How the Swine Flu and Abortion are Related

Mike Huckabee writes why he’s not afraid of the swine flu.  Here’s a good chunk of his article:

I’ve watched the Obama administration tell us how much they care about protecting lives from the flu. If they really want to help make children safer, let me make a suggestion: Start doing all you can to move this country to being pro-life.

Almost a million unborn children will die in their mother’s womb because of elective abortion this year. These are not sick or unhealthy babies, they’re just inconvenient.

And by ending their lives because they represent an economic disruption or a social interference to the mother, we’ve created a culture in which a human life is expendable because it represents an inconvenience.

It happens a million times a year in the United States. Where’s the press conference by the president, or the warnings of the vice president, or the outline of steps to be taken issued by Homeland Security or the secretary of Health and Human Services?

There isn’t one, because they all support the notion that it’s OK to end the lives of perfectly healthy unborn babies because they are in someone’s way.

“The Truth”

Artist Michael D’Antuono’s painting “The Truth” about Barack Obama.  Here’s an excerpt from the story:

“More than a presidential portrait,” writes D’Antuono on a website touting the painting, “‘The Truth’ is a politically, religiously and socially-charged statement on our nation’s current political climate and deep partisan divide that is sure to create a dialogue.”

Like others in the news who have depicted Obama in Christ-like imagery, D’Antuono insists he isn’t claiming the man is Messiah, but only inviting “individual interpretations.”

“‘The Truth,’ like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder,” claims the exhibit’s press release.

Read the whole thing.

D’Antuono has encouraged viewers to email him and respond to the question, “What is your truth.”  I plan to work on my response sometime this weekend and then post it here on the blog.

The Irony of Our First Black President

From James Kushiner (Touchstone Magazine):

The irony about the election of our first black president, an irony which I wish did not exist, is that while blacks have risen from the indignities and injustice of slavery in which their bodies were sold and consumed as property, and have endured segregation and second-class citizen status and racial discrimination, and have now one of their own elected to the highest office in the land, this very president-elect, Barack Obama, will increase the death toll among black human beings if he fulfills his promise to enact a Freedom of Choice Act, which will serve as a firewall around Roe v. Wade, the Dred Scott decision of our times. Helping to fund abortions also will likely disproportionately increase the number of black victims consumed by this holocaust. Someone might point out that policies about abortion, too, in this post-racial age of enlightenment, should be colorblind, so anyone who cares about the skin color of its victims is a racist, and that appeals to blacks about not aborting black babies is an appeal to a presumed racism on their part.

Discrimination based on the color of one’s skin is not now the burning issue of our time, however. It’s that we’ve forgotten the value of human skin in the first place. The human skin of the baby in the womb, the human skin of the severely disabled (candidates for “selective” abortion), the human flesh and blood of the elderly, and the bodies of those near death, from whom we cut organs while they are, yes, still, alive—this human flesh is abused and sacrificed on various altars. Resting on the hard-earned laurels of enlightened colorblindness, many have forgotten, or deny, the sanctity of the very flesh about which we say we are so indifferent as to its color.

How Should Christians (who didn’t vote for Obama) Respond to His Election?

I was on Facebook Wednesday morning after the election looking to see what my young, conservative friends thought of Obama’s election to the presidency.  I only saw one status that said anything about it.  It went like this:

I am crying for our nation.  That man will never be my president.

I couldn’t hold back.  I had to respond.  I typed: “Ah, but he is your president!  And you need to pray for him and respect him.”  My friend, thankfully, has since relented of the frustration.  Things like that get me angry at Christians.  They act as if God is not sovereign, as if we Christians should always get our way, and as if we can blame non-Christians for voting for someone who is a gifted speaker, charismatic, intelligent, and looks good in a suit.

Anyone who’s been on this blog knows that I didn’t vote for Obama.  I think some of his policies are awful.  I think he’s dishonest at times.  I think that he’s fooling himself and everyone else when he says we can “turn things around” (though he did say progress might not come in his first term).  I think he’s wrong on his abortion and gay marriage stance.  I think his tax policy is terrible.  His past friendships with some people are foggy.

Yet, I love him.  I think he ran a great campaign.  I think he’s a good speaker.  He tells parents to get their kid off the Xbox and TV.  (That might be the only way he’s similar to John Piper.)  He obviously loves his wife and two daughters.   I might not like Barack Obama’s policies, but he’s still made in the image of God and as of right now, there’s still hope that he’ll change, because he’s alive.  (After all, Jesus’ slogan is, “Change that’s already happened,” isn’t it?  Perhaps Obama will experience that life change.)

I need to love him.  If I don’t love him, I’ll be indifferent, and that’s the worst thing to be.  Because then, I’ll hate him.  Let me know how that works out for you.

There are two ways Christians can respond to Obama’s election as president.  They can be defiant,  heardheaded, stubborn, and accusatory, looking to blame Obama for everything and just waiting to crush him when he does wrong.  Or they can be respectful, thankful, honoring, loving, kind, compassionate, and gracious, willing to forgive him when he makes mistakes.

Christians hated it when liberals attacked Bush for mistakes made.  We’d cry, “You can’t blame one man!”  Let’s not do that with Obama.  Take the 2×4 out of your eye instead of focusing on the saw dust in your friend’s.

Let me tell you what I am not saying: I’m not saying that you cannot tell your Christian brother or sister, “I told you so,” if things go bad for America after you warned them not to vote for Obama.  Your responsibility as a Christian is to judge and keep accountable other Christains.  Tell them, “I told you so,” (in a loving, non-condescending way so that they might turn to Jesus and not to hope in politics).  In fact, if we read 1 Samuel 8 after Saul was elected king by God, we see Samuel warning the Israelites about the perils of having a king (vv. 10-18).  In chapter 12, Samuel even scolds the Isarelites for wanting a king (v. 13-14).  He says, “You saw the other nations and you said, ‘A king shall reign over us.’  You got what you deserved.”

To say that to non-Christians (or Obama) is sensless (1 Cor. 5:12-13).  To point fingers at liberals and curse them and picket with signs and mock our president will not do anyone good.  Most likely, it will drive people further from Christ and closer to Obama.  Most probably, it will give non-Christians more ammo to shoot at Christians for our un-Christlike behavior.  Pointing fingers and writing nasty blogs and picketing only reflects poorly on Christ and the Church.

How do we do this?  We have to do two things.  Pray that we’ll love Obama.  Pray for him.  You don’t pray for what you don’t care about.  If you want him to be cursed and damned, you won’t pray for him.  If you want him to know Jesus and be a man of integrity and honesty, you’ll pray for him.  In 1 Timothy, Paul said, “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions” (vv. 1-2).  Paul and Timothy dealt with more ruthless leaders than Obama.  Right now, we aren’t going to be beaten, evicted, and imprisoned for loving Jesus.  If Paul can say (and do) it, so can you.  He even says in verse 3 of the same chapter, “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people [even Barack Obama] to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Christians have a choice to make.  You can sneer and jeer and talk badly about Obama.  Or you can pray for him.  It’s going to be hard, because we are sinners.  But I know what I want to do.  I know what God wants us to do.

Some Lessons for Conservative Christians

When it comes to politics, I’m a moderate (for more on this, read here and here).  I’ll admit that to anyone.  However, on most issues, I’m conservative, but not an ultra-conservative, fundamental, homeschooling-denim-jump-suit-wearing Christian conservative (unless I get credited with putting the “fun” back in fundamentalism).  Still, I’ve made it clear on this blog that I cannot, nor will not, vote for Obama.  You all know that.

As much as I enjoy conservative values and worldview, a greater joy than being conservative is that I’m a Christian.  I love Jesus.  If I die, Ronald Regan isn’t getting me into heaven.  Jesus is.

This election might not go as I hope.  In fact, it probably will not.  It’s not looking good if you vote red.  I have a friend who works for the Nebraska GOP.  She said, without a doubt, Obama will win this election and there’s nothing McCain can do. I think that, if Obama wins the election, God will teach conservative American Christians three lessons, among many others, in the election and throughout the next four years:

• A President can’t save you (see 1 Samuel 8).
• Christians (republican ones) do not always get what they want just because they ask for it — God isn’t a genie.
• We do not live for this world, but for the one to come (see 1 Cor. 7:31; Jn. 2:17).

I do not think that Obama’s presidency will go well.  I’m not saying McCain’s, if elected, would.  But if you love Jesus and are reading this blog, pray over these things and trust the Lord to learn these lessons.  I will.

Lord willing, those who support Obama (especially Christians), will see learn these lessons well.  If we do not hope in Christ, we are lost.  There has never been, and never will be, a Savior on Capitol Hill.  Praise God for that.