June 2002 Newsletter

June 2002

Below is a letter from Dr. James Dobson that greatly encouraged our hearts as we are planning for our National Event in Dallas this July. We pray it is a powerful encouragement to you! Run the race marked out!

I want to say a few words about our culture's continued moral decline and, more importantly, the apparent hesitancy of some within the Christian community to try and stem the tide. Despite the relentless attacks by homosexual activists on the institution of marriage, and of "safe sex" ideology, pro-abortion sentiment, and other forms of immorality that are engulfing us, there are those within the church who remain convinced that it isn't our place to make our voices heard on these issues. In their estimation, controversy about sexuality, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family are "political" in nature and therefore unworthy of our attention. They believe that for Christians to involve themselves in cultural issues - even though they are profoundly moral in nature - is to dilute the gospel message. Some recent examples of this perspective follow:

"God does not call the church to influence the culture by promoting legislation."
- John MacArthur, Why Government Can't Save You, 2000

"I really believe, with all of my heart, one of the greatest mistakes in the religious world is the involvement in politics. I believe that I should not be on one side or the other. I believe I should be as neutral as possible and be able to teach the Word of God and not alienate anyone." - Jim Bakker, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 2000

Columnist Cal Thomas:
"There is no biblical mandate for reforming the world through government." […as if anybody has ever said our purpose is to reform the world through government. Jesus Christ is our lone source of redemption!]

"The time is ripe for conservative Christians to spend less time trying to influence Caesar, to consider what it means to render unto God, and to start rendering."

And Thomas' favorite gag line: "The kingdom of God is not going to arrive aboard Air Force One."

Christianity Today published an editorial on April 1 titled "Enough Bullying." It severely criticized those of us who believe religious broadcasters should speak out on cultural issues. The statement read: "[Christian activists are] often seen as indignantly condemning the sins of the world more than proclaiming the good news of salvation from those sins." The editorial went on to decry "the politics of hysteria and outrage."

I do not doubt the sincerity of conviction or question the Christian commitment of my brothers and sisters who choose to remain silent in response to the moral free fall we are experiencing. But I do strongly disagree with them. I firmly believe that "engaging the culture" and "sharing the gospel message" are not two distinct things; rather, they are inexorably intertwined. I explained this perspective with some passion this February, when I presented the keynote address at the National Religious Broadcasters' convention in Nashville, Tennessee:

"What I want to say to you tonight comes from deep within my heart, although it is said with charity to those who disagree. My comments will not be directed at any individual. These thoughts are relevant to all of us in this time of moral decline.
The world into which today's children are born has become a very dangerous place. It has changed tremendously. Those of you who are 50 years of age or older know that when you were young, the culture reinforced positive values and attempted to help parents raise their kids properly.

But now, the culture is at war with parents. It is very difficult to get kids safely through the minefield of adolescence. We're seeing a relentless attack on childhood today. There are many people in the activist community who hate the Judeo-Christian values, and recognize that if they can gain control of children, they can change our culture in one generation. That's why there is a tsunami of propaganda flooding the land. Every day, it seems, some new effort to manipulate kids is becoming apparent.

Exactly eight days ago, the National Education Association (NEA) announced its policy that is being disseminated to schools all over the country, urging every district to teach what amounts to homosexual propaganda to children of all ages.
Because a child will typically spend 13 years in public schools, this indoctrination will begin in kindergarten and continue through high school. This type of radical curriculum has already become law in the state of California. The California Legislature passed a series of bills that the State Department of Education used as a framework to recommend that schools adopt a pro-homosexual curriculum. When children came back from their summer vacations in September of last year, this is what was waiting for millions of them. Sadly, the majority of parents either didn't notice or didn't seem to care, because the legislation passed with too little resistance. Where are the moms and dads who are supposed to be looking out for the welfare of their kids? Why was there not an avalanche of opposition in response? Perhaps it is because Christians have been told that public policy issues, even those that affect their children, are not their concern.

Imagine sending a little 5-year-old boy off to a school that has implemented what the National Education Association is promoting. He's wet behind the ears, or to use the vernacular, "He knows nothing about nothing." He doesn't have the information or the defenses to counter the lies he's being told. Can you imagine these children sitting around the kindergarten teacher who's describing for them adult perverse behavior? Again, I find it difficult to believe parents are holding still for this! What should be additionally shocking to us is not only what is being taught in this instance, but what is NOT being taught. Sixty-eight percent of fourth-graders cannot read at a proficient level, and yet, professional educators want to take precious class time to teach their students about homosexuality. [Since this speech was given, a resolution has been introduced in the U.S. Congress calling for an annual day of silence in every public school, so that every student can contemplate the discrimination and oppression experienced by gay and lesbian children. Though the resolution never made it out of committee, students at 1,430 high schools registered to participate in the April 10 event.] And still, there are Christians who tell us that such concerns are "political" and that it is somehow ungodly to use their influence to oppose them.

[By the way, during a "Focus on the Family" interview with Pat Buchanan on March 28, I recommended something I have never said before. Because of the radical changes being made in California's schools, I indicated that I would not place my child in public schools in that state or any other that moves in this direction - if any other alternatives were available. Christian schools and home schools would be a far better option. I've heard the argument that we should not abandon the public schools and leave them to those with postmodern and politically correct views. I would agree, except for the fact that it is our vulnerable children who will be sacrificed if we keep them in a godless environment. Speaking personally, the welfare of my boy or girl would take priority over the need to influence the local public school. In the meantime, I would work tirelessly for the implementation of school choice.]

The radical proposal by the NEA occurred on February 8. What else has happened in the last couple of weeks? On February 4 - 12 days ago - the American Academy of Pediatrics announced its conclusion that gay and lesbian parents typically raise children as effectively as traditional families in which husbands and wives are committed to each other. The committee that released this report had no convincing data to back its claim and, in fact, admitted that there wasn't enough information upon which to base valid findings. And yet, almost every newspaper in the country reported the spurious "finding." The revolutionary concept was based not on science, but on politically correct propaganda.

On February 14 - two days ago - United States Secretary of State Colin Powell went on MTV, broadcast internationally, and recommended that kids use condoms. Let me read a portion of his quote. Listen carefully to the words he used. "Forget about taboos." Guess whose taboos kids were being asked to forget about? "Forget about conservative ideas." Guess whose conservative ideas were to be forgotten? "It's lives of young people that are put at risk by unsafe sex, and therefore, protect yourself."

It said there is no evidence that condoms protect against syphilis, gonorrhea, human papilloma virus, genital herpes and most of the other sexually transmitted diseases. And yet, there was the secretary of state, not the secretary of health and human services, speaking to kids about something he knows little or nothing about.

And the beat goes on. A year ago, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy filed a citzens' petition with the Food and Drug Administration recommending the distribution of the "morning-after pill" (medication that will kill tiny embryos if conception has occurred) to kids without parental knowledge or approval. And just three days ago, the group reiterated its position before the FDA in an effort to get the agency to immediately reclassify the pill from prescription to over-the-counter status. [In a related development, three weeks after this speech, Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray introduced the Emergency Contraception Education Act, calling for $10 million of taxpayer funds per year to develop an emergency contraception public-education campaign.] So much for the concern about the sanctity of human life.

These developments that have occurred in the last 16 days are characteristic of what is happening month after month and year by year. You can take any two-week period and see the same unrelenting assault on morality and the well-being of children. Brick by brick, the wall is crumbling. Now, what's going on here? What is behind this targeting of kids? Let me answer that question by relating it to the current debate on stem cell research. Do you know what a stem cell is? It is a cell that is not yet differentiated - not yet developed into a specific part of the body. In the beginning, it has the capacity to become any kind of bodily tissue or fluid, depending on the environment in which it grows. If it is located in the brain, it may become a nerve cell, or a hormone found in the brain. If it gravitates to the heart, it becomes heart tissue, or if it's in the eye, it becomes part of the visual apparatus. In other words, stem cells in their early stages of development will assume the characteristics of whatever surrounds them individually. In that way, they are the building blocks for the physical components of the body.

Likewise, children are the "stem cells" for the culture. The environment in which they are raised will influence what they grow up to be. Is the analogy clear? Those who control what children see and hear and believe are in a position to shape not only those individuals, but also the culture of tomorrow. Abraham Lincoln recognized this important nature of children. He said, "The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next." Homosexual activists and other politically correct leaders obviously understand this phenomenon. That's why they place such emphasis on the indoctrination of children. By telling kids repeatedly what they want them to believe and think, they can change the culture, quite literally, in a single generation. I saw a video clip on television the other day that featured a classroom in pre-war Afghanistan. These children were being taught how to slit the throats of Israelis. If you teach that kind of violence to 6-year-old boys, you will have violent men a few years later. The "stem cells" of babyhood will become like the environment in which they were raised.

This is what is behind the massive effort to install homosexuals and their influence into the Boy Scouts organization. The Girls Scouts have already been invaded, and now, according to one report, a third of Girl Scout leaders are lesbians. Wherever you find large numbers of children, you will see this tug-of-war for their hearts and minds. So often, the activists take over the leadership of children's organizations without a fight. Why? Christians are standing around debating with each other about church and state issues and refusing to use their influence in the wider culture. It leaves boys and girls virtually defenseless.

Are you aware there is an international effort now to lower the age of sexual consent? In the U.K., it's 16. Here in the United States, it's as low as 16. In Canada, it's 14. In Portugal, it's 14. In Spain, it's 13. In the Netherlands, it's 12. Is that shocking to you? It certainly is to me. We're witnessing a blatant campaign to demystify incest and the sexual abuse of children. You will hear more "experts" in the next few years telling us that boys and girls benefit from what they are calling "intergenerational sex." They are dead wrong, of course, but the propaganda is already having an impact. Children are in the crosshairs, and there are many reasons to be concerned about them. And, of course, preborn and newborn human beings are at greatest risk.

There is an almost total disregard for the value of human life in postmodern circles. Dr. Peter Singer is a tenured professor at Princeton University. Let me read you what he wrote. "Very often it is not wrong at all [to kill a child once it has left the womb." He said, and note the words he chose, "Simply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing a person."

These are the words of a bioethicist, of all things! Do you know that it is a $25,000 fine to kill an eagle's egg, yet there is no federal law at all against killing a fully developed child after as much as 80 percent of his or her body has been delivered?

Have you contemplated actually having to witness a partial-birth abortion? Can you imagine being invited into a women's clinic somewhere near your home (there is probably one located near you) where a 16-year-old girl who is eight months along in her pregnancy comes in to have her baby killed? You've been invited to witness the procedure. You watch in horror as the doctor delivers this little baby, but holds it in place when only the top of the head is in the birth canal. That infant is only a minute or two from final delivery. He is brimming with life, and his little hands and arms and legs are kicking. Then the doctor rolls him over and inserts a cannula (a steel tube) into the back of the head without an anesthetic and sucks the brains out of that infant. The head collapses and the doctor delivers a dead baby. It would buckle your knees to witness such a murder. Nevertheless, it is perfectly legal to do it - and we're letting it happen! But beware, you cannot kill an eagle's egg! To call that outrage "political" is itself an outrage! Have we gone absolutely crazy?

[I hope it will not be self-serving to tell you that at this point, there was sustained applause from most of the 4,000 Christians in attendance, indicating their support for my emotional remarks. A few remained seated and silent, and in fact, I learned later that many of them were irate. I guess this is what Christianity Today referred to as "the politics of hysteria and outrage."]

Clearly, this issue burns in my heart. You may remember that Barbara Boxer, the senator from California, speaking on the floor of the Senate in a debate with Senator Rick Santorum about partial-birth abortion, said that a baby is not a baby until the child is taken home from the hospital. In other words, you can kill that child with impunity as long as he or she remains in the hospital. This is where we are headed, taking us toward an even further disregard for the value of human life.

Let me argue with those of you who think the church has no responsibility to address such concerns, and that its only obligation is to preach the gospel. Suppose the year was 1858 and you were a pastor living in Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; or somewhere else in the South. Would it have been satisfactory for you to say about slavery, "Well, I'm not called to deal with that contentious issue. To do so would make others angry and would limit my ministry. I'm called to minister to the people in my church. Slavery is not something I have to deal with"? All the while, you knew that black men and women in your community were being subjected to involuntary servitude, having been brought to this country under horrible conditions - circumstances that killed half of them on the ships that brought them here. Your entire congregation knew that slaves could be killed at the whim of their masters and that black family members were being separated, never to see each other again. You knew that children were sometimes taken away from their parents and sold like cattle or sheep. You and your people understood the brutality and the poverty of slavery, and yet you convinced yourself that this institution was not your concern - that it was a "political issue" and that the church should not discuss it. Could you take that position and feel justified in it? Thousands of pastors did exactly that, and their rationale was just as porous as the flimsy excuses today's Christians offer for ignoring the killing of babies and the manipulation of children.

Let me continue. The year is 1963, and Martin Luther King is sitting in a Birmingham jail for engaging in civil rights activities. When he is released, he goes to a church - yes, a church - from which he marches into the streets of Birmingham on behalf of oppressed minorities. Martin Luther King was a minister. Are you prepared to criticize him today for his violation of the separation of church and state? Should the church have been silent about the issues he raised?

What if today were 1943 and you were in Nazi Germany and knew that Hitler and his henchmen were killing Jews and Poles and Gypsies and homosexuals and the mentally handicapped, among other "undesirables"? You knew these helpless people were being gassed, and that little children were standing all day, on one occasion in a freezing rain, for their turn to die in the gas chambers. Would you have said if you were there, "We're not going to get political in my church! That's somebody else's problem. I'm not called to address controversial issues!" Would you try to make a case for silence in the church?

I thank God that Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not shrink in timidity when he saw unmitigated wickedness being perpetrated by the Nazis. He spoke out boldly, even though he had to know it would cost him his life. Bonhoeffer was hanged in 1945, naked and alone, because he called evil by its name. John the Baptist said the same thing to Herod, a notoriously bloody tyrant. He said, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" (Mark 6:18, NIV). And his head was severed and placed on a platter. I suppose many Christians through the ages have been unwilling to address the moral issues when their lives were in danger. But what is new is this effort among some evangelical leaders to justify their silence in response to wickedness. In my view, theirs is an impossible case to make.

In 1983, I was invited to Washington, D.C., to attend a banquet that featured Dr. Francis Schaeffer. I am so grateful for the enduring influence of that man. He foresaw everything we're experiencing in the church today. He laid it all out in his final book, The Great Evangelical Disaster. He was the first to recognize the connection between abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and warned about the coming unwillingness of Christians to oppose them. On the occasion of my visit to the nation's capital, Schaeffer was talking about the morality of a Christian's involvement in the military, especially when it involved war.

I had recently left my university position at the time and was just beginning to try to understand what was going on in the culture at large. Dr. Schaeffer said, "The morality of war comes down to this: Suppose you were walking down the right side of a street one night, and coming toward you on the other side was a cute little 6-year-old girl. She was skipping along alone. Just as you were parallel to her, a big, burly, six-foot man jumped out of the bushes and grabbed her. He began assaulting and abusing her. What would be your obligation to that child?" Dr. Schaeffer answered his own question this way: "I submit that you should cross that street and put your life in jeopardy, if necessary, to save that little girl. That would be your moral responsibility." And then he said, "That is what we were doing by our military involvement in World War II. We were trying to save the defenseless little girls - the Jews, the Gypsies, the Poles and the others who were being killed, and to rescue those who were living in tyranny."

I submit to you tonight that there are "little girls" in our culture today who are being abused by those who would kill or assault them. Who are these children whom we are called to defend? Some are yet to be born. Should we attempt to save them? Jesus said, "Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, my brethren, you do it unto Me" (Matthew 25:40, NIV). Would His words apply to those helpless little boys and girls who cannot speak on their own behalf? Can you ignore their plight, in good conscience, by saying, How about the newborn? How about that "little girl" who's left to die on a porcelain table because she is developmentally disabled? What about the elementary school child who's being taught that homosexuality is just another lifestyle to be considered? What about the teenagers whom Colin Powell told to go ahead and have lots of really good sex as long as they do it the "safe" way? How about the unloved elderly person who is being subjected to "involuntary euthanasia" in Holland? This practice may be right around the corner for us here in America. Will we have the courage to fight it when that day arrives? The state of Oregon is already engaging in a form of euthanasia called "physician-assisted suicide." The next logical step is murder.

Do we have a responsibility to save each of those "little girls"? I submit that we most certainly do. We're in a very difficult situation now. It's tough. It's hard moving against the tide of public opinion, the media, the entertainment industry, the Congress, the libraries, the professions and the other cultural forces that are making fun of us. It is unpleasant to be called "the religious right" and "the far right" and "religious extremists " and "fundamentalist right-wing crazies." None of us likes that. But being ridiculed and marginalized is the price we must pay to defend what we believe. Jesus told us that it would be that way.

Keep standing strong in Jesus Name,
Flip