Three of my role models are President Ronald Reagan, Economist Milton Friedman and Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer. Let me share with you something I read the other day. President Ronald Reagan summed up Francis Schaeffer’s life nicely when he said “It can rarely be said of an individual that his life touched many others and affected them for the better; it will be said of Dr. Francis Schaeffer that his life touched millions of souls and brought them to the truth of their Creator.”
Francis Schaffer has a long history of taking up for the unborn children and he has deeply affected the pro-life movement. Below are some examples of his work.
Part 1
Part 2
Francis and Edith Schaeffer January 1975
Huemoz sur Ollon at L’abri, Switzerland
America has some big choices to make and Francis Schaeffer does a great job of showing what the problems are and what choices we have. Below is a portion of this episode with links below to the complete episodes:
One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes.
A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes.
B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Theobald.
C. Daniel Bell’s prophecy of technocratic elite.
D. Bell’s warning of cultural contradiction: no absolute ethic to accompany absolute power.
II. Nature of the New Authoritarianism
A. Do not think of the model of Hitler and Stalin.
B. Probably a manipulative, authoritarian elite.
III. Possible Forms of Manipulation
A. Review from Episode Six: Koestler—chemical agents; Krantz—birth control in world’s drinking supply; Clark—political leaders should take anti-aggression pills; Lee—psychological tests for public officials; Skinner—reinforcers to modify behavior.
B. Genetic condition: Francis Crick.
1. He advocates:
a) That some group of people is to decide who should be the parents of the next generation and who should be born.
b) That some group of people should determine what kind of people they want in the future and will set out genetically to make them.
2. Once Man is no longer seen as made in God’s image, there is no reason not to “tinker” with Man genetically.
C. The mass media.
1. TV conditions by selective editing. Illustration: simulated riot filmed in San Jose.
2. No collusion needed if views of elite and newsmakers coincide. Media not monolithic, but total control not needed to achieve manipulation.
IV Authoritarianism in Government. Illustration: United States
A. The dilemma of people who speak out for civil liberties but are also committed to the government’s having a responsibility to solve every problem.
B. Christian freedoms without Christian base produce chaos.
C. In the United States an authoritarian, manipulating government could come from the administrative (executive) side, the legislature, or from the courts functioning on variable, sociological law.
Let me start out by saying thank you for bringing Chen Guangcheng to the USA. That was a great thing that you did!!!!
I sincerely hope that the world will continue to look upon Chen as the hero that he is. He has taken up for the ladies of China and their right to have their children.
Did you know that many in China when given the chance would abort unborn girls in order to have boys. This has created a huge problem.
Fox News reported, “Twenty-five million men in China currently can’t find brides because there is a shortage of women,” said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute in Washington, D.C. “The young men emigrate overseas to find brides.”
Of course, the real problem is the one child restriction that started this to begin with. I wish you would join me speak out in favor of China’s women’s rights.
Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng called into a congressional hearing again yesterday, detailing reported abuse of his relatives and friends in the wake of his escape.
When lauded for his courage and tireless advocacy for victims of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization, Chen simply remarked, through translation: “I am not a hero. I’m just doing what my conscience asks me to do. I cannot be silent when facing these evils against women and children.”
Chen described to the committee how, shortly after his escape from house arrest last month, local government officials allegedly stormed a family member’s house, beating relatives and arresting Chen’s brother. When Chen’s nephew attempted to defend himself and his family, officials arrested him on what Chen calls “trumped up” charges of “homicide with intent.”
Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, testified on the status of He Peirong, the woman who drove the rescue car for Chen. He, also known as “Pearl,” endured a week of confinement and interrogation in a hotel room by Chinese officials because of her involvement in Chen’s escape. Likewise, Jiang Tianyong, a human rights lawyer in China, was beaten to the point of possibly losing hearing in one ear after attempting to see Chen at the Beijing hospital, according to Littlejohn.
The actions reportedly taken against Chen’s supporters and family are just an extension of the coercive tactics used to enforce the country’s one-child policy. As panelists at yesterday’s hearing detailed, forced abortions, coerced sterilizations, and fines or physical abuse for neighbors and family members of women with unauthorized pregnancies remain a daily reality in China.
Mei Shunping, a victim of five forced abortions, described her time as a factory worker in China, where routine checkups for women were used to guard against unlawful pregnancy: “When discovered, pregnant women would be dragged to undergo forced abortions—there was no other choice. We had no dignity as potential child-bearers.”
Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed, detailed just a few horrific stories of child abandonment, bride trafficking and prostitution, and forced abortions that have occurred because of the one-child policy. Just this past October, explained Ling, a woman reportedly died after a late-term, forced abortion procedure when she was discovered to be pregnant with an unauthorized child. Similar atrocities have been documented in U.S. congressional reports as well.
“I wish I could tell you that these stories were rare, but they are not,” remarked Ling. “They are mere glimpses into the dark environment that the One-Child Policy creates for women. This is the darkness into which Chen Guangcheng tried to shine a light.”
That light of respect for human dignity and individual liberty should be supported by the U.S. and other international leaders who claim to defend human rights. As Heritage’s director of domestic policy Jennifer Marshall writes in commentary this week:
U.S. policymakers have long expressed concern over China’s security and economic challenges to global stability. They ought to be equally concerned about the chilling long-term consequences of gross abuse of human dignity and the destruction of civil society. It’s time for China to end the barbarism of its One-Child Policy.
Denouncing the unjust treatment of Chen Guangcheng, his family, and fellow activists is important. But so too is condemning the coercive population control policies that strip women and men of fundamental rights and prohibit China from becoming a truly free and flourishing society.
____________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Below is a summary of “A Christian Manifesto” which is a very important book written by Francis Schaeffer just a couple of years before his death in 1984. Schaeffer had a great impact on the pro-life movement.
A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer
This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.
The January 11 Newsweek has an article about the baby in the womb. The first 5 or 6 pages are marvelous. If you haven’t seen it, you should see if you can get that issue. It’s January 11 and about the first 5 or 6 pages show conclusively what every biologist has known all along, and that is that human life begins at conception. There is no other time for human life to begin, except at conception. Monkey life begins at conception. Donkey life begins at conception. And human life begins at conception. Biologically, there is no discussion — never should have been — from a scientific viewpoint. I am not speaking of religion now. And this 5 or 6 pages very carefully goes into the fact that human life begins at conception. But you flip the page and there is this big black headline, “But is it a person?” And I’ll read the last sentence, “The problem is not determining when actual human life begins, but when the value of that life begins to out weigh other considerations, such as the health or even the happiness of the mother.”
We are not just talking about the health of the mother (it’s a propaganda line), or even the happiness of the mother. Listen! Spell that out! It means that the mother, for her own hedonistic happiness — selfish happiness — can take human life by her choice, by law. Do you understand what I have said? By law, on the basis of her individual choice of what makes her happy. She can take what has been declared to be, in the first five pages [of the article], without any question, human life. In other words, they acknowledge that human life is there, but it is an open question as to whether it is not right to kill that human life if it makes the mother happy.
And basically that is no different than Stalin, Mao, or Hitler, killing who they killed for what they conceived to be the good of society. There is absolutely no line between the two statements — no absolute line, whatsoever. One follows along: Once that it is acknowledged that it is human life that is involved (and as I said, this issue of Newsweek shows conclusively that it is) the acceptance of death of human life in babies born or unborn, opens the door to the arbitrary taking of any human life. From then on, it’s purely arbitrary.
It was this view that opened the door to all that followed in Germany prior to Hitler. It’s an interesting fact here that the only Supreme Court in the Western World that has ruled against easy abortion is the West German Court. The reason they did it is because they knew, and it’s clear history, that this view of human life in the medical profession and the legal profession combined, before Hitler came on the scene, is what opened the way for everything that happened in Hitler’s Germany. And so, the German Supreme Court has voted against easy abortion because they know — they know very well where it leads.
I want to say something tonight. Not many of you are black in this audience. I can’t tell if you are Puerto Rican. But if I were in the minority group in this country, tonight, I would be afraid. I’ve had big gorgeous blacks stand up in our seminars and ask, “Sir, do you think there is a racial twist to all this?” And I have to say, “Right on! You’ve hit it right on the head!” Once this door is opened, there is something to be afraid of. Christians should be deeply concerned, and I cannot understand why the liberal lawyer of the Civil Liberties Union is not scared to death by this open door towards human life. Everyone ought to be frightened who knows anything about history — anything about the history of law, anything about the history of medicine. This is a terrifying door that is open.
Abortion itself would be worth spending much of our lifetimes to fight against, because it is the killing of human life, but it’s only a symptom of the total. What we are facing is Humanism: Man, the measure of all things — viewing final reality being only material or energy shaped by chance — therefore, human life having no intrinsic value — therefore, the keeping of any individual life or any groups of human life, being purely an arbitrary choice by society at the given moment.
The flood doors are wide open. I fear both they, and too often the Christians, do not have just relativistic values (because, unhappily, Christians can live with relativistic values) but, I fear, that often such people as the liberal lawyers of the Civil Liberties Union and Christians, are just plain stupid in regard to the lessons of history. Nobody who knows his history could fail to be shaken at the corner we have turned in our culture. Remember why: because of the shift in the concept of the basic reality!
Now, we cannot be at all surprised when the liberal theologians support these things, because liberal theology is only Humanism using theological terms, and that’s all it ever was, all the way back into Germany right after the Enlightenment. So when they come down on the side of easy abortion and infanticide, as some of these liberal denominations as well as theologians are doing, we shouldn’t be surprised. It follows as night after day.
I have a question to ask you, and that is: Where have the Bible-believing Christians been in the last 40 years? All of this that I am talking about has only come in the last 80 years (I’m 70… I just had my birthday, so just 10 years older than I am). None of this was true in the United States. None of it! And the climax has all come within the last 40 years, which falls within the intelligent scope of many of you sitting in this room. Where have the Bible-believing Christians been? We shouldn’t be surprised the liberal theologians have been no help — but where have we been as we have changed to this other consensus and all the horrors and stupidity of the present moment has come down on out culture? We must recognize that this country is close to being lost. Not, first of all , because of the Humanist conspiracy — I believe that there are those who conspire, but that is not the reason this country is almost lost. This country is almost lost because the Bible-believing Christians, in the last 40 years, who have said that they know that the final reality is this infinite-personal God who is the Creator and all the rest, have done nothing about it as the consensus has changed. There has been a vast silence!
Christians of this country have simply been silent. Much of the Evangelical leadership has not raised a voice. As a matter of fact, it was almost like sticking pins into the Evangelical constituency in most places to get them interested in the issue of human life while Dr. Koop and Franky and I worked on Whatever Happened to the Human Race, a vast, vast silence.
I wonder what God has to say to us? All these freedoms we have. All the secondary blessings we’ve had out of the preaching of the Gospel and we have let it slip through our fingers in the lifetime of most of you here. Not a hundred years ago — it has been in our lifetime in the last 40 years that these things have happened.
It’s not only the Christian leaders. Where have the Christian lawyers been? Why haven’t they been challenging this change in the view of what the First Amendment means, which I’ll deal with in a second. Where have the Christian doctors been — speaking out against the rise of the abortion clinics and all the other things? Where have the Christian businessmen been — to put their lives and their work on the line concerning these things which they would say as Christians are central to them? Where have the Christian educators been — as we have lost our educational system? Where have we been? Where have each of you been? What’s happened in the last 40 years?
I sent Romney 12 letters on the prolife movement and many of these letters including the writings of Dr. Francis Schaeffer. Here are two clips from Schaeffer that sum up his views on abortion.
_______________
Francis Schaeffer February 21, 1982 (Part 2)
I know that letters like this from Romney below have been spotted over the internet and I don’t suggest that this was written up recently just for me. I received a letter back on September 17, 2012 from Mitt Romney and it stated:
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002,
Dear Everette,
Thank you for contacting me about the important issue of abortion. I appreciate your interest in my campaign for president and would like to thank you for taking the time to share your views with me.
I am firmly pro-life. I believe that if abortion were limited to cases of rape, incest, and circumstances in which the mother’s life is in peril, we will have gone a long way to ending abortion in this country. I support the reversal of Roe v. Wade, because it is bad law and bad medicine. Roe was a misguided ruling that was a result of a small group of activist federal judges legislating from the bench.
I support the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. And as president, I will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood.
I will reinstate the Mexico City Policy to ensure that nongovernmental organizations that receive funding from America refrain from performing or promoting abortion services, as a method of family planning, in other countries. This includes ending American funding for any United Nations or other foreign assistance program that promotes or performs abortions on women around the world.
I will advocate for and support a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.
And perhaps most importantly, I will only appoint judges who adhere to the Constitution and the laws as they are written, not as they want them to be written.
As Governor of Massachusetts, I fought to promote abstinence education in the classroom, vetoed legislation to provide emergency contraception without a prescription, and vetoed embryonic cloning legislation. I am proud to say that each time I was presented with legislation on life issues, I sided with life. I remain strongly dedicated to that position.
I am running for president because I believe in America and know that our best days are still ahead. I believe that the principles that made America the leader of the world today—freedom, opportunity, and free enterprise to name just a few—are the very principles that will keep America the leader of the world tomorrow. These last few years have not been the best of times. But while we’ve lost a few years, we have not lost our way.
Again, thank you for contacting me. I encourage you to visit my website at www.MittRomney.com for updated information on this and other issues that maybe of interest to you. I look forward to hearing from you in the future, and earning your support.
Sincerely, Mitt Romney
Romney for President. Inc, P.O.Box 149756, Boston, MA 02114-9756.
To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He told him that the […]
To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He told him that the […]
A Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption. This comes from a collection of audio commentaries titled “Reagan in His Own Voice.” To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being […]
To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He told him that the […]
Superbowl commercial with Tim Tebow and Mom. To Mitt Romney, Box 96994, Washington, DC 20077-7556 From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush […]
___________________________________________ Francis Schaeffer is a hero of mine and I want to honor him with a series of posts on Sundays called “Schaeffer Sundays” which will include his writings and clips from his film series. I have posted many times in the past using his material. Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If […]
A Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer (Part 1) To Mitt Romney, Box 149756, Boston, MA 02114-9756 From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with […]
Part 1 Part 2 To Mitt Romney, Box 149756, Boston, MA 02114-9756 From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He […]
Part 1 Part 2 To Mitt Romney, Box 149756, Boston, MA 02114-9756 From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He […]
To Mitt Romney, Box 96994, Washington, DC 20077-7556 From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He told him that the […]
What Ever Happened to the Human Race? To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of http://www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002 Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush […]
Francis Schaeffer February 21, 1982 (Part 1) Uploaded by DeBunker7 on Feb 21, 2008 READ THIS FIRST: In decline of all civilizations we first see a war against the freedom of ideas. Discussion is limited or prohibited. Speakers at universities are shouted down. Corruption takes over city governments and towns as dishonesty and corruption expands. […]
Life begins when the fetus is viable outside the womb, prior to that it is parasitical and lives at the discretion of the host.
I responded with this post:
It seems to me the real argument lies in the personhood of the unborn baby. (The best evidence pointing to unborn baby being human was given by my atheist friend Dr. Kevin Henke.) If it is just a piece of material that is lifeless then the pro-life crowd has no argument. However, if it is a person then the pro-choice crowd has no argument. (A great article on the Biblical passages against abortion are found in this link.)
My pro-life evidence lies in the lives of two of the most abortion supporters of the 1970’s. Why did they change to the pro-life view? Check out the links below for the answers.
“Jane Roe” or Roe v Wade is now a prolife Christian. She’s recently has done a commercial about it.
_______________________________
I have often wondered why we got to this point in our country’s life and we allow abortion. The answer is found in the words of Schaeffer.
Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.”Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.
Below is a clip from the film series “How Then Shall We Live?”
Silent Scream, The Hand of God is “semi-autobiographical…for the study of…the…demise of one system of morality…and the painful acquisition of another more coherent, more reliable [morality]…[with] the backdrop …of abortion. p. 3.
“We live in an age of fulsome nihilism; an age of death; an age in which, as author Walker Percy (a fellow physician, a pathologist who specializes in autopsying Western civilization) argued, “compassion leads to the gas chamber,” or the abortion clinic, or the euthanist’s office.” p. 4.
“I worked hard to make abortion legal, affordable, and available on demand. In 1968, I was one of the three founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League. I ran the largest abortion clinic …and oversaw tens of thousands of abortions. I have performed thousands myself.” p. 5.
“The Hippocratic Oath states the following,
I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner, I will not give to a woman a pessary [a device inserted in the vagina, thought erroneously to initiate an abortion] to produce an abortion.
The oath is unambiguous on these matters.” p. 48.
“The World Medical Association meeting at Geneva, in 1948, in the aftermath of the revelations of the Nazi medical experiments, revised the oath marginally to include the pledge, “I will retain the utmost respect for Human Life from conception.”…in 1964 restated the theme : “The health of my patient will be my first consideration.” p.50. The unborn baby in an abortion procedure is not considered a patient.
A Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption. This comes from a collection of audio commentaries titled “Reagan in His Own Voice.”
I just wanted to share with you one of the finest prolife papers I have ever read, and it is by President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
I have a son named Wilson Daniel Hatcher and he is named after two of the most respected men I have ever read about : Daniel from the Old Testament and Ronald Wilson Reagan. I have studied that book of Daniel for years and have come to respect that author who was a saint who worked in two pagan governments but he never compromised. My favorite record was the album “No Compromise” by Keith Green and on the cover was a picture from the Book of Daniel.
One of the thrills of my life was getting to hear President Reagan speak in the beginning of November of 1984 at the State House Convention Center in Little Rock. Immediately after that program I was standing outside on Markham with my girlfriend Jill Sawyer (now wife of 25 years) and we were alone on a corner and President was driven by and he waved at us and we waved back.
My former pastor from Memphis, Adrian Rogers, got the opportunity to visit with President Ronald Reagan on several occasions and my St Senator Jeremy Hutchinson got to meet him too. I am very jealous.
Take time to read this below and comment below and let me know what you thought of his words.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators — not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973 is a good time for us to pause and reflect. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars.
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.
As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority inRoe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead,Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “. . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.
Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to head the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”
Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.
Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.
What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother?I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
________________________________________________
I remember when President Carter and candidate Reagan debated in 1980 and the subject of abortion came up. Reagan said that if you were on a dusty area and you found someone laying down would you bury him without knowing for sure if he is alive or not? It is the same with the case of abortion.
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, a leading pro-life advocate and convert to Catholicism, died at the age of 84 on Monday a week ago in his New York home, after a long struggle with cancer. The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Chapter 12 is titled To The Thanatoriums, an allusion the Walker […]
The pro-life position is very important to a great many of the freshmen members of the House of Representatives. As you can see above in the clip from the film series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, the unborn baby is a child, but we are treating many […]
When I think of the things that make me sad concerning this country, the first thing that pops into my mind is our treatment of unborn children. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president of the United States. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council recently had a conversation with him concerning the […]
To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002
Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He told him that the Religious Right did not have enough votes to get him elected on their own, but if he ever went against the pro-life view then they could definately derail his election bid.
Today I am writing you to remind you of the same thing. We in the pro-life movement are firmly behind you but we want to know some of the reasons are passionately pro-life.
If you want to understand why the evangelical pro-life movement then you need to read the material from Francis Schaeffer. That is what I did.
It is difficult to overestimate the incredible impact that Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop made on evangelical Christians in the latter third of the 20th century. First Schaeffer, and then Dr. Koop, helped inform and energize a whole generation of evangelical Christians to engagement with a culture that had veered dangerously off course from its Judeo-Christian foundations. The pro-life movement owes them an enormous debt.
This culture’s collective loss of its moral compass was nowhere more dramatically revealed than in the rapid implosion of its historic pro-life consensus in the late 1960s culminating in the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in January 1973, and the pro-death culture of moral relativism it both symbolized and facilitated.
Francis Schaeffer exploded on the evangelical world in the 1960s. Having interacted from an evangelical theological foundation with the European world of modern philosophy through his and his wife’s ministry at their L’Abri home and retreat center in Switzerland, Schaeffer was well-prepared to lead evangelicals to a new and deeper understanding of the titanic clash of differing world views swirling around them.
Returning to the United States in the mid-1960s, Schaeffer electrified evangelical students with his lectures and books (largely based on the lectures) such as The God Who Is There (1968), Escape From Reason (1968), He is There and He is Not Silent (1972) and Back to Freedom and Dignity (1973), which was a stirring refutation of behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity.
As an evangelical Princeton University undergraduate in the late 1960s, I, like so many in my generation, was electrified and galvanized by Schaeffer’s challenge to rejoin the contemporary cultural and philosophical debate armed with what he called “true truth” that was true not only in our personal and church lives, but in every area of our existence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Armed with Schaeffer’s guide and atlas of the intellectual terrain, tens of thousands of evangelical students felt called to a life of ministry in the intellectual world of scholarship and cultural discourse. Schaeffer gave us a cultural grid for both understanding and interacting with a culture increasingly hostile to Christian presuppositions of truth and moral absolutes.
Francis Schaeffer has often been criticized in recent years for “oversimplifying” and for “simplistic generalizations.” These criticisms miss the point of Schaeffer’s significance.
Schaeffer was a “thinker” more than a “scholar.” Where the “scholar” is haunted by the exception, the “thinker” is comfortable with the general rule and is more concerned with the big picture rather than the particulars of every case. The scholar sees the world largely through the microscope of his particular field of study, while the thinker views the world through a telescope that enables one to see general trends and seismic shifts in cultures and civilizations. Francis Schaeffer was the premier evangelical Christian “thinker” of the last half-century.
Nowhere did Francis Schaeffer see the big picture more clearly than on the issue of abortion and the brutalizing and dehumanizing impact of the pro-abortion movement and the philosophical presupposition upon which it was based.
Schaeffer had always opposed abortion, but the issue took on a new urgency for him in the wake of the Supreme Court’s declaration of abortion as a constitutional right in Roe v. Wade. With the help and encouragement of his son, Franky, Schaeffer produced a 10-part documentary film series and an accompanying book entitled How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1976).
Intended in part as a response to Kenneth Clark’s very popular Civilization series, How Should We Then Live? was an extended look at how Western Civilization’s rejection of Judeo-Christian moral values had led to the neo-pagan devaluing of human life as symbolized in the pro-abortion movement. The book, film series and accompanying 18-city seminar tour were a huge success and electrified the general evangelical public in much the same way his earlier work had stirred the evangelical university and seminary world.
Schaeffer increasingly devoted himself to the pro-life issue and almost immediately began work on a five-part film series and accompanying book and lecture tour with old family friend and world-renowned pediatric surgeon Dr. C. Everett Koop. The resulting Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979) combined Schaeffer’s trenchant and powerful explanation of secular humanism’s inexorable devaluation of human life with Dr. Koop’s medically expert testimony to the horror that was abortion and its inevitable path to infanticide and euthanasia.
Once again, Schaeffer and Koop galvanized the evangelical general public and challenged them to become actively involved at every level of the pro-life movement. The combination of Schaeffer’s theological and philosophical critique with Dr. Koop’s medical expertise and international reputation as a surgeon and scientist had a powerful impact on evangelicalism from coast to coast.
They asked the questions that moved hundreds of thousands of evangelicals from the sidelines into the arena of the pro-life struggle: “If not you, then whom?” “If not this outrage, then what?” “If not now, then when?”
Dr. Koop went on to become President Reagan’s Surgeon-General, elevating both that office and the pro-life issue in an unprecedented way in the eight years of his service. It is impossible to imagine an overwhelmingly pro-life American evangelicalism, and its unprecedented involvement in public policy on that issue, without the impact and leadership of these two towering figures.
Everyone devoted to the pro-life cause owes an incalculable debt of gratitude to Francis Schaeffer and to Dr. C. Everett Koop.
To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002
Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He told him that the Religious Right did not have enough votes to get him elected on their own, but if he ever went against the pro-life view then they could definately derail his election bid.
Today I am writing you to remind you of the same thing. We in the pro-life movement are firmly behind you but we want to know some of the reasons are passionately pro-life.
First published in 1981, Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifestois increasingly relevant today in 2010. The book, penned as a Christian response to the Communist and Humanist Manifestos, describes how the United States is being systematically torn apart by secular humanism and its “material-energy, chance world view.” The second half of the book details what actions the Christian should take in defending one’s self and country.In explaining civil disobedience, Schaeffer uses Samuel Rutherford’smodel of “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 (Schaeffer 103).”Schaeffer then goes on to provide an example that would be worthy of Rutherford’s first level of resistance.“In our day an illustration for the need of protest is tax money used for abortion. After all the normal constitutional means of protest had been exhausted, then what could be done? At some point protest could lead some Christians to refuse to pay some portion of their tax money. Of course, this would mean a trial. Such a move would have to be the individual’s choice under God. No one should decide for another. But somewhere along the way, such a decision might easily have to be faced. Happily, at the present time in the United States the Hyde Amendment has removed the use of national tax money for abortions, but that does not change the possibility that in some cases such a protest would be the only way to be heard (Schaeffer 108).”
What should be the Christian response? If the legal challenges fail and our government does indeed choose to use federal tax money to fund the killing of unborn babies, how will God’s people respond?
It is interesting just how prophetic Francis Schaeffer’s thoughts and concerns were. This is the first of his writings I have read and I look forward to reading more of his work. The abortion fight is no different than any other war in the sense that individual battles will decide victory. But the battles involved have so much more at stake than I often realize. There is certainly a “war of world views” going on in this country and the preservation or destruction of the U.S. Constitution will surely determine if liberty is for all or none.
A Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption. This comes from a collection of audio commentaries titled “Reagan in His Own Voice.”
To Mitt Romney, Box 96861, Washington, DC 20090-6861, From Everette Hatcher of www.thedailyhatch.org 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002
Did we forgive George Bush in 1988 for being pro-choice originally in 1980? We sure did. In fact, my former pastor, Adrian Rogers, had a chance to visit with Bush several times. He told him that the Religious Right did not have enough votes to get him elected on their own, but if he ever went against the pro-life view then they could definately derail his election bid.
Today I am writing you to remind you of the same thing. We in the pro-life movement are firmly behind you but we want to know some of the reasons are passionately pro-life.
Francis Schaeffer said in the book CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO:
Certainly every Christian ought to be praying and working to nullify the abominable abortion law. But as we work and pray, we should have in mind not only this important issue as though it stood alone. Rather, we should be struggling and praying that this whole other total entity “(this godless) worldview” can be rolled back with all its results across all of life.
I just wanted to share with you one of the finest prolife papers I have ever read, and it is by President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
I have a son named Wilson Daniel Hatcher and he is named after two of the most respected men I have ever read about : Daniel from the Old Testament and Ronald Wilson Reagan. I have studied that book of Daniel for years and have come to respect that author who was a saint who worked in two pagan governments but he never compromised. My favorite record was the album “No Compromise” by Keith Green and on the cover was a picture from the Book of Daniel.
One of the thrills of my life was getting to hear President Reagan speak in the beginning of November of 1984 at the State House Convention Center in Little Rock. Immediately after that program I was standing outside on Markham with my girlfriend Jill Sawyer (now wife of 25 years) and we were alone on a corner and President was driven by and he waved at us and we waved back.
My former pastor from Memphis, Adrian Rogers, got the opportunity to visit with President Ronald Reagan on several occasions.
Take time to read this below and comment below and let me know what you thought of his words.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators — not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973 is a good time for us to pause and reflect. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars.
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.
As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority inRoev. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead,Roe v. Wadehas become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “. . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.
Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to head the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”
Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.
Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.
What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother?I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
________________________________________________
I remember when President Carter and candidate Reagan debated in 1980 and the subject of abortion came up. Reagan said that if you were on a dusty area and you found someone laying down would you bury him without knowing for sure if he is alive or not? It is the same with the case of abortion.
Francis Schaeffer told us that abortion was a huge issue and evangelicals paid attention to his words!!!
We really need some prolife judges appointed soon that will respect the sanctity of human life including that of unborn children. It is truly a holocaust now in the USA.
The following is an excerpt from article DA375 by Hank Hanegraaff. The full article can be found by following the link below the excerpt.
For hundreds of years the Lord had warned the Israelites through His prophets. Now it was too late! Darkness had descended upon the Promised Land. The people of Israel had become the slaves of the mighty Assyrians. Although the tribe of Judah to the south had miraculously survived the initial onslaught, they somehow blithely managed to ignore the lesson of history.
2 Kings tells us that Ahaz, king of Judah, “walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites” (16:3).
The nation of Israel had indeed become a mirror reflection of the pagan culture by which they found themselves surrounded. True prophets continued to warn God’s people that their wickedness would inexorably lead to destruction, but their words fell on deaf ears. The rulers of the land had become so corrupt that they even hired false prophets to tell them what their itching ears wanted to hear.
Finally, the inevitable occurred. The ax of God’s judgment fell. Babylon leveled Jerusalem, and the people of Judah were driven from their land of promise.
Today America, like ancient Israel, is turning a deaf ear to the lesson of history. We have repeatedly violated God’s commands, as if we could do so with impunity. We have failed to heed the warnings of His prophets and have embraced the new paganism of our times. Indeed, our ways have become detestable to the Lord; we have forgotten His command: “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God” (Deut. 18:9-12; emphasis added).
Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer warned us that abortion would be the watershed issue of our era. He said, “Of all the subjects relating to the erosion of the sanctity of human life, abortion is the keystone. It is the first and crucial issue that has been overwhelming in changing attitudes toward the value of life in general.”1
Schaeffer’s warning has tragically fallen on deaf ears. For more than two decades we have sacrificed our children on the altars of hedonism. And even now, the ax of God’s judgment has been laid to the root.
Two thousand years ago Christ warned us that “the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed!’” (Luke 23:29). The present day abortion holocaust has driven those words home in dramatic fashion. Consider the statements of some of the spiritual and secular leaders of our age:
• Beverly Harrison (professor of Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary) —“Infanticide is not a great wrong. I do not want to be construed as condemning women who, under certain circumstances, quietly put their infants to death” (emphasis in original).2
• Esther Langston (professor of social work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas): “What we are saying is that abortion becomes one of the choices and the person has the right to choose whatever it is that is…best for them in the situation in which they find themselves, be it abortion, to keep the baby, to adopt it, to sell it, to leave it in a dumpster, to put it on your porch, whatever; it’s the person’s right to choose.”3
• Mary S. Calderone, M.D. (head of SIECUS — Sex Information and Education Council of the United States): “We have yet to beat our drums for birth control in the way we beat them for polio vaccine, we are still unable to put babies in the class of dangerous epidemics, even though this is the exact truth.”4
• Margaret Sanger (the late founder of Planned Parenthood): “The most merciful thing a large family can do for one of its infant members is to kill it.”5
• Nobel Prize laureate James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA) — “Because of the limitations of present detection methods, most birth defects are not discovered until birth. . . . However if a child was not declared alive until 3 days after birth . . . the doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering.”6
Perhaps most frightening of all, President Clinton signed into law the National Institute of Health Revitalization Act. As a direct result it is now legal not only to kill but also to carve up murdered babies and use them for fetal tissue research.7
While pondering this horrifying reality, remember that the present-day holocaust is government-funded. It means that you and I are footing the bill!8
Make no mistake: “Choice” advocates like Clinton, Congress, and the Courts are not the friends of children. America’s unthinking submission to their twisted arguments is moving us progressively toward social genocide of a magnitude eclipsing that of Hitler, Stalin, Somalia, and the Serb-Croate conflict.
The movement’s own label — “pro-choice” — is a twisted deception, covering up a nationally sanctioned holocaust in which the “right” to choose to kill a child reigns supreme over:
• the baby’s human rights;
• the rights of the parents of a pregnant minor;
• the rights of the preborn’s father;
• the mother’s right to accurate information about fetal development and the negative consequences of abortion;
• the rights of society to protect all its members — no matter what their social status, economic situation, or physical limitations.
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Uploaded by Scott87508 on Oct 3, 2010 __________________ Some wise words below I got off the internet: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 The Infinite-Personal God: Thoughts from Francis Schaeffer’s Escape from Reason Perhaps you are familiar with the indie band Arcade Fire. Their […]
L’Abri : Sounds & Sites of a Shelter Uploaded by mdshivers on Nov 12, 2006 A fun video of the day in the life at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. I made this video in 2003 while there and I was trying to capture the sounds and everyday life of it. Was on the Labri.org site […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Extra – Interview – Part 2 Francis Schaeffer had a big impact on me in the late 1970′s and I have been enjoying his books and films ever since. Here is great video clip of an interview and below is a fine article about him. Francis Schaeffer 1912-1984 Christian Theologian, Philosopher, […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 How Should We Then Live 10#1 FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth […]
Part 1 Part 2 Below is a summary of “A Christian Manifesto” which is a very important book written by Francis Schaeffer just a couple of years before his death in 1984. A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian […]
Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop were prophetic (jh29) What Ever Happened to the Human Race? I recently heard this Breakpoint Commentary by Chuck Colson and it just reminded me of how prophetic Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop were in the late 1970′s with their book and film series “Whatever happened to the human […]
___________________________________________ Francis Schaeffer is a hero of mine and I want to honor him with a series of posts on Sundays called “Schaeffer Sundays” which will include his writings and clips from his film series. I have posted many times in the past using his material. Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If […]
(“Schaeffer Sundays” Part 1) Francis Schaeffer is a hero of mine and I want to honor him with a series of posts on Sundays called “Schaeffer Sundays” which will include his writings and clips from his film series. I have posted many times in the past using his material. Communism has never been […]
The Daily Hatch 