Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has been busy spinning bizarre theories about how the media will have to try to make voters uncomfortable with Mitt Romney's faith in order to help President Obama because Evangelical Christian voters would have no qualms about voting for a Mormon.
The only problem with Land's conspiracy theory is that it is constantly being undermined by others, like the new president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, Brad Atkins, who says that Christians would have a much easier time voting for a thrice-married serial adulterer like Newt Gingrich before ever voting for a Mormon like Romney:
The Rev. Brad Atkins, tabbed in November to lead the group for the coming year, told Patch on Friday that while Gingrich's infidelities may represent a major obstacle for some Christian voters, it isn't an issue that necessarily excludes the former speaker from consideration. Rather, it's an issue that calls for prayerful consideration of Gingrich's numerous public confessions to his wrongdoings.
The issue presented by Romney's faith may be more deeply rooted to South Carolinians.
"In South Carolina, Romney's Mormonism will be more of a cause of concern than Gingrich's infidelity," said Atkins, the pastor at Powdersville First Baptist Church in the Upstate.
"Conservatives can process and pray their way through the issue of forgiveness toward a Christian that has had infidelity in their life, but will struggle to understand how anyone could be a Mormon and call themselves 'Christian.'"
As Brian noted last week, Janet Porter's "Heartbeat Bill" is wreaking havoc on the anti-choice movement in Ohio and now appears stalled as attempts to make last-minute changes threw a wrench into efforts to pass it this year.
And so Porter, taking a page out of the spiritual warfare handbook, has issued an urgent message to supporters, asking them to fast and pray for three days that God will resurrect her legislation and get it passed:
It's either true or it isn't. I'm banking everything I have that it is true. I'm talking about Ohio's Motto: "With God all things are possible."
You may have heard the reports that the Heartbeat Bill is dead for the remainder of the year. But Paul asked a simple question in Acts 26:8, "Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?"
To bring our Heartbeat Bill back to life this year is nothing to God whose eyes "run to fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those who those whose heart is loyal to Him" (2 Chronicles 16:9)
I rarely do this to our entire list of supporters, but I am not asking you to call the Senators...I am asking you to go over their heads -- directly to God. I am calling for a three day Esther Fast (or whatever fast you are able to do) to ask God for the Heartbeat Bill vote & victory THIS YEAR -- to bring the legislation of Ohio into alignment with the heart of God in 2011.
Ask God to prove Ohio's motto right. Pray that God would move mightily on the hearts of Senate President Tom Niehaus and the other Senators.Fast and pray for a sudden, unexpected shift to bring the Senate back to finish their unfinished business of protecting babies with beating hearts.
"You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!' Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the LORD is with you." 2 Chronicles 20:17
God bless you & thank you for standing with us ... from the bottom of our hearts,
Janet Porter & The Heartbeat Team
Rabbi Daniel Lapin was the guest on today's edition of "WallBuilders Live," which was dedicated primarily to dismissing the concept of animal rights.
As usual, David Barton and Rick Green kicked off the discussion, with Barton blaming Disney movies for making us wrongly believe that animals think and feel:
Barton: I love Disney, I’ve got all of the collections of Disney, but Disney’s the first one to make animals seem human, and that’s what animation does. Bambi seems human, "Lady and the Tramp," a nice romantic dinner for dogs over at an Italian restaurant—I don’t think so—"Beauty and the Beast." And I love these stories but what they do is they elevate animals to mankind’s status ...
Green: Yeah, it start's making you think that they feel and they think ...
Barton: And they don’t.
Later in the program, Lapin sought to explain the rise of animal rights issues by asserting that the movement is rooted in the loss of Judge-Christian morality which leads to the belief that homosexuality is okay "because we’re nothing other than baboons with a little less hair":
Lapin: Over the last fifty years, little by little America has obliterated the role of the Judeo-Christian biblical worldview as a fundamental guide to morality and ethics. What happens is the uncertainty stimulates philosophical experimentation. Animal rights is particularly attractive because frankly there is something very appealing about establishing the doctrine that you and I are nothing more than sophisticated baboons. Because what it does is it strips away the uncomfortable conscience that bothers us at odd moments, it completely exculpates any concerns we have about morality because once we are nothing but sophisticated baboons then our entire moral system becomes extremely simple. So for instance the fact that baboons practice homosexuality obviously legitimatizes it for human beings too because we’re nothing other than baboons with a little less hair.
A little over a year ago, our first YouTube channel was shut down and we resigned ourselves to living without several great videos we had gathered over the years and used for previous posts.
But today we received news that our account had been reinstated and reactivated and so, to celebrate, we are going to post a few of our favorite videos that we thought we'd never see again:
We are going to continue to post new videos on our RWWBlog account on YouTube, but are thrilled to have recovered the hundreds of older videos from our original account that we thought he had lost and just wanted to celebrate.
Back when Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign was just getting off the ground and nobody was giving him any chance of winning the Republican nomination, Gingrich had the very vocal support of Pastor Jim Garlow.
As we noted then, Garlow had led the Prop 8 fight against marriage equality in order to save the "sanctity of marriage" and so it seemed rather odd for him to be throwing his support behind a thrice-married adulterer.
Now that Gingrich is among the leaders in the GOP primary, Garlow has penned a long email to evangelicals explaining in great depth just why he is supporting Gingrich and, by extension, why they should as well.
Garlow raves about Gingrich's genius, his record, and even his "Churchillian fortitude" ... but the crux of his argument is that he has spent more time with Gingrich then just about anyone and has had deep, spiritual conversations with him about his past failings and can assure everyone that Gingrich has repented, been forgiven, and changed.
People on the Left may scoff at this, Garlow knows, but those who are "spiritually mature" will surely "get it":
During my private conversations with Mr. Gingrich, I discovered three things:
I found him to be remarkably and unexpectedly transparent – fully and completely acknowledging his spiritual failures, responding to my very personal questions with unflinching honesty. There was no attempt to "whitewash" transgressions. He did not defend them. Nor do I defend them. As it relates to Mr. Gingrich’s past sins, I merely state that were there no sin, there would have been no cross. We all need the forgiveness the cross of Jesus brings. I was once asked a strongly worded question from a nationally known investigative reporter with one of the three major networks, while in their studio in Washington, DC. “Given Mr. Gingrich’s past, and the fact that you are a pastor, why do you associate with someone like him?” the reporter asked. My answer is that, as a pastor, I look for people like Mr. Gingrich. I am a pastor and I have the privilege of telling people who acknowledge their sin that the cross of Jesus provides healing and forgiveness.” In my meeting with Mr. Gingrich about this delicate issue, he made one particular statement that I asked to share with others, thus making it public. He agreed. Here it is: He stated, “On my bleakest days (referring to his indiscretions), I knew that my sin was sin.” Why is this significant? I spend much of my time trying to persuade people that “sin” still exists, and what they are doing is sin (a most unpopular word). Some pastors won’t even use the word today. God does. So I do as well. If a person knows that their “sinning is sin,” then they are halfway toward receiving correction and forgiveness. An additional insight I had was that, as I conversed with Mr. Gingrich, it appeared to me that he understood the difference between forgiveness (which occurs in an instant) and restoration (which involves an arduous process).
Furthermore, Mr. Gingrich was profoundly tender during our conversation. I realize the radical secularists, and Mr. Gingrich’s detractors in general, will attempt to poke fun at this statement, but discerning people will know that this fact is truly significant. Allow me to explain its importance. He placed no blame on any other person(s). Blame shifting is common in failed marriages. As one who has counseled many in the midst of divorces, I listen intently for language that would indicate a failure to take responsibility. He evidenced none of that. He placed no blame on his former wives or anyone else. He shouldered the blame. He spoke very honoring of the wife who bore him two daughters. And when he spoke of his daughters, he teared up. He enjoys a superb relationship with his two daughters and his grandchildren. I have talked to one of his daughters at length about this topic. This is not the same man who is now characterized by his critics as the “bull-in-the-China-shop” type Gingrich who led the House of Representatives in the 1990s. People change. And – if he was as forceful as some say he was – he has changed.
In addition, he was quite teachable. When I probed him on some aspects of bringing "spiritual closure," he responded with thoughtful and reflective questions, wanting to include the person who is serving as his spiritual advisor. Since I do not “want anything out of him” if he becomes our next president, I have no reason to pander. I have confronted him (privately) on some issues, and I have found him to be very teachable. He has never been defensive. Not once. Wise is the man who surrounds himself with many competent counselors. It appears to me that Mr. Gingrich has done and is doing that.
I cannot know the motives of all Mr. Gingrich’s critics, but it appears that one of the reasons some are fixating on his past marital indiscretions is because they do not want to attempt to deal with Mr. Gingrich’s solutions for America’s present day problems. The obsession with past deeds is to distract the discussion for present day crisis that America now faces.
Allow me to ratchet up a bit. I have spent more time with Mr. Gingrich on this issue than 99.9% of the people who will read this email. I have dealt with people with moral failures, sins and mistakes since 1969, when I accepted my first job as a (youth) pastor, 42 years ago. I am not a novice at dealing with people needing to walk from unrighteousness to uprightness. Out of respect for confidentiality, I will not reveal more about my conversations with Mr. Gingrich. But I need to make a summary statement on this: At the risk of being misunderstood, I would suggest that I am in a better (pastoral and otherwise) position to evaluate his present status than most. I have grown weary of “long distance” attackers who have not invested any time with him privately on these issues, yet who consider themselves to be self-appointed experts on his actual spiritual condition. They need to know “his heart,” and they badly need a fundamental course in hamartiology (the doctrine of sin) and soteriology (doctrine of salvation).
In my evaluating his present spiritual status, I made an unusual request of Mr. Gingrich. I asked him if I could worship with him – at his church, the Basilica, in Washington, DC. I am an avowed Protestant evangelical. Mr. Gingrich worships in a Catholic Church. Our worship preferences are substantially different. But we worship the same God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Why did I want to worship with him – at his church? You can learn much about a person when you worship with them. You can, if you are spiritually attuned, sense much. I observed him in this tender environment.
Secularists will likely mock this idea, out of their own lack of understanding and discernment. But I was there. I worshipped with him. I saw a man who humbled himself before God. Those with spiritual dullness will not grasp the importance of this paragraph. The spiritually mature will, in contrast, “get it.”
On his radio program on Friday, Bryan Fischer weighed in on the death of Christopher Hitchens and explained that God sent Hitchens to Hell as an expression of His love for him:
Let's assume for the sake of argument that Christopher Hitchens maintained his resolve and did not turn, he did not repent, he died an unrepentant and defiant atheist. That would mean today, if the Scriptures mean anything, that he is in Hell today.
But here's my point, the point I was making earlier is that if he is, if Christopher Hitchens is, in fact, in Hell, he's there because God loves him. Not because God hates him but because God loves him. And I explained what I mean by that. What I mean by that is that God loves us enough to, in the end, give us what he insist on having. If we are determined to have our own way then God, in the end, is going to give us what we insist on having, because that's what you do for people you love.
...
Now if you think about it, and I mention this earlier, to me it would not be a loving thing for God to say to Christopher Hitchens "you spent your entire life, you're still defying me. You died in defiance, you still are in defiance as you stand before me. You don't want anything to do with me. You don't want anything to do with my son. You don't want anything to do with my Gospel. You don't want anything to do with word of God. You don't want anything to do with other people that are followers of me." It would not be a loving thing to compel someone like Christopher Hitchens to spend the rest of eternity in a place that he hated, a place that he does not want to be, a place that he has no desire to be, a place that he has spent all of his life resisting, condemning, avoiding, refusing to embrace. To me, that's not love, that would be a form of cruelty.
Fischer actually spent two segments talking about how Hitchens in now in Hell because of God's love for him, which was then followed by an interview with Rep. Tim Huelskamp.
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