May 2000 Newsletter

May 2000 Newsletter

Storming the Gates in St. Louis, July 30 - August 5, 2000

Plans are coming together splendidly for our national event in St. Louis. We have a generation of “survivors” (those 27 years old and younger who have survived our nation’s abortion holocaust) who are preparing the way for us to storm the gates of hell in the Gateway of the West. This generation has been a very specific target of Satan and his minions. One third of them have already been slaughtered by his insidious lie, abortion. Satan has preemptively destroyed them before they had a chance to crush his head. He is now seeking to corrupt the other two thirds of this surviving generation by compromising their walk with Almighty God. He does not want them to fulfill the destiny for which God created them. He knows that if they do, his gates will not prevail!

Our purpose is to equip this surviving generation to fight the good fight and run the race marked out. We want our kids to be able to see the devil in his masterful disguises and expose him for the liar he is. Satan has shrewdly torn down the walls of biblical authority that once governed our land. Our nation is now exposed to savage wolves (lies) intent on our annihilation. We want to move this next generation to the exposed places on the wall, repair it, and enable them to take back the land the enemy has stolen. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Our nation is in desperate need of leaders filled with vision and mission who are unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and will become like the “men of Issachar who understood the times and knew what Israel should do …” (1 Chronicles 12:32).

Our method, as always, is to allow the theology of the church house to become biography in the streets. The Word of God must become flesh. We are simply the wheels that bring the church of Jesus Christ to the gates of hell. As our kids see moms and dads, pastors and elders, grandmas and grandpas living out their faith and taking the battle to the gates of hell, they will be filled with courage and a desire to do the very same. By turning the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers and engaging them together in the spiritual battle for the heart and soul of our nation, we will see men returning to church.

When we give men an opportunity to lay their lives down for their family, their church, and their nation, we will see the hearts of fathers returning to their children. Men were born to fight! Our task is also to help them find their place on the wall so that they may repair it. Ours is a prophetic proclamation, calling men and elders back to the gates of our nation, city, church, and family.

For too long, we in the church have majored on mercy ministry to the exclusion of the prophetic. We have taken care of the poor, built orphanages and crisis pregnancy centers, sent missionaries overseas, and cared for the lame and halt. But we have neglected the other half of the double-edged sword God has given us. It is the prophetic, judgmental, “Thus saith the Lord” side. It is the Father side of God. Because we have neglected the prophetic, men are left with no place in the church from which to repair the broken walls of our culture. Men were designed by God to fight and protect. A man is never better than when he is laying his life down for his family, his church, his nation, and his God. As a man lives out his call to pick up the cross of Christ, he passes a powerful message to the generation following him.

EVENT SPEAKERS

We have several dynamic speakers who will join us in St. Louis, be on the streets with us, storm the gates of hell with us, and share their rich experiences in passing the cross of Christ to the next generation. They will map out a strategy for victory (faith is the victory) in the battle that we are called to fight without compromising the Gospel of Christ. We will learn valuable yet all but forgotten lessons from our pilgrim forefathers and our founding fathers as to how the battle must be fought and won both personally and nationally. You do not want to miss this!

HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS

God has provided us the Drury Inn at 12220 Dorsett Road in Maryland Heights, Missouri - just 15 minutes from St. Louis. We have 30 rooms reserved. The cost is $59 + tax. This includes an excellent continental breakfast, and some decent snacks (good stuff) between 4-7 p.m. It is a great deal and they will allow us to have four in a room. That comes to about $17 a night per person. With food and everything, you just can't beat it! The rooms ordinarily go for $100/per night, but the owners of Drury Inn are pro-life and they want to help us. God is so good! Reservations should be made under the name "Operation Save America." Call (314) 576-9966.

Bringing the Gospel to the Gates of the United States Supreme Court

Christians from across the nation gathered at the steps of the Supreme Court of the United States of America to remind this court that it has been called to uphold biblical standards as found in God’s Law. Two very high profile cases were heard on April 24-26, 2000. One concerned the legality of state bans on Partial Birth Abortions, the other concerned homosexuality being allowed into the Boy Scouts of America. We prophetically proclaimed God’s Word at this very exposed place on our nation’s wall. Satan has wreaked havoc upon God’s eternal Law through this gate!

Report by Larry Donlan, Director of Rescue the Heartland (Nebraska)

In the summer of 1997, the state of Nebraska passed a bill proscribing the use of partial-birth abortion. Before the ink was dry on this law, a New York based pro-abortion legal organization, Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, challenged it in federal court. Nebraska child killer Leroy Carhart served as plaintiff. Now Carhart vs. Stenberg has reached the Supreme Court and was heard on April 25. Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg defended the law against Carhart's challenge.

The Argument
The abortion industry claims that the Nebraska prohibition is too broad and would restrict other abortion procedures even in the first trimester which, they contend, is in violation of Roe vs. Wade. Legislative Bill 23 (the law in question) defines "partial-birth abortion" as follows:

“Partial-birth abortion means an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery. For purposes of this subdivision, the term “partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child” means deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such procedure knows will kill the unborn child and does kill the unborn child.”

The lawsuit argues that this statute can and often does apply in other types of abortions including first trimester abortions.

What’s Truly At Stake
There are two things that are terribly important about the example above. First of all, Carhart admits that many live births result from his abortions. These babies are not partially but completely born when he kills them. So he is already practicing infanticide. Second, how is it that a child is able to survive a suction abortion? Normally the high-powered vacuum used in this procedure tears the child to pieces. Carhart helps answer this in his testimony.

In order to deliver a child alive, he first alters the procedure. He explains that when using a cannula bigger than the fetus, say a 9 cannula, the child will "come through intact without disruption." Why would he use such a novel variation in a standard procedure? It is in no way beneficial to the mother. In fact, a larger cannula stretches the uterus more than it needs to be. This is not only more painful for the mother, but carries with it substantially greater health risks, as it breaks down the elasticity of the uterine muscles making it more difficult to carry future pregnancies. This is especially true for young girls experiencing a first pregnancy. So, why would he do it?

Leroy Carhart harvests brain tissue (and who knows what else) for the University of Nebraska Medical Center research departments. In standard abortion procedures, organs and tissues are destroyed by the dismemberment process. For research purposes, the tissue must be as fresh as possible and undamaged. Brain cells, for example, die in about 8 minutes, making timing very important in retrieval. This abortion technique allows the child to be delivered intact and in "many instances" alive, thereby delivering a perfect "specimen" for researchers. In my opinion, what’s at stake here is not the right to abortion, but the right to harvest a living child’s body parts for research.

The Nebraska Partial Birth Ban and All Partial Birth Ban Legislation is Morally Flawed
There are serious moral problems with this legislation that need be considered. First of all, the ban won’t ban any abortions at all. It makes no attempt to stop the killing, it merely regulates the procedures involved. Christians should not be regulating murder? Many supporters of the ban claim that partial birth abortion is the moral equivalent to infanticide. Perhaps, but the strong implication here is that infanticide is somehow worse than abortion. Are older, more developed, born babies more valuable than their younger brothers and sisters? What kind of message does that send the American people? Others have said that partial birth abortion should be outlawed because it is a particularly cruel procedure. Are we saying that it is worse to kill a baby outside the womb than to dismember it inside? The unintended consequence of the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban” is that we say that babies partially outside the womb are more precious than those inside. This is the very rationale that the abortion industry is built upon.

I pray Carhart vs. Stenberg survives this constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court, but I am not deluded into thinking it will stop abortion. The truth is it probably will not save even one child’s life.

Clinton Administration Weighing in on Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

Our friends in the Justice Department are at it again! This time, instead of prosecuting felons, terrorists, drug dealing, and gun smuggling, the Clinton Administration has asked them to join Leroy Carhart’s fight against Nebraska’s abortion law. This department, under Janet Reno, has become the strong arm of the abortion industry. Here is the AP wire report: “Justice Department lawyers asked the nation's highest court this week to let them participate when the Nebraska case is argued before the justices the week of April 24. They said the law violates some women's constitutional right to end their pregnancies.” A constitutional right to kill babies? Where?

Christians Denied First Amendment Rights
Pro-Lifers Arrested for Praying on a Public Sidewalk, U.S. Court of Appeals Hears Case for the Fourth Time

By Sarah Zes, St. Louis

On April 11, 2000, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit considered for the fourth time a case involving pro-lifers in Fargo, North Dakota. They were arrested in 1991 for praying silently while walking up and down the sidewalk in front of an abortion clinic director's residence. No signs were held, no protests made, no speech audibly uttered - yet, the police insisted that this peaceful prayer vigil was in violation of the city's residential picketing ordinance.

In 1992, a state court judge dismissed the charges filed by the city. In 1993, a pro-life lawyer from Cincinnati, Ohio, named Tom Condit filed a civil rights suit for damages in federal court on behalf of those arrested. In 1995 the district court granted summary judgment to the Christians and found the police officers liable for violating their constitutional rights. The city of Fargo appealed to the Eighth Circuit, and won. (Veneklase v. City of Fargo).

Since then the Christians have won again in the district court and been overturned again by the Eighth Circuit. Mr. Condit filed a petition for an en banc review (entire panel of ten judges), which was finally granted for April 11, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. To call this ridiculous restriction of God-given rights to account, a press conference was called on April 11, on the steps of Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri. Bob Renaud, a survivor of the abortion holocaust and local leader of Operation Save America, was joined by the attorney for the case, Tom Condit, and area pro-lifers. Condit told the media: "I can say this with confidence about my clients in this case: they knew the law and what the Supreme Court had said about residential picketing on a similar ordinance. They went out and walked in the neighborhood in compliance with what the Supreme Court had said was permissible. The police officers in the city of Fargo did not know about the Supreme Court ruling, they did not know about the residential picketing law, and wrongfully arrested them. The ramifications are this, that when pro-life Christians go to the sidewalk to proclaim their beliefs, even if it is just prayer, anything can happen to them including arrest.”

Bob Renaud then spoke of the ramifications for this case for St. Louis: “This case can set a precedent for our entire country. That's why we're here today, we want the court to rule that Christians can silently pray and proclaim the Gospel of Christ on a public sidewalk. The First Amendment guarantees us that right and we are not going to sit idly by while the courts run roughshod over these rights. If they can take the rights of the few, then they can take the rights of the many. Patrick Henry said, 'It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.’

“It was obvious during the hearing that the city of Fargo (which disclaimed any responsibility for incompetent training of their police officers) had no valid constitutional grounds. It attempted to confuse the real issue with emotional smokescreens of ‘privacy rights’ and what a ‘picket’ was. It would not deal with the facts. The fact that the only three times Fargo's residential picketing ordinance was ever enforced had been against pro-lifers.

“This case is just another example of a concerted effort to censor Christian speech through godless judicial fiat. We must stand up against these blatant infringements upon our God-given rights and responsibilities toward Almighty God and our fellow man. We must continue to engage the forces of darkness in battle, expose them to the truth, press forth the crown rights of King Jesus, and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ without reservation."

Please pray that the judges will rule in the fear of God when they hand down their decision for Veneklase v. City of Fargo. The decision made by the Eighth Circuit will set an important precedent for the nation.

United States of America vs. Operation Rescue, May 15, 2000

Please pray for us as the DOJ attempts to silence the Gospel of Christ outside abortion mills in Dayton, Ohio and around the nation.. Our attorney Rick Nelson has asked that you pray in earnest.

Keep pressing the gates in Jesus’ Name,
Flip