Proselytizing compared to rape? Really?

Rachel Allison

There are bombs going off on more fronts than I can name.  The attacks are relentless and escalating.

Abortion—Now the truth is coming out about the “safety” and “compassion” of abortion clinics.  And we thought the supposed “back-alley abortions” were bad?

Euthanasia—being legalized and accepted as “killing with compassion.”

Marriage—If the Supreme Court redefines marriage, marriage, completely severed from its original purpose, might never pull out of its death spiral.  Religious freedom and rights of conscience will be severely compromised.

Educational decline—we have all witnessed its decline, and with Common Core being rammed through at break-neck speed, it will continue to be an agenda driven program run by non-elected federal agencies.

And there’s so much more…

What’s most alarming, a majority of the people seem to be totally unaware and even apathetic to the bombardment.

The most recent bombshell: Court marshals for those who proselyte  in the military.

I quote Bethany Monk from CitizenLink

The Pentagon has released a statement, confirming its policy that would punish service members who share their religious beliefs.

That follows a private meeting last week between Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and the Pentagon. Weinstein said military personnel who proselytize are guilty of sedition and “treason.” He said they should be punished to quell a “tidal wave of fundamentalists.”  

“If this policy goes forward, Christians within the military who speak their faith could now be prosecuted as enemies of the states,” according to the Family Research Council. “This has potential to destroy military recruiting across the services as Americans realize that their faith will be suppressed by joining the military. Our brave troops deserve better. If chaplains and other personnel are censored from offering the full solace of the Gospel, there is not religious freedom in the military.”

As I have studied this and other relevant reporting it looks like the Department of Defense has had this particular regulation in place prior to Weinstein’s demands.

“Air Force Culture, Air Force Standards,” published on Aug. 7, 2012.

Section 2.11 requires “government neutrality regarding religion.”

“Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for an individual’s free exercise of religion or other personal beliefs and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion,” the regulation states.

Military leaders were admonished not to use their position to “promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion.”

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council has said Weinstein’s hands are all over this work.  I wish I understood better whether MRFF could actually have had imput into the writing of the militaries’ regulations. Weinstein, an avid atheist is now demanding that the DOD start implementing it.

I quote Todd Starnes from Fox News

President Mikey Weinstein and others from his organization met privately with Pentagon officials on April 23. He said U.S. troops who proselytize are guilty of sedition and treason and should be punished – by the hundreds if necessary – to stave off what he called a “tidal wave of fundamentalists.”

“Someone needs to be punished for this,” Weinstein demanded to Fox News.  “Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior.” He compared the act of proselytizing to rape.

“It is a version of being spiritually raped and you are being spiritually raped by fundamentalist Christian religious predators,” he told Fox News.

He said there is a time and a place for those in uniform to share their faith – but he took issues with fundamentalism that he says is causing widespread problems in the military.

Perkins and members of the Family Research Council were stunned that the Pentagon would be taking counsel and advice from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

“Why would military leadership be meeting with one of the most rabid atheists in America to discuss religious freedom in the military,” Perkins said. “That’s like consulting with China on how to improve human rights.”

If Weinstein has his way, and apparently he has the attention of military leaders “it threatens to treat service members caught witnessing as enemies of the state.”  “Non-compliance,” the Pentagon suggests, “even from ordained chaplains could result in court-martialing on a case-by-case basis.”

Does this sound like something that should be happening in the United States of America…or Hitler’s Germany?

With all the social, moral, and religious bombardment taking place we need to choose our battles wisely…but for America’s sake let us choose to fight! Apathy is a killer.

The FRC has launched a petition drive urging Defense Sec. Chuck Hagel to protect the religious freedom of troops “and not to proceed with the purge of religion within the ranks called for by anti-Christian activists.”

Suicide and Sorrow

Kristi Kane

On Saturday I got to watch as my girls prepared for their school’s Prom. It was an exciting day. They helped each other with their hair and makeup, talked with their friends about how much fun they were going to have that evening, and finally, the main event: they put their gorgeous gowns on. Wow, did they look good. When their dates showed up there was a lot of whooping and hollering and more excitement coupled with lots of pictures. Off to the Prom they went for another rite of passage that gets them farther from the days of elementary school and closer to making the transition into the adult world.

Sunday morning we were all still talking about Prom. My husband and I were asking for the particulars: what they did, who all was there. Was everyone having a nice time, etc., etc. And then we received an email that evening from our girls’ high school principal. A young man from my girls’ school had taken his life that morning. Suicides always fill me with an overwhelming sadness. I feel bad for the child that did that. They had no idea what they were doing. I feel sorry for the parents. Sorry for the siblings. Sorry for the family and friends who loved that child and will never understand, but will always be haunted by that horrible act, that terrible day.

My daughter had been over at her Prom date’s home for a couple of hours Sunday evening, and when she got home, I showed her the email from her principal. If you have never heard your child cry tears of sorrow that come from the deepest regions of their heart, I will tell you that it is a gut-wrenching experience. My daughter had been friends with this young man. She had even seen his prom pictures from the evening before on facebook.

It is now Monday morning. Those people we call our children are now on their way to school. It will be a somber, quiet day. School counselors are already preparing for grieving students and parents to come to them for grief counseling. It even snowed last night, which makes the day seem somehow sadder than it already was.

Memories of one of my own dear friends who took her live five years ago have found a fresh vent through my tears today. Life will never be the same. All I know is that life is a precious gift. When someone dies, especially that dreadful and final way, I think what could we have done to change that? Were there any signs that would have let us know we could have helped? I pray for those who have lost, for those whose happiness will never be complete, for those whose grief will never be truly gone.

For coping with the suicide of a friend or loved one see:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/suicide/MH00048

For suicide prevention see:

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

 

Free Birth Control: There may be Pros but don’t Discount the Cons

Rachel Allison

This week I received an email from a good friend. Among other news, she wrote that she had gone to pick up her birth control pills and was told, “No Charge.”

My first thought? “It has begun! Unrestricted sex for everyone!

With her email she sent a link to an article  entitled  “Free Birth Control Means Drastic Drops in Unplanned Pregnancies.” The article triumphantly touts that  “the number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions didn’t just go down, they plummeted.” This was the result of a study that was done between 2007 and 2011.

“Birth control was offered to more than 9,000 St. Louis teens and adults who were also educated about their options. The study subjects were aged 14 to 45…. All were considered at risk of unplanned pregnancies and were willing to try a new birth control method.”

Results?…”Drum roll: The free birth control program reduced unplanned pregnancies substantially and cut the abortion rate by 62  to 78 percent over the national rate…

The results were published online recently in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. They found that from 2008 to 2010, the abortion rate ranged from 4.4 to 7.5 for every 1,000 women. For 2008 (the last year calculated) the national abortion rate was 19.6 per 1,000 women.”

“The birth rate among the girls aged 15 to 19 in the study was 6.3 per 1,000. That’s far below the U.S. rate of 34.3 for every 1,000 girls of that age range.”

The article was a “feel good” read.  We should cheer the results and expect no less from Obamacare’s free birth control mandate.

However, I hit reply to my friend’s email and sent her an article of my own that I’m sure dashed her jubilation to pieces. It’s title, “24,000 U.S. Women Become Infertile Every Year From Undiagnosed STIs”  tells in part the disheartening results of unabated sexual freedom.

 “Many tend to think of HIV or maybe syphilis as the serious one. But gonorrhea and chlamydia can and do cause a lot of infertility. Twenty-four thousand women in the U.S. become infertile every year as a result of undiagnosed STIs according to the same CDC data. Most women who have chlamydia or gonorrhea have no symptoms, which make awareness and access to screening especially important. We’re still catching so few of the cases. Among 15-24 year-olds infected with Gonorrhea only 200,000 of the estimated 570,000 who have the infection are diagnosed and treated.

Chlamydia:  Only 1 million of the  estimated 1.8 million are diagnosed and treated.

After I sent the email I remembered an interview I read recently touting a book written by Ms. Donna Freitas entitled, “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.” According to the author students have come to realize that even though “hook ups” are supposed to symbolize the modern mind set,  “Don’t get attached,” many students are finding that it is almost impossible to “walk away emotionally unscathed and not caring.”  They’re just not good at it.  I haven’t read the book, but Ms. Freitas claims that it is the males who are being hurt.  I will have to read her book to figure out her reasoning.

Dr. Miriam Grossman’s book entitled “Unprotected” which I have read sights the opposite.  It is the young women whose lives are being robbed of the normalcy that accompanies healthy, loving, and loyal relationships.

After reading “Unprotected” I had a knot in my stomach that made me physically sick.

This sexual freedom that is supposedly liberating both male and female from “all consequences” is a big lie.  The men involved may be dealing with concern and regret, but it is the women who are being hurt…wounded…damaged…injured…I can’t find a strong enough word that describes the consequences to a woman having sex with multiple partners.  Over time the giving of herself, and then the rejection that follows will destroy a woman…if not physically, then emotionally.

Katie Collins, Research Assistant to Dr. Grossman wrote, “Our culture does not properly honor sexual intimacy, and the cost is the health and hearts of countless young people.”

Sex without consequences is one of the biggest lies being disseminated across this country.  Free contraceptives may reduce unwanted babies from becoming the victims of this sex-crazed society, but young women of caliber are being broken, confused, misled and defeated.  That is a travesty in this world of “caring” and “compassion” and so called “women’s rights.”

Remembering CSW

Rachel Allison

This week is the final week of the “Commission on the Status of Women,” a conference being held at the United Nations in New York City.  United Families International has several volunteers at the UN working to influence pro-life and pro-family language into the outcome documents that will soon become International Law.

As important as this lobbying is, those in our delegation also have opportunity to support women who have come from all over the world to speak to UN delegations concerning their difficult situations at home. Until we hear their stories many of us cannot fathom the situations these good women are experiencing.  In past years I have heard women speak about human slave and sex trafficking.  Their laws and police force do not protect them or their children from such atrocities.   I have heard women talk about watching other women stoned to death without trial or jury.  I have heard women talk about laws that do not protect their 10, 11, and 12 year-old daughters from being bought and subjected to marriage and pregnancy…pregnancy that often causes the unborn baby to die within the womb of the child bride because her body is not mature enough to give birth.

I’m not at CSW (Commission on the Status of Women) this year, but I am trying to read as much as I can about what is happening as they try to direct this year’s focus on eliminating violence against women. I just read an article by someone who is at the conference.  His words brought back vivid memories of needs and concerns that are too often sidelined.

“During the waning days of the conference’s first week and well into this most recent weekend,  I watched and listened as African women discussed and debated the all-important Outcome Document amongst themselves.  Luckily for me, English is their common language and as I sat beside them in the Business Center of our clean but quite modest hotel late into the night on Saturday AND Sunday, I heard their concerns.”

“They are worried about their daughter’s AND son’s education; they want access to potable water in the more remote regions of their respective countries; more doctors, and in keeping with          this year’s conference theme, they want real life-and-death protection for their daughters.”

As I read his article, I was taken back to the years when I attended CSW, and my heart went out to these women who are desperate for help.  I have personally seen women who have to walk miles for potable water.  I have seen the small dark tents where 15+ children huddle to be taught reading and simple arithmetic. I have seen villages whose only “doctor” is a witch doctor who uses the same needle on his patients until it is too dull to be used again.  I have seen mother’s grieve over the loss of a child to dehydration, snakebite, and disease when there was no medicine or help to save.

We who can’t imagine raising a family in such living conditions should count our blessings, and determine that we will give selflessly to strengthen our families, and then support causes that can lift and help the struggling.

Because I have seen what I have seen, and experienced what I have experienced, I cannot, without guilt, spend time on the trivial.  I’m grateful for that guilt.  There are causes too vital not to get involved.  I try to examine my priorities every day. And then I pray like the dickens that my efforts will make a difference.

Clever and Witty or Crass and Disgusting

A video created by Center for Reproductive Rights has been making the rounds in cyberspace.  It has met with accolades from the pro-abortion world and jeers of disgust from everyone else.

“Happy 40th Anniversary, Baby” features an actor sitting in a chair in a well-appointed room with a fire place crackling in the background.  The handsome actor smiles and winks seductively as he delivers his monologue.

“Oh, hey baby, Did you think I forgot?” he says, as he sips from his glass.  “How could I ever forget our anniversary?” he continues as he talks to the camera as though the viewer were his lover.

This comment from one viewer sums it up nicely:

Honestly, disgusting on so many levels. For a black man to be celebrating – does he understand that today black children are aborted at five times the rate of white children? Does he understand that a black child is more at risk in his mother’s womb than at any other time in his life? Thought this was a sick joke – like a man celebrating that he could impregnate women freely knowing that he could just abort his offspring when necessary. And of all the tag lines – “Hey BABY”. BABY?

We won’t do anymore editorializing.  You watch it and decide for yourself.

Which Part of the Following Did you Buy/Are You Buying/Will You Buy?

Maddi Gillel

 “Lenin, and later Joseph Stalin, determined that in order to maintain control of the people it would be necessary to completely destroy the family and re-structure it. They passed a law that one could obtain a divorce simply by mailing or delivering a postcard to the local register without the necessity of even notifying the spouse being divorced. This state, along with the communist encouragement of sexual immorality during marriage, approval of abortion, and forcing women out of the home into the workforce, accomplished its purpose of destroying the Russian family.”  -Soviet expert Mikhail Heller

I graduated from high school and attended college during the 60’s.  High school was alright, but when I went to college, many of the attitudes of the 60’s were being adopted, and in one particular class, the teacher was buying it all and spreading it to us.  I was ridiculed one day in class for my religious activities – by the teacher, and followed up by a few of the students.  I did not like the 60’s.  I didn’t agree with anything that was going on.

You might have guessed that I am reading a book called “The Marketing of Evil” by David Kupelian.  It is excellent.  He states that there were some far-reaching happenings in the 60’s that began the downward spiral of the family in our culture:

1-    Governor Reagan signed the no-fault divorce law (which he later regretted). This traveled like wildfire to all 50 states within a few years.

2-    Kennedy’s assassination – a national shock which signaled the end of American’s innocence.

3-    The Vietnam War – This war was ideologically waged for a noble cause: to help the Vietnamese fight the communists who were invading their country, but the war was executed disastrously by incompetent leaders, so it became controversial and divided our nation.

4-    Rock music invasion from England (Beatles, Rolling Stones) exerted a powerful hold on America’s youth and soon introduced the psychedelic drug culture.

5-    Widespread confusion among America’s churches and churchgoers over God.  “IS GOD DEAD?” became THE question of the time. This caused anxiety and uncertainty which caused a vacuum into which all kinds of alien philosophies and beliefs flooded: occultism, paganism, channeling, and New Age practices of every conceivable sort.  This also opened up a torrent of “liberation” movements:  sexual, women’s, and gays.

There were other factors that helped roll this revolution along, but you get the idea.

I was too young to realize all this was happening, but I knew that our culture was becoming more and more unsettled and angry.  As I said before, I was sometimes alone in my beliefs and activities if they were contrary to the new belief system invading our world.  I didn’t like any of it.  I didn’t buy into any of it.

Where do we go from here?

• How about a serious return to family?– champion the family, defend it, make sure our family is as strong and healthy as possible.
• How about a return to religion? Let’s see what the scriptures say about how to live this life.  Let’s attend our church every Sunday. Let’s give service and kindness and patience to our friends and neighbors.  Learn how to pray.  Prayers are answered!
• How about a return to some serious development of our gray matter. Turn off the tv- which is written for 8^th grade minds.  Let’s put down some of the technology we’re addicted to.  How about reading a book by Victor Hugo, or Mark Twain, or Jack London, or Ayn Rand.
  
• How about a visit to the mountains, or beach, or desert and enjoy some of God’s creations.

There really are ways that we can either be at war with our soul, or at peace.  It all depends on what we buy into.

 

“Hooking Up”—Is it Really Worth it?

Rachel Allison

Last week I wrote about Hydeia Broadbent, a young woman’s crusade to stop HIV/AIDS.

This week I want to write about some of the “lesser” sexually-transmitted diseases and other problems that are caused by “hooking up.”

There are 19 million new infections of sexually transmitted gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis yearly, which cost $17 billion to treat each year.  But there are others—human papillomavirus, herpes, genital warts, hepatitis, trichomoniasis, and scabies, to name just a few.  The World Health Organization says that there “are more than 30 different sexually transmissible bacteria, viruses and parasites.”  Treatment for those in the United States is also in the billions of dollars per year—that is when they’re treatable and not drug resistant.

Assuming that everyone who is having sex is aware of STDs,  I am quite sure that they don’t understand the consequences that those diseases will bring to their lives.  One woman tells her story when she learned she had Genital Herpes.  I can’t imagine the emotional trauma such a discovery would cause.  As a teenager my doctor told me I had athlete’s foot, and emotionally I felt “dirty” until the creams and ointments cleared up the fungus.

Unfortunately, casual sex is expected by too many, and practically revered by  leftists.  Enter Sandra Fluke publicly demanding that free contraception be given to all sexually-active women. I wonder why someone didn’t argue that the monetary cost of complimentary contraception is miniscule compared with the cost of treating the STD’s that will be transmitted during all that “free” sex.

The facts:

• According to a recent CDC (Center for Disease Control) survey only 60% of high-school students who have had sex used a condom the last time they had intercourse.

50% of HS students say they’ve had sex at least once. (This statistic may be low because many don’t consider oral sex as “sex.”)

• According to the AP article entitled “1 in 4 teen girls has a sexually transmitted disease” not only did 25 percent of teenage girls have an STD, “among those who admitted to having sex, the rate was even more disturbing—40 percent had an STD.”  Black girls suffered worst:  48 percent of them had an STD.

The National Cancer Institute at the National Institute of Health stated that the human papillomavirus, which is “spread through direct skin-to-skin contact during vaginal, anal, and oral sex, causes virtually all cervical cancers and most anal cancers and some vaginal, vulvar, penile, and oropharyngeal cancers (cancers in the middle part of the throat.)” And the risk isn’t limited to women. The title of a 2011 NBCNews.com article adequately sums up the situation:  “Cancer spike, mainly in men, tied to HPV from oral sex.”  The article added that “we can expect some 10,000 to 15,000 patients with the oropharyngeal cancers per year in the United States, with the great majority having HPV-positive (cancers.) “High risk HPV infections account for approximately 5 percent of cancers worldwide.”

According to the CDC, “Chlamydia and gonorrhea are important preventable causes of infertility,” even though “most women infected with Chlamydia or gonorrhea have no symptoms.  There are “an estimated 2.8 million cases of Chlamydia and 718,000 cases of gonorrhea that occur annually in the United States.” Each year untreated STDs cause 24,000 women in the US to become infertile.”  STD’s cause approximately one-fourth of all infertility in women, and treatment to rectify infertility can be very costly.

I won’t elaborate on how STD’s affect babies.  But babies can get the dread disease from their mothers causing stillbirths, low birth weight (less than five pounds), conjunctivitis (eye infection) pneumonia, neonatal sepsis (infection in the baby’s blood stream), neurologic damage, blindness, deafness, acute hepatitis, meningitis, chronic liver disease, and cirrhosis.

STD’s truly are “the gift that keep on giving.”

Again I will ask, “Where is the outcry?”  If there were enough voices outraged by the outright disregard of the issue that is bringing so much emotional and physical pain, death and monetary waste, maybe…just maybe we could help bring this deception to the forefront.

Where Have We Gone Wrong?

Rachel Allison

I was wide awake at 4:30 this morning.  My husband came downstairs ten minutes later.  Neither one of us could sleep, and so we sat together and just talked.  Our conversation covered mixed topics, but I was surprised at how often we returned to the topic of the recent Connecticut shooting.  “Did you receive the email about mental illness?”  discussion…change of topic…

Then “I wasn’t able to watch the news yesterday.  I heard they were showing the faces of the victims. I can’t see their faces.  It’s too painful.” Discussion.  Change of topic.

Then “As I drove to the bank yesterday I was listening to Dennis Prager.  He asked his radio audience to listen to a rabbi and a Catholic Priest talk about the tragedy of the shooting, but before playing the clip he asked us to notice the one word that was carefully avoided.  I tried to determine what word he was referring to, but couldn’t. It was ‘God.’  Prager’s point? ‘How can we talk about a tragedy like this and leave God out of the discussion?’ We have become so sensitive to the far left’s godless agenda that we guard our speech so as not to “offend.””…more discussion…

I’m sure that our dialogue is not much different than most conversations at this time of unbelievable shock and sorrow.  We are grieving for the families of the innocent victims.  I can’t even begin to imagine the mental and physical anguish they are living right now.  We are grieving for our society where something like this can happen.  And I, like many, am grieving for a society that doesn’t understand the comfort, strength and peace that comes from a strong and solid belief in God. There are many who will ask, “Why did God allow this to happen?”  God does not allow this to happen.  Our society and our culture have allowed this to happen.

We have focused too long on political advantage. We have catered to the few who have learned to speak loudly and adamantly against God, virtue, and goodness. Too many of us who know better have allowed ourselves to be submissively silent…even when we fully recognize the faults of their philosophy.  When we unite our voices…when we stand just as strong…perhaps the Godless will listen and rethink their anger.  I’m grieving for them also.  How empty their lives must be.

One of the topics discussed with my husband early this morning was how to react with people who overconfidently verbalize their prowess on a subject when in reality they haven’t a clue.  Those who dismiss God are in this category.  There are too many facts…too much substantiated evidence.   Millions recognize His hand in their lives every day. I am one of those.

“Great truths are often violated by our speech, but they are also outraged by our silence, and made ineffective by our dullness and by our lack of confidence, faith and enthusiasm.”  Sterling W. Sill

Voting Pro-life While Managing to Care for the Poor

Diane Robertson

As a mother of nine kids, and a defender of the traditional family, I’d like to think that few things ruffle my feathers. I can handle a lot of noise, big messes, daily elementary school homework, as well as being called hateful and bigoted for supporting traditional marriage. However, one thing really ruffles my feathers. I am bothered when someone tells me that I am not a “true Christian” if I do not agree with his or her politics.

A Facebook friend posted an article she said was, “interesting with some valid points,” in regards to the upcoming U.S. presidential election. I curiously started reading. Almost immediately, I could tell this was indeed what ruffles my feathers. And it did. In fact, it did so thoroughly, that I went through it point by point to refute all of the arguments.

The author, Jim Wallis, makes three common arguments against voting pro-life and pro-traditional marriage. He states:

With more than 2,000 verses in the Bible about poverty — and with freeing the poor and oppressed as central components of the Gospel’s “good news” — shouldn’t we consider how the election will affect the poor and oppressed?

What he means is: If the candidate you are voting for is pro-life and pro-traditional marriage and doesn’t plan to over tax the wealthy to pay for government programs for the poor, then maybe you aren’t taking your religion seriously.

My response: 

A study done in the year 2000 found that religious people (those who attend church services at least once a week) were 25 percentage points more likely to give charitably than “secularists” (those who attend less than a few times per year, or have no religion). And that is not all. This same religious group of people in dollar amount gave four times more in a single donation than secularists. And religious people were 23 percentage points more likely to volunteer their time. It sounds like Christians actually are “freeing the poor and oppressed as central components of” their faith, and they are doing it independent of taxes.

The second point Jim Wallis makes is:

Many of us Christians are “pro-life,” but aren’t the nearly 20,000 children around the world who die every day of utterly preventable hunger and disease just as much a “sanctity-of-life” issue as the approximately 3,000 abortions that occurred in our country today. A very prominent conservative Catholic lamented to me last week how his side mostly cares about children before they are born and the liberals care more about kids afterward. Where is the consistency here.

What he means is: If you vote for a pro-life candidate that doesn’t plan to super tax the wealthy, then you are responsible for the deaths of poor children in poor nations.

My response:

First, by defending the lives of unborn babies, one does not automatically discount the lives of born children. The argument that conservatives care for children before they are born and liberals care for children after they are born is a very poor and absolutely inaccurate argument. A better argument would be that if one cares for unborn children then he or she is more likely to care for the children after they are born. The argument, however, like the argument above can be refuted with the same statistics. Religious people are 25 percent more likely to give aid in the form of money and give four times more than the amounts donated by secularists.   And religious people are 23 percent more likely to give aid in the form of time and physical service – and that includes time, money and service to children.  What one does says more than what one says.

The final argument of Jim Wallis’s that I want to refute is:

And does the Bible only talk about sex and marriage or also about social justice? 

What he means: Social Justice means legalized gay marriage. If you do not believe gay marriage should be legalized then you are not following the teachings in the Bible.

My response:

According an article in Wikipedia, ”Social justice as a secular concept, distinct from religious teachings, emerged mainly in the late twentieth century, influenced primarily by philosopher John Rawls. Some tenets of social justice have been adopted by those on the left of the political spectrum.”

Social Justice is not the same as “justice” that is found in the Bible. Is it “just” for one couple’s sexuality to trample on the religious beliefs and parental rights of another couple? Is it “just” to deny children either a mother or a father because of the choices of the adults? If equality is to be considered in society, shouldn’t the needs of children be at least equal to the desires of the adults?

In this election and all future elections, do not allow someone to use Christianity to try and persuade you to vote for the candidate that promotes abortions and gay marriage. One can care for the poor and promote life and family by voting pro-life and pro-family.

And it sure seems to me that if you vote pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage that you’ve missed the whole point on caring for children and the whole point on “justice” – “social” or otherwise.

 

 

What has Happened to the Country I Love?

Rachel Allison

Without trying to openly express an opinion on the upcoming United States Presidential Election I will admit that I was disgusted by the ad comparing the loss of virginity to voting for our President, Barak Obama.  Have we become so calloused to what is morally unacceptable that we as adult citizens would not demand such public display of sexual innuendo to be taken off the airwaves?  I know that we see much worse in the movies and television sit coms, but this ad was made to target the young.  It sanctions and even encourages their thinking toward passing from girl to woman with the loss of virginity.  All of that, while it cheapens the voting process and the man running for the highest and most honored position in the nation many of us hold dear.

Peggy Noonan, author and columnist for the Wall Street Journal recently wrote,

“About 15 years ago, a TV interviewer noted my concern at the damage I thought was being done by the highly violent, highly sexualized nature of our culture, of our movies and TV and music. It will make us more brutish, I’d argued, and some will imitate what they see.”

“The interviewer was good-humored but skeptical: ‘Hollywood makes a lot of comedies. Why don’t we see the country breaking out in laughter?’”

“Violence is different,” I said,” because there are unstable people among us, and they are less defended against dark cultural messages. The borders of the minds of the unstable are more porous. They let the darkness in. You can go to a horror movie and be entertained or amused: “This is scary, I love getting scared, and I love it because I know it isn’t real.” But the unstable are not entertained by darkness. They let it in. They are inspired by it. Sometimes they start to live in the movie in their heads.…as did the Aurora theatre shooter, when he said, “I am the Joker”  and then began his massacre.”

I completely agree with Ms. Noonan’s assessment.  And I believe that pushing sex has just as much power over the immature, the vulnerably lonely, and the curious.

Noonan wrote, “Everyone knows our culture is poisonous, and nobody expects that to change.”  Unfortunately I think she may be right there too, but for the love of my country, our culture, and my family I’m going to do my best to dilute the poison.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary stated, “The spiritual immune system of an entire civilization has been wounded.”  He is talking about the United States of America…a country founded by God-fearing men and women whose belief in God drove them to a new and brutal land where many would die in the cause they held dear.

How far we have spiraled downward…and I am reminded again of why great nations fall.  Two of the reasons:

1.  They lose their religious convictions and defy basic morality.

2.  They become obsessed with sex.

We may recognize the beginnings of the end when our President himself defies basic morality and allows a campaign ad to obsess over sex.