Morality
Gender Killing: The Next Stop on Abortion’s Slippery Slope
Our cowardly legislators in Washington D.C.–actually 168 of them (including seven Republicans)– took an infamous vote last week, failing to stop “gender profiling” in the lucrative abortion business. The House of Representatives fell short in an effort to ban abortions based on the sex of the human fetus.
The vote was 246-168, a sizable positive majority, but thirty votes shy of the two-thirds majority that was required for passage.
The legislation would have made it a federal crime to perform or force a woman to undergo a sex-based abortion, a practice that is common in some Asian countries where families wanting sons abort female fetuses. It is common under the “one-child” policy in China–which sparked Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng and his family fleeing to the United States on May 19.
Now he may regret his decision. Our own leaders have become like the godless communist Chinese rulers–not willing to stop the slaughter of innocent babies for almost any reason.
Most pro-abortionists don’t like the term “slippery slope.” They say it’s a straw man argument that doesn’t apply to real life moral issues.
Well, it’s time for a much-needed reality check on the slippery slope of abortion. We’ve arrived near the bottom of the cliff where nearly all selfish choices are okay to kill babies–including if you don’t want a “girl.”
The pro-choicers said it wouldn’t happen. It did.
Maybe this is the real war on women.
Abortion has become so commonplace in the world over the past forty years that we’ve become numb to its chilling reality and effects. Abortion is by far the greatest form of genocide ever invented. According to the Guttmacher Institute, there have been anywhere from one to two billion abortions worldwide since 1970.
Let that number sink in: One to two billion people.
Please forgive the impreciseness of the figure, but abortions have always been hidden and clouded in mystery by those who perform them–so the true number is nearly impossible to come by. But few dispute that one to two billion is an accurate global estimate.
That means in your town or city, one-sixth to one-third of the population has been quietly murdered during your lifetime.
Ponder that thought for a moment.
I live in South Kitsap county, Washington–an area that is home to 60,000 people. Statistically-speaking, some 10-20,000 human beings have lost their lives in my area through abortion since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.
Ten to twenty thousand. That’s a staggering number of people.
It’s the same percentage in your town, city, and nation. One sixth to one third of all the people around you have perished in the past four decades.
Do you care? Have you forgotten what evil we tolerate through the holocaust of abortion?
I’m in Los Angeles this week with my family. This morning I purchased a Los Angeles Times newspaper to catch up on world events. On page A-8 there was a lead story entitled, “Seattle in the Grip of Violence.”
Obviously, the story got my attention because we live near the Emerald City. The subtitle to the article read, “A rampage that killed five prompts the city to confront a wave of often deadly gunfire.”
The lengthy story chronicled a spate of murders that have taken place in the city of Seattle this year. The most recent was the senseless killings of a mentally disturbed man named Ian Stawicki who walked into an artsy University District cafe last week and used a gun to murder five people before finally shooting himself in the head.
These murders are tragic and horrific. The story describes the fear and anxiety that now exist in the Seattle area because of the uptick in murders. There have been 21 murders in Seattle during the first six months of the year. That’s the same total for all of 2011.
Twenty-one people murdered. That’s a grievous situation.
But let’s bring ourselves back to reality. Seattle has a population of over 600,000 people. Using the Guttmacher statistic on global abortions as a guide, then the real murder count in Seattle since 1970–through abortion alone–has been one to two hundred thousand people.
That’s 2500-5000 a year.
That’s a heck of a bigger number than twenty-one. And it’s not just a number. It represents the precious lives of real people, just like you and me, who have been cruelly killed through abortion.
To feel the reality of this, let’s go back to my area across the water from Seattle for a moment. According to the global statistics, our region has quietly erased the lives of ten to twenty thousand human beings during the Abortion Holocaust. Imagine a person with a gun, terrorizing the neighborhoods of South Kitsap every day for the past forty years.
It amounts to killing one or two people every single day for forty years! Can you imagine how the residents of the area would feel if that had been the case?
That’s the reality of abortion. Now let’s return to “sex selection” in abortion.
I was in China twice last year–and will be there again in about five weeks. Last July I was in a gathering of about four thousand young people where the evil of aborting females in China was exposed. At the end of the presentation, hundreds of Chinese girls stood, saddened and weeping over the loss of millions of their fellow females because of China’s sex selection abortions.
The boys and fathers also stood to embrace and confort the girls. In China today, because of gender profiling abortion, 58% of the nation are males–an immense problem in coming years. Yet, as I saw at the youth gathering, even the girls who have survived felt marginalized and unwanted.
I spent hours that night putting my arms around these precious Chinese girls letting them know that they were special–and that the death of their “sisters” had been wrong, cruel, barbaric.
Now this same form of gender-based abortion is rearing its ugly head in America. First it was early term abortions under the guise that fetuses were”not fully human,” just clusters of cells. Then it became later term abortions (did age in the womb really matter?). Next up was partial birth abortions where our little ones are partially removed from the womb in order to kill them. And now it’s come to “sexual preferences.
“If I want a boy, you die!”
A slippery slope–really, a deadly lie that we’ve foisted on ourselves for decades.
All of it–not just the sex selection choice–is based on bare, bald selfishness. If I don’t want a baby, you die. If I don’t want to carry you long-term, you die. If I don’t want a girl, you die. Of course, the reverse is also true–if I don’t want a boy, then you die.
What’s next? If I don’t want a boy or girl that has your father’s eye or hair color, then I’ll kill you until I get one that looks like me?
All of this charade is diabolical nonsense.
The one hundred and sixty-eight US representatives who didn’t have the guts to stop sex-selection in abortion need to be removed from office at the polls in November. Don’t believe their nuanced excuses about “excesses” in the bill or other concerns.
We need leaders who stand up for the right to life. It is the first of all human rights.
National Right to Life legislative director, Doug Johnson, had this to say about the shameful House of Representatives vote: “We are heartened that a strong majority of House members voted to ban performing or coercing abortions for the purpose of eliminating unborn babies of an undesired sex—usually, girls. Shamefully, President Obama, and a minority of 168 House members, complied with the political demands of pro-abortion pressure groups, rather than defend the coerced women, and their unborn daughters, who are victimized by sex-selection abortions.”
Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy laments that God’s people have allowed America to careen down the slippery slope of abortion for far too long. He said this about the gender-based abortion vote:
The Secular Take-over of America
Last week I submitted a 300-page manuscript for my doctoral thesis. Its working title for future book publication is The River, and it details the five worldviews about God, why four of them are false, and how they all came from a common source.
One of the five philosophies that is battling for global supremacy is secularism. I analyzed atheism/secularism/humanism in depth for the thesis–and my studies were very enlightening. First of all, I didn’t realize there were Asian and Western versions of atheism. More on that at a later date.
The western form of secularism is in mortal combat with the Judeo-Christian worldview in the United States. This battle has been escalating for about fifty years.
However, the principalities of evil behind the lie of secularism went for the “jugular” last week when President Obama became the first president in history to endorse homosexual marriage.
This was a desperate attempt to complete the secular takeover of America. Here’s why.
First, a little history of secularism.
Man-centered atheism/secularism comprises one of the five worldviews that go back to ancient times. Yet, there has been a substantial surge in global atheism in the past four decades. What is atheism? An “atheist” says there is sufficient evidence to show that God does not exist. An “agnostic” says there is insufficient evidence to know whether God exists or not. A “practical atheist” is a person who lives as if God does exist.
I use the word “secularist,” (worldly; supreme attention to the things of this life), as synonymous with “atheist.” The term secularism was first coined by in 1846 by George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906). If you combine the numbers for both “atheists” and the “non-religious,” the total number of secularists is about 20% of the world’s population.
Atheism developed as a fourth false tributary of the river of God’s original truth. Human beings were becoming more civilized (less dependent on God’s protection), educated (philosophical about life), industrial (more prosperous), technological (more creative), and scientific (understanding how the world works).
This growth in human development brought a mystical humanism to the East and rational secularism to the West. Both exalted man. Some replaced God with the State.
Atheism or secularism is one of the newer “religions” in the history of man–though there have been people in all ages who denied the reality of God. In the past three hundred years, we have seen the following Western forms:
- The violent French Revolution which came out of the European Enlightenment.
- Nazism under Adolph Hitler and Fascism under Mussolini.
- The various communist expressions including the Bolshevik Revolution in Russian and Mao Zedong in China.
- The social democracies of Europe (a further expression of the Enlightenment).
For much of this period, America resisted secular impulses due to its rich Christian heritage, three powerful spiritual awakenings, and active church involvement in the social issues of the day (such as the issue of slavery in the 19th century).
However, in the 20th century, the Church’s presence began to shrink from the public square and by the 1960s, due to secular indoctrination in the schools, universities and society at large, the Baby boom generation cast off the biblical worldview via the sexual revolution and its many anti-authority expressions.
Atheism/secular was gaining strength and flexing its muscles.
The acceptance of Darwinian evolution as the only theory of origins allowed to be taught in the schools gave secularists a hands up on the new generation who accepted the immoral standards of their parents and took them even further.
As Christian morals crumbled, so did the American family.
Now in the beginning of the 21st century, the map of America has changed. Many say we are now a 50-50 nation. What they mean is that half of the country still believes in America’s traditional Judeo-Christian roots and the other half leans more toward the secular view of life. They argue this is the source of political and social gridlock that we now regularly experience.
Here’s what’s really happened. For America’s first two hundred years, probably 80% of the population were either committed Christians or accepted the biblical worldview as best for society. Another 7-10% were atheists (either in philosophy or practice) and the rest were “other.” But both of these groups accepted the majority worldview and the blessings that it brought to the nation.
Today, however, 80% of Americans still profess to believe in God, but philosophical atheism has grown to about 15% of the population, and other religions have been added to the mix. Instead of the secularists appreciating the blessings of Christian culture, there has been a deliberate attempt by a powerful minority to devolve the United States into a secular majority nation–following the path of Europe.
The growing secular minority is bigger, bolder, more organized, and being led by demonic forces who passionately desire to completely destroy the biblical foundations of America’s Christian liberty.
On a human level, the secularists want to forcefully take over America.
Ignace Lepp, author of Atheism in our Time, tells us how things have changed:
“Contemporary atheism, at least in the developed countries of Christian civilization is distinguished from the atheism of other times and other civilizations above all by its extension. It is no longer a phenomenon of a few individuals protesting the taboos of society, nor the privilege of a minority who consider themselves especially ‘enlightened’ in the manner of the eighteenth century rationalists.”
“It is the common lot of at least a considerable portion, if not of the majority, of our contemporaries and is well on its way to becoming the common norm of society. The intellectuals were the first to break with traditional faith; the bourgeois followed them; then came the masses, and, finally the peasants.”
Secularism has become so brazen that in 2012, for the first time in American history, there are even rallies to promote disbelief.
On Saturday, March 24, 2012, some 20,000 atheists demonstrated in Washington, D.C. for a “Reason Rally” protesting religion. British scientist and leading proponent of atheism, Richard Dawkins, was the headliner. He didn’t appear until five hours into the event, but when he strode to the podium, the crowd cheered wildly.
He announced: “We’re never antagonistic toward religious believers; we’re antagonistic toward religious belief. There is no good, honest reason to believe in a god or gods of any kind, or indeed in anything supernatural. The only reason to believe something is that you have evidence for it.”
The crowd whistled and cheered for his familiar lines such as: “I don’t despise religious people. I despise what they stand for.” And, “Evolution is not just true, it’s beautiful.” Then Dawkins called on the crowd not only to challenge religious people but to “ridicule and show contempt” for their doctrines and sacraments, including the Eucharist.
Outrage was the parlance of the day. Television host Adam Savage told the masses: “There really is someone who loves and protects me and watches over my actions — It’s me!”
Friedrich Nietzsche is probably the greatest philosophical proponent of secularism. Here is the goal that he expressed many years ago:
“We have killed God. The most sacred and powerful force the world has hitherto possessed now bleeds beneath our knife…The grandeur of this act is too great for us. Is it not necessary that, as a result of this act, we become gods ourselves?”
Now you know the meaning of the rise of the “secular state” under Barack Obama and a few presidents that preceded him. Man is now god and the state is his fulcrum of power.
Obamacare was a major secular “grab” to control the American economy. If it remains law, it will destroy America’s ability to prosper and be a blessing to the nations of the world.
Homosexual marriage is the latest “grab” in the secular takeover of America. If inaugurated on a federal scale, it will completely destroy the religious and social foundations that Americans have enjoyed for centuries.
The spiritual powers that have deceived our current leaders showed their true colors this week by motivating Barack Obama to become the first president in history to support homosexual marriage. Yes, he did it because he’s a secularist at heart and it helps with fund-raising. But overall, it was a desperation move because he could badly lose the coming election–as well as the Supreme Court ruling on healthcare this summer.
Both of these defeats would greatly retard, if not stop the secular march to control America. So the spiritual enemy of America got mad and threw all the dice on the table. You can hear the demonic echo: Let’s stop our quiet deception and go for the jugular. We can destroy America only through belittling its faith, squashing its economy, and dismantling the family. Let’s go for it!
There is no sainthood in this decision. It’s purpose is to destroy. And I really don’t ultimately blame the president–but the spiritual forces of wickedness behind him.
Make no mistake. There’s only one group that desires to “take-over” America–and it’s not right-wing Christians. It is a powerful minority of secular radicals–inspired by spiritual darkness–who want to force a man-centered version of civilization down the throats of the Judeo-Christian majority that is barely hanging on for dear life.
Will they succeed in this generation? God only knows. We are called to humble ourselves, pray, vote for wise and godly leaders, and to resist evil.
And hope that a fourth great awakening may yet halt the tide of the secular takeover of America.
A Royal Dilution – Let’s Restore the Dignity of Marriage
I like weddings. I thoroughly enjoyed mine–it was an all-day affair that brought great glory to Christ and was a joy to share with Shirley and others. As a clergyman, I’ve married many other wonderful couples who used their weddings to promote the virtues and symbols of uniting together as man and wife.
For this reason, I followed the recent royal wedding with some interest, especially due to the media hype that caused it to be watched by billions of people around the world. Some folks criticized the tax-payer expense to the average Brit, and others pointed out the bonanza in tourism that the wedding would bring.
I don’t really care about the financial debate. I’m concerned that the marriage of William and Kate, though they appear to be decent people, is yet another example of diluting the beauty and dignity of marriage.
Marriage doesn’t need any more polluting images. It’s already under siege–and needs to be restored to its once wonderful and lofty place.
During my lifetime, the institution of marriage has been greatly cheapened and tarnished. It’s happened before in other time periods, but I’ve only lived in this one–and it grieves me deeply.
When I was born in the 1950s, marriage was held in high esteem in the United States and many parts of the world. Its ceremonies and traditions meant something and were very unique and special. They were tied to the Word of God and expressed His perspective on love, commitment, purity, and fidelity.
But along came the 1960s rebellion against authority–including the institution of marriage–and the promotion of “free love” without godly parameters. Since that raucous period, the change of worldview in the West has greatly polluted the pure stream of God’s intentions for holy wedlock–with most of the changes being hurtful for men, women, and especially children.
What pains me the most is how the lies of the evil one have become so accepted in contemporary culture–the ones that produced William and Kate and the “Royal Wedding.” Yes–it was a beautiful affair–and many of the words shared in the service were excellent regarding God’s perspective on marriage (Gary Randall has a good blog here on the positives). I’malso sure that William and Kate “love” each other and have a fifty percent chance of living ‘happily ever after.”
So what’s the beef?
It’s this: William and Kate really didn’t get married on April 29, 2011.
They’ve been living together for years for crying our loud! That’s a decade of common law marriage–an arrangement not done according to the divine blueprint.
In other words, in God’s eyes, they were already “married”–at least in a cheapened form of the term.
Because here’s the little lost secret of the meaning of the word “marriage:” The essence of marriage is “joining together”–sexually and otherwise. That unique joining –uniting closely in love and affection according to the original Webster’s 1828 Dictionary–has been robbed of its specialness and power through the excesses of the sexual revolution.
So the modern wedding ceremony and its many spiritual symbols don’t mean much anymore. In Kate and William’s case:
- There was nothing exhilarating about them “becoming man and wife.” They’ve been living that way for years.
- Her white dress was only show. It used to stand for the purity of a bride who had not shared sexual relations with any man prior to her vows. In her case, the meaning was gone because she’d been sexually active for years.
- The kiss at the end of the ceremony didn’t mean anything either. In the past, it was a very poignant moment where the bride and groom kissed each other for the very first time. It was the reward of self-control and honor–and was applauded by those in attendance who appreciated the love and sacrifice that brought couples to that moment.
- The giving of the rings and the signing of the papers was also shallow. They used to mean a solemn covenant to love one another until death do us part. In the case of the royals, many that have gone before them (Andrew and Fergie & Charles and Diana) made a mockery of the commitment. In today’s world, there’s a fifty percent chance that William and Kate will do likewise.
In other words, sexual immorality greatly cheapened William and Kate’s beautiful gift of marriage. The ceremony was essentially a show with empty symbols. The beauty was there–but it was all an illusion that did not speak to deeper truths or lifestyle reality.
It was all, really, a lie. And we know where lies come from.
Unfortunately, in the past few decades the devil has had a field-day deceiving us about love, relationships, and marriage. The purpose of these lies has been to destroy us as individuals and ultimately collapse our culture due to removing the pillar support of godly marriages and families.
He’s done a pretty good job of that–and the fruit of broken and dysfunctional lives all around us is strong evidence of his tragic success. Sure, at this point we’ve become a bit callous to it all, but reality is rather blinding. The devil has been extremely effective in discipling Western societies in phony love and perversions of marriage.
Here are a few of his “marriage and healthy relationships” deceptions:
1. All teens need to “couple up” way before they’re ready for marriage and commitment. In fact, let’s just announce that we are “in a relationship” on MySpace or Facebook! Then we can play kissy face, get involved sexually, break up, cry, feel guilty, and have all our friends comfort us (and get in line to be the next candidate) Then we can do it again and again so that by the time we get to the real thing we’ve given away our heart and body so many times that marriage means very little indeed.
2. After beating us up through many hook-ups and break-ups, then why not do a “trial run” by living together in the illusion of marriage? Yes, we need to really find out if we’re sexually and psychologically compatible! Kind of like trying out a used car–kicking the tires—until you find the right one. Of course, statistics have told us for years that common law or shacking up “marriages” do not increase compatibility and commitment. They diminish it.
3. Even if we get a ring and sign the papers, there’s an easy way out: No fault divorce! Now there’s a misnomer for you. Obviously when two people sever a marriage relationship, somebody must be at fault–at least one–and usually both. But no-fault divorce is a convenient satanic lie because it rationalizes guilt and makes me feel better about blaming the other party and moving on to my next victim, er, spouse. No-fault divorce is one of the worst laws of the past fifty years. It’s shredded the institution of marriage for decades.
4. And since marriage is about me meeting my needs–and doing whatever it takes to get there–then who cares about the kids that we produce. They can change households every two weeks, grow up without a dad or mom–or have two sets of each–and turn out just wonderful! I don’t believe we can begin to imagine the scars and hurts we’ve placed in the lives of precious children who needed one mom and dad and the security of a thing called “home.”
5. And finally, let’s so destroy the concept of marriage that we convince ourselves that basically anybody can marry anybody else if they “love” each other (devil’s definition of course). So now we have homosexual marriage and will soon have multiple spouses and humans marrying animals–all in the name of liberated love! What’s incredible about “homosexual marriage” is that, by definition, men cannot marry men and women cannot marry women because the “plumbing” can’t be joined. No matter–we’ll make it work somehow (in very perverse and consequential ways).
I’ve taken a little fun above to make a point, but I’m truly grieved at the warping and cheapening of marriage during the early part of the 21st century. It has hurt and destroyed so many people–and continues to do so in our culture.
So what can we learn from the Royal Wedding? I suggest we open our eyes and make a firm commitment to return to God’s beautiful design for human marriage. You can start in the marriage you already have, or if you’re single, make a commitment to not put on an empty show with symbols that mean little. If you have some courage and convictions, you can:
- Kiss serial dating goodbye and enjoy many healthy friendships in your growing up years that do not involve sex and its responsibilties. Save yourself for that special “other.”
- Save the kiss! Preparations for marriage don’t require it, and will make that moment in your ceremony something others and you and your wife will cherish for a lifetime.
- Prepare for marriage with God’s choice for you through a courtship relationship where families are involved, discipleship is key, and the friendship is kept pure and growing.
- Keep sex out of it before marriage. It was sheer joy to be a virgin when I entered my marriage thirty-five years ago. I’d saved myself for Shirley. She was worth waiting for. The honeymoon was truly that–almost heaven on earth.
- Be faithful for a lifetime. Maybe you’ve messed up and need to repent and get up on the right and pure road. That’s okay. Redemption is God’s specialty–even of marriages.
Young person: If you handle marriage God’s way you will never be disappointed. But if you follow the devil’s blueprint, you will pierce yourself with many a pang and cheapen and dilute that which was meant to be a very wonderful, life-giving stream of blessing in your life.
Be courageous! You can do it. Let’s restore the beauty and dignity of marriage so that all the symbols and ceremony give honor and glory to the One who designed it for our good.