Abortion’s Slippery Slope: When People aren’t “Persons” by Rebecca Hagelin

Culture Challenge of the Week:  The Temptation to Say Nothing

Decades ago, when Roe v. Wade was decided, conservatives and many religious folks predicted that the country had begun an inevitable slide towards a murderous future: a time when certain people-in addition to unprotected pre-born children– would be declared less valuable than others, their killing justified.

Back then, liberal voices jeered at warnings of the slippery slope ahead. But those fears have become real. Medically sanctioned starvation and death-inducing dehydration are passed off as a “peaceful death” for the terminally ill or elderly. Our own President could not bring himself to vote, as an Illinois State Senator, to protect infants born alive after an abortion (they were simply left to die-which was what their mothers wanted, after all).

And now, the advocates of death have stepped up the tempo. A new generation of ethicists has begun making the case in favor of so-called “after birth abortion.” Like Princeton’s Peter Singer, they believe that infants are not “persons” entitled to the right to life. Why? Because infants, while human, are not “self-aware.” And these ethicists assert that human beings who lack self-awareness are not “persons” and, if they are not persons, then they have no independent moral status, no automatic right to life, and no claim to the protections of law.

The question of whether a newborn child would be allowed to live or die, the “ethicists” argue, would depend solely on the wishes of their parents. The same reasons that might ‘justify’ an abortion at three months gestation would justify an “after-birth abortion”—i.e., the parents can kill a child who is inconvenient, disabled, the “wrong” gender, or simply unwanted.

This new thinking shreds the quality-of-life façade that’s often used to justify the abortion of a handicapped child: the only “quality of life” that matters here is that of the parents. If a child’s life portends financial burden or stress for the parents—or cost to the state-that would be reason enough for parents to snuff the life out of their own offspring.

This is our future: an infant’s claim on life will be no greater than that of a pre-born child-non-existent.

More precisely, this is our future unless we fight back-loudly.

How to Save Your Family: Speak Out

I wrote recently about the importance of electing a candidate who understands that cultural issues-the plight of our fractured families-underlie much of our nation’s problems. And that’s true. Electing a President who will value the lives of all Americans-born, pre-born, disabled, elderly, or marginalized-is hugely important.

At the same time, however, our personal responsibility runs deeper than casting a vote: no matter which candidate we support, each one of us must act within our own spheres of influence to affirm the value of all life. And we must speak up bluntly to unmask this “ethical” proposal for what it is: pure evil.

This evil of “after-birth abortion” serves up the opportunity to open conversations with your friends and family who are advocates of a woman’s ‘right to choose.’ Where does that ‘right’ logically end? Only at arbitrary junctures. What’s the difference between a baby one hour before birth and one hour after?

Challenge others to recognize abortion’s slippery slope. Raise the issue with those who think ‘divisive issues’ like abortion are best unmentioned. Who can remain silent in the face of such outrageous views, peddled as ethical decision-making? But make no mistake-remaining silent will bring defeat, because our silence in the face of such an abominable proposal cloaks it with respectability.

Have a conversation with your children over dinner tonight about the right to life. Do they understand that all life-simply because it is human life—deserves to be protected? Have they absorbed the utilitarian messages of our culture that measures the value of human life by what it produces, experiences, or even by the burdens it creates for others? Do they recognize the evil advances when we, as a people, shrink from uncomfortable discussions?

http://townhall.com/columnists/rebeccahagelin/2012/03/14/abortions_slippery_slope_when_people_arent_persons/page/full/

Collateral Damage from ‘Reproductive Rights’ by Steve Chapman

Metaphors can be useful, unless they are allowed to override reality. In recent weeks, advocates for “reproductive freedom” have said that part of the Republican “war on women” is the proposal to let religious employers refuse to buy contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans.

But who is the enemy? Most women, a New York Times/CBS News poll finds, agree that religious hospitals and universities should be free to opt out. Nearly half think any employer should have that prerogative.

If the effort to limit the contraceptive mandate were truly a frontal assault on women, a majority of them would not be endorsing the offensive. But the ideology of groups like Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women (NOW) sometimes ignores inconvenient gender realities.

Those advocates have been distracted from a different and far less figurative war on women — which, as it happens, is helped rather than hindered by one of the “reproductive rights” they champion. Legal abortion may empower women, but it has also become a powerful method for the mass elimination of females.

Modern technology allows prospective parents to learn the sex of a fetus, and many of them use that knowledge to exercise a preference for sons. Absent such intervention, about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. But as Mara Hvistendahl reports in her 2011 book “Unnatural Selection,” the number for boys per 100 girls has risen to 112 in India and 121 in China.

It was once assumed that the general preference for male offspring would subside as countries became richer and women became more educated. But in country after country, that has proved false.

Nor is the phenomenon limited to the eastern hemisphere. Rajendra Kale, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, writes that “female feticide” is so common in Canada that he believes “doctors should be allowed to disclose this information only after about 30 weeks of pregnancy — in other words, when an unquestioned abortion is all but impossible.”

French demographer Christophe Guilmoto, reports Hvistendahl, regards gender imbalance as “an epidemic. In the number of lives it has touched, he says, sex selection merits comparison with AIDS.” Worldwide, experts say, the number of “missing girls” amounts to a stunning 163 million — more than the entire female population of the United States.

The gender imbalance is particularly outsized in China partly because of the government’s compulsory one-child policy. Yet that policy has sometimes been excused by supporters of women’s rights. In 1989, as president of NOW, Molly Yard praised the Chinese population policy as “among the most intelligent in the world.”

Selective abortion, however, does not target only girls. Recent screening advances now make it easier and safer to detect Down syndrome in the womb. Universal screening will have a predictable impact, because 92 percent of fetuses diagnosed with the abnormality are aborted.

Paul Root Wolpe, director of Emory University’s Center for Ethics, told the New York Post, “What you end up having is a world without people with Down syndrome.”

No one would object if that were achieved by curing the condition. But eradicating it through abortion doesn’t sound so benign. A survey reported in the American Journal of Medical Genetics found that only 4 percent of parents with Down syndrome children regret having them — and nearly 99 percent of the people with the disorder said they are happy with their lives.

The practice of eliminating people who are regarded as unacceptable because of their sex or significant defects was probably an inevitable result of the proliferation of abortion. There may be others even more ominous.

A recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics argues that abortion should not be limited to fetuses that have not yet been born. The authors propose instead to allow “after-birth abortion,” which is “ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be” — which means, really, for any reason at all.

That policy may not be so improbable. Ann Furedi, head of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, has said, “There is nothing magical about passing through the birth canal that transforms it from a fetus into a person.” The Netherlands now allows physicians to euthanize newborns with a “hopeless prognosis” and “unbearable suffering” if the parents authorize it.

Abortion-rights advocates think the right to choose has conferred great benefits. Maybe so, but not on everyone.

http://townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/2012/03/15/collateral_damage_from_reproductive_rights/page/full/

Open Doors and Closed Minds by Mike Adams

There is simply no intolerance like that of so-called gay rights activists. In recent years, they have passed feminists as the most censorious political faction in higher education. Homosexual activists at Ohio University demonstrate that the gay rights movement is not about equality. It never has been. It is about forcing your views on others and forcing your opponents into closeted lives as second class citizens.

The most recent outbreak of homosexual hysteria began in the Fall Quarter of 2011. The Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) decided to fund religious speaker Frank Turek. Then, Open Doors, the campus LGBTIQQA (alphabet soup of victimhood) union protested due to Turek’s opposition to same-sex marriage. In other words, Open Doors wanted OU to close its doors to Turek because he is not as tolerant as they are. How queer is that logic?

The SAC is a commission of the Ohio University Student Senate that uses a portion of student general tuition to fund student organizations and student events. Any student organization program that uses university funding is under the direction of SAC’s general assembly. That includes Ratio Christi, a religious student organization that I have spoken for on more than one occasion.

Ratio Christi focuses on logical reasoning for the belief in the Christian worldview. So it made sense for them to invite Frank Turek to speak at OU. Turek spoke about his book “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.” He did not, however, speak about his book “Correct, Not Politically Correct: How same-sex marriage hurts everyone.”

Despite the fact that Turek came to speak on matters wholly unrelated to homosexuality, Open Doors opposed SAC’s allocating of their tuition money to fund Turek. Even when the subject is not homosexuality, the homosexuals have to change the subject to homosexuality. Their lives revolve around it. They simply cannot function unless they are proclaiming their victimhood.

The SAC did not capitulate to Open Doors demand that the Turek speech be cancelled. However, they did something almost as bad: they apologized to Open Doors. This is totally unacceptable.

Imagine what the conversation must have been like as SAC apologized to Open Doors. Maybe it went something like this: “We are truly sorry that you had to endure the thought that someone was present somewhere on campus – even for a couple of hours – who did not share your views on a subject he was not discussing. We know this was a trying time for your emotionally fragile constituency. We also know you were upset that not all student funds go to people who agree with you at all times and on all issues. So, we’re going to make it up to you. We’re buying extra condoms and contraceptives this year and using only student fees to do it. That will make the Christians just as angry as you were!”

How stupid are these people? Well, “stupid” is not a good choice of words. Let’s listen to their own words as quoted by a local newspaper reporter: “We were really confused and kind of pissed off,” said Open Doors co-chair, Michael Pistrui, after learning about SAC’s decision to fund Turek.

“Confused” and “pissed off” pretty well sums it up, doesn’t it. Gay activists are confused by a First Amendment that applies equally to everyone. And that pisses them off because they don’t really support equality.

But the story at OU gets worse. SAC is actually considering changing funding rules to ensure that such an incident never happens again. And that should be easy, shouldn’t it. Keeping homosexuals from getting angry is a pretty simple task. You just reward them for being angry and censorious and suddenly they become happy and tolerant, right?

Wrong.

SAC Treasurer Chris Wimsatt was quoted by The New Political as saying “We can’t decide to de-fund it after we already decided to fund it” suggesting that the principal moral and legal issue concerning the speech was contractual, not constitutional. In other words, cancelling the speech would have offended an isolated contract rather than offending a bedrock constitutional principle. Wimsatt said the effort to protest the matter was, “too little, too late” somehow suggesting that an earlier protest might have succeeded.

Regardless, the way forward is very simple. Conservatives should sponsor a speech next year called “The Gay Assault on Free Speech Equality.” When the Open Doors Gaystapo succeeds in shutting the doors to the speaker, they will humiliate themselves in the court of public opinion. Then my friends at the Alliance Defense Fund will come in and sue the SAC for viewpoint-based discrimination in the allocation of student activity fees.

What is needed is a plaintiff willing to put his finger in the glory hole of gay hypocrisy. Shaming the shameless will never be enough to prevent the fall of Athens.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2012/03/15/open_doors_and_closed_minds/page/full/

At What Price Life? by Ken Connor

It is no secret that in life, our values tend to guide our decisions. The things we hold dear, the things that are priorities to us, our principles… these are the factors that influence how we live our lives, from who we associate with to how we spend our time and how we spend our money. In Washington, it’s no different. If you want to know what an elected official values, you need look at who he associates with, how he spends his time, and how he spends your money. In politics a budget is more than mere numbers on a balance sheet. In its original form, before it is sliced and diced and edited and revised by committees, it is ideology distilled.

Conservatives have been deeply troubled from day one by the apparent ideology that guides President Obama’s decisions, and while his well-funded and resourceful PR apparatus has been extremely successful at managing his public image, his spending priorities tell us all we need to know about the man behind the machine.

We know, for example, that despite the rhetoric President Obama doesn’t hold our military in very high esteem. Why else would his administration go to the mat defending its contraception mandate while at the same time pushing a cut in medical benefits for our men and women in uniform? We also know that the President isn’t really concerned about rising gas prices, given his willingness to fritter away billions of taxpayer dollars on failing “green” ventures while blocking efforts to expand domestic production of fossil fuels.

By far the most troubling to traditional conservatives, however, are the President’s budgetary actions pertaining to the unborn.

Last year, when the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed a budget that included the defunding of Planned Parenthood (which receives approximately one third of its $1 billion annual budget from the federal government), the President’s cohorts in the Senate had a conniption fit, rending their proverbial garments over the GOP‘s “war on women” and pledging that such a draconian measure would never see the President’s desk. Planned Parenthood is a sacred cow to those on the Left, the President included, and he clearly sees nothing wrong with allocating hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the nation’s single largest abortion provider.

Indeed, many women are convinced that women’s “health care” is a high priority for President Obama, and undoubtedly it is if you define abortion and birth control as health care. What doesn’t count as health care in the President’s mind, however, is anything that might actually facilitate or encourage pregnancy and live birth. Thus, the President simply can’t in good conscience continue funding for the pernicious “Embryo Adoption Awareness Campaign,” which exists to facilitate the adoption of surplus frozen embryos (or “snowflake babies“) resulting from in vitro fertilization. Citing “limited interest,” the Department of Health and Human Services has eliminated the $1.9 million program in its FY 2013 budget.

So we see clearly where the President’s priorities lie. He’s absolutely fine with plunging America ever-deeper into debt for the cause of free birth control, abortions on the cheap, unproven alternative energy initiatives, bank bailouts, auto bailouts and the like. In his mind these are all justifiable, moral causes that demand government support. On the other hand, things like medical care for infants that survive botched partial-birth abortions or adoption awareness campaigns for frozen embryos… such “limited interest” issues don’t merit government funding, no matter how minimal.

Thomas Jefferson believed that “the chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.” Frozen embryos aren’t mere surplus property to be discarded, but nascent human beings who should be protected released from their state of “suspended animation” and allowed to reach their full potential. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama does not share Mr. Jefferson’s views on this matter.

Several years ago, I had the privilege of meeting a family whose lives had been enriched by the blessing of twins. The Borden family adopted their sons while they were still frozen embryos at a fertility clinic in California, and came to Washington to speak out against the destruction of embryos for stem cell research. Their story, and the twins growth and development, is a compelling testament that what is at stake when dealing with frozen embryos is nothing less than human life itself.

One would hope that the cause of human life is worth a few million dollars to the President of the United States. If not, perhaps the American people need to evaluate whether this is the kind of person they want setting the priorities for how their money is spent.

http://townhall.com/columnists/kenconnor/2012/03/14/at_what_price_life/page/full/

Draw On His Power Within You

“To him who is able to do immeasurably more.” Eph 3:20 NIV

There are words in your Bible which have so much power in them that they’re more effective than any therapy. God can illuminate a Scripture that goes back into the past and heals your wounds, gives you direction in the middle of despair, and provides hope for the future. Satan will try to fill your mind with so much junk that you don’t have an appetite for God’s Word. That’s because he knows the Scriptures unmask him, and release the potential lying dormant within you. Before Jeremiah rose to national prominence as a prophet, God told him two things: (1) “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer 1:5 NIV). Your parents didn’t get the first look at you, God did. Nothing about you surprises Him. In spite of what you’ve been through, He hasn’t changed His mind about who you are or what you’re destined to become. (2) “Before you were born I set you apart” (v.5 NIV). You say, “I’ve always felt different.” That’s because you are. Celebrate it! Stop looking for acceptance where you don’t belong. You’re on a mission for God; that’s why the enemy has tried so hard to take you out. Once you understand that, your struggle will begin to make sense. As you study God’s Word you’ll begin to experience the mind-renewing, life-changing power He’s deposited within you. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” So start drawing on that power today.

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/draw-on-his-power-within-you/

We Can Work It Out

“In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” —Judges 17:6

In any given situation, how do we know the right thing to do?

Some people make their decisions about what’s right by listening to popular radio hosts. Others make their determinations by watching television talk shows. Some believe that politicians – great orators, and public intellectuals – will tell us the right thing to do. Still others believe that celebrities – movie stars, athletes, best-selling authors – have some special insight into the right way to act.

For a person who hopes to find the best standard by which to measure his conduct, things can get confusing. After all, there are so many options out there, and so many influential personalities competing for our attention, that it can become quite difficult to make a decision. Ultimately, it sometimes seems easier simply to throw up our hands and despair of ever finding an answer. Maybe, we might conclude, people should just do whatever they want . . . and we’ll hope for the best.

It is this sort of situation that the book of Judges describes:  the land of Israel had fallen into chaos – besieged by enemies left and right – and no two Israelites could agree on how to act, or how to do the right thing. No leader stood up for what was right, and no Israelites stopped for a moment to consider the ramifications of their own actions. Consequently, people began to forget how to live together peaceably – people stopped speaking productively with each other – and society began to descend into anarchy. In fact, this situation persists, to one degree or another, throughout the duration of the book of Judges. Only with the rise of the prophet Samuel, and eventually the elevation of King David, would healthy relationships between fellow Israelites begin to be restored.

This passage should serve as a cautionary reminder to all of us. It is absolutely crucial that we strive to make common cause with our neighbors, friends and acquaintances. We must talk with them. Try to comprehend their perspective on things. See how they think and feel. Only through such sensitivity to, and understanding of, our fellow man can we hope to build a society – hopefully a sanctified, and biblically-oriented one – of which we may all be proud!

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/we-can-work-it-out

The Intolerance of Jesus by George H. Morrison – Devotional Sermons

He that is not with me is against me–Mat 12:30

Christ Rejects Accusations Made against Him

Our Lord had just performed a notable miracle healing a man who was possessed of a devil. It had made a profound impression on the people, and had forced the conviction that this was indeed Messiah. Unable to dispute the miracle itself, the Pharisees tried to impugn the power behind it, and in their cowardly and treacherous way they suggested there was something demoniac about Christ. With a readiness of resource which never failed Him, Christ showed in a flash the weakness of that argument. If He was the friend of the demons, was He likely to make a brother-demon homeless? Then moved to righteous anger by these slanders, He said, “He that is not with me is against me.”

You Cannot Understand Christ if You Fail to Notice His Intolerance

I want to speak on the intolerance of Jesus Christ. However startling the subject may appear, and however the sound of it may jar upon us, I am convinced we shall never understand our Lord if we fail to take account of His intolerance. We have heard much of the geniality of Jesus, and of the depth and range of His compassion; nor can we ever exaggerate, in warmest language, the genial and generous aspect of His character. But it is well that the listening ear should be attuned to catch the sterner music of that life, lest, missing it, we miss the fine severity which goes to the perfecting of moral beauty. Wherever the spirit of Jesus is at work, there is found a sweet and masterful intolerance. The one thing that the Gospel cannot do, is to look with easy good nature on the world. And if this passionate urgency of claim has ever marked the activities of Christendom, we must try to trace it to the fountainhead and find it in the character of Christ.

Intolerance Must Be Knowledgeable

Of course there is an intolerance so cold and hard that it must always be alien from the Master’s Spirit. All that is best in us condemns the temper which lacks the redeeming touch of comprehension. When the poet Shelley was a lad still in his teens, he fell violently in love with his cousin Harriet Grove. Shelley was a sceptic even then, and on account of his scepticism his cousin was removed from him. And those of you who have read his letters of that period will remember how they throb with the great hope that he might live to do battle with intolerance. Now Shelley was a poet, with all a poet’s ardour, yet I think that most young men have had that feeling. Nor is it one of those feelings that pass away with youth; it generally strengthens with the tale of years. “One has only to grow old,” says Goethe, “to become tolerant.” As life advances, if we live it well, we commonly grow less rigid in our judgment. By all we have seen and suffered, all we have tried and failed in, our sympathies grow broader with the years. We learn how precious is the grace of charity; how near akin may be the fiercest combatants; how great is the allowance we must make for those of whose hidden life we know so little.            

Died Because of His Intolerance

I mention that just to make plain to you that I am not shutting my eyes to common truths. Yet the fact remains that in all great personalities, there is a strain of what is called intolerance. There are things in which it must be yea or nay–the everlasting no, as Carlyle has it. There are spheres in which all compromise is treachery, and when a man must say with Luther, “Here I stand.” And that intolerance, so far from being the enemy of love and sympathy and generous culture, is the rock that a man needs to set his feet on, if he is to cast his rope to those who cry for help. You find it in the God of the Old Testament–”Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” He is a jealous God, and brooks no rival. He must be loved with heart and soul and strength and mind. You find it in the music of the psalmist, and in the message of prophet and apostle, and you find it bosomed amid all the love that shone in the character of Jesus Christ. Never was man so tender as the Lord. Never was man so swift to sympathise. Never did sinners so feel that they were understood. Never did the lost so feel that they were loved. Yet with all that pity and grace and boundless comprehension, I say you have never fathomed the spirit of the Master, until you have recognised within its range a certain glorious and divine intolerance. We talk of the infinite tolerance of Shakespeare; it is a commonplace of all Shakespearean criticism. Nothing was alien from that mighty genius; the world was a stage and he knew all the players. But underneath that worldwide comprehension there is a scorn of scorn, a hate of hate; there is such doom on the worthless and the wicked as can scarce be paralleled in any literature; and till you have heard that message of severity–that judgment which is the other side of love–you have never learned the secret of the dramatist. In a loftier and a more spiritual sense that is true of our Master, Jesus Christ. He loved us and He gave Himself for us. He says to every weary heart, “Come unto me.” But that same spirit which was so true and tender could be superbly unyielding and inflexible. The gentle Saviour was splendidly intolerant, and because of His intolerance He died.

Intolerant toward Hypocrisy

We trace the intolerance of Christ, for instance, in His attitude towards hypocrisy. One thing that was unendurable to Jesus was the shallow profession of religion. You can always detect an element of pity when Jesus is face to face with other sins. There is the yearning of infinite love over the lost; the hand outstretched to welcome back the prodigal. But for the hypocrite there is no gleam of pity, only the blasting and withering of wrath. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” It is the intolerance of Jesus Christ.

Christ Is Intolerant of Sharing His Uniqueness

We trace it again in those stupendous claims that Jesus Christ put forward for Himself. The Lord our God is a jealous God, and the Lord our Saviour is a jealous Saviour. “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life”–”No man cometh unto the Father but by Me”–”No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” What do you make of these amazing claims, and of that splendid intolerance of any rival?–yet all these words are in the Gospel record as surely as “a bruised reed shall he not break.” Do you say there are many doorways to the Father? Christ Jesus stands and says, “I am the door.” Do you say there are many shepherds of the sheep? Christ stands in His majesty, and says, “I am the shepherd.” Pitiful, merciful, full of a great compassion, Christ is intolerant of any rival; He stands alone to be worshipped and adored, or He disappears into the mists of fable. So far as I am aware that is unique; there is nothing like it in religious history. The ancient pantheons had always room for the introduction of another god. It is Christ alone, the meek and lowly Saviour, who lifts Himself up in isolated splendour. Friend of the friendless and Brother of the weakest, He is intolerant of any sharing of His claims.

Christ Is Intolerant When It Comes to Sharing the Allegiance He Demands from us

Again I trace this same intolerance in the allegiance which Christ demands from us. He is willing to take the lowest place upon the cross; but He will not take it in your heart and mine. When He was born in the fullness of the time, He did not ask for the splendour of the palace. He was born in a manger, reared in a lowly home, and grew to His manhood in obscurest station. But the moment He enters the kingdom of the heart, where He is King by conquest and by right, there everything is changed, and with a great intolerance He refuses every place except the first. “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”–”Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” That is the word of a King in His own Kingdom, claiming His rightful place among His subjects. And when you speak of the meek and lowly Jesus, never forget there is that imperial note there. He is divinely intolerant of everybody who would usurp the throne that is His right.             Such, then, are one or two instances of the intolerance of Jesus Christ, and now I want to examine its true nature, that we may see how worthy it was of Christ.

The Intolerance of Christ Is the Child of Glowing Faith

The first thing I note in the intolerance of Jesus is that it is the child of glowing faith. The intolerance of Christ is little else than the other side of His perfect trust in God. When one is a stranger to you, bound by no ties of love, you are little affected by what is said about him. The talk may be true, or it may not be true, but it is none of your business, and you do not know. But the moment a man becomes a hero to you, that moment you grow intolerant of liberties. If you believe in a woman, your heart is aflame with anger should anyone sully her name even with a breath. A French poet tells us that when he was a youth he was a passionate worshipper of Victor Hugo. He believed in Hugo with all his heart and soul; he thought there had never been a poet like him. And he says that even in a dark cellar underground, where nobody possibly could have overheard him, he could not bear to whisper to himself that a single verse of Hugo’s poetry was bad. That is the fine intolerance of faith in ardent and eager and devoted natures. That is the faith which Jesus Christ was filled with, in God and His righteousness and providential order. And with a faith like that there can be no compromise; no light and shallow acceptance of alternatives. Under the sway of such a glowing trust a certain intolerance is quite inevitable. It is easy to be infinitely tolerant, if all that Christ lived for means but little to you. An age that can tolerate every kind of creed is always an age whose faith is burning low. And just because Christ’s faith burned with a perfect light, and flashed its radiance full on the heart of God, you find in Him, in all His God ward life, a steady and magnificent intolerance.

Christ’s Intolerance Was Found in His Perfect Understanding

Then once again the intolerance of Jesus is the intolerance of perfect understanding. It was because He knew so fully, and sympathised so deeply, that there were certain things He could not bear. One great complaint we make against intolerance is that it does not sympathetically understand us. It is harsh in judgment, and fails in comprehension, and has no conception of what things mean for us. We have all met with intolerance like that, but remember there is another kind. Take the case of drunkenness, for instance; there are many people very tolerant of drunkenness. They talk about it lightly, make a jest of it; they are none of your rigid, longfaced Pharisees. But sometimes you meet a man, sometimes a woman, to whom such jesting talk is quite intolerable, and it is intolerable not because they know so little; it is intolerable because they know so much. The curse has crossed the threshold of their home, and laid its fatal grip on someone who was dear. They have seen the wreck and ruin of it, and all its daily misery, and the drying up of every wellspring of the heart. So in their grief they grow terribly intolerant, and it is not because they do not understand; they are intolerant because they understand so well. Never forget that it is so with Christ. He is intolerant because He comprehends. He knows what sin is; He knows how sweet it is; He knows its havoc, its loneliness, its dust and ashes. And therefore is He stern, uncompromising, and says to us, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.” There are men who are intolerant because of ignorance; Christ is intolerant because He knows.

Christ’s Intolerance Is Based on His Love

Lastly, the intolerance of Jesus is very signally the intolerance of love. Love beareth all things–all things except one, and that is the harm or hurt of the beloved. Here is a little child out in the streets, ragged and shoeless in the raw March weather. Let it stay out till midnight, no one complains at home. Let it use the foulest of language, no one corrects it. Poor little waif, in whom all things are tolerated, and tolerated just because no one loves it! What kind of mother has that little child? What kind of father has that little child? You know them in the street, swollen and coarse, reeking with all the vileness of the city. They tolerate everything because they do not love; when love steps in, that toleration ceases. Now we all know that when our Saviour came, He came at the bidding and in the power of love; love wonderful, love that endured the worst, love that went up to Calvary to die. And just because that love was so intense, and burned with the ardour of the heart of God, things that had been tolerable once were found to be intolerable now. That is the secret of the Gospel’s sternness and of its passionate protest against sin. That is why age after age it clears the issues, and says, “He that is not with me is against me.” The love that beareth all things cannot bear that hurt or harm should rest on the beloved. Christ is intolerant because He loves.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/george-h-morrison-devotional-sermons-devotional.shtml

Beware of Crushing Zeal

Beware of Crushing Zeal.

A Search For The Top Ten

BibleGateway, an online Bible resource, looked at the viewing habits of some of their 8 million monthly visitors. They found that John 3:16 was the most-searched-for verse in 2010.

I don’t think it’s surprising that it would be number one on the list. It tells us that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to rescue us from our sin and give us everlasting life. Number 10 on the list is Jesus’ commission to His followers to spread that good news: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt. 28:19). Also in the top 10 are Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28 about God’s good plans and purposes for His people.

The Scriptures are filled with truths to search out and share. In Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, the psalmist shared his thoughts about the Word and his desire to search it and be taught by God. He said, “Oh, how I love Your law!” (v.97). Our Bible reading for today shows some of the psalmist’s reasons for loving it: It gives him wisdom and understanding, it restrains his feet from evil, and it is sweet. Therefore, it’s his meditation “all the day.”

Let’s keep taking the time to read the Bible. The more we search the Word, the more we’ll grow in our love for it and its Author (v.97).

Search the Scriptures’ precious store— As a miner digs for ore; Search, and you will surely find Treasures to enrich the mind. —Anon.

The more you read the Bible, the more you’ll love its Author.

http://odb.org/2012/03/15/a-search-for-the-top-ten/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+odb%2Ffeed+%28Our+Daily+Bread%29

Tozer Devotional-Creed or Creedless?

Creed or Creedless?

Among certain Christians it has become quite the fashion to cry down creed and cry up experience as the only true test of Christianity. The expression “Not creed, but Christ” (taken, I believe, from a poem by John Oxenham) has been widely accepted as the very voice of truth and given a place alongside of the writings of prophets and apostles. When I first heard the words they sounded good. One got from them the idea that the advocates of the no-creed creed had found a precious secret that the rest of us had missed; that they had managed to cut right through the verbiage of historic Christianity and come direct to Christ without bothering about doctrine. And the words appeared to honor our Lord more perfectly by focusing attention upon Him alone and not upon mere words. But is this true? I think not. Now I have a lot of sympathy for the no-creed creedalists for I realize that they are protesting the substitution of a dead creed for a living Christ; and in this I join them wholeheartedly. But this antithesis need not exist; there is no reason for our creeds being dead just as there is no reason for our faith being dead. James tells us that there is such a thing as dead faith, but we do not reject all faith for that reason. Now the truth is that creed is implicit in every thought, word or act of the Christian life. It is altogether impossible to come to Christ without knowing at least something about Him; and what we know about Him is what we believe about Him; and what we believe about Him is our Christian creed. Otherwise stated, since our creed is what we believe, it is impossible to believe on Christ and have no creed.

http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=489