Unchecked by the truth of Jesus, Satan is free to work his agenda -- death. This agenda can take down a person, sure; this agenda can take down entire countries too.” (Phil Robertson, The Theft of America’s Soul: Blowing the Lid Off the Lies that are Destroying Our Country, pages 28,30)
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Saturday’s key event was our attendance at an open house party to celebrate LaVern and Marlene Smith’s 65th anniversary. It was also our first chance to see their new place, admire LaVern’s latest paintings, and to meet 3 of their children that we had not met before. We had a terrific time with the Smiths, their family, and such other guests as old friend Coach Jim Classen and his wife Dot. It was a lovely and inspirational afternoon.
Then came a packed Sunday beginning with my presentation “The Unlearned Lessons from 9/11” to the adult Sunday school at Wellspring Church in Papillion. And, for the worship service later, I gave a sermon on Jesus’ healing of the 10 lepers in Luke 17. We always love it when we are invited to Wellspring. What an engaging, attentive, and encouraging group of saints.
From there we caught a quick lunch back home before going to Aksarben Village Senior Living for our regular Sunday afternoon church service with my sermon there being a brief but direct challenge from Philippians 2:14-16 about avoiding a complaining/argumentative spirit. Also significant were questions I was asked afterwards (in the coffee, cookies, visiting portion of the service) about spiritual warfare and Islam. I was pleased to be able to answer Mary’s concerns in some detail with several others listening in. It was a good afternoon.
And finally, we then headed over to the Global Friends annual fundraising dinner where we were really honored to have Bob & Linda Potter, Dan and Barb Serlet, and Israel and Luqi Olasunkanmi at our table. (That's the photo above.) The program was excellent (especially GF Director Julie Arant) with the testimonies of God changing the lives of international students coming one after another. And not only from Omaha but from the other places where GF has established new “beachhead” outreaches: Lincoln and Bellevue, Nebraska; Estes Park & Golden, Colorado; Vermillion, South Dakota; Okoboji, Iowa; and still more. It was a wow evening with an exciting, effective ministry that we truly admire. Bless them mightily, dear Lord...and thank You for a great weekend!
From the article -- In June, Heartbeat International published an open letter signed by more than 200 women celebrating their successful decision to reverse the abortion pill and carry their children to term. The language used at Open Arms Real Choices for APR is similarly positive, saying, “The abortion pill is a common abortion method, and some women begin the process while feeling scared, rushed, or unsure. If you’ve taken the first pill and regret your decision, you may still have options. Abortion Pill Reversal may offer a second chance.” Studies showing women’s ambivalence about abortion are incontestably common.
The absurdity of the California and New York action against APR — i.e., its rank persecution of the women affected — should not be lost on anyone. Mifepristone is a non-naturally occurring drug promoted and distributed by companies that do nothing else for pharmaceutical therapy or the cause of medicine. They exist solely to speed and profit from the destruction of unexpected pregnancies. The drug displaces progesterone, the naturally occurring hormone that supports pregnancy and is routinely used to help women with a history of miscarriage, from the developing child’s bonding site in the womb. The result is fetal demise. APR involves the administration of the natural hormone progesterone to displace mifepristone, reestablish the nourishing role of progesterone, and give the child a chance to live.
2) “From Common Ground to Battle Grounds: The DSA is merely stating the end to which the Democrat party has been moving for the last hundred years.” (Richard C. Lyons, American Greatness)
From the article -- Many Americans are rightfully alarmed by the stated positions of the “Democratic” Socialists, as they seem to be outside of the common ground of most Americans’ beliefs regarding our government. But we should not be surprised… the DSA is merely stating the end to which the Democrat Party has been moving for the last hundred years: creating our everyday battlegrounds today. The Democrat Party, since Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, has fostered the growth of socialism in our government, turning it into a hybrid today between America’s founding and socialism’s tyranny.
Our founding Constitution is a social compact and document of law dedicated to limiting the federal government and separating its powers equally between legislative, judicial, and executive branches. Woodrow Wilson himself created the unenumerated power of the Administrative State, whose present-day 435 agencies combine those three powers within every one of those agencies through the making of rules with the effect of laws, by adjudicating cases within agencies and executing punishments, making the Administrative State’s power unilateral, unlimited, and the devoted creature of a Democrat Party dedicated to the unlimited growth of a centralized government.
A large portion of the Constitution deals with the process of voting the representatives of the people into congressional office and the limitations of those offices and the length of their tenures between elections so that those elected are always representative of the people. The unenumerated Administrative State’s bureaucratic offices are filled by appointment and effectively have lifetime tenure. In which body of our hybrid government do you think there is more power? In 2023, Congress passed 27 laws on a constitutional basis by elected representatives. In the same year, the federal registry amassed 90,402 pages of rules that have the effect of laws—rules written by persons that no one ever elected…
3) “IVF And The Commodification Of Children: Adult Desires Should Not Trump The Right To Life” (Ken Ham, Harbinger’s Daily)
From the article -- This is what happens when adult desires are placed ahead of the rights and well-being of children. Consider a recent news story out of the UK. The BBC headline reads, “We spent £23,000 on fertility treatment – now our embryos will be destroyed.”
The article tells the story of a lesbian couple who, obviously unable to have children on their own, turned to fertility treatments and a sperm donor. After some difficulty, they created six embryos, one of whom was implanted in one of the women’s wombs and was born last year. The other five embryos were frozen until “the couple were ready to grow their family.”
But those babies will not get an opportunity for life on earth because all five embryos will soon be destroyed. That means five human beings will be deliberately killed. The article says that the father, the sperm donor, “has withdrawn his consent for further use.” Apparently, “In the UK, a sperm or egg donor can withdraw consent up until the embryo is transferred into the womb.”
The article then shares the story of another lesbian couple that experienced the same thing: “[They] were told last month that their sperm donor had withdrawn consent and their 10 remaining embryos will be destroyed next year.” Ten more human beings sentenced to death.
It’s a very chilling article—15 unborn lives, made in the image of God, will be lost if these embryos are discarded. Now, before we go on, it’s worth noting that the men who changed their minds are the ones who have decided all of the embryos will die next year. But it’s very unlikely that either lesbian couple planned on implanting all of those embryos; in all likelihood, one or two more might have been implanted, the others would have remained frozen indefinitely or been discarded eventually.
Related article: “Is In Vitro Fertilization Ever Justified For Christians, Even With Careful ‘Safeguards?’ -- Are humans meant to be begotten, not made?” (Chaney Gooley, Federalist)
4) “The UN’s Never-Ending Power Grab: António Guterres dresses an old argument for centralized power in the fashionable language of climate, AI, and global justice.” (Itxu Díaz, American Spectator)
From the article -- Yet, beyond the childish rhetoric lies an extremely dangerous underlying idea: the struggle “for power.” Guterres denounces something Marx himself might have decried: “we are witnessing an extraordinary transfer of power away from governments to a handful of private corporations and individuals.” Upon hearing this, my immediate thought was: “If only!” But no, Guterres. The reality is that we are being invaded and crushed by the massive backside of the State, the massive backside of international institutions, and the massive backside of globalist bureaucracy.
Guterres, a socialist morphing into a communist through the corruption of the U.N. and a passion for globalism, is essentially rewriting a centuries-old class-struggle speech. He adapts it to current issues that, while filling the pages of left-wing newspapers, are not what matter most to ordinary people. Even war itself does not necessarily trouble families and workers; rather, it is the economic (and, if you will, moral) consequences that might cause the vast majority some concern. I am not saying ordinary people in the West do not care about war. They care about world hunger, too. But it is not something happening directly over their heads, nor does it appear in their bedrooms at night, the way the IRS does.
Ordinary people continue to suffer most from the economy, the loss of national sovereignty (hijacked by UN globalists), the bloated size of the State and its bureaucracy, the erosion of cultural identity and values, and the dire security consequences brought about by globalism.
5) “Does the British foreign secretary know British history?: Borders cannot resolve a conflict when one party refuses to accept the other’s national legitimacy.” (Mitchell Bard, Jewish News Service)
From the article -- British Foreign Secretary Edward Miliband threw a tantrum in parliament, railing against “settler terrorism” as well as peaceful communities of Jews living in parts of their homeland because of their alleged threat to a two-state solution. The economic effects of the sanctions he announced will inevitably extend beyond the settlements, and harm Israelis and Palestinians alike.
His performance raised several questions. Why is a British Jew adopting the language and policy prescriptions of antisemites? Why does Miliband believe that Britain still has the standing to dictate outcomes in a region where its policies produced a record of broken promises and disastrous miscalculations? What two-state solution does he imagine sanctions will preserve?
And why is he punishing Israel while imposing no comparable consequences on the Palestinian Authority for rejecting negotiations, glorifying terrorists and indoctrinating generations of Palestinians against peace?
Other Important Articles:
* “Strong and Invincible? Not Quite: The Clancy Trial Setback for Women” (Marianne M. Jennings, Jewish World Review)
* “A Bankrupt America Can’t Defend the World: As interest costs consume an ever-larger share of the federal budget, maintaining an informal global empire becomes fiscally and strategically indefensible.” (Doug Bandow, Daily Economy)
* “‘They’re Going to Kill Me?’ Canadian Family Demands Answers after Grandmother’s Disputed ‘Medical Assistance in Dying’ Act Death” (Joshua Arnold, Washington Stand)
* “Giorgia Meloni is right -- migrants must integrate.: It is not enough simply to ‘stop the boats’ or to limit newcomers when so many existing migrants live parallel lives.” (Joanna Williams, spiked!)
* “Top 25 Trump Accomplishments” (Donald Trump, Truth)
* “Twice As Many Men Are Single Than Married Today. Are Women To Blame?” (Bethany Miller, Federalist)
But I am planning a somewhat different approach for this fall, the autumn of 2026. This time around I’m planning on piling in a lot more non-fiction books. And, not only that but, as avid a re-reader as I am, these non-fiction books are ones I have never read before.
But why am I bothering to go public with this news? It’s because I'm inviting you to join me in the project. Read through the list of books I’ll give you in a moment and, if one or more strikes your fancy, consider joining me. How would a book partnership of this kind work? Well, in a variety of ways. You may be encouraged to read it merely because I am -- a kind of stimulant and accountability factor. Or you might want to read and exchange ideas and opinions about the book, as over coffee or just a letter or email. The fact is that after ending our 30 plus years of the Notting Hill Napoloeons book club, a club in which the members met every month to discuss our mutual reading of the best of classic literature, Claire and I really miss talking to friends about books. And thus this invitation.
And the books I’ve selected for the fall? The Counter Revolution: The Fall & Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement (Victor Davis Hanson); Going Further: The Incomparable Clarence Thomas (Senator Ted Cruz); Revelation: How God’s Plan for the Future Can Change Your Life Now (Amir Tsarfati); Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story (Wilfred M. McClay); and The Theft of America's Soul: Blowing the Lid Off the Lies That Are Destroying Our Country (Phil Robertson). A couple of these I bought at Hobby Lobby, the others I bought in Kindle version. And I’m starting on the Phil Robertson one this evening.
So...if you’re interested in a reading connection involving any of these this autumn, just let me know.
From the article -- The United States and Europe continue to see declining performance, particularly in math and reading. Some experts blamed the pandemic for the educational gap affecting new generations; six years later, there is no trace of the pandemic left (except in mental health clinics), and Western children are getting dumber by the day. On the other side of the scale, all those children from the East (Singapore, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) keep improving their results, especially in math, though I am not suggesting for a moment that we should slit our own children’s eyes.
For decades, the Left has harped on about academic inequality, claiming that disadvantaged children get worse results because they have fewer resources, rather than encouraging them to study hard and exercise their right to social and economic mobility. Now we see the consequences of trying to close that gap: the current PISA disaster no longer distinguishes between the privileged and the disadvantaged; everyone is becoming equally thick. The Left, remember, always levels down.
2) “WTH -- The Trump Administration Is Giving Billions to the United Nations” (Danielle Pletka, AEI)
From the article -- The new arrangement with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), involving a total of $3.8 billion to date, has fundamentally weaker oversight than even the deficient procedures that allowed U.S. funding to facilitate terror in Gaza.
That’s not a typo. The Donald J. Trump administration has funneled — to date!! — $3.8 billion to OCHA. What is OCHA? Exactly as it sounds, OCHA coordinates humanitarian affairs for the United Nations. What did OCHA do in Gaza, exactly? Here’s an example: On November 14, 2023, the Department of Defense revealed that the United States had information that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operated a command-and-control node from Al-Shifa Hospital, stored weapons there, and used hospitals to conceal military operations and hold hostages...
Historically, those managing U.S. assistance, whether at the now defunct AID or at the State Department have confronted challenges in dealing with NGOs too cozy with unsavory governments and groups. Bad things tend not to happen in places filled with angels, and that’s natural. What’s unnatural is the State Department’s evident lack of effort to mitigate the risk that, um, American tax dollars are being used by terrorists to, um, kill Americans.
3) “A Booming Economy: Who Cares?” (John Hinderaker, Power Line)
From the article -- So why is the Trump administration seemingly on the ropes, with the Republicans’ midterm prospects considered to be bleak? The main reason is the Iran war; not because of casualties we have suffered in that conflict, which have been almost nonexistent–rather, because of the transitory impact on the price of gasoline.
I think the root cause of the administration’s current malaise is the fact that Donald Trump is not a good politician. A competent politician would have handled the Iran conflict quite differently. It would have begun with an address from the Oval Office in which the president would announce the beginning of the conflict, explain the reasons for it, and outline the administration’s goals. Trump never did that, and his Truth Social posts–which he seems to think fill the role of the traditional address to the nation–have been sporadic, amateurish and inconsistent.
A competent politician would not have empowered the IRGC by wasting months trying to achieve a “deal” that would, in any event, have been worthless. Trump should have carried out the military operation until his announced goals had been achieved, and then terminated it.
And a competent politician, instead of spouting off on everything under the Sun on a daily basis, thus giving his opponents endless ammunition to attack him, would stick to consistent messaging on the most important topics, like the economy and immigration. Instead, Trump’s significant achievements have largely been lost in a blizzard of irrelevant news headlines, usually enabled by Trump himself.
4) “What the hell is a ‘non-practising white’? -- The reaction to the black juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial has exposed the ugliness of woke identity politics.” (Ada Akpala, spiked!)
From the article -- The case generated intense discussion about mental health, postpartum depression and the extent to which severe mental illness can affect a person’s responsibility for their actions. Many of us also watched, with some bewilderment, as hordes of women rallied behind a mother who had admitted to taking the lives of her own children. Throughout the trial, groups of supporters gathered outside the courthouse in a show of support for Clancy, either proclaiming her total innocence (some suggested her husband was really the murderer) or suggesting that, because of her mental health, Clancy was just as much of a victim as her dead children.
Since the jurors’ identities came to light, race has dominated the discussion. Put simply, Clancy’s progressive supporters are struggling to get to grips with the fact that the lone juror who thought she was guilty is black. One Clancy supporter’s disappointment has since gone viral. ‘As a non-practising white’, she said on TikTok, ‘I am surprised, and that changes the landscape of the conversation’.
This is where identity politics starts to become genuinely surreal. Why should the race of a juror ‘change the landscape’ of the debate? What does one man’s skin colour have to do with whether Clancy’s mental state absolved her of responsibility? For one thing, Clancy is a white woman, as were the three children she killed. Race had nothing to do with this case at all. And what in the world is a ‘non-practising white’?
We need to speak honestly: this is a form of racism. In the woke worldview, ‘white’ is no longer simply a description of someone’s race or ethnicity. It is a signal of politics and morality. Whiteness is oppression, the thinking goes, so the more distance you put between yourself and it, the more naturally aligned you become with the ‘victim’ of the story.
Related article – “The Dangers Of The Modern Therapeutic Culture: When Moral Responsibility Is Erased, Justice Is the Casualty” (Alex McFarland, Harbinger’s Daily)
5) “Piddington: roar of the Waitrose mums: The middle classes might finally be waking up to the lunacy of illegal migration.” (Tom Slater, spiked!)
From the article -- That sound you hear in the distance is the roar of the Waitrose mums. Piddington, a tiny, well-to-do village in Oxfordshire, has voted to secede from the United Kingdom over government plans to stick 1,256 male illegal migrants on a nearby military base. When and if they arrive, the newcomers will dwarf the 350-strong Piddington population by four to one. Long the preserve of the working classes, opposition to asylum policy is now reaching into the ‘centrist’ Home Counties. And all it took was for them to be personally affected by it.
The vote is purely symbolic, of course. The rebels of Piddington aren’t about to erect border posts or seize the post office. Not yet, at least. But what a signal it sends. The newly dubbed Principality of Piddington represents a broadening of the public agitation against the small-boats crisis, and it will be emulated elsewhere. Rebel leader Tim McNally, chairman of Piddington parish council, has said hundreds of councillors from across the country, keen to resist the imposition of asylum accommodation on their own areas, have been in contact with him to discuss the Piddington ‘blueprint’.
That Piddingtonians fought back through the ballot box is telling. Asylum policy has become an affront to democracy, national and local. The potential repurposing of Bicester barracks was announced over the heads of residents and their representatives, via Crown-estate powers that blindsided the council. McNally says the village was given just 10 days to respond to a 1,000-page planning document for the site. In its desperation to close migrant hotels and force richer areas to take their ‘fair share’, Labour is succeeding only in spreading public fury with the asylum system more evenly across the country and the income brackets.
Related articles: “The Invasion of Britain: The UK No Longer Belongs to Its Own People” (Robert Williams, Gatestone Institute)... "Why is the Church of England fawning over a hardline Muslim? -- On the anniversary of 9/11, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave an award to a man who once gushed over Osama bin Laden. This is insane." (Brendan O'Neill, spiked!)
Other Excellent Articles
* “The suicide of American Jewish leadership: American Jews must understand that their current leaders cannot save them. And so, they must save themselves.” (Benjamin Kerstein, Jewish News Service)
* “There Is No Such Thing As A Moderate Democrat Anymore” (Brianna Lyman, Federalist)
* “Iran, the Midterms, and October Surprises: The Iran war could reshape the midterms as Democrats, Iran’s regime, dissidents, and Kurdish rebels weigh the political and military stakes of the next 50 days.” (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness)
* “‘Without Excuse’: From A Child To A Genius, Intelligent Design Is Common Sense” (Ray Comfort, Harbinger’s Daily)
* “Nearly 100% of Princeton faculty donations went to Democrats -- zero to Republicans” (Jennifer Kabbany, College Fix)
1) “Lindsay Clancy, Roe, and the Left’s Constitutional Order -- Several generations of girls have been raised to believe that a woman's independence and mental health constitutionally override any dependent's claim on her.” (Stephen Soukup, American Greatness)
From the article -- This past week, the nation was, once again, bitterly and politically divided over an episode that should, by all rights, have had nothing to do with politics. The courtroom proceedings involving a woman accused of killing her own children and then attempting to kill herself should have been “news” only to those morbidly fascinated by human nature at its worst and most vulnerable moments. Instead, however, the omnipresence of politics in our society turned the trial of Lindsay Clancy into a national obsession for a few days, at least. Left-leaning women lined up in support of the murderous mother, insisting that she was not legally responsible for those murders, that she had suffered a bout of postpartum psychosis and, therefore, did not have the capacity to understand the iniquity and severity of her actions.
Right-leaning commentators—men and women—reacted in turn to the fervency of Clancy’s supporters. Murder is murder, they insisted. Moreover, the evidence suggested premeditation, not a psychotic break. Of course, what really bothered those on the right, Clancy’s detractors, was the very existence of those on the left, Clancy’s supporters. The fact that there exists an organized, animated, and sizable contingent of people who would consciously choose to lionize a child-murderer and to lend her their political, spiritual, and financial support served as proof that there is something profoundly wrong in our society, something ugly, something monstrous.
Part of this, of course, is the familiar story of the politicization of everything, the incidental but defining characteristic of classical, post-Enlightenment liberalism that turns every issue or disagreement into a competition between factions. A bigger part of it, though, is the direct, intentional politicization of everything having to do with women, which started as a cultural movement in the 1960s and morphed into the creation of an entirely new constitutional order.
Related articles: “The warped feminism of the Lindsay Clancy fan club: A mother who strangled her own children to death does not ‘represent’ all women.” (Georgina Mumford, spiked!)... “Exposing A Culture That Has Renamed Evil As ‘Mercy’” (Daniel Cohen, Harbinger’s Daily)...
2) “The National Security Question We Should Be Asking” (Casey Harper, Washington Stand)
From the article -- The question is: We don’t make many of our most important goods in the U.S. anymore. Isn’t this a major national security threat?
But plenty of people are asking those questions. The question I never hear asked is mine: is the global supply chain a crucial weakness in the event of a conflict with a superpower, especially China, which has far more production capacity than us?
This question began brewing during the COVID-19 crisis when you couldn’t find hand sanitizer, Lysol spray, and for some reason toilet paper on grocery store shelves. Then we learned that the vast majority (over 90%) of our masks were made in the U.S. Now, I have grown to hate those masks, as you likely have too, but it certainly illustrated the point that regardless of how great our nation was, when a crisis came, the store shelves were empty of what we wanted most.
3) “The Enemy Invasion of Our Schools: Chinese, Russian, and Islamic agendas are increasingly evident in America’s K-12 schools and colleges.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness)
From the article -- In reality, China is likely home to the world’s most tyrannical government, guided by a totalitarian ideology and ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. It deprives citizens of their rights on a sweeping scale and systematically curtails freedoms to retain power. As the U.S. State Department explains, “People in China cannot practice the religion or belief of their choice. They cannot express their opinions openly or form or join groups of their choosing without fear of harassment, arrest, or retribution. Members of minority groups are subject to mass arbitrary detention, Orwellian-style surveillance, political indoctrination, torture, forced abortions and sterilization, and state-sponsored forced labor.” Notably, the Chinese government systematically detains and persecutes both Uyghur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners.
But the ominous assault on our students is not limited to China. Since 1996, Emzari Gelashvilli, a former Georgian intelligence official who reviewed KGB operational archives, has documented the systematic use of active Soviet measures to infiltrate Western educational institutions.
His findings show that the ideological transformation of American and other Western universities is not the product of organic domestic political evolution alone. At a minimum, it reflects external actors’ successful exploitation of institutional vulnerabilities—chiefly the Soviet Union’s intelligence apparatus, whose documented objectives align with the outcomes now visible on many U.S. campuses.
4) “The Left Is Dragging America Back to the Dark Ages” (Victor Davis Hanson, Daily Signal)
From the article -- Now let’s switch to the modern period. All of us now can call anywhere in the world in seconds on our iPhones. Anything you want to know, past, present, future, you can just get on a cheap computer and ask an artificial intelligence program from the many free platforms. You can watch movies, you can watch entertainment on satellites. Anything you want is at your fingertips.
The nation itself is exploring space. We’re getting close to conquering cancer. I can attest to that. Computers allow you to write without even speaking. You can, unfortunately, compose a whole term paper or a book with AI. You can make a movie with AI.
Yet at the same time that’s happening, look at what’s going on in Berkeley here in California or Los Angeles. We’re seeing outbreaks of medieval diseases that we thought had been conquered years ago, given our sophisticated knowledge of sewage and water treatment. We had a typhus breakout in Los Angeles. We had leptospirosis, a rat disease, in Berkeley.
You look at the homeless camps all over our major cities. People are just out in the open fornicating, urinating, defecating, injecting drugs. There’s tons of feces that has to be removed, and it’s so strange in this modern medievalism. We have sophisticated researchers who go into a hospital in Chicago or go to a cancer center in San Francisco and have to check the bottoms of their shoes to make sure they don’t have feces as they go into their space-age laboratories.
5) “How Christian Physicians Are Being Screened Out by the Medical Establishment” (Zachary Patton, Washington Stand)
From the article -- Spanning throughout the U.S. and within the midst of the country’s medical education and residency programs, a silent ideological cleansing is occurring. For centuries, the Hippocratic Oath has existed as medicine’s north star of morality, an unwavering promise to preserve human life. Today, that honored commitment has become a career-ending liability.
Taking on the guise of standardized bioethics, accreditation boards and residency matching programs have begun systematically filtering out doctors who don’t fit the mold — largely those who are Christian due to their pro-life tendencies — all before they take their first step into an operating room.
What once stood as a respected tradition of statutory conscience protections, such as federal Church Amendments, is slowly being dismantled without Congress batting an eye. Rather, the medical establishment has come to rely entirely on subtle gatekeeping. Months before a student even considers applying for a residency match program, the intense filtration begins in medical school admissions via Multiple Mini Interviews and contextual ethics scenarios. While made to effectively measure communication and empathy levels, these rubrics often reward compliance with secular criteria, framing moral objections by treating physicians to elective procedures as failure to demonstrate professional flexibility.
The pressure only grows once the graduate medical education level is reached, where specialty programs are required by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to provide training in family planning and other elective operations. While federal law protects a resident’s right to refusal, exercising it often means risking administrative relations and peer hostility.
* “California Pastor Jack Hobbs Warns: Christian Apathy Is Enabling The Islamic ‘Culture War’ In America” (Erick Stakelbeck, Harbinger’s Daily)
* “What Happens to MAGA When Trump Is Gone? Donald Trump has remade the Republican Party in his own image. But history suggests that political movements rarely survive intact once their founders leave the stage.” (Victor Davis Hanson, Free Press)
* “The Assertion That Bible Prophecy Is ‘Tertiary’ Has Caused Considerable Damage Within The Body Of Christ” (Jonathan Brentner, Harbinger’s Daily)
* Remembering 9/11 (Denny Hartford, Vital Signs Blog)
* "The Biblical Case for Work" (Denny Hartford, Vital Signs Blog)
1) I was in southern Poland when the mass murderers struck. I was part of a small team serving handicapped people and their families by making friends, sharing the gospel, and distributing much-needed wheelchairs and walkers. We were doing so through the graces of Joni Eareckson-Tada’s Wheels for the World ministry. We had concluded most of our work for the day and had just begun a meal with some town officials when shocked faces and whispered conversations suggested something terrible had happened. But no one told us anything; well, except in learning the meeting was canceled due to a great tragedy occurring back in the United States. The locals suggested we go back to our hotel.
Imagine hearing this and then walking back through the little town shadowed by unknown fears and sorrow and speculation. Had there been an earthquake or tornado swarms? An assassination? We were at a complete loss. Then, finally we arrived at the hotel where there were a few Poles who spoke English. But before they tried explaining, they openly wept, embraced us, and then pointed us to the television screens where we saw the films of the airplanes striking the Towers. The reality turned out to be more dire, more wicked than anything we had imagined. And there were a lot more horrors to come.
Miraculously, I was able to make telephone contact with Claire fairly quickly and there was much comfort in that. But, as the hours and days stretched on, there was much more to learn, to mourn, and to try and deal with. And we had to do it apart from one another for there were no planes flying into the U.S. They wouldn’t be for many days to come. Therefore, our team decided to go ahead and complete the ministry tasks before us. Claire had to “play the medic” with friends and family stateside while also praying, getting accurate information to pass on to me, and fighting the paralyzing shock which came from sitting too long before the television’s endless replays of the attacks. It would be another 10 days or so before I got back to Nebraska to be with her.
2) My remembrances of these awful, awful days will always brightened a bit by the recall of Poland’s remarkable outpouring of sympathy and solidarity and tender friendship towards the United States...and to me personally. Everywhere we went there were tears and embraces and flowers and attempts to say in English “I am so sorry” and “We are praying for you” and so on.
I was to eventually learn that there was no nation that even came even close to expressing the love and loyalty and spiritual kinship to America as did Poland in that time. And being one of those blessed to experience in direct and abundant ways their tender hearts, I thank the Poles from the depths of my heart.
3) There was a lot made in those first days about the terrorist attacks serving as an awesome alarm, a trumpeting judgment, an ominous warning to America and the West about our indifference to God and to the low stupidity of mere secularism as a way of life. And, as Claire explained to me over the phone, there were people going suddenly to church, there were more references to God even by politicians and media agents, and more of an honest recognition of our nation’s spiritual unpreparedness. But what happened? Well, it was a very shallow, very brief awakening indeed. And by the time I arrived back into the country, everything was back to its dead normalcy. It turned out that even the shock of these historically unique and unimaginably barbaric terror attacks was not enough to persuade us to get right with Almighty God. In fact, the powers that be were soon twisting these demonic attacks into a bizarre tapestry of symbols and slogans, religious syncretism, empty (and coldly ironic) platitudes about unity and brotherhood, and over-the-top praises of our brave, tolerant, enduring, and free-spirited selves.
Oh yes; there were a few brave and faithful voices calling out for genuine repentance and close attention to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ: Franklin Graham, Jack Hibbs, John MacArthur, Greg Laurie, and others. But most Christian leaders, including the local pastors, failed to take this dramatically open door to teach the truths about the wages of sin, the exclusivity of the gospel, and the brutal and wicked blasphemies which pervade the “peaceful” religion of Islam.
4) And that last point introduces my 4th theme of these reflections this morning. My friends, we must admit that a combination of a) an unconscionable ignorance of the tenets of Muslim religion, b) an unconscionable ignorance of the history of Islamic militancy, and c) a rank cowardice to take a stand for truth that kept America and the West from honestly, effectively dealing with 9/11. For we can read what the Koran openly teaches. We can read the history books detailing Islam’s attitudes (and actions) toward the non-Muslim world. And we can look around us to see how far the evil character of Muslim jihad has invaded the West in just the last 3 generations.
If the Muslim inspired mass murders of 9/11 cannot awaken us to what Islam is and what Islam demands, what on earth will? If Europe (including the United Kingdom) tolerates (and sometimes even embraces) Islamic extremes -- sharia law, forced conversions, honor killings, genital mutilation of women, rape, and lazy individuals leeching off the fruits of Western civilization until they’re completely used up -- who will ever draw a “no more surrender” line? And as goes Europe, so too is going Canada and Australia...and the United States of America.
Alas, the slogans of 9/11 ring terribly hollow now. For rather than dealing with the horrid realities, we are electing vehemently anti-American Muslims to public office, allowing loudspeakers to sound their strident calls to prayer throughout the day, requiring citizens to observe Muslim holidays, and so on. And, all the while, acting with straight faces like Islamophobia is a real thing while ignoring the waves of anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity that are engulfing the world. Good grief.
So...my reflections on the anniversary of 9/11? They are intense; they are sad; and they are not very optimistic. But then, I joyfully remember this overarching fact -- because I have trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I am a citizen of another country, another kingdom and He has settled my eternal future in the New Jerusalem which He will bring out of heaven as eternity begins. And because of that glorious future, because of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit available to me right now, and because His Word is solid and effective in directing my steps now and until He takes me home, I can live my life as a light-bearing ambassador for the Lord Jesus in any culture, any circumstance. Thank You, Lord. Revive Your people and cause us to walk in Your ways.