"Extremist" is a Theological Category

American culture seems to be most interested in who God isn’t. Many hold that claims made about God put him in a box and because we really can’t know anything about him (so they say) we should avoid claiming any knowledge of or about him. Of course, that argument works for less than 10 seconds because to say we can’t know anything about God requires some knowledge of God—and that is where such claims reduce to silliness.

On The View yesterday, America’s love affair with religious pluralism took the conversation in a direction that deserves further reflection. During the show, Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg took issue with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, stomping off the stage in protest after he explained that 70% of Americans are against the building of the Mosque near Ground Zero because it was Muslims who attacked America on 9/11/2001. In all the clamor, O’Reilly defended his statement with a follow-up rhetorical question, “were they not Muslim?” On his own show last evening, however, he capitulated and said that he assumed the ladies on The View would get that he was referring to the Muslim terrorists who are also extremists, but Muslim nonetheless.

If you ever watch The O’Reilly Factor and have a basic knowledge of Christianity, you probably know that Bill O’Reilly is not a theologian. He proved this recently as he defended Christians in an interview with Bill Maher. O’Reilly explained to Maher that Christians don’t really believe that the story of Noah and the flood is to be taken literally but that Christians still deserve to be heard. This is just one of many uncomfortable moments in the interview that reduced it to the status of train wreck. Certainly the world of politics can not avoid the world of religious ideas, but I would highly recommend that O’Reilly remove himself from theological dialogue at this point…or get a tutor.

Choosing Christianity

“That's just how you were raised!”—a common argument used to dismiss Christianity’s claim to absolute truth. A variation of this argument goes something like this: "If you had been born in another country, you could just as easily have become a Muslim or a Hindu. What you believe is determined by how you were raised—your environment—not by any over-arching truths." And who can argue with such sophisticated argumentation? After all, that is exactly how many of us were raised. We regularly attended Sunday services, the Wednesday evening Bible study, and summer vacations were always scheduled around Vacation Bible School. We were taught that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, that Jesus was born of a virgin and that he died at Calvary as a sacrifice for our sins. Heavens to Betsy, we also view the account of Noah and the Ark as a literal, historical event.

Sadly, however, many Christians have surrendered to this argument, concluding that it is only by chance—as opposed to the work of the Holy Spirit—that they are followers of Christ. Their views of truth and ethics have been reduced to personal preference, leaving them paralyzed to say anything objective about the world in which they live. When confronted with the absolute truth claims of Christianity, they are willing to embrace them, but only for themselves.

Glenn Beck & the Faith Factor

If you're a conservative and an avid listener of Glenn Beck, likely you appreciate his connecting of dots between Obama administration players, 60's radicals, and the philosophical writings advocating socialism and socialistic policy. Recently, in fact, he showed how the NEA recommends the writings of Saul Alinsky. I find that sort of information interesting and helpful.

Joe Carter at First Things recently challenged Beck's view that issues like abortion and same-sex marriage shouldn't guide our public discussion as much as they do. Yet, Beck regularly insists we need to be moral in our day to day dealings: don't lie, cheat or steal. Have a strong work ethic, dont be lazy. Oh, and get back to your church, temple, synagogue or mosque. "Find God"  so society can return to it's previous version of normal.

What Would Jesus Do? Compassion in Conflict

From a Christian point of view, the virtue of compassion is rooted in the character of God and exemplified by the saving work of Christ. His was an example (though not merely an example) of ultimate compassion, giving completely of himself not out of compulsion but out of pure sacrificial love and devoid of political motivations. It is a model of compassion that we can only live out analogously because we fail to meet the standard of pure selflessness. For Jesus, he willingly chose to lose when he had already won. He is God! We strive, and with God’s power we achieve, but due to the fallen state of things, someone inevitably encounters our weaknesses. But we still seek to be compassionate.

Caring for society’s most vulnerable is part of our mission as the church and one that Christians take very seriously and act upon on a daily basis. The poor, the widows, the children—these are a few segments of society to which scripture explicitly challenges us to give of ourselves. And God’s church understands that the gospel without a cup of cold water isn’t very good news. Could we do better? Obviously.

As it pertains to the recent passage of health care reform, some left-leaning Americans suggest that conservative, especially Christian conservatives, lack compassion because some—ok most—have been opposed to the health care reform bill in question. They abide by the bold assumption that the health care reform bill sits above other acts of compassion. It is better than creating jobs, it is better than smaller piecemeal options like opening of the state borders to more health insurance competition. It is better than simply working at the elimination of fraud and wasteful spending.

What would Jesus do? What would he think?

Some liberals think he would do what they did on Sunday night, the Lord’s Day as one representative reminded us. That was disorienting. He said it was time for the representatives to “walk by faith” and pass the bill. Would Jesus do health care reform as they have penned this legislation? Probably not. Jesus would turn over the tables in congress and tell them to stop making deals that squander funds that could help those in need…..if Jesus were invited to comment on the dealings, that is. The bottom line is left-leaning Americans seem to be saying that godly compassion necessarily includes health care insurance. Furthermore, they seem to think that health care is a need that overrides other acts of compassion and ought to be raised to the level of rights. Maybe Jesus would ask us to be better stewards of our financial resources or maybe he would ask us to view the economy as a fishes and loaves opportunity. None of us can know for sure what Jesus would say, he’d probably call us all out as fools. But what we can know is that we are often faced with moral conflicts and the methods of compassion can also conflict.

I know of no Christian conservative who takes joy in anyone lacking health care resources. But economic utopia is not possible on this side of eternity. Safety nets are in place like Medicaid to help families in need, and I know because I benefited from prenatal care through Medicaid in 1992-93. And by the way, it was top-notch. Yes, we can probably do more.

Like jobs and education, healthy families and hunger-relief, access to health care is something we would love for everyone to have. Which one takes priority?  To suggest that health care is a natural right is to reduce rights to consumer goods. Rights cannot be sold or traded or granted, they can only be recognized in that they are inherent to being human. But a non-evolutionary view of humanity is required to agree with that statement. Or maybe it is true that Darwinian theory impacts absolutely everything, including health care policy. Public funds can only go so far and private industry will pass on additional expenses and tax hikes on to consumers because business doesn’t exist primarily for benevolence, and it shouldn’t because then it ceases to be a for-profit entity.

Compassion comes in a variety of forms, some better implemented than others. We might also ask who has the most to gain when compassion is implemented. The dignity of an individual is infringed upon when, in the name of compassion, someone profits from exploiting what others lack. But at this point, compassion is no more.

Brit Hume's Worldview Critique

Even for Fox News, this is surprising, yet this is how every believer ought to be prepared to respond--telling the truth with meekness and gentleness. Likely, Brit Hume's statement will be regarded as arrogant and closed-minded, but Buddhism doesn't provide for the needs of forgiveness and redemption and it will be interesting to hear the responses to his critique of Buddhism.

Is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican?

It’s stupid to even entertain the question. But every time I see it posed, it isn’t for getting people to focus on issues instead of remaining blind devotees to political parties. Intentional or not, it often serves as a way to distract people from important issues that do deserve our attention. “How can we come together as a nation instead of remaining so divided?” The unspoken fallacy occurs when it is stated that Jesus was neither a democrat or a republican. Are we really suppose to believe he wouldn’t have had a view on abortion, embryonic stem cell research, or gay marriage? When the highest moral value of a culture is unity at the expense of principle, there is no real unity and we can wonder if principles ever existed in the first place.

So when people in the pews hear their church leaders espouse this same ideal, that we should be cautious about political partisanship (generously stated), I’m not convinced the people are sophisticated enough to know that they aren’t being (or shouldn’t be) told to abandon positions on issues that are thought out and held up against the light of scripture. I know that many in the church are ill-equipped to think theologically about their personal lives, let alone matters that face our entire culture. So I have to wonder if this lack of distinction between public issues and politics in general even matters if the church is unable to think theologically, if its members are just starting to develop a Christian worldview.

Could the above reflections have any relationship to the fact that of the millions of evangelicals in the U.S., less than of us 200,000 have signed on to the Manhattan Declaration? And many of the signers are likely Roman Catholic.

Secularism Need not be the Death Knell of Christianity

Newsweek’s proclamation of The End of Christian America leaves a sense of despair in the minds of many Christ-followers this Holy Week. We have heard President Obama state recently that America is neither a Christian or Muslim country, and now we read in the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) that the percentage of individuals claiming no religious affiliation has almost doubled. But there is more. The northeast quadrant of the United States is identified by the survey as a new “stronghold for the religiously unidentified.” This is not entirely unexpected as we have seen the ongoing decline of religious influence in academic institutions located in this region, institutions that were originally established to some extent to advance God’s Kingdom. And the concentration of liberal politicians in this region of the country has been noticeable for many years.

Observing that the momentum of the current political climate is resulting in a greater secularization of the American mind, I suspect that the numbers presented in this ARIS report will likely increase in the next five years. As Christian doctors continue to have their right of conscience threatened, as institutions like Notre Dame make an impractical distinction between the office of President and his ideology, and as common, every day believers hand over their religious freedom of expression for a mythical notion of neutral language and practice, I think we will see these numbers increase throughout the country. But this is not the end of Christianity and God is not dead. America may no longer be easily identified as a “Christian nation,” but the work of the church has not ceased.

American Christians do not really know what it means to be persecuted. Yet on a relative scale, I do believe that the infractions against conservative religious voices will motivate an uprising of American Christians willing to challenge the rising tide of intolerance. The question for Christian conservatives is, are we willing to work harder AND smarter to impact individual’s lives that will ultimately have an impact on the overall worldview of our society? In theory, we are all willing, but are we willing to stake our lives and reputation on an explicit expression of the Christian worldview? Perhaps we can even take some responsibility for the problem of secularization for preferring a godless conservative language and approach over that which is consistently and unabashedly Christian. That is not a battle between the conservative vs. the secular, but the Christian vs the secular.

Obama: Clergy in Chief?

When President Obama recently signed the Executive Order that would provide federal funding for embryo-destructive research, the ideological floodgates were opened. Obama said the new order is “about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda—and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.” Science does not make decisions, ethics and the theories that support them are where decisions are made.

There are two significant issues that arise from this whole discussion. The first is the fact that science can only provide us with an “is.” Science can only describe what we can do or what we might be able to do, but science will never, on its own, answer the question, “what should we do?” Simply because the progress of science and research allows us to do something does not necessitate that we ought to. This IS-OUGHT dilemma is so extremely elementary, yet escapes Obama and his left-leaning ideologues. Indeed, he has answered the ethical question that was previously “above [his] paygrade,” but tries to disguise it as a matter of science.

The other significant issue is that Christian conservatives are catapulted again into the discussion of what is an embryo, when does human life begin, what does it mean to be created in the Image of God, and what are the implications of this research on the character of American society? But oddly enough, while Obama is allowed to bring ideology to the teleprompter in his IS-OUGHT charade, the church is a bit more temperamental about bringing so-called political issues in the pulpit. The fact is, most issues of politics are issues of faith and matters for the church to engage, yet there is nothing inherently political about embryo-destructive research that should make it off limits from our pastoral leadership and communicated from the pulpit. Embryo-destructive research is first a matter of ethics and is secondarily political. In fact, it’s only been politicized because of the desire to appeal to the wants of a very vocal and left-leaning segment of our society. And aversion to these discussions from the pulpit is based on the idea that they have great potential to cause division inside the church so we, for our own good, should abide by the so-called Wall of Separation. Is this evidence that the church is really as political as government, and government is really as faith-oriented as the church? An interesting reversal of roles.

Who Will Protect Women from Women's Rights Ideology?

Though grateful for the right to vote and to pursue a career of my choice, I cannot help but to be terribly frightened for the women at the mercy of the movement that claims to be looking out for their well-being. As Obama begins to lift funding restrictions on abortion and embryonic stem cell research, NOW, NARAL, and the Feminist Majority drown me in press releases about the so-called victories for women's rights. Yet, women are more vulnerable now than ever before as the media continues to worship their messiah and killing unborn children is still, somehow, considered a women's health issue. There is a reason the new administration is removing "war on terror" language, because they rightly understand this this is a war of words. Only words can explain to young women about to have their ovaries invaded, that when their egg is fertilized, it is an embryo, the technical term for what is otherwise known as their child. And make no mistake about it, this genetic material--another word for their child--is living. After all, embryonic stem cell research is not pursued with non-living (i.e., "dead") embryos.

Here is another interesting use of words on the contraception marketed as Mirena. With all of its risks, this IUD works like....well, they don't exactly know. See what they say about it:

How does Mirena work?
It is not known exactly how Mirena works. Mirena may work in several ways. It may
thicken your cervical mucus, thin the lining of your uterus, inhibit sperm movement and reduce sperm survival. Mirena may stop release of your egg from your ovary, but this is not the way it works in most cases. Most likely, these actions work together to prevent pregnancy.

This post is not an appeal to the Obama administration or the FDA or to womens' rights groups to practice integrity and responsibility with their use of words. That is a fairy tale dream. This is an appeal to women to practice critical thinking skills, and know when your life is being put at risk for the sake of political ideology.

The Demise of Evangelical Distinctiveness?

I feel like I'm living in a historic time, not simply because our next president is mixed-race or because Illinois political corruption is finally revealed for the rest of the nation to appreciate, but because I think evangelicalism is caving to societal pressure to look like anything other than its former self. My concern is that evangelicalism in the public arena no longer includes a passionate defense for the unborn (because that would simply be too politically divisive). Instead, it seems we are focusing our greatest energies on other issues-- not for the sake of those other issues, but rather to gain some political common ground. Don't get me wrong, I know there are many evangelical individuals and organizations still in the fight for the rights of the unborn. But as some older generations are beginning to fade away, I wonder who will be interested in continuing to support this and related causes. As I watch the news and trends in the church, I wonder if there is a generation of evangelicals even interested in taking up the cause for life. Feminism is succeeding in indoctrinating several generations of women on their platform of equality and corresponding reproductive rights while the church fidgets to understand how to develop a culture of God-fearing women who can love both their families and careers, or at least appreciate that our society simply demands that women be able to work because men have failed to responsibly lead. But I digress. Will Christianity be able to survive this politization of faith? Where it appears that the left is capitulating to evangelicalism, such as by inviting Rick Warren to do the Inauguration, do you think it might really be about blurring the lines and causing confusion? The ability for any party to cross party lines is usually indicative of moderate-ism. Is this what we should expect of our faith-based discourse? The church is being silenced internally and externally on life issues someone needs to speak to; it's never taken up the cause for women in a real practical way that avoids the extremes of secular feminism but still appreciates the giftings of women in whatever sphere she participates in; and the evangelical church is losing its distinctive voice by the manipulation of the smooth-talking left who are out to gain the loyalties of the pragmatic and uninformed. Can the evangelical church survive the next decade?

God, Government, and Goodness

In a persistent effort to rid the public square of any religious voices, the few that might be left after this 2008 election that is, the American Humanist Association has launched an advertising campaign to "raise awareness" of humanist doctrine. On ethics, they state

"Morality doesn't come from religion. It's a set of values embraced by individuals and society based on empathy, fairness, and experience."

Competing against God would no doubt make an individual or organization insecure, necessitating the launch of a campaign aimed at desensitizing the voting public against the existence of God. Apart from their inability to account for objective good, they clearly are inconsistent in application of tolerance. A pluralistic public square is indeed what we have, and in a democratic society the predominant beliefs of the people are going to have the greatest impact. So organizations like the American Humanist Association go all, poisoning the well against theistic perspectives on public issues.

But to the heart of this advertising, it's no surprise that they would try to argue for goodness without God. As part of how man was created, he can have a sense of right and wrong, good and evil. But he'll certainly struggle giving an account for the right and the good in absolute terms. Humanism leaves us in the mire of relativism, with numerous interpretations of the right and the good.

As we move into the new administration in 2009, we will undoubtedly encounter more efforts to promote humanistic ideals at the expense of policies that protect human life and promote human dignity. Resulting from this will be more confidence for the anti-theistic verbiage. Clearly we're in for a rough ride, but certainly not a without an aggressive response.

FOCA on the Family

Pardon the pun, but churches and families need to be aware of how the Freedom of Choice Act will impact their community, something we should expect to see enacted within Obama's first 100 days in office. For more information on the legal impact, visit Americans United for Life. Women, especially young and underage, will be put at risk because of this repeal of all state-enacted regulation. Now is the time for our churches to get serious about bioethics in the pew. Isn't it amazing? We need to regulate big business, but unfettered access to the unborn is what is being handed to the abortion industry. Here is some of what you can expect to see nullified by FOCA:

• Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

• Hyde Amendment (restricting taxpayer funding of abortions)

• Restrictions on abortions performed at military hospitals

• Restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion for federal employees

• Informed consent laws

• Waiting periods

• Parental consent and notification laws

• Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics

• Requirements that licensed physicians perform abortions

• “Delayed enforcement” laws (banning abortion when Roe v. Wade is overturned and/or the authority to restrict abortion is returned to the states)

• Bans on partial-birth abortion

• Bans on abortion after viability. FOCA’s apparent attempt to limit post-viability abortions is illusory. Under FOCA, post-viability abortions are expressly permitted to protect the woman’s “health.” Within the context of abortion, “health” has been interpreted so broadly that FOCA would not actually proscribe any abortion before or after viability.

• Limits on public funding for elective abortions (thus, making American taxpayers fund a procedure that many find morally objectionable)

• Limits on the use of public facilities (such has public hospitals and medical schools at state universities) for abortions

• State and federal legal protections for individual healthcare providers who decline to participate in abortions

• Legal protections for Catholic and other religiously-affiliated hospitals who, while providing care to millions of poor and uninsured Americans, refuse to allow abortions within their facilities

The Hidden Trick of Liberal Treats

THIS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.

Women's Rights: Defined by Who?

Political commentators, popular feminists, and many writers in the blogosphere are pressing the issue of unfettered reproductive freedom as a fundamental, agreed upon right for all women and that anyone who disagrees with their views can not be pro-woman or an advocate for women's rights. The problem is, we don't all accept abortion and infanticide as a fundamental right for women, we see those as a violation of fundamental human rights, acts against human dignity.

No doubt inequalities exist between men and women throughout the world, and we can speak together against the atrocities occurring in the Middle East and other parts of the world against women in the name of family honor. But there is nothing in the core of our humanity that even implies that killing the unborn is a good thing, let alone a right for anyone. There is neither pride nor fulfillment in the destruction of our own kind, yet it is believed to be a universally understood human right.

Women's rights ought to be only those things that build character and bring the opportunity for peace and fulfillment to women's lives, the ability to pursue happiness without doing harm to others. Right now, abortion is legal, and as a result it is inferred as a fundamental right, but what is legal is not always moral or good. Once it was the case the slavery was legal, or that it was acceptable to discriminate on the basis of race. Appealing to the laws of the land is not the best argument for women's rights, and neither is the radical, seared conscious of those who promote abortion as a woman's fundamental right. I have little hope for a society that grounds women's rights in the willing and active violation of human rights.

Gllian Parrillo, the chair of NOW's pac, stated

We recognize the importance of having women's rights supporters at every level but, like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women's rights.

Reproductive inequality may have been the thrust of 2nd wave feminism, but the pursuit of this these so-called rights has tipped the scales and prevented fathers of the unborn to keep their human rights intact. There is nothing right about these "women's rights" and the term is in need of some serious redefinition.

Men's and women's rights should not differ in any significant way, but perhaps if our laws were tougher and enforcement less lenient, women might enjoy a life of less physical vulnerability and violation. We should understand women's rights as something more decent and beautiful in juxtaposition to that which is proclaimed by extreme feminism.

Obama: No Longer 'Above My Pay Grade'

On the way home from work I received an interesting email on my blackberry. From Obama's campaign manager, I was informed that I am one of the "most extreme" people ever to be seen in America because of my view on the nature of human life. Apparently it's no longer above his pay grade, he's quite clear here that big people have more rights than little people. I wonder if that makes him a 'size-ist.'

The issues of life and human dignity are now front and center again and the next 9 weeks are crucial on the political front on the issue of protecting human life. Obama should be held accountable for avoiding the question of human rights for the unborn and not understanding Bush's position on embryonic stem cell research at the Rick Warren discussion.

Here is what the email stated:

He [McCain] doesn't want Americans to notice that the Republican platform is the most extreme we've ever seen -- opposing stem cell research, denying a woman's right to choose no matter what the circumstance, and continuing to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq. 

To that, I ask with the greatest of profundity I can muster...huh? Of conservatives--some of which Obama is trying to court--the letter explains what makes us "most extreme." I have included appropriate responses which reveal where the extremism actually rests.

They've come out against the life-saving possibilities of stem cell research. 

• Conservatives want to save lives and are driven to compassion by an understanding of human dignity that transcends the pragmatism of liberalism. 
  
• We stand against any research that demands the death of human life at the earliest stage and the exploitation of young women from whom eggs are required in order to pursue embryonic stem cell research. 
  
• Conservatives fully support non-embryonic forms of stem cell research, note the recent news in the area of induced pluripotent stem cells.
  
• Thus far, the "life-saving possibilities" are just that, possibilities...aka HYPE. There is no good science to back up such political pandering.
• The above suggestion by the Obama campaign is dishonest in that it lacks of specificity. Perhaps they didn't get the press releases about the different areas of stem cell research.
  

And they make zero exceptions for a woman's right to choose -- even in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. 

• Conservatives who understand the inherent dignity of all persons at all stages recognize the dignity and value of life as a first order principle. Any "rights" that exist can only be derivative of this higher view of life. Without it, "rights" have no foundation and are stipulated only by the winds of the day.
  
• For those of us who are prolife in every situation also recognize the difficult but rare cases. When a woman's life is truly at risk, and not from low self esteem or financial considerations, but when she may actually die, realistic steps are pursued by even the "most extreme" prolife individuals.
  
• Sadly for those who have been victims of rape and incest, once again, we point to the inherent dignity of the unborn child. It is not her fault that the world in which she was conceived has become overly sexualized and disrespectful of the dignity inherent to each of us. We will continue to fail as a society to protect women and children from these great harms if we can't even recognize each person's worth.
  
• Promoting the destruction of the smallest people perpetuates the problems stated above.

The "women's right to choose" is not a human right, it is a legal right. And as we know, bad laws are often repealed. It is my hope that Sarah Palin will bring to Washington D.C. a fresh perspective and contagious zeal for the dignity of all persons. It is my "most extreme" wish that she will inspire life to be granted to the 80-90% of Down's Syndrome babies who are currently being aborted by the women emotionally manipulated into being a "good mom" and sparing their children from a "life of suffering."

Obama is clear on what he believes about when human rights are conferred to people, and it isn't before they are born. 

Sarah Palin: Hope, Change, and a Role Model to Christian Women

I was hoping for Huckabee, I was expecting Pawlenty or Romney. Pleasantly suprised, I am so excited about McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin for Vice President.

The choice of Gov. Palin as McCain's running mate brings conservative values and government ethics reform--something Senator Obama fails to address of his corrupt home state of Illinois--to the forefront of this election cycle.

Wife to Todd and mother to 5 children, including one with Down's Syndrome who Gov. Palin chose not to abort, is an inspiration to women everywhere, but particularly to women in the evangelical community who aspire to leadership but have few role models. In addition to her work throughout this election, I encourage Palin to reach out to young women who want to know how to be a Christian and how to be an effective leader without compromising ethics and integrity. Gov. Palin has broken through the glass ceiling in the sense of being called to the role of Vice President, but she makes it possible for women in the evangelical community to recognize that one need not be a secular feminist to aspire to such possibilities.

Obama's Big Give

Did Oprah write Barak's speech?? Perhaps I'm not old enough to recall the promises of previous presidential candidates, but the crowd was acting like Barak "big pockets" Obama was making all their dreams come true. The laundry list went on and on and on and then it hit me....Obama's Big Give. This campaign is turning into the greatest mass manipulation in the history of humanity and the greatest show of arrogance I've personally witnessed. Sadly, the talking points of "dignity and respect" that have so permeated this DNC were lost in his expressed desire to "reduce unwanted pregnancies." That's political-talk for avoiding the subject of abortion.

Obama Determines Embryos Worthy of Destruction, Not a Pay Grade Issue

Obama supports relaxing federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. He voted for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, which was vetoed by President Bush. The bill would have allowed federal funding to be used for research on stem cell lines obtained from discarded human embryos originally created for fertility treatments.

It isn't above his pay grade to determine that embryos are worthy of destruction. This week will prove to be decisive in his campaign in that his inability to understand the issues has become apparent. There is no change or hope in this, this is politics as usual.

Most People are Single-Issue Voters

Prolifers, myself included, are often accused of being single-issue voters. I think its generally true for everyone that there is a particular issue that causes you to lean a certain direction. If you homeschool your kids your issue might be vouchers or protections for homeschoolers, likely a conservative candidate. If you support abortion rights, chances are you aren't voting for any prolife candidate. If you are anti-war, you aren't going to vote for a candidate who is a respected veteran. If you think universal health care is a high priority, chances are your vote will go to a democrat. We all have many issues we're concerned about, but one or 2 in particular will be what drives us.

I believe there is nothing more fundamentally important than the sanctity of life and human dignity, for it is those two that undergird every other good piece of legislation. I can care about other issues, but my priorities begin with respecting life. For instance, I can't imagine supporting someone with a great plan for the economy if they support and encourage the death of millions more unborn children. If we were promised that poverty in the US would be greatly diminished, yet they upheld a woman's right to choose to kill her unborn son or daughter, I could not give him or her my vote. If a candidate could provide substantive evidence that he had a clear shot at peace in the middle east, yet would persist in embryo-destructive research, the ordering of priorities would necessitate I vote for the prolife candidate.

Are economics more important than the lives of the unborn?
Is the concern about poverty a greater concern than the concern for the life or death of others?

Without a proper respect for life at every stage, we cannot create a society--a world--where a great economy or world peace can truly exist. Human dignity needs to be the basis for real change, or there can be no change at all.

Obama: No 'Change' or 'Hope' for the Unborn

During the August 17th conversation between Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren and the presidential candidates, Obama & McCain, the cultural crisis of abortion was given significant attention.

Warren asked both candidates, pointing out that 40 million abortions have occurred since Roe v Wade, "a what point does a baby get human rights in your view?"

McCain: "at conception."
Obama: "Well...i think...whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or uh, a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, uh, ya know, is, is uh above my pay grade."

Clearly, Obama doesn't believe that a child should have any human rights until birth--and even then that's been called into question. To be generous, he probably believes that life does begin at conception, but like secular feminists, he avoids the question of what is life and when does life begin and when does this person have rights and focuses instead on what are believed to be the rights of the woman.

Obama persists,

...But but but let me speak more generally about the issue of abortion...I am pro- choice, I believe in Roe v. Wade and I come to that conclusion not because I'm pro- abortion, but because ultimately I don't believe women make these decisions casually. I think they wrestle with these things in profound ways, in consultation with their pastors or their spouses or their doctors or family members.

Here Obama is simply naive because I don't believe we can account for 40 million abortions as the result of 40 million introspective women and families. In fact, Planned Parenthood isn't interested in women wrestling with this decision or else they would be in full support of the facilities that educate women about the alternatives. Crisis pregnancy centers provide women with an understanding of the life they are carrying and communicate options such as adoption or continuing the pregnancy and raising the child. Planned Parenthood's existence depends upon large numbers of abortions while hiding their history of promoting abortion as a matter of societal cleansing.

Obama continues,

So for me, the goal right now should be and I believe this is where we can find common ground, and by the way [I've now inserted this into the democratic party platform (unclear)], is how do we reduce the number of abortions? Because the fact is that, even though we've had a president who is opposed to abortion the last 8 years, abortions have not gone down....

Interestingly, the Guttmacher Institute says otherwise. In January 2008, it was reported that the abortion rate had dropped to a 30 year low. Accurate or not, it's clear that Obama doesn't even know what his pro-choice colleagues are saying on the matter.

Obama doesn't want to enter into theological or scientific discussion on when life begins and when a child has human rights because he doesn't feel qualified, yet he's willing to take a position on the issue without doing the research. He prefers to settle on the issue by an appeal to women's rights. How is it that he knows a woman's rights ought to trump those of the unborn? He really expects Americans to believe that someone as learned as himself can't study this issue and come to an understanding. But on the otherhand, how often do we hear politicians admit that they don't have the answers? When Joe Carter and I testified before the Illinois State Legislature on embryonic stem cell research, it was clear we were dealing with clueless politicians who not only did not know what they were talking about, but didn't know what they didn't know. Obama clearly doesn't know what he needs to know and demonstrates a lack of integrity by his unwillingness to pursue these answers. Politics as usual. Where's the change in that?