***
I know we pro-lifers keep talking and talking and blogging and writing about Tim Tebow.

We can’t help it!!!

A high-profile, abstinent young Christian is set to appear on the air during the hottest commercial slot in the country to tell the world his mother valued his life so much, she chose to keep rather than kill him, against her doctor’s advice. Yeah, we’re talking about him, and we’ll keep talking about him.

Like all of us, it should be noted, Tebow’s a sinner. But like some of us, he trusts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Some pro-lifers, but not all, believe abortion is murder. Regardless, we all agree the slaughter of unborn human beings, especially for convenience, is unconscionable.

Sally Jenkins, sports columnist for the Washington Post, takes feminists, modern-day Pharisees, to task. She’s gonna catch it!

“I’ll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won’t endear me to the ‘Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep,’ otherwise known as DOLL, but I’ll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on.”

Sounds like me when I fell out of liberal lockstep. In my case, libs sent ad hominem-laced hate e-mail that was more pitiful than anger-provoking. But enough about me, although the blog is called “La Shawn Barber’s Corner.” Jenkins continues:

“We’re always harping on athletes to be more responsible and engaged in the issues of their day, and less concerned with just cashing checks. It therefore seems more than a little hypocritical to insist on it only if it means criticizing sneaker companies, and to stifle them when they take a stance that might make us uncomfortable.”

Jenkins, who is pro-abortion, resents the “group-think, elitism and condescension” of the gals at the National Organization of Women. She contemplates Tebow’s IQ, and she’s impressed that he’s provoked so many hissy fits before the ad’s even graced the airwaves. Jenkins calls Pam Tebow’s choice to give him a chance to live a true pro-choice story, and pro-abortion feminists would rather call foul on his 30-second ad while neglecting to “protest” beer commercials featuring half-naked women jiggling around.

“You know what we really need more of? Famous guys who aren’t embarrassed to practice sexual restraint, and to say it out loud. If we had more of those, women might have fewer abortions. See, the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancy is to not get the sperm in the egg and the egg implanted to begin with, and that is an issue for men, too — and they should step up to that.”

Sing it, sister (although you should re-think your pro-abortion views and support protecting unborn life).

Rest easy, everybody. May your Super Bowl- and Tim Tebow-watching be enjoyable!

Related post: NYT: Pro-Aborts on “Wrong Track” on Tim Tebow Ad

When I was his age, I was a fornicating, unambitious drunk (sounds really bad when I put it that way; wait a second…it was!) who wouldn’t have spoken about anything in front of anybody, no matter how much you paid me. What a contrast, eh? Super Bowl predictions: New Orleans loses, Tim Tebow shines, and pro-aborts hyperventilate. Good day for football. And for life.

***
Great day in the morning! I can hardly believe my eyes. The New York Times calls pro-abortion groups’ shrieking about a pro-life ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother “puzzling and dismaying.”

Last week I blogged about Heisman trophy-winning QB Tim Tebow (lives!), whose mother chose to give him a chance to live, despite her doctor’s advice to abort him. Tim and his mother will appear in the Super Bowl ad on Sunday, and pro-abortion groups and individuals are crying foul.

NYT even criticized the Women’s Media Center for sending CBS an hysterical letter that was “a lame attempt to portray the ad as life-threatening.” NYT rightly calls the so-called pro-choice movement on its hypocrisy. Instead of protesting, these groups should welcome the ad as an illustration of what they stand for: the right to choose. Tim Tebow’s mother chose life for her unborn son. Other women have chosen to kill theirs. Almighty choice rears its head!

But pro-abortion groups call the pro-life’s head ugly.

Phonies, every last one of them.

“CBS was right to change its policy of rejecting paid advocacy commercials from groups other than political candidates. After the network screens ads for accuracy and taste, viewers can watch and judge for themselves. Or they can get up from the couch and get a sandwich.”

(Hat tip: Jill Stanek)

I make an exception for right-leaning celebrities. In 2008, I put up a post about Republican-registered Hollywood folks like Kelsey Grammer, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Jon Voight, Pat Sajak, Angie Harmon and her husband Jason Sehorn, former cornerback for the New York Giants, and Gary “The Book of Eli” Oldman. Patricia Heaton, Stephen Baldwin (brother of Alec), and Kirk Cameron also are conservative Christians.

It appears that WCBSTV updated the list. Danny Aiello is conservative. Johnny Ramone of The Ramones is a registered Republican. So are models Kathey Ireland and Kim Alexis. Gloria Estefan, Heather Locklear, and James Earl Jones are Republicans. And so is Dean “Superman” Cain (pictured).

And Tony Danza and Vincent Gallo. Never would have guessed. Adam Sandler is a Republican? Where have I been? Rapper 50 Cent said he voted for George Bush.

Hollywood is a bastion of liberal intolerance, and I’m sure many more actors and artists lean right but have chosen to keep their politics and careers separate. I admit my bias. I don’t want to hear Barbra Streisand ranting and raving about George Bush. But if James Earl Jones or Dean Cain wants to share why he believes conservatism is better for the country than liberalism, I’m all ears.

Addendum: I forgot to include Adam Baldwin, who likes my blog. (Squee x 10.)

Related:

Hollywood Conservatives: Should They Just Shut Up and Entertain?

“Expect to see this kind of hysterical criticism reach a crescendo when the ad airs, and then a quick deflation afterward. It’s just another form of advertising, after all, but instead of a new beer or bar of soap, it advertises faith in a personal and indisputable manner. Personal witness is the most powerful form of testimony that there is, and the most effective … which, again, is why we see the reaction that just the idea of it generates.”

***

By now, most readers know my “radical” views on abortion. I believe an unborn baby should live, even if conceived during rape or incest. I don’t understand how the baby becomes less human because his mother was raped or had sex with a close relative (consensual or non).

No doubt, the act in which the baby was conceived affects the mother’s feelings about him. But when it comes to the baby’s right to live, it doesn’t change a thing.

Pro-life readers have asked me variations of, “What if the mother’s life is danger? What if she has other children to care for and she dies giving birth to this baby?”

I believe such a scenario is so rare, it’s not even worth arguing over. A particular woman may be at a higher risk of health problems because of a pregnancy, but as far as the pregnancy killing her? In 1810, perhaps, but in 2010, it’s a stretch. Regardless, I can’t qualify my position on abortion based on “life of the mother” arguments.

Most women kill the baby because they don’t want the baby.

The doctor tending to the mother of University of Florida’s Heisman trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow advised her to kill him. Medication used to treat dysentery caused placental abruption. The doctor thought the baby would be stillborn, anyway, but Tebow’s mother chose to give him a chance to live.

And he did.

America will see the homeschooled Tim Tebow (who wears “John 3:16” on his eyeblack) and his mother during the Super Bowl next month. They’ll deliver a pro-life message in a commercial sponsored by Focus on the Family. Naturally, pro-aborts are having a collective hissy fit:

“Shut up and play ball!”

This country needs more young Christian men like Tebow, men who stand for what’s right and refuse to cave to peer pressure. Young people struggling to live the Christian life (yes, Christians do struggle!) could use more high-profile Christians bucking the system and risking ridicule for God’s glory.

If Tebow decides to go public with a sexually-abstinent-until-marriage message, even better.

Spoiler Warning

When I first heard about “The Book of Eli,” my first impression was “must-see.” Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman in the same movie? I’m there. I avoided spoilers, but I remember seeing a headline that the movie was “friendly” to Christians and one calling it offensive or insulting to Christians.

I was wary. Was the title alluding to some “lost,” non-canonical book of the Bible called “The Book of Eli,” which would enlighten the post-apocalyptic world? Was it a lost book of the Bible that, if found before the apocalypse, could have prevented it?

Today I saw “The Book of Eli,” liked it, and concluded it’s neither pro-Christian nor anti-Christian.

Story (If you’ve seen the movie, skip this part if you like. Pardon typos!)

A man named Eli walks through a post-apocalypse Mad-Max, lawless world with a mysterious book in his backpack. Water is scarce, and so is human decency. Eli beats back an ambush (understatement!) and witnesses a group of “travelers” shoot a man and rape his female companion (no gratuitous images of the attack). Eli doesn’t stop the attack, because he knows he needs to focus on his mission, which is taking him west.

He stops in a sort of barter town to charge a battery and replenish his water. Gary Oldman’s character, Carnegie, is leader of the town and wants the book Eli possesses and asks Eli to stick around. Eli declines. Carnegie “invites” Eli to stay overnight and think it over. Carnegie sends his blind girlfriend’s (wife’s?) daughter, Solara, to convince him (ahem) to give up the book. Eli doesn’t take the bait.

Eli clearly is on a mission with the book. Although Solara can’t read, he doesn’t want her (or anyone else) to even touch it. Carnegie says if he had the book, people would listen to him. He and his men could establish more towns and run their small new world. What is this book?

Jump-cut to Eli escaping and killing most of Carnegie’s men, and injuring Carnegie in the leg. Naturally, to slow things down plot-wise, Solara follows him out of town from distance. He ditches her but returns to save her from gang-rape. We learn that whatever caused the widespread devastation happened 31 years previous. Eli and Carnegie are old enough to remember a time when people had “more than they needed.” Eli tells Solara a voice told him to go west with the book.

Carnegie and his men catch up with Eli and Solara, Eli is shot, and Carnegie and his men take the book and the girl. At this point I’m thinking Carnegie in fact doesn’t have the book, and Eli pulled a switcheroo. As it turns out, Carnegie does have the book. But there’s a catch.

Meanwhile, on the way back to barter town against her will, Solara strangles the driver, which causes the vehicle to flip over. Not only does she survive, she gets out of the car, unpins a grenade, and throws it under one of the returning vehicles. Boom. Gone. Carnegie decides not to go after the girl. He has the book. That’s all that matters.

Solara returns to retrieve Eli, but he’s gone. She finds him on the road, and they continue west to San Francisco. They row across the bay to a museum-like place, which apparently preserves and restores artifacts from the old world.

Back to Carnegie in barter town. He opens the book and looks at the pages, stunned. The book he risked lives and lost men for is in Braille, which he can’t read. He asks his blind girlfriend to read it, but she claims she’s forgotten how. A lie, obviously. This is her revenge for the way he’s treated her and her daughter.

Back to the museum. Here is the point of the whole movie, the whole journey: the book is the Bible, King James Version. The museum has been searching for a copy of it. Eli has memorized the Bible and begins to dictate it to the museum guy. After his work is done, he dies. The museum guy puts a printed and bound copy of the Bible (dubbed “New King James Version”)next to the Koran and other books.

This is not the full plot, and some of the facts and order of events may not be accurate. These are my recollections based on one viewing a couple hours ago.

Commentary

So, did the voice of…God?…tell Eli to read and memorize the Bible to preserve it, or was he delusional? First, the book is in Braille, but throughout the movie, Eli obviously wasn’t blind. Or was he? Did “God” gave him sight for his mission, or the brief ability to read Braille?

Second, the Bible is the world’s best selling book. It’s not plausible that one would be unable to find a copy a mere 31 years after an apocalypse. If a biography of Mussolini and a copy of The Da Vinci Code are still around, surely one would find copies of the Bible. Then again, maybe there are other people like Eli wandering the planet bringing Bibles and other books to places of restoration and preservation.

Was Eli delusional in thinking a voice told him to go west? He may have heard about the museum, and through years of walking, convinced himself that a voice told him to go. It definitely makes the journey more spiritual.

Why did Carnegie want the Bible? Did he know the book he wanted was the Bible? Why would having it mean he’d rule over more people?

I was pleased when I realized this mysterious book was–lo and behold– God’s revelation. From a Christian standpoint, this is good. Let’s assume Eli was guided by the God of the Bible. He persevered through adversity, memorized God’s Word, and dictated it for preservation. We Christians believe that for thousands of years, God has supernaturally protected and preserved his revelation. The movie gives the impression that Eli is the only person left who knows what’s in the Bible, however, and only he (or another Braille reader) can reveal it.

Hmmm…God, Creator of the universe, has put all his eggs into one basket, so to speak? The Gospel of Jesus Christ would be lost to new generations but for Eli?

I don’t recall if Eli mentioned God at the museum. Who will the museum guy say is the author of the book: Eli or men of old inspired by the Holy Spirit?

When I saw a “rare” copy of the Koran and other holy books, I thought perhaps there were others like Eli, “walking in faith” to San Francisco to help preserve civilizations’ important books. If so, did these people also hear a voice tell them to go west?

The Bible teaches that through Jesus Christ the Son is the only way to God the Father. If this is true, then other faiths claiming otherwise are wrong. If the God of the Bible indeed told Eli to memorize the book and go to the museum and dictate it, would that same God also lead others to do the same with the Koran or the Tipitaka? My first impulse is to say no. But I don’t know. For reasons of his own, God has allowed false gospels to spread, all to his glory. But I can’t believe that God, as revealed in the Bible, would empower and guide someone to risk his life to preserve the Koran.

The movie is neither pro- nor anti-Christian, in my opinion. Preserving important books after an apocalypse is good. Risking one’s life to protect what’s probably the only copy of the Bible is even better.

Head-Shaking-Time-For-Football Moment

At this point, I have to laugh. It’s only a movie, and people will divine their own meaning (pardon the pun) from it.

Based on these and other impressions, here’s my interpretation of the movie:

At an earlier point, Eli decided to go to the museum, because he’d heard people there restored and preserved important books. Walking alone for so many years, traumatized by the destruction of civilization and rampant violence, and having to kill or be killed, Eli convinced himself that a voice in his head told him to keep going west. Over the years, he forgot the specific location, and the journey became spiritual for him.

I can’t remember the last time I blogged a movie. It’s rare that something out of Hollywood makes this kind of impression of me these days. Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman were the draw, and finding out the mysterious book was the Bible was the inspiration.

Rest easy, everybody! Gotta get ready for pre-game.

Watch the Blogs for Life Conference, sponsored by the Family Research Council, starting at 8:30 a.m. EST. The speaker roster includes the fantastic Jill Stanek, blogger and former labor and delivery nurse, and Americans United for Life’s Charmaine Yoest, one of my favorite people in the universe

My thoughts, originally published on Townhall in 2006. I was kind of ornery back then!

On January 8, 2006, I attended the Justice Sunday III conference at Greater Exodus Baptist Church, a predominantly black church in Philadelphia. Reverend Herbert Lusk preached passionately against abortion and called it murder. Today, I will attend the Blogs4Life Conference, then head to the National Mall for the March for Life rally. I hope to see a large number of the kind of people who nodded in agreement with Rev. Lusk’s sermon.

Black women are three times as likely to have abortions as their white counterparts. Blacks and Hispanics are about 25 percent of the population, yet they account for 57 percent of all abortions. Aside from the fact that abortion is murder, there are two very important reasons why black people should be represented in great numbers at the March for Life rally:

Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was the ultimate white supremacist

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America makes a futile effort to deny that its founder Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist. Eugenics is a pseudo-science that claims some races are genetically superior and more fit to survive than others. As a eugenicist, Sanger’s goals were to discourage the “unfit” and “inferior” from reproducing. In her 1922 book Pivot of Civilization, she called for segregation of “morons, misfits, and the maladjusted” and sterilization of “genetically inferior races.”

Can you guess which race in particular she considered genetically inferior?

Sanger even suggested that the federal government pay “obviously unfit parents” not to have children and advocated limiting and discouraging “overfertility of the mentally and physically defective.”

In 1916, Sanger founded the Birth Control League, the forerunner of Planned Parenthood. She appointed a man named Lothrop Stoddard, a future Nazi sympathizer, fellow eugenicist and author of The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy to the Board of Directors. At some point, after Adolph Hitler’s atrocities against the Jews became known, Sanger changed the league’s name to Planned Parenthood, because “birth control” was too closely associated with eugenics.

More controversial is Sanger’s “Negro Project,” devised in 1939. The eugenicist set out to implicate black ministers and doctors in her efforts to spread her message of contraception, sterilization, and abortion in the black community. “The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it occurs to any of their more rebellious members,” she wrote.

People in poorer areas, particularly the South, were producing “alarmingly more than their share” of babies. Sanger was able to enlist black men such as W.E.B. Dubois and Dr. Adam Clayton Powell (a minister) to her cause. Even Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a part to play. In 1966, he received an award from Planned Parenthood, writing, “There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts.”

Margaret Sanger’s project worked better than she could have hoped. Not only do black women have abortions at higher rates, a solid 90 percent of black voters shamelessly cast ballots for the Democratic Party, an unabashed supporter of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood targets minority women

Sanger would be very proud of what her modest Birth Control League has become.

The Cybercast News Service compared the location of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics with population figures from the 2000 Census:

In nearly two-thirds (62.5 percent) of the comparisons, the communities with a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic had a higher percentage of blacks than the state did as a whole.

In Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts and Ohio, the communities containing all of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics had much higher black populations than their respective states, while Idaho, Kentucky, North Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming — all of which have low black populations — have none of the organization’s abortion facilities.

Two states with high black populations — Louisiana (32.5 percent) and Mississippi (36.3 percent) — also have no Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, due in large part to the strength of pro-life forces in that part of the nation and state laws that restrict access to abortion, according to Jim Sedlak, executive director of STOPP International.

Even after her death, Sanger’s Negro Project lives on. Black ministers and so-called civil rights organizations that support Planned Parenthood ensure that minority women remain targets. Carlton W. Veazey is a minister, supporter of Planned Parenthood, and president and CEO of an organization once called the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, now disguised as the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC).

Veazey founded a program called the Black Church Initiative, purportedly in response to the high pregnancy rate among black teens. According to RCRC’s web site, the initiative “encourages and assists African American clergy and laity in addressing teen childbearing, sexuality education, unintended pregnancies, and other reproductive health issues within the context of African American culture and religion.”

For the first time in its 95-year history, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which once fought to protect black lives, took an official position in favor of abortion in 2004.

While black liberals and so-called men of God continue to align themselves with Margaret Sanger’s “offspring,” I intend to campaign for the protection of all unborn babies, no matter what race or genetic inheritance.

“You speak the name Jesus Christ…and all hell breaks loose…it has always been thus. It is explosive. And I didn’t even say the name in that way. I simply spoke of the Christian faith, but that was enough to trigger this reaction. It triggers a very powerful reaction in people who do not share the faith and who do not believe in it.” – Brit Hume on The O’Reilly Factor

No other religion offers the kind of redemption the Christian faith offers. The Bible teaches this as a fact, and true Christians believe it. In our PC society, however, a Christian cannot, without stirring up anger, state a plain and powerful (and non-violent) truth taught and illustrated in his own holy book!

It is offensive and insulting, according to some, to say that Buddhism doesn’t offer forgiveness and redemption as the Christian faith does. Why?

Would secularists have had hissy fits if an adherent to Buddhism or follower of Allah had said on a cable news show that so-called Christian Ted Haggard, who solicited a male prostitute, should seek forgiveness and redemption in Buddhism or Islam? Would they be ranting and raving about separation of church and state (more like separation of church and the public arena).

The questions are rhetorical.

No other name on earth generates such strong reactions as the name Jesus Christ. The Gospel message, especially the exclusive claim that no one can enter heaven but through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is offensive to those who don’t believe it. It has always been that way and will remain so until Christ returns.

If you don’t know Christian apologist James White, you really must listen to his webcast, Reformed or “Calvinist” Christians especially. He addresses the Brit Hume “controversy” on his latest program. Download the show to hear what James says about the quasi-religion of secularism.

Subscribe via iTunes here.

Update: Says Ann Coulter:

“In The Washington Post, Tom Shales demanded that Hume apologize, saying he had ‘dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet.’

“Is Buddhism about forgiveness? Because, if so, Buddhists had better start demanding corrections from every book, magazine article and blog posting ever written on the subject, which claims Buddhists don’t believe in God, but try to become their own gods.

“I can’t imagine that anyone thinks Tiger’s problem was that he didn’t sufficiently think of himself as a god, especially after that final putt in the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year.
…
“God sent his only son to get the crap beaten out of him, die for our sins and rise from the dead. If you believe that, you’re in. Your sins are washed away from you — sins even worse than adultery! — because of the cross… Cristianity is simultaneously the easiest religion in the world and the hardest religion in the world.”

Related post: Jews Need to be “Perfected”: What Ann Coulter Was Trying to Say

Carrying a baby conceived in a brutal, illegal, immoral, or ill-advised act has got to be tough, whether you want him or not. But this is where sacrifice comes in. The innocent child should not be murdered because of how he was conceived.

The Advocate is a student magazine created by Lila Rose, the pro-lifer who exposed Planned Parenthood covering up statutory rape and lying about an unborn baby’s development. In the Winter 2009-2010 issue is a story about a woman conceived during a rape. The five-page PDF file may or may not open. No idea why, but you can read it at Live Action.

Warning: to read the story, you must scroll past graphic images of fetal parts and an intact dead baby.

Rebecca Kiessling almost didn’t make it. An excerpt:

“In 1968, her mother was brutally attacked at knife-point by a serial rapist in Michigan. The police quickly referred her mother to a rape counselor, who presented abortion as the only option. Abortion was illegal in Michigan at the time, but the counselor recommended a “back-alley” abortionist. Her mother refused the abortion due to the unsanitary conditions of these clinics.

“Rebecca’s mother was then referred to a more expensive abortionist, and she was told to meet someone at night near the Detroit Institute of Arts. The person would approach her, say her name, blindfold her, put her in the back seat of a car, and drive her to the secret abortion clinic for the procedure. Uncomfortable with these requirements, Rebecca’s mother decided to carry the pregnancy to term and put Rebecca up for adoption.”

The pregnant woman’s motives for changing her mind are irrelevant. That she decided to spare her baby is all that matters. It’s easier, I suppose, for a pregnant woman who doesn’t want her baby to kill him, rather than tolerating his presence for nine months and giving him to a family who wants to love him.

Additionally, some folks are misreading and misinterpreting Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.

Update II: Christian apologist and author James White writes (emphases in original):

“The secularists are, of course, howling in protest, but if you read what they are saying, one obvious underlying theme comes to the fore. No one is offering reasoned, objective criticism of the substance of Hume’s comments, because, quite simply, he is right. Buddhism does not, in fact, provide for redemption and forgiveness, but instead directs one to look inward for enlightenment and eventual freedom from suffering (via freedom from desire). But redemption? Not in this life, for in its classical expression, this would involve a long process of moving toward enlightenment through many lifetimes. In any case, secularists do not care about the objective truth contained in Hume’s words, but instead they are enraged that he would actually dare to express his thoughts in public—the realm over which they now claim absolute authority and control.”

***
Get ready for the inevitable Brit Hume backlash over this:

That’s right. FOX News analyst Brit Hume, a Christian, advises Tiger Woods to become a Christian for true forgiveness and redemption.

Reams will be written in response to Hume’s statements, and I want to respond to at least one backlash post. Liberal Washington Monthly blogger Steve Benen’s a bit perturbed:

“It’s hard to even know where to start with something like this. How many high-profile Christians have had damaging sex scandals of late? Why is Buddhism deemed inadequate for those with family problems? Why is a senior political analyst for a so-called “news” network proselytizing, on the air, during one of the network’s ‘news’ programs?”

First, that “many high-profile Christians have had damaging sex scandals” doesn’t negate or contradict Christ’s call to repent of our sins, to confess faith in his finished work on the cross to blot out sin, and to obey his commands. Christians are still sinners, living in fallen bodies in a fallen world, and our behavior doesn’t absolve unbelievers of their call to believe.

Yes, I cringe every time I hear or read about people, high-profile or otherwise, who say they’re Christians and yet do the most shameful things. In fact, I’m ashamed of myself for the “un-Christian” things I do, even though I know, in my bones, I am forgiven.

The Bible teaches that when we become saved, Christ is working in us to make us more like him, and that work will be complete. Sometimes we rebel and give in to temptation. Living the Christian life in a world filled with vice is a struggle, at least for this Christian. But Christ’s grace and mercy toward us is boundless.

That’s what unbelievers don’t seem to get. The Christian isn’t sinless; he is forgiven. If that seems “unfair” to unbelievers, consider this: the God of justice who must punish sin is also the God of mercy. If he were fair, we’d all walk through the gates of hell. But because he is merciful, he’s offering YOU a way to avoid those gates. His name is Jesus Christ.

It’s also possible these “high-profile Christians have had damaging sex scandals” weren’t Christians at all.

Second, Brit wasn’t talking about whether Woods’s can recover his family. He said “whether he can recover as a person” depends on his faith. Hume added:

“He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

In this context, I understand “total recovery” to mean being born again in Christ, becoming a new creature, which won’t necessarily bring Woods’s family back together.

Then again, I admit my bias toward the Christian faith.

Third, about Hume’s proselytizing, while I admit I’d have a problem with a Muslim proselytizing on a news show, it would be a personal problem. There’s no separation of church and news program in the Constitution, just as there’s no separation of church and state in the document. If news analysts want to inject their faith into the format, why not? It’s not unethical, illegal, immoral, or fattening. It may offend the sensibilities of some viewers, but as I said, it’s a personal problem.

Now everybody’s talking about this
New decade
Like you say the magic numbers
Then just say goodbye to
The stupid mistakes you made
Oh my memory serves me far too well

Post-dating is so lovely. I recommend you do it often.

Hope you’re having a safe night.

Rest easy, everybody!

*The new decade doesn’t start until 2011, but you know what I mean!

“So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.’” – Luke 2: 1-12

Merry Christmas week, everybody!

Unfortunately, I don’t think I get to decide that.

A periodical called Publishers Weekly, an informative read for writer types, put the image below on its cover, itself a photo from a book about black people. The PW cover announces “New books and trends in African American publishing” inside.

Someone at PW apparently thought the cover and the copy was clever word-imagery play. (Misfire!) I don’t usually complain about magazine covers or photographs, or comment on other people’s comments about “offensive” images, but this one leaves me with a headache.

The afro picks image as “art” in a book of photos isn’t a problem. The way PW used it is a problem.

This blogger sums up the problem nicely (emphasis added):

“The photo Reid chose is arresting — and ironically comes from ‘Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present,’ a book celebrating the diverse beauty of black women. But PW’s cover misses the mark because it turns a compelling photo into a joke with the ‘Afro Picks’ text. Meant as an inside joke, it’s subject to all sorts of misinterpretation in the larger world, Clearly, the topic of image is too sensitive to be tossed off lightly. At least the PW editors were quick to note their error in judgment.”

The video below is part of Live Action’s Rose Acuna Project, which will document Planned Parenthood’s so-called counseling techniques. A Planned Parenthood worker tells an undercover “pregnant” woman her baby has only “heart tones” at seven weeks. “Heart beat is when the fetus is active in the uterus…can survive…which is about 17 to 18 weeks.”

Can you believe it? Where did she get that information? A baby’s heart doesn’t beat until after the first trimester? Abortion counselors are supposed to provide truthful information. As the video I linked to yesterday shows, the baby’s heart is beating at four weeks. Some sources say it starts beating as early as 18 days.

Then the counselor says the life growing inside her isn’t a baby.

“So when does it become a baby?” the woman says.

“At birth,” says the counselor.

I’m sure abortion counselors across America and the “pro-choice” in general play semantics games to downplay the truth. I wonder if the counselor in the video has children. When she was pregnant, would she have thought the life she carried was anything other than a baby?

Next, the woman asks the abortionist himself when “it” becomes a baby, and he says, with a straight face, I presume, “When you’re like seven months pregnant or so. Six, seven months pregnant. Right now you’re just a little more than two months.”

I’ll repeat that. A doctor, who knows he’s lying, tells a pregnant woman that the life growing and developing in her womb is not a baby.

I get it. I really do. The abortionist’s aim is to dehumanize the unborn child as much as possible to lessen the pregnant woman’s guilt and to accomplish (Ka-ching!) the killing.

I’m stunned, I must confess, that people really believe the U.S. Constitution gives women a “right of privacy” to do this, and medical ethics groups, or whatever they have, allow the wholesale slaughter of unborn human beings.

I better go now, before I say something un-Christian.