Why Doesn’t Everyone See Late-Term Abortions as Morally Wrong?

In the interest of trying to provide some moral clarity, I want to examine the type of abortion scenario for which it should be straightforward to morally assess. My thesis in this article is thus narrow in scope but still significant in that some pro-choice advocates take a strong stance that abortion is to never be restricted and is never morally wrong. If it can be shown that this view is mistaken it may awaken folks to more carefully examine other scenarios as well. Here is my simple argument:

  1. If it’s generally wrong to kill a newborn baby, then it’s wrong in many cases to kill a full-term baby.[1]
  2. It’s wrong to kill a newborn baby.

Thus, it’s wrong in many cases to kill a full-term baby in the womb.

I’ll not be arguing for premise 2 as I’m interested here only in convincing those who already believe it’s wrong to kill newborn babies. I’m not trying to assess all possible cases of abortion but am merely wanting to examine whether or not it’s morally permissible to kill a baby that is fully matured but still in the womb. Also, my thesis deals merely with morality – it’s a separate question how this impacts laws.

Consider that many babies are born prematurely and yet have no adverse long-term health impacts. So if one thinks that it’s morally wrong to kill a baby that has been born say a month or so prematurely why think it’s morally permissible to kill an unborn human baby that is has developed for 40 weeks? In this scenario both babies are healthy and were not the product of rape or incest and were born into or would be born into reasonably loving families.[2]

Many arguments by pro-choice advocates fail in this scenario. For example, some claim that the life of the unborn is not worth protecting because it’s smaller or less well developed than humans that have been born. My youngest son Kevin was 10 pounds 6 ounces at birth and my wife’s labor was medically induced. He definitely stood out in the nursery at the hospital – the song “one of these things is not like the others” comes to mind. So when my wife went into the hospital that morning, would it have been wrong to kill Kevin? There are plenty of “preemie” babies that are probably healthy enough now that had a birth weight a small fraction of what Kevin weighed while in the womb. Was it really morally justified to kill my son Kevin just before birth but would be considered murder to kill one of the babies in the neonatal intensive care unit? Was Kevin less of a human person than a baby already born just because he hadn’t traveled a half foot down the birth canal? Is there anything developmentally that happens in the last minutes of pregnancy or during delivery that suddenly endows the baby with self-awareness or cognitive abilities sufficient to go from no protection of life to full protection. It should concern pro-choice advocates that their arguments that the unborn lack attributes worthy of protection seem to apply equally well to toddlers or adults in a coma, etc. In this scenario unborn Kevin was more developmentally advanced and certainly much larger than preemie babies.

What about the mother? Does her right over her body trump the rights of the baby inside of her? Isn’t it the case scientifically that mother and fetus are distinct organisms anyway? A pregnant lady is not four-legged. In this scenario I’ve proposed note that the Mom has already carried the baby to full-term and endured most of the sacrifices that pregnancy entails. She can deliver the baby and deliver it up for adoption and be at least as well off as if she had to recover from surgically aborting a full-term baby. Are there negative impacts to the Mom from delivering the baby sufficient to override the rights of the baby to live? If the mother decides to keep the baby, isn’t it possible that the child becomes a treasure and joy to the mother? Isn’t there a maternal instinct to protect one’s offspring that may have negative impacts emotionally on the mother if she ends the life of her child?[3] Science supports the notion that mothers generally have strong desires to protect their babies – it would be surprising if there were no negative psychological impacts on Mom to end the life of her full-term baby.

My final question to those who advocate abortion without restrictions[4] – do you really think it would have been morally acceptable for your Mom to kill you minutes before you were born? Do you really want to encourage a moral principle that would have so prematurely ended your own existence?

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[1] I say ‘generally’ wrong to avoid controversial scenarios – e.g. the only way to stop a terrorist from detonating a nuke that will kill a million people would somehow necessitate the death of an infant. Likewise I say ‘wrong in many cases’ because I want to examine only whether or not there are ‘some’ cases where abortion is immoral.

[2]This is not a merely hypothetical scenario since 7 states and the District of Colombia allow abortions at any time during pregnancy and without restrictions.

[3] Whether this instinct is put there by God and/or evolution is irrelevant to my argument. Certainly natural selection favors whatever encourages mothers to preserve the lives of their offspring.

[4 One should not infer that I favor abortion just because I’m choosing to examine a specific scenario in this blog.

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On the Wrong Side of God, Evolution & Humanity

On the Wrong Side of God, Evolution & Humanity

We’ve been told that people who want to maintain the man-woman definition of marriage are “on the wrong side of history.” Perhaps they are correct. Maybe “history,” which is determined largely by how people behave, will continue to move toward defining marriage as genderless in the 90 percent of governments that still maintain the natural definition. But what’s the take-away? Jump on the bandwagon?

Remember, Moses was on the wrong side of the golden calf. And Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was on the wrong side of Dred Scott — the 1857 Supreme Court decision that declared blacks were “so far inferior that they had no rights.” Being on the wrong side of some popular moral assertion doesn’t mean your position is wrong.

Now that five judges say that same-sex marriage is a new “right,” let’s ask a more foundational question. Where do rights come from? Specifically, where does the right to same-sex marriage come from?

If you say that rights come from governments or constitutions, how can they really be rights? Isn’t a right something you have regardless of what a government says? For example, if same-sex marriage is really a right, then you actually possess that right even if you live under a government that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage. You may not be able to exercise it, but you have it nonetheless.

Moreover, if there is no overarching moral standard that transcends human governments, then how we could prosecute Nazi soldiers for violating the rights of others? The Nazis were just following their government.

The truth is, rights don’t come from men or governments. Instead, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,” as our Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, that was the entire point of the Declaration — the government of King George was usurping the rights of colonists, so we declared our independence.

Some argue that evolutionary theory provides us with a right to same-sex marriage, but one doesn’t even have to challenge evolutionary theory to see that something is wrong with that argument. If natural selection has a goal of survival and reproduction, then how could same-sex marriage help with that? Such marriages are an agreement to stay in a sterile and medically unhealthy relationship — the exact antithesis of survival. In fact, if everyone lived faithfully in same-sex marriage, the human race would end quite quickly. (I’m not saying that same-sex marriage laws would accomplish this, just that the observation shows a real moral and consequential difference between natural marriage and same-sex marriage).

An even more basic problem with the evolutionary argument is that moral rights don’t result from evolutionary processes. Rights are prescriptive and come from an authoritative person. Evolutionary processes are descriptive and have no authority to tell you what to do. How does a mutating genetic code have the moral authority to tell you how you ought to behave or how you ought to treat others?

The truth is, just as history describes what does happen and not what ought to happen, biology describes what does survive, not what ought to survive. Why should humans survive as opposed to anything else? And which humans? Mother Theresa? Hitler?

Those who want to follow evolutionary theory are led to a dark place. Murder would be OK if it helped you survive, thrive and better reproduce. Rape would be OK because if it helped propagate DNA.  And a society might justify exterminating the weak and undesirables to improve the gene pool and help the desirables survive. In fact, Hitler used evolutionary theory to justify just that. Homosexuals were many of his victims.

So if rights don’t come from governments or evolution, then where do they come from? To truly be rights, they can only come from an authoritative being whose nature is the very standard of perfect Goodness. That’s what we mean by God.

Without God, there is no authoritative moral standard beyond humanity, which means that every action or behavior is merely a matter of human opinion. The murder of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals? It’s just your opinion against Hitler’s opinion. Child crucifixions? It’s just your opinion against that of ISIS. Freedom of speech? That’s just your opinion against that of a dictator. Gay bashing is bad? Again, just your opinion.

The same holds true with any supposed right, including the right to same-sex marriage. While you can get five judges to assert it is a right, without God, it is just an opinion (thus the Court’s judgment is aptly named).

But couldn’t God approve of same-sex marriage?

The major religious books state just the opposite. So does the Natural Law derived from God’s nature. Thomas Jefferson called this “Nature’s Law,” from which we get “self-evident truths,” including the truth that people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Same-sex marriage is not one of those self-evident truths. In fact, Jefferson and other politically incorrect Founding Founders called homosexual acts “crimes against nature” because such acts go against the natural design of the body and frustrate the goal of perpetuating humanity. This observation is not based on bigotry but on biology. (It’s ironic that our Founding Fathers were more apt to follow science than today’s secular left who ignore science when they insist that biological gender is changeable and sexual behavior is not. The exact opposite is true!)

The issue of slavery does not invalidate Jefferson’s judgment. Jefferson understood that slavery was wrong and admitted so, even if he succumbed to the temptation to keep his slaves throughout his life (it was Darwin who believed in the “favored races”). Simple observation tells us that every race of human is fully human. And nature tells us that mixed-race marriages lead to healthy offspring. Indeed, experience has shown that bigger gene pools are healthier than smaller ones. The natural law that points away from homosexual relationships also points away from racism.

Since real rights can only come from God, if you want to insist same-sex marriage is a right then you must assume that God is for same-sex marriage. But then you must also assume the implausible notion that God wants you to harm your own health and that of the human race by contributing to its extinction. How’s that for love? Don’t be fruitful. Don’t multiply. Don’t survive. Same-sex marriage is not only on the wrong side of God and nature; it’s on the wrong side of humanity.

So if not from governments, evolution or God, where does the “right” to same-sex marriage come from? Our imaginations. Perhaps well-intended imaginations, but imaginations nonetheless.

 

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly TV show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations around the nation.  His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God:  Why atheists need God to make their case.

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Love Didn’t Win– It Was Redefined

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“Love wins” is the hashtag of choice for those in support of the newest Supreme Court decision that passed that legislative body by a 5-4 vote. If you’re not content with that, you’re just an evil bigot who needs to shut up and support this new legislation. Forget the fact that you have very rational reasons for keeping marriage between a man and a woman.  For example, genderless marriage changes the cultural understanding of marriage from the well being of children to merely the romantic desires of adults.  Mothering and fathering certainly isn’t genderless. For kids who all deserve a mom and a dad and need a culture to support that, love hasn’t won.

But you are to pay no attention to the children behind the curtain! If you don’t change your bigoted position (which isn’t really bigoted) many in the “Love wins” crowd will see to it that you are fired, fined, sued, run out of business and forced to violate your conscience and God. Churches too! (Wow, if this is “love,” I’d hate to see what hate looks like!)

Each side on this issue believes the other side is wrong. There is a moral judgment being made whether you are for or against redefining marriage. Morality is always legislated (or judicially imposed). So what is the right morality?

The Supreme Court has told us. Five justices imposed their own morality that elevates homosexuality to virtue in our society. They say states can’t merely permit homosexual behavior (a neutral position); states must now promote it by granting benefits and, in Justice Kennedy’s words, “dignity” through the most “profound” union of marriage.

Those who don’t agree with this new morality imposed by the court are, in effect, the new sinners motivated by “disrespect” and “animosity” (“animosity” comes from Kennedy’s Lawrence decision—precedent he cited to justify his own animosity toward opponents of genderless marriage). Yes, unfortunately, the Court smears all opponents of its new morality with the same judgmental bigotry it says it detests.

This raises a profound question that is central to this decision and every decision we make in politics. What is our standard? By what standard do we judge something right and its opposite wrong? By what standard do five justices elevate homosexuality to virtue and declare any opposition to that position “animosity“ and “disrespect.”

The standard should have been the Constitution, but the Constitution was ignored in this case. Justice Roberts rightfully wrote in dissent, “The Constitution had nothing to do with it.” (Roberts ignored the clear reading of the law in the Obamacare case, but at least he got it right this time.) While the majority said they consulted the Constitution, Kennedy actually spent most of his opinion citing his own horrendously argued previous opinions that also ignored or distorted the real Constitution.

When you look at the real Constitution (the one the people actually passed, not the “evolving” one invented in the minds of politically motivated judges), it’s easy to see why this court is wrong. When the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, homosexual behavior was a felony in every state, and women and blacks didn’t even have the right to vote. If the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment didn’t even ensure a woman’s right to vote, it certainly doesn’t ensure a woman’s right to marry another woman!

And by Kennedy’s own admission just two years ago in the Windsor decision, marriage is a state, not a federal issue (unless a law violates the 14th amendment’s prohibition of racial discrimination, something that was not in play in this case). Now suddenly two years later, Kennedy, along with his mini-legislature, decides that everyone, including himself, has been interpreting the 14th Amendment incorrectly for 147 years!

Want to give women and blacks the right to vote? Then amend the Constitution (which the people did). Want to make marriage a federal rather than a state issue, and change it into a genderless institution? Then the people need to amend the Constitution.

But the Court decided to ignore all that. Kennedy and his anti-democracy cohorts decided that they were the new standard. Not the Constitution. Not the people. Not God or His natural law, which gives us the “self-evident” truth that homosexual and heterosexual relationships are profoundly different in many ways, most importantly by their capacity to create and nurture children.

The personal opinions of five unelected justices now comprise the new standard that 320 million people must obey.  Ironic, given the fact that in 1992 Justice Kennedy wrote that everyone had “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Now Justice Kennedy and his cohorts have abandoned that self-defeating, relativistic psychobabble and imposed on the entire nation a new absolute– their own meaning of marriage. Even if you are for genderless marriage, the fact that five unelected people think that their personal opinions are the standard for the rest of us should scare you.

If five people can ignore the Constitution and redefine the institution that holds together the foundation of civilization— the biological two-parent family—then no law or liberty is safe. That includes free speech and the free exercise of religion. (They are coming after those next.)

“Oh, but we have the Bill of Rights,” you say. “They can’t take those away.”

They already have to a certain extent. Ask the baker or the florist how that whole 1st Amendment free exercise of religion thing is working out for them right now in their bakery and flower shop?

With this group, it doesn’t matter what the Constitution actually says. It doesn’t matter what laws you pass or what the words mean. It doesn’t matter that we are supposed to be governed by the rule of law not the whims of men. The whims of five people are now supreme—unless governors decide to evoke the Tenth Amendment and nullify this decision for their states, which they should. Is there a governor who will save this country from an imperial court? Is there an Andrew Jackson in a governor’s mansion anywhere?

The words of John Adams couldn’t be more fitting: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Love hasn’t won—the immoral gods on the Supreme Court just changed its definition.

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Turek-Shermer Debate: Is Morality Better Explained by God or Science?

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Last week our friends at NewYorkApologetics.com hosted a debate on morality between me and Dr. Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine. You can see the raw streaming video from the debate here (a three camera professional video is forthcoming, but I’m not sure when).

You’ll notice that while both Michael and I agree that there are objective moral values, I am more interested in explaining why objective moral values exist (ontology), whereas Michael is more interested in how we know them (epistemology).  Of course, before you can know something it has to exist (this is the difference between the “order of being” and the “order of knowing”).  So why do objective moral values exist?  What grounds them (what is their foundation)?   I’ll leave it to you to judge who made the better case. (The first 30 minutes is just pre-debate happenings; you may want to skip that to get the opening statements).

Please tune in this morning at 10:05 am ET because I’ll be interviewing Michael Shermer for the full hour on CrossExamined radio.  If you miss the interview, please download the app.  It should be posted there by Monday.

(A special thanks goes out to Nick Mitchell and Anthony Uvenio of NewYorkApologetics.com who did a superb job organizing the debate and all the ensuing events in New York.  Want to learn how they did it?  Join them and others at CIA this year.  Hope to see you there.)

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Sex is the New Religion

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Sex is the new religion in America, and it’s a religion of the sword. That’s the real reason this controversy has risen in Indiana. A determined and vocal minority from the religion of sex is bullying and cutting down traditionalists who need a law that would allow them to be left alone. This clash of orthodoxies has opposing values with moralists on both sides demanding their rights.

One side says, “everyone must celebrate my same-sex marriage” (a moral position). And the other side says, “God or my conscience prevents me from doing so” (also a moral position). Can anyone see any middle ground here? There is none. So the question is, whose moral “right” will take precedence?

Governors in Indiana, Arkansas, and several other states see the need for protecting religious liberty for a very good reason—it is under attack. The scales have tipped decidedly against the free exercise of traditional religion—against the right of Christians, Muslims, Jews and anyone else who can’t celebrate the orthodoxy of the new religion.

Forget tolerance. This is well beyond tolerance. Now, if you don’t agree to celebrate same-sex marriage, believers in the religion of sex will commence an inquisition and, without a trial, punish you for heresy. That’s why this legislation is necessary. Florists, bakers, photographers, real estate agents, Internet CEOs, and speakers like myself have all discovered personally that the people who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant. In the name of “inclusion and diversity,” those of us who have a diverse view are being excluded, and even fired and fined because we won’t violate our beliefs to satisfy the overbearing clergy of the religion of sex.

A few years ago Cisco and Bank of America fired me as a training consultant because I had conservative beliefs about sex and marriage even though my beliefs were never expressed on the job. When a homosexual manager at Cisco found out on the Internet that I had authored a book giving evidence that maintaining the natural definition of marriage would be best for society, he couldn’t tolerate me and demanded that I be fired. An HR executive canned me within hours without ever speaking to me. This happened despite the fact that the leadership and teambuilding programs I led always received high marks (even from the homosexual manager!).

While I’m probably in the minority, I believe that people have the right to choose with whom they do business. In other words, I support Cisco’s right to fire me. My problem, as I explained here, is that they falsely claimed to be “inclusive and diverse” when they are anything but that. Their orthodoxy is just as closed and narrow as the most rabid fundamentalist church.

My friends David and Jason Benham agree with freedom of association and the rights of businesses as well. When members of the religion of sex learned that the evangelical Benham brothers were violating orthodoxy by being pro-life and pro-natural marriage, an inquisition began to get the Benhams fired from their TV show. Executives from HGTV ultimately caved to the demands of the dogmatic priests and canceled the show, which was already in production. When Jason Benham told a TV reporter that HGTV had the right to fire them, the reporter’s jaw dropped. The Benhams are actually tolerant! So are most Christians (although there are some bad apples in every group).

Somehow people are getting the wrong impression about these state laws that seek to protect religious liberty. (Not that the media would ever misrepresent an issue related to homosexuality—we all know how fair and balanced they are.) This one graphic shows how these laws work. You’ll notice that they do not allow businesses to deny anyone service at a retail establishment. No one is doing that now, and you wouldn’t be in business very long if you did. The free market would see to it. Moreover, those who actually follow Jesus want to be with and serve unbelievers as Jesus did. We just can’t advocate events or ideas that go against Christ’s teaching on marriage (Mt. 19:4-6).

The truth is these laws are not swords but shields. They are intended to shield those in the traditional religions from those in the religion of sex who would like to use the sword of government to force the traditionalists to participate in ceremonies that go against their religion or conscience. In other words, the laws are designed to prevent discrimination against the traditionalists, not enable them to discriminate against those in the religion of sex.

America has a long history of successfully balancing a variety of religious and moral beliefs with other important interests. For example, even when military service was involuntary, we still made room for conscientious objectors who did not want to carry weapons. If we can allow people to exempt themselves from defending the country—which is the most important responsibility our government has—we can certainly allow people to exempt themselves from performing same-sex wedding ceremonies!

What compelling government interest is there to force someone to support a same-sex wedding? It’s not like there is a shortage of people willing to do them. If a 70-year-old grandmother who is a florist can’t arrange flowers at your same-sex wedding, why not just go to someone else who would be happy to do it? (Is it really that hard to find a gay florist?) Why don’t we ever hear about traditionalists suing gay business owners for refusing to print up anti-gay marriage fliers? Why is “tolerance” only a one-way street to the religion of sex?

Should a Muslim caterer be forced to do a same-sex wedding? Should a Muslim T-shirt maker be forced to print gay pride T-shirts or those that satirize Mohammad? (The religion of sex would prefer we don’t use Muslims in our questions; stick to Christians please.)

There is no compelling government interest to force a business to do a wedding or print up anything against their beliefs. That’s why the religion of sex is distorting the facts and throwing a temper tantrum to get a government to force people to violate their conscience. (Their approach reminds me of what bad preachers write in the margin of their sermon notes: “Logic weak here—pound pulpit!”) Apparently, the religion of sex just can’t tolerate the fact that some people won’t accept their false doctrines by faith.

I wish there was a compromise position here but there isn’t. We have two opposing values in direct conflict. The religion of sex values the sword of government compulsion over the freedom of religion and conscience. Do you?

 

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly TV show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations around the nation.  His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God:  Why atheists need God to make their case

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The 14th Amendment Can’t Possibly Require Same-Sex Marriage

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The Supreme Court is about to decide if the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution requires the states to redefine marriage to include same sex relationships. There are several reasons why the answer is no.

The most decisive of these reasons is the fact that when the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, homosexual behavior was a felony in every state in the union. So if the 14th Amendment was intended to require same-sex marriage, then every state in the union intended to throw the new couple into prison as soon as the marriage was consummated!

Some may say, “Who cares what they believed in 1868 about homosexuality? We’ve evolved since then.”

That’s addressed by the second reason: laws and words have specific scopes and meanings. They don’t have unlimited flexibility as liberal justices tend to think. Neither the intent nor the text of the Constitution requires the states to redefine marriage. If the people of the United States have “evolved” on the issue, then the Constitution provides them with a very clear and fair way for the document to intelligently “evolve”—they need to convince a supermajority of federal and state legislatures to amend the Constitution. That’s the very reason our Constitution has an amendment process!

If we fail to use the amendment process and permit judges to substitute their own definitions and judgments for what the people actually meant when they passed the law in the first place, then we no longer govern ourselves. Why vote or use the political process if unelected justices strike down our laws and impose their own as they go? In fact, why have a Constitution at all? If it’s “evolving” or “living,” then it’s not really a collective agreement of the people—it’s a pretext that allows judges to invent rights and impose any moral (or immoral) position they want against the will of the people.

Imagine if the people were to pass an amendment guaranteeing a right to same-sex marriage. Would you consider the Supreme Court to be legitimate if it imposed its own position and overturned the amendment? No, the people decide what the laws are, not the Court.

Third, the 14th Amendment was intended to prevent states from discriminating against newly freed slaves.  At that time blacks and women didn’t even have the right to vote, yet no court ever thought it could use the “equal protection” clause to change state voting laws. So why do some district courts think they can use it now to change state marriage laws?  Are we to believe that “equal protection” does not guarantee a woman’s right to vote but does guarantee a woman’s right to marry another woman? 

Since the people “evolved” on voting rights, they convinced supermajorities in Congress and of the state legislatures voted to add the 15th and 19th Amendments in 1870 and 1920 respectively. The courts knew they shouldn’t act as legislatures to grant rights not addressed by the Constitution. Neither should this Supreme Court.

Fourth, despite all the talk about equal rights, everyone already has equal marriage rights. Every person has the same equal right to marry someone of the opposite sex. That law treats all people equally, but not every behavior they may desire equally. If people with homosexual desires do not have equal rights, then people with desires to marry their relatives or more than one person don’t have equal rights. The “born that way” justification doesn’t work either because that same justification could make any desired arrangement “marriage,” which means the logic behind it is absurd. The Court needs to acknowledge the fact that natural marriage, same sex-marriage, incestuous marriage, and polygamous marriage are all different behaviors with different outcomes, so the law rightfully treats those behaviors differently while giving every citizen the equal right to participate in marriage whatever its legal definition is.

Finally, the states make marriage law, not the feds. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about marriage. While the Supreme Court did overturn Virginia’s ban on inter-racial marriage, it did so because Virginia discriminated on the basis of race, which is precisely what the 14th Amendment was intended to prevent. There is no rational reason to discriminate on the basis of race because race is irrelevant to marriage. However, gender is essential to it. Even the 2013 Windsor decision, which partially struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, recognized that marriage is a state, not a federal issue. Since there is no 14th Amendment issue here, the Court must leave marriage to the states.

Legal reasons such as these are all the Court is constitutionally permitted to consider. Polls and policy considerations are for the people or their legislatures, not the courts. Ryan T. Anderson writes in his recent column titled Memo to Supreme Court: Nothing in the Constitution Requires States to Redefine Marriage: “The overarching question before the Supreme Court is not whether an exclusively male–female marriage policy is the best, but only whether it is allowed by the U.S. Constitution. The question is not whether government-recognized same-sex marriage is good or bad policy, but only whether it is required by the U.S. Constitution.”

Does the U.S. Constitution require same-sex marriage? No, the U.S. Constitution requires the Court to leave this issue to the states. If you believe otherwise, then amend the Constitution.

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John and Abigail Adams: America’s Original Sweethearts

John and Abigail Adams’ relationship served as one of the most influential over the formation of our nation’s government during the late 18th-early 19th centuries. When one briefly glances at them, they paint a picture of strength, endurance, and wisdom, which proved to be an iconic ideal during these harsh years for all the couples during these years. Years of travel, together and apart, criticism for beliefs, and the will to fight for a new country and a new government proved the iron will these two maintained to soldier on.

But looking closer, these two did not simply luck out and endure through because of systematic circumstances. Their marriage and individual lives were built and maintained through their dependence on one another, Scripture, and conviction.

John was a lawyer from Massachusetts; Abigail was a self-educated daughter of a minister. Married in 1764, they lived a full 54 years married (keep in mind the average lifespan was less than that) and exchanged over 1,100 pieces of correspondence during the most volatile years of our nation’s history.

Arguably, John Adams was one of the most involved of our Founding Fathers for independence from Britain and establishing our government. He served in the Continental Congress for four years (1774-1778), was in around 90 committees and was the head chairman of 24. He was more involved than any other member. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, he was one of five on the committee to write it.

After the Revolutionary War, he was vocal in his views on government. He was one of two people to sign the Bill of Rights. He once stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He was the first Vice President of the United States of America, and the second president. After nearly 30 years of public service, John Adams returned to Massachusetts in 1800 to live the rest of his 26 years writing prolifically on all of his experiences.

During John’s political years, Abigail raised their four children and often traveled with him. When she was not with John in New York, Philadelphia, Great Britain, France, and eventually our newly formed capitol, Washington, D.C., she was writing to him and several others. Abigail had an overwhelming love for scripture. She was devoted to John, but she was never one to mince words. Combining those attributes, her letters and words of wisdom had a tremendous effect on how John viewed the situations during the Revolutionary War.

For instance, after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, she wrote to John,

Nor doth the eye say unto the hand, “I have no need of thee” [1 Corinthians 12:21]. The Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake his inheritance [Psalm 94:14]. Great events are most certainly in the womb of futurity, and if the present chastisements which we experience have a proper influence upon our conduct, the event will certainly be in our favor. . . . Pharaoh’s [i.e., King George III’s] heart is hardened, and he refuseth(sic) to hearken to them and will not let the people go [Exodus 8:32]. May their deliverance be wrought out for them, as it was for the children of Israel [Exodus 12].

Not only was she a “most trusted advisor,” to John, but to many of the other Founding Fathers. She did not write simply her ideas and feelings, but she wrote of her political ideals. In March 1776, she wrote,

I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

These sentiments are more reflective to the early 20th century than the late 18th century, but that is what made Abigail such an amazing partner to her husband. She did not simply nod and smile; she challenged him and his cohorts. She was the perfect counterpoint. She challenged ideas of the day but did so with the scripture in mind.

Both of these patriots have several of their personal writings and letters published today. If you read but just a fraction, it would be hard to prove that either of them were anything but strong Bible-believing Christians. Not only that but that Christianity should influence government. A government they helped establish.

“The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this Earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost. . . . There is no authority, civil or religious – there can be no legitimate government – but that which is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words, damnation.” These are the words of John Adams, one of the foremost minds of all of the Founding Fathers. Imagine a pastor, much less an elected official, saying these words today without some derogatory name being labeled to him/her.

He also once wrote, “The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity.” Abigail was as explicit about her beliefs when she wrote, “He who neglects his duty to his Maker may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public.”

Both John and Abigail were well aware that part of their duty was to look to future generations. They did not necessarily think of how their own actions and words would determine their own lives, but of what the next generations would have as a result. John once wrote, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” In fact, they were so intent on future generations and raising good citizens, they raised the future sixth president of the United States, John Quincy.

It must be noted, John Quincy was one of the strongest abolitionists in his day, and was so determined to end slavery that after his presidency he went on to serve in the House of Representatives for 17 years until 1848. He was the only President ever to do so, and served as the Speaker of the House with every intention of not leaving until slavery was eradicated. He actually had a stroke while in the House of Representatives’ chamber at the age of 80 during a debate and died two days later in the Speaker of the House office. One of the ceremonial pallbearers was a young representative, Abraham Lincoln. The Adams didn’t simply raise good citizens, they raised people of conviction who fought for their beliefs to the end and left a legacy.

The legacy of the Adams’ is seen all around us today in America and, indeed, is America herself. So much more could and should be (and has been)  shared about the Adams, their individual influence and character. But as a couple, the Adams’ relationship calls to mind Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” John and Abigail Adams correspondence and love for one another, the scripture, their family, and America are a display of how a couple of people can truly influence an entire society and nation.

For more information concerning the Adams, visit:

http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=89988

http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=142673

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Atheists Steal Rights From God

Atheists Steal Rights From God

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Atheist Richard Dawkins has declared, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.”

But Dawkins doesn’t act like he actually believes that. He recently affirmed a woman has the right to choose an abortion and asserted that it would be “immoral” to give birth to a baby with Down syndrome. According to Dawkins, the “right to choose” is a good thing and giving birth to Down syndrome children is a bad thing.

Well, which is it? Is there really good and evil, or are we just moist robots dancing to the music of our DNA?

Atheists like Dawkins are often ardent supporters of rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, taxpayer-provided healthcare, welfare, contraceptives, and several other entitlements. But who says those are rights? By what objective standard are abortion, same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, taxpayer-provided healthcare, and the like, moral rights? There isn’t such a standard in the materialistic universe of atheism. So atheists must steal the grounds for objective moral rights from God while arguing that God doesn’t exist.

Now, I am not saying that you have to believe in God to be a good person or that atheists are immoral people. Some atheists live more moral lives than many Christians. I am also not saying that atheists don’t know morality. Everyone knows basic right and wrong whether they believe in God or not. In fact, that’s exactly what the Bible teaches (see Romans 2:14-15).

What I am saying is that atheists can’t justify morality. Atheists routinely confuse knowing what’s right with justifying what’s right. They say it’s right to love. I agree, but why is it right to love. Why are we obligated to do so? The issue isn’t how we know what’s Right, but why an authoritative standard of Rightness exists in the first place.

You may come to know about objective morality in many different ways: from parents, teachers, society, your conscience, etc. And you can know it while denying God exists. But that’s like saying you can know what a book says while denying there’s an author. Of course, you can do that, but there would be no book to know unless there was an author! In other words, atheists can know objective morality while denying God exists, but there would be no objective morality unless God exists.

If material nature is all that exists, which is what most atheist’s claim, then there is no such thing as an immaterial moral law.  Therefore, atheists must smuggle a moral standard into their materialistic system to get it to work, whether it’s “human flourishing,” the Golden Rule, doing what’s “best” for the most, etc. Such standards don’t exist in a materialistic universe where creatures just “dance” to the music of their DNA.

Atheists are caught in a dilemma. If God doesn’t exist, then everything is a matter of human opinion and objective moral rights don’t exist, including all those that atheists support. If God does exist, then objective moral rights exist. But those rights clearly don’t include cutting up babies in the womb, same-sex marriage, and their other invented absolutes contrary to every major religion and natural law.

Now, an atheist might say, “In our country, we have a constitution that the majority approved. We have no need to appeal to God.” True, you don’t have to appeal to God to write laws, but you do have to appeal to God if you want to ground them in anything other than human opinion. Otherwise, your “rights” are mere preferences that can be voted out of existence at the ballot box or at the whim of an activist judge or dictator. That’s why our Declaration of Independence grounds our rights in the Creator. It recognizes the fact that even if someone changes the constitution you still have certain rights because they come from God, not man-made law.

However, my point isn’t about how we should put objective God-given rights into human law. My point is, without God, there are no objective human rights. There is no right to abortion or same-sex marriage. Of course, without God, there is no right to life or natural marriage either!

In other words, no matter what side of the political aisle you’re on — no matter how passionate you believe in certain causes or rights — without God they aren’t really rights at all. Human rights amount to no more than your subjective preferences. So atheists can believe in and fight for rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, and taxpayer-provided entitlements, but they can’t justify them as truly being rights.

In fact, to be a consistent atheist — and this is going to sound outrageous, but it’s true — you can’t believe that anyone has ever actually changed the world for the better. Objectively good political or moral reform is impossibleif atheism is true. Which means you have to believe that everything Wilberforce, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King did to abolish slavery and racism wasn’t really good; it was just different. It means you have to believe that rescuing Jews from the ovens was not objectively better than murdering them. It means you have to believe that gay marriage is no better than gay bashing. (Since we’re all just “dancing to our DNA,” the gay basher was just born with the anti-gay gene. You can’t blame him!) It means you have to believe that loving people is no better than raping them.

You may be thinking, “That’s outrageous! Racism, murder, assault, and rape are objectively wrong, and people do have a right not to be harmed!” I agree. But that’s true only if God exists. In an atheistic universe, there is nothing objectively wrong with anything at any time. There are no limits. Anything goes. Which means to be a consistent atheist you have to believe in the outrageous.

If you are mad at me for these comments, then you agree with me in a very important sense. If you don’t like the behaviors and ideas I am advocating here, you are admitting that all behaviors and ideas are not equal — that some are closer to the real objective moral truth than others. But what is the source of that objective truth? It can’t be changeable, fallible human beings like you or me. It can only be God whose unchangeable nature is the ground of all moral value. That’s why atheists are unwittingly stealing from God whenever they claim a right to anything.

But how do we know that’s the Christian God? Doesn’t he do evil in the Old Testament? And what about the “separation of church and state”? Those are some of the many questions I address in my new book, Stealing from God: Why atheists need God to make their case, from which this column was adapted.

Atheists Steal Rights From God

 

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly TV show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations around the nation.  His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God:  Why atheists need God to make their case

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Merry Christmas from Newsweek!

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As has become common around Christian holidays, another media outlet has issued what I think can rightly be called an attack piece. Newsweek rolled out a cover story for this week’s edition that attacks the Bible and the warrant for trusting that we even know what it says as well as its content:

http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html

I’m all for free speech and critiquing all viewpoints including religious ones but this article makes egregious factual errors. Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, a world-renowned expert on early manuscripts of the New Testament (and shown in this picture), has responded to this article by pointing out numerous mistakes and some key omissions that make it quite misleading:

Predictable Christmas fare: Newsweek’s Tirade against the Bible

I’ve had the honor of getting acquainted with Dan the last couple of years as I’ve become involved in the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts which he founded. This organization is doing incredibly important work to combat the kind of misconceptions propagated by this Newsweek article. Check out their web site to see how they’re digitizing early New Testament manuscripts and along the way even discovering new documents that are confirming our confidence in the transmission of these Biblical texts. I’ve found Dan to be fair-minded, incredibly knowledgeable, and sacrificially committed to the noble task of learning as much as we can from the earliest Greek texts of the New Testament books.

Here is a sampling of some of Wallace’s corrections but I recommend that you read his entire article:

Newsweek: “At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times.”

Wallace: “This is rhetorical flair run amok so badly that it gives hyperbole a bad name. A “translation of translations of translations” would mean, at a minimum, that we are dealing with a translation that is at least three languages removed from the original. But the first translation is at best a translation of a fourth generation copy in the original language. Now, I’m ignoring completely his last line—“and on and on, hundreds of times”—a line that is completely devoid of any resemblance to reality. Is it really true that we only have access to third generation translations from fourth generation Greek manuscripts? Hardly…. Almost 6000 of these [20,000+] manuscripts are in Greek alone. And we have more than one million quotations of the New Testament by church fathers. There is absolutely nothing in the Greco-Roman world that comes even remotely close to this wealth of data. The New Testament has more manuscripts that are within a century or two of the original than anything else from the Greco-Roman world too. If we have to be skeptical about what the original New Testament said, that skepticism, on average, should be multiplied one thousand times for other Greco-Roman literature.”

 

Newsweek: “About 400 years passed between the writing of the first Christian manuscripts and their compilation into the New Testament.”

Wallace: “The oldest complete New Testament that exists today is Codex Sinaiticus, written about AD 350… the reality [of the delay between completion of the New Testament and our oldest extant copy in complete form] is closer to 250–300 years (conservative), or 200–250 years (liberal). Yet even here the notion of “compilation into the New Testament” may be misleading: the original New Testament manuscripts were undoubtedly written on papyrus rolls, each of which could contain no more than one Gospel. It was not until the invention of the codex form of book, and its development into a large format, that the possibility of putting all the NT books between two covers could even exist.”

 

Newsweek: Constantine “changed the course of Christian history, ultimately influencing which books made it into the New Testament.”

Wallace: “This is an old canard that has no basis in reality. In fact, Eichenwald seems to know this because he does not bring it up again, but instead speaks about the Council of Nicea (initiated by Constantine) as dealing primarily with the deity of Christ. There is absolutely nothing to suggest in any of the historical literature that Constantine ever influenced what books belonged in the NT.”

There are many more examples such as these so please check out both Wallace’s response as well as the Newsweek article so you can understand the misconceptions that are being propagated in our culture and how to correct them. In summary, Newsweek’s article about the Bible is factually flawed, blatantly biased, and embarrassingly egregious in audaciously attacking a simplistic straw man. Other than that it’s a pretty good article.

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Christian Voter Guide: Why Christians Should Vote!

When I hear Christians saying we ought not get involved in politics but just “preach the Gospel,” I show them this satellite picture of the Korean peninsula. South Korea is full of freedom, food and productivity—it’s one of the most Christianized countries in the world. North Korea is a concentration camp.   They have no freedom, no food, and very little Christianity.

What’s the primary reason for the stark difference between these two countries? Politics. The South politically allows freedom, while the North does not.

Ironically, Christians who shun politics to supposedly advance the Gospel are actually allowing others to stop the Gospel. How so? Because politics and law affects one’s ability to preach the Gospel!If you think otherwise, visit some of the countries I have visited—Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. You cannot legally “preach the Gospel” in those countries—or practice other aspects of your religion freely—because politically they’ve ruled it out as they have in North Korea (it seems the mayor of Houston was about to start down that road recently).

Watch the first two minutes of this video for more:

With that in mind, I strongly encourage you get out to vote THIS Tuesday, November 4th, and support the candidates who best represent natural law values consistent with the Bible. “For to whom much is given, much shall be required” (Luke 12:48). Voting is more than our opportunity to make a difference. It is a responsibility in being good stewards and protecting our freedom to spread the Gospel.  In fact, I think every citizen should get informed and vote.

Go to http://www.christianvoterguide.com/ for a guide to see where the candidates stand on the most important issues.

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” (Matt. 5:14-15)

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