 Pew Research study.

Even so, Epstein argued that the many nonreligious Americans are united by “humanistic values,” such as a belief in science as “the best tool that we have to create a healthy world,” as well as support for racial justice, pluralism and inclusion.

“We stand as humanists and people united by humanistic values for basic human decency, empathy and compassion that we feel that the Biden-Harris campaign represents far more than its competition,” he said.

Religiously unaffiliated voters, despite backing Democrats over Republicans in the 2018 midterms 75% to 22% according to Pew, have been criticized in the past for relatively low turnout on Election Day compared to other groups.

But Epstein pointed to new research that suggests religiously unaffiliated turnout is heavily impacted by the fact that it is largely made up of young voters who are also known for underperforming on Election Day.

What’s more, he said the group can only benefit from targeted mobilization, something Democrats have rarely done in the past.

“With a group like that that supports you so strongly and leans so heavily in your direction, you want to mobilize that group as much as possible,” he said.

Humanists for Biden is not officially part of the presidential campaign, but Epstein said campaign staff — including national faith outreach directors for both the Biden-Harris campaign and the Democratic Party — are slated to appear at the group’s first official event on Thursday.

“We feel supported and valued, and that has absolutely never been the case before for our community at this level,” he said, adding that Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat and humanist, will also speak at their upcoming event.

The group has even selected a swing state where it can target its efforts: Arizona, where around 27% of the population is unaffiliated, according to Pew.

Epstein pointed out that Arizona is home to lawmakers such as Athena Salman, a state House member who identifies as an atheist and as a humanist. The state is also represented by Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat and the only U.S. Senator who identifies as religiously unaffiliated.

The ultimate goal of the initiative, Epstein insisted, was not only to generate “historic turnout” among secular and nonreligious Americans, but also to build a stronger coalition with religious liberals.

“We recognize that their deeply held religious values resonate strongly with our humanist values,” he said. “We simply want to be a part of the conversation. We want to be in the tent. We want to be able to fully help as equals.”

Francis Schaeffer in CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO shows how today’s secular religion of humanism is now the most influential in the world today:

CHAPTER 4 THE HUMANIST RELIGION (Page 445)

The humanists have openly told us their views of final reality. The Humanist Manifesto I (1933), page 8 says

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any super-natural or cosmic guarantees of human values.

And Carl Sagan indoctrinated millions of unsuspecting viewers with this humanistic final view of reality in the public television show Cosmos: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” The humanist view has infiltrated every level of society.

If we are going to join the battle in a way that has any hope of effectiveness – with Christians truly being salt and the light in our culture and our society – then we must do battle on the entire front. We must not finally even battle on the front for freedom, and specifically not only our freedom. It must be on the basis of Truth. Not just religious truths, but the Truth of what the final reality is. It is impersonal material or is it the living God?

(page 445)

The HUMANIST MANIFESTO I and II both state that humanism is a religion, a faith. [Manifesto I: pages 3 and 7; Manifesto II: pages 13 and 24.] Manifesto I, page 9, very correctly says: “Nothing human is alien to the religious.” Christians of all people should have known, taught, and acted on this. Religion touches all of thought and all of life. And these two religions, Christianity and humanism , stand over against each other as totalities.

The HUMANIST MANIFESTOS not only say that humanism is a religion, but the Supreme Court has declared it to be a religion. The 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins specifically defines secular humanism as a religion equivalent to theistic and other non theistic religions.

On page 19 the HUMANIST MANIFESTO II says: “It [the state] should not favor any particular religious bodies through the use of public monies…” Ironically, it is the humanist religion which the government and courts in the United States favor over all others!

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)

—

Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race? Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)

C. Everett Koop
13th Surgeon General of the United States
In office January 21, 1982 – October 1, 1989

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 1 | Abortion of the Human Race (2010)

Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 2 | Slaughter of the Innocents (2010)

Image<img class=”i-amphtml-blurry-placeholder” src=”data:;base64,

Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.

September 5, 2021

President Biden  c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.

In the past I have spent most of my time looking at this issue from the spiritual side. In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthanasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

__________________________

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? which can be found on You Tube. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.

Today I want to respond to your letter to me on July 9, 2021. Here it is below:

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

July 9, 2021

Mr. Everette Hatcher III

Alexander, AR

Dear Mr. Hatcher,

Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts on abortion. Hearing from passionate individuals like me inspires me every day, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter

Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21^st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

As we move forward to address the complex issues of our time, I encourage you to remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story. We need your courage and dedication at this critical time, and we must meet this moment together as the United States of America. If we do that, I believe that our best days still lie ahead.

Sincerely

Joe Biden

__________________

I wanted to breakdown part of your letter:

Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21^st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

—

MORE SPECIFICALLY THESE WORDS:

I believe we are BETTER POSITIONED than any country in the world to lead in the 21^st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

How can that be? In my June 16, 2021 letter to you I mentioned:

This June, however, after protests turned to looting and violence in Minneapolis, Harris asked her Twitter followers to send money to the Minnesota Freedom Fund to bail out the rioters!

Reminds me of these words of Bob Dylan:

You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules,

I wanted to reach out to you because of some of the troubling moral issues coming out of your administration. Let me first start off by pointing to the time you spent as Vice President and the obvious targeting of the TEA PARTY CONSERVATIVE GROUPS by the IRS! These actions remind me of Bob Dylan’s words:

“Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools, You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules, When you gonna wake up, When you gonna wake up, When you gonna wake up, And strengthen the things that remain?”

In my June 16, 2021 letter to you I mentioned:

This June, however, after protests turned to looting and violence in Minneapolis, Harris asked her Twitter followers to send money to the Minnesota Freedom Fund to bail out the rioters. The organization subsequently received $35 million and used it to bail out violent criminals, including a suspect who shot at police and a twice-convicted sex offender.

Reminds me of these words:

You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules,

Why the IRS Persecuted the Tea Party and How to Fix the Problem

May 27, 2013 by Dan Mitchell

Did President Obama and his team of Chicago cronies deliberately target the Tea Party in hopes of thwarting free speech and political participation?

Was this part of a campaign to win the 2012 election by suppressing Republican votes?

Perhaps, but I’ve warned that it’s never a good idea to assume top-down conspiracies when corruption, incompetence, politics, ideology, greed, and self-interest are better explanations for what happens in Washington.

Writing for the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney has a much more sober and realistic explanation of what happened at the IRS.

If you take a group of Democrats who are also unionized government employees, and put them in charge of policing political speech, it doesn’t matter how professional and well-intentioned they are. The result will be much like the debacle in the Cincinnati office of the IRS. …there’s no reason to even posit evil intent by the IRS officials who formulated, approved or executed the inappropriate guidelines for picking groups to scrutinize most closely. …The public servants figuring out which groups qualified for 501(c)4 “social welfare” non-profit status were mostly Democrats surrounded by mostly Democrats. …In the 2012 election, every donation traceable to this office went to President Obama or liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown. This is an environment where even those trying to be fair could develop a disproportionate distrust of the Tea Party. One IRS worker — a member of NTEU and contributor to its PAC, which gives 96 percent of its money to Democratic candidates — explained it this way: “The reason NTEU mostly supports Democratic candidates for office is because Democratic candidates are mostly more supportive of civil servants/government employees.”

Tim concludes with a wise observation.

As long as we have a civil service workforce that leans Left, and as long as we have an income tax system that requires the IRS to police political speech, conservative groups can always expect special IRS scrutiny.

And my colleague Doug Bandow, in an article for the American Spectator, adds his sage analysis.

The real issue is the expansive, expensive bureaucratic state and its inherent threat to any system of limited government, rule of law, and individual liberty. …the broader the government’s authority, the greater its need for revenue, the wider its enforcement power, the more expansive the bureaucracy’s discretion, the increasingly important the battle for political control, and the more bitter the partisan fight, the more likely government officials will abuse their positions, violate rules, laws, and Constitution, and sacrifice people’s liberties. The blame falls squarely on Congress, not the IRS.

I actually think he is letting the IRS off the hook too easily.

• It has thieving employees.
• It has incompetent employees.
• It has thuggish employees.
• It has brainless employees.
• It has protectionist employees.
• It has wasteful employees.
• And it has victimizing employees.

But Doug’s overall point obviously is true.

…the denizens of Capitol Hill also have created a tax code marked by outrageous complexity, special interest electioneering, and systematic social engineering. Legislators have intentionally created avenues for tax avoidance to win votes, and then complained about widespread tax avoidance to win votes.

So what’s the answer?

The most obvious response to the scandal — beyond punishing anyone who violated the law — is tax reform. Implement a flat tax and you’d still have an IRS, but the income tax would be less complex, there would be fewer “preferences” for the agency to police, and rates would be lower, leaving taxpayers with less incentive for aggressive tax avoidance. …Failing to address the broader underlying factors also would merely set the stage for a repeat performance in some form a few years hence. …More fundamentally, government, and especially the national government, should do less. Efficient social engineering may be slightly better than inefficient social engineering, but no social engineering would be far better.

Amen. Let’s rip out the internal revenue code and replace it with a simple and fair flat tax.

But here’s the challenge. We know the solution, but it will be almost impossible to implement good policy unless we figure out some way to restrain the spending side of the fiscal ledger.

___________________________

At the risk of over-simplifying, we will never get tax reform unless we figure out how to implement entitlement reform.

Here’s another Foden cartoon, which I like because it has the same theme asthis Jerry Holbert cartoon, showing big government as a destructive and malicious force.

_____________

Francis Schaeffer in his book CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO noted:

CHAPTER 8 THE USE OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE (page 475)

Page 475

Civil disobedience is, of course, a very serious matter and it must be stressed that Rutherford was the very opposite of an anarchist. In Lex Rex he does not propose armed revolution as an automatic solution. Instead, he sets forth the appropriate response to interference by the state in the liberties of the citizenry. Specifically, he stated that if the state deliberately is committed to destroying its ethical commitment to God then resistance is appropriate.

In such an instance, for the private person, the individual, Rutherford suggested that there are three appropriate levels of resistance: First,he must defend himself by protest (in contemporary society this would most often be by legal action); second, he must flee if at all possible; and third, he may use force, if necessary, to defend himself. One should not employ force if he may save himself by flight; nor should one employ flight if he can save himself and defend himself by protest and the employment of constitutional means of redress.

On the other hand, when the state commits illegitimate acts against a corporate body—such as a duly constituted state or local body, or even a church—then flight is often an impractical and unrealistic means of resistance. Therefore, with respect to a corporate group or community, there are two levels of resistance: remonstration (or protest) and then, if necessary, force employed in self-defense.

For a corporate body (a civil entity), when illegitimate state acts are perpetrated upon it, resistance should be under the protection of the duly constituted authorities: if possible, it should be under the rule of the lesser magistrates (local officials). Rutherford urged that the office of the local official is just as much from God as is the office of the highest state official. Rutherford said, “When the supreme magistrate will not execute the judgment of the Lord, those who made him supreme magistrate, under God, who have under God, sovereighn liberty to dispose of crowns and kingdoms, are to execute the judgment of the Lord, when wicked men make the law of God of none effect.”

Samuel Rutherford and Bob Dylan would have understood each other. In “When You Gonna Wake Up” from the album SLOW TRAIN COMING, Dylan has the lines:

“Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools, You got gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules, When you gonna wake up, When you gonna wake up, When you gonna wake up, And strengthen the things that remain?”

John MacArthur gave a sermon in June of 2021 entitled “When Government Rewards Evil and Punishes Good” and in that sermon he makes the following points:

INTRODUCTION AND DISCUSSION OF ROMANS 13

GOVERNMENT CAN FORFEIT ITS AUTHORITY

THE WORLD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOSPEL

ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY IS PROGRESSING TOWARD A GLOBAL KINGDOM UNDER THE POWER OF SATAN

ONE FALSE WORLD RELIGION IS FINAL PLAY BY SATAN

REAL PERSECUTION CAN ONLY BE DONE BY GOVERNMENT

PERSECUTION IN BOOK OF DANIEL

THE LAW IS KING AND NOT THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA

GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME PURVEYOR OF WICKEDNESS

THERE IS A PLACE FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

DOES GOVERNMENT WIN?

Let me just share a portion of that sermon with you and you can watch it on You Tube:

ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY IS PROGRESSING TOWARD A GLOBAL KINGDOM UNDER THE POWER OF SATAN

Understand—all of human history is progressing toward a global kingdom under the power of Satan, in which Satan has one global monster ruling the whole world. He is a blasphemer—we’ve already seen it, but notice “blasphemies,” in verse 5, “blasphemies” in verse 6, “blaspheme” in verse 6 again. And verse 7, what does he do? He “makes war with the saints to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.” This final, global ruler will make war against the saints.

Verse 8, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name was not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who had been slain.” The whole world is going to go after him. We’re headed toward a one-world, global government with one massive, monstrous leader.

He has a cohort in verses 11 and following. This is another monster who has two horns like a lamb. This is a more benign individual. This is the false prophet. This is the religious leader who, going along with the political leader, assists him. He exercises all the authority of the first monster. He “makes the earth and those who dwell in it worship the first monster, whose fatal wound was healed.” Apparently there’s some kind of false resurrection, which is how he gains power. And then “he performs great signs,” verse 13, “making fire come down out of heaven in the presence of men.”

Verse 14, “He deceives those who dwell on the earth”—again, this is Satan—“which is given to him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.” So once he has this false resurrection, he then establishes himself as the world ruler; and the false prophet points the world to him.

Go down to verse 16. We don’t have time to cover all the details. “He causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, free men and slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the monster or the number of his name,” which “is 666.”

So we’re headed toward a time when there’s a global satanic kingdom. It consolidates all kingdoms of the world. It is under the final monster Antichrist, designed by the devil himself, and the entire world follows him, the entire world. Along with this political leader there is a spiritual leader; this is the false prophet. He is the one who lures, seduces the world religiously to worship the Antichrist. So he becomes god; he is Satan’s puppet.

Related posts:

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 1 “The Roman Age” (Schaeffer Sundays)

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)