Lights in Darkness

“If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern,” Alito said Tuesday in a critical dissent.

Article: Justice Alito on legal developments this week

Full dissent

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. -John 3:19

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. -John 1:5

Bill Nye, the Logical-Fallacy Guy?

A short piece on abortion, embryology, and basic logic.

Bill Nye's Unscientific Tirade on Abortion

Defending Unborn Infants from Predators

Women who survived abortions as infants testify before Congress in the links below:

Gianna Jessen

Melissa Ohden

I heard Ohden speak at an event last year and she was frank, truthful, and hopeful in the telling of her story.

One spiritual sub-story here is the lack of bitterness these women hold for those who abused them.

(A disclaimer: for these testimonies, I am linking to the site of a woman named Julie Roys who has published both of their testimonies, but I don't know her material otherwise so can't recommend the rest of her site.)

Listening to pro-abortion activists (cue Wendy Davis) feels like some kind of true-life "A Modest Proposal:" What to do with all these babies, coming from nowhere, mysteriously bestowed upon these autonomous women and men -- How will they be educated? How will they be fed and cared for? What to do, what to do here in our rich, populous, first-world nation? I have a proposal! Let's kill them all, and use their body parts for research! 

"Not Just the Pretty Babies"

Not Just the Pretty Babies

...Indeed, if the pro-life movement were so shallow as to feel compassion only for theoretical, abstract, pretty babies, or so sentimental as to think eliminating abortion would provide a fuzzy blanket and a happy ending for every child, it would be of little use to children or society. Being pro-life is about far more than can be captured in a well-lit Facebook image. It is about avoiding the many tempting promises of barbarity. Both sides in the abortion debate are aware the world is full of things that ought not to be. Babies should not be ill, dependent on tubes for survival, exposed to drugs or alcohol in utero, born into poverty in crime-infested neighborhoods, or rejected by their biological families.

Barbarians respond to the world’s brokenness by doing what seems necessary to protect either themselves personally or their group as a whole.

...the solution is not to eliminate...these babies while they are most vulnerable. Doing so is to fall into the understandably human, but absolutely wrong, logic that was used by a group of third-grade boys in my classroom when they asked why, since the Middle East is always fighting and wants to hurt America, we don’t just nuke the whole region to end the problem.

When It Seems Like There Is No Choice

Here is a short, poignant retrospective by Sydna Masse in the LA Times on her own abortion, her days as a pro-choice activist, and her conversion to pro-life activist.

Choice Killed a Part of My Heart

Masse is an old friend of my husband, and she now runs a healing ministry called Ramah International for women who have had abortions.

Ramah International

A second chance in north Dallas:

For local women in crisis pregnancies looking for real, living options -- women who want a hopeful, positive choice for themselves and their babies -- here is a link to a ministry which provides counseling, medical services, and adoption help. It is supported by local churches, including members of our evangelical church here in Texas. Did you know these kind of organizations are dotted all over the country?

Hope Crisis Pregnancy Center

And below is a link to ministry which helps single moms receive housing and career counseling and support in North Texas, founded by some dear friends.

Shiloh Place

Finally, here is a ministry that is one of my favorites, as it provides safe housing, food, transportation, and career counseling to homeless families, and helps homeless school kids stay in their regular school system through the process. It is a national group with local chapters. Local churches provide overnight housing, facilities, and hot meals in the church building.

Family Promise

There is hope and second chance for ALL of us. We all need a second chance (and a third chance, and a 77th chance), and God is the God of second chances!

These ministries and many, many others all across America provide real, wholesome, life-giving CHOICE and a second chance to mothers and fathers and children.

"What If I Have Already Had an Abortion?"

My thoughts keep winding back to the women watching these Planned Parenthood videos who have, themselves, had abortions. I can imagine some women, especially those who had second or third trimester abortions, experiencing a deep sense of personal horror and grief. Down at the bottom of a woman is a wholly wholesome, natural, and real love for her baby, a love which well-coiffed abortion activists in suits and scrubs cannot really tamp down, try as they might.

Christian Scripture carries in it major themes of life and death. It is not only clamorous on the side of life, but also on the side of forgiveness. One of God's greatest heroes was once a killer.

"Let the Bones You Have Crushed Rejoice"

David -- shepherd, musician, poet, warrior, and king -- was beloved of God. David loved a woman named Bathsheba, whom he had spied bathing naked. But Bathsheba was already married to a soldier fighting on behalf of David's interests. When David couldn't cover up the fact that he had made Bathsheba pregnant, he had her husband killed.  There were those who were complicit in his act, but he is the one who ultimately had the authority to kill and the story is about him. After this, David recommenced life as usual, on the throne in Jerusalem, married to Bathsheba, this new bride of blood.

Nathan, the prophet, came to David and told him a story about a poor man's beloved little pet ewe lamb, which was taken, killed, and eaten by a rich man who had many sheep of his own, and the reality of what David had done penetrated and sickened him.

Stories and pictures make us see things more truly.

When David was made to really feel and see the evil in his acts, he became weak with the emotional understanding of his acts.  He talks about being "broken." He even said that his very bones were "crushed." I know what he means when he describes those feelings. I have felt that inner, gut-twisting sickness of realization about my own life at crucial points.

Being a poet, he describes his misery, repentance, and eventual relief in Psalm 51. Here is part of it:

"Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart you, O God, will not despise."

(Psalm 51, NIV emphasis mine)

Sin, followed by repentance, leads to real, true saving by a real, true Savior. Followed by relief and a renewed focus on serving God -- "May it please you to prosper Zion" is David's new prayer at the end of the Psalm. He is brought down, to be redeemed, in order to serve God truly again.

"Have Mercy on Me, O God...according to your great compassion."

My invitation to the women who have had abortions -- who believed the lies told by their culture, their political party, their doctors, their sisters, and perhaps even their family -- is to be a truth-teller. Tell the truth to yourself and God:

-- Talk to an already-knowing God
-- Confess what you have done to a righteous God
-- Ask forgiveness from a gracious God
-- And receive the profound relief -- and renewed purpose -- that are the gifts of a merciful, compassionate God
-- Go to church

Jesus Christ never takes something without giving something else back. He takes your sin upon himself, and gives in return his own Spirit, to those who believe.

Jesus puts it this way in Matthew 11, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

#lovewins #ifyou'renotababy

Crowing over Obergefell, Quiet on Nucatola

Scott Redd at sunergoi on clamor and silence in the cultural space. (Scott is my brother and the President of Reformed Theological Seminary's DC campus.)

But What about the Mammograms?

And here's one for those concerned that women in poverty won't get mammogram referrals if Planned Parenthood doesn't receive government funding:

Washington Post op ed:  The Tipping Point on Planned Parenthood

Straw Man at the Women's Clinic

And finally -- a few thoughts on the conversation as I have watched it play out on social media.

While I don't have statistics, it wouldn't surprise me if all or almost all of the funding and support for Crisis Pregnancy Centers around the country are received from Evangelicals, Catholics, and political Conservatives. I would also suspect that a hefty amount of funding and volunteer man-hours at relief and support organizations for families -- both nationally and internationally -- are also provided by the these same interests and by pro-lifers (like my own small evangelical church in Texas whose members provide significant funding and basic, human, boots-on-the ground support for both a shelter for single mothers and also a local homeless shelter) -- above and beyond whatever taxes they already pay the government. I also suspect that a significant number of foster and adoptive parents of needy children (children living in America and around the world) are pro-life Evangelicals, Catholics, and Conservatives. Just an anecdotal survey of my evangelical friends and the churches I know reveals adoption as a trend. It's hip to adopt, in these circles.

But whether or not my assumptions and experiences are true and typical (and of course there is need for continual dialogue within pro-life circles on how to better love mothers and fathers and children in need) at this moment, critiques of pro-life methodology by Democrats ring a bit hollow.

When Buchenwald and Auschwitz were opened, and the ashes and tales and bones clattered out, the story of that day was the not the degree to which the German resistance or the Polish resistance or any other anti-Nazi group could or could not have done more or done things a little differently, a little more strategically.

When Rosa Parks took her courageous stand on a regular bus on a regular day in the segregated south, the truth "clicked" in people's minds -- and the story of the day was not whether or not the black community in America could have done more.

In the 19th century, no one serious about slavery questioned whether or not that little Presbyterian woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, could have done more. "COULD she have squeezed out one more book in the same amount of time? If ONLY she'd done more. We'll have Deborah Wasserman Schultz, James Carville, and Cecile Richards in to discuss Stowe's failure to do more in our studio at 6:00!"

And likewise, whether or not religious pro-lifers and political conservatives can do more about abortion is not the story of the day today. Nor is whether or not Republicans (and Fox News talking heads, apparently)  do or don't help low-income women and children by not voting for Democrats.

The Story of This Day is the gruesomely glib, cool-headed, wine-sloshing, lip-smacking, sonogram-guided, cranium-removing traffic of human baby body parts by a group of powerful, educated professional women in America (whether or not their own pockets are lined). (Talk about having a price on your head!)

The ones to be corrected are the cheerleaders of these women, who are predominantly groups like: Democrats, atheists, agnostics, liberal feminists, unions, liberal Catholics, and mainline Protestants. Round up the usual suspects.

Will pro-life Democrats speak truth to power? Will they be heard by their party? One hopes the pro-life remnant that does exist in these circles -- they are there, I know and love some of them -- have a voice and are courageous and heard.

About a Boy

But Fox News (and I am not generally a Fox New apologist), with all of its round-the-clock media coverage of this gruesomely compelling story, is not to be blamed. Look to the other networks for their comparative silence.

Likewise, the story of the day is simply and obviously NOT the undercover sting operation to catch these doctors, lawyers, leaders, and researchers in the act of pushing a baby boy's bloody legs and arms around a glass pie dish, sifting through his parts, his little eye, his little head -- a baby boy they'd just killed intentionally.

As Redd says, above: folks, this one is not hard to figure out, or nuanced.

The story of the day is The Brutal Act itself.

Single Moms in North Texas

I want to draw your attention to two Christian ministries people in our church are heavily involved in here in North Texas.

This is really a "genius scenario" as it turns out -- the first ministry provides counseling and assistance to women with unplanned pregnancies, and the second ministry provides shelter and career counseling for single mothers who need it. In both ministries mothers will receive not only physical help but the gospel. Living water and material sustenance and guidance to help them get on their feet and provide for themselves and their children.

Please consider finding out more about these ministries, sharing information with people who made be in need, and giving if you are led. Both are in McKinney Texas.

Hope Resource Center

Shiloh Place

Something Good Happened in Russia

A report from the Russian Orthodox Church on an international gathering of government officials, clergy, and others: "International Forum on the Large Family and the Future of Humanity" 

'Addressing the forum, Patriarch Kirill said in particular, “The large family is a phenomenon that influences very many because the large family is an example of how people build a very solid community by dedicating their life to others. The large and healthy family is a factor defining the moral health of the whole society. That is my profound conviction and for this reason I support all the events and the program which you have carried out in cooperation with like-minded people from many countries of the world”.

In his speech, Metropolitan Hilarion stated a demographic crisis in Russia and Europe caused among other things by the crisis of the family, “especially the crisis of the large family. The life of a large family in today’s Russia is an everyday hard work and feat; it is a life against all the patterns of a society of comfort”. Among the acute problems impeding the preservation of moral family climate in Russia is an enormous number of abortions. Metropolitan Hilarion called for solidarity of all religious confessions and all people of good will in the efforts “to safeguard the family against challenges of the secular world thus protecting our future."'

Global Views of Morality

Interesting, country-by-country breakdown of what people see as moral vs. non-moral issues. (A family member found this article and I am re-posting.)

LINK

Beguiling

Here is a video you may have seen going around, perhaps back during the Gosnell trial. (Warning: graphic clinical descriptions and some tragic pictures in the sidebar of the YouTube clip.)

First of all, the clinical discussion of what goes on in a late term abortion is the best argument against it.

(And for the record, let's hope the person who posted this "literally" did believe what she saw and heard, or she wouldn't have posted it, right?)

Second of all, in this scenario, the white male government "suits" stick up for the rights of little babies, while the educated young doctor and bespectacled grandma-type want to make sure you personally aren't "tortured" over the fact that your mutilated, born-alive, aborted baby may be left to die on a table.

We must be shrewd. Evil does not often look evil. It does not always look like Lord Voldemort or even like  Hollywood's tired stereotypes. Evil is good at being beguiling; it can seem like the kindly, warm, and gentle option. It is very interested in "killing you softly."

As C.S. Lewis once wrote, addressing things in his day and age:

The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.

LINK

Libertarian Revisits Abortion Rights

LINK here: "Why I Changed My Mind about Abortion" by Andrew Klavan

The whole article is worth reading, but here is the hook:

'Until quite recently, I was pro-abortion. I opposed Roe V. Wade — I thought it a dishonest decision that robbed the people of their right to settle the matter for themselves. But given the chance to vote on the issue, I would have voted for the greatest possible abortion access. While I myself live according to my conservative lights, I've never felt I have the right to impose those values on others...'

And here is one well-stated point about the public dialogue on abortion:

'Whenever I hear abortion spokespeople defend their position — and I mean, whenever I hear them — they seem to me determined to obscure the real issue. They talk about being “pro-choice,” but who among their opponents is anti-choice? They talk about “women’s health,” but what sinister constituency demands that women be unhealthy? They talk about “protecting a woman’s body,” but it’s not the woman’s body under threat, it’s the body of the baby inside her.'

Abortion: a Brutal "Justice"

In this article, children conceived in rape and incest speak about the value of their lives and the injustice of abortion laws towards others like them.

What if Americans bent our minds and our resources to love and help brutalized women rather than establish laws protecting the brutalization of the children?

As one woman says in the article, why should I die because my father was evil? I think we can do better for women and children than offer death as an answer to death.

LINK

A Pro-Choice Advocate Confronts a Picture (not Photo) of a D&E Abortion

HERE

Taranto Confronts Gosnell

Well-written, thoughtful, and such an interesting look into the mind of a pro-choicer becoming, more and more, a pro-lifer. HERE

Our Own American Gulag

As my sister-in-law aptly and wryly says, if you are a baby, abortion is like real estate these days, "Location, location, location."

Here is Douglas Wilson on Kermit Gosnell's American gulag:

LINK

May I suggest two things to read in light of the Gosnell abortion trial in Philadelphia:

1. The short story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," by the great Flannery O'Connor.

2. This quote, attributed to CS Lewis, is a good reminder for those of us looking upon the revealed squalor and horror of an abortion clinic:

"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."

Are you following...

the Kermit Gosnell trial in Philadelphia? I heard about it when it first came out. Then things went dark for a while. Now the trial is in process.

I'm not always in step with World magazine, but they should be credited with being a faithful witness to this and other events.

If you want to read personal accounts of the trial and observations from someone who has attended the trial all along, read Andree Seu Peterson's blog at World's online site HERE.

(Be warned that some of the details are graphic and what Gosnell and his staff did for years was deeply cruel and sickening -- the torture and killing of babies and women -- right behind a regular storefront in the City of Brotherly Love.)

Pregnancy Revisited

Just for fun, here's a re-posting of two of my essays on pregnancy.

***

Drawing Room

It seems to me that babies are sprouting forth in other families all around me, so here I sit thinking about babies and pregnancy, of all things.

I am thinking, pregnancy is masculine. This is only right, for after all, a man is closely involved. The womb is New York City, it is a large, rumbling construction site of vessels and muscles and belly, swollen with doings and slow traffic and shut down for days, months, longer than predicted. All kinds of activities and such re-routed, things grind to a standstill, then a rush of activity.

Mom at Work! There should be orange Detour signs, No Traffic Today, Not This Month, Not This Summer, Expect Delays! Go the other way! Ok, Stand and Watch, but Stay Back behind the tape. We should all be wearing hard hats and giving cat calls and surveying the scene with our thumbs in our pockets. The baby finally emerges and looks like he has been in a brawl, red and blue and puffy and gasping and clenched.

But, of course, pregnancy is also feminine. It is, as the Psalmist says, like knitting.

There is fine needlework being done deep down in the womb -- a genteel drawing room, private and hushed. There are delicate, tiny, original stitches... the infinite, infinitesimal, industrious click-clicking of molecule upon molecule weaving and fitting, a little friendly gossip between the soul and body, the DNA taking tea.

Did you know, the face forms itself from the outside in? It meets in the middle and leaves it's little calling card, which is the dimple and bow of your upper lip. In a child born with a cleft lip, like my boy, Ben, you can see where the face did not meet, the introduction wasn't properly made, and there was a scandal. And always the placenta pours the precise mix of blood and vitamins in, the little toes and hands grasp and push away the cup. There is the clink of saucers, a polite chuckle, a murmur. Then -- shhh -- the baby is sleeping!

***

An Inch and a Universe

I write this on an old spiral after a day at dog obedience school, clearing out branches and logs from the storm, and shuttling to and fro the repair shop... the flotsam of suburban life.

I look down at my belly, untroubled by improvements and besotted with metaphor. It is Greek Hestia's belly, or the Victorian "Angel at the Hearth," or the Hearth itself where babies are warmed, a Garden where babies are grown.

In college it was tight and brown and good to look at, good for tanning and pink bikinis. But it has been about more important business since then. Now it is good for holding babies. It is good Rx for scraped knees and stubbed toes, a pillow for tired brown heads in church, a place to bury your face when you feel shy or afraid, a warm and friendly place.

It is stretched and functional, criss-crossed with the lines and shiny stretches of 3 babies and some surgeries. It bears the haphazard tic-tac-toe of gestation and trauma, the hard work of hammering out and making people. My dad remarks (a military man), "Your Marine friends would be jealous!" But surely if I hung out with Marines, I wouldn't be showing them my belly!

William, once and years ago you were a baby inside, elbowing my abdomen, forcing me to take up your desperate agenda. One inch of skin separated me from you. One inch of skin and womb between mother and son, and it may as well have been a mile. There was a human pressed to my heart and kicking my ribs, and I had never met him. I hadn't met you.

I'd seen many strangers and never you. And there would be no hurrying our introduction -- that grand introduction. The brutal miracle, this labor of desire, forged by your father's heat and shaped in your mother's lap -- and you, a different soul, separate from us, little squawking man. And now my tall and lanky brown-eyed boy, catcher of baseballs, reader of science encyclopedias, eater of large cookies... irrevocably you.

God's creation. Holy to the Lord. Never early, never late. I wait.

"As it is written, 'Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.'" Luke 10: 23