Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan, and in his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
——-
End of Sagan Excerpt
When I was in high school the book and film series named WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? came out and it featured Doctor C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer and they looked at the issues of abortion, infanticide, and youth euthanasia and they looked at comments from such scholars as Peter Singer and James D. Watson.
C. Everett Koop pictured above and Peter Singer below
Peter Singer, an endowed chair at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, said, “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”
James D.Watson
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA, granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a publication of the American Medical Association. Time later reported the interview to the general public, quoting Watson as having said, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
Carl Sagan
On August 30, 1995 I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan that probably prompted this discussion on abortion and it enclosed a lengthy story from Adrian Rogers about an abortion case in Pine Bluff, Arkansas that almost became an infanticide case:
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, ArkansasMy wife was born in main hospital in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
This message “A Christian Manifesto” was given in 1982 by the late Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer when he was age 70 at D. James Kennedy’s Corral Ridge Presbyterian Church.
Listen to this important message where Dr. Schaeffer says it is the duty of Christians to disobey the government when it comes in conflict with God’s laws. So many have misinterpreted Romans 13 to mean unconditional obedience to the state. When the state promotes an evil agenda and anti-Christian statues we must obey God rather than men. Acts
I use to watch James Kennedy preach from his TV pulpit with great delight in the 1980’s. Both of these men are gone to be with the Lord now. We need new Christian leaders to rise up in their stead.
To view Part 2 See Francis Schaeffer Lecture- Christian Manifesto Pt 2 of 2 video
The religious and political freedom’s we enjoy as Americans was based on the Bible and the legacy of the Reformation according to Francis Schaeffer. These freedoms will continue to diminish as we cast off the authority of Holy Scripture.
In public schools there is no other view of reality but that final reality is shaped by chance.
Likewise, public television gives us many things that we like culturally but so much of it is mere propaganda shaped by a humanistic world and life view.
_____________________________
I was able to watch Francis Schaeffer deliver a speech on a book he wrote called “A Christian Manifesto” and I heard him in several interviews on it in 1981 and 1982. I listened with great interest since I also read that book over and over again. Below is a portion of one of Schaeffer’s talks on a crucial subject that is very important today too.
A great talk by Francis Schaeffer:A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. SchaefferThis 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._________
Infanticide and youth enthansia ———So what we find then, is that the medical profession has largely changed — not all doctors. I’m sure there are doctors here in the audience who feel very, very differently, who feel indeed that human life is important and you wouldn’t take it, easily, wantonly. But, in general, we must say (and all you have to do is look at the TV programs), all you have to do is hear about the increased talk about allowing the Mongoloid child — the child with Down’s Syndrome — to starve to death if it’s born this way. Increasingly, we find on every side the medical profession has changed its views.
The view now is, “Is this life worth saving?”I look at you… You’re an older congregation than I am usually used to speaking to. You’d better think, because — this — means — you! It does not stop with abortion and infanticide. It stops at the question, “What about the old person? Is he worth hanging on to?” Should we, as they are doing in England in this awful organization, EXIT, teach older people to commit suicide? Should we help them get rid of them because they are an economic burden, a nuisance? I want to tell you, once you begin chipping away the medical profession…
The intrinsic value of the human life is founded upon the Judeo-Christian concept that man is unique because he is made in the image of God, and not because he is well, strong, a consumer, a sex object or any other thing. That is where whatever compassion this country has is, and certainly it is far from perfect and has never been perfect. Nor out of the Reformation has there been a Golden Age, but whatever compassion there has ever been, it is rooted in the fact that our culture knows that man is unique, is made in the image of God. Take it away, and I just say gently, the stopper is out of the bathtub for all human life.
Carl Sagan, in full Carl Edward Sagan, (born November 9, 1934, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died December 20, 1996, Seattle, Washington), American astronomer and science writer. A popular and influential figure in the United States, he was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. Sagan wrote the article “life” for the 1970 printing of the 14th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1929–73).
Sagan attended the University of Chicago, where he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in physics in 1955 and 1956, respectively, and a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960. From 1960 to 1962 he was a fellow in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and from 1962 to 1968 he worked at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. His early work focused on the physical conditions of the planets, especially the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter. During that time he became interested in the possibility of lifebeyond Earth and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), a controversial research field he did much to advance. For example, building on earlier work by American chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, he demonstrated that amino acids and nucleic acids—the building blocks of life—could be produced by exposing a mixture of simple chemicals to ultraviolet radiation. Some scientists criticized Sagan’s work, arguing that it was unreasonable to use resources for SETI, a fantasy project that was almost certainly doomed to failure.
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:
In the 1st video below in the 45th clip in this series are his words and my response is below them.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
–
CARL SAGAN interview with Charlie Rose:
“…faith is belief in the absence of evidence. To believe in the absence of evidence, in my opinion, is a mistake. The idea is to hold belief until there is compelling evidence. If the Universe does not comply with our previous propositions, then we have to change…Religion deals with history poetry, great literature, ethics, morals, compassion…where religion gets into trouble is when it pretends to know something about science,”
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
Love and Death [Woody Allen] – What if there is no God? [PL] ___________ _______________ How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason) #02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer 10 Worldview and Truth Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100 Francis Schaeffer […]
___________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: ____________________________ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?) Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro) Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1) Dr. Francis Schaeffer […]
“We’re having a fetus!” “You want to feel the fetus kick?” These are some of the statements the latest ad from Focus on the Family uses to address abortion in its own way, challenging the term “fetus” used to address preborn babies.
The faith-based organization launched the “It’s a Baby” campaign on Wednesday, just days before the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court ruling that effectively reversed the nearly 50-year precedent of nationwide access to abortion established by Roe v. Wade.
According to Focus on the Family’s news outlet “Daily Citizen,” the group’s president, Jim Daly, saw it as the perfect time to join in the “millions of conversations” he anticipates will take place regarding the “sanctity of human life” in the coming weeks.
Focus on the Family’s ‘It’s a Baby’ ad takes on the word fetus, using different scenarios to illustrate how the word might sound in place of ‘baby.’ (Focus on the Family/YouTube Screenshot)
The ad begins by showing a couple trading the results of a pregnancy test. The woman excitedly exclaims to her husband, “It’s positive! We’re having a fetus!”
The scene transitions to another couple in an ultrasonography room, where a sonographer glides the transducer over the expecting mother’s stomach. The mother, viewing the ultrasound image on the screen, reaches out to it and says, “Hi, fetus.”
Several other illustrations follow, leading up to one where a little girl admonishes her parents for using the term.
“Even the Mayo Clinic’s website, in an article taking prospective parents through the weekly development of their child, uses ‘baby’ to describe that child 37 times, from the moment of fertilization. Our country’s most heralded medical institution knows it’s a baby. We want more Americans to realize that truth, too,” Daly said.
“We’re hoping to reach people who will be struck by the truth the spot depicts that it is, indeed, a baby,” Daly said, per an email sent to Fox News Digital. “We’re always looking for compelling ways, even unexpected ways, to get the country talking about life. And with the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs being June 24, this was the perfect moment to add this important perspective to the national conversation.”
He argued that culture has gotten “too comfortable” using “antiseptic scientific terms” to “dehumanize a child in the womb.”
“We wanted to challenge that by plainly and simply showing – in situations we’re all familiar with – that it’s a baby. And to call it anything else just doesn’t make sense.”
Pro-life protesters gather outside Supreme Court following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health last year. (Photo by Joshua Comins/Fox News)
In the comments, the video received overwhelming support from pro-lifers, with some praising it as a “common sense” message and others labeling it “great” or “magnificent.”
One wrote in part, “What a wonderful illustration that even children grasp the fundamental truth…it’s a baby.”
Another said, “Brilliant. No one can watch this and think the first 50 seconds sounds like the way we actually talk about babies.”
Since the Supreme Court ruled against a constitutional right to abortion nationwide last June, the issue has become a focal point for many state legislatures as some look to enact restrictions and others – including California and Washington State – pledge to guarantee access to abortion.
This morning while I was attending the Association of Christian Lawmakers at the COLLEGE OF THE OZARKS, our group had a big impromptu praise and prayer service when the Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe v Wade was announced this morning!
Pro-life activists celebrate after the announcement of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ever since the Dobbs v. Jackson draft opinion leaked in early May, pro-life activists have gathered peacefully at the U.S. Supreme Court on decision days to eagerly await the ruling. That day finally arrived Friday. The following photos showcase their reactions.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
—
—
November 23, 2020
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision focused further attention on Court appointments with every nomination from that point on triggering a pitched battle between pro-choice and anti-abortion forces.
Let me point out that we prefer to be called the PRO-LIFE movement and I don’t think you want to really say what the choices are in your pro-choice movement because the real question is when does human life begin and your support of partial birth abortion puts you on slippery ground on that question too!
There is a question that I have asked pro-abortionists over and over and they just don’t like answering it. It comes also from the first episode of “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE.” Dr. Koop put forth the question:
My question to the pro-abortionist who would not directly kill a newborn baby the minute it is born is this, “Would you have killed it a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that?” You can see what I am getting at. At what minute does an unborn baby cease to be worthless and become a person entitled to the right to life and legal protection?
_____
“Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.”
Dr. Koop said, “We live in a schizophrenic society” and that makes me think of this cartoon:
I corresponded with the pro-choice Carl Sagan in 1995 about abortion and he sent me an article which included these words:
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government’s business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
Let me quote from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? By Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop:
It hasn’t been too far back in the history of the United States, that black people were sold like cattle in our slave markets. For economic reasons, white society had classified them as “nonhuman.” The U S Supreme Court upheld this lie in its infamous Dred Scott Decision.
Jesse L. Jackson, in 1977, tied the prior treatment of blacks with our present treatment of the preborn:
You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned…. The Constitution called us three-fifths human and the whites further dehumanized us by calling us `n#%+#rs’ It was part of the dehumanizing process…. These advocates taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human…. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified…. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind set with regard to the nature and the worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth. [Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979), p. 209.]
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
Francis Schaeffer when he was a young pastor in St. Louis pictured above.
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
I would also would like to note that the courts were the vehicle to make the change on abortion in 1973 because the elected legislatures would not have so easy to convince. Notice also Judge Alito’s warning to us below after Daniel Whyte III quotes Francis Schaeffer:
Daniel Whyte III
This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than man.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Romans 3:12 which reads: “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from A.W. Tozer. He said: “’Let God be true but every man a liar’ is the language of true faith.”
In this podcast, we are using as our text: “A Christian Manifesto” by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on “The Destruction of Faith and Freedom” (Part 6):
The law, and especially the courts, is the vehicle to force this total humanistic way of thinking upon the entire population. This is what has happened. The abortion law is a perfect example. The Supreme Court abortion ruling invalidated abortion laws in all fifty states, even though it seems clear that in 1973 the majority of Americans were against abortion. It did not matter. The Supreme Court arbitrarily ruled that abortion was legal, and overnight they overthrew the state laws and forced onto American thinking not only that abortion was legal, but that it was ethical. They, as an elite, thus forced their will on the majority, even though their ruling was arbitrarily both legally and medically. Thus law and the courts became the vehicle for forcing a totally secular concept on the population.
…
Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.
He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.
He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.
“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Associate Justice Samuel Alito remarks. Pictured: Alito testifies about the court’s budget during a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in Washington, D.C., March 7, 2019. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, author, broadcaster, and speaker with access to world leaders, U.S. presidents, celebrities, educators, and countless other notables. He has authored several books, including his latest, “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States.” Readers can email him at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
Everywhere one looks there are warning signs, from labels on cigarette packs warning that smoking causes cancer, to ridiculous labels on thermometers that read, “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has delivered some serious warnings that too often are ignored by many who believe the freedoms we enjoy are inviolable.
In an address earlier this month to the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, Alito touched on several subjects, including COVID-19, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, free speech, and “bullying” of the Supreme Court by U.S. senators.
Alito made a case for how each issue contains elements that contribute to a slow erosion of our liberties. On tolerance, preached but not often practiced by the left, Alito said: “…tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply in many law schools, and in the broader academic community. When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy.” This is not a new revelation, but it bears repeating.
While acknowledging the deaths, hospitalizations, and unemployment caused by COVID-19, Alito warned: “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty. Now, notice what I am not saying or even implying, I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health. … I’m not saying anything about the legality of COVID restrictions. Nor am I saying anything about whether any of these restrictions represent good public policy. I’m a judge, not a policymaker. All that I’m saying is this. And I think it is an indisputable statement of fact, we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced, for most of 2020.”
>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.
Where does this lead? Alito answered when he spoke of “…the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat rather than legislation. The vision of early 20th-century progressives and the new dealers of the 1930s was the policymaking would shift from narrow-minded elected legislators, to an elite group of appointed experts, in a word, the policymaking would become more scientific. That dream has been realized to a large extent. Every year administrative agencies acting under broad delegations of ‘authority’ churn out huge volumes of regulations that dwarfs the statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives. And what have we seen in the pandemic sweeping restrictions imposed for the most part, under statutes that confer enormous executive discretion?”
Alito cited a Nevada case that came before the Court: “Under that law, if the governor finds that there is, quote, a natural technological or manmade emergency, or disaster of major proportions, the governor can perform and exercise such functions, powers and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population. To say that this provision confers broad discretion would be an understatement.”
On the erosion of religious liberty, he said: “It pains me to say this, but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored, right.” As evidence he mentioned how we have moved from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress in 1993 to the recent persecution by the Obama administration of The Little Sisters of the Poor for their refusal to include contraceptives in their health insurance. The Catholic nuns prevailed in a 7-2 court ruling, but Alito believes the threat to the free exercise of religion remains all too real.
There is much more in his address that should be read in its entirety. Alito’s warnings ring true, but are we listening?
(C)2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
I have read articles for years from Dan Barker, but recently I just finished the book Barker wrote entitled LIFE DRIVEN PURPOSE which was prompted by Rick Warren’s book PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE which I also read several years ago.
—
Religious Freedom Wins in Court Case About Trans Medical Procedures
“Doctors take a solemn oath to ‘do no harm,’ and they can’t keep that oath if the federal government is forcing them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise,” says Luke Goodrich, Becket Fund senior counsel. (Photo illustration: iStock/Getty Images)
Doctors, other medical personnel, and hospitals with faith-based objections to transgender surgeries are celebrating a win against an Obamacare mandate this week as President Joe Biden declined to appeal a ruling to the Supreme Court.
The case, called Sisters of Mercy v. Becerra, is the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s second successful challenge of what the organization calls the government’s “harmful and unlawful” mandate forcing doctors and hospitals to provide gender-transition surgeries despite their religious beliefs.
“After multiple defeats in court, the federal government has thrown in the towel on its controversial, medically unsupported transgender mandate,” Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in a written statement Wednesday.
“Doctors take a solemn oath to ‘do no harm,’ and they can’t keep that oath if the federal government is forcing them to perform harmful, irreversible procedures against their conscience and medical expertise,” Goodrich said.
Sisters of Mercy is a Catholic religious order, and some of the nuns are licensed medical professionals. Becerra is Xavier Becerra, Biden’s secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Sisters of Mercy case began in 2016 when the Obama administration, through the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, required doctors and hospitals across the country to perform gender-transition surgeries.
The Sisters of Mercy, part of a coalition of Catholic health care providers and universities, sued the federal government to block that mandate. A federal court in North Dakota agreed to stop it the day before Biden took office.
After the Biden administration appealed that ruling, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision in December, safeguarding the right to religious liberty.
The Biden administration had a Tuesday deadline to appeal the 8th Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court, which it declined to do.
“These religious doctors and hospitals provide vital care to patients in need, including millions of dollars in free and low-cost care to the elderly, poor, and underserved,”Goodrich said. “This is a win for patients, conscience, and common sense.”
Previously, Becket backed a network of faith-based hospitals against a transgender mandate in a 2016 case called Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed in August 2022 that doctors can’t be required to provide medical services that go against their religious beliefs. Biden also declined to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Dan Barker is the Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, And co-host of Freethought Radio and co-founder of The Clergy Project.
On March 19, 2022, I got an email back from Dan Barker that said:
Thanks for the insights.
Have you read my book Life Driven Purpose? To say there is no purpose OF life is not to say there is no purpose IN life. Life is immensely meaningful when you stop looking for external purpose.
Ukraine … we’ll, we can no longer blame Russian aggression on “godless communism.” The Russian church, as far as I know, has not denounced the war.
db
—
In the next few weeks I will be discussing the book LIFE DRIVEN PURPOSE which I did enjoy reading. Here is an assertion that Barker makes that I want to discuss:
Think about sexuality. The bible says that “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). It is assumed that Adam and Eve were heterosexual, because they were commanded to “replenish the earth.” Jesus made the same assumption: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said ‘for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (This is also sexist, from the male point of view.)
Sexiest? Sounds like you are modern day woke and you will end up turning on your buddy Richard Dawkins?
TRANSGENDERISM SEEN BELOW
——
After Life 2 – Man identifies as an 8 year old girl
——
——
I was referred this fine article by Robyn E. Blumner in defense of her boss at the RICHARD DAWKINS FOUNDATION by a tweet by Daniel Dennett.
As an evangelical I have had the opportunity to correspond with more more secular humanists that have signed the Humanist Manifestos than any other evangelical alive (at least that has been one of my goals since reading Francis Schaeffer’s books and watching his films since 1979). Actually I just attended the retirement party held for my high school Bible teacher Mark Brink of EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL of Cordova, Tennessee on May 19th and he introduced me to the works of Francis Schaeffer and it was Schaeffer’s works that eventually help topple ROE v WADE!!! Ironically Mr Brink had a 49 year career that spanned 1973 to 2022 which was the same period that ROE v WADE survived!!!
Let me make a few points about this fine article below by the humanist Robyn E. Blumner.
Robyn is trying to use common sense on people that “GOD GAVE THEM OVER to a depraved mind.” Romans 1 states:
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, GOD GAVE THEM OVER to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are…inventors of evil,
Identitarian:A person or ideology that espouses that group identity is the most important thing about a person, and that justice and power must be viewed primarily on the basis of group identity rather than individual merit.(Source: Urban Dictionary)
“The Affirmations of Humanism”:We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.(Paul Kurtz,Free Inquiry, Spring 1987)
The humanist project is at a dangerous crossroads. I fear that our cohesion as fellow humanists is being torn apart by a strain of identitarianism that is making enemies of long-standing friends and opponents of natural allies.
Just at a time when it is essential for all of us to come together to work arm-in-arm against Christian Nationalism and the rise of religious privilege in law, humanism is facing a schism within its own movement. It is heartbreaking to watch and even more disheartening to know that the continued breach seems destined to grow.
The division has to do with a fundamental precept of humanism, that enriching human individuality and celebrating the individual is the basis upon which humanism is built. Humanism valorizes the individual—and with good reason; we are each the hero of our own story. Not only is one’s individual sovereignty more essential to the humanist project than one’s group affiliation, but fighting for individual freedom—which includes freedom of conscience, speech, and inquiry—is part of the writ-large agenda of humanism. It unleashes creativity and grants us the breathing space to be agents in our own lives.
Or at least that idea used to be at the core of humanism.
Today, there is a subpart of humanists, identitarians, who are suspicious of individuals and their freedoms. They do not want a free society if it means some people will use their freedom to express ideas with which they disagree. They see everything through a narrow affiliative lens of race, gender, ethnicity, or other demographic category and seek to shield groups that they see as marginalized by ostensible psychic harms inflicted by the speech of others.
This has given rise to a corrosive cultural environment awash in controversial speakers being shouted down on college campuses; even liberal professors and newspaper editors losing their jobs for tiny, one-off slights; the cancellation of great historical figures for being men of their time; and a range of outlandish claims of microaggressions, cultural appropriation, and other crimes against current orthodoxy.
It has pitted humanists who stand for foundational civil liberties principles such as free speech and equal protection under the law against others on the political Left who think individual freedoms should give way when they fail to serve the interests of select identity groups. The most important feature of the symbol of justice is not her sword or scales; it is her blindfold. Identitarians would pull it off so she could benefit certain groups over others.
Good people with humanist hearts have been pilloried if they don’t subscribe to every jot and tittle of the identitarian gospel. A prime example is the decision last year by the American Humanist Association (AHA) to retract its 1996 award to Richard Dawkins as Humanist of the Year. The man who has done more than anyone alive to advance evolutionary biology and the public’s understanding of that science, who has brought the light of atheism to millions of people, and whose vociferous opposition to Donald Trump and Brexit certainly must have burnished his liberal cred became radioactive because of one tweet on transgender issues that the AHA didn’t like.
Apparently decades of past good works are erased by 280 characters. Just poof. No wonder a New York Times poll1 recently found that 84 percent of adults say it is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem that some Americans do not speak freely because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.
This is what identitarians have wrought. Rather than lifting up individuals and imbuing them with autonomy and all the extraordinary uniqueness that flows from it, identitarians would divide us all into racial, ethnic, and gender-based groups and make that group affiliation our defining characteristic. This has the distorting effect of obliterating personal agency, rewarding group victimhood, and incentivizing competition to be seen as the most oppressed.
In addition to being inherently divisive, this is self-reinforcing defeatism. It results in extreme examples, such as a draft plan in California to deemphasize calculus as a response to persistent racial gaps in math achievement.2 Suddenly a subject as racially neutral as math has become a flashpoint for identitarians set on ensuring equality of outcomes for certain groups rather than the far-more just standard of equality of opportunity. In this freighted environment, reducing the need for rigor and eliminating challenging standards becomes a feasible solution. The notion of individual merit or recognition that some students are better at math than others becomes racially tinged and suspect.
Not only does the truth suffer under this assault on common sense, but we start to live in a Harrison Bergeron world where one’s natural skills are necessarily sacrificed on the altar of equality or, in today’s parlance, equity.
Of course, the identitarians’ focus is not just on racial issues. Gender divisions also play out on center stage. I was at a secular conference recently when a humanist leader expressed the view that if you don’t have a uterus, you have no business speaking about abortion.
Really? Only people with female reproductive organs should be heard on one of the most consequential issues of the day? Such a call, itself, is a form of lamentable sexism. And it seems purposely to ignore the fact that plenty of people with a uterus are actively opposed to the right to choose, while plenty of people without a uterus are among our greatest allies for abortion rights. Why should those of us who care about reproductive freedom cut fully half of all humanity from our roster of potential vocal supporters and activists?
As has been said by others perplexed and disturbed by such a narrow-minded view, you don’t have to be poor to have a valid opinion on ways to alleviate poverty. You don’t have to be a police officer to have a valid opinion on policing. And, similarly, you don’t have to be a woman to have a valid opinion on abortion rights.
If the Affirmation quoted at the beginning of this article that rejects “divisive parochial loyalties” based on facile group affiliations isn’t a rejection of identitarianism, I don’t know what is. In his 1968 essay “Humanism and the Freedom of the Individual,” Kurtz stated bluntly:
Any humanism that does not cherish the individual, I am prepared to argue, is neither humanistic nor humanitarian. … Any humanism worthy of the name should be concerned with the preservation of the individual personality with all of its unique idiosyncrasies and peculiarities. We need a society in which the full and free development of every individual is the ruling principle. The existence of individual freedom thus is an essential condition for the social good and a necessary end of humanitarianism.
The individual is the most important unit in humanism. When our individuality is stripped away so we can be fitted into prescribed identity groups instead, something essential to the humanist project is lost. Those pushing for this conception of society are misconstruing humanism, diminishing human potential and self-actualization, and driving a wedge between good people everywhere.
Robyn E. Blumner is the CEO of the Center for Inquiry and the executive director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason &, Science. She was a nationally syndicated columnist and editorial writer for the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) for sixteen years.
FRANCIS SCHAEFFER LGBTQ+ SCHISM
—-
Francis Schaeffer later in this blog post discusses what the unbelievers in Romans 1 were rejecting, but first John MacArthur discusses what the unbelievers in the Democratic Party today are affirming and how these same activities were condemned 2000 years ago in Romans 1.
Christians Cannot And MUST Not Vote Democrat – John MacArthur
–
A Democrat witness testifying before the HouseJudiciary Committee on abortion rights Thursday declared that men can get pregnant and have abortions. This reminds of Romans chapter 1 and also John MacArthur’s commentary on the 2022 Agenda of the Democratic Party:
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…26 For this reason (M)GOD GAVE THEM OVER to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, GOD GAVE THEM OVER to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are…inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Now, all of a sudden, not only is this characteristic of our nation, but we now promote it. One of the parties, the Democratic Party, has now made Romans 1, the sins of Romans 1, their agenda. What God condemns, they affirm.
I know from last week’s message that there was some response from people who said, “Why are you getting political?”
Romans 1 is not politics. This has to do with speaking the Word of God through the culture in which we live….it’s about iniquity and judgment. And why do we say this? Because this must be recognized for what it is–sin, serious sin, damning sin, destructive sin.
Dem witness tells House committee men can get pregnant, have abortions
‘I believe that everyone can identify for themselves,’ Aimee Arrambide tells House Judiciary Committee
A Democrat witness testifying before the HouseJudiciary Committee on abortion rights Thursday declared that men can get pregnant and have abortions.
Aimee Arrambide, the executive director of the abortion rights nonprofit Avow Texas, was asked by Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., to define what “a woman is,” to which she responded, “I believe that everyone can identify for themselves.”
“Do you believe that men can become pregnant and have abortions?” Bishop asked.
“Yes,” Arrambide replied.
The remarks from Arrambide followed a tense exchange between Bishop and Dr. Yashica Robinson, another Democrat witness, after he similarly asked her to define “woman.”
Aimee Arrambide testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on May 11, 2020. (YouTube screenshot) (Screenshot/ House Committee on the Judiciary)
“Dr. Robinson, I noticed in your written testimony you said that you use she/her pronouns. You’re a medical doctor – what is a woman?” Bishop asked Robinson, an OBGYN and board member with Physicians for Reproductive Health.
“I think it’s important that we educate people like you about why we’re doing the things that we do,” Robinson responded. “And so the reason that I use she and her pronouns is because I understand that there are people who become pregnant that may not identify that way. And I think it is discriminatory to speak to people or to call them in such a way as they desire not to be called.”
“Are you going to answer my question? Can you answer the question, what’s a woman?” Bishop asked.
Donna Howard and Aimee Arrambide speaks at Making Virtual Storytelling and Activism Personal during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Austin Convention Center on March 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Hubert Vestil/Getty Images for SXSW)
“I’m a woman, and I will ask you which pronouns do you use?” Robinson replied. “If you tell me that you use she and her pronouns … I’m going to respect you for how you want me to address you.”
“So you gave me an example of a woman, you say that you are a woman, can you tell me otherwise what a woman is?” Bishop asked.
“Yes, I’m telling you, I’m a woman,” Robinson responded.
“Is that as comprehensive a definition as you can give me?” Bishop asked.
“That’s as comprehensive a definition as I will give you today,” Robinson said. “Because I think that it’s important that we focus on what we’re here for, and it’s to talk about access to abortion.”
“So you’re not interested in answering the question that I asked unless it’s part of a message you want to deliver…” Bishop fired back.
Wednesday’s hearing, titled, “Revoking your Rights,” addressed the threat to abortion rights after the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion signaled the high court is poised to soon strike down Roe v. Wade. John MacArthur explains God’s Wrath on unrighteousness from Romans Chapt…
18 For (A)the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who (B)suppress the truth [a]in unrighteousness, 19 because (C)that which is known about God is evident [b]within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For (D)since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, (E)being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not [c]honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became (F)futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 (G)Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and (H)exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and [d]crawling creatures.
24 Therefore (I)God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be (J)dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for [e]a (K)lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, (L)who is blessed [f]forever. Amen.
26 For this reason (M)God gave them over to (N)degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is [g]unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, (O)men with men committing [h]indecent acts and receiving in [i]their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit [j]to acknowledge God any longer, (P)God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are(Q)gossips, 30 slanderers, [k](R)haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, (S)disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, (T)unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of (U)death, they not only do the same, but also (V)give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Now, all of a sudden, not only is this characteristic of our nation, but we now promote it. One of the parties, the Democratic Party, has now made Romans 1, the sins of Romans 1, their agenda. What God condemns, they affirm. What God punishes, they exalt. Shocking, really. The Democratic Party has become the anti-God party, the sin-promoting party. By the way, there are seventy-two million registered Democrats in this country who have identified themselves with that party and maybe they need to rethink that identification.
I know from last week’s message that there was some response from people who said, “Why are you getting political?”
Romans 1 is not politics. The Bible is not politics. This has nothing to do with politics. This has to do with speaking the Word of God through the culture in which we live. It has nothing to do with politics. It’s not about personalities; it’s about iniquity and judgment. And why do we say this? Because this must be recognized for what it is–sin, serious sin, damning sin, destructive sin.
WHAT HAS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY REJECTED? THE ANSWER IS THE GOD WHO HAS REVEALED HIM SELF THROUGH THE BOOK OF NATURE AND THE BOOK OF SCRIPTURE!
God Is There And He Is Not Silent Psalm 19 Intro. 1) Francis Schaeffer lived from 1912-1984. He was one of the Christian intellectual giants of the 20th century. He taught us that you could be a Christian and not abandon the mind. One of the books he wrote was entitled He Is There And He Is Not Silent. In that work he makes a crucial and thought provoking statement, “The infinite- personal God is there, but also he is not silent; that changes the whole world…He is there and is not a silent, nor far-off God.” (Works of F.S., Vol 1, 276). 2) God is there and He is not silent. In fact He has revealed Himself to us in 2 books: the book of nature and the book of Scripture. Francis Bacon, a 15th century scientist who is credited by many with developing the scientific method said it this way: “There are 2 books laid before us to study, to prevent us from falling into error: first the volume to the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the creation, which expresses His power.” 3) Psalm 19 addresses both of God’s books, the book of nature in vs 1-6 and the book of Scripture in vs. 7-14. Described as a wisdom Psalm, its beauty, poetry and splendor led C.S. Lewis to say, “I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world” (Reflections on the Psalms, 63). Trans. God is there and He is not silent. How should we hear and listen to the God who talks? I. Listen To God Speak Through Nature 19:1-6 God has revealed himself to ever rational human on the earth in two ways: 1) nature and 2) conscience. We call this natural or general revelation. In vs. 1-6 David addresses the wonder of nature and creation
Helen Pashgian on Georges de La Tour | Artists on Art
FEATURED ARTIST IS DE LA TOUR
GEORGES DE LA TOUR (1593-1652)
The influence of Caravaggio is evident in De la Tour, whose use of light and shadows is unique among the painters of the Baroque era.
—
Francis Schaeffer
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 7 | The Age of Non-Reason
How Should We Then Live | Season 1 | Episode 8 | The Age of Fragmentation
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 1 | Abortion of the Human…
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 4 | The Basis for Human D…
1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaefer
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […]
At the end of this post is a message by RC Sproul in which he discusses Sagan. Over the years I have confronted many atheists. Here is one story below: I really believe Hebrews 4:12 when it asserts: For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the […]
In today’s news you will read about Kirk Cameron taking on the atheist Stephen Hawking over some recent assertions he made concerning the existence of heaven. Back in December of 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with Carl Sagan about a year before his untimely death. Sarah Anne Hughes in her article,”Kirk Cameron criticizes […]
In this post we are going to see that through the years humanist thought has encouraged artists like Michelangelo to think that the future was extremely bright versus the place today where many artist who hold the humanist and secular worldview are very pessimistic. In contrast to Michelangelo’s DAVID when humanist man thought he […]
_________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his death […]
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on June 22, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
On June 16, President Joe Biden ended a big gun-control speech in Connecticut with the words, “God save the queen, man.” Why did the president express adoration for the departed Brit monarch? Was he confused about royal succession? Who knows.
When asked about the incident, White House aides offered nonsensical and conflicting answers—because they have absolutely no idea, and neither does the president. It’s likely that the octogenarian spontaneously used a cool-sounding phrase, much like when your elderly neighbor tells you to “keep on truckin’” for no apparent reason. It happens.
Yet, Axios writer Alex Thompson points out that Biden “has an arsenal of wacky phrases.” And the president’s “quirky aphorisms,” he contends, “are sometimes weaponized by Republicans to insinuate the 80-year-old president is in mental decline.”
There is no need for insinuation. Biden’s mental acuity, never impressive, has considerably deteriorated. Sure, he also tends to botch “old-timey” sayings like, “lots of luck in your senior year,” which he says is a gibe from his Corn Pop days. But most reporters who pretend perceptions of Biden’s decline are due to his propensity for homespun maxims or previously unknown stuttering problems almost surely wouldn’t find him fit enough to babysit their kids.
Every week, the president of the United States says something completely bonkers, and everyone goes on with their day. We’re not talking about his propensity to lie about politics or his blustery lifelong fabulism. We’re talking about his inability to articulate simple ideas without notes—and often with notes. There are rarely any fact-checks of these statements. How can there be? They don’t even make sense as lies. There is no handwringing about the role of competency in our democracy. There is no discussion about the 25th Amendment.
Just listen to any one of his speeches. “Put a pistol on a brace, it turns into a gun—makes it more—you can have a higher-caliber weapon, higher-caliber bullet coming out of that gun,” the president explained before wishing Her Majesty his best. This was also complete gibberish. There is so much gibberish.
Only a couple of days before his “God save the queen” comment, Biden informed a crowd gathered for a League of Conservation Voters endorsement that “we” have “plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean,” which must have really impressed everyone in attendance. “We have plans to build in Angola one of the largest solar plants in the world,” Biden went on. “I can go on, but I’m not. I’m going off-script. I’m going to get in trouble.”
A few days before the railroad comment, Biden couldn’t remember Winston Churchill’s name when speaking to the prime minister of the U.K. Listen, I’m not great with names myself, and I’m sure as an 80-year-old I’d have trouble recalling world leaders … but I’m confident I wouldn’t think myself competent enough to be the most powerful man in the world. Nor should Biden.
That same week, when asked why a Ukrainian FBIinformant referred to Biden as the “Big Guy,” the president lashed out for being posed “dumb questions.” He does this often in frustration. When the president isn’t flubbing canned lines to the rare tough question, he yells things like, “C’mon, man!” A few years ago, this kind of rhetoric was considered democracy-shattering. Now, it’s quirky and folksy.
The week before he couldn’t remember Churchill’s name, the president also tripped and fell on stage after a commencement speech at the Air Force Academy. Biden’s surrogates pointed out that there had been a sandbag right there, as if no one, whether young or old, could possibly be expected to walk over a small bag without falling to the floor.
You might recall that after the former president gingerly navigated a ramp after giving a speech at West Point in 2020, The New York Times’ headline the next day was: “Trump’s Halting Walk Down Ramp Raises New Health Questions.” The president, the Times went on, “also appeared to have trouble raising a glass of water to his mouth during a speech at West Point a day before he turned 74, the oldest a president has been in his first term.”
The sitting president is now six years older than Trump was at the time—he would be a decade older should he finish a second term.
Of course, everyone ages differently—Sen. John Fetterman, only 53, can barely put together a thought while some septuagenarian is out there writing his literary opus right now. Nor is there anything wrong with or especially unique about being a scatterbrained and tired 80-year-old. In this case, maybe Americans who elected a scatterbrained and tired 80-year-old deserve to be governed by him—good and hard, as H.L. Mencken might say. But please stop pretending Biden is OK. He’s not.
President Joe Biden delivers a Christmas address from the White House on Dec. 22. He never specifically referenced Jesus by name. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
Imagine being a speechwriter for a so-called devout Catholic president and being asked to write a Christmas speech. It sounded like the first instruction was: Don’t say the words “Jesus Christ.”
There’s mention of “the birth of a child—a child Christians believe to be the son of God; miraculously now, here among us on Earth, bringing hope, love and peace and joy to the world.” There are citations of “O Holy Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” but there’s no “Jesus.”
Christmas, according to President Joe Biden, isn’t the arrival of our eternal salvation, but just a message of “hope, love, peace, and joy.” It’s a message that “speaks to all of us, whether we’re Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other faith, or no faith at all.”
Jesus did bring a universal message, but it carried with it a message of conversion. Accept Christ and put faith in Him. It’s more than a Hallmark card sentiment. It can be controversial, and politicians try to manage controversy very carefully. A Democrat whose loyal voters often have “no faith at all” don’t want a Jesus appeal in their political Christmas pudding. Their ACLU antennas are always attentive.
But Biden’s Dec. 22 Christmas message was even stranger when he tried to claim he opposed how “our politics has gotten so angry, so mean, so partisan.” He offered no apologies for uncorking angry partisan lies like the Republicans were somehow “Jim Crow on steroids,” guilty of a “21st-century Jim Crow assault,” and they even made “Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.”
The “fact-checkers” never raised an eyebrow.
Sure, Biden wants to take a brief timeout and say, hey, let’s not see one another as “Team Red” or “Team Blue.” That sounds nice. But within a day or two, the White House was out screaming about Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sending buses loaded with 100 illegal immigrants to unload near the vice president’s residence in Washington, D.C. The White House called it a “shameful stunt,” and the “news” network publicists helpfully repeated it.
It didn’t matter to Biden’s narrative shapers that illegal-immigrant advocates were standing outside the bus to receive them. As advocate Amy Fischer told NPR, “We had volunteers ready to meet the buses and then immediately transfer onto buses that were provided by the city to transport them to a church that had volunteers, community, hot food, clothes waiting for people, toys for the kiddos.”
There were no apologies from Biden for allowing a record 2.7 million illegal border “encounters” in fiscal year 2022—a new record—with the promise of an even greater surge as Democrats push to erase the COVID-19 restrictions of Title 42. It’s a “Team Blue” move to maximize immigration and suggest your opponents hate humanity when they advocate for restrictions.
Similarly, “devout Catholic” Biden never apologizes for trying to override any restrictions on abortion. Just last week, it was reported that Stephanie Carter, an Army veteran and nurse practitioner at a veterans hospital in Texas, is suing the Department of Veterans Affairs for forcing her to handle and distribute abortion pills in violation of her religious beliefs.
The Biden administration is aggressively searching for loopholes to provide “abortion access” in states that now ban abortions. But there are no loopholes for Christians like Carter to opt out of handing out death pills.
The networks didn’t report on Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, who recently tweeted Biden is “an evil president” who “promotes” the “murder of the unborn at every turn.” Somehow, that message wasn’t appropriate for Christmas.
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. “How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is given.”
There is a certain stillness at the center of the Christmas story. A silent night when all the world goes quiet and all the glamour, all the noise, everything that divides us, everything that pits us against one another, everything — everything that seems so important but really isn’t, this all fades away in stillness of the winter’s evening.
And we look to the sky, to a lone star, shining brighter than all the rest, guiding us to the birth of a child — a child Christians believe to be the son of God; miraculously now, here among us on Earth, bringing hope, love and peace and joy to the world.
Yes, it’s a story that’s 2,000 years old, but it’s still very much alive today. Just look into the eyes of a child on Christmas morning, or listen to the laughter of a family together this holiday season after years — after years of being apart. Just feel the hope rising in your chest as you sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” even though you’ve sung the countless times before.
Yes, even after 2,000 years, Christmas still has the power to lift us up, to bring us together, to change lives, to change the world.
The Christmas story is at the heart of the Christmas — Christian faith. But the message of hope, love, peace, and joy, they’re also universal.
It speaks to all of us, whether we’re Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other faith, or no faith at all. It speaks to all of us as human beings who are here on this Earth to care for one another, to look out for one another, to love one another.
The message of Christmas is always important, but it’s especially important through tough times, like the ones we’ve been through the past few years.
The pandemic has taken so much from us. We’ve lost so much time with one another. We’ve lost so many people — people we loved. Over a million lives lost in America alone. That’s a million empty chairs breaking hearts in homes all across the country.
Our politics has gotten so angry, so mean, so partisan. And too often we see each other as enemies, not as neighbors; as Democrats or Republicans, not as fellow Americans. We’ve become too divided.
But as tough as these times have been, if we look a little closer, we see bright spots all across the country: the strength, the determination, the resilience that’s long defined America.
We’re surely making progress. Things are getting better. COVID lon- — no longer controls our lives. Our kids are back in school. People are back to work. In fact, more people are working than ever before.
Americans are building again, innovating again, dreaming again.
So my hope this Christmas season is that we take a few moments of quiet reflection and find that stillness in the heart of Christmas — that’s at the heart of Christmas, and look — really look at each other, not as Democrats or Republicans, not as members of “Team Red” or “Team Blue,” but as who we really are: fellow Americans. Fellow human beings worthy of being treated with dignity and respect.
I sincerely hope this holiway [sic] se- — this holiday season will drain the poison that has infected our politics and set us against one another.
I hope this Christmas season marks a fresh start for our nation, because there is so much that unites us as Americans, so much more that unites us than divides us.
We’re truly blessed to live in this nation. And I truly hope we take the time to look out — look out for one another. Not at one — for one another.
So many people struggle at Christmas. It can be a time of great pain and terrible loneliness. I know, like many of you know.
It was 50 years ago this week that I lost my first wife and my infant daughter in a car accident, and my two sons were badly injured, when they were out shopping for a Christmas tree. I know how hard this time of year can be.
But here’s what I learned long ago: No one — no one can ever know what someone else is going through, what’s really going on in their life, what they’re struggling with, what they’re trying to overcome.
That’s why sometimes the smallest act of kindness can mean so much. A simple smile. A hug. An unexpected phone call. A quiet cup of coffee. Simple acts of kindness that can lift a spirit, provide compo- — comfort, and perhaps maybe even save a life.
So, this Christmas, let’s spread a little kindness.
This Christmas, let’s be that — that helping hand, that strong shoulder, that friendly voice when no one else seems to care for those who are struggling, in trouble, in need. It just might be the best gift you can ever give.
And let’s be sure to remember the brave women and men in uniform who defend and protect our nation. Many of them — many of them are away from their families at this time of year. Let’s keep them in our prayers.
You know, and I believe Christmas is a season of hope. And throughout the life of this country, it’s been during the weeks of December — even in the midst of some of our toughest days — that some of the best chapters of our story have been written.
It was during these weeks back in 1862 that President Lincoln prepared the Emancipation Proclamation, which he issued on New Year’s Day.
At Christmas 1941, in the week — weeks after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt hosted Winston Churchill in this White House. Together, they planned the Allied strategy to defeat fascism and autocracy.
And it was 1968 that the most terrible year — of years — a year of assassination and riot, of war and chaos — that the astronauts of Apollo 8 circled the Moon and spoke to us here on Earth.
From the silence of space, on a silent night on a Christmas Eve, they read the story of Christmas — Creation from the King James Bible. It went: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
That light is still with us, illuminating our way forward as Americans and as citizens of the world. A light that burned in the beginning and at Bethlehem. A light that shines still today in our own time, our own lives.
As we sing “O’ Holy Night” — “His law is love, and His Gospel is peace” — may I wish you and for you, and for our nation, now and always, is that we’ll live in the light — the light of liberty and hope, of love and generosity, of kindness and compassion, of dignity and decency.
So, from the Biden family, we wish you and your family peace, joy, health, and happiness.
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. And all the best in the New Year.
God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you.
Adrian Rogers: The Wisdom of Christmas
The Wisdom of Christmas SERMON REFERENCE: Matthew 2:1-12 LWF SERMON NUMBER: #2326
Find the Christmas story, please, in Matthew chapter 2, and we’re talking today about Christmas wisdom, how you can have some wisdom in your Christmas. Now let’s read this story here, Matthew chapter 2 verse 1 and I’m going to read right through verse 12 here. “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men,” now just underscore that, “wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is He that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east and are come to worship Him.’ When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. They said unto him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, ‘And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule My people Israel.’’ Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, ‘Go and search diligently for the young child and when ye have found Him, bring me word again that I may come and worship Him also.’” Of course, you know what he wanted to do was not to worship Him but to kill Him, as you can tell by reading more Scripture. “And when they had heard the king, they departed and lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy, and when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary His mother and fell down and worshipped Him, and when they had opened their treasures they presented unto Him gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.”
Now there’s a lot that we don’t know about these wise men. For example, we don’t know how many there were. Some say there were three because three types of gifts. Maybe so, but maybe not, the Bible doesn’t say with specificity. We certainly don’t know they rode on camels. They may have. Some scholars say they probably rode Arabian horses. We really don’t know. We really don’t know what country they came from. Most likely however, they came from Babylon. There’re a lot of things that we don’t know about these men. We don’t have to know because if we had to know, the Bible would’ve told us with specificity. But we do know this; that they were wise, because the Bible says they were wise men. The biblical word for that is magi. These were men who were students of Scripture, they were students of prophecy, they were students of the stars in the sky and most likely if they were from Babylon they were students of the prophet Daniel because Daniel spent a great deal of time in Babylon, and Daniel himself was a great, great prophet and very wise. Now there’s something else we don’t know. We don’t know exactly what that star was. Now there’s some astronomers who say, “Well, it was a super nova, or alignment of the planets that caused, at that particular time, excessive brightness in the sky.” That’s impossible that it could’ve been something like that for this reason. It moved and it led them, so you could not have some super nova, some star like that. Others say, “Alright, then, it was a comet.” No, it couldn’t been a comet because a comet just flashes across the sky and it’s gone. And, it couldn’t been a comet that would’ve stayed up there for months as these men traversed that distance of about three hundred miles from Babylon or wherever it was in the east when they first saw the star. What was it? Edersheim, who is a Messianic Jewish scholar, says that the word star has a number of meanings in the Bible, and it comes from a root that literally means brilliance, light. And most likely what this brilliance was, this aura, this thing in the sky, was the Shekinah glory of God! And when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. Because the glory of God has already led people in the Old Testament. For example, what led the children of Israel through the wilderness?
Exodus 13 verse 21, a pillar of fire by night, a pillar of cloud by day. That was what they called the Shekinah glory of God, that effulgence of God that had a physical manifestation of God’s glory, and of course it could move, it did move, it guided them through the wilderness. When Solomon dedicated the temple, what happened? The Shekinah glory of God came into the Holy of Holies. And before the Babylonians invaded Israel, Ezekiel the prophet, in Second Chronicles chapter 7 verses 1 and 2, tells about that Shekinah glory, how it departed from the Temple. He said it came out of the Holy of Holies to the threshold there of the Temple, and then later on it moved from the threshold of the Temple, it moved on to the gate, the Eastern Gate. And Ezekiel saw it. And then he saw that glory as it moved on to the Mount of Olives and went on up and disappeared. What I’m trying to say is that the glory of the Lord could be seen as a brilliance. Ezekiel described it.
As a matter of fact, when those shepherds were in the field, what shone around them? The glory of the Lord! And then they went, and it came over the place where the young child lay. So, I think that what happened is, and it’s a wonderful story, is that the glory of God appeared to these wise men there in the east and that glory of God led them there to that place, that house where the young child was. For example, look in Luke chapter 2 verse 9, just write it down, “And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid.” Now, there’s some things we may not know about all of the details. We know everything we need to know, because if we need to know anymore, the Bible would tell us. But we do know this; that these men were exceedingly wise men. Why? Because they sought out the Lord Jesus Christ to worship Him.
Look up here and let me tell you something, now, my precious friend, listen to me; the wisest thing you could ever do at Christmastime or any other time is to worship Jesus. Now I hope that doesn’t fall flat, I hope you don’t miss that. Friend, that is the bottom of all bottom lines. That is the wisest thing that anybody could ever do, and it’s simply to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there are a lot of people who want the joys of Christmas without the worship of Jesus! Impossible! Impossible! Now you may have a giddy time, but you’re never going to know the joys of Christmas until you learn to worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want you to see that these men were so interested in worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ, that they did this in spite of great difficulty. The Bible says in Matthew 2 verse 1, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to worship Him.” If Babylon, that’s a distance of about three hundred miles. There was the difficulty of distance. Friend, a three hundred mile trip today, if you’re riding in a fine automobile, may tire you out. Can you imagine what a trip would’ve been like in that day? The difficulty of a trip like that!
And there was not only the distance but the discomfort. They were not riding in an air-conditioned automobile; there were no trains, no planes, no motels. This is rugged terrain. They’re coming over that kind of inhospitable terrain to worship the Lord. And very frankly, those of you who are watching on television, this is a rainy day in our city today and I hate to tell you this, but there are some folks who are not here today because it’s raining. One morning Joyce and I, it was about 5:30 in the morning and a thunderclap hit. She said, “Adrian, did you hear that?” I said, “What?” She said, “Ten thousand Baptists just rolled over and went back to sleep.”
I mean, you know, difficulty. Here these guys came to worship the Lord in spite of difficulty. I’m amazed at what will keep some people out of the house of God, and I go turn on my television, I see up there in Green Bay, the Green Bay Packers playing football on television, and there are guys out there without their shirts on, full of embalming fluid in the snow. You don’t know what I’m talking about when I say embalming fluid. I hope you don’t. Well, I hope you do. I hope you know, but I hope you don’t know by experience. Alright
now, I mean, these guys are out there, I mean, bare-chested, rooting for people pulling a football up and down a pasture. And yet people say, “Well, you know, it’s raining; we couldn’t come this morning.” No, here were men, they wanted to worship the Lord in spite of distance, in spite of difficulty, and in spite of danger. There was old Herod the king. He was the one who had all the little boy babies murdered later on, he said, “Tell me where He is that I might come and worship Him.” He didn’t want to worship Him; he wanted to murder Him. He tried to murder the baby Jesus. He’d already murdered a couple of wives; he’d murdered three sons. As a matter of fact, Herod, who was so hated, had arranged that when he died, there were some prominent citizens, he had a list of them, they were all to be put to death the day he died. Do you know why? He wanted there to be some tears the day he died. So he had a list of people. I mean, that’s the kind of a man that Herod was! And these wise men, since that’s his jurisdiction, had to deal with him. In spite of distance, in spite of difficulty, in spite of danger, they sought to worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wonder, does worship mean that much to you, or do you have sort of a take it and leave it attitude. The Bible says in Jeremiah 29 verse 13, “You shall seek for Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart!” God have mercy upon our half-hearted worship, say, “Amen.” I mean, if He’s worth anything, He’s worth everything.
Worship means “worth-ship,” that’s where we get the word worship. “Worth-ship.” What is Jesus worth to you? I believe the biggest cult in America is the cult of the comfortable; we just want to take it easy. Jeremiah 29 verse 13, “And ye shall seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with all of your heart.”
Now, how did these wise men find the Lord Jesus? I want you to listen, because our message today is going to have two points. Number one, how they sought Him, and number two, what they brought Him. Okay? How they sought Him, and number two, what they brought Him.
Now, first of all, I want you to see how these wise men sought the Lord Jesus Christ. How they sought Him. Matthew 2 verse 1 says, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men to Jerusalem.” There were three things that helped them to find the Lord Jesus and, friend, if you’re listening through television or if you’re here today without Christ, let me tell you how you can seek the Lord Jesus Christ.
First of all, there was the ministry of the Spirit, there was the ministry of the Spirit. What put in the hearts of these men to seek the Lord Jesus? The Holy Spirit. In Romans 3:11, the Bible says of our human flesh, “There’s none that seeketh after God, no, not one.” Now there are a lot of people in the realm of church growth today who say “Well, we need to have seeker-sensitive services,” that is, the people are coming seeking God. Friend, the Bible says no man seeks God. None, not one. You say, “Well, I sought Him.” The only reason you sought Him is because He first sought you. Listen, friend, when God got you, you were running from God. The only reason God got you is He can run faster than you can, I mean, “There’s none that seeketh after God, no not one.” “We love Him because He first loved us.” First John 4 verse 19. It is God who put the desire in our heart to seek Him. It was God who put the desire in the heart of these wise men to seek the Lord God.
Worship is a desire planted in the hearts of men by the Holy Spirit. And I want to tell you, today God is seeking you. You say, “How do I know?” Well, in First Peter 3:9, the Bible teaches the Lord, “Is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” And in John 1:9 the Bible says Christ is, “That light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” and I can tell you with authority today that Jesus is seeking you, and I don’t believe it’s incidental or accidental that you’re in this service today or listening by television or tape. God is seeking you! And by the dear Holy Spirit of God, if you will listen, there’s a still small voice in you that is inclining your heart to worship Him. You can stultify and smother that voice if you will, but God is reaching out to you through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit and the bride say,
There’s a second thing that enabled these wise men to seek Him. Not only the ministry of the Spirit, but there was the message of the Scripture. Look in Matthew 2 verses 2 through 6 of this same chapter. And the Bible says, “Saying, where is He that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen His star in the east and are come to worship Him. Then Herod the king, when he heard these things, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him, and when he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.” Now that’s a strange thing. Where’s the Messiah going to be born? He brings the high muckety-mucks in there, the priests and the scribes. “Tell me where He’s going to be born.”
“And they said unto him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea.’” Now how did they know that? “For thus it is written by the prophet, ‘Thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule My people Israel.’” It’s very plain. The Bible prophesied in minute detail things about the Lord Jesus Christ and one of these was His birthplace. These men had the Word of God. They had not only this prophecy from Micah chapter 5 and verse 2 that tells that Jesus Christ would be born in Bethlehem, but if they came from Babylon, they also had the prophecies of the prophet Daniel, who told in Daniel chapter 9 verses 24 through 27 in that remarkable prophecy, the time that Jesus would come as the Messiah. These are wonderful prophecies.
Now I want to tell you something else; if you want to find Jesus this Christmas season, not only is there the ministry of the Spirit, there’s the message of the Scripture. Open the Bible and read. Listen, many of these people missed His first coming because they simply did not read, believe, or obey the Scripture. We don’t have any record, for example, that these scribes and these priests went down there to worship Him. That’s amazing. They knew where He was, they knew about it, but they still didn’t go. We don’t have any record that Herod went. That’s amazing. There was the message, the plain message.
You can hear me preach today and believe it intellectually and miss it altogether, did you know that? Isn’t it amazing that there are unbelieving believers, they never really ever act on what they say they believe? And by the way, as the Scriptures clearly and plainly delineated His first coming, listen to me carefully, the Scriptures clearly and plainly delineate His second coming. And there’s some who missed His first coming, and there’s some who are going to miss His second coming for exactly the same reason! They’re not listening to the ministry of the Spirit and the message of the Scriptures.
But now there was a third thing that led these men, these wise men, and that was the miracle of the star, that we read about in Matthew 2 verse 10. The Shekinah glory of God was leading them step by step. Well, you say, “When God appears to me in Shekinah glory, then I will follow Him.” Friend, God knew what was necessary for those people in that day at that time. Listen carefully to me. When you set your heart to find God, when you want to know Him, whatever it takes,
whatever is necessary, God will get that to you that you might know Him. Now it may not be a miracle of a star; it might be some other kind of a miracle. It might be that God will send some messenger to you. It may be that you will hear the urging of a next-door neighbor. I don’t know what kind of a star God will send to you, but God will reveal His glory to you!
Now, if you don’t want the Lord, God’s not going to lead you, God’s not going to guide you. I don’t even find any record that the star appeared to Herod at all, for example. Why? Herod didn’t want to know the Lord. I’ve often said some people can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman. They don’t want to know! They don’t seek God. You get serious about seeking God, listen to me, you get serious about seeking God, I promise you, on the authority of the Word of God, He’ll reveal Himself to you. Whatever’s necessary! If you want to know Him, you can know Him. So these men were wise, number one, in how they sought Him. They were wise, number two, in what they brought Him. Now what did they bring Him? Well, the Bible says that they brought Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Now, is that just incidental? No, it’s fundamental. Why these three specific gifts?
Why are these things mentioned in the Scripture? I remind you that Second Timothy 3:16 tells us that all Scripture’s given by inspiration of God. There’s nothing there that is not important, properly understood. So, the gold, number one, speaks of His sovereign dominion, His sovereign dominion. Now, look in Matthew 2 verse 2, “Where is He that is born,” what? “King, King of the Jews.” And then look in chapter 2 verse 6, “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not least among the princes of Judah, for out of these shall come a governor,” that means a ruler, “that shall rule My people Israel.” It is obvious, beyond any equivocation, that these wise men knew that that child was a King. If you want to have wisdom this Christmas, you’re going to understand the same thing. “He is Lord, He is Lord, He is risen from the dead, and He is Lord.” You see, when they brought gold, gold was the most precious metal they knew. In that day it was used to signify a king. They made their crowns of gold. The Bible speaks of crowns of gold. Daniel said that Messiah would be a King. He speaks in Daniel 9 verse 25 of Messiah the prince. Isaiah the prophet said in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 7 that He was to be a King. Listen to this, “Of the increase of His government at peace there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall perform this.” That little baby is King.
Now you’ll never, never, never, never know the meaning of Christmas until you crown Him King. Have you done that? The angel said to Mary in Luke 1 verse 33, “And He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” When you deal with Jesus, you’re dealing with sovereignty, and He is worthy of our tribute. When you come to an earthly king, you had an earthly king or even a government, you pay tribute. Jesus said in Matthew 22 verse 21, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God, the things that are God’s.” I’ll guarantee you, when income tax comes around, unless you’re a dirty crook, you’re going to pay your taxes. You render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
I want to ask you a question; have you rendered to Jesus the things that are His? Do you realize that He is King of kings and Lord of lords? Have you taken the crown from your head and put the crown upon His head? Do you say, “Lord Jesus, I surrender my gold to You? I pay tribute to You, I do homage to You, I bow my knee to You.” Have you done that? I say, listen, have you done that? In everybody’s heart there’s a throne. When self is on that throne, Christ is on the cross; when Christ is on that throne, self is on the cross, and everybody’s in one of those two categories today. These men were wise because they recognized His sovereign dominion. “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?”
Alright, but secondly, not only did they bring to Him gold, but they brought to Him frankincense. And frankincense speaks of His sinless Deity. Not only is He King, friend, He is God! He is God. You say, “Well, what does the frankincense have to do with this?” Well, look again in Matthew 2 verse 11, says, “They brought unto Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.”
What is frankincense? Frankincense is one of the ingredients in a sweet perfume that was used in the tabernacle and the temple for one purpose; the worship of God. As a matter of fact, God said in Exodus chapter 30 verse 27 that it’s not to be used for any other purpose. It is sacred, to be used for Almighty God. Now, not only did they worship Him therefore as King, but they worshipped Him as God. As a matter of fact, the Bible says, “They came and worshipped Him.” Look in chapter 2 verse 11, “When they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary His mother and fell down and worshipped Him.”
If that Child is not God, that’s the ultimate in blasphemy. That anybody would worship a two-legged creature who is not God. Why, if He’s not God, He has aided and abetted the greatest crime of the centuries, and that is enticing people to idolatry. The Bible says in Exodus 20 verse 3 that we’re to worship God, we’re to have no other gods before us. In the book of the Revelation chapter 19 and verse 10, an angel appeared to John, so awesome, so glorious. John, when he was stricken in awe with this particular angel, John fell to his face to worship him. The angel said, “Hey, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, get up, don’t worship
me,” The angel said, “Look, if you do it, we’ll both be in trouble. You’ll be in trouble for doing it; I’ll be in trouble for letting you do it. Worship God.” One of Jehovah’s false witnesses comes and knocks on your door. You ask him this question, “Do you worship Jesus?” “Well,” he’ll say, “We venerate Jesus.” “No, no, do you worship Jesus?” “Well, we admire.” “No, no, do you worship Jesus?” You see, he’s between a rock and a hard place. If Jesus is not God, they have no business worshipping Him, and if Jesus was worshipped in the Bible and they don’t, they’re not doing what the Bible teaches. You see, either He’s God or He’s not God. Now my friend, when they came and they worshipped Him, and they brought that frankincense which was a sweet perfume to be used for God only, and they bowed down and worshipped Him, they were saying not only is He one of sovereign dominion, He’s a king, but He’s one also of sinless Deity. He is God. Now folks, if there’s a message that needs to be preached in this day and this age, that’s the message. Sometimes the Muslims say, “Oh, we believe in Jesus.” Oh, they believe in Jesus as a prophet. We believe in Jesus as God. Paul told Timothy in First Timothy 3:16, “Great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh.” You’ll never know Christmas as you ought to know Christmas until you see, friend, His sovereign dominion, till you see His sinless Deity. We sing that Christmas carol, “What Child Is This?” Let Isaiah answer that question, Isaiah 9 verse 6, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” Now thirdly, not only did they bring to Him gold, and not only did they bring to Him frankincense, which was that sweet perfume to be used for God only, but thirdly, they brought to Him myrrh. Now what is myrrh? Look again at Matthew chapter 2 verse 11, “And when they had come into the house and saw the young child with Mary His mother and fell down and worshipped Him, and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.” And myrrh. What is myrrh? Well, when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, one of the things they offered Him to drink was myrrh. It was a bitter herb. Put in your margin Mark 15 verse 23, “And they gave Him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but He received it not.” When they would bury the dead, one of the spices they used, the bitter spices to embalm the dead, was myrrh. That’s a strange thing to give a baby that’s just been born. Something bitter. Something used to embalm the dead. Now whether these wise men knew with precision what they were doing, I have no knowledge, but I know this; that God the Holy Spirit was working in the whole thing. And here you have a prophecy, a prophecy not of, only of His sovereign dominion, not only of His sinless Deity, but of His sacrificial death, His sacrificial death. They gave Him myrrh. This was a baby that was born to die. They anticipated, they recognized His death upon the cross. Now, today you can make much of Christmas and everybody loves Christmas. I mean we get together, we eat, we give presents, the lights are beautiful and a little baby. Who can’t get excited about a little baby? But you know something? In the Bible we find no record that the early church ever celebrated Christmas. I don’t think it’s wrong to celebrate Christmas. But the early church had a memorial, not to remember His birth. They had a memorial, the Lord’s Supper, to remember what? His death, His death. The more carnal a person is, the more they will make of His birth, the less they will make of His death. Oh, they love the cradle; they don’t love the cross. And that same crowd, that same giddy crowd that will be dancing around the cradle on Christmas evening, will be in a drunken stupor on New Year’s singing, “Auld Lang Syne.” Now, they don’t see this baby as a sovereign king. They don’t see Him as sinless deity; they don’t see Him as the sacrificial Savior who’s going to die a death, an ignominious death on the cross. Would you like to worship Jesus with wisdom this Christmas? Thank God that this babe was born to die. Did you know, He was the only one ever chose to die? No man ever has chosen to die. You say, “What about
those men who are suicide bombers?” They don’t choose to die. They’re going to die anyway. All people are going to die. The only thing they did was to choose the time of their death. All people are going to die. I’ve told you before, there’s a new statistic on death. One out of one people die. You’re going to die. Jesus was the only one who chose to die. In John 10:18 He said, “No man taketh My life from Me. I lay it down of Myself!” He didn’t have to die! Because there was no sin in Him. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. He didn’t have to die. He could never have died unless He willingly, voluntarily, vicariously laid down His life upon that cross. “No man taketh My life from Me, I lay it down of Myself.” That baby was born to die. He was born a naked baby, He died a naked man upon a cross. The painters have been kind to Him and at least have put a loincloth on Him. No, my dear Savior, stripped of His clothing, nailed, writhing in pain, naked upon a cross. From the time He was a child, He had the shadow of a cross.
Do you want to be wise this Christmas? Friend, you be wise like these men, in the way they sought Him. You be wise like these men in what they brought Him.
The gold tells me, are you listening? Your wealth belongs to Jesus. Don’t get the idea you’ve done Him a wild favor if you give Him a dime out of a dollar. Friend, the whole dollar is His; He just lets you use it. It’s all His. You don’t believe that, do you? Friend, it is all His! Psalm 50:12, “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” So your wealth belongs to Him. Does that turn you off? In Mark chapter 10 verses 17 through 22, it turned a rich young ruler off one time, and he went away sorrowful. He’s King, He’s sovereign. Your wealth belongs to Him.
I’ll tell you something else. He is God! And your worship belongs to Him. You need to fall on your face before Him, make Him Lord of lords and King of kings.
And I’ll tell you a third thing. He is Savior, and your witness belongs to Him. You need to receive Him and then go tell it on the mountains. Let everybody know that Jesus is the Lord of lords and the King of kings and if we believe what we believe, this Christmas message, and in these pregnant days in which we live, we’re going to tell the world there is a Savior born who is Christ the Lord, is Christ the Lord. That’d be a wise Christmas, wouldn’t it? To seek Him the way these men sought Him. To bring to Him what they brought to Him. To recognize who He is and say, “Lord, my wealth, my worship, my witness is yours, Lord Jesus. With every inch, every ounce, every nerve, every sinew, all of my fiber, as much as in me is, Jesus, You’re Lord.”
Are you afraid to do that? Don’t be. You want to have a real Christmas? You say, “Pastor Rogers, you’re making it tough.” No I’m not. His commandments are not grievous. I’m making it joyful. I’m telling you how to have a real Christmas. I’m telling you how to make the joys of Christmas burst aflame in your heart and in your life. We serve a wonderful Savior, do we not? We really do. I’m so glad to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want you to know Jesus.
I’d like every head bowed and every eye closed, no one stirring, no one looking around. The Bible says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, all things are become new.” How would you like to have a brand new start? How would you like to start the New Year, a new start, with a new heart? To find Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord? I want to lead you in a prayer, and in this prayer you can give your heart to Jesus Christ.
Now, if you are wise, you’ll know that He is seeking you today. Through His Spirit, through the Scriptures, through this message. He wants to save you. Would you pray a prayer like this? “Lord Jesus, I know that You’re King of kings. I take myself off the throne and I enthrone You. I know that You are the mighty God, I stand in awe of You. I worship You. I believe that You died on the cross to pay for my sin with Your blood. Thank You for paying for my sin. And now by faith, by faith I receive You into my life as my Lord and Savior. Come in right now, forgive my sin, cleanse me.” Oh, friend, He will. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they’ll be white as snow.” “Cleanse me, save me, Lord Jesus. Take control of my life and begin now to make me what You want me to be. And give me the courage to make it public, help me not to be ashamed of You. In Your
–
______
December 9, 2016
Hugh Hefner Playboy Mansion 10236 Charing Cross Road Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,
Since October 19, 2015 I have written you nonstop and I wanted to slow down and not write you every week now but move to more of a monthly mode so I can take more time considering the last few messages I should send to you. Since Christmas is coming up later this month I wanted to include something about Christmas in today’s letter. I know you are very familiar with Charlie Brown so I chose to use something from him. When I was growing up in Memphis I was a member of Bellevue Baptist where Adrian Rogers was my pastor. Rogers loved to quote from the Charlie Brown series because he knew that many times there was a Christian theme and below is just such a case:
Charlie Brown: I guess you were right, Linus. I shouldn’t have picked this little tree. Everything I do turns into a disaster. I guess I REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT!!!!!! [shouting in desperation]
Charlie Brown: Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?
Linus Van Pelt: Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Linus Van Pelt: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not:”
[Linus drops his security blanket on purpose]
Linus Van Pelt: “for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.'”
[Luke 2:8-14 KJV]
Linus Van Pelt: [Linus picks up his blanket and walks back towards Charlie Brown] That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
WHAT IS CHRISTMAS ALL ABOUT? It is about the messiah who left heaven to live 33 years on this earth as the GOD-MAN and died for our sins. WANT SOME EVIDENCE? Take a look at this article below from Walter Kaiser, Jr.
In his “Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy,” J. Barton Payne itemized 127 Messianic predictions involving more than 3,000 Bible verses, with a remarkable 574 verses referring directly to a personal Messiah! My book “The Messiah in the Old Testament” examined 65 direct prophecies about the Messiah. These incredible promises formed one of the most central themes of the Old Testament: the coming Messiah.
The word Messiah or Anointed One (or in Greek, Christ), is taken from Psalm 2:2 and Daniel 9:25-26. The term took its meaning from the Jewish practice of anointing their priests and kings. But this term was applied in a special sense to the future Ruler who would be sent from God to sit on the throne of David forever. He is the One that God distinctly identified many years ahead of His arrival on earth, as Acts 3:18 affirms: “But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ [Messiah] would suffer” (NIV).
Likewise, according to 1 Peter 1:11, the Old Testament prophets predicted “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (NIV). The Messiah’s coming was not a secret left in a corner, but the repeated revelation of God to His people in the Old Testament.
Here are some of the definite clues about this coming that God gave in the Old Testament:
The Messiah would be the seed/offspring of a woman and would crush the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15).
He would come from the seed/offspring of Abraham and would bless all the nations on earth (Genesis 12:3).
He would be a “prophet like Moses” to whom God said we must listen (Deuteronomy 18:15).
He would be born in Bethlehem of Judah (Micah 5:2).
He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14).
He would have a throne, a kingdom and a dynasty, or house, starting with King David, that will last forever (2 Samuel 7:16).
He would be called “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father,” “Prince of Peace,” and would possess an everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 9:6-7).
He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, righteous and having salvation, coming with gentleness (Zechariah 9:9-10).
He would be pierced for our transgression and crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5).
He would die among the wicked ones but be buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:9).
He would be resurrected from the grave, for God would not allow His Holy One to suffer decay (Psalm 16:10).
He would come again from the clouds of heaven as the Son of Man (Daniel 7:13-14).
He would be the “Sun of Righteousness” for all who revere Him and look for His coming again (Malachi 4:2).
He is the One whom Israel will one day recognize as the One they pierced, causing bitter grief (Zechariah 12:10).
The prophesies about the Messiah were not a bunch of scattered predictions randomly placed throughout the Old Testament, but they form a unified promise-plan of God, where each promise is interrelated and connected into a grand series comprising one continuous plan of God. Thus, a unity builds as the story of God’s call on Israel, and then on the house of David, progresses in each part of the Old Testament.
However, this eternal plan of God also had multiple fulfillments as it continued to unfold in the life and times of Israel. For example, every successive Davidic king was at once both a fulfillment in that day as well as a promise of what was to come when Christ, the final One in the Davidic line, arrived. Each of these successive fulfillments gave confidence that what was in the distant future would certainly happen, because God was working in the fabric of history as well. And although the promise was made to specific persons, such as Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, it was cosmopolitan in its inclusiveness. What God was doing through Israel and these individuals was to be a source of blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3).
Some insist that the Messiah whom Christians revere is not the same one that Jewish people also look forward to meeting. Some years ago, I had an opportunity to be part of a televised debate with a rabbi who is a Jewish New Testament scholar around the question, “Is Jesus the Messiah?” The rabbi explained the Jewish point of view: “Evangelicals believe the Messiah has two comings: one at Christmas and one at His second coming. We Jews believe He will only come once, at a time of peace on earth just as the prophet Zechariah declared in Zechariah 12-14. Since we still experience wars, Messiah has not yet come.”
I responded, “It says in Zechariah 12:10 that ‘They will look on me.’ Who is the one speaking here?”
He replied: “The Almighty, of course.”
I responded, “It says, ‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced.’ How did He get pierced?” He answered that he did not know. I said, “I have an idea. It was at Calvary.” He did not counter with any further argument.
The Bible is saying that on that future day of His Second Coming, Jews and Gentiles will personally see the One who was pierced for the sins of the world. In other words, that “future day” will not be the first time they have seen Him. So even the Old Testament, it turns out, anticipated two comings of the Messiah: one at His birth and another when He comes as triumphant king at His Second Coming.
What would this world be like without the Messiah? What would Christmas be like without the fulfillment of all those ancient promises and the prospect of Messiah’s coming yet once more as King of kings and Lord of lords? His arrival has made the difference between light and darkness itself. Think what His triumphal appearance once more will mean to this world. Everyone, including all of nature itself (Romans 8:20-21), will let out a burst of praise such as has never been heard: Here comes the King Himself, our Lord and our Savior! Joy to the World!
_______________
Jesus came over 2000 years ago and he was the light of the world. By contrast those who reject him will be thrown into hell and that is a place of eternal darkness. Below is a portion of a sermon by Adrian Rogers and I want you to notice the quote by Dr. Robert G. Lee who the pastor of Bellevue near the year of your birth (1926):
This Place Called Hell
Adrian Rogers
Revelation 21:6-8
I want you to take God’s word and turn with me, please, today to revelation, chapter 21 and we’re going to read verses 7 and 8. Revelation, chapter 21 verses 7 and 8.
Now listen to this scripture, revelation 21, verse seven, ”he that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” what a wonderful promise that is!! But now listen to verse 8, ”but the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
The late, great Dr. Robert G. Lee, who was the pastor of this church, said this, and I wrote it down, he said, ”I know some people call the preacher who stands squarely upon the teaching of Christ and his apostles narrow, harsh, cruel.” then he said, ”as to being narrow, I have no desire to any broader than was Jesus. As to being cruel, is it cruel to tell a man the truth? Is a man to be called cruel who declares the whole counsel of God and points out to men their danger? Is it cruel to arouse sleeping people to the fact that the house is on fire? Is it cruel to jerk a blind man away from the rattlesnake in the coil? Is it cruel to declare to people the deadliness of disease and tell them which medicine to take?” and then dr. Lee said this; he said, ”I had rather be called cruel for being kind, than to be called kind for being cruel.”
Hell is a place of eternal darkness. Now heaven is spoken of as a place of light. Look if you will in revelation, chapter 21 and verse 23. It speaks of this wonderful city called ‘heaven.’ ”and the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God did light it, and the lamb is the lamp of it. And the nations of them who are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.” heaven is a place of fantastic beauty, and fantastic light.
But, my friend, hell is a PLACE OF DARKNESS . Jude, verse 13 calls it the blackness of darkness forever. Listen to it again, the blackness of darkness forever. Listen to what our dear savior said in Matthew, chapter 8 and verse 12, ”but the children of the kingdom,” he’s talking here about the kingdom of Satan, ”shall be cast into outer darkness: and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” outer darkness, darkness, darkness!! If you die without Christ and go to hell, never again will you see a glimmer of light. Never will you see the twink’ of a star. Never will you see the glory of the sun. Never will you see the luster of the moon. The blackness of darkness forever! The bible calls it out of, outer darkness, outer darkness.
When I was in seminary, I had a dear friend, a boy named harold. He’s a preacher of the gospel on the gulf coast of mississippi. Harold was going home for the thanksgiving holidays and he had a tragic automobile accident. When harold awakened in the hospital, the people came to him and said, ”son, you are alive, your body is crushed and broken, but you’re going to live. But your wife is dead, and you’re children are dead. You’re left alone.” I talked to harold about that. The tears came to my eyes as he told me about that night. He said, ”I was in pain.” he said, ”I was in confusion; I was in despair.” and he said, ”the night went on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on. And I thought, ‘oh, my God, will the sun never come up? When will this night end?”’ he thought if he could just see the sun come up, if he could just get out of this horrible night, he could make it. You know, the bible says, ”darkness may endure for a season, but joy cometh in the morning.” an’, my dear friend, if you go to hell, they’ll never be a morning. Never a morning, never a sunrise, never any light, outer darkness. The blackness of darkness, forever.
Evangelist robert sumner tells of a boy, 14 or 15 year-old boy, who was raised in an unGodly family near where he lived. This boy was sick; he knew he was going to die. He had an unGodly father who didn’t believe, didn’t understand the word of God. This boy was afraid of being put in the ground in the grave, afraid of being covered with dirt, afraid of being shut away from the light.
And he made his dad make a solemn promise. He said, ”dad, when I die, I want you to put a window on my grave to let the sunlight in.” and this dad and the boy in their superstition, in their ignorance, not knowing that when we die the soul is separated from the body and the body sleeps in the earth and has no sensation at all, but not understanding that, or somehow in their superstition, built a shaft going down to that coffin with a window on the top, so that the sun could shine on that dead body. But, my dear friend, if you die without Jesus Christ, no man’s art can fashion a window that will let in the slightest ray of light. The bible calls it outer darkness. No longer will you ever see the smiling face of a child, no longer will you ever see the beauties that God has described in this city of light here in revelation, chapter 21.
I want to help you to receive Christ today. Right where you are, you can trust him, you can pray a prayer right where you are and say, ”oh, God, I’m a sinner and I’m lost and I need to be saved. Jesus, you died to save me, and you promised to save me, if I would trust you. I trust you today with all of my heart. Come into my heart, forgive my sin, save me, Lord Jesus.” the bible says, ”believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” father, I pray that many today will say an everlasting ‘yes’ to Jesus Christ, in his name I pray, amen.
PS: While I was researching some material on Christmas to send you today I realized that you will be getting more than one letter this month because there is too much material on Christmas that I think you can relate to, and, in fact, you have made a big deal about Christmas your whole life.
–
—
–
Francis Schaeffer has rightly noted concerning Hugh Hefner that Hefner’s goal with the “playboy mentality is just to smash the puritanical ethnic.” I have made the comparison throughout this series of blog posts between Hefner and King Solomon (the author of the BOOK of ECCLESIASTES). I have noticed that many preachers who have delivered sermons on Ecclesiastes have also mentioned Hefner as a modern day example of King Solomon especially because they both tried to find sexual satisfaction through the volume of women you could slept with in a lifetime.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10 The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms. I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song, and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.”
Mariah Robertson was born in 1975 in Indianapolis, Indiana, grew up in Sacramento, California, and lives and works in New York. A photographer often working without a camera, Robertson creates images through ceaseless darkroom experimentation.
Through this open approach, a roll of metallic film accidentally exposed in her studio led to a series of large-scale works. Without knowing exactly what outcomes her hand-applied color chemicals will cause, she balances this lack of control with her mastery of the material. Her willingness to push the boundaries of photography allows her a freedom not often found within the field.
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Is Love All You Need? Jesus v. Lennon Posted on January 19, 2011 by Jovan Payes 0 On June 25, 1967, the Beatles participated in the first worldwide TV special called “Our World”. During this special, the Beatles introduced “All You Need is Love”; one of their most famous and recognizable songs. In it, John Lennon […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
___________________ Something happened to the Beatles in their journey through the 1960’s and although they started off wanting only to hold their girlfriend’s hand it later evolved into wanting to smash all previous sexual standards. The Beatles: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? _______ Beatle Ringo Starr, and his girlfriend, later his wife, […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
__________ Marvin Minsky __ I was sorry recently to learn of the passing of one of the great scholars of our generation. I have written about Marvin Minsky several times before in this series and today I again look at a letter I wrote to him in the last couple of years. It is my […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Why was Tony Curtis on the cover of SGT PEPPERS? I have no idea but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that probably it was because he was in the smash hit SOME LIKE IT HOT. Above from the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT __ __ Jojo was a man who […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision one year ago marked a momentous triumph and a fresh chapter in the ongoing battle to protect innocent lives. (Photo illustration: Catherine Delahaye/Getty Images)
Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican, represents the 15th Congressional District in Illinois.
Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court failed to honor the right to life, the most basic human right enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, in its Roe v. Wade decision.
Since then, the political Left and the radical abortion industry have attempted to sell young women on the idea that killing babies in their wombs represents a “solution” to a “problem.”
On Saturday, we honor the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s pro-life ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a significant victory upholding the sanctity of life. The decision marked both a momentous triumph and the dawn of a fresh chapter in the ongoing battle to protect innocent lives.
The battle for life continues, so I am proud to introduce two bills in the House of Representatives: the Parental Notification and Intervention Act and the Dignity for Aborted Children Act.
These pieces of legislation would ensure that the gift of life is respected and that parental rights are protected from radical politicians such as Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzer, a Democrat, who wants to erase parental rights and replace parents with an all-powerful state.
The mission of the radical Left is clear: to indoctrinate our children with their extremist ideology. It is extreme to force girls to share spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams with biological males and to push puberty blockers, chemical castration drugs, and sex-change operations on minors.
The Left’s extremism extends to abortion as well, where it seeks to subvert parental rights by eliminating the need for parental consent before a minor can obtain this dangerous procedure. Activists’ recent pro-abortion agenda also includes “do-it-yourself-at-home” chemical abortion, which once again is an attack on parental rights.
Late on Friday night, Dec. 17, 2021, while no one was paying attention, Pritzker signed House Bill 370, repealing requirements for parental consent before minor girls receive an abortion. This radical abortion legislation was deeply unpopular among parents in Illinois, including independent voters.
The Biden administration also is advancing a radical pro-abortion agenda, with the Food and Drug Administration approving the mailing of dangerous abortion pills to young women without requiring a doctor’s visit. The Left wants to strip the rights of parents in every way possible and has put unrestricted abortion on demand at the top of its priority list—even if it puts minors at risk.
My proposed Parental Notification and Intervention Actseeks to defend against this attack on parental rights by preventing abortion providers from performing abortions on minors until the minor’s parents have received written notification that their child has requested an abortion and until they have had a 96-hour window within which to intervene.
Many states already have similar parental involvement laws in place. In Texas, the teen abortion rate has dropped by more than 25% since a parental notification law took effect in 2000.
By passing my legislation, Congress can ensure that parents remain the guardians of their children, not the government, and not the abortionists at Planned Parenthood.
I’m proud to be part of an effort with my fellow Americans, including other members of Congress, to establish and maintain a culture that deeply cherishes the sanctity of life.
By introducing the Dignity for Aborted Children Act, I stand united with the pro-life community in advocating a requirement that abortion providers handle the remains of unborn children with the same level of dignity afforded to any other human being.
We must pursue the goal of a more compassionate society. As a mother of seven and grandmother of 20, I recognize that life is a gift, not a “problem” that needs to be solved.
Our laws must push back on radical attempts, whether by Pritzker or President Joe Biden, to subvert parental rights and disrespect God’s gift of life.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
This morning while I was attending the Association of Christian Lawmakers at the COLLEGE OF THE OZARKS, our group had a big impromptu praise and prayer service when the Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe v Wade was announced this morning!
Pro-life activists celebrate after the announcement of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ever since the Dobbs v. Jackson draft opinion leaked in early May, pro-life activists have gathered peacefully at the U.S. Supreme Court on decision days to eagerly await the ruling. That day finally arrived Friday. The following photos showcase their reactions.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
—
—
November 23, 2020
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision focused further attention on Court appointments with every nomination from that point on triggering a pitched battle between pro-choice and anti-abortion forces.
Let me point out that we prefer to be called the PRO-LIFE movement and I don’t think you want to really say what the choices are in your pro-choice movement because the real question is when does human life begin and your support of partial birth abortion puts you on slippery ground on that question too!
There is a question that I have asked pro-abortionists over and over and they just don’t like answering it. It comes also from the first episode of “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE.” Dr. Koop put forth the question:
My question to the pro-abortionist who would not directly kill a newborn baby the minute it is born is this, “Would you have killed it a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that?” You can see what I am getting at. At what minute does an unborn baby cease to be worthless and become a person entitled to the right to life and legal protection?
_____
“Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.”
Dr. Koop said, “We live in a schizophrenic society” and that makes me think of this cartoon:
I corresponded with the pro-choice Carl Sagan in 1995 about abortion and he sent me an article which included these words:
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government’s business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
Let me quote from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? By Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop:
It hasn’t been too far back in the history of the United States, that black people were sold like cattle in our slave markets. For economic reasons, white society had classified them as “nonhuman.” The U S Supreme Court upheld this lie in its infamous Dred Scott Decision.
Jesse L. Jackson, in 1977, tied the prior treatment of blacks with our present treatment of the preborn:
You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned…. The Constitution called us three-fifths human and the whites further dehumanized us by calling us `n#%+#rs’ It was part of the dehumanizing process…. These advocates taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human…. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified…. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind set with regard to the nature and the worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth. [Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979), p. 209.]
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
Francis Schaeffer when he was a young pastor in St. Louis pictured above.
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
I would also would like to note that the courts were the vehicle to make the change on abortion in 1973 because the elected legislatures would not have so easy to convince. Notice also Judge Alito’s warning to us below after Daniel Whyte III quotes Francis Schaeffer:
Daniel Whyte III
This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than man.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Romans 3:12 which reads: “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from A.W. Tozer. He said: “’Let God be true but every man a liar’ is the language of true faith.”
In this podcast, we are using as our text: “A Christian Manifesto” by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on “The Destruction of Faith and Freedom” (Part 6):
The law, and especially the courts, is the vehicle to force this total humanistic way of thinking upon the entire population. This is what has happened. The abortion law is a perfect example. The Supreme Court abortion ruling invalidated abortion laws in all fifty states, even though it seems clear that in 1973 the majority of Americans were against abortion. It did not matter. The Supreme Court arbitrarily ruled that abortion was legal, and overnight they overthrew the state laws and forced onto American thinking not only that abortion was legal, but that it was ethical. They, as an elite, thus forced their will on the majority, even though their ruling was arbitrarily both legally and medically. Thus law and the courts became the vehicle for forcing a totally secular concept on the population.
…
Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.
He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.
He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.
“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Associate Justice Samuel Alito remarks. Pictured: Alito testifies about the court’s budget during a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in Washington, D.C., March 7, 2019. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, author, broadcaster, and speaker with access to world leaders, U.S. presidents, celebrities, educators, and countless other notables. He has authored several books, including his latest, “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States.” Readers can email him at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
Everywhere one looks there are warning signs, from labels on cigarette packs warning that smoking causes cancer, to ridiculous labels on thermometers that read, “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has delivered some serious warnings that too often are ignored by many who believe the freedoms we enjoy are inviolable.
In an address earlier this month to the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, Alito touched on several subjects, including COVID-19, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, free speech, and “bullying” of the Supreme Court by U.S. senators.
Alito made a case for how each issue contains elements that contribute to a slow erosion of our liberties. On tolerance, preached but not often practiced by the left, Alito said: “…tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply in many law schools, and in the broader academic community. When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy.” This is not a new revelation, but it bears repeating.
While acknowledging the deaths, hospitalizations, and unemployment caused by COVID-19, Alito warned: “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty. Now, notice what I am not saying or even implying, I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health. … I’m not saying anything about the legality of COVID restrictions. Nor am I saying anything about whether any of these restrictions represent good public policy. I’m a judge, not a policymaker. All that I’m saying is this. And I think it is an indisputable statement of fact, we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced, for most of 2020.”
>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.
Where does this lead? Alito answered when he spoke of “…the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat rather than legislation. The vision of early 20th-century progressives and the new dealers of the 1930s was the policymaking would shift from narrow-minded elected legislators, to an elite group of appointed experts, in a word, the policymaking would become more scientific. That dream has been realized to a large extent. Every year administrative agencies acting under broad delegations of ‘authority’ churn out huge volumes of regulations that dwarfs the statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives. And what have we seen in the pandemic sweeping restrictions imposed for the most part, under statutes that confer enormous executive discretion?”
Alito cited a Nevada case that came before the Court: “Under that law, if the governor finds that there is, quote, a natural technological or manmade emergency, or disaster of major proportions, the governor can perform and exercise such functions, powers and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population. To say that this provision confers broad discretion would be an understatement.”
On the erosion of religious liberty, he said: “It pains me to say this, but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored, right.” As evidence he mentioned how we have moved from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress in 1993 to the recent persecution by the Obama administration of The Little Sisters of the Poor for their refusal to include contraceptives in their health insurance. The Catholic nuns prevailed in a 7-2 court ruling, but Alito believes the threat to the free exercise of religion remains all too real.
There is much more in his address that should be read in its entirety. Alito’s warnings ring true, but are we listening?
(C)2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Reflections on Dobbs, part 1: creating and overturning precedents
I was in my final year of high school when the United States Supreme Court handed down its controversial Roe v Wadedecision, declaring a constitutional right to abortion and unifying the abortion licence across the country. To understand the significance of that decision, we need to recall that, unlike Canada which has a single Criminal Code applicable to the entire country, the Constitution of the United States reserves most of the criminal law to the individual states under the 10th Amendment. This is why, for example, the death penalty is still practised in some states and not in others. Prior to 22 January 1973, the legal status of abortion varied amongst the several states, with some being more permissive than others. After that date, the states were obligated to recognize a woman’s right to abortion according to a trimester framework. In the first trimester, a woman’s right to abortion was absolute. In the second, the state might regulate but not prohibit abortion. In the third, after the foetus was assumed to be viable, the state could prohibit abortion except in cases where the mother’s health is at risk.
Roe was decided based on a right to privacy the court claimed to find in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, citing as precedent the Court’s decision in Griswold v Connecticut (1965). There was one problem, however. The due process clause reads:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws (section 1).
Nowhere in this sentence is abortion mentioned, nor is a right to privacy. It is highly unlikely that the framers of this amendment in 1868 envisioned that it would guarantee a right to abortion. Adopted three years after the abolition of slavery, it was intended to ensure that all citizens, including those recently released from bondage, should enjoy equal protection of the laws. To use the due process clause as the Court did in Roemade the decision controversial from the outset.
Writing a few years later, Archibald Cox treated the case in his short book, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government (Oxford University Press, 1976), which I read during my first year of graduate school. In it he commented on the significance of Roefor the role of the Court in the larger political system:
First, the decisions plainly continue the activist, reforming trend of the [Earl] Warren Court. They are ‘reforming’ in the sense that they sweep away established law supported by the moral themes dominant in American life for more than a century in favour of what the Court takes to be the wiser view of a question under active public debate.
Second, the Justices read into the generalities of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment a new ‘fundamental right’ not remotely suggested by the words. Because they found the right to be ‘fundamental’, the Justices felt no duty to defer to the value judgments of the people’s elected representatives, current as well as past. They applied the strict standard of review applicable to repression of political liberties.
Third, three Justices in the seven-man majority were appointed by President Nixon as ‘strict constructionists’: Chief Justice Burger, Justice Blackman who wrote the opinion of the Court, and Justice Powell. Only one Nixon appointee dissented. . . . A court more concerned with the preservation of old substantive values than with articulation of a new spirit will find fewer occasions for rendering activist decisions. Still, the abortion cases strongly suggest that the new Justices are not restrained by a modest conception of the judicial function but will be activists when a statute offends their policy preferences (53-54).
Many legal scholars who had no policy preferences with respect to abortion believed that the Court had wrongly decided Roe, bending the Constitution to achieve a desired outcome, thus bypassing the representative institutions properly at the centre of the policy process. This put the legitimacy of Roe in doubt for two generations amongst a substantial segment of the American public.
Yet there was another issue which the Court simply ignored in its ruling but which Cox raised in his own treatment:
Oddly, but possibly because counsel did not stress the point, the opinion fails even to consider what I would suppose to be the most compelling interest of the State in prohibiting abortion: the interest in maintaining that respect for the paramount sanctity of human life which has always been at the centre of western civilization, not merely by guarding ‘life’ itself, however, defined, but by safeguarding the penumbra, whether at the beginning, through some overwhelming disability of mind or body, or at death [emphasis mine] (53).
By the late 1970s a pro-life movement was gaining momentum, with proponents arguing that the foetus in the womb has a right to life that ought to be protected by the law. Early pro-life activists were largely Roman Catholic, but they were joined by evangelical protestants later in the 1970s, persuaded to come onside by, among other factors, Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop’s film series and accompanying volume, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? The long-range goal of the movement was to overturn Roe v Wade, and the means to this end was to influence the choice of justices by the president. Of course, presidential nominations can backfire for a sitting president, as appointees often decide particular cases in unanticipated ways. A president may think he is nominating a justice who will narrowly interpret the Constitution but who then proceeds to take the Court in a more activist direction.
As a long-range goal, overturning Roe was not without problems, two of which I will mention here.
First, once Roe had been decided, it became a precedent binding on future courts. A central legal principle in those jurisdictions influenced by the English Common Law is stare decisis, or stand on what is decided. This has made the courts in English-speaking countries reluctant to overturn their own previous decisions or to depart from them in a fundamental way. A rare example of such an exception is the Supreme Court’s famous 1954 decision in Brown v the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which overturned the Court’s previous 1896 ruling in Plessy v Ferguson, which had upheld racial segregation of schools. If a court reverses itself too easily, it erodes its own standing in the larger polity as citizens come to regard it as less than fully impartial and too subject to the shifting whims of the justices themselves. This risks bringing the rule of law itself into doubt.
Second, a law that does not enjoy a popular consensus in its favour may not fully satisfy the characteristics of a law. Many jurisdictions have laws on the books that are effectively dead letters, with officials unwilling or unable to enforce them and the general public content to flout them. In this respect, a reversal of Roe in the absence of a supportive popular consensus will not necessarily keep women from obtaining abortions. The protection of the rights of the unborn depends not just on what is in the law books but on the law living in people’s hearts. If a substantial portion of the public is not persuaded that the life of the child in the womb is worth defending, then today’s victory may turn out to be an empty one at best. Pro-lifers should not assume that Roe‘s reversal means they can lay aside their efforts at building a pro-life consensus.
Nor does today’s decision mean that the decades-long battle over abortion is over. There are many organizations heavily invested in protecting and advancing the abortion licence, including Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. It would be foolish to expect them to put their cards away and go home now that they’ve apparently lost the game. While pro-lifers, flush with victory in the courts, may be loath to admit it, the abortion issue will not be settled if they do not recognize the legitimate concerns of their opponents and the fears that are driving them. Likewise, pro-choicers will need to be persuaded that the life of the child is a significant factor to be accounted for in the ongoing conversation.
For both sides, ascribing malice and ill will to their adversaries will only deepen the divisions in the larger society. Now is the time to seek healing and to bring the two sides together to discuss where to go from here. The process will not be an easy one, and I fear that both sides will be tempted to resort to ad hominemattacks and charges of bad faith. But it is worth the attempt.
This morning while I was attending the Association of Christian Lawmakers at the COLLEGE OF THE OZARKS, our group had a big impromptu praise and prayer service when the Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe v Wade was announced this morning!
Pro-life activists celebrate after the announcement of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ever since the Dobbs v. Jackson draft opinion leaked in early May, pro-life activists have gathered peacefully at the U.S. Supreme Court on decision days to eagerly await the ruling. That day finally arrived Friday. The following photos showcase their reactions.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
—
—
November 23, 2020
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision focused further attention on Court appointments with every nomination from that point on triggering a pitched battle between pro-choice and anti-abortion forces.
Let me point out that we prefer to be called the PRO-LIFE movement and I don’t think you want to really say what the choices are in your pro-choice movement because the real question is when does human life begin and your support of partial birth abortion puts you on slippery ground on that question too!
There is a question that I have asked pro-abortionists over and over and they just don’t like answering it. It comes also from the first episode of “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE.” Dr. Koop put forth the question:
My question to the pro-abortionist who would not directly kill a newborn baby the minute it is born is this, “Would you have killed it a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that?” You can see what I am getting at. At what minute does an unborn baby cease to be worthless and become a person entitled to the right to life and legal protection?
_____
“Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.”
Dr. Koop said, “We live in a schizophrenic society” and that makes me think of this cartoon:
I corresponded with the pro-choice Carl Sagan in 1995 about abortion and he sent me an article which included these words:
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government’s business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
Let me quote from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? By Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop:
It hasn’t been too far back in the history of the United States, that black people were sold like cattle in our slave markets. For economic reasons, white society had classified them as “nonhuman.” The U S Supreme Court upheld this lie in its infamous Dred Scott Decision.
Jesse L. Jackson, in 1977, tied the prior treatment of blacks with our present treatment of the preborn:
You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned…. The Constitution called us three-fifths human and the whites further dehumanized us by calling us `n#%+#rs’ It was part of the dehumanizing process…. These advocates taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human…. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified…. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind set with regard to the nature and the worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth. [Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979), p. 209.]
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
Francis Schaeffer when he was a young pastor in St. Louis pictured above.
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
I would also would like to note that the courts were the vehicle to make the change on abortion in 1973 because the elected legislatures would not have so easy to convince. Notice also Judge Alito’s warning to us below after Daniel Whyte III quotes Francis Schaeffer:
Daniel Whyte III
This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than man.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Romans 3:12 which reads: “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from A.W. Tozer. He said: “’Let God be true but every man a liar’ is the language of true faith.”
In this podcast, we are using as our text: “A Christian Manifesto” by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on “The Destruction of Faith and Freedom” (Part 6):
The law, and especially the courts, is the vehicle to force this total humanistic way of thinking upon the entire population. This is what has happened. The abortion law is a perfect example. The Supreme Court abortion ruling invalidated abortion laws in all fifty states, even though it seems clear that in 1973 the majority of Americans were against abortion. It did not matter. The Supreme Court arbitrarily ruled that abortion was legal, and overnight they overthrew the state laws and forced onto American thinking not only that abortion was legal, but that it was ethical. They, as an elite, thus forced their will on the majority, even though their ruling was arbitrarily both legally and medically. Thus law and the courts became the vehicle for forcing a totally secular concept on the population.
…
Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.
He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.
He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.
“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Associate Justice Samuel Alito remarks. Pictured: Alito testifies about the court’s budget during a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in Washington, D.C., March 7, 2019. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, author, broadcaster, and speaker with access to world leaders, U.S. presidents, celebrities, educators, and countless other notables. He has authored several books, including his latest, “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States.” Readers can email him at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
Everywhere one looks there are warning signs, from labels on cigarette packs warning that smoking causes cancer, to ridiculous labels on thermometers that read, “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has delivered some serious warnings that too often are ignored by many who believe the freedoms we enjoy are inviolable.
In an address earlier this month to the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, Alito touched on several subjects, including COVID-19, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, free speech, and “bullying” of the Supreme Court by U.S. senators.
Alito made a case for how each issue contains elements that contribute to a slow erosion of our liberties. On tolerance, preached but not often practiced by the left, Alito said: “…tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply in many law schools, and in the broader academic community. When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy.” This is not a new revelation, but it bears repeating.
While acknowledging the deaths, hospitalizations, and unemployment caused by COVID-19, Alito warned: “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty. Now, notice what I am not saying or even implying, I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health. … I’m not saying anything about the legality of COVID restrictions. Nor am I saying anything about whether any of these restrictions represent good public policy. I’m a judge, not a policymaker. All that I’m saying is this. And I think it is an indisputable statement of fact, we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced, for most of 2020.”
>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.
Where does this lead? Alito answered when he spoke of “…the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat rather than legislation. The vision of early 20th-century progressives and the new dealers of the 1930s was the policymaking would shift from narrow-minded elected legislators, to an elite group of appointed experts, in a word, the policymaking would become more scientific. That dream has been realized to a large extent. Every year administrative agencies acting under broad delegations of ‘authority’ churn out huge volumes of regulations that dwarfs the statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives. And what have we seen in the pandemic sweeping restrictions imposed for the most part, under statutes that confer enormous executive discretion?”
Alito cited a Nevada case that came before the Court: “Under that law, if the governor finds that there is, quote, a natural technological or manmade emergency, or disaster of major proportions, the governor can perform and exercise such functions, powers and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population. To say that this provision confers broad discretion would be an understatement.”
On the erosion of religious liberty, he said: “It pains me to say this, but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored, right.” As evidence he mentioned how we have moved from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress in 1993 to the recent persecution by the Obama administration of The Little Sisters of the Poor for their refusal to include contraceptives in their health insurance. The Catholic nuns prevailed in a 7-2 court ruling, but Alito believes the threat to the free exercise of religion remains all too real.
There is much more in his address that should be read in its entirety. Alito’s warnings ring true, but are we listening?
(C)2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
I have done eight columns comparing Texas and California and five columns comparing Florida and New York.
But maybe it is time to compare Florida and California?
If I do, there’s no comparison, at least based on how people vote with their feet. Even though California has the nation’s best climate and geography, the state’s politicians have made the state economically unattractive and people are leaving.
Indeed, the no-longer-Golden State leads the nation in out-migration.
And it probably will not surprise you to learn that Florida leads the nation in in-migration.
Why are people leaving California and why are people moving to Florida?
Perhaps because Florida ranks as America’s economically freest state while California is #49.
Perhaps because Florida ranks in the top 5 and California ranks in the bottom 5 for tax policy.
Perhaps because Florida ranks very high (#2) and California ranks very low (#48) for overall freedom.
Perhaps because Florida has no state income tax while California has the nation’s highest income tax rate.
Perhaps because Florida ranks #1 for school choice while California languishes in the middle of the pack.
Incidentally, I’m comparing Florida and California because that may be where 2024 (or even 2028) politics is taking us.
The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis is officially running for president and the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, is unofficially running.
And because they see each other as rivals, there’s some sniping about which state has a better track record. The Wall Street Journal has opined on their disagreements.
Why not a public face-off between these two combative, young, upwardly mobile Governors? This could be the substantive argument the country needs, pitting Florida’s red-state model against California’s blue-state approach. Instead of catcalls in the media, they could make a case to the public, with evidence and data, for the country to follow their lead. Mr. DeSantis, as an announced 2024 candidate, has more to lose, but in our eyes his state has the better story, and if the Governor is confident about it, he should take the challenge. A good showing by Mr. Newsom could even nudge him into a primary against Mr. Biden. Florida vs. California is what the electorate deserves in 2024, and if it isn’t an official presidential debate, an extracurricular one beats nothing.
For what it’s worth, I hope the two of them do a public debate. We’d presumably have some honest discussion about whether government should be bigger or smaller.
And both DeSantis and Newsom could come out winners in the sense that the public would favorably compare them to the elderly frontrunners for the Republican and Democratic nominations in 2024.
But I’m not a political pundit, so that’s just a guess.
I’ll close with another look at migration data. Only this time we’ll focus on businesses rather than people. Here’s a chart from a recent Wall Street Journalcolumn.
The good news for Newsom, at least relatively speaking, is that New York did even worse than California.
P.S. California leads Florida in per-capita income, though that’s offset by big differences in the cost of living.
P.P.S. And you can see here and here that California leads in generating political satire.
March 20, 2021
Office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Whitehouse,
I noticed you that signed a 2017 letter strongly supporting the filibuster. Why are you thinking about abandoning that view now?
Does your change of view have anything to do with Biden now being in office?
As progressives push hard for Democrats to eliminate the legislative filibuster after gaining control of the Senate, House and the presidency, many Democratic senators are distancing themselves from a letter they signed in 2017 backing the procedure.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Chris Coons, D-Del., led a letter in 2017 that asked Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to preserve the legislative filibuster. As it’s existed for decades, the filibuster requires 60 votes in order to end debate on a bill and proceed to a final vote.
“We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions” on the filibuster, the letter said.
Besides Collins and Coons, 59 other senators joined on the letter. Of that group, 27 Democratic signatories still hold federal elected office. Twenty-six still hold their Senate seats, and Vice President Harris assumed her new job on Jan. 20, vacating her former California Senate seat.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., speaks as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from legal experts on the final day of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Coons has softened his support for the legislative filibuster in recent years after leading an effort to protect it in 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
But now, the momentum among Senate Democrats is for either full abolition of the filibuster or significantly weakening it. President Biden endorsed the latter idea Tuesday, announcing his support for a “talking filibuster.”
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden told ABC. “You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
Coons, who led the 2017 letter along with Collins, has also distanced himself from his previous stance.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends a ceremonial swearing-in for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as President Pro Tempore of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. Harris has changed her stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a letter in 2017 backing it. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) (AP)
“I’m going to try my hardest, first, to work across the aisle,” he said in September when asked about ending the filibuster. “Then, if, tragically, Republicans don’t change the tune or their behavior at all, I would.”
Fox News reached out to all of the other 26 Democratic signatories of the 2017 letter, and they all either distanced themselves from that position or did not respond to Fox News’ inquiry.
“Less than four years ago, when Donald Trump was President and Mitch McConnell was the Majority Leader, 61 Senators, including more than 25 Democrats, signed their names in opposition to any efforts that would curtail the filibuster,” a GOP aide told Fox News. “Other than the occupant of the White House, and the balance of power in the Senate, what’s changed?”
“I’m interested in getting results for the American people, and I hope we will find common ground to advance key priorities,” Sen. Tim Kaine. D-Va., said in a statement. “If Republicans try to use arcane rules to block us from getting results for the American people, then we’ll have a conversation at that time.”
Added Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va: “I am still hopeful that the Senate can work together in a bipartisan way to address the enormous challenges facing the country. But when it comes to fundamental issues like protecting Americans from draconian efforts attacking their constitutional right to vote, it would be a mistake to take any option off the table.”
“Senator Stabenow understands the urgency of passing important legislation, including voting rights, and thinks it warrants a discussion about the filibuster if Republicans refuse to work across the aisle,” Robyn Bryan, a spokesperson for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said.
FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Sen.Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks to reporters in the studio of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. Casey has reversed his stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter in support of it. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Representatives for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., pointed to recent comments he made on MSNBC.
“Yes, absolutely,” Casey said when asked if he would support a “talking filibuster” or something similar. “Major changes to the filibuster for someone like me would not have been on the agenda even a few years ago. But the Senate does not work like it used to.”
“I hope any Democratic senator who’s not currently in support of changing the rules or altering them substantially, I hope they would change their minds,” Casey added.
Representatives for Sen. Angus King, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, meanwhile, references a Bangor Daily News editorial that said King was completely against the filibuster in 2012 but now believes it’s helpful in stopping bad legislation. It said, however, that King is open to “modifications” similar to a talking filibuster.
The senators who did not respond to questions on their 2017 support of the filibuster were Sens. Joe Manchin. D-W.Va.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii; John Tester, D-Mont.; Tom Carper, D-Del.; Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Jack Reed, D-R-I.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Some of these senators, however, have addressed the filibuster in other recent comments.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Wednesday was asked if she supported changing the filibuster threshold by CNN and said she is still opposed to the idea. “Not at this time,” Feinstein said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Hirono has changed her opinion on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter supporting it. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Sen. Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, meanwhile said last week she is already for getting rid of the current 60-vote threshold and thinks other Democrats will sign on soon.
“If Mitch McConnell continues to be totally an obstructionist, and he wants to use the 60 votes to stymie everything that President Biden wants to do and that we Democrats want to do that will actually help people,” Hirono said, “then I think the recognition will be among the Democrats that we’re gonna need to.”
The most recent talk about either removing or significantly weakening the filibuster was spurred by comments from Manchin that appeared to indicate he would be open to a talking filibuster. He said filibustering a bill should be more “painful” for a minority.
Manchin appeared to walk back any talk of a talking filibuster on Wednesday, however.
“You know where my position is,” he said. “There’s no little bit of this and a little bit — there’s no little bit here. You either protect the Senate, you protect the institution and you protect democracy or you don’t.”
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., both committed to supporting the current form of the filibuster earlier this year. Sinema was not in the Senate in 2017.
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said their comments gave him the reassurance he needed to drop a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put filibuster protections into the Senate’s organizing resolution.
But with Manchin seeming to flake at least in the eyes of some, other Democrats are beginning to push harder for filibuster changes.
—
I read this about you and your Democratic friends several years ago in the Senate:
The Democratic-controlled Senate voted Friday to block a Republican measure that would force Congress to pass a stringent balanced budget amendment and cap spending before increasing the debt ceiling.
The legislation, a conservative priority, never had a chance of passing, but the strictly party-line 51-46 vote to table the “Cut, Cap and Balance” bill highlighted the partisan divide in Washington over how to tackle spending and raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.
REPUBLICANS WANT TO SLOW SPENDING NOW AND I ADMIT THAT WASN’T ALWAYS THE CASE!!!
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
The federal government has a spending problem and Milton Friedman came up with the negative income tax to help poor people get out of the welfare trap. It seems that the government screws up about everything. Then why is President Obama wanting more taxes? _______________ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
I was sad to read that the Speaker John Boehner has been involved in punishing tea party republicans. Actually I have written letters to several of these same tea party heroes telling them that I have emailed Boehner encouraging him to listen to them. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ),Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). have been contacted […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Speaker of the House John Boehner, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Some of the heroes are Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, Tom Mcclintock, Devin Nunes, Scott Tipton, Bill Posey, Steve Southerland and those others below in the following posts. THEY VOTED AGAINST THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN 2011 AND WE NEED THAT TYPE OF LEADERSHIP NOW SINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
I hated to see that Allen West may be on the way out. ABC News reported: Nov 7, 2012 7:20am What Happened to the Tea Party (and the Blue Dogs?) Some of the Republican Party‘s most controversial House members are clinging to narrow leads in races where only a few votes are left to count. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
STATEMENT ON DOBBS ANNIVERSARY BY CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS COMMITTEE ON PRO-LIFE ACTIVITIES
WASHINGTON – June 24, 2023, marks the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and we have much to celebrate. By the grace of God, the nearly fifty-year reign of national abortion on demand has been put to an end. Roe v. Wade – a seemingly insurmountable blight on our nation—is no more! This is a day for continued joy and for gratitude; a day to recall the countless faithful laborers who have dedicated themselves to prayer, action, witness, and service in support of the cause of life; and a day to thank God for His unending faithfulness.
Even as we celebrate, we are reminded that this is not the end, but the beginning of a critical new phase in our efforts to protect human life. Despite this momentous legal victory, sobering and varied challenges lie ahead of us. Over the past year, while some states have acted to protect preborn children, others have tragically moved to enshrine abortion in law – enacting extreme abortion policies that leave children vulnerable to abortion, even until the moment of birth.
In this shifting political landscape, we persist confidently in our efforts to defend life. The work that lies ahead continues to be not just changing laws but also helping to change hearts, with steadfast faith in the power of God to do so. The task before us begins with our knowledge of the truth and our courage to speak it and to live it with compassion.
Each of us is called to radical solidarity with women facing an unexpected or challenging pregnancy. That means doing whatever we can to provide them with the care and support they need to welcome their children. I thank the millions of individual Catholics who are already personally living out this Gospel call through parish and community initiatives like Walking withMoms in Need.
We must likewise extend a compassionate hand to all who are suffering in the aftermath of participation in abortion. The Church continues to share Christ’s healing and infinite mercy with women and men through diocesan Project Rachel Ministries.
As we each consider how we are uniquely called to build a culture of life, I invite you to join a growing community of Catholics who have subscribed to Respect Life Prayer and Action. When you sign up, you will receive prayers, alerts to contact Congress and government leaders on important legislation, and ways to strengthen a culture of life in your community. You can sign up today at respectlife.org/prayer-and-action.
May all people of faith and good will work together to proclaim that human life is a precious gift from God; that each person who receives this gift has responsibilities toward God, self and others; and that society, through its laws and social institutions, must protect and nurture human life at every stage of its existence.
Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge, Bishop of Arlington Chairman, USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities
President Joe Biden addresses the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24 at the White House. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
President Joe Biden spoke Friday in response to the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health, in which the court overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The speech was heavy on outrage, but light on truthfulness. Here are a few of Biden’s worst whoppers.
Claim 1: “Today the Supreme Court of the United States expressly took away a constitutional right from the American people that it had already recognized.”
Biden went on to explain the constitutional right he meant was “women’s right to choose,” which “reinforced a fundamental right of privacy.”
Biden also commented on the history of abortion in America. In the 1800s, it was widely prohibited. “The court laid out state laws criminalizing abortion that go back to the 1800s as their rationale.” But abortion has been legal for the last 50 years. “Fifty years ago, Roe v. Wade was decided and has been the law of the land since then.”
A constitutional right is a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court wrote in Roe v. Wade that “the Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.” However, the court proceeded to infer a “right of personal privacy” from various prior rulings and various constitutional provisions. Without definitely establishing where the right of privacy was found, they declared that it was “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The court did not use the phrase “woman’s right to choose” in Roe; that phrase comes from the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). In Casey, a plurality of the court partly overturned and partly upheld Roe.
Biden correctly identified that what he called a “constitutional right” was not endorsed by the court or the law of the land until long after the Constitution and all relevant amendments were ratified. In fact, the “right to privacy” and a “woman’s right to choose” are only recognized in U.S. law because of two Supreme Court cases, which the Supreme Court in Dobbs overturned.
Whatever authority the Supreme Court had to establish such a right, the court has now used that same authority to strike it down. Biden’s characterization of abortion as a “constitutional right,” as opposed to one arbitrarily created by the Court, is: FALSE.
Claim 2: “This decision … made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world.”
According to Family Research Council, national law in “only six nations” allows “abortion at any point through the entirety of pregnancy.” Those six nations were Canada, China, North Korea, South Korea, the United States, and Vietnam.
Most nations in Europe protect unborn life after 14 weeks. Most nations in South America, Africa, and southern Asia protect unborn life from conception, with varying degrees of exceptions.
By overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court in Dobbs imposed no national rules prohibiting abortion. Rather, they struck down federal protections for abortion, thus giving the states greater latitude to legislate on this issue. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court made the United States less of an outlier from the rest of the world. Therefore, this claim is: FALSE.
Claim 3: “The court has done what it’s never done before, expressly taken away a constitutional right that is so fundamental to so many Americans, that it had already been recognized.”
Biden repeatedly employed the phrase “had already (been) recognized,” as if the recognition of rights inherently worked as a one-way ratchet; once recognized, they never could be unrecognized. This is the textbook progressive understanding of rights, in which justice advances into the future in an ever-expanding cone of rights.
The closest parallel to abortion in American history is slavery and segregation. Abortion, like slavery in America, required legally denying the personhood — and the natural rights that come with that — of a certain group of people, for the benefit of another group of people. Unlike abortion, the right to property in slaves was protected, or at least permitted, by several provisions in the Constitution. The court formerly recognized that right (Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857), but has not recognized it since the 13th Amendment was ratified. But slavery was replaced by racially-motivated segregation, which still denied a group of people full equality. The Supreme Court approved this injustice in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and it stood for half a century until Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Likewise, the injustice of Roe v. Wade endured for half a century before the court ended it.
Biden’s statement was filled with vague qualifiers — “so fundamental,” “so many Americans” — so that it’s possible for his defenders to argue that it was technically true. However, his statement’s purpose is to argue that there is no prior precedent for the Supreme Court striking down a case like Roe v. Wade. That characterization, fortunately, is: FALSE.
Claim 4: “I believe Roe v. Wade was the correct decision … a decision with broad national consensus, that most Americans of faiths and backgrounds found acceptable.”
Biden meant to say, “Americans of most faiths and backgrounds” (most Americans … of backgrounds?). However, he later admitted that the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade has been in motion for a long time. “Make no mistake, this decision is a culmination of a deliberate effort over decades,” he said. In fact, the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade began almost immediately. On January 22, 1974, a year after Roe was decided, 20,000 people participated in the first March for Life, which has mobilized millions of Americans against abortion over the past five decades.
The Supreme Court explained in Dobbs, “At the time of Roe, 30 states still prohibited abortion at all stages. In the years prior to that decision, about a third of the states had liberalized their laws, but Roe abruptly ended that political process.”
Nor does the substance of Roe (less popular than the demagogued talking point) enjoy a broad consensus, even after it has been the law of the land for nearly 50 years. According to a Marist poll released in January, 71% of Americans, including 49% of Democrats, oppose abortion after the first three months of pregnancy.
There has never been a “broad national consensus” in favor of abortion. Therefore, this claim is: FALSE.
Claim 5: “[State laws are] so extreme that women and girls are forced to bear their rapist’s child. … Imagine having a young woman having to carry a child as a consequence of incest with no option.”
Most pro-abortion rhetoric for decades has relied on the fiction that overturning Roe v. Wade would prohibit all abortions anywhere (hence the polling that shows higher support for Roe v. Wade than for the extreme provisions it contained). But this is not true. Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, abortion policy returns to the governments of 50 states, which can each enact the laws they see fit.
Biden himself admitted this. “Many states in this country still recognize a woman’s right to choose,” he said. “So, if a woman lives in a state that restricts abortion, the Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t prevent her from traveling from her home state to the state that allows it. It doesn’t prevent a doctor in that state from treating her.”
Pro-abortion rhetoric also emphasizes cases of rape and incest, the cases where the woman’s plight is likely to attract the most widespread sympathy (but, since the baby didn’t get to choose his or her parents, such an abortion is just as unjust as any other). Such emphasis is misplaced, as cases of rape and incest account for less than 2% of abortions. Additionally, instead of helping abused women, abortion businesses have sometimes covered up for abusers.
Regardless of the emotionally charged questions of rape and incest, the fact remains that Biden contradicted his own claim by explaining how women can obtain an abortion. Anyone who wants to obtain an abortion can travel to a state where it remains legal and obtain one. Therefore, this statement is: FALSE.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
Secondly, Ronald Reagan took the leadership of the pro-life movement in the 1980’s to a new level and then President Trump put us over the top with his 3 Supreme Court picks! The NEVER-TRUMPERS teamed up the Clinton supportersand did not support Trump in 2016, but he got the job done!!!
My pastor growing up in Memphis was the late Adrian Rogers and I benefitted greatly from his ministry and I quoted in my first post this morning (link below):
In 1980, America chose freedom by electing Ronald Reagan. But Reagan likely would not have been elected had it not been for a history-changing prayer meeting called by Billy Graham and a miraculous night in Dallas 40 years ago this weekend: The National Affairs Briefing.
Graham called a prayer meeting with 8 to 10 faith leaders. Among them: Robison, Pat Robertson, Charles Stanley, Adrian Rogers, Jimmy Draper and Bill Bright. Two days of fervent prayer. Bright shared a startling message. He, too, had been in Red Square. And he, too, had been given the exact same message from God that America had 1,000 days of freedom left, unless it changed course. America, according to both Graham and Bright, needed strong, principled leadership that could communicate effectively necessary changes and direction.
Sparked by the prayer, and led by God, Robison received from the Lord the vision for the “National Affairs Briefing.”
National Affairs Briefing
On the second day of the two-day event, August 22, 1980, some 17,000 people gathered at the Dallas Reunion Arena. 17,000 people of faith who understood the importance of protecting freedom’s matchless blessings. Robison had invited all three presidential candidates to appear: President Jimmy Carter, the Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher; Independent John Anderson; and a once-divorced Hollywood actor from California named Ronald Reagan. Only Reagan accepted the invitation.
Photo credit: Life Outreach
Photo credit: Life Outreach, Intl.
Ronald Reagan joined the 17,000 in standing to their feet as Robison finished. Then he spoke, offering a now-historic opening line suggested to him by Robison.
“I know this is a non-partisan gathering, and so I know you cannot endorse me. But I only brought that up because I want you to know, I endorse you, and what you are doing.” That opening line was front-page headlines nationwide the next day. The pendulum swung toward Reagan almost immediately.
Come November, Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter in large part because evangelical voters had been ignited by the National Affairs Briefing. They turned away from the Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher for the candidate willing to fight for our freedoms. Willing to stand up to the Soviet threat. The candidate who understood, as Robison said that momentous night, that “government is not our provider. It is a protector, not a producer.” Reagan’s victory ensured freedom in the United States of America would last far beyond 1,000 days.
Reagan Speech at the National Affairs Briefing, Dallas, TX, August 21, 1980
(at the 13:01 mark you can see Adrian Rogers clapping behind Reagan)
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 1 | Abortion of the Human…
Supreme Court: The landmark abortion-rights case was “egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.”
DANIEL SILLIMAN
JUNE 24, 2022 09:00 AM
Roe v. Wade—the Supreme Court decision that mobilized generations of pro-life activists and shaped evangelicals’ political engagement for half a century—has been overturned.
Millions have marched, protested, lobbied, and prayed for the end of the landmark abortion rights ruling. After 49 years, and more than 63 million abortions, the time has come.
Christian leaders called the ruling “once unthinkable” and marked today as “the day we have all been waiting for” and “one of the most important days in American history.”
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overturned,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito for the majority. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decisionwas 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John Roberts concurring with the majority. The opinion of the court closely resembled an Alito draft leaked last month.
The decision is the result of a trio of conservative justices appointed during Donald Trump’s presidency: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Evangelicals have been the religious group most opposed to abortion and most eager to see Roe overturned. While abortion was never evangelicals’ only issue, in the voting booth it often outweighed all other concerns. Some supported Trump despite moral misgivings in hopes he would deliver on his promise to appoint justices that would finally overturn Roe and the subsequent Supreme Court decision that affirmed abortion rights, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
The political calculation appears to have paid off. The three new justices joined Alito and Clarence Thomas in a bold decision saying the Court got it wrong.
“This day belongs to the many people who have labored long and hard to make it happen—and to President Trump, who deserves our thanks for keeping a promise I did not think he would keep,” said Matthew Lee Anderson, a Christian ethicist and Baylor University religion professor.
Ed Whelan, an EPPC senior fellow, referred to the ruling as the “crowning achievement of the conservative legal movement.”
The majority opinion reflected the arguments of evangelical and Catholic pro-life groups who filed friend-of-the-court briefs. Strategically, many focused less on arguments for fetuses’ humanity and right to life, and more on the problems with the legal reasoning behind Roe.
“Roe was wrongly decided and poorly reasoned,” wrote the attorneys for Americans United for Life. “Numerous adjudicative errors during the original deliberations—especially the absence of any evidentiary record—have contributed to making Roe unworkable. … There is a constant search for a constitutional rationale for Roe, and the Court has yet to give a reasoned justification for the viability rule.”
The attorneys for the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) made the same point: “As a matter of the Constitution’s text and history, it is no secret that Roe is not just wrong but grievously so. Roe was roundly criticized as wrong the day it was decided, it has been robustly opposed both within and outside the Court ever since, and no sitting Justice has defended the merits of its actual reasoning.”
The Dobbs case considered the constitutionality of a 2015 Mississippi law barring abortions after 15 weeks, a more restrictive ban than allowed under Roe. The state’s only abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health, sued officials with the state health department including Thomas Dobbs. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) served on the state’s legal defense team.
“Mississippi asked the court to overturn Roe because that case was egregiously wrong and had no basis in constitutional text, structure, or history. Additionally, Roe’s changing standards have long been unworkable, which is why so many pro-life laws ended up in court,” said Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for ADF. “It also failed to account for changing science, which demonstrates that life begins at conception.”
How Roe was decided
The Court’s decision in 1973 was based on the argument that fetal life does not have constitutional protection. Lawyers in the case pointed out that traditionally, rights are understood to begin at birth. The 14th Amendment, for example, extended citizenshipto all those “born … in the United States,” not those conceived within the nation’s borders. A fetus, similarly, is not allowed to own property.
The judges said, however, that the state did have a compelling interest in protecting fetal life. But that compelling interest had to be balanced with a woman’s right to privacy.
“Privacy” is never mentioned in the Constitution, but the Ninth Amendment says that rights not mentioned in the Constitution are not to be denied by default. And the 14th Amendment guarantees legal due process, which the Court said indicated a right to privacy, including the right to make decisions about abortion without state interference—at least up to a certain point.
The justices debated that point. After some internal back and forth, they settled on fetal viability.
The author of the landmark decision, Justice Harry Blackmun, viewed Roe v. Wade as a careful compromise.
“The Court does not today hold that the Constitution compels abortion on demand,” he wrote. “It does not today pronounce that a pregnant woman has an absolute right to an abortion. It does, for the first trimester of pregnancy, cast the abortion decision and the responsibility for it upon the attending physician.”
As historian Daniel K. Williams has noted, however, Blackmun was wrong. Roe accepted none of the arguments of the pro-life movement and delivered a decisive win to abortion rights advocates. The decision forced 46 state legislatures to rewrite their abortion laws, bringing them into line with what had been, until then, the most liberal abortion laws in the nation.
Most evangelical Christians at the time saw it as an appalling decision, disregarding the unalienable right of life.“This decision runs counter not merely to the moral teachings of Christianity through the ages but also to the moral sense of the American people,” CT arguedin 1973.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Presbyterian Church in America, and other denominations all passed pro-life resolutions in the decade after Roe.
In their influential book Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, evangelist Francis Schaeffer and pediatric surgeon C. Everett Koop calledabortion the “first and crucial issue,” the “keystone” to protecting the dignity of human life.
“We implore those of you who are Christian to exert all your influence to fight against the increasing loss of humanness—through legislation, social action, and other means at your disposal,” they wrote in 1979. “If we do not take a stand here and now, we certainly cannot lay any claim to being the salt of the earth in our generation.”
The movement almost achieved victory in 1992. Five abortion clinics and one independent doctor sued Pennsylvania for its restrictions on abortion, including a mandatory waiting period and notification of a spouse or parent. At the time, eight of the nine justices had been appointed by Republicans, though at least three of them were known to support abortion rights.
On the eve of the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist drafted a 5-to-4 majority opinion overturning Roe.
Then at the last minute, Justice Anthony Kennedy switched sides. He joined Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter to craft a compromise that would allow states to regulate abortion to some extent—but also uphold the validity of Roe. They got the two more liberal justices, Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, to sign on.
Though it may have been conceived as a “compromise,” the 5-to-4 decision in Casey was in fact a reaffirmation of the core claim of Roe—while almost entirely abandoning the legal reasoning. The court decided that it was crucial to recognize the precedent set by Roe, adhering the legal doctrine of stare decisis.
Questioning the authority of precedent
Each of the three newest justices raised questions about this standard in the oral arguments in Dobbs in December.
“In thinking about stare decisis, which is obviously the core of this case, how should we be thinking about it?” Barrett asked.
The Catholic justice acknowledged the benefits of a system that builds on precedents but argued that “part of our stare decisis doctrine [is] that it’s not an inexorable command and that there are some circumstances in which overruling is possible.” She rattled off multiple examples, including one civil rights case and one LGBT rights case.
Roberts seemed to search for a way to modify the previous rulings and perhaps set a different standard for how much abortion could be regulated without actually rejecting a constitutional right to abortion. The attorneys on both sides, however, indicated they thought the case was all or nothing.
“I read your briefs,” Alito said to the attorney defending Roe and Casey. “Your briefs [say] that the only real options we have are to reaffirm Roeand Casey as they stand or to overrule them in their entirety. You say that ‘there are no half-measures here.’ Is that a correct understanding of your brief?”
She agreed it was. And Alito, soon after the hearing, started drafting a bold decision overturning Roe and Casey completely.
“Overruling a precedent is a serious matter. It is not a step that should be taken lightly,” he wrote. “In this case, five factors weigh strongly in favor of overruling Roe and Casey: the nature of their error, the quality of their reasoning, the ‘workability’ of the rules they imposed on the country, their disruptive effect on other areas of the law, and the absence of concrete reliance.”
The decision does not criminalize abortion, but sends the question of regulation back to the states, where voters and legislatures will decide when a woman can and can’t choose to terminate a pregnancy. Some states have passed “trigger laws” putting restrictions into effect immediately.
“For too long, the Roe and Casey decisions have allowed our nation to turn a blind eye to the plight of those who have no voice—to view these lives as a burden instead of a blessing. While this ruling is a significant step toward establishing a true culture of life, the issue of abortion will now be sent back to the states,” said Chelsea Sobolik, director of public policy for the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
“We must continue to use our time, talent and treasure to protect the preborn, care for their mothers, and advocate for state laws that protect them both.”
As the decision released Friday morning, evangelical leaders referred to it as one of the most significant days in the country’s history.
“I’m thankful to God for this historic day…a day to celebrate life,” said Doug Clay, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God. “Not to gloat, but to rejoice and give thanks to the Lord of life. To continue our efforts in creating a culture of life in the communities we serve.”
Focus on the Family said, “After 50 years of fighting for the unborn, our prayers have been answered.” The Christian Medical and Dental Associations called it a “much-needed victory for life and for healthcare.” And the head of the ERLC declared, “a new chapter in the pro-life movement begins.”
Experts indicate the ruling will immediately result in a 10 to 15 percent reduction in the number of abortions. Long term, the impact is less clear.
“We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision,” Alito wrote. “We can only do our job …. We therefore hold the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.”
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 2 | Slaughter of the Inno…
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 3 | Death by Someone’s Ch…
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 4 | The Basis for Human D…
Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History (20…
Bill Maher said RBG should have taken Obama’s hint to retire in 2013, and the Democrats paid the price for that misstep. I think that is absurd, and that the Republicans had missteps when Nixon and Ford appointed liberals like Powell and Blackburn and now they are getting it right with ACB! Sadly Biden will win and change the trend!
The “Real Time” host said there was a reason Obama invited RGB to The White House, because he says Obama didn’t just invite people over to shoot the breeze … he invited her, he said, to nudge her into retirement, but she didn’t take the bait.
Bill skewered the Dems for not pressing more, and when Jimmy said her death came as a shock, Maher scoffed and said she had a long history of cancer and she was very old, so it should not have been shocking that she finally passed. It turned into a bonanza for Trump, who secured Amy Coney Barrett‘s elevation to the High Court … the Justice Maher calls it “Nutso.”
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee in D.C. on Oct. 12. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Opinion by Marc A. ThiessenColumnistOctober 27, 2020 at 1:33 PM EDT
With the Senate’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, President Trump has cemented his legacy as the most important president in the modern era when it comes to shaping the judiciary. Whatever happens on Election Day, that legacy will remain — and it validates the votes of every conservative who, despite other misgivings, decided to support him.Follow the latest on Election 2020
The last president to appoint three justices in his first term was Richard M. Nixon, but his picks included Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade who became one of the most liberal justices on the court. Trump’s picks, by contrast, have been outstanding. With his appointment of Neil M. Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia, Trump saved the court’s conservative majority. With his appointment of Brett M. Kavanaugh to replace Anthony M. Kennedy — a swing vote — he inched the court to the right. And now by appointing Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court’s liberal icon, Trump has secured a decisive 6-to-3 conservative majority. This will affect the court’s jurisprudence for a generation, with far-reaching consequences for life, religious liberty, free speech, Second Amendment rights, the separation of powers and limited government.
Imagine how different the court would look today if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election. She probably would have nominated a judicial activist to replace Scalia, creating a 5-to-4 liberal majority. She would have replaced Ginsburg with another liberal, securing that seat for decades. She might have had a third pick if Justice Stephen G. Breyer made the same decision as Kennedy and retired when a president he trusted was in office. The damage done by the activist liberal court Clinton ushered in would have been breathtaking.
Simply stopping this is an accomplishment. But Trump has made better judicial choices than any modern Republican president. Of Ronald Reagan’s three appointees (Sandra Day O’Connor, Scalia and Kennedy), only Scalia was a consistent conservative. George H.W. Bush appointed one solid conservative (Clarence Thomas) and one solid liberal (David H. Souter). George W. Bush picked one reliable conservative (Samuel A. Alito Jr.) and one wavering justice (John G. Roberts Jr.). By contrast, the four liberal justices appointed over the past quarter century — Ginsburg, Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — almost never defect on close 5-to-4 cases. So, Democrats have a perfect record on recent Supreme Court appointments, while Republicans were not even batting .500 — until Trump came along.
Perhaps Trump’s greatest accomplishment will be neutralizing the influence of Roberts. After promising to be an impartial umpire, Roberts has taken the field and legislated from the bench in a string of cases — voting with the court’s liberals to rewrite Obamacare, preservethe Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, block a citizenship question on the census, strike down state laws that required admitting privileges for doctors who perform abortions and allow the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rewrite the state’s election laws. And those are just his defections on cases the court took up. According to CNN, “Roberts also sent enough signals during internal deliberations on firearms restrictions, sources said, to convince fellow conservatives he would not provide a critical fifth vote anytime soon to overturn gun control regulations. As a result, the justices in June denied several petitions regarding Second Amendment rights.”
Thanks to Trump, Roberts is no longer the swing vote. If Barrett agrees with the legal reasoning of her conservative colleagues, they have the five votes they need without him.
Trump’s appointment of Barrett also complicates Democrats’ plans to reverse this progress via court-packing if they win back the White House and the Senate next week. Before her appointment, Democrats would have had to expand the court by two justices to flip the 5-to-4 conservative majority into a 6-to-5 liberal majority. But now with Barrett on the court, they would have to add four justices in order to achieve a 7-to-6 liberal majority. Given that Americans support Barrett’s confirmation 51 to 28 percent, oppose court-packing 58 to 31 percent and approve of the high court’s performance 53 to 47 percent, for Democrats to add any new seats — much less the four needed to flip the court — would be widely seen as a raw power grab.
That doesn’t mean they won’t try. Voters have a chance to stop them by preserving a Republican majority in the Senate. If history is our guide, Trump may have more Supreme Court appointments in a second term — and with them the opportunity to further preserve or even expand the court’s conservative majority. As for the 26 percent of Trump voters who backed him because of the Supreme Court, their decision has produced a court that will protect our freedoms for decades to come. Any other flaws in the Trump presidency pale by comparison.
—-
_
How Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Greenberg, one of the most respected and honored commentators in America, changed his mind about abortion and endorses now the pro-life view. Paul is the editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. This article below is from April 11, 2011.
The good doctor could have stepped out of a Louis Auchincloss short story. A fashionable but conscientious professional on the Upper West Side, his ideas, like his Brooks Brothers suits, were tailored to fit in. His ideals were those of the enlightened, modern urban America of his time, which was the mid- to late 20th century. And he was always doing what he could to further them.
The doctor’s political, medical and social convictions were much what one would have expected of a New York liberal, as clear as his curriculum vitae. The son of a secular Jewish ob/gyn, he would follow his prominent father’s footsteps, graduate from McGill Medical College in Montreal, and start his practice in Manhattan. He was a quick study, whether absorbing the latest medical knowledge or political trend. Especially when it came to abortion.
Having no convictions about the sacredness of human life, he was defenseless against its growing and increasingly legal appeal. Indeed, he was soon a leader in Pro-Choice ranks.
By his own count, Bernard Nathanson, M.D., was responsible for some 75,000 abortions — without a twinge of conscience intervening. Not back then. Not when he picketed a New York City hospital in his campaign for the legalization of abortion in New York state. Preaching what he practiced, Dr. Nathanson became a tireless spokesman for NARAL, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws.
As director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health in Manhattan, where he routinely performed abortions and taught others to do the same, Dr. Nathanson knew of what he spoke. And never grew tired of rationalizing it. He wasn’t destroying human life but just “an undifferentiated mass of cells.” He was performing a social service, really. He was on a humanitarian mission.
Then something happened. The something was quite specific — the newest EKG and ultrasound imagery. Always a follower of the latest scientific evidence, he couldn’t deny what he was seeing. Political theory is one thing, but facts are facts.
By 1974, soon after Roe v. Wade had opened the way to his dream of abortion-on-demand, his eyes were opened. Literally. As he put it, “There is no longer any serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy.” He changed his beliefs and his ways — and sides.
I can identify. When Roe v. Wade was first pronounced, I welcomed it. As a young editorial writer in Pine Bluff, Ark., I believed the court’s assurances that its ruling was not blanket permission for abortion, but a carefully crafted, limited decision applicable only in some exceptional cases. Which was all a lot of hooey, but I swallowed it, and regurgitated it in editorials.
The right to life need not be fully respected from conception on, I explained, but grew with each stage of fetal development until a full human being was formed. I went into all this in an extended debate in the columns of the Pine Bluff Commercial with a young Baptist minister in town named Mike Huckabee.
Yes, I’d been taught by Mary Warters in her biology and genetics courses at Centenary that human life was one unbroken cycle from life to death, and the code to its development was present from its microscopic origins. But I wanted to believe human rights developed differently, especially the right to life. My reasons were compassionate. Who would not want to spare mothers carrying the deformed? Why not just allow physicians to eliminate the deformity? I hadn’t yet come across Flannery O’Connor’s warning that tenderness leads to the gas chambers.
Then something happened. I noticed that the number of abortions in the country had begun to mount year by year — into the millions. Perfectly healthy babies were being aborted for socio-economic reasons. Among ethnic groups, the highest proportions of abortions were being performed on black women. (Last I checked, 37 percent of American abortions were being done on African-American women, though they make up less than 13 percent of the U.S. population.)
Eugenics was showing its true face again. And it wasn’t pretty.
Abortion was even being touted as a preventative for poverty. All you had to do, after all, was eliminate the poor. They were, in the phrase of the advanced, Darwinian thinkers of the last century, surplus population.
With a little verbal manipulation, any crime can be rationalized, even promoted. Verbicide precedes homicide. The trick is to speak of fetuses, not unborn children. So long as the victims are a faceless abstraction, anything can be done to them. Just don’t look too closely at those sonograms. We are indeed strangely and wondrously made.
By now the toll has reached some 50 million aborted babies in America since 1973. That is not an abstract theory. It is fact, and facts are stubborn things. Some carry their own imperatives with them. And so, like Dr. Nathanson, I changed my mind, and changed sides.
There is something about simple human dignity, whether the issue is civil rights in the 1960s or abortion and euthanasia today, that in the end will not be denied. And it keeps asking: Whose side are you on? Life or death?
Long before he died the other day at 84, Bernard Nathanson had chosen life. He became as ardent an advocate for life as he had once been for death. He wrote books and produced a film, “The Silent Scream,” laying out the case for the unborn, and for humanity. He would join the Catholic Church in 1996 and continue to practice medicine as chief of obstetrical services at Saint Luke’s-Roosevelt hospital in Manhattan.
“I have such heavy moral baggage to drag into the next world,” he told the Washington Times in 1996. But he also had sought to redeem himself. He could not have been expected to do other than he did in his younger years, given his appetite for fashionable ideas. He was, after all, only human. Which is no small or simple thing.
_________
223 × 373Images may be subject to copyright. Learn More
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I mentioned earlier that I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan. In his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
We believe that many supporters of reproductive freedom are troubled at least occasionally by this question. But they are reluctant to raise it because it is the beginning of a slippery slope. If it is impermissible to abort a pregnancy in the ninth month, what about the eighth, seventh, sixth … ? Once we acknowledge that the state can interfere at any time in the pregnancy, doesn’t it follow that the state can interfere at all times?
Abortion and the slippery slope argument above
This conjures up the specter of predominantly male, predominantly affluent legislators telling poor women they must bear and raise alone children they cannot afford to bring up; forcing teenagers to bear children they are not emotionally prepared to deal with; saying to women who wish for a career that they must give up their dreams, stay home, and bring up babies; and, worst of all, condemning victims of rape and incest to carry and nurture the offspring of their assailants. Legislative prohibitions on abortion arouse the suspicion that their real intent is to control the independence and sexuality of women…
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government’s business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
If we do not oppose abortion at some stage of pregnancy, is there not a danger of dismissing an entire category of human beings as unworthy of our protection and respect? And isn’t that dismissal the hallmark of sexism, racism, nationalism, and religious fanaticism? Shouldn’t those dedicated to fighting such injustices be scrupulously careful not to embrace another?
Adrian Rogers’ sermon on animal rights refutes Sagan here
There is no right to life in any society on Earth today, nor has there been at any former time… : We raise farm animals for slaughter; destroy forests; pollute rivers and lakes until no fish can live there; kill deer and elk for sport, leopards for the pelts, and whales for fertilizer; entrap dolphins, gasping and writhing, in great tuna nets; club seal pups to death; and render a species extinct every day. All these beasts and vegetables are as alive as we. What is (allegedly) protected is not life, but human life.
Genesis 3 defines being human
And even with that protection, casual murder is an urban commonplace, and we wage “conventional” wars with tolls so terrible that we are, most of us, afraid to consider them very deeply… That protection, that right to life, eludes the 40,000 children under five who die on our planet each day from preventable starvation, dehydration, disease, and neglect.
Those who assert a “right to life” are for (at most) not just any kind of life, but for–particularly and uniquely—human life. So they too, like pro-choicers, must decide what distinguishes a human being from other animals and when, during gestation, the uniquely human qualities–whatever they are–emerge.
The Bible talks about the differences between humans and animals
Despite many claims to the contrary, life does not begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain that stretches back nearly to the origin of the Earth, 4.6 billion years ago. Nor does human life begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain dating back to the origin of our species, hundreds of thousands of years ago. Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive. They are not human beings, of course. However, it could be argued that neither is a fertilized egg.
In some animals, an egg develops into a healthy adult without benefit of a sperm cell. But not, so far as we know, among humans. A sperm and an unfertilized egg jointly comprise the full genetic blueprint for a human being. Under certain circumstances, after fertilization, they can develop into a baby. But most fertilized eggs are spontaneously miscarried. Development into a baby is by no means guaranteed. Neither a sperm and egg separately, nor a fertilized egg, is more than a potential baby or a potential adult. So if a sperm and egg are as human as the fertilized egg produced by their union, and if it is murder to destroy a fertilized egg–despite the fact that it’s only potentially a baby–why isn’t it murder to destroy a sperm or an egg?
Hundreds of millions of sperm cells (top speed with tails lashing: five inches per hour) are produced in an average human ejaculation. A healthy young man can produce in a week or two enough spermatozoa to double the human population of the Earth. So is masturbation mass murder? How about nocturnal emissions or just plain sex? When the unfertilized egg is expelled each month, has someone died? Should we mourn all those spontaneous miscarriages? Many lower animals can be grown in a laboratory from a single body cell. Human cells can be cloned… In light of such cloning technology, would we be committing mass murder by destroying any potentially clonable cells? By shedding a drop of blood?
All human sperm and eggs are genetic halves of “potential” human beings. Should heroic efforts be made to save and preserve all of them, everywhere, because of this “potential”? Is failure to do so immoral or criminal? Of course, there’s a difference between taking a life and failing to save it. And there’s a big difference between the probability of survival of a sperm cell and that of a fertilized egg. But the absurdity of a corps of high-minded semen-preservers moves us to wonder whether a fertilized egg’s mere “potential” to become a baby really does make destroying it murder.
Opponents of abortion worry that, once abortion is permissible immediately after conception, no argument will restrict it at any later time in the pregnancy. Then, they fear, one day it will be permissible to murder a fetus that is unambiguously a human being. Both pro-choicers and pro-lifers (at least some of them) are pushed toward absolutist positions by parallel fears of the slippery slope.
Another slippery slope is reached by those pro-lifers who are willing to make an exception in the agonizing case of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. But why should the right to live depend on the circumstances of conception? If the same child were to result, can the state ordain life for the offspring of a lawful union but death for one conceived by force or coercion? How can this be just? And if exceptions are extended to such a fetus, why should they be withheld from any other fetus? This is part of the reason some pro-lifers adopt what many others consider the outrageous posture of opposing abortions under any and all circumstances–only excepting, perhaps, when the life of the mother is in danger.
By far the most common reason for abortion worldwide is birth control. So shouldn’t opponents of abortion be handing out contraceptives and teaching school children how to use them? That would be an effective way to reduce the number of abortions. Instead, the United States is far behind other nations in the development of safe and effective methods of birth control–and, in many cases, opposition to such research (and to sex education) has come from the same people who oppose abortions.continue on to Part 3
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The attempt to find an ethically sound and unambiguous judgment on when, if ever, abortion is permissible has deep historical roots. Often, especially in Christian tradition, such attempts were connected with the question of when the soul enters the body–a matter not readily amenable to scientific investigation and an issue of controversy even among learned theologians. Ensoulment has been asserted to occur in the sperm before conception, at conception, at the time of “quickening” (when the mother is first able to feel the fetus stirring within her), and at birth. Or even later.
Different religions have different teachings. Among hunter-gatherers, there are usually no prohibitions against abortion, and it was common in ancient Greece and Rome. In contrast, the more severe Assyrians impaled women on stakes for attempting abortion. The Jewish Talmud teaches that the fetus is not a person and has no rights. The Old and New Testaments–rich in astonishingly detailed prohibitions on dress, diet, and permissible words–contain not a word specifically prohibiting abortion. The only passage that’s remotely relevant (Exodus 21:22) decrees that if there’s a fight and a woman bystander should accidentally be injured and made to miscarry, the assailant must pay a fine.
Neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas Aquinas considered early-term abortion to be homicide (the latter on the grounds that the embryo doesn’t look human). This view was embraced by the Church in the Council of Vienne in 1312, and has never been repudiated. The Catholic Church’s first and long-standing collection of canon law (according to the leading historian of the Church’s teaching on abortion, John Connery, S.J.) held that abortion was homicide only after the fetus was already “formed”–roughly, the end of the first trimester.
But when sperm cells were examined in the seventeenth century by the first microscopes, they were thought to show a fully formed human being. An old idea of the homunculus was resuscitated–in which within each sperm cell was a fully formed tiny human, within whose testes were innumerable other homunculi, etc., ad infinitum. In part through this misinterpretation of scientific data, in 1869 abortion at any time for any reason became grounds for excommunication. It is surprising to most Catholics and others to discover that the date was not much earlier.
From colonial times to the nineteenth century, the choice in the United States was the woman’s until “quickening.” An abortion in the first or even second trimester was at worst a misdemeanor. Convictions were rarely sought and almost impossible to obtain, because they depended entirely on the woman’s own testimony of whether she had felt quickening, and because of the jury’s distaste for prosecuting a woman for exercising her right to choose. In 1800 there was not, so far as is known, a single statute in the United States concerning abortion. Advertisements for drugs to induce abortion could be found in virtually every newspaper and even in many church publications–although the language used was suitably euphemistic, if widely understood.
But by 1900, abortion had been banned at any time in pregnancy by every state in the Union, except when necessary to save the woman’s life. What happened to bring about so striking a reversal? Religion had little to do with it.Drastic economic and social conversions were turning this country from an agrarian to an urban-industrial society. America was in the process of changing from having one of the highest birthrates in the world to one of the lowest. Abortion certainly played a role and stimulated forces to suppress it.
One of the most significant of these forces was the medical profession. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, medicine was an uncertified, unsupervised business. Anyone could hang up a shingle and call himself (or herself) a doctor. With the rise of a new, university-educated medical elite, anxious to enhance the status and influence of physicians, the American Medical Association was formed. In its first decade, the AMA began lobbying against abortions performed by anyone except licensed physicians. New knowledge of embryology, the physicians said, had shown the fetus to be human even before quickening.
Their assault on abortion was motivated not by concern for the health of the woman but, they claimed, for the welfare of the fetus. You had to be a physician to know when abortion was morally justified, because the question depended on scientific and medical facts understood only by physicians. At the same time, women were effectively excluded from the medical schools, where such arcane knowledge could be acquired. So, as things worked out, women had almost nothing to say about terminating their own pregnancies. It was also up to the physician to decide if the pregnancy posed a threat to the woman, and it was entirely at his discretion to determine what was and was not a threat. For the rich woman, the threat might be a threat to her emotional tranquillity or even to her lifestyle. The poor woman was often forced to resort to the back alley or the coathanger.
This was the law until the 1960s, when a coalition of individuals and organizations, the AMA now among them, sought to overturn it and to reinstate the more traditional values that were to be embodied in Roe v. Wade.continue on to Part 4
If you deliberately kill a human being, it’s called murder. If you deliberately kill a chimpanzee–biologically, our closest relative, sharing 99.6 percent of our active genes–whatever else it is, it’s not murder. To date, murder uniquely applies to killing human beings. Therefore, the question of when personhood (or, if we like, ensoulment) arises is key to the abortion debate. When does the fetus become human? When do distinct and characteristic human qualities emerge?
Section 8 Sperm journey to becoming Human
We recognize that specifying a precise moment will overlook individual differences. Therefore, if we must draw a line, it ought to be drawn conservatively–that is, on the early side. There are people who object to having to set some numerical limit, and we share their disquiet; but if there is to be a law on this matter, and it is to effect some useful compromise between the two absolutist positions, it must specify, at least roughly, a time of transition to personhood.
Every one of us began from a dot. A fertilized egg is roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. The momentous meeting of sperm and egg generally occurs in one of the two fallopian tubes. One cell becomes two, two become four, and so on—an exponentiation of base-2 arithmetic. By the tenth day the fertilized egg has become a kind of hollow sphere wandering off to another realm: the womb. It destroys tissue in its path. It sucks blood from capillaries. It bathes itself in maternal blood, from which it extracts oxygen and nutrients. It establishes itself as a kind of parasite on the walls of the uterus.By the third week, around the time of the first missed menstrual period, the forming embryo is about 2 millimeters long and is developing various body parts. Only at this stage does it begin to be dependent on a rudimentary placenta. It looks a little like a segmented worm.By the end of the fourth week, it’s about 5 millimeters (about 1/5 inch) long. It’s recognizable now as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks rather like a newt or a tadpole. This is the end of the first month after conception.By the fifth week, the gross divisions of the brain can be distinguished. What will later develop into eyes are apparent, and little buds appear—on their way to becoming arms and legs.By the sixth week, the embryo is 13 millimeteres (about ½ inch) long. The eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be.By the end of the seventh week, the tail is almost gone, and sexual characteristics can be discerned (although both sexes look female). The face is mammalian but somewhat piglike.By the end of the eighth week, the face resembles that of a primate but is still not quite human. Most of the human body parts are present in their essentials. Some lower brain anatomy is well-developed. The fetus shows some reflex response to delicate stimulation.By the tenth week, the face has an unmistakably human cast. It is beginning to be possible to distinguish males from females. Nails and major bone structures are not apparent until the third month.By the fourth month, you can tell the face of one fetus from that of another. Quickening is most commonly felt in the fifth month. The bronchioles of the lungs do not begin developing until approximately the sixth month, the alveoli still later.
So, if only a person can be murdered, when does the fetus attain personhood? When its face becomes distinctly human, near the end of the first trimester? When the fetus becomes responsive to stimuli–again, at the end of the first trimester? When it becomes active enough to be felt as quickening, typically in the middle of the second trimester? When the lungs have reached a stage of development sufficient that the fetus might, just conceivably, be able to breathe on its own in the outside air?
The trouble with these particular developmental milestones is not just that they’re arbitrary. More troubling is the fact that none of them involves uniquely humancharacteristics–apart from the superficial matter of facial appearance. All animals respond to stimuli and move of their own volition. Large numbers are able to breathe. But that doesn’t stop us from slaughtering them by the billions. Reflexes and motion are not what make us human.
Sagan’s conclusion based on arbitrary choice of the presence of thought by unborn baby
Other animals have advantages over us–in speed, strength, endurance, climbing or burrowing skills, camouflage, sight or smell or hearing, mastery of the air or water. Our one great advantage, the secret of our success, is thought–characteristically human thought. We are able to think things through, imagine events yet to occur, figure things out. That’s how we invented agriculture and civilization. Thought is our blessing and our curse, and it makes us who we are.
Thinking occurs, of course, in the brain–principally in the top layers of the convoluted “gray matter” called the cerebral cortex. The roughly 100 billion neurons in the brain constitute the material basis of thought. The neurons are connected to each other, and their linkups play a major role in what we experience as thinking. But large-scale linking up of neurons doesn’t begin until the 24th to 27th week of pregnancy–the sixth month.
By placing harmless electrodes on a subject’s head, scientists can measure the electrical activity produced by the network of neurons inside the skull. Different kinds of mental activity show different kinds of brain waves. But brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy–near the beginning of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this–however alive and active they may be–lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think.
Acquiescing in the killing of any living creature, especially one that might later become a baby, is troublesome and painful. But we’ve rejected the extremes of “always” and “never,” and this puts us–like it or not–on the slippery slope. If we are forced to choose a developmental criterion, then this is where we draw the line: when the beginning of characteristically human thinking becomes barely possible.
It is, in fact, a very conservative definition: Regular brain waves are rarely found in fetuses. More research would help… If we wanted to make the criterion still more stringent, to allow for occasional precocious fetal brain development, we might draw the line at six months. This, it so happens, is where the Supreme Court drew it in 1973–although for completely different reasons.
Its decision in the case of Roe v. Wade changed American law on abortion. It permits abortion at the request of the woman without restriction in the first trimester and, with some restrictions intended to protect her health, in the second trimester. It allows states to forbid abortion in the third trimester, except when there’s a serious threat to the life or health of the woman. In the 1989 Webster decision, the Supreme Court declined explicitly to overturn Roe v. Wade but in effect invited the 50 state legislatures to decide for themselves.
What was the reasoning in Roe v. Wade? There was no legal weight given to what happens to the children once they are born, or to the family. Instead, a woman’s right to reproductive freedom is protected, the court ruled, by constitutional guarantees of privacy. But that right is not unqualified. The woman’s guarantee of privacy and the fetus’s right to life must be weighed–and when the court did the weighing’ priority was given to privacy in the first trimester and to life in the third. The transition was decided not from any of the considerations we have been dealing with so far…–not when “ensoulment” occurs, not when the fetus takes on sufficient human characteristics to be protected by laws against murder. Instead, the criterion adopted was whether the fetus could live outside the mother. This is called “viability” and depends in part on the ability to breathe. The lungs are simply not developed, and the fetus cannot breathe–no matter how advanced an artificial lung it might be placed in—until about the 24th week, near the start of the sixth month. This is why Roe v. Wade permits the states to prohibit abortions in the last trimester. It’s a very pragmatic criterion.
If the fetus at a certain stage of gestation would be viable outside the womb, the argument goes, then the right of the fetus to life overrides the right of the woman to privacy. But just what does “viable” mean? Even a full-term newborn is not viable without a great deal of care and love. There was a time before incubators, only a few decades ago, when babies in their seventh month were unlikely to be viable. Would aborting in the seventh month have been permissible then? After the invention of incubators, did aborting pregnancies in the seventh month suddenly become immoral? What happens if, in the future, a new technology develops so that an artificial womb can sustain a fetus even before the sixth month by delivering oxygen and nutrients through the blood–as the mother does through the placenta and into the fetal blood system? We grant that this technology is unlikely to be developed soon or become available to many. But if it were available, does it then become immoral to abort earlier than the sixth month, when previously it was moral? A morality that depends on, and changes with, technology is a fragile morality; for some, it is also an unacceptable morality.
And why, exactly, should breathing (or kidney function, or the ability to resist disease) justify legal protection? If a fetus can be shown to think and feel but not be able to breathe, would it be all right to kill it? Do we value breathing more than thinking and feeling? Viability arguments cannot, it seems to us, coherently determine when abortions are permissible. Some other criterion is needed. Again, we offer for consideration the earliest onset of human thinking as that criterion.
Since, on average, fetal thinking occurs even later than fetal lung development, we find Roe v. Wade to be a good and prudent decision addressing a complex and difficult issue. With prohibitions on abortion in the last trimester–except in cases of grave medical necessity–it strikes a fair balance between the conflicting claims of freedom and life.What do you think? What have others said about Carl Sagan’s thoughts on
END OF SAGAN’S ARTICLE
Carl Sagan with his wife Ann in the 1990’s
I grew up in Memphis as a member of Bellevue Baptist Church under our pastor Adrian Rogers and attended ECS High School where the books and films of Francis Schaeffer were taught. Both men dealt with current issues in the culture such as the film series COSMOS by Carl Sagan. I personally read several of Sagan’s books. (Francis and Edith Schaeffer pictured below in their home at L’ Abri in Switzerland where Francis taught students for 3 decades.
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit | Comments (0)
On March 17, 2013 at our worship service at Fellowship Bible Church, Ben Parkinson who is one of our teaching pastors spoke on Genesis 1. He spoke about an issue that I was very interested in. Ben started the sermon by reading the following scripture: Genesis 1-2:3 English Standard Version (ESV) The Creation of the […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Atheists Confronted, Current Events | TaggedBen Parkinson, Carl Sagan | Edit | Comments (0)
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, both Republicans and Democrats have attempted to use the ruling to sway voters and win elections. But as previous generations of pro-life activists have taught us, the battle to protect the unborn must also be waged at the cultural level in order to build a society that holds true to the belief that all life is worth living.
The prevailing mainstream media narrative following the Dobbs decision was that the subsequent cascade of pro-life state laws would be an electoral vulnerability for Republicans.
That indeed seemed to be the case in typically conservative states like Kansas, where voters last year rejected a pro-life state constitutional amendment and then re-elected their Democrat governor who made abortion a major issue in the race. Politicians promising liberal abortion laws also won in Kentucky and Michigan.
In other states, however, this narrative did not hold up as well. In Ohio and Georgia, voters overwhelmingly re-elected Republican governors and state legislatures who enacted strong pro-life laws.
In response to these mixed results, some on the right have advocated that Republicans retreat from their pre-Dobbs opposition to abortion out of fear of losing elections.
But this position misunderstands that overturning Roe was not just the end of one fight, but the start of another. If Republicans and the pro-life movement truly want to protect the unborn, they must now work to build a culture of life and reverse the decades of anti-life sentiment the left has worked to instill in every American institution.
Conservatives need only look at the unhinged reaction of the left to the Dobbs decision to see how determined their opponents are. The Supreme Court Justices who signed on to the majority opinion facedvery serious assassination threats and protests outside their homes which were encouraged by President Joe Biden himself. Justice Samuel Alito commented that he had to be driven around in “basically a tank” to protect him from pro-abortion activists.
Pro-abortion activists also attacked pro-life pregnancy centers and churches under the cover of darkness. Thousands marched in the streets and demanded the right to unrestricted abortion.
All of this evidence reflects the fact that the abortion issue is a question of spiritual and cultural decay, not just political divisions. While the right affirms the basic humanity and value of the unborn, the left denies their humanity altogether – dehumanization in the purest sense of the word.
This position by the left reflects an erosion of the concept of “inalienable rights” which was pioneered by the American Founding Fathers and was once the standard throughout the West. In the 20th century, the rise of radical social and political movements began to deny these rights under the pretense of enhancing “quality of life” and vague arguments about the “good of society.”
The apogee of this backward and anti-human thinking was the Holocaust, an unspeakable tragedy that was only possible through a society-wide denial of the sanctity and value of human life – the idea that some lives were inherently less valuable than others.
While the world united to extinguish the great evil of the Holocaust, the cultural poison of the denial of the sanctity of life continued to fester throughout the West through the pro-abortion movement, spread by postmodern academics and liberal politicians feigning “compassion” for women.
While most Western countries have now completely succumbed to pro-abortion extremism, America has retained a relatively strong culture of life, with a vibrant pro-life movement. Recent polling data from NPR indicates that more than two-thirds of Americans say they want abortion limited to the first trimester. A Marist poll from April shows that six in ten Americans oppose taxpayer-funded abortion.
On the other hand, liberal voters are increasingly more likely to support late-term abortions, including of babies who are viable outside the womb. In one harrowing example that made the rounds on social media recently, abortionist Hern Bristles admitted he has performed late term abortions involving healthy mothers and infants that could have survived outside the womb, and on one occasion he even aborted a baby because her mother “didn’t want to have a baby girl.”
To begin to understand how they can build on the momentum of Dobbs and build a culture of life, conservatives may find it useful to turn to Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, a 1979 book (that was subsequently turned into an excellent movie) from former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and Christian writer and thinker Dr. Francis Schaeffer.
The book emphasizes that a fundamental shift in worldview will be necessary to turn public opinion against abortion. The authors name three specific steps to accomplish this: education, culture, and legislation.
“We must say that we are proponents of the sanctity of all human life – born and unborn; old and young; black, white, brown and yellow,” they write. “Without uniqueness and inherent dignity of each human being, no matter how old or young, sick or well, resting on the fact that each person is made in the image of God, there is no sufficient foundation to build on as we resist the loss of humanness in our generation.”
They encouraged the recovery of correctly understanding women’s rights by pointing out that a woman cannot “liberate” herself by killing her infant, and that such thinking often leads to life-long feelings of guilt – as recent studies on severe Post-Abortion Stress Syndrome, and even a testimony on TikTok suggest.
The key, as Koop and Schaeffer identify, is “renewed social atmosphere.”
Americans can look in many places both at home and abroad – although so often not in the mainstream media – for inspiring examples of what this atmosphere of life might look like. It can be found in single-mother households, orphanages, or aged-care facilities. Upon visiting an orphanage in Central Europe funded by American Christians, evangelist Billy Graham once told employees that “they were most compelling apostles of life, making themselves channel of genuine love.” Those who give dignity and care to others in need are a living testament to the inherent value of every person.
In the age of social media, everyone can make these noble efforts more visible, contributing to a culture of life and inspiring others to follow.
Despite the sharp national divide, Americans still can foresee horrendous consequences of rejecting unalienable rights and, as a nation, recognize the urgent moral imperative to protect the unborn.
Therefore, it is time to stand bolder and more courageously opposing the media, political left, and cultural elites, and declare the truth that “all life is worth living.”
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
This morning while I was attending the Association of Christian Lawmakers at the COLLEGE OF THE OZARKS, our group had a big impromptu praise and prayer service when the Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe v Wade was announced this morning!
Pro-life activists celebrate after the announcement of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ever since the Dobbs v. Jackson draft opinion leaked in early May, pro-life activists have gathered peacefully at the U.S. Supreme Court on decision days to eagerly await the ruling. That day finally arrived Friday. The following photos showcase their reactions.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
—
—
November 23, 2020
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision focused further attention on Court appointments with every nomination from that point on triggering a pitched battle between pro-choice and anti-abortion forces.
Let me point out that we prefer to be called the PRO-LIFE movement and I don’t think you want to really say what the choices are in your pro-choice movement because the real question is when does human life begin and your support of partial birth abortion puts you on slippery ground on that question too!
There is a question that I have asked pro-abortionists over and over and they just don’t like answering it. It comes also from the first episode of “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE.” Dr. Koop put forth the question:
My question to the pro-abortionist who would not directly kill a newborn baby the minute it is born is this, “Would you have killed it a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that?” You can see what I am getting at. At what minute does an unborn baby cease to be worthless and become a person entitled to the right to life and legal protection?
_____
“Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.”
Dr. Koop said, “We live in a schizophrenic society” and that makes me think of this cartoon:
I corresponded with the pro-choice Carl Sagan in 1995 about abortion and he sent me an article which included these words:
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government’s business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
Let me quote from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? By Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop:
It hasn’t been too far back in the history of the United States, that black people were sold like cattle in our slave markets. For economic reasons, white society had classified them as “nonhuman.” The U S Supreme Court upheld this lie in its infamous Dred Scott Decision.
Jesse L. Jackson, in 1977, tied the prior treatment of blacks with our present treatment of the preborn:
You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned…. The Constitution called us three-fifths human and the whites further dehumanized us by calling us `n#%+#rs’ It was part of the dehumanizing process…. These advocates taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human…. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified…. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind set with regard to the nature and the worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth. [Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979), p. 209.]
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
Francis Schaeffer when he was a young pastor in St. Louis pictured above.
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
I would also would like to note that the courts were the vehicle to make the change on abortion in 1973 because the elected legislatures would not have so easy to convince. Notice also Judge Alito’s warning to us below after Daniel Whyte III quotes Francis Schaeffer:
Daniel Whyte III
This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than man.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Romans 3:12 which reads: “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from A.W. Tozer. He said: “’Let God be true but every man a liar’ is the language of true faith.”
In this podcast, we are using as our text: “A Christian Manifesto” by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on “The Destruction of Faith and Freedom” (Part 6):
The law, and especially the courts, is the vehicle to force this total humanistic way of thinking upon the entire population. This is what has happened. The abortion law is a perfect example. The Supreme Court abortion ruling invalidated abortion laws in all fifty states, even though it seems clear that in 1973 the majority of Americans were against abortion. It did not matter. The Supreme Court arbitrarily ruled that abortion was legal, and overnight they overthrew the state laws and forced onto American thinking not only that abortion was legal, but that it was ethical. They, as an elite, thus forced their will on the majority, even though their ruling was arbitrarily both legally and medically. Thus law and the courts became the vehicle for forcing a totally secular concept on the population.
…
Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.
He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.
He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.
“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Associate Justice Samuel Alito remarks. Pictured: Alito testifies about the court’s budget during a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in Washington, D.C., March 7, 2019. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, author, broadcaster, and speaker with access to world leaders, U.S. presidents, celebrities, educators, and countless other notables. He has authored several books, including his latest, “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States.” Readers can email him at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
Everywhere one looks there are warning signs, from labels on cigarette packs warning that smoking causes cancer, to ridiculous labels on thermometers that read, “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has delivered some serious warnings that too often are ignored by many who believe the freedoms we enjoy are inviolable.
In an address earlier this month to the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, Alito touched on several subjects, including COVID-19, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, free speech, and “bullying” of the Supreme Court by U.S. senators.
Alito made a case for how each issue contains elements that contribute to a slow erosion of our liberties. On tolerance, preached but not often practiced by the left, Alito said: “…tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply in many law schools, and in the broader academic community. When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy.” This is not a new revelation, but it bears repeating.
While acknowledging the deaths, hospitalizations, and unemployment caused by COVID-19, Alito warned: “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty. Now, notice what I am not saying or even implying, I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health. … I’m not saying anything about the legality of COVID restrictions. Nor am I saying anything about whether any of these restrictions represent good public policy. I’m a judge, not a policymaker. All that I’m saying is this. And I think it is an indisputable statement of fact, we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced, for most of 2020.”
>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.
Where does this lead? Alito answered when he spoke of “…the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat rather than legislation. The vision of early 20th-century progressives and the new dealers of the 1930s was the policymaking would shift from narrow-minded elected legislators, to an elite group of appointed experts, in a word, the policymaking would become more scientific. That dream has been realized to a large extent. Every year administrative agencies acting under broad delegations of ‘authority’ churn out huge volumes of regulations that dwarfs the statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives. And what have we seen in the pandemic sweeping restrictions imposed for the most part, under statutes that confer enormous executive discretion?”
Alito cited a Nevada case that came before the Court: “Under that law, if the governor finds that there is, quote, a natural technological or manmade emergency, or disaster of major proportions, the governor can perform and exercise such functions, powers and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population. To say that this provision confers broad discretion would be an understatement.”
On the erosion of religious liberty, he said: “It pains me to say this, but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored, right.” As evidence he mentioned how we have moved from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress in 1993 to the recent persecution by the Obama administration of The Little Sisters of the Poor for their refusal to include contraceptives in their health insurance. The Catholic nuns prevailed in a 7-2 court ruling, but Alito believes the threat to the free exercise of religion remains all too real.
There is much more in his address that should be read in its entirety. Alito’s warnings ring true, but are we listening?
(C)2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
“I posed this question to him: ‘Dr. Schaeffer, what is your biggest concern for the future of the church in America?’ Without hesitation, Dr. Schaeffer turned to me and spoke one word: ‘Statism.’”R.C. Sproul
Here, There be Threats
What’s the biggest threat facing Christianity in America today? If you asked 10 different people you would probably get 10 different answers. Some would say that it’s the erosion of our religious liberty and other social freedoms. Others may respond that it’s the aggressive efforts of religiously-hostile secularism, which aims to entirely out-group Christians from society for our “regressive” views on marriage and sexual morality. More ecclesiological-minded Christians might point to the rise of pragmatism and the decline of meaningful membership and discipline in local churches.
Shout into the dark hollows of progressive Christianity and no doubt you will hear the repeated refrain of “Christian nationalism” echo back from the netherworld. Still, others would pull up statistics on declining church attendance and religious affiliation by younger generations, captured by the rise of the “nones,” an “attention-grabbing phrase used to describe the well-documented increase in the percentage of Americans who, when queried by survey researchers about their religious identification, say ‘none.’”
But what if the threat has less to do with the decline of faith commitments or First Amendment freedoms (as concerning as those are) and more to do with the ascendance of an alternative and competing faith system altogether? One could call it the advent of a new idolatry. But instead of a golden calf that’s getting worshiped, it’s the government. Perhaps more than the rise of the nones, it’s the rise of a dangerously misinformed but rapidly metastasizing vision of government — of the state — which is increasingly held by Americans across our country, both Christians and non-Christians alike, that’s at the root of our peril and predicament.
If so (and judge for yourself), then Francis Schaeffer saw it coming. As did R.C. Sproul. In fact, Schaeffer prophetically predicted the advent of this idolatry to a young Sproul, all while grabbing a ride in a yellow taxi cab together in the late 1970s. And what is this issue, exactly? What did Schaeffer see as the biggest threat, or concern, for the future Christians in America? With what moniker shall we label this modern monstrosity of a reborn Baal, this replacement god?
One word: Statism.
Schaeffer, Sproul, and Statism: An Alliterative and Elucidating Encounter
In 2008, R.C. Sproul, that late, great Reformed pastor, preacher, and philosopher, published an eponymous article entitled “Statism.” In this piece, he recollects that cab ride and the ensuing interchange he had with Schaeffer about the future faith in America. He writes:
“About thirty years ago, I shared a taxi cab in St. Louis with Francis Schaeffer. I had known Dr. Schaeffer for many years, and he had been instrumental in helping us begin our ministry in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, in 1971. Since our time together in St. Louis was during the twilight of Schaeffer’s career, I posed this question to him: ‘Dr. Schaeffer, what is your biggest concern for the future of the church in America?’ Without hesitation, Dr. Schaeffer turned to me and spoke one word: ‘Statism.’ Schaeffer’s biggest concern at that point in his life was that the citizens of the United States were beginning to invest their country with supreme authority, such that the free nation of America would become one that would be dominated by a philosophy of the supremacy of the state.”
Now, I’m neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet (my dad’s an environmental scientist) but Schaeffer sure sounds like one here. He was ready with a Raylan Givens-esque quick-pull trigger response to Sproul, letting that one word fire from his lips at the slightest prompt: Statism.
Sproul, reflecting further on the conversation, goes on to define the term and raises his concern that the American experiment is indeed drifting from “statehood to statism.” Sproul explains that “in statism, we see the suffix ‘ism,’ which indicates a philosophy or worldview…[this] happens when the government is perceived as or claims to be the ultimate reality. This reality then replaces God as the supreme entity upon which human existence depends.”
In short, statism is when the government replaces God.
The Golden Calf of Government
Statism is when the state tries to play God. Or tries to be God. Or goes all the way and declares that it is God. Statism is what happens when the collective hubris of modern man joins forces to resurrect the tower of Babel, except this time instead of a tower to heaven, it’s bureaucrats building a monument to two years’ worth of inerrant and inspired CDC guidelines. It’s like when Fauci said, “I am the science.” Except this is when the government just says, “I am.” It’s when the state demands your worship, your service, your all. Statism is when the media plays the “horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music” and the bureaucrats demand that you “fall down and worship” before the shrine of our sacred democracy. Statism was a distant threat a few decades ago — statism is the enemy breaching our gates today.
Schaeffer also seemed to understand why, in the American context, this was such an ever-present concern for the United States, why “we the people,” of all people, might be so predisposed to one day find the sharp barb of statism in the Achilles heel of our form of government. In A Christian Manifesto, Schaeffer explained,
“The Reformation worldview leads in the direction of government freedom. But the humanist worldview with inevitable certainty leads in the direction of statism. This is so because humanists, having no god, just put something at the center, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state.”
Statism, then, is the religion of a secular theocracy. And in a secular theocracy, our high-ranking bureaucrats see themselves as a new class of high priests. They might wear plastic badges instead of priestly garments, but they certainly intend to mediate between “god” and man all the same. They are the sacred protectors of The Truth and The Way and The Science. Salvation, in such a system, is found in no other name than government alone. When you disagree, it’s not just dissent, it’s heresy. I would suggest this framework helps better explain the last 2 years in America. Yet Schaeffer saw it on the horizon almost 52 years prior.
Citizen, Know Thyself
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu tells all future Alexanders, Washingtons, and Eisenhowers, that “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
We ask, then, who is the enemy here? It’s the worldview, the philosophy, the belief that the state is the “supreme entity upon which human existence depends.” The enemy is the idea that “every good and perfect gift comes down” to us not from the hands of our Heavenly Father, but by the benevolent decree of Daddy Government.
Ok, the enemy is an idea. It’s something abstract until men and women actualize it in the real world. And the enemy is certainly also those who intentionally foist this way of life upon our nation and neighbors. Unfortunately, an increasing number of our fellow Americans have been infected with this worldview. They’ve been assimilated into the Borg Hive Mind, captured by the Collective Consciousness. They are triple-jabbed, double-boosted, double-masked vax passport-holders, shuffling toward us chanting, “Resistance is futile.” Yet bear in mind these folks are not the enemy. No, they are casualties. If we defeat statism, we may yet restore them to free-thinking and freedom-loving citizens, helping them shake off the decay like Théoden shakes free from the poisonous effects of Gríma Wormtongue in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers.
But who are we? We are Christians. We are those who have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” and possessors of “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for us (1 Peter 1:3-4). We aren’t slaves of the sovereign state, we are Sons and Daughters of the King, co-heirs with Christ. We are kings and queens, and “once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia,” as C.S. Lewis put it. As Christians, we know that God is sovereign over all the affairs of man and that “there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:1). While the secularists may aim to fill that God-sized gap in their lives with the government, as Christians, we have forsaken such underhanded and foolish ways. This of course does not make us anarchists but instead grounds our feet in the soft and green grass of the real world. We look at life under the sun and see our President, as powerful as he may be, and our governors, mayors, congressmen, and even dog catchers, and we know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are not sovereign nor shall they ever be sovereign. We may often obey them — but we will never worship them.
At this point, acquaintances are made all around. The ice is broken. Appetizers eaten. Small talk made. We know who the enemy is. We know who we are. And regrettably, to a certain degree, we have found ourselves in the same predicament of Pogo the Possum: We have met the enemy and he is us. Not us as Christians on the whole, if we have possession of our right minds and fighting spirits, as I made clear. But sadly, for us as Americans generally. And indeed, in many ways, Christians, too, succumb to the worship of the state, when we find ourselves enticed by the false promises of Leviathan.
Render to God: The Christian Response to Statism
But if knowing is only half the battle, what is the other half? Fighting it! So, here are three closing considerations on how Christians can resist statism.
First, in the American political context, we fight statism by constantly reminding the representatives of the state to stay firmly put in their proper place.
That place, like the waves of the sea fixed by the hand of the Almighty, where we say “This far you may come and no farther,” is the boundaries fixed by the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
Every single elected official is beneath the Constitution — and we must never let them forget it. When Paul tells Roman Christians to submit to the governing authorities, that meant something different for them than it does for us. Not in the spirit of the command, but in the context and the application. Americans don’t have a Caesar; we have a Constitution, and it is high time we remembered that and acted accordingly. Last I checked (which was about five minutes ago) that same Constitution, which is the highest governing authority of our nation, still grants us every bit of freedom of religion under the First Amendment that it did the moment the ink dried on September 17, 1787. Want to fight statism? The next time the government tries to tell you to close your church while it leaves the local liquor store open, you let your mayor know that service is at 10:30 a.m. and he is welcome to join. Masks optional.
Second, lend a hand in smashing to smithereens the absurd myth of a neutral public square.
You know this idea: That the Christian is free to come out into public and argue for what he thinks is best, but he must do so on the grounds of pure reason, sheer logic, mere persuasion — but no metaphysical truth claims, thank you very much. God said men are men and not women? Theonomist! But the truth is that the public square, digital or physical, has never been neutral. Everyone worships. Everyone has a faith claim — even, and often, the most committed atheists, humanists, and secularists among us. There is no neutral public square, there is only the “battleground of gods,” as one theologian has put it.
This means it’s imperative that, when you enter the arena to debate the good of society, you must reach down underground and pull up all of the epistemological cables the statists seek to conceal. Because in this era of expressive individualism and increasing antipathy towards metaphysical faith claims, the myth of the “neutral public square,” in fact, tilts the debate in favor of the secularist who claims to not be advocating for a “religious” view. In light of our nation’s mixed Christianity-plus-Enlightenment heritage, as well as our often-misunderstood cardinal virtue of the separation of church and state, far too many “well-meaning” but perhaps not quite “sharp-thinking” Christians (many of them lovely members of our own local churches) wrongly believe that Christians should insist on using government to order the moral imagination and set the boundaries for the good of our shared civic life.
They continue to delude themselves into viewing the public square in America as a neutral landscape, where anyone can make a reason-based argument for their vision of the public good, and those who make the best-but-God-less public arguments can carry the day. The reality is that all of governing is inherently moral, and never an exercise of pure reason.
Because this is so, Christians sorely need to stop hamstringing themselves in the public debate. We must train ourselves to begin ignoring whatever previously wrong-footed instinct we obey when we try to hide our religiously-informed truth claims out of fear of being charged with “trying to impose our morality on others through the law.” The appropriate answer to this accusation, if and when it’s flung at us as some sort of devasting silencer, is to smile and say “Yes, absolutely I am. And you are too. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
Third, and finally, we render to God that which is God’s.
Which, for the Christian, is everything. We owe a certain, even robust and healthy, degree of allegiance to our nation because this is where God has us in the here and now, and that is wholly good and appropriate. We may send in some taxes, with a wince and a whistle, as part of our stewardship. But we do so knowing both of those acts — and a million others — are done in service to the one, true ruler: Jesus Christ. God made us, not the state. Therefore God owns us, not the government. What a blessed reminder this is, that we can “know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3).
When we remind ourselves of who the Sovereign of the Universe is, the one who holds the world in the palm of His hand, we won’t be tempted to give the government a greater weight or role than it is due. Instead, we will fight like mad to beat it back into its proper place whenever we see it stretching out its golden hand to take the throne and set itself up as an idol.
Sproul knew this would be a fight. After all, governments don’t have a great track record of happily limiting themselves to a small space. For the statists, seizing the greener grass on the other side of the fence won’t ever willingly stop at the doors to the church. With this in mind, Sproul concluded his 2008 reflections on the memorable moment with Schaeffer like so:
“Throughout the history of the Christian church, Christianity has always stood over against all forms of statism. Statism is the natural and ultimate enemy to Christianity because it involves a usurpation of the reign of God. If Francis Schaeffer was right — and each year that passes makes his prognosis seem all the more accurate — it means that the church and the nation face a serious crisis in our day. In the final analysis, if statism prevails in America, it will mean not only the death of our religious freedom, but also the death of the state itself. We face perilous times where Christians and all people need to be vigilant about the rapidly encroaching elevation of the state to supremacy.”
There can only be one Sovereign. One Supreme Power. One God. One Lord. One Savior. And it’s not the nameless and faceless state. It’s the embodied and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. I trust the last few years have made this clear, but we would indeed all do well to heed this warning from our friends Francis and R.C., to stand guard against statism, that sworn and natural enemy to Christianity, and to do so by worshiping God, and God alone.
This morning while I was attending the Association of Christian Lawmakers at the COLLEGE OF THE OZARKS, our group had a big impromptu praise and prayer service when the Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe v Wade was announced this morning!
Pro-life activists celebrate after the announcement of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ever since the Dobbs v. Jackson draft opinion leaked in early May, pro-life activists have gathered peacefully at the U.S. Supreme Court on decision days to eagerly await the ruling. That day finally arrived Friday. The following photos showcase their reactions.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)(Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)(Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
—
—
November 23, 2020
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision focused further attention on Court appointments with every nomination from that point on triggering a pitched battle between pro-choice and anti-abortion forces.
Let me point out that we prefer to be called the PRO-LIFE movement and I don’t think you want to really say what the choices are in your pro-choice movement because the real question is when does human life begin and your support of partial birth abortion puts you on slippery ground on that question too!
There is a question that I have asked pro-abortionists over and over and they just don’t like answering it. It comes also from the first episode of “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE.” Dr. Koop put forth the question:
My question to the pro-abortionist who would not directly kill a newborn baby the minute it is born is this, “Would you have killed it a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that or a minute before that?” You can see what I am getting at. At what minute does an unborn baby cease to be worthless and become a person entitled to the right to life and legal protection?
_____
“Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.”
Dr. Koop said, “We live in a schizophrenic society” and that makes me think of this cartoon:
I corresponded with the pro-choice Carl Sagan in 1995 about abortion and he sent me an article which included these words:
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government’s business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
Let me quote from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? By Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop:
It hasn’t been too far back in the history of the United States, that black people were sold like cattle in our slave markets. For economic reasons, white society had classified them as “nonhuman.” The U S Supreme Court upheld this lie in its infamous Dred Scott Decision.
Jesse L. Jackson, in 1977, tied the prior treatment of blacks with our present treatment of the preborn:
You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned…. The Constitution called us three-fifths human and the whites further dehumanized us by calling us `n#%+#rs’ It was part of the dehumanizing process…. These advocates taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human…. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified…. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind set with regard to the nature and the worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth. [Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979), p. 209.]
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
Francis Schaeffer when he was a young pastor in St. Louis pictured above.
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
I would also would like to note that the courts were the vehicle to make the change on abortion in 1973 because the elected legislatures would not have so easy to convince. Notice also Judge Alito’s warning to us below after Daniel Whyte III quotes Francis Schaeffer:
Daniel Whyte III
This podcast is aimed at showing Christian pastors, leaders, and individuals the devastating consequences of sitting quietly by and letting society continue to go against God and His Word. This podcast also aims to encourage Christians to be courageous, to speak up, and to resist this present day evil by standing up for God and His truth in an age when truth is fast fading away from the public square. As Peter and the apostles declared in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than man.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today passage from the Word of God today is Romans 3:12 which reads: “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Our Christian Manifesto Today quote today is from A.W. Tozer. He said: “’Let God be true but every man a liar’ is the language of true faith.”
In this podcast, we are using as our text: “A Christian Manifesto” by Francis A. Schaeffer. Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer writes on “The Destruction of Faith and Freedom” (Part 6):
The law, and especially the courts, is the vehicle to force this total humanistic way of thinking upon the entire population. This is what has happened. The abortion law is a perfect example. The Supreme Court abortion ruling invalidated abortion laws in all fifty states, even though it seems clear that in 1973 the majority of Americans were against abortion. It did not matter. The Supreme Court arbitrarily ruled that abortion was legal, and overnight they overthrew the state laws and forced onto American thinking not only that abortion was legal, but that it was ethical. They, as an elite, thus forced their will on the majority, even though their ruling was arbitrarily both legally and medically. Thus law and the courts became the vehicle for forcing a totally secular concept on the population.
…
Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.
He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.
He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.
“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Associate Justice Samuel Alito remarks. Pictured: Alito testifies about the court’s budget during a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in Washington, D.C., March 7, 2019. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, author, broadcaster, and speaker with access to world leaders, U.S. presidents, celebrities, educators, and countless other notables. He has authored several books, including his latest, “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States.” Readers can email him at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
Everywhere one looks there are warning signs, from labels on cigarette packs warning that smoking causes cancer, to ridiculous labels on thermometers that read, “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has delivered some serious warnings that too often are ignored by many who believe the freedoms we enjoy are inviolable.
In an address earlier this month to the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, Alito touched on several subjects, including COVID-19, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, free speech, and “bullying” of the Supreme Court by U.S. senators.
Alito made a case for how each issue contains elements that contribute to a slow erosion of our liberties. On tolerance, preached but not often practiced by the left, Alito said: “…tolerance for opposing views is now in short supply in many law schools, and in the broader academic community. When I speak with recent law school graduates, what I hear over and over is that they face harassment and retaliation if they say anything that departs from the law school orthodoxy.” This is not a new revelation, but it bears repeating.
While acknowledging the deaths, hospitalizations, and unemployment caused by COVID-19, Alito warned: “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty. Now, notice what I am not saying or even implying, I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health. … I’m not saying anything about the legality of COVID restrictions. Nor am I saying anything about whether any of these restrictions represent good public policy. I’m a judge, not a policymaker. All that I’m saying is this. And I think it is an indisputable statement of fact, we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced, for most of 2020.”
>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.
Where does this lead? Alito answered when he spoke of “…the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat rather than legislation. The vision of early 20th-century progressives and the new dealers of the 1930s was the policymaking would shift from narrow-minded elected legislators, to an elite group of appointed experts, in a word, the policymaking would become more scientific. That dream has been realized to a large extent. Every year administrative agencies acting under broad delegations of ‘authority’ churn out huge volumes of regulations that dwarfs the statutes enacted by the people’s elected representatives. And what have we seen in the pandemic sweeping restrictions imposed for the most part, under statutes that confer enormous executive discretion?”
Alito cited a Nevada case that came before the Court: “Under that law, if the governor finds that there is, quote, a natural technological or manmade emergency, or disaster of major proportions, the governor can perform and exercise such functions, powers and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population. To say that this provision confers broad discretion would be an understatement.”
On the erosion of religious liberty, he said: “It pains me to say this, but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored, right.” As evidence he mentioned how we have moved from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress in 1993 to the recent persecution by the Obama administration of The Little Sisters of the Poor for their refusal to include contraceptives in their health insurance. The Catholic nuns prevailed in a 7-2 court ruling, but Alito believes the threat to the free exercise of religion remains all too real.
There is much more in his address that should be read in its entirety. Alito’s warnings ring true, but are we listening?
(C)2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
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 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
The Daily Hatch 
