The U.S. and the “Abortion Olympics”

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Bob F.

Sometimes other say it very well without additional commentary.  Check out Chuck Donovan’s article on “Winning the Abortion Olympics.”

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The Right of Refusal – on Principle or for Purpose

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Bob F.

If I were heading up the marketing campaign for gay rights I suspect I would begin to feel pretty invincible these days.  The movement to treat same sex relationships as just “another normal” has been nothing less than remarkable.

In fact, it has almost become bullying in reverse.  Any criticism rooted in personal opinion or religious convictions immediate pegs one as homophobic.  If you oppose homosexual activity or its presumed entitlements (i.e., marriage, adoption, etc.) you are characterized as Elizabethan at best and dangerous to an open-minded society at worst.

I have been struck by stories of bakers, on the basis of religious convictions, refusing to provide wedding cakes for gay marriages (click here for story).  This is similar to cases where businesses have refused to allow coverage for birth control in their corporate health plans in violation of the Affordable Health Care Act provisions.  Again, the refusal is based on the religious convictions of the business owner and the consequences could be severe for standing on those principles.

The “right of refusal” for conscience reasons is a cherished privilege in this country.  It has historically been practiced by the religiously sensitive who wish to either not be a party to sin or to not sin.

Obviously that “right” is not absolute.  Taxation is an example where, like it or not, we all become party to something that, in some areas (i.e., birth control, abortion, war, etc.) likely challenges some of our sensitivities.  So where do we draw the line?  Failure to practice this right judiciously could endanger its future use when small acts of refusal cause a public outcry.

As Christians we find guidance in Scripture pn this matter through directives and by examples.  Elizabeth Scalia, a Catholic author and editor, hints to such guidance in her well-written article, “Jesus might bake the cake, but would he perform the nuptials?“  If you have a moment read her article.

The Christian purposes in life include “living the faith” and “sharing the faith.”  Both activities find their motivation and direction in God.  Living our faith is an activity of expressing Christian freedom in a way that shows allegiance to God.  That means we avoid doing anything that is contrary to God’s will as expressed in Scripture.

A Christ-like walk in life is compromised of both actions and motive.  “Acting” Christian without the God-pleasing motive is hypocritical (Isaiah 29:13).  Having motive or faith without action is equally hollow (James 2:26).

Finding the balance is predicated on understanding the mission.  Where sin is involved we are told to “correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.”  When unbelief is involved we are told to “be a light” of witness and truth, pointing to our eternal relationship with God, healed through Christ.

Neither of these activities leave room for bullying.  Mocking the sinful lives of others does not bring about correction.  Building walls of isolation does not provide a corridor for the Christian witness.

What remains is “bridge-building.”  Christ did it by mingling with the identified sinners of His time (Matthew 9:10-11).  When Christ encountered the woman at the well (John 4:1-26) there were obvious concerns about her lifestyle which did get into the discussion. What is important to note, however, is that He used the opportunity to talk about an eternal need for reconciliation between the Creator and the created.

A baker refusing to bake for a wedding is an action designed to send a message.  Obviously the message is an objection to homosexual marriage.  That objection is consistent with Scripture.  Consistency, however, should compel the baker to perhaps refuse baking a cake for other marriages in which cohabitation has sullied God’s design for marriage.  Or what if the marriage is for heathen who have rejected God?

I do find the title of the Scalia article thought-provoking.  I am inclined to think that Jesus would have baked the cake but not perform the wedding.  I think cake-baking would have been an opportunity for bridge-building to open the door for greater opportunities of witnessing.  Maybe not but it is worth considering.

What I want to come from all of this is a better understanding of why we take a stand.  There are lines to be drawn.  In His day the religious leaders clearly felt the line to be drawn forbid mingling with sinners.  The Lord thought otherwise.  Yet, mingling with sinners did not have Jesus participating in the sin or condoning the sin.

Those who embrace a lifestyle or activity deemed sinful by Scripture are those who require a measure of love and commitment that challenges us Christians (cf. 1 Peter 4:8).  The challenge is to mingle without endorsing, to respect without blessing, and to communicate in a manner that leaves the door open for more communication.  In some circumstances it requires refusing to bake a cake but I suspect it most cases the cake gets baked and a relationship begins.

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Some Clarity on my Thrivent Statement

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Bob F.

A friend wrote that he felt my comments about Thrivent had cast the WELS in a negative light.  That was absolutely not the intent.  I continue to hold my membership in WELS because of the high value I place on that relationship and its commitment to the proclamation of the truth of God’s Word and the message of salvation through Christ alone.

It is true that WELS has never “directly” provided financial support for Christian Life Resources.  That being said, gifts given to WELS that had been restricted for Christian Life Resources have always been passed on with no problem.

My point remains: Thrivent has a specific purpose for existence as does the WELS.  Even though we are in full doctrinal fellowship with WELS their purpose for existence does not include sending money to Christian Life Resources.  We do not have a problem with that.

So also is my point about Thrivent with whom we do not have any specific doctrinal fellowship.  Their purpose does not include supporting Christian Life Resources so we do not have a problem with that.  We are thankful, however, that they still permit employee matched support and member directed charitable dollars to support New Beginnings, our home for mothers.

I again apologize if my words about the WELS were deemed negative.  I am fine with their practice.  I was just trying to illustrate that any demand that Thrivent must support Christian Life Resources is not warranted.

 

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Thrivent Issue Settled – For Now!

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Bob F.

Thrivent will no longer permit “Choice Dollar” gifts or match employee gifts to go to pro-abortion groups.  If we wish to see the glass half full, this news is terrific!

Thrivent faced a deluge of criticism when it was discovered that “Choice Dollars” (member-directed charitable dollars) could go to abortion advocacy groups.  Then, like salt in a wound, came the discovery that through Thrivent’s employee matching program, dollars had indeed gone to abortion advocacy groups.

Thrivent’s solution was to “cut it out.”  Literally, they cut out all support of advocacy groups related to the abortion issue and to sexuality issues. [click here to see Thrivent neutrality policy]

Those wishing to see the glass half-empty now focus on the fact that Thrivent’s policy cuts out “Choice Dollar” and matching support to pro-life groups like Christian Life Resources.  The vitriol has been intense but by my reckoning a bit unfair.

Thrivent is not the church or a church.  It is a business.  In fact, the “church” is not always all that supportive of pro-life groups.  My own Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) has never given a nickel to support Christian Life Resources or New Beginnings – A Home for Mothers.  To add insult to injury, the WELS decided some years ago to no longer allow stories about Christian Life Resources or New Beginnings – A Home for Mothers to appear on its video periodical, The WELS Connection.  The WELS wanted to focus only on work as a denomination.

Thrivent did the expected thing and, arguably, the necessary thing.  Yes, I want every agency, every church and every Christian to support protecting human life and standing up for the will of God.  It doesn’t happen and in most circumstances it cannot happen.  I can’t get my mortgage company, bank, grocery store or gas station to support Christian Life Resources.  It is not their business to support us.  I am, however, pleased when businesses I patronize take steps to prevent the support of unchristian ventures.  Thrivent has done that, and admittedly it has hurt Christian Life Resources from lost revenue.  But when has doing the right thing ever happened without some sort of sacrifice?

There is no substitute for education in the Word of God.  Rather than just forbid the option of supporting and ungodly cause it is better to have Gospel-motivated people making the right decision even when the wrong options exist.  Such education in the Word of God is the work of all of us who make up the priesthood of believers.  We often do a poor job at it and that is how these things get out of hand.

One last important note: Thrivent still permits support for New Beginnings – A Home for Mothers – the ministry we started in 1993 to help single mothers and their babies live with a life-affirming decision.  More than 20 years ago Aid Association to Lutherans, the predecessor agency of Thrivent, helped us start New Beginnings with some seed money.  They continue to help us today.

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U.S. Birth rate continues to drop

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Bob F.

In the United States the “replacement level” for births is 2.1.  On average a woman needs to give birth to 2.1 living children to sustain the residential population of the United States.

In the United States we presently have a population of about 314 million.  If you had no immigration or emigration, each woman would need to give birth to 2.1 children to sustain the population.  The two children represents the eventual replacement of the mother and father.  The .1 children represents the reality that some women die before giving birth and some never have children.

According to the U.S. Division of Vital Statistics the replacement level in the United States has dropped to 1.88 in 2012.  The population in the United States continues to increase, however, through immigration.  If immigration were to end, the United States would have a declining population.

According to the CIA Factbook, 94 of 224 countries (42%) listed have a replacement level birth rate below 2.0.  Those countries include the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Russia, Canada, China, Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Poland, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

The countries with the most births per woman are Niger, Mali, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Malawi.  These countries have 5 or more births per woman.

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Honoring Leaders who Favor Abortion Rights

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Bob F.

January 22, 2014 will mark another sad milestone in legalized abortion in our country.  Since that fateful day in 1973, abortion has been legal throughout all 9 months of a pregnancy.  Its advocates originally argued that what was developing in the womb was a mere blob of tissue or a parasitical growth within the woman.  Since it was legalized there have been more than 56 million abortions performed in the United States.

Today abortion-rights advocates have fessed up.  In abortion a life is lost!  Those are not my words but the words of a growing chorus of abortion-rights supporters.  We now witness the candid acknowledgement of what any child who sees pictures of life in the womb already knew – that is a baby.  It is argued now that abortion is a “sad but necessary evil” in order to protect a woman’s right to control what happens in and to her body.

There is absolutely a slippery slope to abortion rights that has endangered many lives.  At another time I will go into greater detail on that matter.  Instead, I want to consider this issue from the commands we have to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves while also honoring those who are in authority.

I am a Christian – more than that – I am a Christian that accepts the Bible as God’s Word.  It does not just “contain” God’s Word, which would presumably allow me to pick and choose what I like to follow and reject what I don’t like.  In actuality, however, the Bible is, in its entirety, God’s Word and will for my life.  And in that word He commands me to protect life, avoid sin and honor those who govern over us.

Therein lies the challenge.  Scripture instructs us that life exists at conception (Psalm 51:5) and that we are not to terminate life.  Yet, in our society, we have governing leaders who accept and favor a woman’s right to kill her unborn child.

Over the weekend one of the many blogs I subscribe to posted a 21-year-old sermon on this topic.  It is entitled, “How do pro-life Christians obey God’s command to honor a president when he supports the right to kill the unborn?”  It is remarkably apolitical.  It was written and delivered by Pastor John Piper, a Baptist preacher and author in Minneapolis, MN.  I felt his perspective was a valuable enough to share.  Check it out at: [click here]

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Status of Challenges on Contraceptive Mandate in ACA

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Bob F.

You will find an informative update on the challenges to the contraceptive mandate component of the Affordable Care Act here.

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The Persecution of Christians

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Bob F.

In the OP/ED section of the Philadelphia Inquirer (12/31/2013) there is a piece by the leadership of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.  A reminder of fellow Christians around the world persecuted because of their faith.  Check it out at: http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20131231_Attacks_on_religion__liberty.html

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Born this Way!

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Bob F.

It is becoming a common mantra among those citing sexual preferences outside of the norm.  New Jersey recently banned counseling against homosexuality.  California led the charge when it outlawed counseling against homosexual inclinations in late 2012.  The state is now considering challenging the tax exempt status of agencies like the Little League, the Boy Scouts, the Cub Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Future Farmers of America, the Future Homemakers of America, the 4-H Clubs, the Boys Clubs, and the Girls Clubs if they do not embrace new proposed gender identity and sexual guidelines that are consistent with our permissive culture.

Too early to tell if this effort will get any traction but experience shows us that any traction suggests it is only a matter of time before the showdown occurs.

It does, however, raise the question as to whether deviant sexual interests are products of the will or organically programmed into people.  In other words, are some “born that way?”

I have read enough medical papers to believe that brain physiology, genetic predispositions, organically or artificially altered states, and environmental influences all remain reasonable explanations for departure from behavior deemed acceptable by Scripture.  These things might explain maladies ranging from alcoholism to anger, from schizophrenia to suicide, from pedophilia to pornography addiction and from asexual interests to hyper-sexualized and diverse sexual interests.

Society has increasingly accommodated these deviations by ascribing degrees of guilt.  In fact, there is even “non guilt” where mental defect can be established.

God’s perspective on these things, however, remains unchanged.  Scripture teaches us that these anomalies to God’s standard of perfection are the result of sin in the world.   The effects of sin are deep and infectious.  The ground and the animals demonstrated the immediate effects of sin by yielding weeds (Genesis 3:17) and becoming dangerous (Leviticus 26:22).

The maladies of sin affect the human body.  Cancers corrupt cell structure.  Telomerase cells weaken and decline with age.  It looks likely that vulnerability to maladies is sometimes mapped in DNA structures, genetically altering over generations.  It is not, therefore, surprising, that the intellectual organ (the brain) is or can be affected by time and the consequences of sin.  Predispositions towards activities that might not otherwise have been there prior to the fall would be a natural consequence of sins degradation quality.

Though society recognizes this and accommodates to some extent for the effects of changes in the brain it is noteworthy that society also prescribes treatments for some issues deemed undesirable (i.e., alcoholism, pedophilia, schizophrenia, etc.) while changing its position on previously abnormal conditions (i.e., homosexuality).  There is an arbitrariness as to how society picks and chooses what is perverse and what is now acceptable.  Finding an organic explanation for a condition simply makes accommodating it pleasing to human reason.

The reality, however, is that there is a static nature to God’s ordinances of pleasing and non-pleasing lifestyle choices.  It has been convenient for some to dismiss portions of God’s Word which speak against behavior that today is accepted in the secular world.  The arbitrariness of that approach to Scripture casts into doubt the pertinence of all Scripture.

In the end, however, our concern is always for the soul of each person.  Because of sin, any sin, none of us meets God’s standard for perfection (Romans 3:23).  God’s solution is not so lame as to rest on human reason (1 Corinthians 1:18-25).  In a mystery that confounds and sometimes separates Christian denominations, even the act of believing is not the mere action of human reason but happens by the power of God the Holy Spirit (Matthew 16:16-17; 1 Corinthians 12:3).

Maladies that affect our cognitive processes are no match for the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.  Susceptibility to some sins possibly caused by something wrong in the brain creates a greater challenge for that person who has, in faith, set out to live according to God’s will.  Even the Apostle Paul could not beat his “thorn in the flesh” and rested wholly on the mercy and deliverance from God through Christ (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

The blessings of scientific discoveries may conclusively identify organic causes for all things deemed sinful in Scripture.  Christians will use those studies to be more aware of the challenges he or she faces in their desire to walk according to God’s will.  To suggest that organic maladies would make some sins permissible would be to deny the consistent revelation of God as to the eternal consequences of sin.  In the end the Christian leans on the merits of Christ.  God accepted Christ’s work and credits it to our account before Him.  God accepted the sacrifice of Jesus and declared us “not guilty” of sin.  Our walk in life, therefore, is the perpetual mission of living up to that sinless declaration from God (Philippians 3:12-14); regardless of organic explanations for the forces that compel us to do otherwise.

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Filthy Lucre

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Bob F.

[Full disclosure: I served on the board of directors for Wisconsin Right to Life.  I am personally a monthly donor to the work of Wisconsin Right to Life.  I count its Executive Director, Barb Lyons, as one of my dearest and most admired friends whom I first met in 1979 when she was the legislative director for what was then called Wisconsin Citizens Concerned for Life.]

William Tyndale was a protestant reformer who lived from 1494 to 1536, when he was burned at the stake for challenging the Scriptural validity of King Henry VIII’s divorce from Catharine of Argon in favor of Anne Boleyn.  His most significant contribution to church history, however, was being the first to translate the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew languages into English.

Tyndale is credited for solidifying the phrase “filthy lucre” into the English language when, in 1526, he translated Titus 1:11 as: “Teachinge thinges which they ought not, because of filthy lucre.”  Ever since, the term “filthy lucre” has been synonymous with ill-gotten gain or getting rich unethically.

That phrase came to mind when I read the front page story of the 8/11/13 issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the head of Wisconsin Planned Parenthood and the head of Wisconsin Right to Life (“Abortion divides similar pros” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sunday, August 11, 2013).

Teri Huyck is the 59 year old president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.  Keep in mind that Planned Parenthood is the largest private provider of abortion services in America.

When asked in the article about those who oppose abortion Huyck indicated that she doesn’t know what motivates them and added, “I think they are entitled to their own beliefs, but I don’t think they’re entitled to force them on us or anybody else.”

Huyck lies.  The abortion-rights movement has long evolved past the stage of “not understanding” the pro-life movement.  The pro-life position has been the same since it was first articulated – abortion stops a beating heart.  Abortion takes a human life.  Abortion is killing.  How disingenuous to suggest that 40 years into the abortion debate Huyck does not know what motivates the pro-life community.

Huyck and her peers work hard to avoid calling abortion what it is.  “Intellectuals” in the movement have been arguing at least since 1995 to accept that in abortion a life is ended, that abortion is murder and that the essential abortion-rights position is that a mother’s life is more important than the life of her unborn child.  Abortion kills a human being!

Those in the trenches who make their money from abortion, however, cannot be so candid.  They must claim ignorance and divert attention.  To suggest the pro-life position is being “forced” on others ignores the reality that supporters of abortion rights have been forcing their position on others for years.  It is a tired argument of no substance.

Lies and deceits in order to accomplish gain is what Titus 1:11 was talking about and what Tyndale referred to as “filthy lucre.”

So, you ask, how “filthy” is the lucre?  According to the article, Huyck had a base compensation in 2011 of $242,340.  In contract Barb Lyons had a base compensation of $63,083 in 2011.  Huyck earns nearly four times what Barb Lyons gets paid.

In my tenure on the Wisconsin Right to Life board I argued with fellow board members that  Barb should be making at least $10,000 to $20,000 more per year, commensurate with her responsibility and influence.  Barb did not like me making such arguments.  She preferred the money go towards education.

While I knew Barb she is way out of the ballpark compared to the ill-gotten gains of the leadership for the movement to keep it legal for women to kill their babies.  It is in every sense of the phrase, “filthy lucre.”

I suppose, when considering the money is earned in part for killing children a dollar would be “filthy lucre.”  What makes this most offensive is that while tax dollars are not supposed to fund abortion services, Planned Parenthood receives a bucket load of tax dollars to do their other services while raising donations to support their abortion industry.

I do not begrudge anyone making money – even very good money.  Perhaps within the abortion industry it takes big bucks to attract those who are articulate enough to plead ignorance, evade the truth and still look credible.

Huyck added insult to injury pleading ignorance about the pro-life position.  As she wipes blood from her hands she will claim not to know where it came from.  That is an awful lot of money to pay someone so naïve!

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