July 21, 2015

Abortion

New Video Shows Another Planned Parenthood Doctor Haggling Price of Baby Body Parts by Austin Ruse

Feasting While Children Die by Linda D. Bartlett

8 jaw-dropping undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood you won’t believe by Becky Yeh

No Lamborghinis for Planned Parenthood by Bradley Mattes

LCMS pro-life leaders host media by Roger Drinnon

Brit Hume Delivers the Best 1.5 Minute Commentary on Abortion Ever Heard on Network News by Justin Taylor

Creation

Happy birthday, culture war! – The 90th anniversary of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” by Marvin Olasky

End-of-Life

A Demonic View of “Dignity” – Choice, Control, & Autonomy by Eric Metaxas – “Where does human dignity come from? This isn’t an academic question. It’s a matter of life and death.” 

Sharing the Mission of Lutherans For Life

Ultrasound-based resource shows students “Life in the Womb” – The fetal model “sets are provided by Lutherans For Life, through its ‘Owen’s Mission’ project.”

Worldview and Culture

Justice Kennedy and the lonely Promethean man of liberalism by David Azerrad

Learning from Bodies by Nora Calhoun

On Man’s Duty to Defend the Weak and Vulnerable by Kevin Sutherland

Changing Gods
by By James M. Kushiner, The Fellowship of St. James

In 1993, Touchstone took some heat for publishing The Godless Party issue. The party in question was the Democratic Party. We also acknowledged that the Republican Party had its own ranks of unbelievers and an undependable record of supporting moral positions on life, sex, and marriage. Since that time I’ve heard a few people quip that the Republican party should be called The Gutless Party. (Or The Guilty Party?)

My point is not to weigh the merits and demerits of political parties or political candidates. Rather, I would like to ask: Have the United States of America moved beyond godless parties to becoming the Godless State?

If the American federal government today recognizes any God–the legally binding founding documents of the USA explicitly appeal to the Creator–it is no longer the same God as that of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. That old God has been repudiated. Moloch rules. Dionysius holds sway. No longer does the federal government acknowledge in any real sense that there is a Creator, whom Christians call God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And what did the Creator create? Man in his image. We were made male and female, both sexes together to form a one flesh union to form the family.

It is no small thing to change gods. The French tried it in 1789. The Bolsheviks in 1917. Each appealed to secularism, materialism, and science. Americans appeal to science as well, but selectively. Science proves a fertilized human ovum is a human being. The Supreme Court denies this, and continues to. We know much more about the real and complex physical differences between male and female, yet judges insist there are none that should be taken into account when we consider the makeup of the family–the very place into which children are born and raised through the acts of fathers and mothers! A child always wants his mommy and daddy.

So how is this state “godless”? It is in the sense that Paul uses the word Creator in Romans 1:25; it is an idolatrous rejection of the Creator’s created order in favor of an arrogant and deluded will. The state no longer accepts the Creator because it no longer accepts Creation as his design. We all simply evolve by chance, animal will, instinct, and ruthless passion to survive.

Whatever we wish to do must be natural. A man may mutilate his flesh and pretend he is a woman. He may impregnate a woman and pretend her womb contains mere  “tissue” to be tossed aside. He may sell the tissue. The New Man is a god, declares the Supreme Court, and is “free” to may make up his own cosmos in which to exercise his will.

Yes, this State will accept religion in the sense that the ancient Roman Emperors welcomed a host of gods and goddesses and cults and sects. Just as long as all bow the knee to Caesar. But bend the knee to the Lord Jesus? Never.

Today, you will find well-placed Iftar dinners, Christmas trees, Menorahs, Kwanza huts, meetings with the Dalai Lama, the Pope, and prayers at our National Cathedral. But acknowledge the Creator and what he has created and rule accordingly? Defend the little life in the womb or holy matrimony and the family? Not anymore.

No, you see, God really didn’t design all this. It happened all by itself. Like Aaron said in the wilderness, we just tossed the precious gold that God gave us into the fire, and, holy smoke! Out came this golden calf!

And what do you call such a state?