al-qaeda resurgence in iraq
life
Ja n ua ry 25 , 20 14
The wonder of
Roe v. Wade at 41 More protective laws
Should pastors be silent? Intellectually lazy judges Abortion after rape?
9-month-old Vena’s mom was a client at Hope Pregnancy Center in Ontario, Ore.
This is the gripping, true story of two worlds that collided during World War II and the courage of a young Christian woman who fought in the Polish Home Army. She later went on to establish The Friends of Israel’s work in Communist Poland. This fabulous new book by Elwood McQuaid, a former executive director of The Friends of Israel and colleague of Halina’s, shows how faith in Christ can move mountains—even in the unlikeliest of times.
Elwood McQuaid is a wellknown author and expert on Israel and the Middle East and former editor-in-chief of the award-winning magazine Israel My Glory, where his articles appear regularly. He is also a frequent contributor to The Jerusalem Post.
To order, visit foi.org, or call The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry at 1.800.345.8461 USA Monday - Friday 8 a.m. - 9 p.m. (Eastern Time)
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Contents , / ,
33 Roe at 41
Perfect ears, perfect God, fallen man
34 State-level surge
Last year was a good one for pro-life politics in America’s state capitals
40 Still-silent shepherds
Some evangelical pastors have several reasons for not preaching on abortion—and one is fear of man
46 One in a billion
A terrible health condition has helped Christian Buchanan to be a blessing to many
5 News 14 Quotables 16 Quick Takes
50 Urban life
A city hobbled by poverty and violence is about to get its first pro-life pregnancy center
52 Resuscitating compassion
God is in the middle of this story of a doctor who saved a baby who saved the doctor
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21
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62
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21 Movies & TV 24 Books 26 Q&A 28 Music
55 Lifestyle 58 Technology 60 Science 61 Houses of God 62 Sports 63 Money 64 Religion
3 Joel Belz 18 Janie B. Cheaney 30 Mindy Belz 67 Mailbag 71 Andrée Seu Peterson 72 Marvin Olasky WORLD (ISSN -X) (USPS -) is published biweekly ( issues) for . per year by God’s World Publications, (no mail) All Souls Crescent, Asheville, NC ; () -. Periodical postage paid at Asheville, NC, and additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. © WORLD News Group. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WORLD, PO Box , Asheville, NC -.
1/8/14 11:56 AM
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“The earth is the L’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” —Psalm : Marvin Olasky Mindy Belz Timothy Lamer Jamie Dean Janie B. Cheaney, Susan Olasky, Andrée Seu Peterson, John Piper, Edward E. Plowman, Cal Thomas, Lynn Vincent Emily Belz, J.C. Derrick, Daniel James Devine, Sophia Lee, Angela Lu, Edward Lee Pitts Zachary Abate, Megan Basham, Anthony Bradley, Tim Challies, Alicia M. Cohn, John Dawson, Amy Henry, Mary Jackson, Thomas S. Kidd, Michael Leaser, Jill Nelson, Arsenio Orteza, Tiffany Owens, Stephanie Perrault, Emily Whitten Les Sillars June McGraw
Send Him. David K. Freeland Robert L. Patete Rachel Beatty Krieg Barrie Arla J. Eicher Dawn Wilson
Thousands of native missionaries in poorer countries effectively take the gospel to unreached people groups in areas that are extremely difficult for American missionaries to reach.
Al Saiz, Angela Scalli, Alan Wood
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Joel Belz
Polarizing president Barack Obama’s trouble with the truth is devastating public trust
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CAROLYN KASTER/AP
I B O is not the most polarizing political figure of our lifetime, it’s hard to think who might challenge him for the title. Take a look again at the blue-and-red electoral map from November a year ago. Take away a tiny handful of states where the voting was close—Florida, Virginia, Ohio. Nearly all the rest are emphatically on one side or the other. You couldn’t get much bluer, for example, than California, or much redder than Texas. If I heard it once during the campaign, I heard it a hundred times: Your choice this year, dear voter, is a stark contrast between two mutually exclusive views of government. There’s little overlap here, analysts stressed. You can’t have a little of both. You’ve got to pick one way or the other. But if that’s the way things really are, let’s not complain! If we in fact live in a country where we can repeatedly and predictably enjoy a robust and honest debate over the kind of government we want to have, let’s be thankful to God for such openness. I’m old enough now to have been emotionally involved in presidential election cycles (starting with Eisenhower and Stevenson in )—during which I considered myself a “winner” nine times and a “loser” seven times. That’s a pretty good balance, achieved through peaceful elections without bloodshed—and available to only a small proportion of the world’s population. If, as I say, that’s the way things really are. If, as I say, we can enjoy a robust and honest debate. The fact is, though, that things simply aren’t these days the way they used to be. Turns out that the last round of presidential elections was based on anything but honest premises. Explicit lies—repeated dozens of times by our incumbent president about his healthcare law, the Benghazi attack, and other things—were the foundation stones of his campaign for re-election. Yes, I’m well aware that skeptics and cynics—and even fair-minded observers—will tell you that dishonesty is par for the course in presidential elections, and indeed in most political contexts. And I will not deny the charge in a broad application.
Email: jbelz@wng.org
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And much more specifically, I know how quickly Mr. Obama’s political opponents point to what they call an equally heinous case of dishonesty with the claim by former President George W. Bush that weapons of mass destruction were present in Iraq a dozen years ago. But even if it were true, that would be no justification for more lying. Yet that charge is itself demonstrably false—and especially so because of the long list of the Bush opponents at the time who publically joined him in the assertion. Mistaken, perhaps. But deliberately lying? No way does the charge make common sense. But the dishonesty that has characterized the current presidency is of a different order. It is purposeful, brazen, calculated, pervasive, and pernicious. It corrodes the whole process of public discourse and debate. I’ve been asking my peers about their own impression of things—comparing the present state of things to what they remember from the last years. In perhaps a couple of dozen informal inquiries, I have yet to find a single person, roughly my age, who remembers watching public trust being devastated the way it has been in recent months. “Just imagine,” one friend pointed out, “what would happen if a university president got caught lying in such a manner. Or the executive of a missions or relief organization. Or a corporation executive— especially let’s say in an airline, where trust is allimportant. They’d all be sent packing.” Another acquaintance noted how morale in any of those entities would be shot through and through if the top man were similarly demonstrated to be a serial liar. In our public debate, we’ve had polarizing disagreements before. We’ve had distortion of the facts and fudging of the truth. It’s telling, though, when thoughtful people look back over their lifetimes and can’t remember ever seeing such a blatant assault on integrity in public office. Polarizing president? Yes—but not nearly so much because of the substance of his positions as because of his reckless disregard for simply telling the truth. A
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/8/14 11:26 AM
Challenge
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For graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program and other important info visit go.bju.edu/rates. (12044) 8/13
POTENTIAL
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Dispatches News > Quotables > Quick Takes
JAN. 5: A person in St. Louis struggles to cross a street in blowing and falling snow. Frigid air descended upon much of the country, dropping temperatures in some areas to record lows and prompting wind chill warnings from Montana to Florida. Jeff Roberson/AP
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J a n u ar y 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 • W O R L D
5
1/8/14 9:56 AM
Dispatches > News T h u r s d a y, D e c.
Christmas bombs Terrorists attacked St. John’s Catholic Church and other Christian areas of Baghdad on Christmas Day. The multiple bombings in the Iraqi capital killed dozens and injured more than . The bomb outside the church detonated in the parking lot just as worshippers left the Christmas service. Three other explosions hit a crowded market in the surrounding neighborhood of Dora. Officials put the death toll for the bombings at , but some sources said the number was closer to . Insurgent attacks in Iraq are increasing, forcing Christians to flee the country. A decade ago Iraq had an estimated . million Christians. Now Christians number about ,. “I used to tell my people, ‘Please don’t leave,’” said Canon Andrew White, vicar of St. George’s, the largest church in Baghdad. “Now I can’t say that. How can you say to people to stay when they are being killed?”
Lumps of coal
A rush of last-minute online buying and poor weather led to Christmas shipping delays for FedEx and UPS. When some customers from around the country did not receive their Christmas gifts in time, companies tried to soften the blow by playing Santa Claus. Amazon offered refunds on shipping charges and a credit toward a future purchase.
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Died Former Red Army sergeant Mikhail Kalashnikov, , creator of the AK-, died on Dec. in Russia. Kalashnikov grew up in a peasant family but became famous for designing weapons. The AK-, which stands for “Automatic by Kalashnikov, model of ,” became the weapon of choice from soldiers to terrorists (and even bank robbers) for its simplicity, durability, and reliability.
Ukrainian arrests Police in Ukraine arrested three suspects in the brutal Dec. assault on journalist and opposition activist Tetyana Chornovol. The attack left Chornovol with a concussion, a broken nose, and tissue damage on her face. Chornovol had been investigating the finances of several Ukrainian political leaders. Her attackers dragged her from her car in the early morning hours and beat her, leaving her in a ditch. President Yanukovych condemned the attack, but several hundred demonstrators blamed the government and staged a protest against the attacks outside the Interior Ministry.
IRAQ: STRINGER/REUTERS/LANDOV • UPS: JULIO CORTEZ/AP • LYNN: MATT ROURKE/AP • CHORNOVOL: STRINGER/REUTERS/LANDOV • KALASHNIKOV: JENS MEYER/AP
We d n e s d a y, D e c.
WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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ROBERTSON: A&E/AP • LEON: U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA/AP • RUSSIA: AP TELEVISION NEWS • KHODORKOVSKY: KAY NIETFELD/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/AP
Free in Philly A Superior Court overturned Monsignor William Lynn’s conviction of child endangerment. The three-judge panel ruled Lynn might have acted horribly but not criminally. Lynn’s trial marked the first time a Roman Catholic Church official faced trial for protecting priests who abused children. Lynn, now , covered up the crimes of abusive priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from to . Lynn, the panel said, “prioritized the archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusive priests” but had not violated laws on the books at the time. Prosecutors are planning to appeal the ruling.
IRAQ: STRINGER/REUTERS/LANDOV • UPS: JULIO CORTEZ/AP • LYNN: MATT ROURKE/AP • CHORNOVOL: STRINGER/REUTERS/LANDOV • KALASHNIKOV: JENS MEYER/AP
ROBERTSON: A&E/AP • LEON: U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA/AP • RUSSIA: AP TELEVISION NEWS • KHODORKOVSKY: KAY NIETFELD/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/AP
S u n d a y, D e c.
Russian bombings
F r i d a y, D e c.
Robertson returns
Facing a mounting backlash and threats of a boycott, the A&E television network reversed its decision to suspend Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson for comments he made regarding homosexuality. Robertson, talking about the gay lifestyle during a magazine interview, paraphrased Corinthians :- where Paul calls homosexuality unrighteous. He also gave a graphic criticism of gay sex. The comments prompted some of his family to acknowledge that Robertson’s comments were coarse, but the Robertson clan stressed that he “is a Godly man” whose beliefs are grounded in the Bible. The gay lobbyist group GLAAD pressured A&E and the program’s sponsors to cut their ties to Robertson. A&E suspended Robertson. But supporters of traditional marriage backed Robertson in an outpouring one GLAAD representative called the biggest he had seen in ½ years with the organization.
Dueling rulings U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III upheld a National Security Agency program that collects Americans’ telephone records in bulk. The ruling came just days after another U.S. district judge, Richard Leon, granted a preliminary injunction against the program for a different plaintiff. The American Civil Liberties Union vowed to appeal Pauley’s ruling.
Weeks before February’s Olympics in Sochi, a suicide bomber killed people at a train station in Russia’s Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad). Authorities believe a female bomber detonated an explosive in front of a metal detector. A day later another suicide bomber killed people on a bus in Volgograd. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Chechen Muslim rebel leader Doku Umarov has called for such attacks against civilians ahead of the Winter Games.
Book reviews Two Christian publishers announced investigations of plagiarism by Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. NavPress is looking into whether Driscoll plagiarized material from a NavPress-published book by Dan Allender, The Wounded Heart. Heart Crossway, publisher of Driscoll’s Love, is conductDeath by Love ing its own “internal review” of his books. Radio host Janet Mefferd first raised concerns about plagiarism by Driscoll in November.
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Released Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, on Dec. . Khodorkovsky, , spent a decade behind bars for fraud and tax evasion charges his supporters said were politically motivated. Forbes ranked Khodorkovsky the world’s th richest person in . But his wealth is largely depleted after authorities dismantled his company, and much of what he has left is tied up in Dutch foundations. Visit our website—wng.org—for breaking news and more
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JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/8/14 11:32 AM
Dispatches > News Tu e s d a y, D e c.
It was a happy new year for several Catholic organizations in Colorado. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—right before heading to Times Square to take part in the city’s official New Year’s celebrations—
Bloody Sudan
Just two years after declaring its independence, South Sudan lurched toward civil war when fighting erupted between soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. By early January, the two factions sent delegations to hold peace talks in Ethiopia, but the violence has spread to at least six of the country’s states, killing more than , people. With at least , civilians fleeing their homes, South Sudanese church leaders pleaded with warring factions to halt hostilities.
Tebow on TV
Accelerating drones
Tim Tebow is returning to football—but he’ll be behind a mic instead of under center. The Heisman Trophy–winning quarterback, released by the New England Patriots in August, will become a college football analyst next season for the new SEC Network. Tebow, a former SEC star with the Florida Gators, will appear on SEC Nation, a traveling pregame show that will visit a different SEC campus each week during the football season. Despite the new gig, Tebow says he hasn’t given up on returning to the NFL.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced plans to develop and test drones for use above the United States, with a goal of having drones sharing the skies with commercial airliners by the end of . Research teams working with the FAA will have sites in Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas, and Virginia. Drones mostly have been used by the military so far, but governments, businesses, and farmers soon hope to launch their own drones.
issued an emergency stay temporarily blocking Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate for groups like Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged in Denver. The groups are part of a classaction lawsuit against the mandate. “The government has lots of ways to deliver contraceptives to people—it doesn’t need to force nuns to participate,” Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund, said in a statement praising the order. Three days later the Obama administration called on Sotomayor, who handles emergency applications from the th Circuit Court of Appeals, to lift the stay. The Department of Justice in court papers said the groups “fail to satisfy the demanding standard for the extraordinary and rarely granted relief they seek.”
SOUTH SUDAN: BEN CURTIS/AP • TEBOW: DAVID J. PHILLIP/AP • SOTOMAYOR: PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP • NUNS: BRENNAN LINSLEY/AP • MARTIN: JOHN BAZEMORE/AP
M o n d a y, D e c.
Died Long-time Associated Press photographer Dave Martin, , died on the field at the
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Georgia Dome in Atlanta, moments after the Chick-fil-A Bowl ended on New Year’s Eve. Martin ran onto the field to get photos of the Texas A&M Aggies celebrating a - win over the Duke Blue Devils. He suddenly collapsed from an apparent heart attack. Martin spent years with AP, covering everything from Super Bowls to the Iraq War to the BP oil spill.
WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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MEMORIAL: HELEN H. RICHARDSON/THE DENVER POST/GETTY IMAGES • ANTARCTIC: ANDREW PEACOCK/WWW.FOOTLOOSEFOTOGRAPHY.COM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/NEWSCOM • FIAT: ANTONIO CALANNI/AP SIMMONS: JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
New Year’s resolution
SOUTH SUDAN: BEN CURTIS/AP • TEBOW: DAVID J. PHILLIP/AP • SOTOMAYOR: PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP • NUNS: BRENNAN LINSLEY/AP • MARTIN: JOHN BAZEMORE/AP
MEMORIAL: HELEN H. RICHARDSON/THE DENVER POST/GETTY IMAGES • ANTARCTIC: ANDREW PEACOCK/WWW.FOOTLOOSEFOTOGRAPHY.COM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/NEWSCOM • FIAT: ANTONIO CALANNI/AP • SIMMONS: JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
T h u r s d a y, J a n .
Antarctic rescue In a five-hour operation, a Chinese helicopter rescued scientists and tourists from a Russian ship stuck in Antarctic sea ice for nine days. The ship traveled to the area to study the effects of global warming. Three icebreakers sent to free the ship failed, and a Chinese ship taking part in the rescue also became stuck. Ice surrounding Antarctica set a new record in , extending more than . million square kilometers according to NASA, despite predictions from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Antarctic sea ice would shrink. We d n e s d a y, J a n .
Asking to forgive The parents of -year-old Claire Davis, murdered at her Arapahoe, Colo., school, said in a New Year’s Day memorial service they have forgiven her killer and others should, too. Davis’ classmate Karl Pierson came to school on Dec. heavily armed and seeking revenge on a teacher when he shot Davis in the head. He then took his own life. Michael Davis told the thousands attending the memorial service the family hopes its forgiveness will help not to “perpetuate this anger and rage and hatred” that led to his daughter’s death.
Smoke signal
Italian engineered
At : a.m., Colorado became the first state in the union to legalize the sale of marijuana for recreational use. Colorado residents can buy an ounce of pot from licensed sellers while nonresidents can buy a quarter of an ounce. The legalization is the result of a constitutional amendment approved by Colorado voters in November. The federal government still considers marijuana illegal.
One of the Big Three automakers, Chrysler, is completing its transition to a European car company. The Italian carmaker Fiat announced it is buying the remaining . percent stake in Chrysler it didn’t already own. The company’s stock price soared after news of the nearly billion deal.
Hercules hits A massive winter storm nicknamed “Hercules” hit the Northeast on Jan. , killing at least nine and closing Boston’s Logan International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jan. . The city of Boxford, Mass., received inches of snow.
Found An Associated Press photographer documenting frigid temperatures in the Northeast accidentally solved
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a missing person case. Jacquelyn Martin took a picture of -year-old Nicholas Simmons in Washington, D.C., four days after he disappeared from his parents’ home in Greece, N.Y., on New Year’s Day. His family and local authorities couldn’t locate the man until his photo showed up with a USA Today story. The man was reunited with his family, but authorities aren’t sure why he left home with only the clothes on his back.
Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com
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JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/8/14 11:38 AM
Disability bust FSU’s Kelvin Benjamin catches the game-winning touchdown pass.
M o n d a y, J a n .
Glorious exit
In the last BCS title game before next season’s introduction of a college football playoff, Florida State came back from a - halftime deficit to score the winning touchdown with seconds left in the game. The lead changed hands three times between the ACC champion Seminoles and the SEC champion Auburn Tigers before Heisman Trophy–winning quarterback Jameis Winston connected with receiver Kelvin Benjamin to put Florida State ahead for good at -. Florida State’s national title win is the first for a non-SEC team in eight years. “The SEC is great football,” said Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher. “I coached in that league for years—I respect every bit of it—but there’s some other folks in this country that can play some football, too.”
Gun battle U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang ruled Chicago’s ban on retail gun sales violates the constitutional rights of its residents. “Certain fundamental rights,” wrote Chang, “are protected by the Constitution, put outside government’s reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to appeal the ruling and has told city attorneys to consider all options to regulate the sale of firearms within the city.
Federal investigators executed one of the largest Social Security disability fraud busts in U.S. history, issuing arrest warrants for people. Authorities say most of the defendants claimed they couldn’t work because of disabilities but actually led active lives, but four of those arrested included a lawyer, a consultant, and two recruiters accused of helping the others defraud the government of million.
Smoked out A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that anti-smoking efforts have saved million Americans from premature deaths over the last years. The study, which comes on the th anniversary of a famous surgeon general report that warned of the dangers of smoking, said percent of Americans smoked before the surgeon general’s warning, while only percent of Americans smoke now.
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Died Alicia Rhett, the oldest living, notable cast member from the classic Gone with the Wind, died on Jan. at age . Rhett’s acting career lasted four years, but it was long enough to land a key role in an iconic film. At age she played India Wilkes, the sister of Ashley Wilkes, the romantic obsession of leading character Scarlett O’Hara. After retiring in , Rhett became a voice coach, radio personality, and artist—sometimes painting portraits of actors while on set.
FSU: CHRIS CARLSON/AP • GUNS: ANTHONY SOUFFLE/MCT/LANDOV • SOCIAL SECURITY: KAMELEON007/ISTOCK • CIGARETTE: MILOSLUZ/ISTOCK • RHETT: WIKIPEDIA
Tu e s d a y, J a n .
WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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KOREA: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GETTY • SEATTLE: SMART DESTINATIONS • IRAN: HEMMAT KHAHI/ISNA/AP • MACINTOSH: AP • LL COOL J: HANDOUT • YELLEN: KRISTOFFER TRIPPLAAR/SIPA/AP • LAROSE: OM GREEN COUNTY JAIL/AP
Dispatches > News
FSU: CHRIS CARLSON/AP • GUNS: ANTHONY SOUFFLE/MCT/LANDOV • SOCIAL SECURITY: KAMELEON007/ISTOCK • CIGARETTE: MILOSLUZ/ISTOCK • RHETT: WIKIPEDIA
KOREA: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GETTY • SEATTLE: SMART DESTINATIONS • IRAN: HEMMAT KHAHI/ISNA/AP • MACINTOSH: AP • LL COOL J: HANDOUT • YELLEN: KRISTOFFER TRIPPLAAR/SIPA/AP • LAROSE: OM GREEN COUNTY JAIL/AP
Jan. 19
Four NFL teams will compete in two separate games today to see which will advance to the Feb. Super Bowl XLVIII. The AFC and NFC Championship games represent the final time in an NFL season when teams can enjoy an official home field advantage. Both Seattle and Denver entered into the playoff season with the right to play their conference championships at home.
The world’s worst Open Doors USA, a group tracking Christian persecution around the globe, on Jan. named North Korea the worst country in the world for persecuting Christians. North Korea, which has between , and , Christians imprisoned in labor camps, retained the designation for the th year in a row, followed by Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen. Open Doors measured how much Christians can live out their faith in private, family, community, national, and church life—plus violent incidents—to compile the list.
LOOKING AHEAD Jan. 20
The November agreement by a group of six world powers and Iran to limit the nation’s nuclear program will come into effect today. The United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, Germany, and Iran signed the deal, which dials down some of the economic sanctions imposed on Iran for pursuing a nuclear program. In exchange, Iran has promised to halve portions of their nuclear program.
Jan. 26 Rapper and television
star LL Cool J will host the th Annual Grammy Awards, which will be broadcast live on CBS. Rapper Jay Z leads all musicians with nine award nominations. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which presents the Grammy Awards, will name Carole King as their person of the year for her philanthropic work in .
. Busy? Try wng.org news summaries: Mindy Belz’s Globe Trot, Warren Smith’s Signs and Wonders, Leigh Jones’ Midday Roundup, and Susan Olasky’s Web Reads.
Jan. 25 Members of the original development team, as well as corporate dignitaries and other fanboys, will be on hand when Apple celebrates the th anniversary of the Macintosh computer in Cupertino, Calif. Apple officially debuted their revolutionary personal computer on Jan. , , just days after a memorable commercial directed by Ridley Scott aired during the Super Bowl.
Jan. 31 Federal Reserve
Vice Chair Janet Yellen will take over as Chairman of the Fed today when Ben Bernanke’s term expires. The Senate confirmed Yellen, , by a - vote. Along with Yellen, Clinton Administration Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers had been rumored to succeed Bernanke, but his candidacy proved unpopular in the U.S. Senate. Yellen will become the first female to chair the Federal Reserve.
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Sentenced A U.S. District judge on Jan. sentenced a Pennsylvania woman known as “Jihad Jane” to years in prison for plotting to kill a Swedish artist. Colleen LaRose, , told Judge Petrese Tucker she was consumed with thoughts of Muslim holy war, and wanted to kill an enemy of Islam. The woman faced a life sentence, but the judge gave her credit for helping convict two co-conspirators. Prosecutors said LaRose was a prime candidate for exploitation: She was raped as a child, became a prostitute as a teen, and later developed a crystal meth addiction. Download WORLD’s iPad app today; details at wng.org/iPad
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JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/8/14 12:23 PM
Dispatches > News
Threat realized
Al-Qaeda takeover in Fallujah is most direct threat to Iraq government and U.S. gains By mindy belz
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the outskirts of the city to regroup and services on the Muslim day of prayer outdoors into the streets. As residents by the thousands bowed to pray in public spaces, militants seized a public park stage—according to The New York Times— waving an Islamic flag and daring authorities to evict them: “We declare Fallujah as an Islamic state, and we call on you to be on our side!” one fighter shouted to the crowd. Alkubaisy said most Sunnis in Fallujah don’t identify with the extremists, but have protested the Maliki government for holding for years without charges—and abusing— Sunni political prisoners. Anbar Province surrounding Fallujah has long been a breeding ground for terrorist activity in Iraq. At the start of insurgency against the United States in 2004, armed militants attacked four American contractors, beat and burned them, then hung their charred bodies from a bridge crossing the Euphrates River. Multiple U.S. operations and the U.S. surge culminated in the Anbar-based “Sunni Awakening” in 2008 that turned the tide of war in Iraq for the United States. But nearly one-third of all U.S. troops killed in Iraq died fighting in Anbar. Republicans lashed out at the Obama administration for not doing more to honor those sacrifices and shore up U.S. gains in Iraq. Recent events are “as tragic as they were predictable,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in a joint statement. Many Iraqis are responsible for this “strategic disaster,” they said, but the administration cannot escape
Fallujah fall: Sunni militants clash with Iraqi security forces (top); Sunni protesters take part in Friday prayers after an antigovernment demonstration (bottom).
its share of the blame: “When President Obama withdrew all U.S. forces … over the objections of our military leaders and commanders on the ground, many of us predicted that the vacuum would be filled by America’s enemies and would emerge as a threat to U.S. national security interests.” A
top: associated press • bottom: MOHAMMED JALIL/EPA/LANDOV
Casualties mounted quickly at Fallujah Hospital as al-Qaeda fighters moved in Jan. 3 to take over the key Iraqi city on the Euphrates, just 42 miles from Baghdad. Clad in black masks, the Sunni militants attacked police headquarters and the mayor’s office in a direct, close-range challenge to the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The hospital reported 13 deaths of civilians and 125 people with multiple injuries. Casualties include women and children, according to Firas Alkubaisy, a physician there. “There is [a] shortage of supplies and staff,” Alkubaisy told me in an email, “and no electricity.” The physician had traveled to Baghdad just before the attack—and was unable to return due to a government curfew that blocked roads linking Fallujah and the capital. He received reports from medical staff, including the chief doctor and a group of nurses from India, mostly Christians, who live in Fallujah and work at the hospital. “Let the whole world know that life in Iraq is miserable,” wrote nurse Roshni Sara in a Facebook post. “Every gunshot takes away one life, which leaves many dependents abandoned, helpless, and sufferers for a lifetime.” Alkubaisy said over 9,000 families (out of a city population of about 300,000) escaped Fallujah as al-Qaeda moved in, but most were caught by surprise and remained caught in a city under siege. It was an unprecedented advance by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the reconstituted al-Qaeda affiliate that has also in recent weeks gained the upper hand among rebel factions fighting the government in Syria. ISIS militants cut power lines as they advanced on Fallujah ahead of Friday prayers Jan. 3. They took over key areas of the city and ordered residents not to use power generators, forcing police to
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1/8/14 11:44 AM
Would YOU like to help STOP over 300,000 ABORTIONS per year? How would you have felt if you saw what Abby saw?
12-week-old preborn baby . . . you knit me together in my mother’s womb. — Psalm 139:13
Abby Johnson
All Abby Johnson wanted to do was help women. So she volunteered at Planned Parenthood while still in college. Over the next eight years, Abby quickly rose through the ranks and became a clinic director. Although she saw some business practices that concerned her, she stayed with Planned Parenthood because she felt she was serving women in crisis. But all that changed on a September day in 2009, when Abby was asked by the doctor to actually assist with an ultrasound-guided abortion. For the first time she saw — and was horrified — as a 13-week-old baby struggled in vain to get away from the deadly abortion tool invading the mother’s womb.
At that moment, Abby came face-toface with truth. She’d believed a lie. The baby was not just a “blob of tissue.” Right then, a dramatic transformation took place in her life. She had to leave Planned Parenthood. She had to help stop the brutal horror of abortion. I know you feel the same way and there is something you can do. For years we’ve prayed for a strategic way to turn the tide against abortion. Now we have real hope! You see, when Abby left Planned Parenthood, she departed with detailed knowledge of how the business is run. Armed with her evidence, Alliance Defending Freedom has sued Planned Parenthood for fraud in multiple legal actions across the country.
2 ways YOU can make a difference: MY GIFT TO STOP ABORTIONS q Use my gift to fight and win the legal case against Planned Parenthood and stop the horror of abortion in America. Here is my tax-deductible gift of: CREDIT
q $25 q $35 q $50 q $100 q $__________ THANK YOU! Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law. Please make check payable to Alliance Defending Freedom. AWA0114
2 NEWS p.12.indd 13
If we win, Planned Parenthood could face up to $5.5 billion in penalties, halting much of its abortion business! Teams of trained lawyers are standing by to handle all the cases we have filed against Planned Parenthood so far, and to prepare for others as more ex-employees blow the whistle on the abortion giant. All we need is God’s mercy and the resources to make sure we can see these cases through. Your gift will help make a significant difference. You can play a crucial role in making babies safe and secure in their mothers’ wombs, and hastening the end to abortion in America! Thank you!
1. ONLINE: Give at AllianceDefendingFreedom.org/help-stop-abortions/donate 2. MAIL: Return your gift with the coupon below
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15100 N. 90th Street 1-800-835-5233 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 AllianceDefendingFreedom.org/help-stop-abortions/donate
1/2/14 5:16 PM
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in a new memoir, on a discussion between Hillary Clinton and President Obama about the Iraq surge. He writes: “To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”
‘I see no difference between eating animals and pedophilia.’ British rock star Morrissey on why he stopped eating meat. “They are both rape, violence, murder,” he said. “If I’m introduced to anyone who eats beings, I walk away.” Chicago
‘It’s not cold—it’s painful.’
Downtown Minneapolis shopper Brooks Grace on the weather in his city on Jan. 6. Temperatures hit minus 20 with wind chills of minus 50 in Minneapolis. Record low temperatures hit the Midwest and reached down into Texas.
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‘He made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be—I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but—the next messiah.’ Barbara Walters on President Barack Obama’s growing unpopularity.
‘It conveys or demonstrates once again, how we are not serious about our laws.’ Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies on the California Supreme Court allowing an illegal immigrant to obtain a license to practice law in the state.
Chicago: Scott Olson/Getty Images • gates: John Zich/zrImages/Corbis / AP • morrissey: JIM RUYMEN/Reuters/Landov • walters & obama: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/ap • Camarota: Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/nc
‘Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. ... The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political.’
Listen to WORLD on the radio at worldandeverything.com
1/8/14 11:51 AM
CREDIT
Dispatches > Quotables
CREDIT
Chicago: Scott Olson/Getty Images • gates: John Zich/zrImages/Corbis / AP • morrissey: JIM RUYMEN/Reuters/Landov • walters & obama: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/ap • Camarota: Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/nc
1/8/14 11:52 AM
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Dispatches > Quick Takes
How does your dog feel? Inventors in Scandinavia would like to tell you. The Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery, a team of Swedish and Finnish inventors, say it’s almost ready to bring a dog-to-human translator to market. Called “No More Woof,” the device interprets the electroencephalography of dogs and matches it with one of a few premade English audio recordings. The group drew funding from the crowdfunding website Indiegogo. According to the inventors, dogs wearing the No More Woof headsets will be able to communicate to their owners basic thoughts such as weariness, excitement, or curiosity.
All Fernando Caignet Aguilera wanted was a case of beer. All he had to offer was a live alligator. Sadly for Aguilera, the cashier at the Santa Ana Market in Miami, Fla., wasn’t an animal lover. Officers cited Aguilera after he tried to barter a -foot reptile for a -pack on Dec. . According to Fish and Wildlife officials, Aguilera picked up the gator in a nearby park and took it directly to the convenience store. The clerk refused the offer and called authorities, who cited Aguilera with illegal possession of the alligator.
About families in Mesa, Ariz., may never know her name, but they’ll never forget her. On Dec. , an anonymous woman walked into the Mesa Walmart with an unusual request: She had , and wanted to pay off as many delinquent layaway orders as she could. The gift was enough to clear orders. And when Walmart employees began phoning customers who hadn’t been able to pay for Christmas gifts to tell them the news, the tears flowed. “They just started crying with joy and I’m glad I was a part of it,” store manager Rita Barreras said. According to Barreras, the anonymous older benefactor said she wanted to make sure families could have Christmas gifts.
Coming soon to Starbucks: fizzy coffee. Jumping on the soda stream bandwagon, coffee giant Starbucks seems poised to add carbonation as an add-on for coffee beverages. Earlier in , the company filed for a trademark on the name “Fizzio” behind which to sell original carbonated beverages and adding carbonation to their present line of coffees and teas. Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz called recent test runs in Austin, Atlanta, Japan, and Singapore of the company’s carbonation experiment encouraging.
SHANGHAI: EUGENE HOSHIKO/AP • NO MORE WOOF: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • ALLIGATOR: FLORIDA FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION/AP • STARBUCKS: HANDOUT
In December, smog in Shanghai, China, grew so bad that residents couldn’t see the tops of the city’s skyscrapers. And while some might view the ubiquitous haze surrounding Chinese cities as a public health disaster, Chinese officials are hailing the smog as a literal smokescreen. “Smog may affect people’s health and daily lives … but on the battlefield, it can serve as a defensive advantage in military operations,” said an article in the state-run newspaper People’s Daily. Indeed, air pollution—if bad enough—could interfere with guidance systems for infrared or laser-guided missiles.
WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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1/7/14 2:49 PM
ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • PHONE: MIKE KEMP/RUBBERBALL/GETTY IMAGES • HERRING: BRYNJAR GAUTI/AP • JAGGER: ANTHONY DEVLIN/PA WIRE/AP • CHIMPANZEE: GREG SWIERCZ/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE/AP
SHANGHAI: EUGENE HOSHIKO/AP • NO MORE WOOF: HANDOUT • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • ALLIGATOR: FLORIDA FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION/AP • STARBUCKS: HANDOUT
ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • PHONE: MIKE KEMP/RUBBERBALL/GETTY IMAGES • HERRING: BRYNJAR GAUTI/AP • JAGGER: ANTHONY DEVLIN/PA WIRE/AP • CHIMPANZEE: GREG SWIERCZ/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE/AP
To a chocolate Labrador named Wilson golf balls apparently look and taste like food. The dog belongs to Tim Norris of Forest Row, U.K. On Nov. with Wilson off the leash, Norris’ dog walker noticed Wilson might have been scarfing down a golf ball. Worried, Norris immediately took his animal to a veterinarian. An X-ray revealed the dog had actually swallowed seven practice balls from a local course. “Chocolate Labradors are incredibly greedy dogs and Wilson is no different,” Norris told the East Courier. “They will eat anything they think is food. I have since Grinstead Courier bought a muzzle for him, because at months he still has a lot to learn.”
Brooklyn resident Kevin Cooke may have discovered a way to prevent muggers from stealing his cellphone: Make sure it’s nearly obsolete. A gun-wielding thief mugged Cook and a friend as the pair walked through Central Park in Manhattan on Dec. . The -yearold said the mugger asked for his cell, so Cooke handed over his vintage flip phone. “Once he saw my phone, he looked at it like, ‘What is this?’ and gave it back to me,” Cooke told the New York Post. “I guess he didn’t think he could get anything for it.”
How do you remove more than , pounds of herring out of an Icelandic fjord? Don’t ask Mick Jagger (right) and Keith Richards. Researchers for Star-Oddi, an Icelandic aquatic research company, have been tasked with the job of removing a swarm of herring from a local fjord. After trying to blast the sounds of killer whales, and using explosions to get the herring out of the fjord, the researchers tried blaring Stones’ songs such as “Brown Sugar” and “Satisfaction” to scare the fish away. But it didn’t work. Two years ago, more than tons of herring lodged themselves in the same fjord and died there, causing an ecological disaster.
If chimpanzee personhood is the next step in the animal rights agenda, it will have to wait. Three separate New York state judges tossed out three lawsuits in December claiming the unlawful imprisonment of chimpanzees. Activists for the Nonhuman Rights Project filed all three lawsuits, hoping to find a judge willing to grant writs of habeas corpus on behalf of the animals. According to the activists, chimpanzees’ intelligence and self-awareness imbues them with personhood, and therefore legal rights. Undaunted by the trio of rejections, officials with the animal rights group say they will continue filing lawsuits in pursuit of a sympathetic judge.
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JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/7/14 2:49 PM
Janie B. Cheaney
Agencies gone rogue Private citizens unknowingly become part of, and victims of, government stings
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WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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Agents encouraged and complimented him as he found and sold dozens of unregistered weapons—and when the sting was over, they arrested and charged him with more than a hundred counts of felony gun possession. The judge was lenient and sentenced him to a “mere” three years, but Tony, in spite of his low IQ, is smart enough to know that three years are plenty long enough for fellow inmates to work their own rough justice on him if they think he cooperated willingly with the feds. Such operations may not be common, but neither are they unique, according to a watchdog report published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across the nation” is the title: fake drug-buying hangouts set up near schools, where minors are given alcohol; agents remodeling rented properties and sticking landlords with the bill; teens unknowingly recruited into marijuana stings. Notice the title does not reference rogue agents—the agents are operating on orders from the agency. In similar fashion, the DEA thought it was a good idea to trap drug dealers using the property and employee of a private citizen without his permission. They have to justify their own existence; more convictions equal a larger share of the budget. “[T]he numbers are all that count,” according to an ATF agent quoted in the Journal Sentinel report. Pressure for convictions leads to random fishing operations, and worse. As Jeremiah said, “[T]hey lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap; they catch men. … They know no bounds ... they judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy” (Jeremiah :-). Federal agents protest they are just doing their jobs, and our streets are safer for it. But enforcing the law by breaking the law will eventually result in something other than safety. Lines drawn in the dark are easily crossed, including the line between protecting citizens and abusing them. A
MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES
P : You’re a businessman operating a small trucking company in your hometown. In August you hire a driver who soon after takes a second job with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). It’s a sting operation: running marijuana from Mexico in order to bag members of a drug cartel. The driver doesn’t tell you what he’s doing with your truck. The DEA doesn’t tell you what they’re doing with your truck. Very early on an October morning, the phone rings with news from a business acquaintance: “Your driver was shot eight times in the cab of your truck, and he was hauling a load of marijuana. What’s the story?” This happened two years ago to business owner Craig Patty. It took a while to sort out the story. At a rendezvous point in Houston DEA agents, together with local law enforcement, were supposed to catch the bad guys red-handed. The bad guys pre-emptively hijacked the truck. A wild-west gun battle ensued, during which a sheriff’s deputy was wounded and the truck driver riddled with bullets. The driver was the big loser in the bungled operation, but Patty—who, again, never had a clue—was left with a damaged truck and a license number that appeared on the evening news and was now known to every drug kingpin in Mexico. For several months after the incident, he feared he might end up just as dead as his driver. After receiving no apologies from the DEA, much less compensation, he filed a lawsuit that, with sluglike speed, is only now beginning to crawl through the court system. Here’s a worse story: In Wichita, one Tony Bruner, a convicted felon with a low IQ, was “recruited” by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) to assist in illegal gun sales. Unlike Craig Patty’s driver, Tony didn’t know he was working for the ATF. He thought the store they’d set up as a front was a real business, and he was at last working a real job.
Email: jcheaney@wng.org
1/2/14 5:09 PM
Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Brand Value World 6.13.indd 1 2 CHEANEY.indd 19
5/21/13 2:02:40 PM 1/2/14 5:18 PM
The True Story of an
American Hero In August 2013, Antoinette Tuff protected more than 900 lives when she talked a school shooter back from the brink. Her inspiring story doesn’t begin—or end—there, however. First, Antoinette faced pain, hurt, and rejection in her own life, yet held onto grace, faith, and hope. Her amazing account is living proof that God uses all our life experiences—good and bad—to prepare us for our own moment of divine purpose. “She is a reminder of what Christian courage looks like: She didn’t need a weapon, just her faith and a willingness to love the unlovable and to share her own pain, failures, and struggles, knowing that the rest was in God’s hands.” —Eric Metaxas, BreakPoint “She was a real hero in all of this. She just did a stellar job. She was cool, she was calm, very collected, maintained her wherewithal.” —Fox News
CREDIT
Prepared for a Purpose by Antoinette Tuff with Alex Tresniowski
A Division of Baker Publishing Group • bethanyhouse.com Available at your bookstore or by calling 1-866-241-6733
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1/3/14 11:58 AM
Reviews Movies & TV > Books > Q&A > Music
Roadside Attractions
Acting like an adult MOVIE: Vanessa Hudgens makes her mark as a serious actress in Gimme Shelter
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by Megan Basham
Email: mbasham@wng.org
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In the last few decades, there has seemingly been only one favored method for former Disney starlets to break away from their squeaky-clean images and prove their retail worth to grownup Hollywood. From singers like Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus to actresses like Lindsay Lohan and Selena Gomez, the first order of business once they leave the Mouse House is to accept roles in R-rated, sexually charged productions.
Vanessa Hudgens’ career path has, up to this point, been no different. Shortly after wrapping the last High School Musical, she starred in such explicit films as Machete Kills and (along with Gomez) Spring Breakers. But with her latest role, Hudgens proves there is another, better way for young actresses to showcase their maturity and initiate a new phase in their professional lives: taking compelling performances in small but morally serious films. Gimme Shelter, the inspiring, pro-life movie based on the lives of real pregnant teens taken
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1/8/14 9:24 AM
Reviews > Movies & TV
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MOVIE
This Is Martin Bonner by Sophia Lee
What do you say to a man just released from prison, after serving 12 years for manslaughter? What can you say to an ex-con who can’t find a job other than as a parking attendant, who meets his only daughter for the first time in 12 years, who awaits time passing by in an empty motel room across a screeching highway? Not much, it seems, as somberly portrayed in the low-budget, low-key film This Is Martin Bonner, written and directed by Chad Hartigan. The 83-minute drama (rated R for language and brief sexual scenes) first premiered in the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best of NEXT. Martin Bonner (Paul Eenhoorn), an outreach counselor who helps prisoners transition to life outside of bars, has an uneventful life. You tag along on his day-to-day activities and errands—getting a new eyeglass prescription, air strumming to oldies on cassette, bidding on antiques on eBay—and you gradually learn that he once worked for a church that fired him for his divorce. He left Maryland for Nevada bankrupt and alone. His son won’t call him back, his daughter signs him up for speed dating, and he only accepted his current job at a Christian nonprofit organization in Reno because not even Starbucks would hire him. One afternoon, Martin picks up Travis Holloway (Richard Arquette), who was just released from prison. Over coffee, Travis tells Martin in a deadpan voice, “You know, it’s funny. I’ve never been to Reno, but technically, I’ve been living here for 12 years.” After that, Travis continues to seek Martin out because he finds his program sponsor Steve “really Christian.” He looks at Steve’s happy marriage, and feels “like a fraud next to him.” Martin shares his own crisis of faith: He woke up one morning and “didn’t want to go to church anymore,” he said. “I felt like I sacrificed enough for God.” The moment is light-handed, sympathetic, and uncritical, but voices a raw question not all Christians are brave enough to admit: What’s next, when I no longer desire God … or feel His desire for me? The two men, both leading quiet lives of stretched-out fatigue, feed each other nibbles of support and comfort. Christians may feel unsatisfied by the lack of clear-cut, Christ-led redemption in this story, but Hartigan, a nonbeliever whose parents were missionaries, sticks to a character-driven narrative, in which life—and faith—works out its kinks through moment-to-moment, ordinary progress. The shots are minimalistic, the acting pensive and poignant, and the dialogue alternates between candor and awkwardness. But they form a sensitive piece that depicts the repressed way human beings face crisis, and the odd, reserved friendship between two middle-aged men seeking second chances.
See all our movie reviews at wng.org/movies
1/8/14 9:27 AM
Gerry Goodstein
>>
600 West Productions
in by Kathy DiFiore at the Several Sources shelter in New Jersey, suffers from a few of the shortcomings common to message films. Several characters come off stock—particularly an out-of-the-picture Wall Street father and his cold-fish wife; tragedy after tragedy occurs so quickly, it’s hard to emotionally absorb them, and the film could certainly do with some quiet, introspective moments to go along with scenes of high, screaming drama. But the performances make Gimme Shelter, rated PG-13 for language, well worth viewing despite a narrative hiccup or two. The normally lovely Hudgens is nearly unrecognizable as Apple Bailey, a pierced, tattooed 16-year-old with a baby on the way. After fleeing from her abusive, drug-addicted mom (a similarly transformed Rosario Dawson), she reaches out to the father (Brendan Fraser) she’s never met. He and his well-to-do wife have only one suggestion for Apple—get an abortion and pretend the pregnancy never happened. With nowhere else to turn, Apple steals a car and winds up in the emergency room where she meets Father Frank McCarthy (James Earl Jones). Jones assures her that despite appearances, God has a plan not only for Apple’s life, but also for the baby she carries, and he offers to help her find it. Dawson, Fraser, and Jones are all old hands at the movie game and prove the value of experience by providing Hudgens a strong supporting field. But the bulk of the credit must go to Hudgens for picking up the ball and running with it. It’s always been darkly amusing that an industry that routinely parrots the values of feminism even more routinely exploits young actresses, assuring them that showcasing their bodies is the only way to establish themselves as adult stars. Yet the higher road of taking good parts in good scripts has always been the preferred route of Disney’s male alums. We may know Ryan Gosling best as the romantic hero of The Notebook, but he established himself as a leading man in The Believer, a gripping movie about a Jewish student with anti-Semitic views. Zac Efron’s first non-teen role was in the PG-13 Me and Orson Welles, an independent drama that won rave reviews from critics without Efron ever having to disrobe or simulate a single sex act. With her tremendous, affecting turn as Apple Bailey, Hudgens proves that girls can play that game too. A
Theater
The Great Divorce
by Stephanie Perrault
600 West Productions
Gerry Goodstein
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It takes a good deal of cunning to “steal past watchful dragons,” but Max McLean’s stage production of The Great Divorce rises to the challenge, raising questions of eternal significance with disarming ease, showcasing McLean’s commitment to creating culture from a Christian worldview. The 90-minute show, now touring nationally after its December launch in Phoenix, is the second Lewis adaptation from the Fellowship for the Performing Arts. It follows in the footsteps of The Screwtape Letters, which met with wide acclaim from both sacred and secular critics. While Lewis’ devilish satire focuses on the principalities and powers that seduce our minds and hearts, The Great Divorce puts flesh on the “great cloud of witnesses” cheering us heavenward. In order to recreate Lewis’ abstract allegory, McLean’s creative team utilized cutting-edge videography and set design. Three actors—Joel Rainwater, Tom Beckett, and Christa Scott-Reed— share the narrator’s role and do a fantastic job transforming into more than a dozen different characters with simple, yet effective costume changes and a variety of accents ranging from the twang of a cynical carpetbagger to George MacDonald’s Highland brogue. Though the plot was condensed to keep the story moving, the play follows the book almost verbatim. It is consequently dialogue heavy. This could easily have bored the audience, but Lewis’ wry humor was paced perfectly throughout, lightening the mood just enough for the mind to absorb the story’s deep theological truths. While some may quibble with the directorial edits or the use of the word d---n (most of which is straight from the book), it’s hard to argue with McLean’s vision to offer world-class theater that “engages the imagination and stimulates the intellect” from a Christian worldview. “The [secular] entertainment bar is very, very high,” McLean said. “If you don’t meet it, you’re immediately dismissed. Christians don’t want their
imaginative: Beckett, Scott-Reed, and Rainwater (from left to right).
faith in that category. They’re looking for something that will express their faith in an appealing, multilayered, convincing, and imaginative way.” McLean accomplishes that by finding the best actors, designers, and producers in the country and uniting them under a “thoroughly Christian aesthetic.” Not only does this accomplish the goal of creating outstanding art, it builds a platform of mutual respect in an industry that simultaneously mocks and dismisses orthodox Christianity. While The Great Divorce is traveling the country, eventually hitting the bigger markets like L.A., Washington, D.C., New York, and Chicago, McLean’s creative team will be working on a new project, tentatively called Luther on Trial, which examines the lightning-rod
Box Office Top 10 For the weekend of Jan. 3-5 according to Box Office Mojo
cautions: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com
S V L 1̀
Frozen* PG.................................. 1 3 1 2̀ Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones R................ 7 6 10 3̀ The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug* PG-13....................... 1 7 1 4̀ The Wolf of Wall Street PG-13...............................10 4 10 5̀ American Hustle* R...............6 4 10 6̀ Anchorman 2 PG-13................5 5 5 7̀ Saving Mr. Banks* PG-13...... 1 4 2 8̀ The Secret Life of Walter Mitty PG........................2 3 3 9̀ Catching Fire* PG-13...............3 6 4 10 Grudge Match PG-13...............5 5 5 `
*Reviewed by world
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reformer from various perspectives. It’s a look at the positive and negative aspects of Luther’s legacy—the magnificent solas, but also the fact that he splintered the church, opened the door for secularism, and paved the way for anti-Semitism, McLean said. “[It’s] kind of a ‘what hath Luther wrought?’” You may not care for his subject choice, but McLean knows that art leads cultural change, and to have a redemptive impact in the marketplace of ideas, he has to tell grand stories and ask big questions. The stakes are too high not to. “Look at the arc of history and at what was considered absolutely unacceptable 30 years ago and what is commonplace now,” McLean said. How did that happen? “The arts led the way because it captured the imagination.” McLean said that in recent history the church has not supported the arts, discouraging their youth from careers in theater, music, writing, and the visual arts. “Our best minds don’t go into the arts, whereas in the secular world, the best liberal minds go into the arts and the media. I don’t think [people in the church] understand the impact,” he said. Nevertheless, McLean sees change happening and is hopeful. “There are a lot of thoughtful Christians that want a Christian worldview—a Christian voice—in the arts that is multilayered, that is appealing, that shows the length and breadth of what Christianity is.” The trick is to spend less energy critiquing culture and more energy creating it. “We have a lot of culture critics,” McLean said. “We need culture makers.”
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1/8/14 9:29 AM
Arrogant power
Abortion and an intellectually lazy Supreme Court BY MARVIN OLASKY
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WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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I hear a stifled argh on page , when Forsythe writes, “Viability was not an issue in the lower courts in the abortion cases. It was not an issue in the Supreme Court, either. The parties did not discuss viability in their briefs or urge the Justices to adopt viability as a standard. There was no mention of viability in the arguments, and it was not mentioned during the first conference of the Justices.” Astoundingly, the justices started talking about viability only about one or two months before announcing the Roe v. Wade decision, a move the reserved Forsythe labels “careless.” How about a stifled bleh on page , when Forsythe quotes a Dec. , , memo from Justice Harry Blackmun to Justice Lewis Powell: “I have no particular commitment to the point marking the end of the first trimester as contrasted with some other point, such as quickening and viability. I selected the earliest of the three because medical statistics and the statistical writings seemed to focus on it. … I thought it might be easier for some of the Justices than a designated later point. I could go along with viability if it could command a court. … I have the impression that many physicians are concerned about facilities and, for
STEPHEN ELLIOT
T pro-life push in state legislatures these days is to make abortion in almost every case illegal after weeks, but did you know the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision in January almost made abortion legal only for the first weeks of pregnancy? Clarke Forsythe’s Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade (Encounter, ) shows why the United States is one of only four countries (along with China, North Korea, and Canada) that allow abortion at any time before birth: It came about through the arrogance of judicial power. Forsythe, a thoughtful attorney who has given his working life to the prolife cause for nearly three decades, is obviously appalled that the justices originally agreed to hear Roe v. Wade as () a way to deal with procedural issues related to state criminal prosecutions, then () seized upon it to allow a constitutional “right” to abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy, then () arbitrarily expanded the “right” to weeks (considered four decades ago the time of “viability,” when a born baby could survive), then () went all the way by having health of the mother include mental health (as defined by the mother and an abortionist). But Forsythe writes in measured prose, although he must have felt at times like screaming.
example, the need for hospitalization.” As athletes know, there is no “I” in “team,” but Blackmun’s note had five “I”s, three more than are in “U.S. Constitution,” which Blackmun largely ignored. Page may have yielded an eek, as Forsythe quotes advice given to pro-abortion lawyer Roy Lucas on how to convince justices that falsehoods about the history of abortion are actually the truth: “[F]udge it as necessary; write a piece so long that others will read only your introduction and conclusion; then keep citing it until courts begin picking it up. This preserves the guise of impartial scholarship while advancing the proper ideological goals.” And Forsythe may have uttered a hearty harrumph when writing, on page , “Even if five Justices were committed to creating a right to abortion, the Justices could have written a more narrow decision that struck down the Texas statute but left the Georgia regulations in effect. That would have been safer, especially when the Justices had no facts about the impact of the Georgia regulations, and knew they had no facts. … Instead, the Justices threw caution to the winds and issued a sweeping decision.” The italics are Forsythe’s, and that’s as emotional as his writing gets. Abuse of Discretion shows that justices did not know the history of abortion, the common-law traditions, the medical data, or much of anything that you’d hope those given such authority would at least study. Their intellectual laziness is tragic, and embarrassing. I hope law students today (maybe Supreme Court clerks tomorrow) will read Forsythe’s combination of sensational fact and understated prose. A
Email: molasky@wng.org
1/7/14 4:52 PM
ED MARSHALL/TIME OUT
Reviews > Books
NOTABLE BOOKS Four nonfiction memoirs > reviewed by
My Life in Middlemarch Rebecca Mead Mead begins this hard-to-categorize book with a description of herself as a bookish -year-old reading a great novel for the first time in preparation for entrance exams to Oxford: “I loved Middlemarch, and I loved being the kind of person who loved it.” George Eliot’s wisdom spoke to her, as did various characters when she reread the novel over the years. Here, she tells the story of the novel, the story of Eliot as it shaped the novel, and her own story as the novel shaped her. If you haven’t read Middlemarch, Mead’s incisive discussion of it will make you want to. Her carefully researched biography of Eliot shows an author rebelling against Christianity who wrote a novel with powerful Christian themes.
SPOTLIGHT Jo Baker professes to love Pride and Prejudice, crediting that affection with inspiring her to write Longbourn (Knopf, ), a novel focused on the servants who work at the Bennet estate. The familiar characters are extras in this novel, portrayed only as they leave rooms, exit coaches, and act dismissively toward those who serve them. The
Dancing Through It Jenifer Ringer In this memoir Ringer, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, describes the ballet life, favorite dances, and her struggles with an eating disorder that almost ended her dancing career. Her rekindled faith in Christ helped her develop an identity outside of dance and eventually drew her back to ballet. The book culminates with what she calls “sugar plumgate.” On opening night of The Nutcracker in , when Ringer danced the Sugar Plum Fairy role, a New York Times reviewer said she “looked as though she’d eaten one sugar plum too many.” The resulting controversy gave Ringer a platform on the Today show and Oprah to use her own struggles with perfectionism and body image to help young women going through the same thing. Mastering the Art of French Eating Ann Mah A move to Paris by Mah and her diplomat husband Calvin was the fulfillment of a dream. They’d been there only a short time when her husband headed to Baghdad for a year, leaving her behind in France. She spent that time traveling to regions of France and immersing herself in each region’s signature dish: in Troyes, andouillette; in Brittany, crepes; in Toulouse, cassoulet; and in Burgundy, boeuf bourguignon. She takes us into kitchens and butcher shops, weaving in information about each region’s history and culture. She tracks down experts and takes readers with her as she talks, tastes, and cooks. Meanwhile, as Mah explores food and a foreign culture, she learns lessons about the kind of life she wants to live.
novel’s action takes place in kitchens, over washtubs, and on the fringes of parties, providing a bathroom-level view of life in early th-century Britain. The actual plot has little to do with Pride and Prejudice, which provides only background moments for a story that lacks Austen’s wit and worldview. Particularly disturbing is the way Baker turns Mr. Bennet into a man who fathered a son with the housekeeper, and Mrs. Bennet into a woman with an addiction to laudanum. —S.O.
ED MARSHALL/TIME OUT
STEPHEN ELLIOT
Far from the Tree Andrew Solomon A homosexual supporter of legalized abortion, Solomon is an unlikely person to capture the stories of women who bore children conceived in rape—and went on to become pro-life. But he did that as part of his book about families raising extraordinary children— those conceived in rape, those born with Down syndrome, the deaf, the mentally ill, even young criminals. He draws from parents and kids compelling details. (Note: some objectionable language.) When interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air program, Solomon had to defend his willingness to tell the stories of mothers who were raped and yet said their children were great blessings. Readers may disagree with Solomon’s analysis while appreciating the detailed stories he records. To see more book news and reviews, go to wng.org/books
2 BOOKS.indd 25
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/3/14 9:46 AM
Reviews > Q&A
Radiating truth
Ryan Bomberger, conceived by rape, is tired of being the 1 percent used to justify 100 percent of abortions By Marvin Olasky
26
unplanned. We have to love the woman who’s gone through the pain, and offer her something that will bring life and healing: Abortion doesn’t bring either. The majority of women who are raped do not choose abortion. They don’t hold to that lie that somehow it’s the rapist’s baby. It’s their baby. It’s their child. Are references to rape politically useful for proaborts? We don’t define a child born with fetal alcohol syndrome as the alcoholic’s baby, but when it comes to issues of rape it’s easier to dehumanize that child. Out of 1.2 million abortions every year, fewer than 1 percent of them are due to rape or incest. I’m the 1 percent always used to justify 100 percent of abortions. When did you find out about the circumstances of your conception? My mom had thought she explained it enough to me at a much younger age, but I didn’t understand my story until I was 13. In a conversation she said she could understand where my anger came from, so through that I found out the story of how I came to be. That could have been devastating, but I had an incredible foundation of love from my parents, the Bombergers. You grew up in a farm family of 15? The Bombergers loved all 13
of their kids, three homemade ones and 10 imported. We had Native American, Black, BlackWhite, just Black, Vietnamese and Black. I milked cows, rode horses, and had to clean up after pigs—which is the nastiest thing in the world. I suspect each of you did not have your own bedroom. I have six sisters and six brothers. Four boys in one room, originally only 1 ½ bathrooms. Sisters take up a little bit of time in the bathroom, so we added another one and had 2½. The water often ran out because we had a well, so my sisters didn’t have a whole lot of time in the bathroom anyway, but it worked. People would think our house was complete pandemonium, but it really wasn’t: At times a controlled
Bethany’s story Bethany, you had a crisis pregnancy. I grew up in a good Christian home, but in my late 20s I made some very selfish decisions and found myself pregnant, and essentially not involved with the child’s father. All of my colleagues in my very liberal pubic school in inner-city Philadelphia said, “Take care of it this weekend. Just go take care of it. You’re bigger than this.” None of them understood why I chose not to, so it opened up a lot of opportunity for conversation. Later, you and Ryan married, and you’ve had three other children. And the Radiance Foundation. We’ve learned that God takes the shame or guilt or confusion and gives you His radiant glory. You’ve done a lot of research on Planned Parenthood. We highlight the “Negro Project,” which Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger birthed in the 1930s. It wasn’t the “Asian Project” or the “Hispanic Project”: It was the “Negro Project” because in her own words, Margaret Sanger wanted to rid the population of black “undesirables.”
W ORL D • J a n u a r y 2 5 , 2 0 1 4
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1/7/14 4:12 PM
art cox/patrick henry college
>>
Ryan Scott Bomberger, conceived during rape, is chief creative officer of the Atlanta-based Radiance Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009 with his wife, Bethany, who serves as executive director: Both have master’s degrees from Regent University. Radiance is best known for erecting large billboards that call attention to the abortion industry’s targeting of black babies. What do you know about your birth mom’s decision not to abort you? I know she made a really good choice. I’m here. Thank God. Seeing my wife and my four children reminds me every day of her courageous decision. Even pro-life politicians often say they wouldn’t restrict abortion in cases of rape. I find it tragic that some assume the natural follow-up to rape is abortion—but abortion is often the second rape, with a woman attacked physically and then abandoned. The abortionist is not sticking around for that woman. When we meet rape survivors who share their story, many of them say the only redemptive thing in such a horrific act is the child. And that’s why many of them explain that they could not abort. And when you read mainstream media references to “the rapist’s child” ... I’m a child of God, and Psalm 139 applies to all of us, whether we were planned or
art cox/patrick henry college
highlighting the facts: Ryan and Bethany.
chaos, but van trips were always fun. A ton of singing. A little fighting, but my parents somehow maintained their sanity through all these years. When did you give your first speech about abortion and rape? Shortly after I learned I was born as a result of rape, I gave a persuasive speech on abortion in eighth grade, in public school, and included my personal story. How did the kids listening to it respond? There were tears. Some students couldn’t even believe it because we think we can look at the veneer of a person and know his story. A lot of my friends at
Email: molasky@wng.org
2 Q&A.indd 27
that time were really moved, but two girls in the class after that presentation were still emphatically pro-choice, as they called themselves. I couldn’t understand that, but we have to remember there’s a spiritual dimension there too. Tears welled up in my teacher’s eyes. She never said anything but she gave me an A. Now you’re continuing what you started in the eighth grade. We’ve had 500 billboards in six states. We had no idea what the response would be to the first one, “Black children are an endangered species–toomanyaborted.com.” We wanted to highlight the
facts: Black babies are six times more likely to be aborted than those in the majority population. How did mainstream journalists react? I didn’t fit the narrative of your typical mainstream understanding of who was pro-life. Planned Parenthood of course came out swinging. We were two parents working from two little Mac laptops at our kitchen table, but the reaction was venomous. We received an incredibly positive response from the public, and from those who were postabortive. So we’ll continue to expose Planned Parenthood.
When you hear politicians say, “I’m opposed to abortion except in cases of rape,” do you grit your teeth? I don’t, because most of them have never talked to someone who was born as a result of rape, and they don’t realize what they’re saying. Some will put out that exception simply because it’s convenient. I hope to connect with some of these politicians and share with them the other side of the story. It’s easy when it’s just rhetoric and statistics, but when you have real flesh and blood before you and someone with a story like mine, it transforms hearts. We’ve seen it happen. A
J a n u a r y 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 • W ORL D
27
1/7/14 4:11 PM
Past and present
Cat Stevens and several sidemen lead a curious Rock Hall of Fame class By arsenio orteza
>>
E Street Band
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W O RLD • J a n u a r y 2 5 , 2 0 1 4
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sidemen, the coming year’s honorees include Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Kiss, Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt, and Cat Stevens. Or, in politically correct taxonomy parlance, there are two blacks (the E Street Band’s Clarence Clemons and David Sancious), one homosexual (Epstein), two women (Ronstadt and the E Street Band’s Patti Scialfa), and one Muslim (Stevens). Otherwise, though, the roster comprises straight white males, one of whom has even been an uncontentious guest of Neal Cavuto’s on the Fox News Channel (Daryl Hall). Of course, Peter Gabriel could be a liberal token in that he still performs “Biko,” his 1980 tribute to the South African anti-apartheid martyr Stephen Biko, and therefore pays indirect tribute to Nelson Mandela. It’s certainly hard to imagine Gabriel’s being honored simply for having been the lead singer of Genesis when that group played second progressive-rock fiddle to Yes, Pink Floyd, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And compared to the 21 hits of Three Dog Night and the 20 hits of the Carpenters (both of which remain uninducted), Gabriel’s five look downright paltry. But the most curious choice is Cat Stevens— a.k.a. Yusuf Islam. Oldham
Epstein
Gabriel
Stevens
Oldham: Steve Pyke/getty • Gabriel: Michael N. Todaro/Getty Images • E Street Band: handout • Epstein: Bob Thomas/Getty Images • Stevens: FADEL/AFP/Getty Images
Rumors of rock and roll’s demise may or may not be greatly exaggerated. But if the 2014 inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are any indication, the genre’s gatekeepers are increasingly reluctant to let go of the past, a sign that perhaps they’re increasingly unsure of rock and roll’s future. It’s hard, in other words, to explain the induction of the E Street Band, Brian Epstein, and Andrew Loog Oldham as anything other than an attempt to guarantee that Bruce Springsteen (the E Street Band’s boss), the Beatles (whom Epstein managed), and the Rolling Stones (ditto Oldham) remain the face of rock and roll at a time during which Miley Cyrus and the Duck Dynasty Robertsons outsell iconic rockers. Admittedly, all halls of fame valorize the past. But the Rock Hall’s Class of 2014 bespeaks an almost claustrophobic conservatism. Not socio-politically— apparently, neither Ted Nugent nor the Osmonds were under serious consideration despite having long been eligible (and, given the distinctly un-rock-androll nature of numerous previous inductees, eminently deserving). Yet in every other way, the lead vote-getters suggest that diversity may have finally had its day. Not that the voters weren’t trying to scratch the diversity itch. Along with Epstein, Oldham, and Springsteen’s
Performers become eligible for the Rock Hall 25 years after the release of their first recording. Therefore Stevens, who released his first single in 1966 and hit Billboard’s top 40 11 times, has been electable since 1991. So why the delay? Other than the fact that his mellow, folk-pop barely qualifies as “rock and roll” at all, the main reason for the tardiness of Stevens’ selection would seem to be that the Hall was waiting for the passing of another 25-year anniversary: namely, the quarter century since Stevens’ public support for the fatwa demanding the execution of Salman Rushdie for having written The Satanic Verses. The incident bears a striking resemblance to the recent stir created by Phil Robertson in GQ. Like Robertson, Stevens was responding to reporters’ questions, not seeking a hot mic. Also like Robertson, who based his opposition to homosexuality on the Bible, Stevens based his opinion on Rushdie’s fate on the Koran. If good things really do come in threes, perhaps Robertson can expect to be embraced by the Rock Hall in 2038. Duck the Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas, after all, is only slightly less rock and roll than Cat Stevens’ Greatest Hits. A
Email: aorteza@wng.org
1/7/14 4:21 PM
handout
Reviews > Music
NOTABLE CDs
New or recent albums > reviewed by
Rain or Shine Paul Carrack Tell your friends that this album is half covers of songs made famous by Ray Charles, Luther Ingram, and Brenda Lee and half new compositions by the obviously talented singer. Then have them guess which are which. A few will be easy (“[If Loving You Is Wrong] I Don’t Want to Be Right,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “You Don’t Know Me”). Carrack’s originals, however, will stump at least some of the people some of the time, so faithfully do they (and Carrack) honor the pop-soul verities.
Gone Away Backward Robbie Fulks Although there has always been more to Fulks than misanthropic comedy, he isn’t known as the Loudon Wainwright III of alt-country for nothing. So fans of his scabrous side may find the seriousness of most of his latest dozen songs off-putting. Still, they’ll have to admit that he’s pretty good at playing things straight. He’s particularly sharp singing about growing up country (“That’s Where I’m From”) and resignation vs. acceptance (“Where I Fell”). He’s funniest singing about his own career (“Sometimes the Grass Is Really Greener”).
The Electric Lady Janelle Monáe
HANDOUT
OLDHAM: STEVE PYKE/GETTY • GABRIEL: MICHAEL N. TODARO/GETTY IMAGES • E STREET BAND: HANDOUT • EPSTEIN: BOB THOMAS/GETTY IMAGES • STEVENS: FADEL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The Civil Wars The Civil Wars The themes of sin and salvation are as tightly intertwined as the male-female vocals and set to Southern-gothic folk melodies and instrumentation lest anyone miss the drama. In less capable hands, the mixture might feel overwrought or at least overobvious, and “Devil’s Backbone” and “I Had Me a Girl” come close. What reins them in are the surprises—the subtle joy of “From This Valley,” for instance, or the French lyrics of “Sacred Heart.” Or the Smashing Pumpkins cover. “Disarm” it’s called. And it does.
More than one magazine’s best-of- list included this ambitious, -minute exploration of the past, present, and future of black music. Wikipedia calls it “psychedelic soul,” and, to the extent that it sounds like what Prince might’ve gotten from the Pointer Sisters had he Svengalied them during their s peak, the label fits. Not that Monáe would’ve brooked such male interference—there’s an unmistakably feminist chip on her shoulder. But she’s seldom arch about it. And “Dance Apocalyptic” is the catchiest single of the year.
To see more music news and reviews, go to wng.org/music
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SPOTLIGHT Beginning in , Ray Price placed over singles on the country top . His last hit, however, came in . So by the time Price succumbed to pancreatic cancer last December at the age of , nearly two generations had grown up without knowing what it felt like to turn on the radio and experience him as a nearly ubiquitous presence. Should the extent of their cultural impoverishment ever hit them full on, they might very well experience a sadness for which Price’s tearjerking, honkytonk classics would turn out to be a most cathartic tonic. Price got his start thanks to Hank Williams and in turn helped launch Willie Nelson, but both his tenor voice and the heartbreak with which it became synonymous were his own. Given his vast catalogue, ’s -track The Essential Ray Price (Columbia/ Legacy) is the place for the uninitiated to start. It’s also the mere tip of a most remarkable iceberg.
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/7/14 5:00 PM
Mindy Belz
Out with the old
When a great tree falls, it may carry a season of life with it
>>
T stands atop the endings just past. Some come unannounced—we realize a thing is over only in hindsight. The last diaper changed on the youngest child, the last vaccine to end an epidemic, or the last shot fired in the closing battle of a great war are landmarks rarely noted or known as they happen. There was nothing unannounced when the great swing tree fell at my house in . It was a white oak, nearly feet tall and feet in circumference at its base. By rings it was over years old, predating Lincoln’s presidency and the Civil War. It shaded our yard in the summer, rained acorns on us in the fall, became a lean-to for sleds and inner tubes in the snow. My kids pretended beneath it as I worked by an open window nearby. Once my son pinned his older sister to the trunk and growled, “Who’s afraid of the man who hates children?” Later from a lateral branch we dangled a long swing by pulley and rope. Neighbors, cousins, strangers all took turns on it (and some bones got broken along the way). A daughter’s th birthday party took place
WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
2 MINDY.indd 30
MINDY BELZ
by the swing. One Thanksgiving extended family raked leaves into a huge pile and took turns lunging out over the hill off the swing, dropping down into the leaves. In his s one of our neighbors, so enchanted by all the activities, tried to swing on a summer night and became stuck in the dark, dangling over the hill alone until he somehow climbed down from it. Then, the tree roots sodden from days upon days of rain and the tree trunk worn from all our burdens upon it, the great oak lifted itself out of the ground at : one night, and fell. It came down as one whole piece and at an angle, just laid itself across the hill, missing by only feet both our house and the house of our now -year-old neighbor. It did smash across my husband’s car, totaling it, and took out two other trees. We and our neighbors emerged into the dark, watery fog, unscathed. But the tree’s loss gave us a new definition for sudden. Perhaps it tottered or wrenched itself against the ground for days, but all we knew was a rumble, the house shaking, and a deathly thud. Blink of an eye. End of an era. And somehow that was fitting: It had been my youngest daughter’s first day with her driver’s license. She returned from soccer practice, parked her dad’s car expertly in its spot, then I watched her come inside, responsible and leaving her childhood behind her. The next morning she headed outside under clear sunshine to pull herself up into the downed limbs. “I always dreamed of climbing in these branches,” she said. The tree’s ending punctuated new beginnings. Only two weeks later my growling son got married. Then a daughter. In the youngest heads off to college and beyond. Already the great trunk has been lumbered, and one slab has become a conference table for my son’s office, as my children take root in other towns and other houses beneath younger trees. Just about every day I see from my desk window the blank space where the oak once stood. It’s a good reminder: Earthly seasons do end, earthly battles will be finished, and we all one day—fast or slow, counted off by decades or by days—will lay down our earthly cares and burdens to rest, finished. Some endings come slowly, almost imperceptibly. Some take our breath away with their sudden thud. And like a new year, or a clear morning of sunshine after a night of rain, a new, uncharted season waits. A
Email: mbelz@wng.org
1/7/14 3:19 PM
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Spanning the globe At Harding University we don’t just talk about global experiences, we provide them. At seven international campuses spanning five continents, Harding students spend a semester studying outside the realm of a traditional classroom encountering different cultures, historic sites, foreign languages and amazing architecture. Nearly 50 percent of students in each graduating class have attended one or more of the international programs, which provide a Christian worldview.
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Roe at
Perfect ears, perfect God, fallen man by M a rv in Ol a sky
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he baby daughter of writer Whittaker Chambers helped to move him from Communism to Christ. Chambers wrote in Witness (1952), “My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear—those intricate, perfect ears. The thought passed through my mind: ‘No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design.’” Many WORLD readers now listen to the half-hour daily broadcast or podcast of our radio show, The World and Everything in It, as they carpool children or commute to work. Right now I’m spared both of those tasks, so I’ve listened to it while wheeling around my now 5-month-old granddaughter in her stroller. I relished her perfect ears and perfect everything while hearing news and views of a world so imperfect that some of us destroy perfection and others stand by. Abortion is different from other issues in its clarity. As WORLD takes positions on poverty-fighting, immigration,
budget debates, and other matters, we respect those with opposing views. It’s a stretch to respect abortionists who kill those whom in a few days or a few months would look like my granddaughter. It’s also discouraging to see Christians in politics or the pulpit who are silent on this life-and-death matter, and that’s why we have in this annual Roe v. Wade issue two cover stories over the next 11 pages: One shows how more state-level politicians are fighting on abortion, and the other reveals that some pastors have not yet begun to fight. This issue includes an interview with a strong pro-life advocate conceived in rape, and a book review that lowlights how offhandedly the Supreme Court arrived at crucial aspects of its 1973 abortion-legalizing dictate (pages 24-27). We also have features about two mothers who chose life amid hazardous circumstances, a doctor who learned about compassion, a pregnancy resource center to help the most vulnerable, and pro-life technological developments. My column (p. 72) offers reflections. The key takeaway is how the faces of babies like my granddaughter reflect the face of God, who gave us ears designed to hear His voice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” And not to listen, when God’s message is so clear, is to listen to the enticements of status, money, power, and self.
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Last year was a good one for pro-life politics in America’s state capitals by Edwa rd Lee Pitts
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in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas
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country enjoyed unprecedented prolife success in state capitals. Last year 24 states passed laws limiting abortion, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. These laws are yielding results: A record 87 abortion clinics shut down in 2013. Pro-life state laws now include bans on human cloning, sex-selection abortions, and wrongful birth lawsuits. States are holding abortion businesses to higher medical standards and requiring them to display ultrasounds and provide b etter documentation. Judges now have a harder time bypassing parental notification requirements when a minor seeks an abortion. Last year North Dakota banned abortions if a fetal heartbeat WORTH STANDING UP FOR: John Mark’s first day (left); Mia holds John Mark on Mother’s Day.
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ia McCord told her boss, Texas state Sen. Kelly Hancock, that she’d have her baby after the 2013 legislative session ended in May. With a July 17 due date, that seemed like a safe promise. But in early April doctors diagnosed her with severe preeclampsia. Her life and the child’s life were at risk. They needed to deliver the baby. Mia was 26 weeks pregnant. Born last April 10, John Mark weighed 1 pound, 4.8 ounces and measured 11.5 inches. He could fit into the palm of your hand. His own hands were the size of thumbnails. Doctors let Mia get a glimpse of her son before taking him to the neonatal intensive care unit at University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin. Half a mile from that hospital sits the Texas state Capitol. There, weeks after John Mark’s birth, state Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered for 11 hours against a series of pro-life bills. While journalistic publicists obsessed over the pink tennis shoes Davis wore during her marathon abortion speech (prompting Barack Obama to tweet, “something special is happening in Austin tonight”), Sen. Hancock posted on Twitter pictures of John Mark fighting for life. “Tell me this child is not viable,” Hancock tweeted. “Tell me this child is not worth standing up for?” In 2013, as the federal government grew more pro-abortion with the advent of Obamacare, Hancock and other legislators around the
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Bans at 20 weeks
Bans at 22-24 weeks
Third-trimester bans
No bans in place
Previous 20-week and third-trimester bans in place but overturned s o u r c e : C h a r lot t e Lo z i e r I n st i t u t e
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Oklahoma City, and Austin, legislators are doing just that as they prioritize pro-life bills.
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anting to see for myself this new mood, I started in Nebraska, where in 2010 lawmakers passed the nation’s first ban on abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy. That’s the current time medical technology shows babies in the womb can feel pain. Julie Schmit-Albin, the executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, took me to a gray concrete-block building on a busy road in the city of Bellevue. The building looks like a squat, medium- security prison. Cameras peer down from roof corners, and windows of thick
REALLY? The abortion center in Bellevue.
glass are not made for looking out or looking in. “You’d question any medical care you’d be getting in there,” SchmitAlbin said. “It looks like a veterinarian clinic.” But it’s not: The building houses what remains of LeRoy Carhart’s lateterm abortion business. Not long after Nebraska lawmakers passed the law protecting unborn children capable of feeling pain, Carhart decided to take the bulk of his abortion business to Maryland. Nebraska law now bans abortionists from using mental health as an exception for late-term
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brownback: John Hanna/ap • lauinger: Sue Ogrocki/ap
can be detected, which can be as soon as six weeks, and passed the nation’s first prohibition on abortions for genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome. Arkansas lawmakers overrode a governor’s veto and passed their own heartbeat protection act. Florida approved a measure saying infants born alive during an abortion are entitled to the same rights as a child born in a natural birth. Courts are often setting aside such legislation as they wait for new U.S. Supreme Court guidance, but in states like Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas lawmakers are acting like the “lesser magistrates” in Christian political theory and speaking out on pro-life issues rather than pre- emptively surrendering to judges or Washington officials. “We don’t have to beg for scraps,” said Jonathan Stickland, a Texas state representative. Referring to personal offenses, he noted that “as Christians we are taught to turn the other cheek.” Public policy issues like abortion are different, though: “We can grab our sword and fight.” In Lincoln, Topeka,
CLINIC: Nati Harnik/AP
n in 2010. er of rtions, a, Iowa /Nati
CURRENT LATE-TERM ABORTION BAN LIMITS
CLINIC: Nati Harnik/AP
brownback: John Hanna/ap • lauinger: Sue Ogrocki/ap
abortions and requires abortionists to report the gestational length, weight, and age of every baby aborted—two more reasons Carhart opened up shop elsewhere. During the first six months after the fetal pain law went into effect, the abortion rate dropped 14 percent in the Nebraska county housing Carhart’s center. Overall, Nebraska’s abortion rate dropped to a 20-year low of 2,229 in 2012 compared to more than 5,600 in 1992. One of Carhart’s Maryland patients died during a late-term abortion procedure last year.
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bout 150 miles south of Bellevue sits Topeka, the capital of Kansas, a state once known as the home of late-term abortionist George Tiller and pro-abortion Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (now a beleaguered Washington defender of Obamacare). Kansas has become a state with a prolife legislative supermajority: “It’s unacceptable to be pro-choice in Kansas and win an election,” said Jacob LaTurner, a new Kansas senator who, at 25, is an example of the pro-life youth movement in state capitals. Pro-life leaders who came to the governor’s mansion for a bill signing in 2011 had never been inside the building before. Now, though, Gov. Sam Brownback stops by unannounced at
the Kansans for Life office in Topeka, bringing his own lunch and sitting at a table to chat. Kansans for Life activists move freely about the state Capitol where lawmakers and their staffs know their names. During one recent visit, Kansans for Life senior lobbyist Jeanne Gawdun made unscheduled calls on lawmakers who invited her in to chat. She now has numerous bills to frame, something she never had to do under Sebelius. But state court judges, often selected via secret vote by a lawyer-dominated committee, have halted some laws, so judicial reform has become a pro-life priority in Kansas: Many pro-lifers want the governor to nominate and the Kansas Senate to confirm judges. One reason for the legislative momentum is evident at the Pregnancy Crisis Center of Wichita. The use of 3-D and 4-D ultrasound imaging is turning once shadowy pictures into something so clear that mothers bond with their babies. At the center a big screen TV, mounted on a wall, faces the ultrasound examining table. The window into a womb that was invisible when the Supreme Court KANSANS FOR LIFE: Brownback, surrounded by legislators and abortion opponents, signs a sweeping prolife bill into law April 19.
legalized abortion in 1973 is transforming the hearts of voters and lawmakers. The technology is becoming more affordable, allowing pregnancy centers like the one in Wichita to purchase laptop-sized machines that can be taken around the city. Advances are not just changing what we see of the unborn, but what compassionate doctors can do with them. Neonatal intensive care units and in-utero surgery are moving the point of viability outside the womb back from 24 weeks to as early as 20 weeks. Even before delivery, babies are now treated as separate patients: Anesthesia is administered directly to them during surgery performed in the second trimester. As more people have personalized stories of premature births, the pro-life poll numbers tick up. Today 64 percent say abortion should not be permitted starting in the second three months of a pregnancy, and 63 percent of women support bans on abortion when the unborn can feel pain.
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hose numbers lead to the election of pro-life lawmakers. No one knows that better than long-time Oklahoma activist Tony Lauinger. For decades Lauinger daily drove the 106 miles from his home in Tulsa to the state capital in Oklahoma City when the legislature was in session. He spent most of the 1970s fighting to get a pro-life position into the state’s GOP platform. Then he battled to get lawmakers to act on pro-life issues. Lauinger says “country club, fiscal Republicans” dithered and crumbled whenever crunch time came for prolife bills during a legislative session. Most bills died in committee. But Lauinger began to understand how the law could serve as a teacher. Realizing the movement did not have the votes to end abortions with one bill, he and other activists started chipping away. This piecemeal tactic educated voters on the realities of abortion. Lauinger compared it to reeling in a big fish with a small line, “jerk too hard and the line breaks and you lose everything.”
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When abortion groups fought bills that appeared responsible to the public, such as measures improving the medical standards of clinics, abortion groups claiming they are for women’s health revealed their hypocrisy. Clinic
the Senate in 2008. Pro-life bills soon followed. Last year’s coverage of abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s trial in Philadelphia further exposed abortion’s seedy underbelly. His conviction on three counts of
into office, but it was still a struggle to get measures up for a vote. Senior Republicans said the bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks, and thus protect children clearly capable of feeling pain, wasn’t a priority, but Texas Gov. Rick
‘They’ve been able to do things in secret for so long. Now the light is shining on them.’ —Pam Peterson
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t my final stop, Texas, the freshmen class of legislators includes pastors, a former NFL player, a nurse, an oil businessman, a financial investor, a neurosurgeon, a former Air Force fighter pilot, and a constitutional lawyer. They all came to Austin sharing a pro-life commitment. The lawmakers began strategizing about pro-life bills before being sworn
Perry called the legislators back for a special session last summer. The prolife push was back on. Abortion supporters stalked the Capitol wearing burnt orange shirts. Some sat in the hallways and cast spells. Some printed “wanted” posters with the faces of pro-life lawmakers and smuggled jars of feces and urine to throw at them. When pro-life lawmakers huddled in the Capitol rotunda to pray, abortion supporters surrounded them, leaned into the prayer group, and yelled directly into their ears. “Hail Satan,” some chanted. While abortion backers cursed God, pro-life advocates sang “Amazing Grace.” Jonathan Stickland, the FINDING A WAY: Texas House Stickland (below, left) member who and Klick (right) deliver blue and pink no longer has paper to Davis’ office; to fight for an abortion supporter scraps, recalls, (far left) protests at “There were the Capitol.
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first-degree murder and sentence of life in prison without parole came after charges that he performed illegal abortions and killed patients under his care, including newborns killed after being born alive during attempted abortions. The revelations boosted the call for greater clinic regulation. “They’ve been able to do things in secret for so long,” said pro-life Rep. Pam Peterson, the Oklahoma House of Representatives majority floor leader (and controller of the bill calendar). “Now the light is shining on them.”
protester: Ethan Gehrke/Vici Media Group • paper: handout
licensing bills would take money from abortionists’ pockets. No issue advanced the pro-life cause more than the 15-year debate over partial-birth abortions. From 1995, when Ohio passed the nation’s first state ban on partial-birth abortions, until 2007, when the Supreme Court reversed lower courts and upheld the ban, pro-abortion advocates battled to preserve this practice through presidential vetoes and lawsuits. This turned off many Americans. Gallup’s most recent values poll found that 48 percent of Americans call themselves pro-life while 45 percent call themselves “pro-choice.” In 1996, the year of then President Bill Clinton’s first veto of the partial-birth abortion ban, 56 percent said they were “prochoice” while 33 percent regarded themselves as pro-life. Changing attitudes, the adoption of term limits, and a pro-life sermon (see WORLD’s next story, “Still-silent shepherds”) have changed Oklahoma’s legislature. Brian Crain now chairs a state Senate health committee, and it was a prolife sermon he heard in his Tulsa Baptist church that led him to wonder, “At what point are we as Christians being co-conspirators by not doing anything?” Crain replaced a term-limited state senator who had been there 24 years. He tracked down Lauinger and told him he wanted to sponsor pro-life bills. Pro-life lawmakers gained a majority in the Oklahoma House in 2004 and
LAUBENBERG: MIKE STONE/REUTERS/LANDOV • McCORDS: HANDOUT
PROTESTER: ETHAN GEHRKE/VICI MEDIA GROUP • PAPER: HANDOUT
times when I thought, ‘there are probably demons in this room.’” Pink-shoed Wendy Davis, the filibustering abortion figurehead who is now campaigning to be governor of Texas, asked abortion supporters to send in stories she could read on the Senate floor. Stickland, whose wife during the legislative session miscarried weeks into her pregnancy, spent a sleepless night trying to find a way to symbolize the voices of the babies who would never be able to tell their own stories. The next morning his staff drove to paper stores and spent to buy enough blue and pink paper to represent the roughly , babies aborted in Texas in . Six people rolled the paper down to Davis’ office. Rep. Stephanie Klick, a nurse turned legislator, displayed fetal models in her office and used them to discuss the issue with abortion backers. They told her the models were offensive. Klick replied, “A baby is offensive?” Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, author of the preborn pain bill, spent hours on the House floor defending the bill and beating back amendments offered to weaken it. Opponents, angry that a female lawmaker was the face of the bill, brought coat hangers and rape kits onto the House floor to suggest the bill would lead to back-alley abortions. Laubenberg countered by placing onto the speaker’s podium a pair of white baby shoes.
Email: lpitts@wng.org
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COMMITMENT: Texas Rep. Jodie Laubenberg places a pair of infant shoes on the podium as she prepares to answer questions July .
you,’ and the Lord say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’” The Texas battle continues. Pro-abortion donors waving green dollars will try to drive out of the legislature Stickland’s blue and pink paper and Laubenberg’s white baby shoes. Laubenberg’s likely general election opponent, funded by Planned Parenthood, recently bought a house in the district just to run against her. And the war goes on in other states. Last year California approved a law allowing nonphysicians to perform surgical abortions, and Barack Obama became the first president ever to speak at a Planned Parenthood event.
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Other pro-life female legislators silently surrounded Laubenberg as she M MC, the tiny answered volleys of hostile questions. baby born prematurely during “I knew God would prevail,” Laubenberg the legislative session, said: “I was on the side of life and the proved to be strong, once pulling other side was death. It wasn’t my bill. out his own breathing tube. His It was God’s bill.” parents spent hours watching a blue The omnibus bill banning abortions line on a computer screen showing after five months passed. It also their son’s oxygen saturation levels. requires abortionists to have On May , days after admitting privileges at local her son’s birth, Mia got to hospitals and makes clinhold him for the first ics follow FDA guidetime. She eventually lines and the medical returned to work. standards of ambulaWhenever John Mark’s tory surgical centers. vital signs dropped, On the same July day, nurses called her. Gov. Perry signed the She’d rush over to the bill into law, Planned hospital from the Parenthood announced Capitol and hold her the closing of three of its baby next to her heart. His Texas centers. vital signs always improved. SURVIVOR: After passing the measure, He is living at home now. John and Mia pro-life lawmakers walked out He weighs pounds and McCord with of the House chamber to yells. sometimes comes to the Capitol John Mark. “Shame on you,” abortion with his mother. State Sen. supporters shouted. “Shame on Hancock gladly turns his office you!” into a nursery. “There is no telling what But Matt Krause, a freshman legislahe will do in life,” Hancock mused. tor who as a sixth-grader wrote about “We will get to find out now. [With] his hope that abortions would end, was how many other babies will we not get unfazed: “I would much rather proto find out?” A abortion individuals yell, ‘Shame on —Alissa Robertson contributed to this story
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Still-silent shepherds
Some evangelical pastors have several reasons for not preaching on abortion— and one is fear of man by Joe Maxwell and Stephen Hall i l l u s t r at i o n b y k r i e g b a r r i e
Editor’s note: In 1994, WORLD p ublished “Silence of the shepherds,” an article addressing the reticence of many evangelical pastors to preach on abortion. Two decades later, a WORLD survey shows that many are still silent.
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ecently retired pastor John Piper did not plan to speak out about abortion. He began preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis in 1980 and didn’t touch the subject. One day late in the decade, though, he and his wife were eating at a Pizza Hut, watching a prolife demonstration on TV: “I said—you know what? That’s just right. That’s just plain right.” Piper began stepping out on the issue: “It was a combination of seeing other people taking it seriously and then beginning to check my own soul, and God just mercifully taking away some blind spots, showing me in the Scriptures all kinds of reasons for standing up and defending these little ones.” Since that time, Piper has preached more than 20 sermons against abortion. He was arrested in a sit-in—“I don’t regret it.” Most every pro-life ministry has blossomed at Bethlehem: “It has become a part of our culture.” The Pipers adopted a child in 1995, and he says pastors should be “exemplars of a way to engage abortion, both on the ground at the clinics, at counseling and intervention situations, and in the pulpit.” The pro-choice complaint that “all you Christians do is shout at us” is no longer valid, Piper says: He advises today’s pastors “to take [abortion] seriously and to address it biblically, … and there are just dozens of ways to do that.”
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Another famous preacher has chosen a different way. In New York City several years ago, an Ivy League graduate approached Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church to thank him for not focusing on abortion from his pulpit. She added, “If I had seen any literature or reference to the ‘pro-life’ movement, I would not have stayed through the first service.” She was a lawyer, a resident of Manhattan, and an active ACLU member, according to Keller. She also had had three abortions. Eventually, the woman converted to Christianity under Keller’s influence; later she approached him—“Do you think abortion is wrong?” she asked. Keller said yes. She replied: “I am coming to see that maybe there is something wrong with it.” To Keller, this story illustrates the right approach to biblical preaching at Redeemer Presbyterian Church concerning controversial sin areas. “Pushing moral behaviors before we lift up Christ is religion. … Jesus himself warned us to be wary of it, and not to mistake a call
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for moral virtue for the good news of God’s salvation,” he wrote in Leadership Journal in 1999. But Keller also said in a Dec. 16, 2010, talk now on YouTube, “If people are doing something wrong, they need to be, well, prevented from doing it. … You both have the people who are doing the abortions; and as far as I see, they should be prevented from doing it, and that would be justice. But then you also have the unborn children, and
risis pregnancy centers; 24 offered inc house pro-life education to members; 15 participated in Marches for Life or similar events; and four picketed clinics. Significantly, pastors who preach against abortion are about twice as likely to see congregants involved in pro-life activities as those who don’t. Second, 25 national pro-life leaders—both evangelicals and Roman Catholics—gathered recently in Washington, D.C., in a meeting
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he general public today knows intellectually that abortion is immoral, according to an August 2013 Pew study. The study shows that just 15 percent of Americans today say abortion is moral. So why don’t pastors preach against it so as to move congregants from a head knowledge to a heart conviction? Pastors surveyed or interviewed gave WORLD reasons that could be put into four categories:
they are not being treated as they deserve.” How should other pastors act? For four decades evangelical pastors have wrestled with how to, when to, and whether to preach against the nationwide, day-to-day murder of babies in abortion mills not even a jog away from church steeples. In 1994 WORLD reported Billy Graham’s belief that addressing abortion in the pulpit could impede his “main message” of salvation. “I don’t get into these things like abortion,” Graham told talk show host Larry King. Fresh research gathered by WORLD indicates that many shepherds are silent on abortion—or only whispering.
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hree sets of evidence bear this out. First, WORLD conducted a random, informal survey of 40 pastors from seven member denominations in the National Association of Evangelicals. All 40 said that life begins at conception and that pastors should preach against abortion. However, 18 pastors had not preached against abortion in the last year, and five more had never done so. On the other hand, when standing outside their pulpits, pastors were more likely to encourage their churches toward pro-life work: 29 of the pastors’ churches worked with, or funded,
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rganized by National March for Life. o Members of the group complained that many evangelical pastors are dropping the ball. “One of our great frustrations has been the silence of the evangelical pastors,” said Sherry Crater, coalitions liaison at the Family Research Council. Eve Marie Barner Gleason of the evangelical umbrella group Care Net sees pastors struggling: “Many evangelical churches are supportive of local pregnancy centers. … At the same time, it can be hard getting some pastors interested, as some church leaders think ‘abortion is not an issue in their congregation’ or ‘the subject could be controversial or threatening to influential members of their congregation.’” In addition, some pastors worry that preaching on abortion might dry up collection plates. Third, numerous evangelical leaders speak of a lingering silence. Pastor and theologian R.C. Sproul Sr.’s opinion is illustrative: “I would say things are not the same as they were [in 1994]. … I think it’s deteriorated. I think it’s worse.” Sproul’s church pickets, does crisis pregnancy work, marches, and more. He preaches and writes on the subject. A few years ago he produced materials to help pastors address abortion in their congregation: “I heard the same thing. It was like a broken record. Pastors said, ‘I can’t use this material. It’ll split our church.’”
i Preaching on the issue might iscomfort church members or hurt d women in congregations who’ve had abortions. i Preaching on the issue should not be done as a one-note tune or “hobby horse,” especially if the pastor emphasizes expository preaching. i Preaching on the issue might politically stigmatize the pastor or politicize the pulpit, scaring seekers off. i Preaching on the issue might seem uncool or anti-intellectual. Many millennial generation pastors share this last belief. John Piper told WORLD that such younger pastors often understand pro-life issues better than their elders, having enjoyed the benefit of decades of intellectual and spiritual ferment on the matter. Some, however, worry of being typecast as a 1980s picketer or rescuer, or as a far-right, unloving loon. “There are a lot of … courageous younger pastors who don’t have any problem,” Piper said. “On the other hand, a lot of younger pastors don’t like seeming uncool.” In the 1980s Francis Schaeffer and J. Everett Koop spoke out, as did oft- lampooned Jerry Falwell. National media and some fellow evangelicals stigmatized them and other evangelical leaders who proclaimed what was then a more unpopular truth. Nevertheless, those leaders moved the awareness
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Al Behrman/AP
‘We shake our heads in disgust at the German church’s tolerance of one holocaust while ignoring our own tolerance of another.’ —Randy Alcorn
For Davis, preaching on abortion is a matter of creating a church culture in which members count on their pastor not to hedge on biblical issues but also not to beat them up: “We want to practice truth and trust. We never want to compromise the truth of what we believe; if we do, we compromise trust.” Davis teaches about abortion without getting into political matters, and that’s a crucial distinction. Recent intimidation of some conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service causes some pastoral concern, as Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defending Freedom notes: “The IRS has done a lot through the years to create ambiguity in the law regarding what speech by pastors is prohibited and what speech is permitted. … There is a false perception that any issue society labels as ‘political’ is somehow off-limits and unlawful for churches.” Stanley notes that pastors are legally safe as long as they don’t endorse a candidate. s a Southern Baptist pastor during the 1980s, former presidential candidate and current Fox News talk show host Mike Huckabee dove into the abortion fray— and he sees others doing the same. “I think more evangelical pastors now are willing to take a stand,” he told me, but he acknowledged that pastors who aren’t may just avoid him now: “Some think it divides their congregation and takes their eyes off of the gospel.” Huckabee asks, “How can you claim to proclaim a gospel that turns its back on the slaughter of innocent babies?” Huckabee cautions about “doing what I call ‘preaching to the gallery.’ You beat at the abortion issue and destroy it. Then you hold up its carcass so everyone can clap.” At the same time, he says the excuses need to stop: “We need to be careful and offer grace to people who’ve made bad decisions and give the gospel to them, while at the same time drawing a line in the sand and saying, ‘This is not something that can be acceptable.’ It’s forgivable, but not morally acceptable.” But author Randy Alcorn fears that Americans are just too used to abortion now: “It’s not outrageous to us anymore.” Alcorn and his wife helped an unwed mother and then blocked the doors of abortion businesses, which led to several
Al Behrman/AP
A meter, as did Catholics like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II. Some interviewed by WORLD agreed no such pastor/leader exists today when it comes to championing the abortion issue. At age 46, Mark Davis, senior pastor of Park Cities Presbyterian Church, recalls those men facing harsh criticism from many who had no stomach or understanding regarding abortion. Today, Davis says, “a combination of factors” pushes pastors to be more “incarnational than confrontational. … On the negative side, there is the fear of man, and the fear of being associated with certain men or certain ‘types’ of
LAMPOONED: Jerry Falwell (left) talks with a pro-life protester as they picket outside the Margaret Sanger center in Cincinnati in 1986.
preachers. On the other side, there is a generation of pastors who have been trained to be a little more patient and to show kindness that wasn’t there before. There is good in that.” While Davis’ church nurtures cutting-edge compassion ministries that are rarely confrontational, he also preaches about abortion. His members don’t wince, some post-abortive women thank him, and opportunities open for new ministry.
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The Rev abortio Newpor Margare Saturda abortio Behrma
being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?’”
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Preaching it
More than once a year Matt Chandler, The Village Church, Flower Mound, Texas Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, Seattle, Wash. Jonathan Falwell, Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Va. Dwayne Pickett, New Jerusalem Church, Jackson, Miss. Dave Stone, Southeast Christian Church, Louisville, Ky. Ed Young Sr., Second Baptist Church, Houston, Texas About once a year Bob Coy, Calvary Chapel, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
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arrests and a large civil judgment. He parallels abortion and the killing of Jews during World War II: “Selfrighteously we decry the German church’s failure to stand up for the Jews. Meanwhile we fail to stand up for the unborn. We shake our heads in disgust at the German church’s tolerance of one holocaust while ignoring our own tolerance of another.” John Piper argues that American evangelical pastors know abortion is an abhorrent evil. They know they are to preach against murder, especially if it’s happening next door and involves people sitting right in their pews. They know that the path to healing requires repentance, and repentance requires conviction of sin, and conviction of sin requires clear exposition of the Word of God, even when it is uncomfortable. Pastors know they will come under a stricter judgment if they sugarcoat the gospel. Piper sums it up this way in a sermon entitled “Love Your Unborn Neighbor”: “God says to us in America in the 21st century stained with the blood of millions of unborn babies, these words from Proverbs 24:11-12: ‘Rescue those who are “WE ARE A MURDEROUS CULTURE”: Mark Driscoll preaches in Seattle.
—Joe Maxwell is a Mississippi writer; Stephen Hall is executive director of Joseph’s Way
DRISCOLL: Scott Cohen/AP • CHANDLER: LM OTERO/AP • FALWELL: ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/AP • ALL OTHERS: HANDOUT
For samples of pro-life sermons pastors have preached, go to wng.org/topic/saturday_series/. WORLD mailed surveys to 20 evangelical pastors of megachurches asking them if they preach against abortion. Seven replied. Six preach “more than once a year” against abortion, either as a sermon topic or when discussing a particular passage of the Bible during a sermon. One preaches “about once a year.”
n Oct. 20, 2013, as 14,000 people listened in person at the Seattle-based Mars Hill Church and 11 others by simulcast, pastor Mark Driscoll addressed the Sixth Commandment—“Do not murder.” He spent 39 of 68 minutes exclusively on abortion, “the hardest part of the sermon,” he told his church up front: “Hundreds of you will probably leave and never return. I would encourage you to consider what I have to say, to go home and study what the Word of God has to say, and … make a prayerful, careful, biblical decision.” Driscoll proceeded to critique abortion, as he has routinely since founding Mars Hill in 1996. “Life begins at conception,” he said, noting that an unborn child is “a person made in the image and likeness of God.” Driscoll rooted in the Bible “seven reasons why life begins at conception.” He said “we are a murderous culture. … [Since 1973] there have been between 50 and 55 m illion documented abortions, just in the U.S.” Some listeners cried as Driscoll called for a “change of heart, change of life,” and spoke of God’s mercy and forgiveness: “You men who have encouraged, forced, or paid for the abortion, you women who have killed your own child, murdered your own child. … The good news is that Jesus died for murderers. … You need Jesus, and you need him to forgive you for your murder, and he will.” Afterward, a woman in Mars Hill’s Albuquerque, N.M., satellite congregation knelt up front. It was the anniversary of the day she had aborted a child. She began worshipping and weeping. Then her four living children hugged her, supported by her husband. Eventually, she started comforting another post-abortive woman. A
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DRISCOLL: SCOTT COHEN/AP • CHANDLER: LM OTERO/AP • FALWELL: ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH/AP • ALL OTHERS: HANDOUT
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WORLD • January 25, 2014
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One in a billion
A terrible health condition has helped Christian Buchanan to be a blessing to many by M a ry Jackson
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p h oto b y P e r ry R e i c h a n a dt e r /g e n e s i s
acey Buchanan, 26, lay behind a screen on a stiff delivery bed waiting for that first glimpse. To her relief, she heard her son’s initial cry after his C-section birth. But then her husband, Chris, disappeared with their baby and a host of medical staff. Nine hours later, a doctor finally asked Lacey, “Do you want to see your baby?” During Lacey’s pregnancy, ultrasounds revealed the Woodbury, Tenn., couple’s son had a severe cleft lip and palate. Doctors gave Lacey an 85 percent chance of miscarrying and predicted other problems. But no one knew until the day of his birth in February 2011 that he was blinded by cleft eyes which had never formed in utero. It’s a rare condition that doctors told the Buchanans has affected only 50 babies worldwide in documented medical history. The cleft also left part of his skull exposed. “Bloody, swollen, and screaming, but he was alive,” Lacey said of her reaction when she cradled her son. She named him Christian. One nurse expected the Buchanans to utilize a state law that allows parents to leave their baby, up to 3 days old, with a hospital employee—no questions asked. When Lacey posted a picture of Christian on her Facebook account, an acquaintance told her she was a horrible person for not aborting, calling him a “drain on society.” Lacey and Chris never considered abortion or abandonment as options. At 4 days old, Christian had surgery to close up the skin around his skull and insert a gastrostomy tube that would allow him to eat. He spent his first month in the hospital, often inconsolable with pain. With a mixture of relief and nervousness, the Buchanans brought him home and settled into a new normal. Chris worked during the day, and Lacey drove each week an hour away to take Christian to multiple doctor appointments. They mastered Christian’s feeding tube, calculated his forthcoming surgeries, and prepared to raise a blind child. “We were still numb,” Lacey said. “Just going through the motions.” Venturing out in public proved challenging. People within earshot at the grocery store, pharmacy, or bank pointed and whispered about Christian’s face. “You could see this look of disgust,” Chris said. They began covering thankful: Christian’s stroller, but some begged for a peek. When Lacey relented, Lacey and the response was always a gasp, followed by, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Christian.
For Chris, these excursions became “heart-wrenching.” After a few months, Lacey realized how discouraged she had become: “I was complaining. I was mad at God. All of the sudden it hit me that I should be thankful that Christian is even alive.” Circumstances began to change too: Christian grew past the difficult newborn stage. He started playing and laughing. When Lacey ran errands, his giggles won over town critics: “He has a charm about him that draws people.” Realizing one day she had a story to tell, Lacey spontaneously recorded a seven-minute video with her phone. A blanketed Christian hides in her arms and worship songs play as she narrates their experiences with pictures and hand-written note cards. With smiles and tears, she recounts marrying her high-school sweetheart and her and Chris’ elation when she became pregnant. She describes their dismay as strangers balked at Christian’s appearance. Near the end, Lacey turns Christian to face viewers and kisses his cheek as papers read: “The judgmental glances and whispers don’t really bother me anymore. Because I know he is beautiful. Inside and out. I also know I did the right thing by not aborting Christian. He is the love of my life!” Lacey’s video received more than 60,000 hits on YouTube overnight. Two months later, in May 2012, it went viral
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keep him from crashing into Chandler’s baby equipment. Christian still uses a feeding tube, but a successful November surgery moves him one step closer to a repaired palate that will enable him to eat normally when he is older. The Buchanans have sometimes sparred with doctors and insurance companies over Christian’s care. They recently moved to an out-of-state provider after their doctor recommended an eight-hour neurosurgery for cosmetic reasons—to level Christian’s left eyebrow with his right. The Buchanans sought a second and third opinion, and other doctors said
video converter: A still from Lacey’s video; Chandler and Christian; Lacey uses the feeding tube with Christian (clockwise from top left).
the surgery was not worth putting Christian’s life in jeopardy. “After everything we’ve been through, we have a lot more compassion for families who deal with disabilities. It’s something you can’t fully understand until you’ve been through it,” Chris said. Lacey is currently taking night classes to earn her law degree, a lifelong dream with new meaning: She hopes to provide counsel and support for parents of children with disabilities. Now, instead of shying away from strangers, the Buchanans enjoy introducing Christian. They still get critical looks and questions such as “Will he be able to go to school?” The Buchanans plan to enroll Christian in a special education program next fall. “God has a plan for Christian,” Lacey said. “His defects do not diminish the value of his life.” A
video: youtube • Chandler & Christian: facebook • Lacey & Christian: Perry Reichanadter/genesis
after a friend reposted it to GodVine. Since then, it has more than 11 million views, opening up speaking opportunities nationwide for Lacey. At last year’s Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco, Lacey addressed more than 50,000 people. Lacey and Christian’s Facebook page now has more than 175,000 followers. Lacey regularly posts photos of Christian, now 2, and his 4-month-old brother Chandler. “Have you ever seen such handsomeness?” she wrote of the two boys pictured in matching striped sweaters and driving caps. After seeing Lacey’s video and Facebook page, one woman emailed her that she had changed her mind about aborting her pregnancy. Instead, she gave birth to a boy and named him after Christian. Christian’s impact also led Lacey and a friend to start a nonprofit, “Heart of Tennessee Pro-life,” in an effort to reach Middle Tennessee women. They have organized the first “Walk for Life” in Murfreesboro, Tenn., to coincide with the Jan. 22 anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Christian will lead the charge: “He’s become a local hero,” Lacey said. Christian is advancing beyond what doctors predicted. Lacey recently posted a video of his neatly trimmed chestnut hair hovering over piano keys as miniature fingers hit the beginning notes of Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” He relies on the feel and memory of the keys—and one month of piano lessons. Lacey calls him their “little over achiever.” He enjoys finger paints, swimming, and bedtime stories. Last fall, he began walking, long before many blind children. Chris is making him a cane out of PVC pipes that resembles a push toy to
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1/6/14 11:25 AM
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ROLL OVER!
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1/7/14 2:21 PM
Urban life
A city hobbled by poverty and violence is about to get its first pro-life pregnancy center M a “scaredy-cat.” The Georgiaborn, white-skinned, dark-haired executive director of the Women’s Center of Northwest Indiana never planned to work in Gary, Ind., a city infamous for crime and murder. “I would run my tires bald to not get off at Grant, Burr, or Broadway,” she says of the three interstate exits for Gary. Yet here she stands, checking in on the remodeling progress of her organization’s new Gary branch, housed on the bottom of a multistory brick building recently converted into apartments. With a historical hammered tin ceiling and suspended venting, the new pregnancy resource center sits in the heart of downtown, catercornered to the Gary Fire Department. “This is the first pro-life organization to come into Gary. You’re standing in it,” says Moffitt, . Gary is known not just as the hometown of late pop star Michael Jackson but as an impoverished and dysfunctional city. For five miles on Broadway, the main artery from downtown, half the shops are boarded up or empty, with broken windows and permanently locked gates. The mayor claims the true jobless rate is between and percent. In the ’s, Gary earned the title “Murder Capital of the United States” for its homicide rate. Crime has fallen since then, but the city still recorded homicides last year. More deaths occur at the Friendship Family Planning Clinic of Indiana, an abortion facility long in town. A Gary Planned Parenthood does abortion referrals. As in other cities, these facilities target African-American girls and women, whose abortions disproportionately account for a third of the U.S. total. For the past several years, members of the pro-life movement have focused on planting pregnancy centers in urban settings to counter the work of abortionists. They have found the work arduous to launch and difficult to sustain. The effort in Gary has been no exception so far, but Moffitt and her co-laborers are staunchly determined to help preserve this city’s future. Some Gary women, unexpectedly pregnant and unsure what to do, currently travel as far as miles to an outside Women’s Center branch. There
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they get a free ultrasound and advice from pro-life counselors who hope they’ll keep the baby or place it for adoption. The long drive is a likely deterrent for women who don’t have their own cars. Moffitt was aware of the need. But when a pastor in a neighboring city challenged her to plant a pregnancy center in Gary, the task seemed daunting. She told a co-worker, “It’s too much, it’s too big. We’re white.” (Eighty-five percent of Gary residents are black.) A Gary woman who pled for Moffitt to come to the city helped change her mind. Hurdles followed. Several initially proposed locations fell through. When Moffitt and her board of directors found a location in a historical building, their remodel plans required rounds of approval from city, state, and federal officials. Gary officials grilled them about the center’s purpose. It took nine months and multiple visits to city hall before
Jackie Moffitt
1/7/14 5:25 PM
DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
J
by DA NIEL JA ME S DEV INE in Gary, Ind.
DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
LIFE FORCE: The new Gary branch for the Women’s Center of Northwest Indiana.
they got the first building permit, issued in October. Despite the delays, other elements fell providentially into place: Someone sold the Women’s Center the necessary construction lumber for a penny, and the leasing company offered to cover a , plumbing bill. A Gary resident, LaDonna Bazziel, heard about the
Email: ddevine@wng.org
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planned branch on a Christian radio station and called Moffitt to help: She’ll be the facility’s new manager once it opens, as early as January. “I had been praying for a long time for something like this for our city,” says Bazziel, who is African-American and grew up in a single-parent home, like many of her potential clients.
James Lewis dealt with young girls getting pregnant during his more than years as a pastor at a Gary church. “And of course they’re not going to tell the pastor they’re going to get an abortion.” Sometimes they would quietly drop out of church. Trapped in a cycle of poverty and lack of education, such women have difficulty moving beyond the daily pursuit of food, clothing, and shelter. With support and guidance, Lewis says, “many go on to marry and live productive lives. But it’s a struggle.” One example of the struggle: La’Brittnie McCafferty, , is due to give birth to her fourth child in March. She holds on her lap a -year-old son named Syncere, who has a crystal earring and beautiful teardrop eyes. The next baby will be her last, she says: “I’m getting my tubes tied!” McCafferty lives alone with her children and will have to use day care in order to get a job. She says her boyfriend is in jail for traffic violations, and the father of her -year-old was murdered in a drive-by shooting in . “All those drugs out there are making them lose their minds,” she says of the violence. Moffitt hopes to offer clients more than just pregnancy counseling: They need parenting and life skills coaching, and most of all they need the gospel. But much is uncertain in Gary, including long-term funding, as it is in other urban settings. The pro-life umbrella organization Care Net, after launching an initiative in to plant pregnancy centers in urban areas, is currently rethinking its approach in part because of the difficulty of obtaining local financial support. “In Gary, it’s a real step of faith, because they can’t support this,” admits Moffitt. But she adds, “Every day we’re not open, someone’s dying.” Although the effort to plant in Gary has been frustrating at times, “I know [God] wants us here because I would have quit. … But I can’t quit. If we quit, who’s going to do it?” A
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/3/14 10:07 AM
Resuscitating compassıon
God is in the middle of this story of a doctor who saved a baby who saved the doctor
D
by Dick Peterson
r. West, would you come over here? This baby just died.” On that day, April 28, 1976, a young pediatrician, Edward H. West, was checking on one of his own patients in a newborn nursery at a private hospital in downtown Charleston, S.C. Another infant, born prematurely during the night, had been treated as was normal in those days— set up with oxygen coming through a little perforated Dixie cup just to see what would happen. As was normal, sometimes the baby died, as this one apparently had. When the nurse called him over, West went to work as he had been trained: Don’t assume death, but “walk into resuscitations and just do them … no interaction with the child, the mother’s sedated or not present.” He began mouth-to-mouth, which for a baby is mouth-to-mouth-and-nose because the baby’s face is so small. With his four fingers under the baby’s spine, he began chest compressions with his thumb. Soon the heart rate returned, which meant he could stop the compressions and get in an umbilical catheter to get fluids into the baby. West recalls, “You could tell it worked. The kid peed.” Before he could get the baby across the street to the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) hospital for specialized care, a group of pediatricians came in. One asked West, “Why weren’t you at the meeting today?” West recalls: “That was the first time it struck me—odd, that I didn’t know about the meeting.” Also odd: Of all the pediatricians who would have been available that day if they hadn’t been at the meeting, West was the only one trained to resuscitate a premature baby. Had he received the memo about a general staff meeting as he always had, the baby would have died. West remembers passing the mother’s room and saying something like, “I’m Dr. West and you have a very sick baby.” But, following his training, he didn’t stop to explain what had happened. He never bothered to learn the mother’s or baby’s name.
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He couldn’t even remember if the baby was a boy or girl. He just got the baby across the street, pushing an incubator that looked like a torpedo, and handed over the baby to the critical care team. He went back to his office and did n ormal work. The next Sunday, West was in church when his pastor stopped the service to pray for a family with a sick baby at the MUSC. West remembers thinking, That’s the baby I was taking care of. Odd, that it would be connected to a family in my church. He says it’s easy to lose sight of the humanity of his patients, but that the pastor’s prayer and the connection of that baby to his church made him begin thinking of his patients as little people. About a year later, the Charleston (S.C.) News and Courier ran an article about a baby who survived after months of care at MUSC. That was the baby West had saved, and he started thinking more about how he practiced medicine. But he continued practicing as he had been trained, with an emphasis on technical excellence, and not expending time on patients. Then, about 10 years ago, after years as a Bible teacher in his church, he realized he “was missing
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Brad Nettles/The Post and Courier
Brad Nettles/The Post and Courier
something. I realized it was compassion.” He began to pray for compassion, and was surprised sometimes to find himself having an “obnoxious tearing up. … Tears would come down my cheeks. It took awhile to realize, oh, this must be what it is.” Then on Jan. 28, 2013, nurses in the newborn nursery at Summerville Medical Center, about 20 miles northwest of Charleston, were anticipating the birth of a 23-week premature baby. “I know the feeling the nurses in that room must have felt,” West said. “It’s a feeling of something’s about to happen, and I have to perform, and I have to do it right.” The hospital’s neonatologist was not on duty, so West offered to stay at the hospital until the neonatologist returned or the anticipated emergency was over. As they waited, West began to tell a nurse about his experience in 1976, and another nurse became interested in the conversation. She asked if he remembered the baby’s name or the name of the newspaper article. He said he didn’t know the baby’s name and thought the
article was titled something like “The Million Dollar Baby,” a reference to the huge hospital bill. The nurse corrected him: The title was “The Miracle Baby,” she said, adding that she knew the name of the baby: Peggy Michelle Sanders, daughter of Charles and Kathy Sanders. How did she know? She was that baby. Known now by her married name, Michelle Fulton, the 36-year-old neonatal nurse and mother of two has worked with West for the past five years, taking care of newborns—and yet neither one knew their prior connection. As they continued waiting for the 23-week preemie to arrive, West thought back to the role baby Michelle played in starting to show him his need for compassion. He now knew that he should have talked with the mother of the baby he’d brought back to life: “It’s outrageous that I didn’t go back and talk to her. It didn’t occur to me. … I could have done her some good that day, that Miracle: Fulton and West talk in the Summerville Medical Center nursery.
month. I could have done her some good in three months, because she was still down there. It never even crossed my mind to do anything good for her.” Charles and Kathy Sanders, and their daughter Michelle Fulton, consider it a miracle that West was in the newborn nursery that day and not at the hospital staff meeting. Until the reunion this year, Fulton’s parents didn’t know their baby had stopped breathing before being brought back to life by a doctor who happened to be where he wasn’t supposed to be. They see West as a hero, but he says he was a jerk who now realizes “I’ve been forgiven a lot that I didn’t even understand about or know about. I hadn’t appreciated the extent to which I had been forgiven.” West is grateful for “the infusion of compassion that I’ve received in my life before it was too late.” He now sees how, back in 1976, the doctor saved the baby, and the baby began the process of saving the doctor, just the way God had it planned. A —Dick Peterson is a graduate of the World Journalism Institute’s mid-career course
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1/3/14 3:00 PM
Together for the Gospel
Obstacles Opposition & Opportunities Plenary Speakers Ligon Duncan 1 Albert Mohler 2 Mark Dever 3 David Platt 4 John Piper 5 Kevin DeYoung 6 Thabiti Anyabwile 7 Matt Chandler 8 Breakout Speakers Ed Copeland Leonce Crump Juan Sanchez Simon Gathercole Peter Williams Dave Russell Owen Strachan David Sinclair Mack Stiles Mez McConnell Mike McKinley
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Considering the Task of Evangelism
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Notebook
Lifestyle > Technology > Science > Houses of God > Sports > Money > Religion
Her middle name was Mercy Unwavering faith amid a rare complication, a miraculous birth, and a sorrowful loss
HANDOUT PHOTOS
BY RACHEL LYNN ALDRICH
UNCERTAIN PATH: Eskelund family, ; Lydia and Anneka as newborns.
>>
I of a few minutes, Kristi Eskelund’s excitement at discovering she was pregnant with twins turned to confusion and fear. She recorded her doctor’s words in her journal: “You just went from a no-risk pregnancy to an off-the-chart risk.” She tried to comprehend what he was telling her: Her twin girls were conjoined at the abdomen and—if the ultrasound reading was correct—it was possible they shared a heart. Conjoined twins are a rare occurrence, about one in , live births, according to the University of Maryland. Between those who are stillborn and those who die a day after being born, the survival rate is only between and percent. Doctors told Kristi
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and Dave Eskelund that their daughters had a percent chance of surviving birth, but it was hard to know what to expect after. The doctors asked them whether they wanted to terminate the pregnancy. When Kristi objected, they urged her to reconsider, making abortion seem an easy option. But against much advice and uncertainty, Kristi decided to go forward with the pregnancy: “To me it has always been really clear that
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/3/14 10:34 AM
Notebook > Lifestyle
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most of the shared organs were inside Lydia. Anneka’s situation was grave. With fewer of the shared organs and serious heart defects, she could die if separated from Lydia—but she would surely die if she wasn’t. The successful separation surgery was followed by a long recovery. Over the following months, the Eskelunds and their girls lived at the hospital or the Ronald McDonald House next door, driving home occasionally to see their other children. Eventually, Dave moved back home, though he drove out to give Kristi a break now and then. Lydia and Anneka captured the hearts of their surgeons. Nicknames taped on their monitors revealed their developing personalities: Lydia was “The Queen,” and Anneka was “Tiny.” As the months wore on, it became clear that the girls were on different paths. Lydia grew stronger. Anneka became weaker. Lydia was discharged, though she still lived at the hospital with her mother. Anneka had more ia Lyd surgeries. Despite the doctor’s efforts, Anneka’s health continued to decline. Kristi remembers the day she sat down with one of the nurse practitioners to face the fact that Anneka wasn’t going to get better as Lydia had. Everyone had come to the realization that she wasn’t going to live very long. “It was such a precious, quiet realization for me and for a lot of us that every single day matters,” Kristi said. “There was a sweetness about living every single day with her at the bedside and that we knew we weren’t going to have very many of them. There was kind of this letting go.” Six months after delivery, the Eskelunds were home on a short respite when they received a phone call in the night. Anneka’s liver had failed. They returned to the hospital, and there in a dark room, with only her parents and
FAMILY TIES: the surgeons who had Drawing of the worked so hard for twins made by her, Anneka died— the Eskelund’s exactly six months son AJ. after her miraculous delivery. Kristi said she wouldn’t have chosen anyone else to share the moment with than that small team of doctors who had become like family. Twelve years later, Lydia is a normal girl with blue eyes and blond hair. She likes singing, archery, American Girl dolls, and organizing parties for her friends. She is healthier than anyone would have predicted, with mild scoliosis and a place where her heart is unusually exposed. The Eskelunds are still close friends with some of the surgeons who worked on Lydia and Anneka. Their willingness to live out their faith has given them unique witnessing opportunities. “When people see you completely live out your convictions, and really put your money where your mouth is, it lends a lot of authenticity to your ability to speak the gospel message.” She said she would remind women considering abortion that doctors often give the worst scenario. While they may be right, God works miracles. Kristi says, “I would do it all again. I really would.” Six years ago, Kristi returned to the same hospital to give birth—a surprise since she wasn’t supposed to be able to have more children. Some of the same nurses attended her when Jesse, a healthy son, came into the world. She called him her Job 42 baby, because after all the pain, God was giving it all back: “Being able to really rejoice in the situation after all the grief. … It was so much of a coming-full-circle experience for me.” A —Rachel Lynn Aldrich is a WORLD intern
HANDOUT
aborting the child is taking a life. I was honestly more afraid of that than whatever I might deliver. … The only thing I could bank on was living with my own choices. And I knew that whatever I did next, I was going to have to look it in the face every single day of my life.” The Eskelunds sought prenatal care at Chapel Hill Hospital at the University of North Carolina, where one of the surgeons had already performed a separation surgery, and rearranged their lives. Dave, a Marine, had been offered a much-desired tour of duty in Norway. Now, there was no telling what the girls’ medical needs would be if they survived the pregnancy. Doctors still could not tell them if the girls had one heart or two. And they had three children at home to think about. Kristi and Dave prayed the twins would survive to the delivery. On Jan. 10, 2001, Kristi gave birth by cesarean section. The medical team rushed the babies to NICU for treatment. Good news followed: The girls did not share a heart. The two hearts were next to each other, and beat in sync, but there were two of them. That meant separation was a plausible option. The Eskelunds named the stronger baby Lydia because Lydia was a strong woman in the Bible. They added Joy for a middle name. They called the sicker baby Anneka, the Scandinavian derivative of Hannah. Kristi said they chose the name in part because Dave is of Scandinavian descent. But it had a deeper meaning for their family: “It was sort of Hannah’s same situation, where, if we have this child, Lord, we’re going to put her in Your hands, and we’re going to put her in Your mercy. … We knew her life would be a mercy.” Mercy became her middle name. In the days following delivery, it became clear that the girls had to be separated once they were strong enough to survive the surgery. Tests revealed that they shared some bowels, and that
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1/3/14 10:42 AM
the HUMAN LIFE REVIEW FALL 2013 Featured in this issue: William Murchison on . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Willfully Childless John M. Grondelski on . . . . . . . Gosnell’s Babies: The E-Book George McKenna on . . . . . . . . . . Peter Steinfels’ Bad Bargain David Quinn on . . . . . . . . The Truth About Abortion in Ireland Anne Hendershott on . . . . . . . . . . Is the IRS Targeting Prolifers? 2013 GREAT DEFENDER OF LIFE AWARD DINNER
REVEREND VICTOR AUSTIN • MARIA MCFADDEN MAFFUCCI NICHOLAS SALVATORE DI IORIO • SUSANNE METAXAS • ERIC METAXAS
Mary Meehan on . . . . . . . . . What Adoption Looks Like Today Matthew Hennessey on . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Abortion Stalemate Stephen Vincent on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Tale of Two Wombs Donald DeMarco on . . . . . . . . . . . Keeping Up with The Times Leslie Fain on . . . . . . . Sperm Donation in the Wild, Wild West Also in this issue: Pope Francis • Jacqueline Harvey • Betsy Woodruff • Alan Sears • Alana Newman • Kristen Hatten • and Kathryn Lopez on Abuse of Discretion
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Notebook > Technology
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WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
2 TECHNOLOGY.indd 58
the system to hospitals in Tanzania, Zambia, and South Africa. Closer to home, U.S. hospitals have begun using cold, instead of warmth, to treat newborns deprived of oxygen during birth. “Cooling blankets” filled with chilled liquid work to lower a newborn’s body temperature to about ° F for hours, slowing metabolism and thereby reducing the chance of long-term brain damage from the lack of oxygen. Afterward, the baby is slowly warmed again—to perfect health, doctors hope. A
Email: ddevine@wng.org
1/8/14 11:58 AM
HANDOUT
Baby-saving gadgets
well-equipped hospitals use baby-sized breathing masks and CPAP systems (“continuous positive airway pressure”) to keep little lungs inflated. But the machines can cost , and are unaffordable in some places. In response, students at Rice University invented a low-cost () infant CPAP system for hospitals in Malawi. The size of an inkjet printer, the device is built with aquarium pumps and named “bubble CPAP” because of how it blows bubbles inside a clear, water-filled container when functioning properly. Clinical trials in Malawi LIFESAVING showed a percent RESULTS: The improved survival Odón Device can be used as an aid rate for newborns with difficult with respiratory deliveries; problems who used bubble CPAP bubble CPAP. Now, keeps infant lungs inflated; thanks to a healththe Embrace is a care innovation low-cost infant award, a charity warmer (top to plans to distribute bottom).
HANDOUT
babies, often at low costs appealing to hospitals in developing nations. Here are several recent ones. The Odón Device, a delivery aid, is named after Jorge Odón, the Argentine car mechanic who invented it. Odón was inspired by a parlor trick in which a cork at the bottom of a bottle is extracted using only a plastic bag. Inflated inside the bottle, Simple contraptions improve survival the bag creates enough odds for poor babies born to adversity suction to grip the cork and, with a tug, pop it out. BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE Resembling little more than a plunger and a plastic bag, the Odón Device inflates in the I an estimated . million same way around a baby’s head during babies died within a month of delivery, allowing a doctor or midwife to birth. These were deaths due to gently pull both bag and baby from the causes other than abortion: birth canal. Now in a testing phase by infections, birth defects, preterm delivWHO, the device seems safe and could ery, low birth weight, or complications be a lifesaver during difficult deliveries during childbirth, like suffocation. In where vacuum extraction or many cases, newborn deaths are precesarean section is unavailventable, but occur in developing able. (Forceps, the standard countries where good medical care is tool, can injure a baby if used too expensive or far away for mothers improperly.) to obtain, according to the World A low-cost incubator Health Organization. called Embrace aims to solve Thanks to old-fashioned ingenuity, a problem associated with though, simple inventions are aiding early births. Babies born predifficult deliveries and premature maturely are often so small they lack body fat needed to regulate their temperature and survive. In poor countries, mothers without access to expensive hospital incubators have resorted to laying their preemies beneath light bulbs. Embrace looks like a baby-sized sleeping bag. It’s fitted with a pouch containing wax that, once melted in boiling water, releases steady heat as it converts back into a solid. Wrapped around a baby, the incubator maintains a body temperature of . degrees Fahrenheit for up to six hours. Embrace is reusable and can work in regions without consistent electricity. Small newborns sometimes have trouble breathing on their own, and
Apps for life
Smartphones and tablets are helping to keep babies away from abortionists By angela lu
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Sonograms showing life inside the womb are not the only area where technology has allied with the pro-life movement. Smartphones and tablets are joining the cause thanks to a new array of pregnancy apps. These apps show images of fetal development and help women connect to their little ones, even allowing them to hear the baby’s heartbeat. One pro-life group has created an app that alerts Christians when a woman walks into the pregnancy center in their area and asks them to pray. While the pregnancy apps don’t overtly promote life, they inadvertently do so by revealing to mothers what’s going on inside their bodies. My Pregnancy Today, a free app from BabyCenter, asks users to enter their baby’s due date and creates a countdown, showing schematic drawings of the baby each week and videos describing the baby’s growth in the womb. It describes what mothers should expect to feel each week of the pregnancy. iPregnancy, includes detailed 2-D and 3-D ultrasound pictures of babies at each week. Descriptions of the baby’s developments accompany the pictures: from his or her first heartbeat to the appearance of eyelashes to the average length and weight of the baby. iPregnancy includes information on how parents can prepare for their baby, and lets them share details of the pregnancy on Facebook and Twitter. My Baby’s Beat app allows mothers who are 30-40 weeks along to hear their baby’s heartbeat. By placing the phone on a woman’s belly, the phone’s microphone amplifies the heartbeat so mothers can hear it through headphones. Women can record the heartbeat and share it on social media. Even men can get onboard with mPregnancy for Men with Pregnant Women, which compares the size of the
Email: alu@wng.org
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developing baby to such “guy” objects as footballs. It includes a “Score Board” to keep track of how far along the baby is and how much time the future father has left “as a free man.” Using humor, it gives tips on how the father can prepare for the baby and help make the pregnancy easier for women. Pro-life groups also are using apps. Online for Life uses internet marketing
strategies to help pregnancy centers find women vulnerable to abortions. Online for Life uses banner ads, blogs, social media, and search engine optimization so women searching abortion-related terms will discover a link to a pregnancy center or a pro-life group. In the past year the number of abortion- vulnerable women finding help at
pro-life on the go: Online for Life, My Baby’s Beat, and My Pregnancy Today (clockwise from top).
pregnancy centers Online for Life serves has quadrupled. “Our hope is that we would be able to help the industry see how technology applies to the situation,” said Brian Fisher, the group’s creator. Online for Life shares graphics on Twitter and Facebook, where it has more than 294,000 likes. It has created an app asking users if they are willing to become prayer partners. The app uses geolocation to find out where the users are located and notifies them when an abortion-vulnerable woman visits a nearby pregnancy center. They send notifications when the woman decides to keep the baby or place the baby for adoption. So far, 1,390 of those women have chosen to carry their baby to term. Fisher said 6,000 people have downloaded the app and 3,500 have committed to pray. I downloaded the app for a few weeks and found it easy to use, with a map displaying the pregnancy centers in their network. For my region, Los Angeles, it listed a finding of 121,901 searches for abortion online. Those led to 2,089 visits to pregnancy center websites. From that number, 397 people contacted a pregnancy center, and 21 babies were saved. More than 250 people in my area served as prayer partners. Throughout the day, notifications popped up on my iPhone. One let me know, “Center Bakersfield Pregnancy Center is speaking with someone considering abortion. Will you pray?” Other times I got praise notifications: “Baby 1,100 was saved in Dallas, TX. Share the good news!” The app’s concept of real-time prayer provides opportunities of meaningful engagement for people whose hearts are drawn to at-risk women. “Our goal,” said Fisher, “is to have hundreds of thousands of people praying.” A
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1/6/14 11:39 AM
Notebook > Science
Malignant data In various forms, cancer speeds up its deadly march around the world
By daniel james devine
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trialization (pollution) and the adoption of Western lifestyles in developing countries (unhealthy diets and too little exercise). Smoking rates have increased in Africa and the Middle East. Other factors are in the mix: Human papillomavirus, spread by sexual activity, is behind the deadly scourge of cervical cancer, a disease concentrated in Africa. Breast cancer has increased as more women delay childbearing and have fewer children, both risk factors for the disease. The rise of surgical abortion in the past few decades may also be driving up breast cancer rates. A large body of studies suggests a link between abortion and breast cancer, although mainstream health organizations routinely discredit any connection. WHO’s cancer forecast isn’t rosy. It predicts by 2025 the total number of new cases per year will have risen 37 percent over the 2012 total, reflecting a world population that is not just growing but aging. We can do our part to lower the statistics: Don’t smoke, limit alcohol consumption, eat right (and not too much), practice abstinence or fidelity, have kids, and don’t sit around. Now please excuse me. I feel a sudden urge to jog.
Only the best? A new embryo screening technique one geneticist described as a “game changer” could one day be used to select offspring with ideal physical traits. Reported in Cell in December, scientists from Harvard University in Massachusetts and Peking University in China developed a novel, less invasive method of sequencing the DNA of a lab-fertilized egg without destroying or, they believe, harming the embryo. They say the technique would improve the success of IVF treatments, but it would also be used to screen out tiny babies with genetic defects—and perhaps even undesirable traits. —D.J.D.
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MOHAMED NURELDIN ABDALLAH /REUTERS/Newscom
bearing the brunt: Leukemia patient Aamir Sheikh sits outside a cancer hospital in Mumbai, India.
india: Rafiq Maqbool/ap • embryo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire/ap
If there exists a global war on cancer, the globe doesn’t appear to be winning. True, 21st-century medical knowledge and treatment have driven down the incidence of certain cancer types, and made people (in some countries) less likely to die from them. But overall, new cases of cancer are not decreasing but increasing. The World Health Organization released new estimates in December marking the trend: In 2012, there were 14.1 million new cases of lung, breast, colorectal, cervical, and other cancers, up from 12.7 million just four years earlier. The annual number of deaths from cancer ticked up as well, to 8.2 million in 2012 from 7.6 million in 2008. “Less developed” nations like India, China, Kenya, Brazil, and their neighbors bear the brunt of the growth statistics. Over half of all new cases, and two-thirds of all deaths, occur there. (Overall cancer rates are lower in poorer nations, but mortality ends up nearly the same.) Lung cancer remains the most common and the most deadly form. Breast cancer, the form most lethal to women, is itself thriving: Incidence shot up 20 percent between 2008 and 2012, and deaths increased 14 percent. Now to make sense of the numbers. On the bright side, part of this cancer surge may be due to increased life spans, thanks to better sanitation and medical care. If deadly diseases like cholera or tuberculosis are reduced in poor nations, for example, children and adults live longer. Some of them will inevitably develop cancer instead. But researchers blame the rest of the cancer rise on indus-
india: Rafiq Maqbool/ap • embryo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire/ap
MOHAMED NURELDIN ABDALLAH/ REUTERS/Newscom
Notebook > Houses of God
A South Sudanese girl living in the North celebrates Christmas at a church in the Umbada locality of Omdurman on Dec. 25.
J a n u a r y 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 • WO R LD
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1/8/14 11:17 AM
Notebook > Sports
Olympians for Christ Several of this winter’s athletes find their true strength in the Lord BY ZACHARY ABATE
WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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ROOKARD: MICHAEL SOHN/AP • KREITZBURGIN: DIETHER ENDLICHER/AP • JONES: DOUG PENSINGER/GETTY IMAGES
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O F. the Sochi Winter Olympics will kick off, complete with political intrigue, security concerns, and storylines about athletes going for Olympic glory but, even more so, God’s glory. Speed skater Jilleanne Rookard says she came to faith in Christ while training for competition in . Her faith is a source of strength and inspiration for the times when she feels like giving up: “I’ve just kept growing since then, and it’s not anything sudden. I realize now that I’m never going to stop learning.” Bobsledder Brock Kreitzburg placed his faith in God at age , after losing his father to cancer. “God used the worst experience in my life—losing my father—to bring forth the best experience in my life—knowing my Heavenly Father. God is the Father I can never lose, who will be with me forever, and truly, unconditionally loves me,” Kreitzburg said. Kreitzburg, who earned a master’s of divinity from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in , competed in the Turin Olympics but missed the Vancouver Olympics with an injury. He is hoping to make the final cut on the men’s Olympic bobsledding team. Lolo Jones, a multisport athlete, will likely make the U.S. women’s bobsledding squad after winning a gold medal at the World Championships. Jones, , competed in the meter hurdles at the Beijing and London Olympics, but gained more than pounds to qualify for bobsledding competition. She made headlines in when she told HBO’s Real SPORTING GOOD: Sports with Bryant Gumbel that she is a virgin and plans on Rookard (top); keeping her virginity until marriage. Kreitzburg (bottom left), and Jones “This journey has been hard,” she said at (bottom right). that time. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Harder than training for the Olympics. Harder than studying for college has been staying a virgin before marriage.” Jones often uses her Twitter account to share Bible passages and words of encouragement with her more than , followers. Meanwhile, security concerns are growing in the wake of late-December suicide bombings in Volgograd, miles from the Olympic facilities in Sochi. The second deadly terrorist attack of the month pushed the Russians to tighten security by creating a -mile “security zone” around Sochi. All spectators wishing to attend the Games must provide passports and contacts for security screening. One of the militant groups fighting in the North Caucasus region likely carried out the attack. Doku Umarov, leader of the Caucasus Emirate (just one of the militant groups operating in Russia’s Northern Caucasus, the region between the Black and Caspian seas), says he will use “maximum force” to disrupt and terrorize the Sochi Games. His goal is an Islamic state in the Caucasus. The U.S. National Security Council pledged “full support” to Vladimir Putin’s government in preparing security for the Games, according to the Reuters news service: “We would welcome the opportunity for closer cooperation for the safety of the athletes, spectators, and other participants.” A
Notebook > Money
HOSPITALITY REDEFINED: Sheraton Waikiki proves a popular venue for same-sex marriages.
Not counting the costs
The economic benefits of homosexual marriage are likely dramatically overstated BY WARREN COLE SMITH
ROOKARD: MICHAEL SOHN/AP • KREITZBURGIN: DIETHER ENDLICHER/AP • JONES: DOUG PENSINGER/GETTY IMAGES
MARCO GARCIA/AP
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I D homosexual marriage became legal in Hawaii, generating a flurry of news stories saying homosexual marriage would be an economic boon to the Aloha State. Most of them cited a University of Hawaii study claiming the benefit to Hawaii would be around million during the next three years. But that estimate is almost certainly not true. “Such studies measure benefits, but not costs,” said Jay Richards, whose book Money, Greed, and God debunks economic myths. Even if the study is accurate to the penny in measuring
Email: wsmith@wng.org
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benefits, according to Richards, “that’s just one side of the ledger. The other side of the ledger includes both economic and social costs.” Those costs are enormous. The annual cost to society of marriage breakdown is billion, according to a study by the left-leaning Brookings Institution. Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, who directs the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America, said not all of these costs fall at the feet of homosexual activists. But they share the blame because of their efforts to “change, devalue and diminish marriage as a life-
time commitment between a man and a woman committed to their union and their children.” Whatever the causes, this is indisputable: The rate of marriage in the United States has fallen by nearly percent since , according to the Centers for Disease Control. That’s the year the Hawaii Supreme Court touched off the modern debate over same-sex marriage by ruling the state’s refusal to grant same-sex marriage licenses discriminatory. It’s likely the economic benefits of gay marriage are dramatically overstated. The Sheraton Waikiki has a relationship with the state of Hawaii to issue marriage licenses. Kelly Sanders, general manager of the hotel, told WORLD that on Dec. , the day homosexual marriage became legal, the hotel issued marriage licenses. These ceremonies began just after midnight and lasted until : a.m. However only eight more weddings were currently scheduled, and he would not speculate about how many gay weddings the hotel would do after the initial flurry ended. Since the hotel started issuing wedding licenses on Jan. , , more than , had been granted to heterosexual couples, a dramatically larger share of the state’s billion tourist industry. Even the widely quoted University of Hawaii study,
the basis for most of the news stories, has been controversial. The principal author of the study, Dr. Sumner La Croix, openly supports gay marriage. When he released the study in the summer, he encouraged the state to act quickly. “If Hawaii waits to adopt same-sex marriage,” he said then, “it will not realize these gains. They will be lost forever, diverted to other states that recognize marriage equality.” Since the study’s completion, California began allowing same-sex marriage, issuing more than , samesex marriage licenses in July alone. The changing environment has made the original estimates obsolete. Biased or not, outdated or not, the study continues to be quoted. Richards said that’s because most journalists are not trained in economics: “Such studies flatter their pre-existing opinions, and most people … treat economics differently from other disciplines. If you were writing about chemistry or physics, you would know you needed some training in those fields. But most people think they have an intuitive feel for economics.” But, Richards added, much of economics is counterintuitive and produces unintended consequences. That means all assertions about the economic impact of gay marriage are at best a guess: “Gay marriage is a new phenomenon. We simply don’t have a lot of data.” A
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/8/14 11:21 AM
Notebook > Religion
Prophetic error LDS says early leaders were wrong on race
BY THOMAS KIDD
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T C J C L- S (LDS) has issued a major statement explaining racial policies that once banned black men from the Mormon priesthood, and that excluded all African-Americans from Mormon temples. Although LDS officials rescinded these prohibitions in , the church had never fully addressed their historical roots. “Race and the Priesthood” acknowledges that the bans came about under Brigham Young and other leaders, emerging in the context of pervasive th-century racism that “influenced all aspects of people’s lives, including their religion.” The biblical justifications often cited for the ethnic restrictions reflected “widespread ideas about racial inferiority,” the statement says. “Race and the Priesthood” represents a major transition for the church, especially because of Mormons’ belief in the prophetic authority of leaders such as Young. The statement implies that the racial exclusions were rooted in early Mormon leaders’ prejudices, not divine revelation. Patrick Mason, the Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University, told me the announcement raises important questions for committed Mormons: What does it mean “that their prophets, who they believe receive revelation from God, could allow the ban to happen (and supported it either explicitly or implicitly for years)? If God is leading the church through His prophets, why didn’t He step in and stop it?” Mason notes that Mormons have never technically considered their prophets infallible, but that this statement identifies a troubling case in which the prophets were certainly wrong. Mason also commends the new pronouncement for acknowledging that the Mormon racial prohibition was not just about the priesthood, but about banning all blacks from temples, where “Mormonism’s highest rites (including marriage for eternity) take place.”
WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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godless congregation that celebrates life,” in London in January . The movement has since garnered extensive media attention, with coverage by The New York Times and other outlets. The Associated Press described Los Angeles’ Sunday Assembly as an “atheist mega-church,” although religion writer Bobby Ross Jr. pointed out that the number of Los Angeles attendees
YOUNG STATUE: DOUGLAS C. PIZAC/AP • EVANS & JONES: JAE C. HONG/AP
Two British comedians who launched an “atheist church” called Sunday Assembly have generated a great deal of public discussion but are struggling to attract financial support. The founders, Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones, are touring the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia, raising funds through a “crowdfunding campaign” to establish Sunday Assemblies across the English-speaking world. They initially set a goal of , with a December deadline, but recently announced that they were revising the target down to ,. As of Christmas, they had raised about ,. Evans and Jones opened the first Sunday Assembly, which they call “a
(less than ) fell far short of the conventional megachurch definition of , congregants or more. Alice Robb, writing for The New Republic, attended the inaugural meeting of Washington, D.C.’s Sunday Assembly. She reported that participants sang rock anthems by Queen and Bon Jovi, with Jones telling the audience that “for the next hour we’re just gonna celebrate the amazing fact that we are alive.” Some existing religions, such as Unitarian Universalism, balk at doctrinal certainty about God, but the Sunday Assemblies take a different approach. Jones and Evans say they accept people of all beliefs, but they have no deity and “don’t do supernatural.” One guest at the D.C. meeting told Robb the Universalists are “not the next new thing.” —T.K.
Email: tkidd@wng.org
1/2/14 4:56 PM
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Mailbag ‘Staying the course’
Dec. I am humbled yet inspired by the Syrian Christians and Bishop Antoine Audo, WORLD’s Daniels of the Year. What we in the West see as senseless war, our Syrian brothers and sisters see as part of fulfilling our ancient calling: to be a blessing to the nations. Thanks to Mindy Belz for using biblical history to help explain our calling as the church. —D T, Fredericktown, Ohio
I agree that Christians should passionately support the persecuted church with our prayers and other means. But let’s remember that while some people are being persecuted because of the name of Jesus, not all of these individuals or churches believe the gospel of Jesus. —J C, Newnan, Ga.
‘The other side of failure’ Dec. The juxtaposition of this story, about the nine defectors returned to North Korea, with “The house that Steven built” is a telling commentary on the opulent and self-absorbed nature of many churches in North America today. Can you imagine trying to explain to frostbitten orphans like No Jong Yeon why that church spent so much money building a mansion for one pastor? —J H, Omaha, Neb.
‘The house that Steven built’ Dec. We have enjoyed your magazine for years, but your article on pastor Steven Furtick is extremely disappointing. You talk about “a secular world ready to pounce” over his house, but it doesn’t have to because you already have. —R K, Stillwater, Okla.
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‘The preachers of L.A.’ Dec. With sadness I read “The preachers of L.A.” and “The house that Steven built.” They shame the name of Jesus, but the congregations that pay these guys exorbitant salaries to tickle their ears are culpable too. They are responsible for holding their leaders accountable for what they teach and how they live. —F N, Woodbridge, Calif.
‘Wings and prayers’ Dec. Congratulations to Rikki Stinnette for a well-written article highlighting a mercy-giving missionary effort. —M S, Parker, Colo.
‘Going to extremes’ Dec. I agree that politicians must be careful not to appear extreme, but neither should they accept a false label. Also, I find it odd that Democrats will support liars in their own leadership and vote in unity, whereas Republicans will capitulate to pressure, eat their own young, and fail to rally around their leaders. —A (T) B, Martinsburg, W.Va.
This is the first thing I have read hinting that Obama is God’s judgment
on America. The church in America has fallen away to the point that we as a nation are no longer under God’s protection. —R C, Kokomo, Ind.
Dispatches Dec. My house was destroyed by the recent Sunday morning tornado you reported, but the story of Washington, Ill., is that God protected His flocks. The tornado just missed several different churches and went over another, damaging cars and houses, but everyone who went to church in Washington that morning was uninjured. We have an amazing God. —M K, Washington, Ill.
‘Dealing with shortages’ Dec. Every medical system has some form of rationing. Countries with universal healthcare ration their services by requiring long waits for elective procedures and deny certain procedures for patients near the end of their lives. Many Americans believe that everything medically possible should be done to prolong life but, as you point out, the math won’t work. —B M, Charlotte, N.C.
‘Teacher on a mission’ Dec. God bless Marilyn Rhames for initiating Teachers Who Pray. A couple of churches here have matched prayer partners with school staff members and teachers. It is about time we put prayer back into the schools, and we don’t need anyone’s permission. —B K, Largo, Fla.
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/7/14 12:12 PM
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‘A room of one’s own’ Dec. Thanks for the article on the short-term rental website Airbnb. My family has been both host and guest on a similar site, Mennonite Your Way. It’s not about empty apartments but about the hospitality of fellow Christians while traveling, with Mennonite simplicity. —G C, Mechanicsburg, Pa.
‘What goes into the mouth’ Nov. Sure, we can become legalistic about eating and forget that godliness, not bodily exercise, “is profitable unto all things.” But we should not assume that Christians exercising better stewardship of their bodies are doing it because they have turned their selves into gods. —A H, Madison, Wis.
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You write that Daniel’s health was a great testimony of God’s favor but “it wasn’t about the food.” It wasn’t? There is no need to spiritualize this passage. Daniel was healthy because he followed God’s natural laws and plans for eating. I commend Rick Warren for taking seriously the biblical injunction to care for our bodies. —C N, Dallas, Texas
‘Eat no evil’ Nov. Excellent article. Food manufacturers who adulterate processed food with addictive substances are sinning. The answer is educating parents. —K C, Lake Mary, Fla.
‘Dying of old age’ Nov. I have enjoyed WORLD’s reporting on the Affordable Care Act. The players benefiting the most from these laws are in a symbiotic relationship, including politicians, lawyers, and the medical and insurance industries. We have created national anxiety about asset protection and then laws that force people to pay for protection. —D B, Lancaster, Ohio
‘Navigating the rapids’ Nov. Thanks for navigating the rapids for readers. Regarding capital punishment, deciding if someone was a murderer may have been simpler in Bible times. There weren’t high-powered lawyers and lazy law enforcement officials determined to pin the crime on someone, although life in prison gives the system an opportunity to correct mistakes. —B DV, Lakeland, Fla.
1/7/14 12:13 PM
DAVIS FAMILY
[
auto breadmakers • bosch mixers vita-mix blenders • rice cookers pressure cookers • water purifiers vacuum sealers • 1-year food supplies dehydrated foods • canned meats bulk grains • grain mills
‘School of hard knocks’ Nov. As a full-time student who also works full time, I don’t appreciate your portrayal of North Carolina State students. Televisions and video games are hardly the focal point of the library, which is usually packed. The Retreat, a private enterprise unaffiliated with the university, houses less than percent of students, yet you define us using images of cottages with tanning beds and a giant pool.
Health care for people of Biblical faith
—M O, Raleigh, N.C.
‘Adoption under fi re’ Nov. My husband and I have adopted a baby boy from South Korea and two teen girls from Liberia. We know many fellow Christians who have adopted internationally and several have had significant problems. The costs are exorbitant; the paperwork, red tape, and delays are endless; and Reactive Attachment Disorder is the elephant in the room. I love my children, but the system is broken. —J E, Farmington Hills, Mich.
Corrections Missionary Steve Strauss, who died June , joined Dallas Theological Seminary in (Departures, Jan. , p. ). Gluten-free bread includes no wheat (“American bounty,” Nov. , cover). We ran the wrong photo with “Another school shooting” (Jan. ). Here’s a photo of the shooting victim, Claire Davis. We regret the error.
DAVIS FAMILY
LETTERS & PHOTOS Email: mailbag@wng.org Write: WORLD Mailbag, PO Box , Asheville, NC - Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
If you are a committed Christian, you can live consistently with your beliefs by sharing medical needs directly with fellow believers through Samaritan Ministries’ non-insurance approach. You do not have to violate your faith by purchasing health insurance that pays for abortions, abortifacient drugs, and other unbiblical practices. Health care sharing satisfies the individual mandate in the recent Federal health care law (United States Code 26, Section 5000A, (d), (2), (B)). Every month the more than 27,000* households of Samaritan Ministries share over $7 million* in medical needs directly—one household to another. They also pray for one another and send notes of encouragement. The monthly share for a family membership of any size has never exceeded $370*.
For more information call us toll-free at 1-888-268-4377, or visit us online at: www.samaritanministries.org. Follow us on Twitter (@samaritanmin) and Facebook (SamaritanMinistries). * As of November 2013
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS h does world have paid summer internships? Yes. The road to compete for one runs through the May 19-31 World Journalism Institute (WJI) course. See worldji.com/ programs/view/60.
h i’m employed but i’ve read world for years and would like to write occasionally for the magazine or website. any possibility of that?
Yes. Apply to attend the Nov. 17-21 fourth annual WJI mid-career training course. Send a resumé and writing sample to June McGraw (jmcgraw@wng.org).
h i know of a local christian poverty-fighting charity that could be a winner in your 9th annual hope award for effective compassion. how do i let you know about it?
Email a note to June McGraw. Include the name, city, website address, and a paragraph explaining why you think the charity is remarkable.
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1/3/14 1:22 PM
Andrée Seu Peterson
Disparate ‘Impact’
A conference stacked in favor of the ‘Palestinian’ cause fails to convince
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D’ “I: H L” conference in Philadelphia had variety. The roster of speakers included Palestinians sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and Messianic Jews sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. In addition, there were impassioned speakers from places like Rochester, N.Y., on home leave from Christian Peacemaker Teams or other faith-based groups that support grassroots resistance to Israel. The online brochure, which claimed to have “sought Jesus followers from across a wide geographical and theological spectrum,” urged us to “be kind” because “we may hear difficult things this weekend.” But a stroll among the book tables during registration revealed who was in for an earful of “difficult things,” and it was not the Palestinian sympathizers. There were advertisements for tours by “Palestinian Summer Encounters”; books with titles like Letters from Apartheid Street: A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine; Washington lobbyists for antiIsraeli legislation; and just for the tykes, The Boy and the Wall, about a child living in a refugee camp. That is to say, the unconscionable oppressiveness of Israel was the starting point of the “conversation,” not a proposition for debate. All that remained to “conversate” about was the means to peace in the Holy Land, through fostering one-on-one friendships between Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans— and notably through dismantling checkpoints; boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning Israeli companies; tearing down the West Bank wall; and returning occupied lands. The problem for me through three days of Gaza kumbaya was that age-old bugbear of proper evidence-weighing: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Proverbs :). I do poorly in arriving at truth where there is no one on hand to point out factual or theological error in a presentation, or to offer a different scenario. No thanks to the speakers at “Impact,” I happened to know that “Palestinian” is not an ethnicity at all but a cobbled invention describing inhabitants of Jordanian, Druze, Syrian, Lebanese, Persian, Jewish, Armenian, and other extractions. Nor was
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KRIEG BARRIE
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Email: aseupeterson@wng.org
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there an attempt to reckon with the reality that tiny Israel (/th the size of California) is surrounded on all sides by enemies like Hamas who have vowed her annihilation. Nor did I hear a peep, in the three days of paean to “friendship,” “brotherhood,” and “solidarity,” about the lack of those qualities displayed by the Arab world during the war: , fellow Arabs evacuated Israel at the urging of Arab nations so as to get out of their way while they annihilated the Jews, with the promise of being able to return. The annihilation never happened. To add insult to injury, the Arab nations to which these displaced Palestinians fled refused to receive them. I was uncomfortable at the incantatory use of words like peace invoked as the supreme good, and words like warfare presumed to be wrong under all circumstances. I see nowhere in Scripture the view that peace (defined as the stripping of all military national defenses) is to be praised. War is a great evil, but it is not the greatest. The highest good is the kingdom of God, and there is plenty in the Old and New Testaments about waging warfare for it, both militarily and spiritually. What also made me nervous was how Jesus tends to get lost in social justice causes. I am not saying He was lost at “Impact” (self-conscious care was taken to enlist His name now and then in connection with peace-promoting campaigns), but the temptation is always the bear at the edge of the woods. There are people who get so interested in moral social causes that they come to care little for God. Crafty Screwtape knew this and trained his junior tempters in it: “Quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ‘Cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce. … Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours— and the more ‘religious’ (on those terms), the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here” (The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis). One returns from the “Impact” conference needing to break free of pretty philosophical cages. A
JANUARY 25, 2014 • WORLD
1/8/14 11:47 AM
Marvin Olasky
Against the current Rowing hard amid an ocean of abstractions
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WORLD • JANUARY 25, 2014
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her chilling next four words: “A life worth sacrificing.” Keeping the argument at an abstract level, Williams wrote, “A fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.” “Always”—so we beat on, boats against the current. Making the argument a bit less abstract, Jessica Winter in Slate took a crack at a good question to ask proaborts: “What if your mother had aborted you?” She wrote that both she and her husband were “extremely unplanned,” and if “neither my husband nor I would be here … that’s fine. … We are both rabidly pro-choice.” What’s most important, Winter wrote, is that her mother was “autonomous of the blastocyst that turned into me. … I’m glad I’m here … but she was here first.” Lots of others were here first, and we should thank our ancestors who did not have abortions. Millions of Americans owe much to a doctor few today have ever heard of, Horatio Storer (-), who led the th-century “Physicians’ Crusade Against Abortion.” The pro-life laws and compassionate help that grew out of the crusade saved many babies not only in Storer’s time but in future generations as well. Horatiostorer.net points out that, “If only one generation showed an increase in surviving pregnancies amounting to percent of children this would provide a parent (or two) for . percent of the next generation, at least one grandparent for . percent of the second generation, at least one great-grandparent for . percent of the third generation, etc.” In other words, if abortion had been as rampant a century ago as now, at least one of five Americans would not be here. That still may not strike home: Our attitude could be, We made it to birth, and let the devil take the hindmost. Or it could be, Thank you, God, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made—and let’s beat on, boats against the current. A
KRIEG BARRIE
L The Great Gatsby movie took in million at the box office, which is million more than the total assets of Planned Parenthood as of June , . Still, that million makes for a strong current against which crisis pregnancy centers need to row. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last line of The Great Gatsby describes where defenders of life are: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” But might the past also be the future? Last year one journalist touched by Christ, Kirsten Powers, descended to the lowest rung of the ladder of abstraction in to describe the crimes of a Pennsylvania abortionist: “Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. … The revolting revelations of [abortionist Kermit] Gosnell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart.” When Powers called out secular journalists for not covering the trial, some reporters showed up for a day, and NBC- Philadelphia even “described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it ‘literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.’” But the Gosnell revelations will not sink the lucrative abortion regime. After all, when the Chicago Sun-Times in ran a two-week-long series sensationally exposing the city’s abortionists, death did not take a holiday. (It didn’t matter that an abortionist’s dog, “to one couple’s horror, accompanied the nurse into the operating room and lapped blood from the floor.”) Astoundingly, some on the pro-abortion side in persisted in arguing and perhaps thinking that abortion is easy. “One in three women will have an abortion by the time they’re , and yet we’re treating this like it’s some extreme procedure, when it can be a lot safer than even having your wisdom teeth removed, and is almost just as common,” said Kari Ross, spokeswoman for the Feminist Majority Foundation, as she normalized atrocity. Almost as astoundingly, some who admitted what Salon columnist Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote—“My conviction that the fetus is indeed a life”—went on to
Email: molasky@wng.org
1/8/14 11:59 AM
krieg barrie
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