If Obama's proposal for faith-based initiatives succeeds, how do you think most conservative organizations like Prison Fellowship will respond? And should conservative believers work with those groups who take the money, or stick with conservative organizations like Prison Fellowship?

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Encouraging the Armies of Compassion
Faith-Based Initiatives

July 18, 2008

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.

At the beginning of his administration, President Bush established the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The idea was as simple as it was controversial: The federal government would work with faith-based groups to tackle tough social problems.

Last June, at a conference attended by 1,500 leaders of faith-based and community groups, the president recognized the progress that has been made between the government and these groups over the past eight years; for example, partnering with organizations that help ex-prisoners make a successful transition back to society.

The idea is even spreading to the states -- Alabama, where the government, for example, will coordinate, but not fund, efforts by the faith community to help ex-prisoners find employment, housing, health care, and spiritual guidance.

The Church has brought enormous resources -- and most importantly, love -- to the table for years in meeting social needs. For example, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and especially recently during the horrific flooding in the Midwest, it was churches and community organizations that reached victims quickly and effectively with aid and compassion.

Indeed, in a speech last month, President Bush said that he considers faith-based groups the “foot soldiers” in the “armies of compassion.”

“Every day you mend broken hearts with love,” he said. “You mend broken lives with hope. And you mend broken communities with countless acts of extraordinary kindness.”

And then he said something I would never expect a president to say (but I am glad he did): “Bureaucracies can put money in people’s hands, but they cannot put hope in a person’s heart.”

Groups like Prison Fellowship are on the front lines bringing the hope of Jesus Christ to the hopeless and marginalized. And though we do not take any government money, I applaud President Bush for recognizing the fact that there is a place for partnerships between government and faith-based groups.

There are hopeful signs that this good work will continue.

In speaking about helping ex-prisoners reenter society, Republican presidential candidate John McCain recently said, “Beyond government, there are churches and community groups all across our country that stand ready to help . . . And these groups will have the committed support of my administration.”

And just last week, Barack Obama proposed to expand the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, providing $500 million for faith-based groups to assist the poor. One caveat -- Obama’s proposal may come with a string attached: The Senator said he would ensure that faith groups accepting federal funds will not be able to restrict who they hire. If that is true, that would be a deal breaker: Religious liberty is an empty phrase if the government can dictate who faith-based groups can hire.

Compassion has been, and always should be, the role of the faith community. Let’s pray that our future president -- whoever he may be -- will continue to recognize and support the role faith groups play in changing lives and encourage their acts of love.

This is brief and to the point.. So, how are we doing as a church?

How to Shape Your Child's Faith, 1

from Focus on the Family

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Host: Dr. James Dobson An alarming number of young adults who grew up in Christian homes later abandon their faith during the years following high school - leaving bewildered parents to wonder where they went wrong. How can this troubling trend be reversed? What can Mom and Dad do to instill an enduring faith in their children? On today's broadcast, Awana President Jack Eggar and his wife, Dona, offer insight from their years of experience leading the popular youth organization. The Eggars explain why churches and parents must partner together to shape young lives and why parents often overlook the significance of the spiritual influence they have on their children.
"Children may be hearing one thing in the church ... but when they get home - even to Christian parents - if it's not being lived, they get a mixed message ... So it's crucial that we live godly lives in front of our children at home." - Dona Eggar Proverbs 22:6

Amen to this!

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Oil and the Poor
It’s Time to Drill

July 16, 2008

According to a recent REUTERS report, a leading Senate Democrat “would consider supporting opening up new areas for offshore oil and gas drilling.”

Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the majority whip, said that, subject to certain conditions, he -- and possibly even Majority Leader Reid -- are “open to drilling and responsible production.” Until now, they have been adamantly opposed.

REUTERS is correct when it implies that this grudging, newfound openness is related to “the spike in oil prices to record highs above $145 per barrel.” It is a shame it took those kinds of prices -- and the pain they cause -- to spur long-needed action.

I have got to admit: As each day goes by, I am growing angrier over the debate about oil prices. Elites pontificate that if we simply let the prices rise, the country will be forced to develop alternate energy sources. People will drive less and use less fuel, and that would benefit the environment.

I use the word "pontificate" deliberately, because the tone is often condescending -- as if they were telling a young child to “eat your vegetables.” Hand-in-hand with the pontification is a stubborn resistance to looking for new sources of domestic oil production, either onshore or offshore, or in Alaska.

The implicit message is that allowing such drilling would interfere with the lesson that the American people need to learn.

Ok, we have got to conserve more; I agree. And we have got to find alternatives to foreign oil. But, in the meantime, the “lessons” the elites are seeking to teach us are killing the world’s economy. And nobody feels the pain more than working-class Americans and the poor.

Historian Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote about talking with some people at a rural gas station in central California. These people could not afford a “new fuel-efficient” car, and “they were now spending a day or two of their wages just to fuel their cars for their long rural commutes.”

As Hanson put it, the “truly ethical and environmental solution would require embracing positions long considered anathema” to our elites. “Fairness to the poor and middle class” means lowering oil prices, not raising them as part of some social engineering scheme.

At this point, people object that increased drilling will do nothing to lower gas prices. They insist it will be decades, if not longer, before the increased exploration pays off in new supplies.

Well, they are wrong: Before the moratorium on offshore drilling, oil companies had already discovered billions of barrels of reserves on the California coast. A friend of mine in the industry says they could be online and pumping within two years.

What is more, announcing that we would allow more domestic production would quickly lower prices at the pump -- because traders would be convinced that the supply is going up, not down.

Nobody would benefit more from offshore drilling than working Americans -- those being hurt the most by the status quo.

It is galling to me to watch people who, doubtless, live in large homes, fly in private planes, and are not affected by the price of gas, build their idea of utopia on the backs of the poor. Christians must care about the environment, of course -- but people, especially the poor, come first.

So, if our leaders are, indeed, ready to change this immoral status quo, I say, “What took you so long? And let’s get going now.”

Will we look back on this warning in a few years and say, 'We should have known..'

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What He Could Have Said
Defending Traditional Marriage

June 30, 2008

It was one of the more awkward moments in the presidential campaign. Senator John McCain was appearing on the ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW, and she was asking why McCain did not support same-sex "marriage." A well-prepared DeGeneres made the usual arguments about inclusiveness, and compared those who reject same-sex "marriage" to those who once refused to allow women or blacks to vote. It was all about fairness, she said.

McCain's response? "I just believe in the status of a marriage between a man and a woman . . . We just have a disagreement."

Maybe, given the sensitivity of the situation, that was the best answer Senator McCain could come up with. But suppose the senator and Ms. DeGeneres could talk backstage, away from the glare of TV lights. What could he say to seize the moral high ground? To start, he could discuss the true meaning and purpose of marriage.

In his book, THE CLASH OF ORTHODOXIES, Princeton professor Robert George writes that matrimonial law reflects a moral judgment. That judgment is that marriage is inherently heterosexual, monogamous, and permanent -- a union of one man and one woman. This judgment is based on both the biblical and natural law understandings -- that marriage is a two-in-one flesh communion of persons. This communion is consummated and actualized sexually.

That is, marriage is made real by acts that are reproductive, whether or not these acts result in children. They unite the spouses as a single procreative unit. This organic unity is achieved even by infertile couples. Only a mated pair can be a complete organism capable of human procreation.

By contrast, homosexual acts cannot be procreative and cannot unite people organically. As a result, these acts cannot be marital, which means relationships integrated around them cannot be marriages. In other words, same-sex partners are physically incapable of marriage; it takes a man and a woman to become "one flesh."

I can already hear the arguments your secular neighbors will make: "Okay," they will say, "that's your definition of marriage. But why should your views be imposed on everybody else?"

That is when we have to be ready with additional, non-religious arguments for traditional marriage. For instance, if we expand the meaning of marriage to include same-sex partnerships, on what grounds could we legitimately oppose marriages between three or more people? Or weddings between siblings?

Remember, we are not just defending the Christian view of marriage. Since the beginning of recorded history, virtually every society and every major religion has revered and protected traditional marriage. Why? It is the institution that produces, nurtures, protects, and civilizes children. And marriage is the cornerstone of society's foundational institution: the family.

If the proponents of same-sex "marriage" succeed in foisting it on America, marriage itself would be reduced to nothing more than a legal contract between two (or more!) people. True marriage would be abolished, and the damage to our society would be incalculable.

These are the arguments we all need to learn to defend traditional, true marriage, particularly in those states where constitutional amendments are on the ballot this fall.

It is all about equal rights, the gay “marriage” lobby keeps telling us. We just want the right to marry, like everyone else.

That is what they are telling us. But that is not what they mean. If same-sex “marriage” becomes the law of the land, we can expect massive persecution of the Church.

As my friend Jennifer Roback Morse notes in the NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER, “Legalizing same-sex ‘marriage’ is not a stand-alone policy . . . Once governments assert that same-sex unions are the equivalent of marriage, those governments must defend and enforce a whole host of other social changes.”

The bad news is these changes affect other liberties we take for granted, such as religious freedom and private property rights. Several recent cases give us a sobering picture of what we can expect if we do not actively embrace -- and even promote -- same-sex “marriage.”

For instance, a Methodist retreat center recently refused to allow two lesbian couples to use a campground pavilion for a civil union ceremony. The state of New Jersey punished the Methodists by revoking the center’s tax-exempt status -- a vindictive attack on the Methodists’ religious liberty.

In Massachusetts, where judges imposed gay marriage a few years ago, Catholic Charities was ordered to accept homosexual couples as candidates for adoption. Rather than comply with an order that would be harmful to children, Catholic Charities closed down its adoption program.

California public schools have been told they must be “gay friendly,” as Roback Morse notes. But it will not stop with public schools. Just north of the border in Quebec, the government told a Mennonite school that it must conform to provincial law regarding curriculum -- a curriculum that teaches children that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle. How long will it be before the U.S. government goes after private schools?

Even speaking out against homosexuality can get you fired. Crystal Dixon, an associate vice president at the University of Toledo, was fired after writing an opinion piece in the TOLEDO FREE PRESS in support of traditional marriage . . . Fired -- for exercising her First Amendment rights!

Promoters of same-sex “marriage” seem to go out of their way to target Christian businesses and churches. Their goal, it seems, is not the right to “marry,” but to punish anyone who disagrees with them.

Clearly, there is a spiritual battle going on here: Christians are under attack because they are a public witness to the fact that a holy God created us male and female, and we will always put obedience to Him and His laws above obedience to any earthly demand for loyalty.

The coming persecution of Christians is one more reason why we need to get involved with efforts to pass laws at the state and federal level defining marriage as a legal relationship between one man and one woman. We must protect, not only genuine marriage, but also many of the freedoms we now take for granted: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom to use private property the way we see fit -- all are under threat.

And we must tell our friends and neighbors why gay “marriage” is not just about equality: It is about forcing religious believers to accept the validity of the homosexual lifestyle -- or else.