Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

-Ephesians 5:11-13

Category Archives: Religion

Coming to a Street Corner Near You: Youth Arrested for Handing Out Bibles

Friday, 26 May 2023 15:26
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This article was first published at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 26, 2023:  

Within four minutes of participating in a rally in Calgary, Canada, supporting a student’s defiance of the woke agenda being promoted in his high school, Josh Alexander was arrested. His alleged crime? Handing out Bibles to the student participants.

The real reason? Josh Alexander, for whom the rally was named (the “I Stand with Josh Alexander” International Walkout Protest), has a history of defying the authorities in the name of Jesus Christ.

Alexander tweeted a video of his arrest. This followed an altercation in which he was attacked and beaten by a black woman while he deliberately avoided protecting himself by raising his hands. The police intervened and arrested Alexander and, presumably, his attacker.

Said the Calgary police: “Two people were taken into custody and released without charge.… The investigation remains ongoing.… The Calgary Police Service recognizes the Charter rights of everyone to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.… We police behavior, not beliefs.”

Alexander has a history. He is a believer in Jesus Christ, Who is not only his Savior but also his Lord. Translation: when his beliefs are challenged, he takes a stand for his Lord. He tweeted:

Today I was handcuffed and put in a paddy wagon for offering students bibles on a public sidewalk in Calgary.

 

I was released and told if I returned, I would be arrested and charged.

 

I continued handing out Bibles.

 

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

Alexander is a rare breed, greatly missed in this declining culture. Although just 17, he came of age after coming to Christ. While still living with his parents in Renfrew, Ontario, he stood strong for his Lord and paid a price for it.

As Fox News’ Jon Brown, who has been following the case, noted:

Attorney James Kitchen with Liberty Coalition Canada filed the application to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal earlier this month on behalf of his client Josh Alexander, 17, a junior who was first suspended from St. Joseph’s High School in Renfrew, Ontario, and issued a trespass notice in November.

 

Alexander drew the ire of school leadership when he organized a student walkout at the public Catholic high school against biological males in girls’ bathrooms, according to the complaint. He also reportedly argued in class that God created two unchangeable genders.

 

The complaint recounts that students erupted during a math class when Alexander argued against the school’s bathroom policy. When he claimed that men have penises and women have vaginas, his classmates reportedly called him a “misogynist,” a “racist,” and a “homophobic transphobe,” while the teacher allegedly “nodded and gestured at the students yelling at Josh, indicating his approval of the students’ name-calling.”

Alexander also filed a complaint with the school board, demanding a public hearing. The board demurred, claiming that he didn’t have the right to such a hearing because he still lived at home. The real reason? The board desperately didn’t want the public to know how his high school, St. Joseph’s High School in Renfrew, was discriminating against him.

The complaint, filed by attorney James Kitchen with Liberty Coalition Canada (LCC), added:

Josh believes he is called by the Lord Jesus Christ to proclaim the truth which includes telling those around him about the Lord’s design for gender and to openly oppose the School Board’s policy of permitting males to enter the girls’ washrooms.

 

Josh believes he would commit a sin if he disregarded the Lord’s calling on his life and remained silent.

In a statement to Fox News, LCC explained how school officials reacted to Alexander’s determination to stand up against their woke agenda:

Kicking Josh out of school for expressing his Christian beliefs regarding sexuality and gender is unlawful religious discrimination.

 

The application details the shockingly discriminatory conduct of teachers and students at St. Joseph’s, as well as Principal [Derek] Lennox’s retaliatory decisions to suspend and exclude Josh for expressing his beliefs and organizing a student walk-out to protest St. Joseph’s policy of permitting biological males to enter and use the girls’ washrooms.

In standing up for his faith, Alexander quoted Scripture, specifically Mark 10:6, in response to woke claims by his teacher that there were many genders. Alexander responded: “I quoted Mark 10:6 after a teacher told us that there were as many genders as we want there to be and we should explore ourselves. And I said, ‘No, God created male and female.’”

The principal of his school, Derek Lennox, called this “bullying” and suspended Alexander from school. Specifically, Lennox informed Alexander’s parents that “the grounds for the suspension are that Josh engaged in activities that are bullying and harassment.”

Alexander responded:

Offense is obviously defined by the offended…. I expressed my religious beliefs in class.… That doesn’t make me a bully. It doesn’t mean I’m harassing anybody. They express their beliefs and I express mine.

 

Mine obviously don’t fit the narrative.

His attorney claims that Alexander’s school officials have redefined bullying to fit their narrative: “If you have ideas that I find deeply offensive, or that bother me, or that challenge my notions of who I am, then—even though you’re respectful and peacefully sharing those opinions and ideas and beliefs—if you do that, it’s bullying to me.”

Josh Alexander, mature beyond his years, expressed his disappointment that more haven’t been supporting him:

It’s just kind of disappointing to see that so many adults are afraid to speak out and they’re allowing both myself and female students to fight this battle on our own.

Of course, Josh Alexander isn’t fighting this battle on his own. It’s an epic battle between the forces of light and darkness, between Satan and Christ. Alexander just finds himself in the middle of that battle, and is doing what his Lord has called him to do: to be a light in that darkness.

Latest Poll: Three-quarters of Americans Support Religious Freedom

Wednesday, 24 May 2023 14:04
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This article first appeared at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, May 24, 2023:  

The key question the Trafalgar Group asked Americans two weeks ago was this one: “How important is it for Americans to be able to freely express their religious beliefs in news media and on social media?” The answer was both surprising and encouraging: More than three-quarters of those polled said such freedom was important.

For politicians seeking office based on how the political winds are blowing — the response among those polled who consider themselves to be “persons of faith” was over 85 percent.

Overall, of the entire cohort quizzed by Trafalgar between May 9 and May 12, 56 percent said that, come 2024, they would be more likely to support a candidate who’s bold about his or her faith than one who waffles about it.

This reflects a major hurdle the Deep State must overcome if it is to succeed in turning the nation away from God and toward dependence upon a greatly enlarged central government run by them.

It was preacher Jedidiah Morse, known as the “father of American geography” (and the father of Samuel Morse, the inventor of the Morse Code), who first exposed the conspiracy behind the forces that today are so close to realizing their objective.

In 1798 he delivered three sermons supporting John Robison’s book Proofs of a Conspiracy, which first revealed the Illuminati’s masterminding of the French Revolution of 1789.

Morse knew whereof he spoke, then, when he said in a sermon in 1799:

To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness … mankind now enjoys.

 

In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation … in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom….

 

It follows, that all efforts made to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness.

 

Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.

The danger of the continued deliberate erosion of the foundations of Christianity in the nation was repeated 50 years later by one of America’s most eloquent and effective public speakers, Daniel Webster:

If we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of God and shall respect His commandments, if we and they shall maintain just moral sentiments and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, we may have the highest hopes for the future fortunes of our country.

 

But if we and our posterity reject religious institutions and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us.

Lest these voices from the past be ignored, Cheryl Chumley, writing on Tuesday in The Washington Times, reflected on their warnings, along with a ray of hope emanating from the Trafalgar poll:

If we don’t want the left to push America more into socialism, more toward communism, more toward collectivism and away from individualism, then electing a president who understands God-given rights and who openly, unashamedly speaks of a creator who gives those rights is a big step in the right direction.

First Amendment Triumphs in Settlement With School Board

Tuesday, 23 May 2023 13:44
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This article first appeared at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, May 23, 2023:

Arizona Christian University (ACU) President Len Munsil celebrated the settlement of a lawsuit his attorneys filed against the Washington Elementary School District (WESD). Appropriately, the settlement was announced on May 4, the National Day of Prayer.

Exulted Munsil:

This is a complete vindication of the rights of our students to be able to participate as student-teachers in a public school district without fear of religious discrimination.

 

We obtained everything we wanted in this new agreement, without any sacrifice or compromise to our beliefs and our university’s religious purpose.

 

We look forward to a continued beneficial partnership that serves ACU student-teachers and the students, faculty, and staff of the WESD.

The lawsuit was filed after leftists on the school board had discovered, to their horror, that for 11 years the district had a close working agreement and relationship with ACU. Students were invited to shadow teachers in the district’s schools, often taking over part of the classes to relieve full-time teachers at a time when the schools were short-staffed. And they served without pay.

Both the district and the ACU students benefited. For 11 years there were no complaints. In fact, the district often would hire ACU students upon graduation, based upon their outstanding performance as volunteers.

All that changed in February, as noted in our article that covered the issue back in March:

The point person on the board who first discovered that ACU had values directly opposed to her own, Tamilia Valenzuela, calls herself a “bilingual, disabled, neurodivergent Queer Black Latina.” As the renewal of the long-standing agreement with ACU was being discussed, she opened the bidding with this:

 

Our vision in Washington Elementary School District is committed to achieving excellence for every child, every day, every opportunity. Every child.

 

When I go to Arizona Christian University’s website, and I’m taking this directly from their website, “above all else be committed to Jesus Christ accomplishing His will in advancing His kingdom on Earth as in heaven.”

 

Part of their values, is “influence, engage and transform the culture with Truth by promoting the biblically informed values that are foundational to Western civilization, including the centrality of family, traditional sexual morality, and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.” [Emphasis in original.]

Valenzuela continued:

Because if we’re bringing people in whose mission [is to] “above all else … influence people to be biblically minded,” how does that hold space for people of other faiths[,] our members of the LGBT community[, or] people who think differently and do not have the same beliefs?

 

At some point we need to get real with ourselves and take a look at who we’re making legal contracts with and the message that that is sending to our community.

 

Because that makes me feel like I could not be safe in this in this school district.

 

That makes other queer kids, who are already facing attack from our lawmakers that they could not be safe in this community.

 

So I really want us to think hard about who we’re partnering with deep dive and I want to ask the district, “is this school value aligned with what we’re trying to do and making sure that all of our students feel safe?”

She was not alone. Board president Nikkie Gomez-Whaley added:

When I went and looked into not only [Arizona Christian’s] core values but then the statement of faith that they ask their students to sign and live by, what gave me pause was it’s not just teaching but it’s teaching as they say um, with a Biblical lens, with a proselytizing is embedded into how they teach, and um, you know, I just don’t believe that that belongs in schools and I would never want uh you know my son to talk about his two dads and be shamed by a teacher who believed a certain way and is at a school that demands that they uh, you know uh, teach through God’s … their biblical lens.

David Cortman, Senior Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which assisted the university in bringing its lawsuit, explained:

By discriminating against Arizona Christian University and denying it an opportunity to participate in the student-teacher program because of its religious status and beliefs, the school district was in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention state law that protects ACU’s religious freedom.

The district and the members of the school board got off easy. As part of the settlement, they had to pay ADF’s legal fees in exchange for the promise that ADF wouldn’t file further charges against them.

ACU now has a new agreement virtually identical to the one the board canceled back in February, but with this additional proviso: ADF attorneys will be reviewing the annual renewal of that agreement by the board to ensure that they don’t try to pull another stunt like this in the future.

Pro-lifers to Celebrate First Anniversary of Dobbs Decision

Friday, 19 May 2023 15:54
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 19, 2023: 

Pro-lifers are celebrating “five victories in the past five weeks” as the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision approaches.

The “five victories” include pro-life abortion restrictions that were adopted in North and South Carolina, Nebraska, Florida, and Montana in just the last five weeks. Litigation over pro-life laws in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, and Wyoming continues, which could add to the list.

Immediately following Dobbs, 21 states banned or restricted abortions, either through “trigger” laws that became effective when Roe v. Wade was overturned, or through pro-life laws that could then be enforced following that decision.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, says that the move to restrict abortions even further will continue:

The momentum for life continues.

 

Twenty-three states including my home state of North Carolina now have laws protecting babies at the point when they feel pain, with the potential of Nebraska and South Carolina soon to follow.

 

Since the Dobbs decision, tens of thousands of lives have been saved and substantially fewer women are experiencing the horrors and harms of abortion.

Most of the restrictions are on prohibiting abortions after 12 weeks, while some are “heartbeat” laws, prohibiting abortion once the heartbeat of the fetus is detected.

One who isn’t celebrating Dobbs is Kristan Hawkins, head of Students for Life of America. Strongly pro-life, she feels that those restrictions don’t go far enough. Elaine Godfrey, writing for The Atlantic, warned readers that Hawkins is a real threat to abortion. She notes that Hawkins believes that “gone are the days of small-ball second-trimester limits because most abortions happen before then.” She quoted Hawkins: “We’re not going to spend a significant amount of resources to pass legislation that’s going to save only six percent of children.”

In other words, Hawkins wants to eradicate abortion completely in America, protecting new life from conception.

Her group is focused on college campuses, where SFL currently has 1,300 chapters. She calls them the “Post-Roe Generation” and the fact that The Atlantic gave her so much ink reflects the power of her promise: to overturn abortion entirely through “a trained army of 150,000 young people” promoting that agenda.

At present, Hawkins and SFL are focusing on medical abortions (which she calls “chemical abortions”) available through pharmacies such as Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS. She calls them “the nation’s largest abortion vendors.” Her group is pushing for a constitutional amendment recognizing life beginning at conception, although she would welcome a Supreme Court decision ruling that the 14th Amendment already does.

Pro-abortion advocates recognize that the threat to their agenda is very real and are changing tactics. On Tuesday, far-left Massachusetts Democrat Senator Ed Markey introduced legislation to pack the Supreme Court. Said Markey:

Our most fundamentally held freedoms are now under attack from an illegitimate, far-right United States Supreme Court….

 

If we fail to act, it will only get worse. We must fix this broken and illegitimate court. We must extend the United States Supreme Court.

The very next day, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) jumped on board the nascent but dangerous “pack the court” movement using the old, tired, and now fully discredited “my body my choice” mantra:

As we continue to face unrelenting attacks on our basic freedoms, our courts must be one backstop to protecting our rights.

 

Instead, the courts have been used as a vehicle to advance a dangerous agenda against abortion rights, voting rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and so much more.

 

Planned Parenthood refuses to accept that our courts can only exist as they do now, and understands that reforms are integral to building the public’s trust that the courts can and will function to uphold hard-won freedoms and advance justice for future generations.

 

PPFA’s expanded position is a continuation of our commitment to ensure that everyone, no matter where they live, has the freedom to make their own decisions about their own bodies, lives, and futures.

PFA and Markey are pushing against a movement for protecting life that is 50 years in the making. As The Epoch Times expressed it, “Even with Democrats’ thin majority in the Senate, as Republicans have control of the House, Markey’s measure is likely to be dead on arrival, if it makes it that far.”

Christian Pollster Declares “Syncretism” the Enemy of Christianity

Friday, 12 May 2023 15:35
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 12, 2023:  

The latest release of data from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University provided more proof to its director, George Barna, that the Christian foundation of America is melting away. It is giving way instead to “syncretism,” a mishmash of pieces and parts from other worldviews, including secular humanism, postmodernism, eastern mysticism, and Marxism.

In his study from a year ago, Barna’s data revealed that 88 percent of those he polled had adopted syncretism, while just 6 percent had what he calls a “biblical worldview.”

His release this week, tracking how the pandemic has affected people, revealed that each of the four demographical cohorts he tracks (Millennials: 25-39; GenXers: 40-57; Baby Boomers: 58-77; Elders: 78 and up) reacted negatively in various degrees to the Covid dictums imposed by various governments allegedly to mitigate its impact.

Using two dozen measures of beliefs and behaviors, Barna and his team discovered that Millennials “had the lowest score on all but four of [those measures],” showing that “they were the generation least closely connected to biblical Christianity.”

His data showed GenXers “moving away from biblical perspectives [and] behaviors.” Among Baby Boomers the results were scarcely any better, with the biblical worldview among Boomers dropping from 9 percent to 7 percent. That worldview among Elders slipped as well, from 9 percent before Covid to 8 percent afterwards.

Barna defines a biblical worldview as

  1. Believing God is the creator and eternal ruler of the world;
  2. Believing that everyone is a sinner in the eyes of God;
  3. Believing in God’s son Jesus Christ as the only means to salvation from God’s wrath that is otherwise due sinners;
  4. Believing that the Bible is God’s word;
  5. Believing His Word is absolute moral truth;
  6. Believing that His purpose for us consists of knowing, loving, and serving Him; and
  7. Believing that success in this life consists of consistent obedience to God.

Barna wrote that Millennials had largely bought the secular lie of “personal truth” rather than biblical truth, adding:

Millennials entered the pandemic era as the group least open to and engaged with Christianity—and they exited that era largely unchanged in that posture. It is not that Millennials are not spiritual people; they simply are not attuned to biblical beliefs and behaviors and remain the generation that is least impressed by Christianity.

Accordingly, just two out of every 50 Millennials hold Barna’s “biblical worldview.”

Such lack of belief during the pandemic didn’t serve them well, wrote Barna:

Related studies conducted by the Cultural Research Center during the pandemic suggest that the Millennials’ rejection of biblical Christianity did not serve them well. Three-quarters reported lacking purpose and meaning in life.

 

A large majority contended feeling bereft of deep, healthy interpersonal relationships. More than half reported being impaired by mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, fear, and suicidal thoughts.

The drift away from a biblical worldview was evident among GenXers as well, said Barna, with them “choosing to generally cut ties with churches and biblical content as they searched for life solutions in response to the COVID-19 crisis. They consciously chose to abandon their Christian moorings in favor of more self-centered life solutions.”

The Boomers, on the other hand, “moved in the opposite direction from Millennials and Xers over the course of the Covid-19 period,” with Boomers becoming “more in sync with biblical teachings.” Nevertheless, the percentage holding a biblical worldview dropped two percentage points.

The Elders largely held their ground, too, said Barna: “[They] clearly leaned upon their Christian faith as a primary coping mechanism.” But, their biblical worldview dropped a percentage point from pre-Covid.

Barna asked, “Where were the churches?” during the pandemic:

The last three years have been a time of high anxiety for tens of millions of adults. It was an ideal time for the Christian Church to provide wise guidance and emotional calm.

 

Unfortunately, most churches agreed to the government’s dictate that they close their doors and remain mostly silent. That left an unprepared populace to follow the primary form of leadership available to them: government perspectives and policies.

 

Obviously, that has not worked well, given how dissatisfied a large majority of the country is with the direction of the nation and the quality of post-COVID life.

In 2021, Barna revealed just how difficult it is in today’s world to capture and hold his biblical worldview:

Worldview seems to be caught more than it is taught in the United States.… It takes years of holistic teaching, integration of thought and behavior, and reinforcement of appropriate choices before someone is likely to develop a biblical worldview.

 

Knowing a few Bible verses, attending church services, and praying won’t get the job done.

 

Attending a Christian school that offers a chapel service and a Bible class won’t accomplish the task.

 

Going to church services that feature sermons drawn from biblical content is not sufficient to build a biblical worldview….

 

All of those are token efforts that have proven inadequate toward developing an integrated body of beliefs and behaviors that enable someone to think like Jesus so they can then live like Jesus.

There is some good news, however, as The New American recently reported. The Alpha Generation (ages 18-25) became more attuned to the spiritual during the Covid event, rather than less. In a study by Springtide Research Institute (SRI) that was covered by The Wall Street Journal last month, the Journal noted:

For many young people, the pandemic was the first crisis they faced. It affected everyone to some degree, from the loss of family and friends to uncertainty about jobs and daily life.

 

In many ways, it aged young Americans and they are now turning to the same comfort previous generations have turned to during tragedies for healing and comfort.

Religion in America: More Good News

Thursday, 11 May 2023 13:55
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, May 11, 2023:  

According to the results of a survey of more than 1,700 Americans that was released on May 4, the National Day of Prayer, “there is more praying taking place than people expect.”

John Dye, executive director of Skylight, which commissioned the study conducted by City Square Associates, said the survey revealed that people “are frequently exploring their spiritual side and using prayer to work through adversity, finding meaning, and creating a connection with a Higher Power.”

The group learned that more than 60 percent of Americans pray regularly, and more than 80 percent of those believe their prayers are being answered. They pray an average of twice a day for 18 minutes, mostly by themselves. Many pray with family members and at formal religious worship services.

They pray ahead of a major trip or journey, during a major weather storm, before making a major financial decision, in advance of a job interview, before taking a test or an exam, or ahead of a presentation or a performance.

Another study, done by Springtide Research Institute (SRI), revealed that a third of 18- to 25-year-olds believe in a higher power, up from just 25 percent two years ago.

Membership at the Christian streaming service PureFlix (an alternative to NetFlix) has more than doubled in the past two years. And the ripple effect of the Asbury Revival in February continues to resonate, now reaching more than 200 academic institutions.

Another hopeful survey came from the Cultural Research Center (CRC) at Arizona Christian University. Here is the center’s summary of those holding “the seven cornerstones of a biblical worldview”:

  1. Half of all adults believe in God as the Creator of all things, the sustainer of humankind and the universe; omnipotent; omniscient; omnipresent; loving; and just;
  2. One in every four Americans holds that all human beings are sinful;
  3. More than a third have accepted the free gift of forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ;
  4. Nearly half hold that the Bible is the word of God and is true, reliable, and relevant;
  5. One out of four holds that absolute truth exists;
  6. More than a third view their purpose in life as knowing, loving, and serving the Creator with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength; and
  7. A quarter believe that success on earth consists of obedience to God in thoughts, words, and actions.

Even more importantly, over the last two years those percentages have improved in four of those categories.

As George Barna, the director of research for the CRC, noted:

Embracing the seven cornerstones is not just about developing a biblical worldview for its own sake. A biblical worldview is imperative because it is the only pathway to being able to consistently think like Jesus so that we can then live like Him.

Finally, the results of last week’s secular survey done by TheEconomist/YouGov reveal that two-thirds of Americans consider that religion is “very important” or “somewhat important” in their lives. Almost a third attend religious services at least once a week, while four out of ten describe themselves as “born-again” or evangelical Christians. More than half pray at least a few times every week, with most of them praying “several times a day.”

All of which confirms that, despite the relentless communist attack on religion — and especially on Christianity — spanning many decades, there is an unmovable, unshakeable foundation that remains in place.

White House Proclaims National Day of Prayer

Thursday, 04 May 2023 20:09
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, May 4, 2023:  

The occupant of the Oval Office, Joe Biden, managed in his proclamation of the National Day of Prayer to repeat the canard that the Founders created a “democracy” instead of a constitutional republic: “Throughout our history, prayer has empowered moral movements and fueled efforts to strengthen our democracy.… We are all bound together by our love of country and our belief in democracy.”

He severely limited using the Name of God, but thankfully didn’t reference his famous faux pas from three years ago while out campaigning. Readers remember how he stumbled through his speech:

We have to heal our division, repair our democracy, and above all it’s time for America to get back up on its feet and once again fight for the proposition that we hold these truths to be self-evident. Sounds corny, not a joke. Think about it. All men and women are created by … you know … the thing.

“The Thing,” Mr. Biden, is the King of the Universe Who, before the founding of the Republic, was revered in precursors to today’s celebration of Him. In 1775 the Continental Congress asked the Colonies to pray for wisdom in creating the Republic. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a day of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer.”

The National Day of Prayer was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress, and signed into law by President Harry Truman. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan, along with both houses of Congress, made it an annual event.

Other national leaders, not infected with the self-righteousness of so many of the country’s elected leaders today, were far bolder in declaring the majesty of the Creator. Jim Daly, head of Focus on the Family, said: “In these tenuous and trying times, the very best thing we can do is bring our cares and concerns to God in prayer.”

Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, said: “The National Day of Prayer is a reminder of the providential character of this nation’s founding. The only hope for its survival in this perilous moment is our people’s faith in Almighty God and our prayers for His continuing grace.”

David Jeremiah, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, added:

Our world is facing unprecedented uncertainty. Health, finances, politics — every aspect of life seems to be hanging in the balance. Yet there is one source of true hope and healing — and that is Almighty God.

Jeremiah quoted from 2 Chronicles 7:14:

He has promised, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

“The Thing,” Mr. Biden, was well known and highly regarded by the Founders. They adopted something that overturned millennia of dictatorships, monarchies, and the resultant enslavement of mankind, declaring instead:

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

 

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.…

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions … with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence … mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

It was Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, who said what more properly needed to be said on this National Day of Prayer:

We are thankful for the abundant blessings You have bestowed on America. Our forefathers looked to You as Protector, Provider, and the Promise of hope. But we have wandered far from that firm foundation. May we repent for turning our backs on Your faithfulness.

The broadcast of the event will air tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on a variety of platforms, including Pray.com, nationaldayofprayer.org, facebook.com/pray, and CBN.com. According to the Christian Post, the event is expected to reach 110 million households.

Gen Z More Religious After Covid Than Before

Friday, 28 April 2023 10:44
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, April 29, 2023:  

Evidence continues to pour in showing that Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012), long lamented as losing their faith, is finding it instead.

In a study by Springtide Research Institute (SRI) that was covered by the Wall Street Journal, an astonishing one-third of 18- to 25-year-olds believe in a higher power, up from just 25 percent two years ago.

The Journal noted:

For many young people, the pandemic was the first crisis they faced. It affected everyone to some degree, from the loss of family and friends to uncertainty about jobs and daily life.

 

In many ways, it aged young Americans and they are now turning to the same comfort previous generations have turned to during tragedies for healing and comfort.

Abigail Visco Rusert, associate dean at the liberal Princeton Theological Seminary, said, “We are seeing an openness to transcendence among young people that we haven’t seen for some time.”

Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) are also enjoying a resurgence of interest in the spiritual. According to GITNUXBLOG, nearly 40 percent consider themselves as “spiritual, but not religious,” while nearly half of them self-identify as Christians. Almost two out of three of them believe in an afterlife.

More evidence showed up in the aftermath of the Asbury revival in February. That revival attracted between 50,000 and 70,000 believers to the tiny town of Wilmore, Kentucky (population 2,000), spreading from Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary to more than 200 other academic institutions and multiple countries worldwide.

Still more evidence comes from California, where evangelists Lou Engle and Mando Matthews just finished preaching in “Hope Fest” events all over the state, bringing thousands to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

A similar event that starts tomorrow, “Fill the Stadium” in Norman, Oklahoma, sold out all 86,000 seats of the Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in less than two weeks of its announcement, with a waiting list for those who delayed registering.

The New American covered more evidence that Americans who hew to a “biblical worldview” are gaining in numbers. A survey conducted by pollster George Barna, director research at the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, revealed that those holding a biblical worldview — that the Bible is “the true, relevant, and reliable words of God that serves as a moral guide,” and that their purpose in life is “knowing, loving, and serving God with all [their] heart, soul, strength and mind” — have enjoyed “statistically significant” improvements in numbers.

A second study by Barna confirmed the first: Among those who believe there are moral absolutes, there was a 14-point improvement over the last three years. And among those who believe that good works cannot gain entry to heaven, there was a gain of 10 points.

Still more proof of spiritual resurgence in America is the latest report that the Christian streaming service PureFlix has more than doubled its membership in the past two years, while its primary secular competitors Netflix and Disney+ have lost members.

How much more evidence is needed to confirm that America is experiencing a much-needed religious resurgence and revival?

Recent Studies Reveal Hopeful Signs Among Believers

Tuesday, 25 April 2023 15:23
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, April 25, 2023:  

The two latest surveys conducted by George Barna, director of research at the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, reveal, upon close inspection, encouraging signs among those who claim Jesus Christ as their savior and Lord.

Among the seven “cornerstones” of what Barna calls a “Biblical Worldview,” there have been statistically significant improvements among four of them in the last three years. In two of them, there was no change, and in only one was there a statistically significant decline.

Barna said that most people experience little change once they reach adulthood, but “the recent shifts underscore the possibility of positive change in worldview” among American adults.

This is critical at a time when the core foundational values of the American culture are under severe and deliberate attack by the enemies of freedom. Those attacks challenged worldviews that were held in calmer, safer, and more predictable times.

Here are the seven “cornerstones” of the American Christian, and the change among believers since the start of the Covid pandemic:

  1. Believing God is omniscient, omnipotent, perfect, and just, and is the creator and eternal ruler of the world: no change
  2. Realizing that all humans are not basically good; everyone, including you, is a sinner: five-point improvement
  3. Knowing Jesus Christ is the only means to salvation, through our confession of sin and reliance on His forgiveness: no change
  4. Believing the Bible to be the true, relevant, and reliable words of God that serve as a moral guide: five-point improvement
  5. Accepting the existence of absolute moral truth: decline of seven points
  6. Acknowledging your purpose in life: knowing, loving, and serving God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind: seven-point improvement
  7. Understanding genuine success in life: consistent obedience to God: two-point improvement

Barna was optimistic:

Reviewing the data made it clear that these principles, although simple, serve as a foundation on which you can build a more satisfying and influential life, and one that brings glory to God.

 

Statistically, we see that if this base is not solid, a person’s worldview will be an inconsistent and unpredictable mess. Since worldview is our decision-making filter, a person who has a weak foundation will be characterized by a life that is a constant struggle.

 

[But for] people who put these seven commitments together as a foundation for their decision-making, these guidelines are both powerful and transformative. Rather than experiencing life as a continual surprise and a daunting challenge, they give us the strength and confidence to make solid decisions each time.

 

Embracing the seven cornerstones is not just about developing a biblical worldview for its own sake. A biblical worldview is imperative because it is the only pathway to being able to consistently think like Jesus so that we can then live like Him.

Very few hold all seven cornerstones, according to Barna. In America, there are an estimated 176 million adults who self-identify as Christian, but only six percent, or about 15 million, actually hold his biblical worldview.

In the second study, released last week, he revealed fresh data that supported what he found in the first: Among those who believe that there are moral absolutes, there was a 14-point improvement since 2020. Among those who believe that good works cannot gain entry to Heaven, there was a gain of 10 points.

Among those whose life purpose is to know, love, and serve God with all their heart, mind, strength, and soul, there was a seven-point improvement. And among those for whom the Bible is the true and completely accurate word of God, there was an improvement of five points.

The two studies do show some negative trends, however. Among those self-proclaimed followers of Jesus, those who “have a unique, God-given calling or purpose” for their lives have suffered a 20-point decline since Covid.

They who remain “deeply committed to practicing their faith” dropped by 12 points, and those who attend a church service (either in person or online) at least once a week have dropped 12 points since Covid.

Such dramatic changes in outlooks in such a short period of time caught Barna by surprise: “The pandemic was certainly a life crisis for our nation, so even though this magnitude of spiritual shift was not expected, it is feasible given the physical and psychological effects of COVID along with the economic, relational and lifestyle effects of the government’s drastic policies.”

There’s much work to be done, wrote Barna: “This is a time when pastors would be wise to return to many basic Christian principles to rebuild the spiritual foundation of congregants and to celebrate the blessings of God, reminding people how great their God really is.”

And much will be required of the remnant: “If ever there was a time when our nation was desperate for a grassroots spiritual revival led by the remnant in the pews who still revere God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, and truth, now is that time.”

 

Internationally Renowned Evangelist Charles Stanley Passes at Age 90

Wednesday, 19 April 2023 13:21
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, April 19, 2023:  

Instead of posting a long obituary following the death of its founder, In Touch Ministries (founded by Baptist preacher Charles Stanley) instead pointed readers to Stanley’s personal website, which gave them his final sermon:

Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him.

 

Life goes by quickly – very quickly.

 

And many people today who are in heaven or hell intended to live a lot longer than they did.

 

They didn’t make any plans to die. They only had plans to live and enjoy themselves.

 

So I want to ask you: What are you living for? What’s your goal in life? Do you have any real purpose for living?

 

God says we ought to be living to worship and to serve Him.

 

Because that, my friend, is life at its best.

Stanley found his “real purpose for living” at age 14 when he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord at a Pentecostal church. After being mentored by his grandfather (also a pastor), Stanley earned degrees in theology and preached at several churches in several states before landing, finally and permanently, at the First Baptist Church of Atlanta in 1969 at age 37.

His preaching drove the church membership from 5,000 to 15,000. Its winsome simplicity led him to found In Touch Ministries, which now broadcasts his messages on 500 radio stations, 200 television stations, and several satellite networks. Together that media allowed Stanley’s simple message of salvation through Christ to reach an astonishing 115 million homes every week, in more than 120 countries, in over 127 different languages.

The impact of his ministry is being compared to that of Billy Graham.

Conservatives remember him for helping found both the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition in the 1980s, and especially for taking on liberals at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who were seeking to dilute the message of Christ.

When he was first elected president of the SBC in 1985, he noted in his autobiography:

My election infuriated the opposition and ultimately revealed many of the underlying problems that had existed in the convention for a long time but had either been ignored or denied.

 

All the liberal and moderate political forces of the Southern Baptist Convention were against me, which included seminary presidents and state convention newspapers.

He succeeded in stopping congregations from ordaining women. He was elected for a second one-year term the following year after appointing numerous conservatives to various positions in the convention.

As Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, noted: “After Stanley’s election[s], the battle subsided and … the moderates moved away from the fight or away from the denomination.”

One of those involved in the fight between liberalism and Christianity was Stanley’s son, Andy. He left his father’s church to found his own based on his own liberal interpretation of the Scriptures, and now pastors a megachurch called Northpoint Ministries, with eight locations in Atlanta and its suburbs.

Said Stanley when he announced his retirement as senior pastor at First Baptist in 2020:

I’ll continue to preach the gospel as long as God allows, and my goal remains the same: to get the truth of the gospel to as many people as possible as quickly as possible in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God.

When he was asked if he feared death as he approached age 82, he answered:

No, I don’t, for the simple reason that God makes it clear in his Word: “Absent from the body, present with the Lord,” for those of us who know Christ as Savior.

 

And the fact that Jesus died at Calvary, and His blood shed for us paid our sin debt in full, there is no reason to fear death.

 

So, I don’t.

When asked what advice he would give to his six surviving grandchildren, he repeated once again the advice he so often gave in his sermons: “Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him.”

Missionary Evangelist George Verwer Passed on Friday

Tuesday, 18 April 2023 15:15
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, April 18, 2023:  

Those who knew him best called George Verwer “the preeminent North American missionary statesman of the last 60 years.” Lawrence Tong, director of Operation Mobilization (OM) International — the mission that Verwer founded and ran for decades — said, “I believe he was God’s man for the 20th century, who changed the course of modern missions.”

Born in New Jersey in 1938, Verwer accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior at a Billy Graham crusade in New York City at age 14, and never looked back.

He evangelized his high school, converting more than a hundred of his schoolmates to Christ. Upon graduating high school, he and two friends sold most of their worldly goods, bought a beat-up van, and traveled to Mexico where they gave out more than 20,000 gospel tracts.

Verwer’s enthusiasm for the mission led him to being called driven by “Verwer’s fervor.” The ministry grew internationally. He got caught smuggling Bibles into the Communist Soviet Union and was deported. Upon reflection, he redoubled his efforts, which led to the ministry buying, refurbishing, and then sending out five ships to the Global South where the gospel was gaining strength and momentum.

The ships would arrive at a port and hold book fairs, which were attended by millions.

Verwer changed the face of international missions by enlisting and inviting young students to go on short-term mission trips. Said Andrew Scott, president of OM USA:

When the mission agencies of the late fifties were looking for highly trained individuals with seminary degrees who would commit to going for a lifetime, George invited young people who loved Jesus to come for a summer. This was new. This was different.

 

Thousands came.

OM became one of the largest mission organizations of the 20th century, sending those thousands to the Global South — Africa, Latin America, and the developing parts of Asia — reaching millions in the process.

OM currently has 3,300 adult workers from 134 countries working in 147 countries. And the ripple effect has been enormous: An estimated 300 other mission agencies have been started as a result of contact with Verwer’s OM or launched by former OMers.

The first ship purchased by Verwer was refurbished and renamed Logos (Word). It ultimately sailed 230,000 nautical miles, traveled to 250 different ports, and ministered to an estimated 6.5 million people. The ministry added another four ships over time which, all told, touched the lives of an estimated 50 million people.

In its announcement of Verwer’s passing, OM International noted:

From the early days of leading college mission trips to Mexico, to dreaming of a ship to spread the Good News along the world’s coasts; through his passion for books, real relationships and holistic care for the least reached, George challenged and inspired those he met to share God’s love; truly practicing what he preached with his own radical life.

Verwer’s close friend, Joseph D’Souza, Archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church of India, grieved and celebrated his passing:

Losing George is losing my life’s mentor and my closest personal friend in the ministry. It is also an inspiration of a life lived well and a legacy now made complete with the words we all long to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

 

I can’t wait to see him again. In the meantime, with God’s help, let’s commit to living our lives more like he lived his own.

Until the end of his life, Verwer continued to exude great enthusiasm for the Lord’s work:

I’m still mega-motivated to see everyone in the world being given the gospel at least once …  [to] have the opportunity to hear about saving grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, and I hope I can, right to my last breath, continue to share that message.

He drew his last breath last Friday, April 14, at the age of 84.

Supreme Court to Hear Arguments Tomorrow on Critical Religious Freedom Case

Monday, 17 April 2023 14:27
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, April 17, 2023:  

Oral arguments on both sides of a lawsuit brought by a former part-time mail carrier from Pennsylvania will begin tomorrow before the Supreme Court. The decision the high court will render in June could have massive and positive implications for religious freedom in the United States.

Big gates often swing on little hinges. And Groff v. DeJoy might just be one of those little hinges.

Gerald Groff worked part-time for a post office in rural Quarryville, with the understanding that he wouldn’t work on Sundays:

Very simply, I believe that the Lord’s Day, or Sunday, is meant to be a day of rest, and that it’s unique and holy, a day set aside to worship the Lord, and it’s supposed to be a day of rest where we abstain from work.

Over time the population grew, and the post office started delivering packages from Amazon. This put pressure on Groff to violate his religious commitment to not work on Sundays, so he transferred to nearly Holtwood. But eventually pressure came from the postmaster there for him to work on Sundays, and after missing a number of Sunday assignments he was forced to resign.

Three pro-bono law firms filed suit against the U.S. Postal Service on his behalf in 2016, claiming religious discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the case has been wending its way upward through the judicial system ever since.

In January, the high court agreed to accept the case on appeal.

The importance of this case is reflected in the fact that 14 amicus briefs have been filed by religious-liberty advocates, along with 17 state attorneys general and several members of Congress.

It’s important not only in the instant case, where the postal service was unable or unwilling to accommodate Groff’s religious beliefs, but in the way the conjured “wall of separation of church and state” has been twisted to permit the cleansing of all religion, especially Christianity, from the culture.

What’s comforting to believers and frightening to secularists is how the high court’s recent rulings have attacked the very foundation of that perceived “wall.” As Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District last summer:

Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual [high school football coach Joe Kennedy] for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech.

 

The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.

He expanded:

Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic — whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head.

 

Here, a government entity sought to punish [Kennedy] for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment.

Robert Tuttle, a law professor at George Washington University, sees the danger that the high court could rule similarly for Groff, widening further cracks in the “wall”:

The major shift in the Roberts court has been a rejection of any kind of separationist doctrine.

That “wall” was erected by far-left Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who represented the majority of the high court back in 1947. Writing in Everson v. Board of Education:

In the words of [former President Thomas] Jefferson [in his private letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, 13 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified] the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between Church and State”.…

 

The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state.

 

That wall must be kept high and impregnable.

The war against religious influence in the culture was on. In Supreme Court rulings in the early 1970s, state support for books or tuition at religious schools was struck down. A 1980 decision struck down a Kentucky law mandating a display of the Ten Commandments. A 1986 ruling permitted the U.S. military to ban various religious designations (such as a yarmulke for service members in uniform).

The first crack in Black’s wall appeared in the Supreme Court’s ruling in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union in 1989. The high court ruled that while a nativity scene in a public courthouse was deemed unconstitutional, a display of the menorah outside the courthouse was constitutional. David Schultz, a law professor at Hamline University, nervously notes:

What has happened over time is that the court, and especially now under Roberts, has shrunk the notions of establishment and coercion.

Recent decisions by the high court hold promise that it will restore to its original intent the purpose the Founders had in adding the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), the court ruled unanimously against the city’s policy of denying a contract to a Catholic foster care agency that refused, on religious grounds, to offer their services to same-sex couples.

In Carson v. Makin (2022), in a 6-3 ruling, the high court found that religious freedoms were violated by a government that barred recipients of student aid from using that aid to attend a religious school.

In Shurtleff v. Boston (2022), the court unanimously sided with Shurtleff’s group, ruling that Boston had unconstitutionally refused the group’s request to fly a Christian flag on the city’s commons area.

And, of course, the ruling in favor of Coach Kennedy in March continues to reveal the worries of Professor Schultz and others that the high court will not only find in favor of postal carrier Gerald Groff, but signal its intent to obliterate what remains of that “wall” erected so many years ago.

It could signal a time, perhaps soon, when the Supreme Court will rule that prayer and Bibles in public schools are accepted as the norm once again. Following the Kennedy ruling, Professor Schultz expressed his concern about this: a lawsuit in the future “could include a case in which a teacher is allowed to start class with a prayer and students are free to join.”

Such a ruling would mark the beginning of the restoration of the culture which has been so battered and beaten by the phony “wall” adopted by anti-Christian forces in their agenda to remove Christian influence from the culture entirely. Big gates do indeed often swing on little hinges.

DeSantis Signs “Heartbeat” Bill Into Law

Friday, 14 April 2023 11:31
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, April 14, ,2023:  

Within hours of the Florida legislature passing the “Heartbeat” bill on Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis signed it into law. He celebrated on Twitter:

Signed the Heartbeat Protection Act, which expands pro-life protections and devotes resources to help young mothers and families.

The good news is that the new law reduces the state’s present abortion restriction from 15 weeks to about six weeks, when a baby’s heartbeat can first be detected. This amounts to a near-total ban on abortions, since most mothers aren’t even aware they’re pregnant until more than six weeks into their pregnancy.

The bad news is that the law won’t become effective until Florida’s Supreme Court rules that the state’s present 15-week ban is constitutional. Until then, the 15-week ban remains in place, allowing abortions to continue apace. Last year, 82,000 babies were killed in their mother’s womb in Florida.

There’s more bad news. The new law contains many exceptions that will still allow abortion: rape, incest, and cases where the fetus is unlikely (in the opinion of the mother’s physicians) to survive full term. In that case, the unborn child may be killed up until the third trimester of pregnancy (about 26 weeks into the pregnancy).

The new law, if it’s allowed to take effect, also prohibits state funds from being used by pregnant mothers to travel to other more “abortion friendly” states to have an abortion. And it prohibits “telehealth” services from prescribing poison to kill the child. Only doctors would be able to do that in Florida.

The most grievous flaw in the new law, if allowed to become effective, is that it still permits murder if one considers that life begins at conception.

The war against that life has its usual supporters, especially including Planned Parenthood, which is the nation’s largest abortion “provider,” and the ACLU. That outfit is the one stalling implementation of the new law thanks to its lawsuit, now pending at the state’s highest court.

When Governor DeSantis signed the present law into effect — the Reducing Fetal and Infant Mortality Act – in April last year, the ACLU leapt at the chance to stall its implementation. When the court declined the group’s demand that implementation of the law be delayed while the trial was being played out, it expressed its dismay:

While we are pleased that the court didn’t shut its doors completely, we are dismayed that it has allowed this dangerous ban to remain in effect and to harm real people each and every day until this case is finally decided.

According to the ACLU, a new life isn’t to be celebrated, but instead it is to be terminated if it’s an inconvenience to the mother. The ACLU called Florida’s law a “horror”:

We hope that the court acts quickly and follows 40 years of precedent and the will of the people to stop this unconstitutional 15-week abortion ban, which has caused chaos and devastation in the state since going into effect in July.

 

For almost seven months, women and people in need of essential abortion services have been forced to flee the state in search of the health care they need or face the horror of government-mandated forced pregnancy.

The original lawsuit against the 15-week ban was decided in favor of the ACLU/PPH using Florida’s “right to privacy” clause in the state’s constitution:

Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life.

Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper said that that clause allowed him to rule that the 15-week ban was unconstitutional. In addition, there were other extenuating circumstances that supported the continuation of abortion in the Sunshine State, including fetal complications or conditions that “may not be fatal but can have profound and lasting implications for the patient [the mother], the family, and the neonate [newborn child] if the pregnancy is carried to term.”

Common sense is present if difficult to find in the major media. The CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNS, Dr. Christina Francis, was spot on when she said: “Elective abortions are not healthcare — they end the lives of our fetal patients.”

The White House, no defender of life of the preborn, weighed in against DeSantis’ signing of the “heartbeat” law. White House Press Secretary Karine-Jean Pierre predictably called the new law “extreme and dangerous”:

Today, Florida’s Republican supermajority-controlled legislature sent an extreme and dangerous new abortion ban to Governor DeSantis’s desk for signature.

 

This ban would prevent four million Florida women of reproductive age from accessing abortion care after six weeks — before many women even know they’re pregnant.

 

This ban would also impact the nearly 15 million women of reproductive age who live in abortion-banning states throughout the South, many of whom have previously relied on travel to Florida as an option to access care.

The battles lines have been drawn between those who believe that all human life is a gift from God, and those who consider an unplanned pregnancy as an unfortunate inconvenience that must be eliminated quickly.

Pro-abortion Group Decries Decline in Abortions Since Dobbs

Thursday, 13 April 2023 14:18
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 13, 2023:  

The Society of Family Planning (SFP), the pro-abortion group that collects abortion data for political purposes, was unhappy in its latest update since Dobbs. The outfit said in its April 11 #WeCount Report that:

Since the Dobbs [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, decided by the Supreme Court last June] decision, compared to the average monthly number of abortions observed in the pre-Dobbs period, there were 32,260 cumulative fewer abortions from July to December.

But it was pleased to report that abortions actually increased through virtual “health” clinics prescribing “medications” (i.e., poisons) to kill unborn children:

Notably, while the overall number of abortions decreased, abortions provided by virtual clinic telehealth providers increased from 3,610 in April 2022 (4% of all abortions), before the decision, to 8,540 in December (11% of all abortions).

 

This change represents an increase of 137% in the number of abortions provided from virtual-only services, comparing April and December 2022.

SFP celebrated the increase in abortions post-Dobbs in those states that continue to support the killing of the unborn:

States with the largest increases in the total number of abortions provided by a clinician during the six-month period after the Dobbs decision compared to baseline include Florida (7,190 more abortions), Illinois (6,840 more abortions), North Carolina (4,730 more abortions), Colorado (2,580 more abortions), [and] Michigan (2,490 more abortions).

And it noted a “major decrease” in abortions in two states, West Virginia and Tennessee, where abortions dropped to near zero:

In West Virginia, we observed 90 abortions provided in April 2022. A total abortion ban with only a few exceptions went into effect in September, and by December the monthly estimated number of abortions declined to <10 [fewer than 10].

 

In Tennessee, we observed 1,180 abortions provided in April 2022. A total abortion ban went into effect in August, and by December the monthly estimated number of abortions declined to <10.

The authors of the report decried the decline nationally, suggesting that many women were unable to abort their unborn children and were, as a result, forced to give birth. Read this carefully to extract their “unbiased” point of view:

Overall, compared to before the Dobbs decision, the monthly number of abortions was lower every month between July and December 2022.

Nationally, on average there

were 77,073 abortions per month in the post-Dobbs months, as compared to the months before the decision, which had an average of 82,270.

 

This drop signals that many thousands of pregnant people living in states where abortion is banned and restricted were unable to obtain abortion care.

Another pro-abortion group, FiveThirtyEight, was far less reticent about stating the amount of “damage” the Dobbs decision is causing to the abortion industry. After reviewing the #WeCount data, Caitlin Myers, a professor at Middlebury College told them, “Based on the magnitude of what we’re seeing, we … conclude that [abortion] bans have been a tremendous disruption. While many people are finding a way to travel [to abortion sanctuary states], it appears that a very substantial number of people aren’t.”

Another pro-abortion professor, Alison Norris at Ohio State, told FiveThirtyEight that she had initially hoped that clinics would adapt to Dobbs and that the abortion numbers would “quickly rebound” to their previous ghastly levels:

But that has not happened. Instead, each month between July and December had 5,197 fewer abortions on average compared to the average number of abortions in the two months immediately preceding the Dobbs decision.

It all depends on the lens through which the data is viewed. For pro-abortionists, the data is tragic, and only likely to get worse as various lawsuits against state abortion limits are resolved. The only bright spot, from their point of view, is the virtual “health” clinics issuing prescriptions for the poisons that kill babies while keeping their mothers alive.

However, through the lens that life is a gift of God and believing that “Thou Shalt Not Murder,” God’s Sixth Commandment, the data indicate a little good news in a bad-news world. Although the abortion industry is still killing an average of 77,000 babies every month(!), the number of abortions has dropped.

To bring that number back down to nearly zero, where it would be in a culture that celebrated life, much work needs to be done. In Colorado, where this writer presently lives, abortions have jumped by more than 60 percent since Dobbs, reflecting the state’s takeover by leftists, atheists, and communists whose only respect is for power — not for life — and whose agenda aligns with that of Satan himself, who continues to strive against God’s people for his own deadly purposes.

Oregon Denies Adoption Permission to Christian Because of Her Faith

Thursday, 06 April 2023 16:27
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 6, 2023:  

Jessica Bates, a widowed mother of five children, applied to Oregon’s Department of Human Services (DHS) for permission to adopt two more, preferably siblings. When the department learned she was a Christian and that she wouldn’t kowtow to its progressive demands, it turned her down.

On Monday, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed suit, claiming the agency’s policy violates Bates’ First Amendment rights and demanding that the court rule it unconstitutional. The 41-page complaint spells out in graphic detail the war between the state and Jesus Christ.

Bates, a believer who attends a nondenominational Christian church with her five children, ages 10 to 17, who were left behind when her husband, David, was killed in a car crash six years ago, felt she had room in her home and her heart for at least two more youngsters. She remembered the Biblical command in James 1:27 “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction,” and began the process to adopt.

She was partway through that lengthy, year-long process when she discovered the offending demand from the state:

Applicants must respect, accept and support the … sexual orientation, gender identity, [and] gender expression … of a child … and provide opportunities to enhance the positive self-concept and understanding of the child’s … heritage.

This would mean exposing the adopted children to the full force of the LGBTQ+ agenda, with pride flags, emblems, and attendance at pride festivals, and even allowing gender-altering drugs to be administered when “necessary.”

She alerted her contact at the DHS (Cecilia Garcia, named in the complaint) about the potential problem via email:

Cecilia … [t]here is one thing that I feel I need to mention to you. One of the things the training really emphasized is SOGI (sexual orientation gender identity) and that the host must respect, accept, and support children whose preferred pronouns & identity don’t match their biological sex.

 

I don’t know how many children there are out there under the age of 9 who fall into this category (and to me it’s kind of crazy that society is wanting to get kids thinking about this stuff at such young ages; I think we should let them keep their innocence), so this may not even be an issue, but I need to let you know I cannot support this behavior in a child.

 

I have no problem loving them and accepting them as they are, but I would not encourage them in this behavior.

 

I believe God gives us our gender/sex and it’s not something we get to choose.

 

Basically, my faith conflicts with this & I just felt that I needed to let you know.

That email, for all intents and purposes, ended Bates’ effort to obtain permission from Oregon’s DHS to adopt a couple of children. She has the letter to prove it. As the complaint noted:

In its final denial letter to Jessica, the Department stated that it “expects every applicant to be open to any child regardless of race, ethnicity and cultural identity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression,” but not spiritual beliefs.

Jonathan Scruggs, senior counsel for ADF, was clear about the violation of Bates’ rights:

Oregon’s policy amounts to an ideological litmus test: people who hold secular or “progressive” views on sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to participate in child welfare programs, while people of faith with religiously informed views are disqualified because they don’t agree with the state’s orthodoxy.

 

The government can’t exclude certain communities of faith from foster care and adoption services because the state doesn’t like their particular religious beliefs.

The ADF complaint points out that Oregon’s DHS policy is specifically targeted to Christians such as Bates:

On paper, the state requires applicants to “accept” and “support” the “spiritual beliefs” and “cultural identities” of any child.…

 

In the end, the only group excluded from the process up front are those with religious beliefs like Jessica’s.

 

Conservative Christians need not apply.

The ADF reminds the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, Pendleton Division, that “Jessica’s desire to engage in certain speech like sharing her faith with her children, refraining from certain speech like neopronouns, associating with certain groups like her church, and avoiding associating with certain groups like Pride parades, are each protected under the Free Speech or Freedom of Assembly Clauses [in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution].”

Accordingly, the ADF requested that the court declare that the state’s policy violates Bates’ rights “to free speech, free association, assembly, religious exercise, and equal protection of the law,” and to “stop Defendants … from enforcing the state’s policy.”

Progressives continue to use the government to enforce their ideology on citizens like Jessica Bates. They must use that force, because believers in Jesus Christ — such as Bates — won’t submit to that ideology willingly.

Texas Considers Posting Ten Commandments in Public Schools

Tuesday, 04 April 2023 13:58
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, April 4, 2023:  

fter the old paradigm of some sort of “wall” that should “separate church and state” was successfully demolished last year, the Texas State Senate Education Committee is considering a bill this week to put the Ten Commandments back into the state’s public schools.

The bill is brief and to the point:

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

A public elementary or secondary school shall display in a conspicuous place in each classroom of the school a durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments … [to] include the text of the Ten Commandments … that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom….

The text of the poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments … must read as follows:

The Ten Commandments

I AM the LORD thy God.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.

Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor ’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.

Texas public schools that don’t have such a poster may accept one from a private donor. And the postings would apply with the start of classes in September.

Andrew Seidel, an attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, weighed in on a similar bill offered in Texas in 2019. Such a display, according to Seidel, would be “illegal.”

Fortunately for freedom of religion, the jurisprudence that ruled in 2019 has shifted significantly.

Back in 1980 when the state of Kentucky attempted to pass a similar law, the Supreme Court, in Stone v. Graham, tossed it because such posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools “lacks a secular legislative purpose.” The court, with Warren Burger as Chief Justice, ruled:

This is not a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like.

 

[The] posting of religious texts on the wall serves no such educational function.

 

If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments.

 

However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

And so the Ten Commandments disappeared from public schools across the land. It followed the banishment of prayer from public schools.

But then a football coach in a small town in the state of Washington upended the fictional “wall” — he prayed publicly on the 50-yard-line after every football game. And the Supreme Court not only ruled in his favor (after eight years), but exposed the canard of that “wall.”

Supreme Court Justice Neal Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District:

We are aware of no historically sound understanding of the Establishment Clause that begins to [make] it necessary for [the] government to be hostile to religion….

Gorsuch went on to clarify the new paradigm:

Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like [Coach] Kennedy’s….

 

The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligions views alike….

 

Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech.

In that landmark decision, the high court ruled that “the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.”

Gorsuch removed all doubt: “In truth, there is no conflict between constitutional commands before us. There is only the “mere shadow” of a conflict, a false choice premised on a misconstruction of the Establishment Clause.”

He added:

The only meaningful justification the government offered for its reprisal rested on a mistaken view that it had a duty to ferret out and suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech.

If Texas passes the proposed bill, it will no doubt be challenged in court. But under the new paradigm that demolishes the “wall” that supposedly “separates church and state” — thus allowing religious views to flourish with the state now respecting that right — those Ten Commandments will be allowed to influence the culture once again.

Washington State’s Law Banning “Conversion Therapy” Likely Headed to Supreme Court

Friday, 31 March 2023 12:52
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, March 31, 2023:  

When Brian Tingley, a Christian marriage and family counselor in Tacoma, Washington, learned that his state passed a law in 2018 banning him from advising his clients to affirm their biological sex, he knew he was in trouble.

During counseling sessions with people “confused” about their sex, he would clearly state his recommendations that they follow the Scriptures regarding sexual identity. In some cases, he would recommend something called “conversion therapy,” whereby an individual (perhaps born a biological female but thinking (or “identifying”) that she was a male) would work to reestablish belief in his or her biological sex.

As Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the public-interest law firm taking his case to the Supreme Court, noted, the Washington state law “put another person in the room” with Tingley:

Today, there’s a third person in the room.

 

It’s a representative of the state government.

 

Reluctantly, you start talking with your counselor. But every time the conversation turns to a particular topic, the representative interrupts, saying, “This conversation is prohibited!”…

 

This may seem like a radical hypothetical. But it is essentially what could happen under a new state law in Washington. The law permits the government to intrude on confidential counseling sessions and dictate what counselors and clients can discuss.

Under that law, counselors such as Tingley can’t talk about gender, sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or gender identity in any way that isn’t in line with the state’s views. And those views prohibit any suggestion that an individual might be a candidate for counseling supporting his biological sex and reversing the brainwashing the culture now forces onto citizens.

Representing Tingley, ADF filed suit in 2021, complaining that the state law violated both Tingley’s right to free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and his freedom of religion.

A district court tossed Tingley’s complaint.

ADF appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

ADF appealed again, asking for a full Ninth Circuit Court review. The court denied the appeal.

This week, ADF appealed the case to the Supreme Court. Based on a recent decision in a similar case, the Court is likely to decide in Tingley’s favor and toss Washington State’s ban.

As ADF wrote:

For government officials to insert themselves into confidential counseling sessions—and determine what goals counselors and their clients can pursue and what topics they can discuss—is a radical violation of both free speech and religious freedom.

 

It’s the client’s choice to pursue a specific goal through counseling, not the government’s.

 

Similarly, it’s up to counselors like Brian Tingley to determine how best to help their clients achieve their counseling goals during their sessions.

 

The government has no business telling counselors what topics they can and cannot discuss during these sessions.

The Ninth Circuit’s three-judge panel said that Washington state had the power to override Tingley’s First Amendment rights because his conversation fell under the guise of “professional conduct” that might involve “speech” and therefore could be restricted.

Unfortunately for the Ninth Circuit, and fortunately for Tingley, the Supreme Court has already seen through this façade and ruled that the First Amendment takes precedence. As one of the Ninth Circuit’s senior judges stated in the case (even though he wasn’t on the panel):

The panel here applied [a previous but no longer valid] precedent to conclude that Tingley’s talk therapy was conduct [and] not speech, thereby putting him at risk of professional discipline….

 

But the Supreme Court has already ruled: The First Amendment cannot be evaded by regulating speech “under the guise” of regulating conduct….

 

[In National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, or NIFLA, the Supreme Court] rejected recategorizing speech as professional conduct merely because it took place in a professional context.

The senior judge defended Tingley’s right under the First Amendment to enjoy his freedom of religion. He called out the two who ruled against the counselor:

While there is no longstanding tradition of regulating therapeutic speech, there IS a constitutional tradition relevant here: namely, that of protecting religious speech.

 

Unfortunately, the panel did not consider it.

The lone dissenter on the panel reminded the other two panel members of Tingley’s religious freedom guarantees under the First Amendment:

[W]e also cannot ignore that conversion therapy is often grounded in religious faith.

 

According to plaintiff Brian Tingley, a therapist licensed by the State of Washington, his practice of conversion therapy is an outgrowth of his religious beliefs and his understanding of Christian teachings. Tingley treats his clients from the perspective of a shared faith, which he says is conducive to establishing trust.

 

And as part of his therapeutic treatment, Tingley counsels his clients to live their lives in alignment with their religious beliefs and teachings.

He added:

It is a “bedrock principle” of the First Amendment that the government cannot limit speech “simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

 

While I recognize that the speech here may be unpopular or even offensive to many Americans, it is in these cases that we must be most vigilant in adhering to constitutional principles.

 

Those principles require a heightened review of Tingley’s Free Speech claim.

 

It may be easier to dismiss this case under a deferential review to Washington’s law, but the Constitution commands otherwise.

If the high court takes Tingley’s case, it will hear arguments in the fall and rule on the matter next summer.

Tennessee Congressman: America “Needs a Revival”

Wednesday, 29 March 2023 13:29
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, March 29, 2023:  

The day after a female who called herself a male murdered six people, Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett on Tuesday was asked if Congress, or any legislative body, could do anything about such atrocities from happening again. He said, “I don’t see any real role that we could do [in Congress] other than mess things up.”

And then he gave the only real answer to a society being reduced to secular ashes by Marxists: “You know, as we talk about in the church, and I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country.”

Burchett, a 54-year-old Republican from Knoxville with an 84 Freedom Index rating from The John Birch Society, is serving his third term in Congress, representing citizens in the state’s 18th district.

He didn’t mention that the revival that the country needs is already taking place, being largely ignored by the mainstream media. The media was forced to pay attention in February to the Asbury Revival when they learned that between 50,000 and 70,000 people had poured into tiny Wilmore, Kentucky, home of both Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary.

The ripple effect from that revival spread to other college campuses, including Samford (Ohio) and Cedarville (Alabama) Universities, and University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky. As the revival spread to other campuses like Campbellsville University (Kentucky) and Lee University (Tennessee), The Washington Post was forced to give it coverage.

Baylor University is now in the throes of a similar revival (FM72) in which students have just completed 72 hours of continuous prayer and worship at its Fountain Mall. Charles Ramsey, associate chaplain and director for Baylor’s Campus Ministries, said, “The purpose of FM72 is to stir a passion for Jesus Christ in the Baylor community,” adding:

It is time to take inventory of one’s own journey, to linger in prayer, and to recalibrate towards what is most important: our shared faith in Jesus Christ.

Similar revivals are expected to break out even in states where Christ’s name is either ignored or scorned, such as California. Following a 40-day fast, evangelists Lou Engle and Mando Matthews are gearing up for “Hope California” and have already booked 10 stadiums for the crowds of thousands expected to attend.

A ”Fill the Stadium” event is scheduled to begin on April 9 at the 86,000-seat Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Sponsored by evangelist Nick Hall, it’s expected to be the largest student-led outreach in recent history.

And in little Hammond, Louisiana (population 21,000), a local church is experiencing a revival that, according to Brian Lester of the Voice of Hope Ministries, has already attracted more than 25,000 people. It’s now in its 20th week, and continues with prayer and worship services held weekday nights.

Previous revivals, such as the one Asbury University experienced in 1970, had a far-reaching impact on the culture, and the Great Awakenings early in the life of the American Republic impacted and nourished the birth and spiritual growth of the Republic from its beginning.

As missionary to India William Carey famously said: “Attempt great things for God. Expect great things from God.”

Media Covered Everything About Nashville Shooting Except the Cause

Tuesday, 28 March 2023 13:27
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 28, 2023:  

With flags ordered to be flown at half mast on every federal building in the country, hardly anyone has missed the shooting in Nashville on Monday. The media covered it like a blanket. Wikipedia has 33 sources informing its coverage. This writer read 17 more as background for this article.

Only one thing is missing: Not a single source dared even to ask the question, why? Why did this 28-year-old person, born a female but later deciding she was a male — tossing her given name for a male descriptor instead — draw up maps for several potential targets, legally purchase at least of the two of the three firearms she carried into The Covenant School on Monday, and, in the space of 14 minutes, manage to murder three children and three adults, including the school’s administrator?

Why, indeed?

The police did what they could. She entered the school at 10:13 a.m. and was shot dead at 10:27 a.m. There were five officers who approached the building, dodging fire from the shooter on their way in. Two of them cornered her on the second floor and shot her dead.

Police spokesmen said it could have been worse.

How much worse? There were more than 200 children in school on Monday, along with about 50 teachers and staff. The shooter picked the school over others she had considered because it was the least protected: There was no safety officer — School Resource Officer, or SRO — present. She had attended the school years earlier and knew her way around. She planned the attack in advance, drawing maps of the facility with possible entrances carefully noted.

She left a manifesto, which police are reviewing.

People are grieving, including the family of the senior pastor of the church that sponsors the school who lost his daughter in the shooting.

President Biden is calling for more gun control even though the shooter obtained her firearms legally. His press secretary blamed the incident on Republicans. The Gun Violence Archive reported that in 2022 there were 646 mass shootings (by their count), with 314 children killed and 681 adults killed by gunfire.

Moms Demand Action seized the opportunity to blame the guns and the few lawmakers who still think the Second Amendment counts for something:

School shootings are not acts of nature — they’re manmade acts of cowardice enabled by lawmakers who have accepted children being shot in their school as an acceptable price to pay for the support of the gun industry.

 

In America and in Tennessee, guns are the leading killer of kids yet Tennessee lawmakers have done nothing but gut gun safety laws, putting gun industry profits ahead of the safety of our children. We don’t have to live this way and our children certainly don’t have to die this way.

So said Shannon Watts, the MDA founder.

Journalist Andy Ngo thinks it might have had something to do with Tennessee having recently passed laws prohibiting the “medical transitioning” of minors in the state.

Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk said, “This is the ultimate crime.”

No. With all respect due to the attorney general, the shooting on Monday at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, is not the ultimate crime. The ultimate crime is not asking the question, why?

Eric Metaxas comes close to the answer, and it has to do with the Presbyterian Church of America, with which The Covenant School is associated, along with many other major so-called Christian denominations. Wrote Metaxas in his “Letter to the American Church”:

The ideas and forces we face have an atheistic Marxist ideology in common.… [They] share a bitter taproot that leads all the way down to Hell.

 

Critical Race Theory — which is atheistic and Marxist — and radical transgender and pro-abortion ideologies are all inescapably anti-God and anti-human.

 

They are decidedly at war with the ideas of family and marriage, and with the idea of America as a force for good….

 

These ideas have over many decades infiltrated our own culture in such a way that they touch everything.

Where is the church? Where are the pastors loudly declaiming against this infiltration? For the most part they are silent, as is the kept media.

Put simply, what would one expect from a generation that has been brainwashed into thinking that there is no God, that life is meaningless and purposeless, that humans evolved from slime and mud. Why wouldn’t they shoot each other? There’s no conscience, no morality, no right and wrong. In today’s culture, even to ask about morality and conscience is to be labeled a fanatic, or worse.

That’s why the question “why?” is never raised. It’s much easier for those behind the destructive ideologies being taught in schools to blame guns and gun owners. It avoids the real question.

Queer School Board Ends Agreement With Arizona Christian University Over Its Christian Worldview

Monday, 27 March 2023 13:47
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, March 27, 2023:  

Following the unanimous decision by five school board members — three of whom claim to be LGBT — to end an agreement with Arizona Christian University (ACU) over its Christian theology, the public-interest law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed suit. It claims religious discrimination against ACU, violating not only school policies but the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as well.

For nearly 11 years ACU has had a friendly and supportive agreement with Arizona’s largest school district, the Washington Elementary School District, to provide the district with student-teachers to support it. In a time when finding teachers and support staff was increasingly difficult, Washington Elementary appreciated the free assistance from ACU students.

That “appreciation” evaporated overnight on February 23, when the five-member school board voted unanimously to end that agreement. It was a noisy event, with parents voicing their unhappiness with the decision.

ADF filed suit on behalf of ACU earlier this month, using the board members’ own words as recorded that night as proof of its deliberate and intentional violation of school board policy and guarantees of free speech and the equal protection clauses of the First Amendment.

The point person on the board who first discovered that ACU had values directly opposed to her own, Tamilia Valenzuela, calls herself a “bilingual, disabled, neurodivergent Queer Black Latina.” As the renewal of the long-standing agreement with ACU was being discussed, she opened the bidding with this:

[O]ur vision in Washington Elementary School District is committed to achieving excellence for every child, every day, every opportunity. Every child.

 

When I go to Arizona Christian University’s website, and I’m taking this directly from their website, “above all else be committed to Jesus Christ accomplishing His will in advancing His kingdom on Earth as in heaven.”

 

Part of their values, is “influence, engage and transform the culture with Truth by promoting the biblically informed values that are foundational to Western civilization, including the centrality of family, traditional sexual morality, and lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.” [Emphasis in the lawsuit.]

She posed this rhetorical question for her soul mates on the board:

I want to know how bringing people from an institution that is ingrained in their values . . . will . . . impact three of your board members who are a part of the LGBTQ community.

 

We have added our pronouns at the dais as a solidarity – let our LGBT community know, that we stand, in making sure that they feel protected.

 

Are we only performing performative solidarity, or are we going to dig deep, and actually look at the partnerships that we’re doing?

Those Christian “values” are obviously antithetical to those now making up the majority, if not all, of the school board in Washington Elementary School District. Valenzuela continued:

Because if we’re bringing people in whose mission [is to] “above all else . . . influence people to be biblically minded,” how does that hold space for people of other faiths[,] our members of the LGBT community[, or] people who think differently and do not have the same beliefs?

The ramparts must be defended! Biblical values are to be resoundingly rejected in favor of the values of the LGBT community that spring instead from the religion of humanism and reason alone:

At some point we need to get real with ourselves and take a look at who we’re making legal contracts with and the message that that is sending to our community.

 

Because that makes me feel like I could not be safe in this in this school district.

 

That makes other queer kids, who are already facing attack from our lawmakers that they could not be safe in this community.

 

So I really want us to think hard about who we’re partnering with deep dive and I want to ask the district, “is this school value aligned with what we’re trying to do and making sure that all of our students feel safe? [Emphasis added in the ADF brief; all errors in the original.]

Valenzuela was singing to the choir. Another defendant in the ADF lawsuit, board member and president Nikkie Gomez-Whaley, expressed her horror at how the ACU had infiltrated the school district with its Bible-thumping assistant teachers:

[W]hen I went and looked into not only [Arizona Christian’s] core values but then the statement of faith that they ask their students to sign and live by, what gave me pause was it’s not just teaching but it’s teaching as they say um, with a Biblical lens, with a proselytizing is embedded into how they teach, and um, you know, I just don’t believe that that belongs in schools and I would never want uh you know my son to talk about his two dads and be shamed by a teacher who believed a certain way and is at a school that demands that they uh, you know uh, teach through God’s . . . their biblical lens. [Emphasis added.]

Gomez-Whaley waxed positively breathless at the threat that the elementary kids under her management would face if the 11-year-old agreement with ACU were to be continued:

I do believe that we owe it to um especially all of our students when we’re working in equity but especially our LGBTQ students and staff who are under fire who are not protected um and who we have already pledged to support we cannot continue to align ourselves with organizations that starkly contrast our values . . . and say that we legitimately care about diversity equity and inclusion and that we legitimately care about all of our families.

 

We cannot justify. The ends does [sic] not justify the means, in my opinion.

In 11 years there has not been a single complaint about or a single violation of any agreement or rule by any of the ACU students offering to assist teachers in the district. Not one. In fact, nearly a dozen of them have later been offered positions as teachers by the school district!

But that doesn’t matter. To the queers that have somehow taken control of the Washington Elementary School District in Arizona, it’s all about removing biblical ideology and replacing it with their current brand of humanism.

ADF senior counsel David Cortman said:

By discriminating against Arizona Christian University and denying it an opportunity to participate in the student teacher program because of its religious status and beliefs, the school district is in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention state law that protects ACU’s religious freedom.

The lawsuit is asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona for relief, claiming that the actions by the queers on the school board “violated and continue to violate [ACU and its students’] constitutional rights to:

  • free exercise of religion;
  • equal protection;
  • free speech and expressive association;
  • be free from unconstitutional retaliation; [and]
  • be free from religious favoritism and entanglement.”

This represents in a microcosm the war between the secular state and Christ and His followers that is taking place elsewhere in the nation. It’s a war that began with His birth, and will continue until He comes again.

Many of the articles on Light from the Right first appeared on either The New American or the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.
Copyright © 2021 Bob Adelmann