Life Begins at 40…
The snow is so deep, volunteers say, that the windows are partially blocked. But that isn’t stopping the pro-lifers in Lincoln, Nebraska from praying for the Planned Parenthood across the street.
The snow is so deep, volunteers say, that the windows are partially blocked. But that isn’t stopping the pro-lifers in Lincoln, Nebraska from praying for the Planned Parenthood across the street. Not that they ever stopped. For the people at 40 Days for Life, this may be the start of the official vigil — but the work and prayers go on 365 days a year.
According to organizers, 2019’s event will be the largest ever — with more than 370 cities across the world participating throughout the season of Lent. Leaders as far away as England say they’ve been planning for this moment for months. “It’s simple and effective,” Robert Colquhoun says, “because it works. Lives are saved, hearts are changed, and eternal souls are impacted. Abortion workers leave their jobs and abortion centers close.”
His group has already seen it happen. On the first day, volunteers in nearby Birmingham reported that pro-lifers’ prayers are already making a difference. “We had save number one during our first shift,” said Isabel, the local leader. “A lady was given a leaflet on her way in. She carried on inside but came out 15 minutes later and said she’d changed her mind and was keeping her baby. Praise God!” Believe it or not, that’s the 15,256th baby saved since the vigils started in 2007 — and the beginning, organizers pray — of an explosion of miracles that will help wake-up the world to the horror of abortion.
This is not the time to sit on the sidelines. You can make a difference in your hometown by signing up for an event near you or starting your own. When someone prays in front of a facility, former abortion workers have told organizers that the “no-show” rate for abortion appointments can go to as high as 75 percent! Learn why you should get involved in the video below — or, to find a location nearby, click on the map here.
Introducing 40 Days for Life from 40 Days for Life on Vimeo.
Originally published here.
For Pelosi, the Struggle Israel
This wasn’t how the first three months were supposed to go. After waiting years to take on Donald Trump, Democrats have to be in complete disbelief at the mess they’ve made of the House majority. When they aren’t accidentally exonerating the president, they’re defending infanticide. Their Green New Deal is a joke, but their contempt for half the country is not. And now they’re trying to decide if hating Jews is an acceptable party plank. If this is the Left’s best argument for 2020, bring it on.
“Things have not gone according to plan” is how the New York Times so politely put it. But nothing, they admit, quite compares to the civil war Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) started when she demeaned the Jewish people — and refused to sincerely apologize. Of course, this anti-Semitism is nothing new for Omar, who in 2012 tweeted (and later deleted) that Israel had “hypnotized the world,” and then begged, “Allah [to] awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” This time around, she accused her pro-Israel colleagues — including Jewish Democrats — of being bought and co-opted by a foreign government.
Across both parties, members were incensed. Dozens of Democrats — from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (D-Fla.) — lined up to demand her apology. “When someone uses hateful and offensive tropes and words against people of any faith, I will not be silent,” Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.) tweeted, insisting that her comments were deeply hurtful to Jews, including himself. But there were other, more “progressive” Democrats, who were not so offended. Instead, they did their own share of offending, suggesting that Omar’s suffering is far worse than the Jews of World War II. “There are people who tell me, ‘Well, my parents are Holocaust survivors,’” House Minority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said. But “it’s more personal with her,” he insisted. “I’ve talked to her, and I can tell you she is living through a lot of pain.”
Others tried to turn Omar’s comments around on the GOP — because apparently, it’s much easier to criticize Republicans than deal with the hate in their own party. They’re only targeting us, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said, because “we are Muslim” (a charge so ridiculous that even the Washington Post cried foul). Amazingly, the 2020 hopefuls — Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — also kicked their defense of Omar into high gear. Others, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) bucked Pelosi outright, insisting a resolution condemning anti-Semitism wasn’t necessary. “[W]here are the resolutions against homophobic statements?” she argued. Exactly, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) agreed. “We need to have an equity in our outrage.”
So what did Democrats do? In typical fashion, they turned the party’s denouncement of bigotry into a protest of Islamophobia. “What we’re against is hate,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) tried to explain. But what he means is that they’re against hate from everyone else. Most liberals have no trouble maligning Christians or their beliefs. In fact, religious intolerance is the price of admission these days, as Joe Biden illustrated so clearly last week. Now, apparently, bashing Jews is “considered acceptable in the Democratic Party — as long as it gets subsequently laundered as mere criticism of Israel,” Philip Klein fumes. Even more amazing, liberals seem to be suggesting that not only will anti-Semitism “be tolerated within their party, but the more unapologetic somebody is about their anti-Semitism, the more likely they are to be defended.”
After watching the party excuse everything from racism to infanticide, Americans must be wondering: is there anything Democrats will condemn? Americans are right to be offended, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of American Islamic Forum for Democracy told Fox News. Omar’s worldview is “incompatible with … [the worldview that] we would hope a congressperson would have.”
“There’s no moral equivalency in western history between anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim bias. There isn’t.” As an American Muslim, he says he’s “insulted” that the resolution doesn’t even name Ilhan Omar. “When did congressional office become a deprogramming rehab for radical Islamist ideologies?… They’re treating her like a child. When they did a resolution against Steve King and he was removed from committees, I don’t remember them talking about other forms of hate because he was treated as an adult, as he should have been, who should have been removed from his committee. She should be removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee.”
But in this age of unbridled extremism, true accountability isn’t possible. The Democrats have carved out such a radical position that there’s no room for humanizing anyone. As they’ve reminded us so many times before, they don’t believe in basic decency or civility — or, life, democracy, capitalism, science, and God. Democrats are on an island of their own making — and soon, there won’t be space for anyone except the handful of radicals who put them there.
For more on the Omar controversy, don’t miss my conversation with American Values’ Gary Bauer on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch.”
Originally published here.
Seeing through the Tares
Wednesday, I was invited to join pastors and business leaders from about 40 countries gathered for a meeting in Texas. The 10-year-old network that’s now active in 102 countries includes some of the most prominent Christian influencers in the world. Recognizing the necessity to engage in the political world which crafts the policies that shape the environments in which churches and businesses must operate, the network of Christian leaders had a session on The Intersection Between Faith, Politics, and Governance.
My message was direct and succinct; we have to see through the tares. Borrowing from Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13, I pointed out that we are naturally inclined to focus on the threat and not the promise. Yes, the moral, political and spiritual challenges that we face are more significant than any other generation. The level of religious persecution globally is precedent setting. Many of the pastors gathered from countries like India, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Lebanon, Kenya, the Philippines and dozens of others, know better than most the reality of persecution for openly following Jesus and sharing the hope that is found in Him with others.
But as Jesus pointed out, the tares — the evil — is the result of the servants sleeping. The church has mostly been absent from the broader culture to include government, and the outcome have been policies that make a mockery of truth. So, what are we to do? Again, Jesus provides the answer. He doesn’t say we are to ignore the realities of the tares but instead focus on the wheat, the growing good.
I assured them I was not trying to be partisan, so I asked them to look beyond the players to the policies that provide a present-day illustration of wheat and tares.
On one side you have an official who called for and participated in a celebration when a law was passed that pushes the United States toward the practice of infanticide. This is not the killing of babies in the womb, as horrific as that is, but the killing or intentional withholding of medical aid to a baby who survived an attempt on their life and was born alive.
On the other side, you have something that I never thought I would experience in my life, a president that speaks about the atrocity and scourge of abortion with more passion and urgency than most pastors. Again, while those who study and report on religious persecution say we are historic highs globally and even here in the U.S., the opportunities that are being afforded the church to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, with the protection of our federal government is unparalleled, at least in modern times.
Yes, we must be aware of the tares. We must not and cannot ignore what our spiritual enemy has sown in our midst while the church slept. We must not become preoccupied, and singularly focused on what’s wrong. Let’s put our energy and our focus on what is right: the unparalleled opportunities that God has given us at this moment.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
