Saturday, May 18, 2013
Motorcycle parts for handlebar installation.
Clock for 1 inch bar
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/handlebar-clock-for-78-inch-or-1-inch-handlebars/part/HARDD-20-0610?utm_source=buysight&utm_medium=retargeting&utm_campaign=buysight&utm_content=101830
or, for 54 bucks:
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/riders-passion-round-style-handlebar-black-face-clock-1-inch-bars/part/RP-BCB
Tac for 1 inch bar.
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/baron-custom-accessories-barons-bullet-tachometer-1-in-bar-white-face/part/BA-7570-00
or (for 189) :http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/baron-custom-accessories-barons-bullet-tachometer-1-14-inch-bar-white-face/part/BA-7571U
cup holder for 1 inch bar
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/rivco-handlebar-clamp-mount-cup-holder-chrome-78-inch-to-1-14-inch-bars/part/RIV-CH200
Mirror with turn signal embedded $179 must buy adapters.
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/kuryakyn-turn-signal-mirrors-with-flat-glass-pair/part/KY-1431
or, for $104 per pair, -- no need for adapters.
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/bikemaster-mirror-adapter-kit-a-8mm/part/BM-600273
8 mm adapters for mirror installation.
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/bikemaster-mirror-adapter-kit-a-8mm/part/BM-600273
Universal accessory clamp for 1 inch bar (17 per unit)
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/kuryakyn-universal-accessory-mount-clamp-ea-1-inch-bars/part/KY-1420
Mirrors - basic at 14 per mirror
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/cart.cfm?action=additem-success
Phone holder (23)
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/ram-mount-universal-plastic-atv-cradle/part/RAM-HOL-UN4
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
from Christianity Today - Homosexual divide between Uganda and Christians
Anti-Homosexuality Bill Divides Ugandan and American Christians
American pastors and leaders are united in condemning the legislation while Ugandans are united in support.
The proposed anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda has created tension between American Christians who have condemned the legislation and Ugandan Christians who don't want to see homosexuality become an acceptable practice.
Several American pastors and leaders have condemned proposed legislation in Uganda that, if passed in its proposed version, would punish homosexual acts between adults—including touching "with the intent of committing the act of homosexuality"—with life imprisonment. The punishment for "serial offenders," homosexual sex with minors or the disabled, or homosexual sex while being HIV-positive, is death.
Rt. Rev. Dr. David Zac Niringiye, assistant bishop of Kampala in the Church of Uganda, says that American Christians should not make such public pronouncements on the bill.
"The international community is behaving like they can't trust Ugandans to come up with a law that is fair. No! No! That is not fair!" he told Christianity Today. "When the Western governments or Western churches or Christians speak loudly about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of this bill, you actually begin to fuel the idea that homosexuality is the product of Western culture."
Without giving his position on the bill, Niringiye said that it attempts to make the law consistent, since raping a minor is punishable by death. Sexual assault is currently defined in the law as between a male and female, he said. Homosexuality and adultery are already considered crimes.
The reaction from Christians in America creates tension for Ugandan Christians, says the Rev. Dr. Christopher Byaruhanga, professor of historical theology at Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology at Uganda Christian University.
"You see there's a kind of imperialism and a kind of relativism from the West," said Byaruhanga, who is doing a fellowship for a year at the John Jay Institute in Colorado Springs. "They don't understand our ethics in the country of Uganda and they are trying to impose what they believe."
Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, issued a statement of concern about the bill, urging the United States government to "grant adequate access to the U.S. asylum system for those fleeing persecution on the basis of homosexuality or gender identity."
"If the head of the Episcopal Church says anything on the bill in Uganda, you think anybody would listen to her? She is already in consecration with someone who is openly homosexual," Byaruhanga said. "Anything that comes from this end has no credibility because of what is going on in the Episcopal Church and what is going on in the American society as far as homosexuality is concerned."
Bloomberg reported last week that the death penalty and life imprisonment will be dropped from the bill. The Church of Uganda has not taken an official position on the bill, and Niringiye said the church expects to give a statement to parliament by January 20.
Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren condemned the proposed legislation in an "encyclical video" on December 10, where he said, "I oppose the criminalization of homosexuality."
"As an American pastor, it is not my role to interfere with the politics of other nations, but it is my role to speak out on moral issues," Warren said. "It is my role to shepherd other pastors who look to me for guidance, and it is my role to correct lies, errors and false reports when others associate my name with a law that I had nothing to do with, completely oppose, and vigorously condemn." (A spokeswoman for Warren said he is declining to do any interviews on the topic.)
Saturday, July 18, 2009
More Government, Less God: What the Obama Revolution Means for America
A growing dependence on government is detrimental to the cause of evangelism. this article discusses this problem and how it has manifested itself throughout the world. Obama is no friend of faith. He is a secularist through and through. The 'facts' of this post can be fully defeated if the Church will get off its Collective Proverbial and make itself indispensable. - M.R. Ed.
Bradford W. Wilcox
March 3, 2009
While many social conservatives have focused attention on Obama’s liberal social commitments, few have considered what effects an expanded welfare state will have on religious belief—or how these religious effects will in turn impact civic virtue, personal responsibility, altruism, or solidarity. If the European experience with the welfare state and religion is any indication, the Obama revolution could well lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.
In his successful drive for the presidency, Barack Obama went out of his way to cultivate churchgoing Americans. Obama spoke frankly and fluidly about his faith, he participated in Pastor Rick Warren’s candidates’ forum at the Saddleback megachurch, he reached out personally and persistently to evangelical and Catholic leaders, and his campaign targeted American religious groups like no other Democratic candidate for president has in recent times. Moreover, Obama and his campaign downplayed his socially liberal views, stressed his commitment to tolerance and civility toward those with whom he disagreed on social issues, and sought to underline the ways in which his progressive policy positions were consistent with biblical faith and Catholic Social Teaching.
Obama’s efforts paid off. In 2008, according to CNN exit polls, Obama won forty-three percent of the presidential vote among voters who attend religious services once a week or more, up from Senator John Kerry’s thirty-nine percent in 2004. Obama did especially well with Black and Latino believers. But he also made real inroads among traditional white Catholics, according to a recent article by John Green in First Things.
His cultivation of churchgoing Americans has not let up since winning the election. From his selection of Rick Warren to deliver his inaugural invocation to his public support for charitable choice to his recent remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama has sought to signal to the faithful in America that his administration is no enemy to religion.
I do not doubt the sincerity of Obama’s religious intentions. But while many social conservatives have pointed a spotlight on Obama’s socially liberal policies (repealing the Mexico City Policy, for example) few have paid attention to the likely impact his stimulus, bailout, and economic welfare programs will have. One unremarked and unintended consequence of Barack Obama’s audacious plans for the expansion of government—especially in health care, education, and the environment—is that the nanny state he is seeking to build will likely crowd out religious institutions in America. In other words, if he succeeds in passing his ambitious agenda, the Obama revolution is likely to lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.
To fund his bold efforts to revive the American economy and expand the welfare state, Obama is proposing to spend a staggering $3.6 trillion in the 2010 fiscal year. Obama’s revolutionary agenda would push federal, state, and local spending to approximately 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product, up from about 33 percent in 2000. It would also put the size of government in the United States within reach of Europe, where government spending currently makes up 46 percent of GDP.
Why is this significant for the vitality of religion in America? A recent study of 33 countries around the world by Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde, political scientists at the University of Washington, indicates that there is an inverse relationship between state welfare spending and religiosity. Specifically, they found that countries with larger welfare states had markedly lower levels of religious attendance, had higher rates of citizens indicating no religious affiliation whatsoever, and their people took less comfort in religion in general. In their words, “Countries with higher levels of per capita welfare have a proclivity for less religious participation and tend to have higher percentages of non-religious individuals.”
Gill and Lundsgaarde show, for instance, that Scandinavian societies such as Sweden and Denmark have some of the largest welfare states in the world as well as some of the lowest levels of religious attendance in the world. By contrast, countries with a history of limited government—from the United States to the Philippines—have markedly higher levels of religiosity. The link between religion and the welfare state remains robust even after Gill and Lundsgaarde control for socioeconomic factors such as urbanization, region, and literacy. The bottom line: as government grows, people’s reliance on God seems to diminish.
How do we account for the inverse relationship between government size and religious vitality? As Gill and Lundsgaarde point out, some individuals have strong spiritual needs that can only be met by religion. This portion of the population remains faithful, come what may.
But other individuals only turn to churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques when their needs for social or material security are not being met by the market or state. In an environment characterized by ordinary levels of social or economic insecurity, many of these individuals will turn to local congregations for social, economic, and emotional support. At times of high insecurity, such as the current recession, religious demand goes even higher. Witness, for instance, press accounts chronicling the recent boom in churchgoing among Americans hit hard by the recession. Of course, many of those who initially turn to the church around the corner for instrumental reasons often end up developing an intrinsic appreciation for the spiritual and moral goods found in their local congregation.
By contrast, the more the state steps in to reduce the economic and social insecurity of its citizens, the less likely fair-weather believers are to darken the door of a church on Sunday. Now, to paraphrase Charles Krauthammer, Obama hopes to expand the size of the welfare state by offering cradle-to-grave health care and cradle-to-cubicle education to Americans. If he gets his way, Americans will not have to trust in God, or their fellow congregants, to support an ailing parent, or to help them figure out how to pay for their daughter’s college tuition. Instead, they can put their faith in Uncle Sam.
To secularists and religious skeptics, this may seem no great loss. Who cares if Americans substitute “In God We Trust” for “In Government We Trust”? But as political scientist Alan Wolfe observed in Whose Keeper?, one of the primary dangers associated with the rise of the nanny state is that “when government assumes moral responsibility for others, people are less likely to do so themselves.” Wolfe noted that large increases in welfare spending in Sweden, Denmark and Norway over the last half century have ended up eroding the moral fabric of families and civic institutions in these societies. Scandinavians have come to depend not on family, civil society, or themselves, but on the government for their basic needs.
The problem with this Scandinavian-style welfare dependency is that many Scandinavians, especially young adults who have grown up taking the welfare state for granted, are markedly less likely to attend to the social, material, and emotional needs of family and friends than earlier generations. As a consequence, social solidarity is down and social pathology—from drinking to crime—is up. In Wolfe’s words, “High tax rates in Scandinavia encourage governmental responsibility for others; they do not, however, necessarily inspire a personal sense of altruism and a feeling of moral unity toward others with whom one’s fate is always linked.” Not surprisingly, cheating on taxes is on the rise in Scandinavian countries, both because the social solidarity undergirding these societies is fraying and because men and women—especially high earners—are recoiling from paying the hefty taxes associated with keeping their nanny states afloat (sound familiar?).
The dangers that Wolfe identifies in societies like Sweden would likely be even more salient in America, which has a much lower level of cultural homogeneity and collectivism than the Scandinavian nations. In the United States, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed, religious institutions have long provided crucial social and moral ballast to the individualistic ethos of our nation. For instance, as political scientist Arthur Brooks pointed out in his recent book, Who Really Cares, religious Americans are significantly more likely to give to charity and to volunteer their time than are secularists. In 2000, he found, for instance, that ninety-one percent of regular churchgoers (those who attend religious services nearly every week or more frequently) gave money to charities, compared to sixty-six percent of secularists (those who attend religious services a couple times a year or not at all); moreover, sixty-seven percent of churchgoers volunteered, compared to forty-four percent of secularists.
This is why, even though Obama’s audacious agenda might provide short-term relief to the economic and social challenges that now beset us, over the long term the Obama revolution is likely to erode first the religious and then the civic and moral fabric of the nation. Undoubtedly, this is not the change religious believers who put their faith in Obama last November are hoping for from this president. But if the European experiment with the welfare state tells us anything, it tells us that this is the change we can expect from a successful Obama revolution.
W. Bradford Wilcox, associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, is a fellow of the Witherspoon Institute and sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse. He is currently writing a book for Oxford University Press titled Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Childbearing, and Marriage among African Americans and Latinos.
Copyright 2009 the Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.
Bradford W. Wilcox
March 3, 2009
While many social conservatives have focused attention on Obama’s liberal social commitments, few have considered what effects an expanded welfare state will have on religious belief—or how these religious effects will in turn impact civic virtue, personal responsibility, altruism, or solidarity. If the European experience with the welfare state and religion is any indication, the Obama revolution could well lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.
In his successful drive for the presidency, Barack Obama went out of his way to cultivate churchgoing Americans. Obama spoke frankly and fluidly about his faith, he participated in Pastor Rick Warren’s candidates’ forum at the Saddleback megachurch, he reached out personally and persistently to evangelical and Catholic leaders, and his campaign targeted American religious groups like no other Democratic candidate for president has in recent times. Moreover, Obama and his campaign downplayed his socially liberal views, stressed his commitment to tolerance and civility toward those with whom he disagreed on social issues, and sought to underline the ways in which his progressive policy positions were consistent with biblical faith and Catholic Social Teaching.
Obama’s efforts paid off. In 2008, according to CNN exit polls, Obama won forty-three percent of the presidential vote among voters who attend religious services once a week or more, up from Senator John Kerry’s thirty-nine percent in 2004. Obama did especially well with Black and Latino believers. But he also made real inroads among traditional white Catholics, according to a recent article by John Green in First Things.
His cultivation of churchgoing Americans has not let up since winning the election. From his selection of Rick Warren to deliver his inaugural invocation to his public support for charitable choice to his recent remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama has sought to signal to the faithful in America that his administration is no enemy to religion.
I do not doubt the sincerity of Obama’s religious intentions. But while many social conservatives have pointed a spotlight on Obama’s socially liberal policies (repealing the Mexico City Policy, for example) few have paid attention to the likely impact his stimulus, bailout, and economic welfare programs will have. One unremarked and unintended consequence of Barack Obama’s audacious plans for the expansion of government—especially in health care, education, and the environment—is that the nanny state he is seeking to build will likely crowd out religious institutions in America. In other words, if he succeeds in passing his ambitious agenda, the Obama revolution is likely to lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.
To fund his bold efforts to revive the American economy and expand the welfare state, Obama is proposing to spend a staggering $3.6 trillion in the 2010 fiscal year. Obama’s revolutionary agenda would push federal, state, and local spending to approximately 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product, up from about 33 percent in 2000. It would also put the size of government in the United States within reach of Europe, where government spending currently makes up 46 percent of GDP.
Why is this significant for the vitality of religion in America? A recent study of 33 countries around the world by Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde, political scientists at the University of Washington, indicates that there is an inverse relationship between state welfare spending and religiosity. Specifically, they found that countries with larger welfare states had markedly lower levels of religious attendance, had higher rates of citizens indicating no religious affiliation whatsoever, and their people took less comfort in religion in general. In their words, “Countries with higher levels of per capita welfare have a proclivity for less religious participation and tend to have higher percentages of non-religious individuals.”
Gill and Lundsgaarde show, for instance, that Scandinavian societies such as Sweden and Denmark have some of the largest welfare states in the world as well as some of the lowest levels of religious attendance in the world. By contrast, countries with a history of limited government—from the United States to the Philippines—have markedly higher levels of religiosity. The link between religion and the welfare state remains robust even after Gill and Lundsgaarde control for socioeconomic factors such as urbanization, region, and literacy. The bottom line: as government grows, people’s reliance on God seems to diminish.
How do we account for the inverse relationship between government size and religious vitality? As Gill and Lundsgaarde point out, some individuals have strong spiritual needs that can only be met by religion. This portion of the population remains faithful, come what may.
But other individuals only turn to churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques when their needs for social or material security are not being met by the market or state. In an environment characterized by ordinary levels of social or economic insecurity, many of these individuals will turn to local congregations for social, economic, and emotional support. At times of high insecurity, such as the current recession, religious demand goes even higher. Witness, for instance, press accounts chronicling the recent boom in churchgoing among Americans hit hard by the recession. Of course, many of those who initially turn to the church around the corner for instrumental reasons often end up developing an intrinsic appreciation for the spiritual and moral goods found in their local congregation.
By contrast, the more the state steps in to reduce the economic and social insecurity of its citizens, the less likely fair-weather believers are to darken the door of a church on Sunday. Now, to paraphrase Charles Krauthammer, Obama hopes to expand the size of the welfare state by offering cradle-to-grave health care and cradle-to-cubicle education to Americans. If he gets his way, Americans will not have to trust in God, or their fellow congregants, to support an ailing parent, or to help them figure out how to pay for their daughter’s college tuition. Instead, they can put their faith in Uncle Sam.
To secularists and religious skeptics, this may seem no great loss. Who cares if Americans substitute “In God We Trust” for “In Government We Trust”? But as political scientist Alan Wolfe observed in Whose Keeper?, one of the primary dangers associated with the rise of the nanny state is that “when government assumes moral responsibility for others, people are less likely to do so themselves.” Wolfe noted that large increases in welfare spending in Sweden, Denmark and Norway over the last half century have ended up eroding the moral fabric of families and civic institutions in these societies. Scandinavians have come to depend not on family, civil society, or themselves, but on the government for their basic needs.
The problem with this Scandinavian-style welfare dependency is that many Scandinavians, especially young adults who have grown up taking the welfare state for granted, are markedly less likely to attend to the social, material, and emotional needs of family and friends than earlier generations. As a consequence, social solidarity is down and social pathology—from drinking to crime—is up. In Wolfe’s words, “High tax rates in Scandinavia encourage governmental responsibility for others; they do not, however, necessarily inspire a personal sense of altruism and a feeling of moral unity toward others with whom one’s fate is always linked.” Not surprisingly, cheating on taxes is on the rise in Scandinavian countries, both because the social solidarity undergirding these societies is fraying and because men and women—especially high earners—are recoiling from paying the hefty taxes associated with keeping their nanny states afloat (sound familiar?).
The dangers that Wolfe identifies in societies like Sweden would likely be even more salient in America, which has a much lower level of cultural homogeneity and collectivism than the Scandinavian nations. In the United States, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed, religious institutions have long provided crucial social and moral ballast to the individualistic ethos of our nation. For instance, as political scientist Arthur Brooks pointed out in his recent book, Who Really Cares, religious Americans are significantly more likely to give to charity and to volunteer their time than are secularists. In 2000, he found, for instance, that ninety-one percent of regular churchgoers (those who attend religious services nearly every week or more frequently) gave money to charities, compared to sixty-six percent of secularists (those who attend religious services a couple times a year or not at all); moreover, sixty-seven percent of churchgoers volunteered, compared to forty-four percent of secularists.
This is why, even though Obama’s audacious agenda might provide short-term relief to the economic and social challenges that now beset us, over the long term the Obama revolution is likely to erode first the religious and then the civic and moral fabric of the nation. Undoubtedly, this is not the change religious believers who put their faith in Obama last November are hoping for from this president. But if the European experiment with the welfare state tells us anything, it tells us that this is the change we can expect from a successful Obama revolution.
W. Bradford Wilcox, associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, is a fellow of the Witherspoon Institute and sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse. He is currently writing a book for Oxford University Press titled Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Childbearing, and Marriage among African Americans and Latinos.
Copyright 2009 the Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.
The Great Evangelical Anxiety - Why change is not our most important product
Mark Galli posted 7/16/2009 11:18AM
There is in the soul of American evangelicals a feverish anxiety. If our faith in Christ does not lead to our moral uplift, we jumpstart a new spiritual formation regimen that promises to lift us. If the church is not making a difference in the world, we shame ourselves to become more socially relevant and evangelistically effective.
A great deal of the literature we produce is a variation on this theme—from the fevered poll taking of our movement's politics and spiritual state, to the many jeremiads (left and right) about our lack of personal holiness and social concern, to the call to reframe the Christian faith so that we can address the great social issues of the day.
Still, the anxiety remains mostly personal. It is a deep longing for transformation, and it is evident in the responses to my last, and unfortunately controversial, column, in which I argued that it is not our transformed lives but the crucified Christ who offers something to the world. Note three comments (the caps are in the originals):
A great deal of the literature we produce is a variation on this theme—from the fevered poll taking of our movement's politics and spiritual state, to the many jeremiads (left and right) about our lack of personal holiness and social concern, to the call to reframe the Christian faith so that we can address the great social issues of the day.
Still, the anxiety remains mostly personal. It is a deep longing for transformation, and it is evident in the responses to my last, and unfortunately controversial, column, in which I argued that it is not our transformed lives but the crucified Christ who offers something to the world. Note three comments (the caps are in the originals):
Christ's death not only freed us from the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin in this life. I am a witness. CHANGE HAPPENS.
Grace causes us to have changed lives. Or maybe u haven't read Ephesians 2 really well.
My concern must be to live the life GOD called me to live AT THIS MOMENT! I CAN CHANGE!!
Such comments suggest that the Christian faith is meaningful for many primarily because it promises to produce moral change. We are fed up with the tragedy of our lives—the failures and flaws, the coarse habits and endless addictions, the inability to do the good that we long to do consistently and sincerely. In pragmatic, practical America we look for a faith that can solve this problem—what good is a religion if it doesn't change anything?
But, of course, the change that most interests Americans, and the change the Christian faith promises, are two different things.
But, of course, the change that most interests Americans, and the change the Christian faith promises, are two different things.
* * *
(page 2)
Contrary to our aspirations and assumptions, the Christian faith is not a bulleted list that equips us with principles to create the good life, let alone the best life now. Nor does it present us with an agenda, as some would have it, for making the world a better place. The core of the faith is good news. It is a revelation of the deeper realities that plague us (of which our anxiety about change is just a symptom) and the unveiling of an unshakable hope.
As Michael Horton puts it in his Christless Christianity, "You don't need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality." Lots of religions, therapies, and self-help regimens enable people to break addictions, control tempers, repair relationships, and even practice forgiveness. Many social reform groups help us serve the neighbor. At this level of ethics, God appears to work through many means.
The good news drills down deeper. As Horton says, "Coming to the cross means repentance—not adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God's drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makeovers." The deeper reality is that our alienation is not from our better self but from the Creator of that self. And that this alienation is fixed and certain, right and true. And that this alienation will never be healed without annihilation. It demands not a makeover but a start over, a start over so complete that it begins with death.
But how can we speak of starting over with death, when death speaks of the end of all things for us? It doesn't make sense, so we try to scratch and claw our way to a better life now.
Contrary to our aspirations and assumptions, the Christian faith is not a bulleted list that equips us with principles to create the good life, let alone the best life now. Nor does it present us with an agenda, as some would have it, for making the world a better place. The core of the faith is good news. It is a revelation of the deeper realities that plague us (of which our anxiety about change is just a symptom) and the unveiling of an unshakable hope.
As Michael Horton puts it in his Christless Christianity, "You don't need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality." Lots of religions, therapies, and self-help regimens enable people to break addictions, control tempers, repair relationships, and even practice forgiveness. Many social reform groups help us serve the neighbor. At this level of ethics, God appears to work through many means.
The good news drills down deeper. As Horton says, "Coming to the cross means repentance—not adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God's drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makeovers." The deeper reality is that our alienation is not from our better self but from the Creator of that self. And that this alienation is fixed and certain, right and true. And that this alienation will never be healed without annihilation. It demands not a makeover but a start over, a start over so complete that it begins with death.
But how can we speak of starting over with death, when death speaks of the end of all things for us? It doesn't make sense, so we try to scratch and claw our way to a better life now.
The good news is not that God so loved the world that he gave his Son as an example of the good life, that whoever follows him will be changed. It is: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). We are not called to imitate the Lord Jesus Christ so that we will be transformed. No, we can imitate Christ because first we are promised, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Rom. 10:9).
The good news does not hinge on words like do or change, but on the powerless, irrelevant, and frightening word faith.
Faith is frightening because it speaks of the death of the self. It seems weak and useless because it undermines any role we might play in this salvation drama. For faith is not an attitude we conjure up, like a cheerleader rousing a crowd, to show God we really mean it. It is not mere intellectual assent that shows God we are thinking soundly. Faith is not even a repentant and contrite heart that we work up to impress God with our humility. Faith is the unexpected realization that something remarkable has happened in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ: our annihilation and our start over.
More remarkable still: There are no conditions. No bargains. No back room deals. Pure grace. Grace as a gift. No strings attached!
It is the no-strings character of grace that demolishes our usual view of change. The free gift must remain absolutely free if we are going to be transformed in the way God calls us to be transformed—if (as Jesus says) we really are to surpass the legalistic righteousness of the Pharisees, if (as Paul exhorts) we really are to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, the first of which is love.
If grace is in any way, shape, or form a deal, a quid pro quo, a bargain, a contract, then we will always be obligated to do our part. It would then be our duty to do what God says. It would turn Christian ethics into another law, and therefore into another burden, into "Alienation: The Sequel." God is not looking for people first and foremost to do or be good, to fulfill the law—in Christ he's already fulfilled it (Matt. 5:17)! He's looking for people who will love—love God and neighbor.
But love cannot be created by contract, no matter how righteous the clauses. If a "grace contract"—to speak absurdly—is to remain in force, God would do his part, and then we would be obligated to do ours, or vice versa. A contract is about mutual obligation. It has nothing to do with love. Only unconditional grace can transform a hardened heart into a grateful heart. Only a free gift can sabotage any notion of the quid pro quo. Only an utterly merciful act of love can fashion a new creation capable of love. As theologian Karl Barth puts it, "As the beloved of God, we have no alternative but to love him in return."
Now, this does not address the issue of why in this life we know grateful, purity-of-heart love only in fleeting moments (more of this in my next column). Still, it does suggest that the Christian life is not grounded in moral improvement—but in the reality that he who is forgiven much, loves much (Luke 7:47)—and that our first prayer is not a plea for changed behavior but "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Ps. 51:10).
The good news does not hinge on words like do or change, but on the powerless, irrelevant, and frightening word faith.
Faith is frightening because it speaks of the death of the self. It seems weak and useless because it undermines any role we might play in this salvation drama. For faith is not an attitude we conjure up, like a cheerleader rousing a crowd, to show God we really mean it. It is not mere intellectual assent that shows God we are thinking soundly. Faith is not even a repentant and contrite heart that we work up to impress God with our humility. Faith is the unexpected realization that something remarkable has happened in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ: our annihilation and our start over.
More remarkable still: There are no conditions. No bargains. No back room deals. Pure grace. Grace as a gift. No strings attached!
It is the no-strings character of grace that demolishes our usual view of change. The free gift must remain absolutely free if we are going to be transformed in the way God calls us to be transformed—if (as Jesus says) we really are to surpass the legalistic righteousness of the Pharisees, if (as Paul exhorts) we really are to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, the first of which is love.
If grace is in any way, shape, or form a deal, a quid pro quo, a bargain, a contract, then we will always be obligated to do our part. It would then be our duty to do what God says. It would turn Christian ethics into another law, and therefore into another burden, into "Alienation: The Sequel." God is not looking for people first and foremost to do or be good, to fulfill the law—in Christ he's already fulfilled it (Matt. 5:17)! He's looking for people who will love—love God and neighbor.
But love cannot be created by contract, no matter how righteous the clauses. If a "grace contract"—to speak absurdly—is to remain in force, God would do his part, and then we would be obligated to do ours, or vice versa. A contract is about mutual obligation. It has nothing to do with love. Only unconditional grace can transform a hardened heart into a grateful heart. Only a free gift can sabotage any notion of the quid pro quo. Only an utterly merciful act of love can fashion a new creation capable of love. As theologian Karl Barth puts it, "As the beloved of God, we have no alternative but to love him in return."
Now, this does not address the issue of why in this life we know grateful, purity-of-heart love only in fleeting moments (more of this in my next column). Still, it does suggest that the Christian life is not grounded in moral improvement—but in the reality that he who is forgiven much, loves much (Luke 7:47)—and that our first prayer is not a plea for changed behavior but "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Ps. 51:10).
Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. He is author of A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Christians and the Professions - Membership Opportunities
Christian Professional and Academic Societies
Through Christian professional and academic societies, it's possible to build connections with others who share your passion — both for your field and for Christ. Listed below you'll find all the Christian professional and academic societies that InterVarsity's Graduate & Faculty Ministries is aware of, along with links to their web sites and, in some cases, general contact information.
Please see also our directories of local campus fellowships for either grad students or faculty.
Affiliation of Christian Biologists
Affiliation of Christian Engineers
Affiliation of Christian Geologists (ACG)
American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)
ASAP.O. Box 668Ipswich, MA 01938Phone: (978) 356-5656Fax: (978) 356-4375Email: asa@asa3.org
Association of Christian Economists (ACE)
Association of Christian Librarians
Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences (ACMS)
Association of Christians Teaching Sociology (ACTS)
Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS)
Email: info@CAPS.net
Christian Business Faculty Association (CBFA)
Christian Educators Association International (CEAI)
Email: info@ceai.com
Christian Engineering Society (CES)
Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers (CFAMC)
Houghton CollegeHoughton, NY 14744Phone: (585) 567-9424Email: cfamc@cfamc.org
Christian Legal Society (CLS)
CLS4208 Evergreen Lane, Suite 222Annandale, VA 22003-3264Phone: (703) 642-1070Fax: (703) 642-1075Email: clshq@clsnet.org
Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA)
CMDAP.O. Box 7500Bristol, TN 37621Phone: (423) 844-1000Fax: (423) 844-1005Email: main@cmdahome.org
Christian Neuroscience Society (CNS)
Christian Nuclear Fellowship (Nuclear Science and Technology)
Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship (CPAF)
CPAFP.O. Box 700Winona Lake, IN 46590Phone: (574) 267-5973Email: CPAF@christianperformingarts.org
Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International (CPFI)
CPFIP.O. Box 449221 Franklin Dr.Blountville, TN 37617-0449Phone: (423) 323-1328Fax: (423) 323-7215Email: info@cpfi.org
Christian Sociological Society
Phone: (352) 392-1025Email: Advisors@voyager.net
Christian Veterinary Mission
Christians in the Arts Networking (CAN)
Email: canhq@aol.com
Christians in Political Science
Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA)
Phone: (864) 679-1898Email: exec@cita.org
Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA)
CIVA255 Grapevine RoadWenham, MA 01984-1813Phone: (978) 867-4124Email: office@civa.org
Conference on Christianity and Literature (CCL)
Email: christianityandliterature@pepperdine.edu
Conference on Faith and History (CFH)
Email: cfh@huntington.edu
Engineering Ministries International (EMI)
EMI130 E. Kiowa St., Suite 200Colorado Springs, CO 80903Phone: (719) 633-2078Email: info@emiusa.org
Evangelical Philosophical Society
Evangelical Theological Society (ETS)
Fellowship of Christian Librarians and Information Specialists (FOCLIS)
Gegrapha
Gegrapha is a fellowship of journalists from all over the world who work in the secular media and share a common faith in Jesus Christ.
North American Association of Christians in Social Work (NACSW)
NACSWP.O. Box 121Botsford, CT 06404-0121Phone: (888) 426-4712Email: info@nacsw.org
North American Christian Foreign Language Association (NACFLA)
Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF)
NCFP.O. Box 7895Madison, WI 53707-7895Phone: 608/443-3722Email: ncf@intervarsity.org
Society of Christian Philosophers
All of the above information is taken from the Emerging Scholars Network website at http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/esn/
Through Christian professional and academic societies, it's possible to build connections with others who share your passion — both for your field and for Christ. Listed below you'll find all the Christian professional and academic societies that InterVarsity's Graduate & Faculty Ministries is aware of, along with links to their web sites and, in some cases, general contact information.
Please see also our directories of local campus fellowships for either grad students or faculty.
Affiliation of Christian Biologists
Affiliation of Christian Engineers
Affiliation of Christian Geologists (ACG)
American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)
ASAP.O. Box 668Ipswich, MA 01938Phone: (978) 356-5656Fax: (978) 356-4375Email: asa@asa3.org
Association of Christian Economists (ACE)
Association of Christian Librarians
Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences (ACMS)
Association of Christians Teaching Sociology (ACTS)
Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS)
Email: info@CAPS.net
Christian Business Faculty Association (CBFA)
Christian Educators Association International (CEAI)
Email: info@ceai.com
Christian Engineering Society (CES)
Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers (CFAMC)
Houghton CollegeHoughton, NY 14744Phone: (585) 567-9424Email: cfamc@cfamc.org
Christian Legal Society (CLS)
CLS4208 Evergreen Lane, Suite 222Annandale, VA 22003-3264Phone: (703) 642-1070Fax: (703) 642-1075Email: clshq@clsnet.org
Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA)
CMDAP.O. Box 7500Bristol, TN 37621Phone: (423) 844-1000Fax: (423) 844-1005Email: main@cmdahome.org
Christian Neuroscience Society (CNS)
Christian Nuclear Fellowship (Nuclear Science and Technology)
Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship (CPAF)
CPAFP.O. Box 700Winona Lake, IN 46590Phone: (574) 267-5973Email: CPAF@christianperformingarts.org
Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International (CPFI)
CPFIP.O. Box 449221 Franklin Dr.Blountville, TN 37617-0449Phone: (423) 323-1328Fax: (423) 323-7215Email: info@cpfi.org
Christian Sociological Society
Phone: (352) 392-1025Email: Advisors@voyager.net
Christian Veterinary Mission
Christians in the Arts Networking (CAN)
Email: canhq@aol.com
Christians in Political Science
Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA)
Phone: (864) 679-1898Email: exec@cita.org
Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA)
CIVA255 Grapevine RoadWenham, MA 01984-1813Phone: (978) 867-4124Email: office@civa.org
Conference on Christianity and Literature (CCL)
Email: christianityandliterature@pepperdine.edu
Conference on Faith and History (CFH)
Email: cfh@huntington.edu
Engineering Ministries International (EMI)
EMI130 E. Kiowa St., Suite 200Colorado Springs, CO 80903Phone: (719) 633-2078Email: info@emiusa.org
Evangelical Philosophical Society
Evangelical Theological Society (ETS)
Fellowship of Christian Librarians and Information Specialists (FOCLIS)
Gegrapha
Gegrapha is a fellowship of journalists from all over the world who work in the secular media and share a common faith in Jesus Christ.
North American Association of Christians in Social Work (NACSW)
NACSWP.O. Box 121Botsford, CT 06404-0121Phone: (888) 426-4712Email: info@nacsw.org
North American Christian Foreign Language Association (NACFLA)
Nurses Christian Fellowship (NCF)
NCFP.O. Box 7895Madison, WI 53707-7895Phone: 608/443-3722Email: ncf@intervarsity.org
Society of Christian Philosophers
All of the above information is taken from the Emerging Scholars Network website at http://www.intervarsity.org/gfm/esn/
Monday, December 22, 2008
Obama's attack on Christian values and the function of the conscience - this is critical
The Manhattan Declaration
A Call of Christian Conscience
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
- the sanctity of human life
- the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
- the rights of conscience and religious liberty.
Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
___________________________________
Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience
Drafted October 20, 2009
Released November 20, 2009
Preamble
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
Declaration
We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.
Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.
We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.
Life
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10
Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro- abortion ideology prevails today in our government. Many in the present administration want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the “need” for abortion—a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as “the culture of death.” We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.
A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called “therapeutic cloning.” This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and “voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of “liberty,” “autonomy,” and “choice.”
We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.
A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.
Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and “ethnic cleansing,” the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.
Marriage
The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33
In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God’s creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society—indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as “holy matrimony” to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.
Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits—the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling—and alarming—indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society—and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out- of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average—is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.
We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.
To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.
The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents’ marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.
We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God’s intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to “a more excellent way.” As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.
We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being—the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual— on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.
We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being “married.” It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.
No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality—a covenantal union of husband and wife—that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as “marriages” sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.
And so it is out of love (not “animus”) and prudent concern for the common good (not “prejudice”), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God’s creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.
Religious Liberty
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Matthew 22:21
The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: “Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness..., for compulsion is no attribute of God” (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God—a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.
Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.
It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law—such persons claiming these “rights” are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.
We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti- discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of “same-sex marriage” in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital “civil unions” scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here.
In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one’s own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of.1 Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.
As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust—and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust—undermine the common good, rather than serve it.
Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King’s willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.
Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.
Drafting Committee
Robert GeorgeProfessor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
Timothy George
Professor, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
Chuck Colson
Founder, the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, VA)
1Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America
Copyright 2009 Charles Colson, Robert George, Timothy George
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