Blaming Sarah...Even When You Have to Make Stuff Up

Here's a couple of perspectives on the dastardly doings by scalawags in both parties, the Republican and the Democrat/MSM, to trash Sarah Palin, the classy and character-driven lady who remains the G.O.P.'s brightest and most popular star with average Americans.

David Limbaugh writes, "God bless Sarah Palin, and shame on elitists from both sides of the aisle who have denigrated, demonized and dissed her. I don't care how many "smartest people in the room" types offer pseudo-sophisticated analyses to prove she was a drag on the GOP presidential ticket. They are all manifestly and embarrassingly wrong -- and woefully out of touch -- which is par for the course for elitists."

Toby Harnden, the U.S. Editor of the Telegraph (U.K.), examines here the latest fumbling foolishness of the MSM regarding Palin (i.e., a story trashing Palin which was loudly reported by MSNBC, the New Republic, the LA Times, the Huffington Post and others turned out to be a complete fabrication). Harnden concludes, "So the main problem here is not that some in the media don't check stuff on the web. It's that they're prepared to believe - and write - anything about Sarah Palin. Do you think she will get an apology?"

Over here John DiStaso, writing in the Union Leader, details how Newsweek magazine is tearing away at Governor Palin, even though they have to tear away at the truth in order to get her. No matter. Rascally rags like Newsweek have long ago exchanged their ethical responsibilities for a leftist, coercive ideology.

Whose Values Will Determine the New Republican Party?

Michael Reagan weighs in on the "high-level" meetings among certain Republicans who are trying to figure out how to respond to the party's decisive defeat in this election. The question that Reagan poses, however, is whether or not these Country Club Republicans truly represent the values and opinions of the grassroots.

They don’t. What they represent is the coterie who led the party into eight years of ignoring the traditions and principles of the party pursued so avidly by the Reagan administration, with which they have the effrontery to identify themselves.

They represent the big-government, big-spending Republican Party that turned its back on the grass roots, and to listen to many of them what the GOP needs to do is to do more of the same things that put us where we are.

I have news for them. They are not the Republican Party. They remain wedded to the idea that the party is a party of moderation -- the party that can’t make up its mind about what is right to do and what is wrong to do. So they try to come down in the middle.

They forget that Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, warned us not to believe there “is some middle ground” between what is right and what is wrong...

Here's the rest of an excellent "call to arms" column.

Today's Posts

Where Is Conservative Culture?

Obama Advisor Pledges Condoms, Not Abstinence

Why Did the Republicans Lose? P. J. O'Rourke Thinks They're Too Bothered About Abortion

A Sign of the Times

California Theater Director Resigns: Donation to Pro-Marriage Proposition Enraged Homosexuals

Where Is Conservative Culture?

Helen Smith, a psychologist specializing in forensic issues in Knoxville, Tennessee, blogs about popular culture, politics and psychological issues over at Dr. Helen. But some of her posts also end up over at Pajamas Media including the one about "conservative culture" below which I found of great interest...and I think you will too.

Dr. Smith has zeroed in on an important problem: the naive hope that a conservative political ideology can thrive (even survive) without the development of a well-balanced, wide-ranging cultural perspective.

Below I print Dr. Smith's Pajamas Media post which, by the way, spawned a huge amount of interesting comments. You might also enjoy very much (as I did) this Bill Whittle interview of Dr. Smith in a delightful 16-minute interview about this issue. Finally, I close this post with a brief description of how Vital Signs Ministries (and Claire and I personally) are engaged in raising our Quality Culture Quotient.

But let's start with a statement of the problem. Here's Dr. Smith's Pajamas Media post:

The election is over and everywhere you turn, people are saying that the Republican brand sucks, conservatives are on the way out, and free markets are over.

This is a hope on the part of liberals and not reality. Haven’t people been saying that Democrats or Republicans were on the way out since, well, there have been Dems and Republicans? Conservative and libertarian ideas are still good ones, but ones that need to reach out to a wider audience in venues that they can appreciate.

My email question today has to do with where to find conservative culture:

Hello Dr. Helen,

I am just discovering Pajamas Media. What a nice surprise. My question is where is the conservative culture? Conservative politics is fairly easy to find. What I am looking for is music, novels, tv, movies, magazines — see what I mean? So much popular culture is lead by deadbeat celebrities. Perhaps Pajamas Media will evolve to fill this need. I hope so.

A Reader

Dear Reader,

You raise a good point: culture drives politics and not the other way around, at least in my opinion. Because of this, it is imperative that if conservative and libertarian ideas are to survive, we must educate people in ways that they can relate to — and this means popular culture in the form of books, music, television, movies, and social groups, starting with education.

The development of "quality culture" is, of course, not a new responsibility for the Christian. We are to put all things under the Lordship of Christ. We are to intelligently, humbly enact the dominion mandate with its repercussions on our personal character and lifestyle, our family, our society and physical environment, and our learning. Therefore, it is a natural thing for a Christian organization like Vital Signs Ministries, although we are primarily concerned with pro-life, pro-family matters, to provide ways in which people can be educated about the big picture; to see how our attitudes, opinions and actions interconnect with the grave moral issues of our time.

It is for this reason that our ministry has included the wide-ranging Vital Signs radio program, the current outreach of Vital Signs Blog, the Faith and Films project, and the Book It! series in which we have hosted discussions over not only books with a specifically pro-life theme but also such titles as (this year alone) Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas by Ken Foskett; America Alone by Mark Steyn; and The Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Added to this is Claire's and my love of fine literature, music and drama which is shared with our friends and frequently promoted to the general public. Perhaps chief among these engagements is a) the 16 very successful years of the Notting Hill Napoleons, our literary club which meets every month to discuss that month's classic novel (Dickens, Scott, Dumas, Sabatini, Hugo, Shute, Trollope, etc.), b) the more recent (5 years or so) meetings of the Omaha Chesterton Society, and c) the availability of The Book Den, my literature and arts blog.

We couldn't agree more with Dr. Smith's urging conservatives to "conserve" quality culture. And not only because it is necessary for the effective outgrowth of free and enlightened politics. But because culture is life and the Christian, above all, has a duty to seek the highest, truest and most beautiful in his holy walk before God.

Obama Advisor Pledges Condoms, Not Abstinence

Protesting the FDA's delay in approving over-the-counter sales of the "morning after'' abortion pill, Susan F. Wood resigned as the primary U.S. regulator for women's health back in 2005.

She's back.

In fact, she's co-chairman of Obama's advisory committee for women's health and a leading candidate for the FDA's next commissioner.

And, as you can guess, she and President Obama have a bold (make that brazen) new plan including the reversing of the United States' pro-life policies and the aggressive promotion of condoms and Planned Parenthood-style sex ed programs.

Wood said that, in recent years, the U.S. government has influenced and `"tightly vetted'' international organizations to reflect its own policies. Obama will bring "back a sense of balance and perspective and the use of good science and good medicine in these positions, and not just this narrow, political ideology,'' she said.

Here's the latest from Bloomberg.com.

Why Did the Republicans Lose? P. J. O'Rourke Thinks They're Too Bothered About Abortion

We knew it would be coming, didn't we?

I'm talking about blaming the Republican loss on the party being too conservative. There's already been plenty of stuff out there trashing Sarah Palin (though she was clearly the brightest and best thing about the whole campaign) and there's the usual harping from libertarians, neo-cons and other Monday morning quarterbacks about the party being "too indebted" to the religious right.

As if the G.O.P. had any other energetic, principled and numerically relevant voting bloc besides the religious right.

Well, here to hop on this dogpile is P.J. O'Rourke writing in the Weekly Standard. (Yep, the William Kristol, Fred Barnes, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Terry Eastland et al Weekly Standard).

Sigh.

...In how many ways did we fail conservatism? And who can count that high? Take just one example of our unconserved tendency to poke our noses into other people's business: abortion. Democracy--be it howsoever conservative--is a manifestation of the will of the people. We may argue with the people as a man may argue with his wife, but in the end we must submit to the fact of being married. Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it's rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don't know if I'm one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy.

The real message of the conservative pro-life position is that we're in favor of living. We consider people--with a few obvious exceptions--to be assets. Liberals consider people to be nuisances. People are always needing more government resources to feed, house, and clothe them and to pick up the trash around their FEMA trailers and to make sure their self-esteem is high enough to join community organizers lobbying for more government resources.

If the citizenry insists that abortion remain legal--and, in a passive and conflicted way, the citizenry seems to be doing so--then give the issue a rest. Meanwhile we can, with the public's blessing, refuse to spend taxpayers' money on killing, circumscribe the timing and method of taking a human life, make sure parental consent is obtained when underage girls are involved, and tar and feather teenage boys and run them out of town on a rail. The law cannot be made identical with morality. Scan the list of the Ten Commandments and see how many could be enforced even by Rudy Giuliani...

It's clear that if orthodox Catholics and orthodox evangelicals want to keep a piece of the Obama-era Republican Party, they are going to have to get tough now and not let the whimpering, hand-wringing, religion-is-fine-as-long-as-it-stays-in-the-sanctuary wing of the party wrest even more control of the reins.

A Sign of the Times

I was sitting in the doctor's office where I had just brought my mother for an appointment when one of the young girls behind the desk took a personal phone call. She was an attractive, sweet-looking young girl of about 22 and she had been very helpful a few minutes earlier in answering my questions about Mom's new insurance status.

But innocent-looking isn't innocent.

For in that phone call, loudly and unabashedly shared with everyone in the small waiting room, the young girl described (to her landlord) her excuses and attempts at placation for damage done to a downstairs neighbor's apartment the previous evening by her "boyfriend slash roommate."

I couldn't help but think of the dread so frequently shared by modern liberals that the privacy of their bedrooms might be violated by conservatives. And yet it is through decadent television, movies, popular music...and even doctor's waiting rooms...that moderns are forcing their bedroom activities on us!

California Theater Director Resigns: Donation to Pro-Marriage Proposition Enraged Homosexuals

And so the new era begins...with dramatically new (and sinister) meanings to the terms "tolerance" and "political freedom."

Scott Eckern, the Sacramento theater director whose political donation in support of California's Prop. 8 ban on same-sex marriage turned into a lightning rod in the debate over gay rights, resigned Wednesday, saying he wanted to protect the California Musical Theatre, his artistic home since 1984, from further controversy.

Word of Eckern's $1,000 donation -- publicly reported under state elections law -- spread rapidly on the Internet last week, and Eckern drew criticism from some prominent stage artists, including Tony Award-winning composer Marc Shaiman ("Hairspray") (shown in the above photo) and Jeff Whitty, the "Avenue Q" librettist.

"I am disappointed that my personal convictions have cost me the opportunity to do what I love the most," Eckern, the nonprofit stage company's artistic director since 2003, said in a written statement. By resigning, he said he hoped to "help the healing in the local theatergoing and creative community."

The Sacramento Bee described the pressure this way: "In an industry long considered gay-friendly and tied to causes such as AIDS research, Eckern's donation outraged theater workers across the country...When Tony Award-winner Marc Shaiman, the composer of "Hairspray," read of Eckern's donation last week, he urged artists and theater workers across the country to boycott the theater."

And that campaign was generating substantial force. Enough that Eckern caved in completely, not only with his resignation, but with what he foolishly thinks is an appeasement donation of $1,000 to the Human Rights Campaign, one of the primary advocacy arms for homosexuals, bisexuals and the transgendered.

Given the increasing desire of evangelical clergymen (and their parishioners) to be popular, comfortable, and to avoid controversy, one wonders how they will react when such "new intolerance" tactics as were employed against Mr. Eckern are employed against them.

Blogging Lag

With my sister and brother-in-law in from California and ongoing projects related to my Mom's adjustments to her new living situation, my opportunities for blogging have been limited the last several days. I'm afraid that will be the case for a couple more days too.

The great news is that Mom is loving her new situation and her children are thrilled at the safety, the medication oversight, the improved nutrition, the expanded exercise, the dramatically increased socialization, and the calm, attractive environment of Immanuel Courtyard's Assisted Living. The staff have really impressed us with their professionalism, friendliness and attention to detail. It's truly a wonderful place for Mom.

Today will be taken up with moving the last items out of Mom's old place, getting her to a doctor's appointment, and getting some Vital Signs Ministries duties taken care of. But blogging? No time today. Please check back in when things get back to normal.

Today's Posts

Barack Obama Thanks Those Who Got Him Elected (the Press)

More Non-Terminal Cases Turning to Swiss Suicide Clinics

The Pro-Life Cause: Defeated at the Polls Because It Was Abandoned by the Pastors

The Most Fraudulent Election in U.S. History?

Famed Environmentalist Takes on the "Anti-Science" of Global Warming...And Pays the Price

Barack Obama Thanks Those Who Got Him Elected (the Press)

In a remarkable bit of understatement, Barack Obama strolled to the reporters in his plane the day before the election to thank them. "You guys have been gracious and understanding. It's been a good long ride with all of you. Whatever happens tomorrow it's going to be extraordinary and you guys have shared this process with us."

No kidding.

Whether it was drolling over his "soaring oratory," completely ignoring his innumerable gaffes and contradictions, refusing to cover his scandalous associations and murky history, helping him sell a distorted record to the public, or savaging Sarah Palin, the mainstream press were indeed "gracious" to Obama...and then some.

Even the public is in on the sellout. Yesterday's Rasmussen poll showed 51% of voters believe reporters tried to help Barack Obama win the presidency. 31% thought the press were unbiased. (They must be the ones without TVs.) And those die-hard leftists who actually believe the press were positive to John McCain? 7%. (Somebody give them back their meds, will you?)

Oh yes, here's another indication of press bias that slipped out yesterday. We've all heard the examples given about how the numbers of positive news stories, photos on magazine covers, etc. were much, much higher for Obama than McCain. But we now learn that so too was the price tab for reporters traveling with the candidates. Media organizations spent $4.4 million to travel with Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin. A tidy sum. But those same organizations paid more than double ($9.6 million) to cover the travel expenses of the gangs they sent along with the Obama campaign.

The press hated George W. Bush so much (he's too indifferent to their opinions, too pro-life, too Texan) that they dedicated themselves to putting in the most anti-Bush candidate that was available. And they did just that, but selling out themselves (and the country) in the process.

More Non-Terminal Cases Turning to Swiss Suicide Clinics

What's the matter, Bunky? Are you tired? Lonely? Not feeling so good?

Why not contact the assisted suicide counselors at Exit and Dignitas like so many others are doing and put all your problems behind you -- forever!

Here's a Reuters story explaining not only how the numbers of people seeking their own deaths via Swiss "suicide clinics" are dramatically increasing but how many of them do not even have a terminal disease.

Researchers from the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences said many elderly people who have sought assistance to end their lives in Switzerland suffered from chronic and other non-life-threatening conditions.

"Being tired of life and in very poor health are becoming more frequent reasons to seek help to commit suicide than in the past," said Susanne Fischer, co-author of the review of assisted suicides in Zurich undertaken by two groups, Exit and Dignitas.

The Pro-Life Cause: Defeated at the Polls Because It Was Abandoned by the Pastors

Barack Obama was elected president despite the fact he supports abortion into the fourth trimester. Either the 63 million people voting for him didn't know about his radical record, which includes abandoning abortion survivors to die, didn't care, or didn't believe it.

Meanwhile all three state pro-life initiatives failed Tuesday: the California Abortion Waiting Period and Parental Notification Initiative, the Colorado Equal Rights Amendment (defining personhood as beginning at conception) and the South Dakota Abortion Ban Initiative. And both state anti-life initiatives passed: the Michigan Stem Cell Initiative (allowing human embryo experimentation) and the Washington Death with Dignity Initiative (allowing physician assisted suicide).

Altogether, this means we are fooling ourselves if we think the United States is still a Christian nation. Its people just elected a barbarian as president, authorized the killing of both its youngest and sickest, rejected scientific fact that human life begins at conception, blocked parental intervention of abortions of young girls, and voted down the wording of an abortion ban they said only two years ago they would support.

America can be called a culture with Christian roots, but its Christian ethos has been significantly eroded...

The collective Christian church in America must wake up and finally take responsibility for abortion. That's what Election Day 2008 showed. The pro-life movement was actually born of necessity by a void in church teaching, and now the church is almost completely reliant on our para-church organizations and the government to handle the gravest human atrocity in all of history.

Find another genocide or catastrophe or war or famine or plague to match 1 billion people systematically killed in just a 20 year span, the number who have been murdered by abortion worldwide just in the past two decades according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, research arm of Planned Parenthood.

The church must stop abdicating responsibility to stop abortion to the pro-life movement and politicians. God's people are commissioned...

It is your responsibility, pastor and church leaders, to teach your people that abortion is abominable, and before that to teach chaste living. And before that, at the risk of making my Protestant friends flip, to teach that the contraceptive/sterilization mentality, which considers children bad, not blessings, is also a component of the sexual demise of our country...

(Source: Jill Stanek in World Net Daily)

The Most Fraudulent Election in U.S. History?

Was this election the "most fraudulent" in our history? Conn Carroll thinks so and explains why in this Morning Bell post from the Heritage Foundation's blog.

According to federal election law, any presidential campaign that participates in public financing is automatically audited after an election. When Barack Obama broke his promise to the American people by forgoing the public financing system, his campaign became the first since public financing became law to have a chance of not being audited. Federal law does still allow the Federal Election Commission to audit a presidential campaign that doesn’t participate in public financing, but at least four of the six FEC commissioners must first vote to pursue an investigation “for cause.” No doubt there is great “cause” to be concerned about Obama’s fundraising efforts.

Late last month, the venerable and independent National Journal tested reports that the Obama campaign’s online fundraising system was built to facilitate fraud. Veteran journalist Neil Munro bought two pre-paid American Express gift cards worth $25 each to donate to the Obama and McCain campaigns online. Munro purchased the cards with cash and then accessed the Obama and McCain campaign websites from a public library in Fairfax, Va. The Obama campaign’s site accepted the $25 donation, but the McCain campaign’s site rejected it. Contacted by National Journal, the McCain campaign explained its system rejected the donation because American Express could not verify that the donor lived at the address given with the online contribution.

Contacted to explain why its campaign accepted the donation despite the existence of any safeguards, the Obama campaign replied by e-mail: “Name-matching is not a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card processing industry. We believe Visa and MasterCard do not even have the ability to do this.” But Juan Proano, whose technology firm handled online contributions for John Edwards’ presidential primary campaign, told the Washington Post it is possible to require donors’ names and addresses to match those on their credit card accounts. But some campaigns are reluctant to impose that extra layer of security. “Honestly, you want to have the least amount of hurdles in processing contributions quickly,” Proano said.

Obama’s donation fraud facilitation does not end there. Pressed by National Journal to explain why the campaign failed to identify hundreds of thousands of low-dollar donors, the Obama campaign responded that it “would be a pretty hard thing for us to be able to process.” National Journal responds:

'But there is much widely used and inexpensive technology that allows Republican and Democratic campaigns to sort and identify millions of donors and to highlight or exclude overseas contributors. The technology is offered by companies that complete credit card transactions, by banks that provide credit cards to customers, by telecommunications companies that maintain digital networks, and by a variety of smaller firms that track Internet activity. … [A] five-minute phone call to Bank of America’s merchant-services department showed how a campaign could sort transactions to identify any credit cards that were used to make small donations under fake names and fake addresses. The campaign could download transaction data from the bank’s Web site and transfer the file into a database, such as Excel, said the Bank of America employee. “Then highlight all your transactions and click your sort button,” the employee said.'

So there you have it. Instead of making a 5-minute phone call to protect the integrity of U.S. elections, the Obama campaign did nothing. This is exactly the same approach the campaign has taken toward ACORN’s massive and well-established voter registration fraud campaign. Hear no evil, see no evil. ACORN takes a zero-effort approach to preventing vote fraud during its registration drives. Nate Toller, who headed an ACORN campaign against Wal-Mart in California until 2006, told John Fund: “There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances.” And Anita MonCrief, another ACORN whistleblower, agrees: “It’s ludicrous to say that fake registrations can’t become fraudulent votes. I assure you that if you can get them on the rolls you can get them to vote, especially using absentee ballots.”

Already Obama and Democrat staffers have been forced to resign for registering and casting ballots in more than one state. If Americans are ever to trust the electoral process again, a full investigation and audit of Obama and ACORN are an absolute necessity.

Famed Environmentalist Takes on the "Anti-Science" of Global Warming...And Pays the Price

The Daily Express (U.K.) has a delightful interview here with David Bellamy, the noted botanist, environmentalist, author, and television personality. Well, I should say, he was a television personality. But then he dared to dissent from the BBC's global warming fixation...and he's hardly been heard from since.

In the interview, the feisty Bellamy takes on the BBC's ignorance, Al Gore, wind farms, the "McCarthyism" of global warming ideologues, and more. Here's a few samples:

..."When I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn’t believe what we were being told about global warming I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to ­follow the directions of science but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my ­opinions.

According to official data, in every year since 1998 world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that?

The sad fact is that since I said I didn’t believe human beings caused global warming I’ve not been allowed to make a TV programme. My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: “I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?”...

At the beginning of this year there was a BBC show with four experts saying: “This is going to be the end of all the ice in the Arctic,” and hypothesising that it was going to be the hottest summer ever. Was it hell! It was very cold and very wet and now we’ve seen evidence that the glaciers in Alaska have started growing rapidly – and they’ve not grown for a long time.

I’ve seen evidence, which I believe, that says there has not been a rise in global temperature since 1998, despite the increase in carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. This makes me think the global warmers are telling lies – carbon dioxide is not the driver.

The idiot fringe have accused me of being like a Holocaust denier, which is ludicrous. Climate change is all about cycles, it’s a natural thing and has always happened. When the Romans lived in Britain they were growing very good red grapes and making wine on the borders of Scotland. It was evidently a lot warmer. If you were sitting next to me 10,000 years ago we’d be under ice. So thank God for global warming for ending that ice age; we wouldn’t be here otherwise.

People such as former American Vice-President Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming – which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you’ve got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The ­science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science.

There’s no proof, it’s just projections and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry pick the ones that support their beliefs.

To date, the way the so-called Greens and the BBC, the Royal Society and even our political parties have handled this smacks of McCarthyism at its worst.

Global warming is part of a natural cycle and there’s nothing we can actually do to stop these cycles. The world is now facing spending a vast amount of money in tax to try to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist...

The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I’m still an environmentalist, I’m still a Green and I’m still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming “problem” that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world.

Being ignored by the likes of the BBC does not really bother me, not when there are much bigger problems at stake. I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the dest­ruc­tion of trop­ical rainforests, something I’ve been saying for 35 years.

Mother nature will balance things out but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.

Post-Election Blues: Ten Quick Observations

1) The election of Barack Obama, an ego-driven, radically pro-abortion socialist shows, more than anything could (well, except perhaps by the election or very near miss of a profane "attack comic" as a United States Senator) that America has not only passed into a post-Christian era but a post-rational one as well.

2) Objective journalism isn't just dead, it has been murdered by arrogant ideologues of the left. And taking journalism's place is a manipulative machine, one which is willing to engage in the most blatant distortions, manipulations and deceit to get its way.

3) What will be the most immediate priorities of the new administration? They've already told us again and again -- removing all restrictions on abortion (even an aggressive promotion of abortion via Planned Parenthood-style programs in our schools, in our medical facilities, and in our foreign aid).

4) Other dangers to the body politic a Barack Obama presidency will bring? Restrictions on the freedoms of speech and religion; appeasement of America's enemies abroad; deterioration of America's prestige as a beacon of hope, freedom and economic opportunity; and a dramatic extension of the nanny state leading to heavier taxes, denial of entrepreneurship, and thus further financial crises.

5) Most Republican politicians are running scared of the MSM and are therefore running away from the core principles of the Reagan revolution. Either they do not sincerely hold to conservative principles (sanctity of life, freedom, marriage, fiscal responsibility, decency) or they are too unskilled to engage the public, the press and their political opponents with solid conservative arguments. Can it be done in this post-rational atmosphere? Yes. And you don't need to look in Oklahoma or Mississippi either. Look instead in District 4 of New Jersey where Chris Smith just won again -- with 66% of the vote!

6) The marginalization of religion hasn't been achieved half as much by secularism (as powerful as that has been through media, education and government) as it has by religion merely taking itself out of the game. When people who call themselves Catholics (or evangelicals or born again Christians) spend their vote on an abortion extremist like Barack Obama, it's a sure and terrible sign that their "religion" has no consistency, no depth and no relation to the teachings of Holy Scripture.

7) Researching the names on my ballot yesterday, I was chagrined to see how extremely rare were Republicans of principle running for local offices. John Malek and I discussed this briefly last night and concluded (as we have before in previous conversations on the matter) that this is because most young conservatives have values and life priorities that take them in other directions. They are, for instance, driven by concerns of family, career and church. They take responsibility for their own lives and interests. They thus give little thought to government service. But Democrats (to whom government is an enveloping life force) naturally move towards it. A second and more troubling reason, however, is that young Republicans are often dissuaded by parents and church leaders from even considering government service as a legitimate way to demonstrate their religious faith, thus leaving the field to the opposition alone.

8) The election of Barack Obama is a catastrophe. But that doesn't mean that Christians need to face the future with fear or defeatism. Christians throughout history have lived (and spiritually thrived) under bad governments. Many are doing so right now. Our faith is in the sovereign King, Jesus Christ. And our responsibilities to walk godly, to be salt and light, to preach the word in season and out, even to rebuke evildoers all remain in place. And, by the power of the Holy Spirit, these duties are do-able. (Listen to this sermon for more.)

9) The MSM won last night but they couldn't have done so without the dumbing down of America's citizenry. Stupid, intellectually lazy people are a lot easier to lead than informed thinkers. So, if you're looking for ways to create genuine, far-reaching cultural reform (reform that will eventually produce political change), look to the arenas of education, spiritual development and information delivery. Be patient but active. Be creative in technique but with a heart devoted to the eternal verities. Network with others. And pray.

10) America is in deep trouble with the ascendancy of Barack Obama. But the greater problem is the decadent culture of death which America had embraced long before. It is therefore nothing short of cultural revival that we must pray and work towards. And that means holier lifestyles for believers; greater courage and compassion which will increase our evangelism; a stern return to carefully teaching the Bible in our churches and forsaking the worldly foolishness of the seeker-friendly movement; the recruitment of young believers into lives of service to others (including, possibly, politics); a greater zeal for the Church's worldwide mission rather than the ridiculously redundant ministries we finance here in the States; and finally, a proper yearning for heaven, one that aligns us properly to our inheritance, our living hope and our Source of power to live as sojourners here on earth.

Today's Posts

On a busy day (voting, organizing my notes over the presentation I gave in Burkina Faso for translation into French, writing up my notes from a few sermons for translation into Russian, raking leaves, washing the walls of my Mom's townhouse in preparation to sell the place and...oh yes, celebrating our 37th anniversary) I've decided to go with just two blog posts today.

But both are quality.

One comes from Randy Alcorn, the popular author and outstanding servant/leader of Eternal Perspectives Ministries. The other comes from a closer source.

Here's Today's Sermon: "Living Beyond Politics"

What To Say to Christians Who Are "Pro-Choice"

Here's Today's Sermon: "Living Beyond Politics"

Just in time for what promises to be a cataclysmic political moment for the United States (and, no doubt, the world beyond), here's a sermon that just might help you re-focus your spiritual vision, temper your emotions and stimulate a new consecration to live as citizens of "that continuing city to come."

It's the sermon I gave this last Sunday morning at Faith Bible Church which, in turn, was a revised version of a presentation I'd given at Grace University earlier this fall. I pray you'll find it of value.

What To Say to Christians Who Are "Pro-Choice"

To George Verwer and Denny Hartford:

I sent this today to our ministry staff and board. Thought I would forward it to you. When I read [about Christians] affirming their “pro-choice” convictions...it was discouraging to say the least. It wasn’t the first time, and won’t be the last. What a reminder of our need to teach people a biblical worldview and an understanding of the Creator’s vested interests in human life, not limited to the unborn, of course, but beginning with them.

[Below is printed Randy's response to the opinions he had read.]

Thanks for speaking up for the little ones.
Randy

Randy Alcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com
www.epm.org

...I don’t question anyone’s sincerity, and I don’t wish to be adversarial... Unfortunately, I think the stakes in this discussion are incredibly high, and close to God’s heart. And I believe I’d have to answer to God if I allowed my desire not to hurt anyone’s feelings (and that desire is very strong) to outweigh the biblical command to “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9). You and I can each defend ourselves in this discussion. The children can’t.

Who is more poor and needy, more incapable of speaking up for themselves than these unborn children, created in the image of God? Who in our country has been stripped of legal protection and is being killed at the rate of over one million per year? There are many other issues, of course, but what issue is more important and horrific than the killing of children? And who will speak up for them if not us? The election, mercifully, is about to be over, but this issue will not leave us as long as we live, and we will surely face it, when all is said and done, at the judgment seat of Christ.

Nearly thirty years ago Nanci and I opened our home to a pregnant teenage girl who had been kicked out by her non-christian parents. Having her live with us wasn’t easy, but we helped her place the child for adoption, and had the joy of seeing her come to Christ. Diane had two abortions, one before and one after the child born when she was with us. This is Diane’s story told by her.

Diane remains today a dear friend. She is also a passionate advocate of the unborn, and goes into prisons telling women about Christ and leading Bible studies to help them find forgiveness and healing from their abortions.

After what we learned from Diane, Nanci and I knew we had to do something about helping girls in crisis pregnancies. I joined the board of the first crisis pregnancy center in the Pacific Northwest, and the church where I was a pastor became the center’s biggest supporter. It was only later that I became involved in advocating for unborn children. We started with a concern for the women, and have never lost our commitment to helping women in these pregnancies, financially, medically, legally, psychologically and in any way we can.

Those who question whether pro-lifers do much to help women in these situations are apparently unaware of what has been called the single largest grass-roots volunteer movement in American history. It involves hundreds of thousands of people not merely writing out a check or going door to door once a year (like many “movements”), but giving large blocks of their personal time, opening their homes, volunteering services and products, offering free counseling, lawyers offering free advice, physicians offering free treatment, day after day, week after week, year after year, decade after decade.

While you can always find exceptions here and there, the notion that for the most part pro-lifers don’t back up their convictions with loving sacrifice for the good of pregnant women, that we care only for unborn children not women and born children, is simply a lie. But it is a very effective lie, since it is incessantly repeated, sadly even among Christians. [A colleague recently] addressed the false dichotomy between helping children and helping women. If you want more on this, see my take on it here.

When you have stood outside an abortion clinic every week for years, as my wife did, talking to women who have been lied to and told they’re not really carrying a child, and that an abortion will solve their problems, it changes you. When you hold in your arms women utterly devastated by their abortions, remembering the date of their child’s death twenty years later, you will never be the same. When you have held in your hands the remains of an aborted child, as I have, it brands you deep in your heart. When you have seen the world of abortion on the inside, it is, I suppose, like touring a slave ship. You will vomit and weep and never forget it. As it did Wilberforce, it will wake you up in the night and you will find yourself crying for the innocent. So forgive me if I do not sound dispassionate about this issue. I am not. Even as I type I must wipe away the tears to see the words.

In John 8 Jesus combined the two notions of Satan being a murder and a liar. He said “when he lies he speaks his native language.” Satan murders, and he lies to cover his murders. And what an amazing liar he is. Jesus was showing us how holocausts, large scale murders, vicious and cruel, actually happen, with ordinary people of conscience, including Christians, supporting what is unspeakably evil. (I am so sorry to have to say that. I am at a loss to say it otherwise.) The devil cannot pull off large scale murders without attaching a series of lies to deceive people into thinking these people being killed (Jews, slaves, Gypsies, the disabled, or unborn children) aren’t really full-fledged people and therefore are expendable and don’t deserve legal protection.

I wish I could say this without it sounding to some as being mean, hateful, closed-minded and intolerant. God knows my heart in this, and flawed as I am, He knows I am not firing off an angry response, but a grieving one. I don’t want to fight with anybody on this.

We have wept with many mothers exploited by abortion. And you know what’s interesting? All those pro-choice folks, sincere friends or family members and Planned Parenthood and abortion clinic workers, who told them they’d be okay and took their money, are long gone. The only ones who offer help for them now, five and ten and thirty years later, are the countless pro-life centers, support groups and counselors all around the country and in many parts of the world. (One of the common things which must be addressed in counseling post-abortive women is their need to forgive the Christian friends and family members who did not try to dissuade them from an abortion, thinking they were loving them as they did nothing to provide alternatives to killing their child. They may struggle with great bitterness toward the people who could have warned them and begged them not to get an abortion, and offered to help them raise the child, rather than drive them to a clinic. See “I wish someone had told me.”

What I feel, as I write this, is no hostility toward anyone (except Satan)...However, contrary to what has been expressed...there is effectively little difference between being pro-choice and pro-abortion. People’s argument that they are personally opposed to abortion but are pro-choice about abortion (whether they are Nancy Pelosi or anyone else) does not hold up logically or morally. See my explanation.

My entire small book Why Pro-Life is online in pdf form. We give it away and it’s downloadable at no charge. The book is endorsed by Democrats for Life, Feminists for Life, a rabbi, a priest, etc. Feel free to use it, or portions of it, however you wish. This election, like all those before it and after it, will not end this discussion, any more than American elections in the nineteenth century ended the discussion of whether Africans were really human and deserving of civil rights.

Here are some of the questions in Why Pro-Life relevant to the [issues at hand] with answers based on extensive research and interviews. (The first two have links posted earlier in this email, the others do not):

Pro-Woman or Pro-Child? (The myth that we must be one or the other, not both)

Personally Opposed to Abortion, but Pro-Choice?

Is the Unborn Part of a Woman’s Body?

Is Abortion Really a Woman’s Rights Issue?

Do We Have a Right to Choose What We Do with our Bodies?

Does Abortion Harm a Woman’s Physical and Mental Health?

I can’t wait for this election to be over. But I especially can’t wait for our Lord to bring to us a New Earth, without war, racism, and hatred, without suffering, evil, holocausts, the exploitation of women, and the killing of children.

"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" (Revelation 21:3-5)

Randy Alcorn
www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com
www.epm.org

P. S. You may wish to check out this powerful video by popular Mexican actor and producer Eduardo Verastegui.

Today's Posts

UNL Chancellor Thanks Us for Our Protest of Bill Ayers Coming to Town

Zo Delivers -- On Barack Obama's "Evaporative Economics" and More

Chuck Hagel: Nebraska's Oddest Politician

If McCain Loses, It Will Because the Media Didn't Report This Single Story

Obama Plays Santa Claus...But You're the One Paying the Bills

Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

A Special Guest Post --The Right to Life and Tuesday's Election

UNL Chancellor Thanks Us for Our Protest of Bill Ayers Coming to Town

Yes, it took a while for UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman ((he's shown here on the right -- the one with the pupils in his eyes) to respond to our e-mail but we completely understand. After all, if he responded to everyone who wrote in protest of the University inviting unrepentant terrorist and socialist educator Bill Ayers to be the honored guest at the College of Education's birthday bash, then the Chancellor would have had little time for anything else.

No, we credit the Chancellor for his manners.

It's just the content of his response that we fault -- for being tedious, trite and, in places, outright dumb. I print the Chancellor's kind note below and then follow with some specific comments about its messages.

I am sorry it has taken so long to respond.

Thank you for sending me your comments. I appreciate and understand your reaction to these events. While there are responses I might give to each of your comments, on balance I accept the fact that reasonable people can differ on what was done. In the end, what must be preserved is the ability of the university to present a wide variety of views, not just the views that are acceptable to a majority. Students deserves to know that they are getting an education that is not dictated by the passions of the moment but is diverse in its perspectives and, ultimately, provides them with the opportunity to forge their own version of the truth. I am confident that our students are bright enough, critical enough in their judgments, and grounded in the values that they learned at home, to make the most of these opportunities. Whether Ayers was beyond the pale is a matter of disagreement. Seventy universities, many in the midwest, have invited his views on public education. The Gates Foundation has done the same. The Nebraska Department of Education has done the same. His conduct during the Vietnam war was reprehensible. Whether this requires that we ignore his ideas which some, but certainly not all, think are valuable for the future is the question. I appreciate, at least in this instance, you would answer it differently than I would.

Ronald Reagan once said that if you can agree with someone 75% of the time you can still be friends. I'm hopeful that however much you disagree with this decision, that you and the University can still be friends. With our core missions, we are educating a record number of students that Nebraska will need if it is to have a prosperous future, we are setting records in research which will contribute to our economy, and we are engaged with the people of Nebraska in so many areas to improve their prosperity and quality of life.

Harvey Perlman
UNL Chancellor

Despite the unnecessary wordiness, Chancellor Perlman manages to make a few clear points: 1) A diversity of views is more important than an embrace of truth. Indeed, absolute truth doesn't exist. Each student must cast the net abroad for competing ideas and then "forge their own version of the truth." 2) Ayers' "conduct during the Vietnam war was reprehensible" but his views now (remember Ayers has never repudiated the ideas that moved him to bomb government buildings) are still, in Perlman's opinion, "valuable for the future."

3) The question of who should be paid to speak at important University events shouldn't be influenced by rubes like us. No, we're simply to give our hard earned money to UNL through property taxes, buy NU football tickets, and be quiet about other University doings. These things should be decided by professional liberals like other university bureaucrats, folks at the Gates Foundation and the Nebraska Department of Education. And 4) Please forget this flap. After all, we're doing some things you probably think are okay so don't bother us anymore, okay? And to help you swallow the pill, I'm even going to make a reference to Ronald Reagan, a fellow who we educators despised but who is probably admired by the Neanderthals who had the temerity to protest our invitation of Bill Ayers. Satisfied?

Thanks, Chancellor. Nice to hear from you too.

Zo Delivers -- On Barack Obama's "Evaporative Economics" and More

If John McCain ads had featured more Zo, perhaps he wouldn't have been so silly as to appear on Saturday Night Live attempting to win a few new voters.

Zo, the energetic, engaging founder of Macho Sauce Productions, has a video clip here which shows you what I mean. In it, Zo lays down the straight skinny on Barack Obama's "Evaporative Economics," the Democrat practices that keep poor people poor and big government big, the sanctity of life, which black men are really selling out their community, and a lot more.

You might want to forward this one around too.

Chuck Hagel: Nebraska's Oddest Politician

The New Yorker's fawning piece on kinda', sorta' Republican Chuck Hagel does get at least one thing right in its piece: He is an awfully "odd fellow."

The politician whose lackluster career is most noted for his bad temper, his love for headlines and cameras, and an intellect that's frequently gone AWOL, is so desperate for attention that he's taken to deriding those who have tried hard to be his friends, knowing that the networks and liberal organs like the New Yorker are always eager to hear him dish the dirt.

For instance, about his pal John McCain for whom Hagel served as co-chair of his 2000 presidential campaign, , the New Yorker describes how Hagel not only refused to endorse him this time around but has very publicly flirted with being part of an Obama cabinet. (Hagel's wife has already endorsed and is actively supporting Obama. Indeed, Lilibet Hagel was Michelle Obama’s guest at the final Presidential debate.)

Despite its friendly embrace of Hagel, the New Yorker article does let slip a few less attractive elements of Hagel's personality. Among them is his petulance over not getting personal letters from President Bush or a private meeting he wanted with Don Rumsfeld. And then there's that weird and widely heralded press conference in which Senator Hagel told us...he had nothing to say.

Such things seem pretty schoolyard for someone who wants to emphasize his rugged independence.

And then there's Hagel again letting pro-life advocates know that, despite what he says at the church fish fry's back home, he really considers their championing the sanctity of life to be a comparatively petty thing.

“There was a political party in this country called the Know-Nothings. And we’re getting on the fringe of that, with these one-issue voters—pro-choice or pro-life. Important issue, I know that. But, my goodness. The world is blowing up everywhere, and I just don’t think that is a responsible way to see the world, on that one issue. And, interestingly enough, that is one issue that stopped John McCain from picking one of the people he really wanted [pro-abortion] Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge.”

These are prime RHINO credentials -- just perfect for someone who wants the love of the MSM...or a post in a Democrat cabinet.

If McCain Loses, It Will Because the Media Didn't Report This Single Story

John McCain is poised to lose tomorrow's election because of the MSM' gross unfairness in reporting the real reasons for America's banking crisis and subsequent bailouts.

Here's an 8-minute video clip (using footage from actual Congressional hearings) which clearly highlights which political party was trying to pull in the reins on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and which political party had their heads stupidly, stubbornly in the sand.

(This is one of those just begging to sent around to friends, family, church members and others. My thanks to my brother Ric out in Denver who passed it along to me.)

Obama Plays Santa Claus...But You're the One Paying the Bills

Like some of you, CBS News corps tuned in to Sen. Barack Obama's fancy infomercial on Wednesday night. According to reporter Wyatt Andrews, the candidate's big promises didn't add up. Literally. The Illinois senator talked about extending health care to every American ($1.2 trillion over 10 years), rebuilding the military ($7 billion per year), reforming education ($18 billion per year), redirecting energy policy ($15 billion per year), launching a second massive stimulus package ($188 billion over two years), and creating tax cuts for businesses ($85 billion per year).

Obama tried to justify the hefty price tag, saying, "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost." By CBS's calculations he is more than $90 billion short. Even if Obama managed to pull troops out of Iraq and slash the federal budget, economists say his spending spree well exceeds what Americans can afford. The Democratic candidate does an impressive job of casting a grandiose vision-but offers no real explanation for how he plans to pay for it.

On Capitol Hill, the Democratic leadership is already offering some clues. If Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) speaks for the majority, taxpayers should be gripping their wallets a little tighter. A few weeks ago, Frank said, "Speaking personally, I think there are a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax... and recover some of this money."

Now, just days later, he and other Democrats say the wealthy won't be the only ones feeling the pain of Obama's plan. "We'll have to raise taxes ultimately," Frank told reporters, frankly.

(Family Research Council's Action Update, October 31)

Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

Remember last summer when Al Gore described global warming as a much greater threat to humanity than even terrorism? And he did so with the full backing of the mainstream media which, for several years now, has been sounding the alarms of man-made global warming loud, clear and often.

Yet where has this "sizzling hot" issue been in Barack Obama's campaign?

Nowhere.

So why hasn't the MSM demanded it being front and center? After all, it's the fate of the planet that's at stake!

The answer? Global warming has been absolutely nowhere in the campaign because it's just not a winner for Obama. The evidence of man-made global warming, despite the alarms so ominously sounded by arrogantly ignorant reporters, just isn't there and, to an increasing amount of Americans, the jig is already up.

This doesn't mean that Obama will ignore the issue once he's safely ensconced by the MSM in the White House. Oh, no. He's still a socialist who wants control of the economy, of American business and of your freedom. And the myth of global warming provides convenient excuses for those power grabs.

But it has not been on the agenda for the campaign because it's a "Democrat downer." For the same reason, the issues of the Iraq war, the threat of Islamic terrorism, Iran's nuclear weapons, gas prices and other matters that the media had been playing up so strong in order to undermine Republican chances in the election have been dropped altogether when liberal journalists saw that raising these issues actually helped the G.O.P.

The posts I've had here in recent weeks about the death of objective journalism have already made the case: Barack Obama Praising Violence Against Israel? Let's Go to the Videotape...Oh, Wait; the LA Times Won't Show It; Obamedia's Five "Most Shameful Biases and Notorious Blunders;" R.I.P. Objective Journalism; If Objective Journalism Hadn't Already Died, It's Certainly Passed On Now; Questions That Should Be Asked Tonight...But Won't Be; Obama Idolatry: Golly, This Is Getting Spooky. That's citing just a few.

And for compelling visuals of the situation, you can't get any better than these brilliant Michael Ramirez cartoons:

A Special Guest Post --The Right to Life and Tuesday's Election

The writer of the following essay is John Malek, a faithful and principled man whom I'm proud to say is one of my most trusted friends. He is a husband and father, a professional in the insurance industry, a leader in his church, a standout athlete, a Board member of Vital Signs Ministries, a veteran sidewalk counselor, a founding member of our literary club, and more...including being quite able with a persuasive argument. Please read his appeal carefully.

In my opinion it is imperative for a leader to have moral clarity. These days, that seems so lacking, especially when it comes to the issue of life. Why is that? With the presidential election less than a week away, we have two very clear options on who to vote for. In my lifetime, there have never been two major party candidates that have stood so clearly on opposite sides of the fence on so many moral issues: sanctity of life, marriage, poverty, war, etc.

All of those moral issues are important, but I would say there is no issue today or in any day, nor is there any issue in our nation, or in any nation that is more important than the issue of life.

Deuteronomy 30:19: "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."

America's Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life..."

These two passages are intricately linked. Indeed, the Scripture reference above is the basis of the Declaration of Independence passage which has it’s authority from the Scripture. In Scripture, we are admonished to choose life and accept a blessing, or choose death and receive a curse.

Let me clearly state that I do not believe that there is such a thing as a Christian government. At the very essence Christian leaders are called to lay down their lives in service to others. Governments, by definition, rule. At best a government can be informed by Christian principles and enact laws that uphold righteousness and punish the unrighteous. As a nation does that, so will it prosper. Such was the intent of our founders and for many years (and with many, many faults, sins, injustices, etc.) the nation did just that.

I say the above to underscore that I understand that the USA is not a “chosen people,” nor do I think that we are a “Christian Nation” per se. However, for most of our history we have been a nation that honored and respected faith and that had many godly people in positions of leadership. We enacted just laws and respected life, as we were instructed in Deuteronomy and was echoed in the Declaration of Independence.

There will be many who will scoff at the idea that God would bless this nation, because of all the historic injustice among African-Americans, American Indians, Japanese-Americans, some wars, etc. That will not raise an argument from me. In the midst of our faults and sins, why should we experience His blessing?

At our nation’s birth, it was affirmed that we had a right to life given to us from God that could not be taken from us by the government. In our Declaration of Independence, we stated that God gave us the right to life as well as the right to pursue what God would call us to be and do. In the very beginning, He created Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill and subdue the earth. He spoke destiny to them as He does to us and the Declaration ratified that very thing. As long as we honored that, as long as we were a people with the right to life empowered by God to become what He called us to be, I believe He promised that there would be prosperity in the land. Notice that this is not the same as God blessing us because we were a “Christian nation,” but because we were a nation that valued His principles.

Rights have been chipped away from us over the years. Basically, our government has taken back what they had no right to take: rights that were endowed upon us by our Creator. However, none have been so grievous to God as when the courts stripped millions of children in the womb of the right to life in 1973. His word itself states that blessings follow choosing life, but curses follow choosing death.

Many have said that abortion is only one issue and that we should care for the poor as well. The argument goes something like this, “I am opposed to abortion, but that is just one issue. I know Candidate A opposes abortion like I do, but Candidate B is promising to alleviate poverty, therefore making it less likely that people will need abortions. That is pro-life also, isn’t it?” This argument draws a moral equivalence between not doing enough to eliminate poverty and the sanctioning of the direct termination of children’s lives in the womb. These two are not morally equivalent. They are completely different issues. Abortion is the direct killing of an innocent child. Death by starvation (which is very rare in the nation) is the indirect death of an innocent child. Both are horrible and sad, but they are not the same.

If we changed the subject in the argument cited above from abortion to murder, we would feel very uncomfortable saying, “I am opposed to legalized murder, but that is just one issue. I know Candidate A opposes legalized murder like I do, but Candidate B is promising to alleviate poverty, therefore making it less likely that people will kill each other. That is pro-life also, isn’t it?”

When the British first settled in India and encountered the tradition of burning wives at the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands, they did not temporize by saying that they would teach the people new traditions so that fewer wives would be burned with their husbands. They simply told them that life was too valuable to murder these women and they creatively stopped the practice.

I agree wholeheartedly that we need to care for the poor. If, however, we do not protect nascent life in the womb, why are we caring for the poor? Indeed, if abortion is sanctioned by our government and, by extension, us, (since we are a government of the people,) what moral imperative is there to care for the poor? A leader or a nation that can take innocent life, can take anything else from its citizens. I would argue that is exactly what this year’s pro-abortion candidate is proposing.

It seems to me the choice is not between abortion and caring for the poor. We simply can’t do one without the other. The argument above implies that there are valid reasons for abortion such as poverty and we should vehemently resist the idea that any reason justifies the abortion of an unborn child. Scripturally, there is justification for that argument.

Mark 14:7: "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me."

Jesus seems to say that despite our best efforts we will always have the poor. Every government program initiated since the 60’s has only trapped people in cycles of dependency and robbed them of dignity, family and self esteem. Don’t misunderstand me (or the verse.) We must still seek ways to care for the poor, but we should be very wary of state solutions (at least the tried and failed approaches). Besides, let us not miss the obvious: protecting the right to life of the poor is the first and best way to care for them.

Poverty is a serious issue that we, as the church, need to take the lead in alleviating. We need to encourage programs that help people escape poverty, and yet protects them from falling into cycles of dependency. We need to seek ways to enable people to have access to affordable health care. All of this is crucially important, but is ultimately meaningless if we determine that some do not deserve to live.

So, for me, it boils down to choosing a leader who will work to defend the inalienable right of life, (given to us by God) and opposing a leader who would seek new and even more extreme ways to deny life to our most defenseless. If one candidate is going to protect innocent life, then they are demonstrably better than the candidate that agrees in infanticide. In my mind, this could not be clearer. No amount of discussion about caring for the poor can change the basic facts of who stands for life and who does not. Does anything else really matter if there is no sanctity of life?

Finally, I believe that abortion affects all that we do. It affects how we care for the poor, it affects health care, it affects our military actions. If we value human life in its most innocent form, that value carries over to how we value every other life on the planet. If we believe that each life is endowed by it’s creator with the right to life, then we will also ascribe greater value to their dreams and do more to encourage the pursuit of those dreams. We will assist each individual to be all that God wants for them. We will celebrate their life and the unique person that God has created them to be. We are better people when we truly value life. Conversely, when we concede that abortion is sometimes acceptable, we set ourselves on the path to disregard other rights as well.

Matthew 25:40: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"

As Christians, we can disagree on many issues. However, I cannot find a Scriptural basis for disagreeing on the sanctity of life. The other issues can be dealt with, but we will ultimately fail to find godly solutions to any of those issues if we don’t protect the right to life of the weakest among us.

I, therefore, am asking Christians to come out and choose life so that you and your children might live. We need not be afraid of aligning ourselves with a political party. Instead, we are aligning with God at the most basic level. Our lack of clarity could cost the lives of thousands and maybe millions of unborn children in this nation, not to mention millions around the world. We need to stand up and be counted as clear moral thinkers in an age of relativism. If the children of God are confused about this issue how much more so is the world. It is time to break the silence! It is time to stop saying that we don’t know who to vote for, because now is the time to get back to basics and vote and act to protect innocent life.

John M. Malek
10/29/2008