The Rights of Our Daughters

President Obama has stated that today, the 39th Anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion across the United States is part of the work to “continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Here's the innate problem, where we as a culture have messed up completely: Somewhere along the line, we've decided that the key to happiness has become what we do for a living, and that the dream of dreams is to have the job we want. One of the first questions we ask kids as we encounter them, the question we ask to get to know them is "what do you want to be when you grow up?" And we don't mean a husband or a wife, a mother or a father. Those are kind of taken for granted. We'll probably all do that, and because of birth control, we'll do that when it is most convenient for us. And if our husband or wife gets in the way of the dream for a career, or they want more time and consideration than our career will afford them, then we can divorce them. If our kids need someone to look out for them, we have daycare.

We don't raise our sons to view the role of husband to be the most important and desired. We don't raise our daughters to prize the role of wife and to put it first.

As a culture, marriage and parenthood are accessories to a good life, and that good life comes from the job. Personal meaning and self-worth come from the job. And the weird thing is, the receptionist who makes $9.00 an hour thinks this as much as the CEO who makes a million a year. And as Pastor Christopher Gillespie asks so eloquently today, " Is motherhood a rock-bottom job for those who can’t do more, or those who are satisfied with drudgery? "

Raising children is rough, and it certainly can get in the way of reaching our personal dreams of wealth, career, and freedom. But in the end, if the primary value is that our true purpose is found within our family, and that being a husband or a wife is where our prime focus is, and when men have the same concept of responsibility to family and self-sacrifice, then their dreams are second to providing for the family as well.

When marriage is out of the picture in relationship to children, it does all fall on the woman. And when sex, rather than marriage is valued, then it all falls down and it becomes okay to kill another human being, worse yet, one's own children, in order to reach your own personal dream.

Obama Quote of the Week

Today at the National Prayer Breakfast:

"There is no god that condones taking the life of an innocent human being."

Personally, I think every prolife organization and even those who have sympathies with prolife organizations should take this quote as their slogan, attribute it to President Obama, and use these words as our guiding force, even if his actions show otherwise.

His actions are wrong. His words are completely right. I hope and pray they become a guiding force in our nation

Why I Must Vote for John McCain

I've heard over and over again about how there really isn't a choice out there, and there really isn't. There hasn't been a choice for years. But not because I am left to choose between Democrats and Republicans who are fiscal moderates...but because only the Republican candidates are the ones that uphold Human Rights for humans from the moment of conception. As the pastor who interviewed both candidates said, we have a holocaust going on. 40 million babies have been killed. There is no choice, because John McCain is the only choice.



HT: A Round Unvarnished Tale

An End and a Beginning

I must confess I was close to tears when our dear "Luther at the Movies" decided to close shop two days ago. And I can't tell whether the tears were due to sadness or laughter, because he was funny even in his au revoir.

But in his farewells, he leads us to another blog which is a treasure, and that is the blog of First Things. I have thoroughly enjoyed the three days that I have read it, and his assistant (wink wink, nod nod), Anthony Sacramone definitely lets a bit of Dr. Luther through in his writings, even if his ironic style is a little more subdued.

But I have to say, I really appreciated this post by another blogger on First Things, Professor Robert George of Princeton University. It is a clear and concise reasoning as to why abortion should be illegal in the United States.

"For now, what I hope you will consider is simply this: The child in the womb either is or is not a human being–a member of the human family. If he or she is, then he or she is entitled as a matter of basic justice to the protection of laws and, indeed, to the equal protection of the laws. For a voter or public official to seek to deny to the unborn elementary legal protections against killing that we favor for ourselves and others we regard as worthy is a gross and appalling injustice. There is no way around this. Once one concedes the humanity of the child–as one must in view of the plain facts of human embryogenesis and early-intrauterine development–the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family requires the legal protection of the unborn."

His letter is a response to Anne Rice, who states that she is Democrat because she is Christian and Pro-Life, and who has endorsed Hillary Clinton. While I could take issue with a lot of things that she has said in her endorsment, I really am going to focus on one statement:

"As a student of history, I do not think that Americans will give up the legal right to abortion. Should Roe vs Wade be rolled back, Americans will pass other laws to support abortion, or they will find ways to have abortions using new legal and medical terms." says Ms. Rice.

As a student of history, has Anne Rice noticed that the very reasons why we are told that abortion should remain legal are the very reasons why we were told that slavery should remain legal? That slaves are not quite human? That in order for a way of life to be maintained, the institution needs to be kept in place? That this particular class of people are only entitled to have any control over their own lives whatsoever is if those who are responsible for their well-being (slave owners or the mothers) choose to give them that right (through liberating them or allowing them to be born?).

The American government used this argument to rationalize the continual violation of treaties with Native Americans. The same arguments were also used by the Nazis in exterminating the Jews and other "inferiors," by Stalin in dealing with various classes he didn't like, the Turks in dealing with the Armenians, the British treatment of the Irish, Muslims in dealing with infidels, and one could take this all the way back to ancient times with Greeks, Assyrians, and Cain vs. Abel. And abortion is every bit as much an atrocity as those listed.

This theme repeats itself throughout history. The person/people/class/goverment/empire that is in control has a right to decide what rights those inferior have. But as an educated society, when we look back at history - we always see the injustice that was perpetrated. We need to be able to see the gross injustice that is being perpetrated now.

Every year we are slaughtering MILLIONS of PEOPLE whose very existence is viewed as an insult by the very people whose own actions brought them into existence.

With slavery, people fought long and hard to eliminate it, and it was an act of law that did so. With genocide, we have repeatedly gone into countries to put a stop to it, to destroy governments that condone it (most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq, and our presence in Iraq is continued in part to prevent this from happening again). Through our study of history, we have looked back at how we have treated other human beings, and grieved and learned from our mistakes not to repeat them (though as long as we are sinful, and as long as there is power, they probably will be repeated).

And THAT is what we should be seeing from history, if we are students of it.

Partisanship

When I turned eighteen, one of the first things I did was go down to the post office and register to vote. My parents, registered Republicans, had always actually encouraged their kids to register as Democrats. There really weren't that many Republicans in Nevada at the time, and the Democrats were generally conservative, and they just wanted it to be worth our time to vote in the primary elections.

I couldn't do it, though. I knew almost nothing about fiscal and social differences between the parties. I also had been brainwashed by liberal teachers toward liberal taxation policies (sales tax isn't fair because it is even across the board, graded income tax still isn't high enough for the rich, etc). But I was going to register Republican and there was ONLY one issue that made up my mind. Abortion. The Republican Party was Pro-Life, and it was very clear to me that abortion was killing a defenseless human being. I hadn't stepped foot in a church in years, but that was obvious.

Knowing history, I also took pride in belonging to the political party whose very inception centered on rectifying the evils of slavery. It was also the first political party to favor women's suffrage. Over the next few years, I learned a lot about conservative economics, social policy, and how these shape legislation.

There has been a lot of fuss this year about certain evangelical groups threatening to not support Guiliani if he gets the nomination. I have also heard from other Republicans that the main thing is party unity, and whether Guiliani gets the nomination or not, it is crucial that we stick together and support whatever candidate gets the Republican nod, because we cannot hand the White House over to the Democrats.

As a joke, I told a friend that I would vote for Hillary before I voted for Guiliani, if nothing else, just to tell the Republican Party to never let this happen again. I could not in good conscience vote for Hillary or any of the other Democratic candidates. They just do not represent my values or outlook on life. But for that very same reason, I could not vote for Guiliani or Romney, either. Both have pro-abortion and liberal political leanings that I cannot endorse with my vote.

The Republican Party was born on the platform that slavery was evil. That slaves have been denied their rights as human beings, and are entitled to those rights beyond anything else. They took a country to war over this -- a terrible but a just war. They also fought and pushed for the rights of women to vote for their representatives, to be heard by a court of law, and to own property. To abandon the history of standing up for those who are denied their human rights, as human embryos are now denied their right to their own hearbeat, their own existence -- would be turning their back on everything the Party has ever stood for, because in the end, it is saying that some do not have the right to basic existence, to have the opportunity to rise to their own potential, to the value that they were given by God. Those are the values that kept me Republican. To say that a human baby is not entitled to those rights unless its mother and its society says that it is worthy is against the party's very core foundational values. The party will not stand if it treats abortion as something that does not matter, and instead places the value on the party-name itself.

The Republican Party is not what is important. What is important is the role that it serves in representing those who register as Republicans. I am not Pro-Life or small government because I am a Republican. I am a Republican because they claim they are Pro-Life and small government as well. If the party should cease to represent its constituency, then the party has ceased to represent those who chose them. I would go elsewhere.

And while I would grieve this happening, I also am reminded that parties come and go. The Federalist Party collapsed and was replaced by the Whig Party, which was replaced by the Republican Party. If the Republicans cease to be truly conservative and are no longer the party that will right terrible social wrongs as it has done so well in its past, another party will rise up to represent those that the party abandoned and take over that role. I have no doubt.

Theological Inconsistencies

I love the Colbert Report.

But as funny as it often is, I am not ignorant of the fact that it is a show that uses humor to try to push a liberal agenda, and I am sure that as with The Daily Show, it will become more painful and angering to watch as we get closer to the election year.

I was watching yesterday afternoon, and they were playing a rerun of a recent show where Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was promoting her book Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches are Mixing God and Politics and Losing Their Way. She stated that her main point was that the church has become too concerned with the three issues of abortion, homosexuality, and stem-cell research, and has forgotten the feeding of the poor and helping those who are hurting.

What really caught my attention is that she said "Nowhere does the Bible talk about abortion, gay marriage, or stem-cell research. Nowhere in the Bible is stem-cell research specifically mentioned, but caring for the poor is." She put A LOT of emphasis on the fact that these three issues are not mentioned by name, yet the evangelical church has rallied around them.

From there, Stephen Colbert quoted a verse that I cannot find specifically find. It had components of Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:24-28, regarding homosexuality, but mentioned God putting them to death, which I cannot find. Leviticus says they shall be cast out, and Romans says they "receive in themselves the penalty of the error that is due them."

Townsend got this knowing look on her face and proceeded to explain how there were issues back then that were different than now and should be treated differently. She used slavery as an example, saying that there were verses in the Bible that seem pro-slavery, but our fathers during the Civil War understood that the Bible was for freedom and justice.

A person could've gotten whiplash just listening to how quickly she went from "Christians shouldn't be dealing with issues that the Bible doesn't literally speak about" to the completely opposite stance of "we don't take the verses literally that are there."
Now, the author's view is that Christians in the churches need to stay in their churches and be active in insisting that the churches return to the role of caring for the poor and having mercy on them. The book description states: "individual actions can return our churches to their traditional role as shepherds to their flock. "

Kennedy-Townsend's first error is this: the main role of the church is to administer the Word and the Sacraments. That is - it is to faithfully preach and teach the Word of God faithfully to her people and to grant the forgiveness of sins through the Bible, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion. The main purpose of the Church is to nourish its believers in the one true faith. Then it can go on to providing for the needs of believers and unbelievers alike, as they are led by God.

The Church holds to God's Word, and if there is something in our society that is so clearly against God's Word then we are supposed to proclaim that it is wrong, and we definitely as a body of believers, are not supposed to embrace it, but to do what we can to counteract it. Killing helpless babies in the womb of its mother is destroying God's creation, and Scripture does speak to it. Psalm 139: 14-16, for one place - it talks about how God regards us as precious even when he was knitting us together. And to prey on our unborn children in the name of science is just a further descent into that evil.

That is not to say that we should focus ONLY on these things, but the idea that the church is fixated on these issues to the exclusion of all else (even the politicized evangelical movement) was a brazen exaggeration on her part, as well. And to indicate that there is no relationship with our faith and what we do with our bodies, especially when it goes against the Scripture is also a convenient lie. The Bible is clear that if we are wilfully rejecting Scripture, we are willfully rejecting God, and you can feed all the poor in the world, but if that only comes from the figurative goodness of your heart and not from a desire to serve the God who considered sin to be so serious that sent His only Son to die on the cross because it was the only thing that could destroy sin's hold on us -- then we are still damned to Hell.

We fight for the babies because they are being denied the chance to be baptized, to hear God's Word and be saved. They cannot fight for themselves. We fight against the normalizing of homosexuality because God's word doesn't just call it a sin, but call it an abomination and specifically says that is not what man was meant to do.

Something Kennedy Townsend doesn't acknowledge is that it is because of a desire for mercy that we speak out against these things. We want to bring healing and God's forgiveness to those who have had abortions. We want to bring healing to those who seek to have relationships that are outside of God's order, because we do not believe that this is good for their everlasting souls. And we do not want to see a culture that is joyous and glorious fall apart because they prey on their own young. We seek to show God's love, but we cannot do so without pronouncing God's judgement.

And we fight against these evils because we cannot quote God's Word as authority in one instance, and expect to have anything to stand on when in the next breath we say that it is irrelevant.