Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 66

Christ’s Defense of You Silences All Accusations

Note from Randy: Here’s another wonderful excerpt from Dane Ortlund’s book Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, this one focusing on Jesus as our advocate. “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). How does it make you feel to know that Jesus is your advocate, your defense attorney? Can you imagine Jesus standing between you and your accuser, Satan (see Revelation 12:10)? Furthermore, your all-knowing and absolutely just advocate, who has seen you at your worst and still loved you enough to die for you, argues your case before a Judge who is His loving Father…and yours! The thought makes me smile, rejoice, and praise God.

May these words encourage your heart.

We are indeed called to forsake our sins, and no healthy Christian would suggest otherwise. When we choose to sin, we forsake our true identity as a child of God, we invite misery into our lives, and we displease our heavenly Father. We are called to mature into deeper levels of personal holiness as we walk with the Lord, truer consecration, new vistas of obedience. But when we don’t—when we choose to sin—though we forsake our true identity, our Savior does not forsake us. These are the very moments when his heart erupts on our behalf in renewed advocacy in heaven with a resounding defense that silences all accusations, astonishes the angels, and celebrates the Father’s embrace of us in spite of all our messiness.

What kind of Christians does this doctrine create?

Fallen humans are natural self-advocates. It flows out of us. Self-exonerating, self-defending. We do not need to teach young children to make excuses when they are caught misbehaving. There is a natural built-in mechanism that immediately kicks into gear to explain why it wasn’t really their fault. Our fallen hearts intuitively manufacture reasons that our case is not really that bad. The fall manifested not only in our sinning but in our response to our sinning. We minimize, we excuse, we explain away. In short, we speak, even if only in our hearts, in our defense. We advocate for ourselves.

What if we never needed to advocate for ourselves because another had undertaken to do so? What if that advocate knew exhaustively just how fallen we are, and yet at the same time was able to make a better defense for us than we ever could? No blame shifting or excuses, the way our self-advocacies tend to operate, but perfectly just, pointing to his all-sufficient sacrifice and suffering on the cross in our place? We would be free. Free of the need to defend ourselves, to bolster our sense of worth through self-contribution, to quietly parade before others our virtues in painful subconscious awareness of our inferiorities and weaknesses. We can leave our case to be made by Christ, the only righteous one.

Bunyan puts it best:

Christ gave for us the price of blood; but that is not all; Christ as a Captain has conquered death and the grave for us, but that is not all; Christ as a Priest intercedes for us in heave; but that is not all. Sin is still in us, and with us, and mixes itself with whatever we do, whether what we do be religious or civil; for not only our prayers and our sermons, our hearings and preaching; but our houses, our shops, our trades, and our beds, are all polluted with sin.

Nor does the devil, our night and day adversary, forbear to tell our bad deeds to our Father, urging that we might be forever be disinherited for this.

But what should we now do, if we had not an Advocate; yes, if we had not one who would plead; yes, if we had not one that could prevail, and that would faithfully execute that office for us? Why, we must die.

But since we are rescued by him, let us, as to ourselves, lay out hand upon our mouth, and be silent.

Do not minimize your sin or excuse it away. Raise no defense. Simply take it to the one who is already at the right hand of the Father, advocating for you on the basis of his own wounds. Let your own unrighteousness, in all your darkness and despair, drive you to Jesus Christ, the righteous, in all his brightness and sufficiency.

Photo by Anthony Tori on Unsplash

In Our Trials, God Is Driving Us Toward His Goodness

I love these thoughts from Abigail Dodds, the author of (A)Typical Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ and a regular contributor to Desiring God:

There’s a scene in the Chronicles of Narnia where the young Shasta and Aravis are being pursued through valleys and over ridges by wicked men. Their horses (Narnian talking horses) were running as fast as they could to get away—or so they thought—until the Great Lion also begins chasing them from close range. Suddenly they discover a new gear—a speed that would have never been known apart from this particular terror.

Have you learned this yet? That what you consider your limits aren’t your limits? That you don’t actually know what your limits are? We think we’ve given our all, we think we have no more to give, but actually, we simply have never had our limits truly tested.

I find great comfort in knowing that when my mind says, “I can’t do that—it’s beyond my limits—I can’t endure that particular loss, I can’t live with that particular trial, I can’t face that certain outcome, God is perfectly capable of applying the kind of pressure that will prove me wrong.

And it’s very counterintuitive that God shows us that we most certainly can do the thing we think we can’t —not merely by encouragement or pouring on the affirmation, but by bearing down and increasing the trial.

Because here’s the truth we miss: His pushing us past our limits is His grace to us just as much as His encouragements are. He’s driving us toward His goodness. He’s pressing us beyond ourselves to new vistas of Himself. And when we’re under the pressure of the Great Lion, never, ever let yourself forget: all His paths are steadfast love. He cares for you.

Joni Eareckson Tada writes in When God Weeps, “Before my paralysis, my hands reached for a lot of wrong things, and my feet took me into some bad places. After my paralysis, tempting choices were scaled down considerably. My particular affliction is divinely hand-tailored expressly for me. Nobody has to suffer ‘transverse spinal lesion at the fourth-fifth cervical’ exactly as I did to be conformed to his image.”

I say this in my book If God Is Good:

God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on His grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, impart wisdom, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in times of sorrow, increase our faith, and strengthen our character. And once He accomplishes such great things, often we can see that our suffering has been worth it.

God doesn’t simply want us to feel good. He wants us to be good. And very often, the road to being good involves not feeling good.

Photo by Philippe Oursel on Unsplash

A Child’s Love for His Unborn Sibling Changes Everything

Note from Randy: I just love this story my friend Larry Gadbaugh, CEO of First Image (which oversees Portland’s Pregnancy Resource Centers) tells in one of his recent letters.

If you’re looking to make a difference in the lives of unborn children and their mothers in your community, I encourage you to financially support and considering volunteering at your local pregnancy resource center. You can also start by reading my book ProChoice or ProLife? (available as a free download).

An Encounter with the Living God and His Compassion

By Larry Gadbaugh

When life already seems too much to bear, someone who comes alongside to support us can give us the strength and support that we need to face the future with courage and love.

We see this happen for our clients in the centers all the time.

Pregnancy tests are a common service provided at our centers. One particular day, Shanna came in for a pregnancy test with her 4-year-old son, Ethan. Ethan is a very precocious little guy who kindly drew pictures for all the center staff. When Ethan understood that his mother would be coming back, he gave strict instructions to keep his pictures posted on the wall until he returned. Soon after, Shanna returned for her next appointment. Tagging along of course was Ethan, as well as the father of the baby, who was currently living with another woman. Tearfully, Shanna said she didn’t think she could manage another child besides her son.

However, in the exam room, everything changed.

As soon as the ultrasound screen displayed, life flickered across the screen. Ethan began to wave and exclaim, “Hi baby! Hi baby! I’m so glad to see you! I’m gonna be your big brother and I’m gonna take care of you and teach you everything!” The little boy then took some raisins from his pocket, handed them to his smiling mother and said, “Don’t worry, Mommy. Eat these for your energy. I’m going to take care of you and the baby. We’re gonna be fine.”

For many of the women who come to our centers, the dominant voices in their lives are not supportive of her pregnancy. That’s why I’m so thankful for our center staff, our nurses, and our volunteers (who are beginning to return and serve at the centers after a year of COVID restrictions). These are the life-affirming faces and voices of support for our clients.

We know that the majority of women facing unsupported pregnancy will decide to birth their babies when they come to us instead of aborting them—when they experience the caring people in our centers, receive accurate medical information, and catch a glimpse of their baby through the ultrasound. And, when they find out that we can offer them resources and referrals through the first two years of their baby’s life, we see them become strengthened with the courage and love they need to embrace their little one and plan to either parent or make an adoption plan.

So many people in our community are facing the responsibilities and pressures of life without the hope of God’s love through a relationship with Jesus.

When I started as CEO here 20 years ago, the majority of women who came into our centers had some experience in a church. Yet today, we are among the first connections that most of these women will have with someone who represents the love and truth of Jesus.

More than ever, women, men, and their babies need an encounter with the living God, who is extending His love and life through us, His children and His representatives.

Browse more prolife articles and resources, as well as see Randy’s books  Pro-Choice or Pro-Life: Examining 15 Pro-Choice Claims ,  Why ProLife?  and  ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments .

Photo by Keira Burton from Pexels

Six Ways to Build Up Your Church

I enjoy reading the insights of pastors and others who live in other cultures in different parts of the world. I really appreciated this fresh and thoughtful article by Chopo Mwanza, the pastor of Faith Baptist Church Riverside in Kitwe, Zambia, partly because the American church can easily become its own self-preoccupied island where we either love or hate what’s familiar to us, and fail to see what God’s own cross-cultural and trans-cultural Word has to say to us in every place and time. —Randy Alcorn

6 Members Who Build Up the Church

By Chopo Mwanza

Every local church is comprised of a diverse group of people who have been radically transformed by the power of God through the person and work of Jesus Christ. These diverse people have no reason to live and work together, let alone care for each other—and yet, they choose to live in love and unity together, to the praise and glory of the Lord’s name.

Healthy local churches make a powerful and attractive testimony to a watching world. This means that every member has to be devoted to building others up. In another article, I discuss four types of church member that don’t build up the church.

This article discusses six types of members that do build up the church.

1. The member who attends.

Attending is the most basic way members build each other up. It’s the most obvious way to show commitment to the body. There’s something encouraging about knowing a brother or sister is simply going to be present at a church service, and you are going to worship God together.

The writer of Hebrews tells the believers to “stir one another up to love and good deeds” and to “encourage one another.” How are they to do this? By “not forsaking the assembling of the believers” (Heb. 10:23–25). You cannot build others up if you’re not meeting with them regularly and faithfully. It’s therefore no wonder that those who are regularly absent from the gathering often stagnate in their faith or become members who primarily grumble and complain.

Dear church member, church meetings are not about you or your convenience. Build others up by faithful attendance.

2. The member who encourages.

Consider Paul’s words about Tychicus in Colossians 4: “I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts” (Col. 4:8). Why does he send his friend? To encourage the Colossians. We should follow Paul’s model.

The encouraging member commends, recommends, praises, thanks, comforts, urges, supports, and compliments other members. We often think of encouraging as merely giving praise, like a spectator in the terraces. However, biblical encouragement is more than that; it’s a fellow teammate urging you to get to work.

Furthermore, encouragement is not mere flattery. It’s not just being nice or telling people what they want to hear. Rather, true encouragement is honest and sincere. It commends those who serve well, and it also urges those who are struggling in their walk with the Lord. Such kind of member is a great blessing to the body. Strive to be one.

3. The member who confronts without indulging gossip.

Churches are full of sinful people, which means church members sin against each other. This poses a challenge to the unity of the church, and it requires members to confront one another in love and gentleness.

The confronting member is the opposite of a gossip and slanderer. They obey the charge of Scripture to confront and restore people who are living in sin (Matt. 18:15–18, Gal. 6:1–2). What motivates the confronting member is not just that someone’s sin has offended them but that the Lord is offended by sin—particularly sin that is unresolved and left to fester and grow (1 Cor. 5). The confronting member confronts out of love for God and love for other believers.

4. The member who prays.

I’ve always been struck by Samuel’s statement to David: “Far be it from me that I may sin against you by not praying for you” (1 Sam. 12:23).

We have a responsibility to pray for each other. The best church members are devoted to prayer. They’ve learned to depend on God so they highly value praying to him. Typically, praying members learn to talk less to people and more to God about people. They’re a church’s unsung heroes. If prayer drives the church, then the praying member is essential to the health and growth of the church.

5. The member who serves.

Attendance is necessary, but members should do more than just attend. They should serve. They should  “do the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:12). They use their gifts to serve God and other members, building up the church in the process.

Great encouragement comes from knowing you’re not the only one on the team. Great comfort comes from knowing you have teammates fighting with you and encouraging you as you go. People who are able to but don’t serve in the church tend to discourage the rest of the body.

6. The member who shows patience.

Patience is a vitally important both for the individual believer and the congregation as a whole. After all, the Christian life isn’t a sprint but a marathon. Our walk with the Lord is a process, and we won’t noticeably grow over night.

All this means we have to learn to endure with each other’s weaknesses and shortcomings. We have to learn to forgive without holding grudges and disciple one another with all patience. A patient member graciously puts up with other people’s failures. They realize that no church is perfect—and as a result, they are joyfully patient. A church with patient members is a church where members confront one another, encourage one another, confess sin to one another, and forgive each other.

Conclusion

Dear church member, pursue these qualities in your own life and encourage them in others. Pray for yourself and others. Pray that you will build up the church as faithful and patient members who attend, encourage, confront, pray, and serve. This builds up the church of Christ.

This article was originally posted at 9Marks.org  and is used with permission of the author.

Photo by adrianna geo on Unsplash

The Closure of Lovejoy, a Portland Abortion Clinic, Is a Foretaste of When God Removes All Injustice and Evil

I recorded a video for a local prolife gathering commentating on the closure of Lovejoy Surgicenter, a Portland abortion clinic that played a huge part in my life and in the history of our ministry.  I hope this encourages you as you follow God’s leading in your own life. You can watch the video below or read the lightly edited transcript that follows. (See also an interview Kathy Norquist and I did about the clinic’s closure.)

I was asked to share some thoughts and memories related to the Lovejoy SurgiCenter where, it’s fair to say, more babies were killed than anywhere else in the history of the state of Oregon. If any place ever deserved to be closed, it was surely Lovejoy. I think of all the prayers and actions of God’s faithful people over the years, many of whom did far more than I did. And yes, there are still abortions and there’s the new Lilith Clinic—so the battle is not over in Portland or anywhere else—but there was only one Lovejoy clinic and now it is closed, and that is reason for great rejoicing.

A Place of Great Darkness

I’ve always been struck by the irony of the name “Lovejoy.”  Galatians 5 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” Of course, the clinic was named after the street, and the street was named after a co-founder of the city of Portland. But the dark irony was that there was no love or joy in that place, only evil and profound sorrow. I remember the women wearing sunglasses, even on rainy days, to hide the tears after their abortions, or sometimes wearing them as they came into the clinic.

Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” That darkness won’t be eternal; it’s limited to this present time of evil.

In 1988 I went to an Advocates for Life meeting to learn more about rescuing. It wasn’t that I wanted to do it; rather, I wanted to do what God wanted me to do. Many of us were like that—reluctant converts to this radical and costly thing. I talked to my fellow pastors and elders and told them I thought God was leading me to this peaceful civil disobedience to save the lives of babies. To their credit, though the idea wasn’t an attractive one, they said if I believed God was leading me to do it, I should go ahead. I felt very alone until I shared with Ron Norquist, and he said he wanted to join me. He was a friend who sticks closer than a brother—and not just a friend to me, but a friend to the unborn and a friend of God. Eventually Ron and Kathy would pay a much higher price than almost any of us did.

Lovejoy was really a modern equivalent to the altar of the false god Moloch to whom children were sacrificed. Leviticus 18:21 says, “You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.”

At times the darkness at Lovejoy (and other abortion clinics too, but especially that one) was palpable, as if you were standing on the outskirts of hell. There was some light there, but it was on the outside. One man, Doc Hite, was out there until he was 99, in a wheelchair, still holding a sign saying, “Stop murder. Stop abortion. Save the children. Please give him or her to us for adoption.” The sign Doc held gave a phone number for abortion-bound women to call.

In a courtroom in February of 1993, I was sitting near Doc Hite when a Lovejoy employee falsely accused him of all kinds of vile things, and I remember tears coming down Doc’s face as he listened to what they said about him. I thought, when you kill babies for a living, lying about a kind old man is no big deal.

Nanci and I were just talking about a peaceful protest (not a rescue but a legal protest) at Lovejoy when our daughters were eight and ten. We were standing across the street from the clinic holding three large beautiful intrauterine photographs of live unborn children—not aborted babies, but one in each trimester. I remember it like it was yesterday. A black limo slowed down around the corner, and the man in the passenger seat looked at us with obvious scorn. When he was no more than four or five feet away, he lifted his hand and made an emphatic obscene gesture to my little girls and my wife and me. That man, believe it or not, was the mayor of Portland, Bud Clark. It’s not speculation on my part. Everyone on that corner immediately recognized him.

If I wrote in a novel that the mayor of a major U.S. city (or any city!) did that to two young children, the editor would say, “That’s over the top. It’s too unbelievable.” But we actually saw it happen. How could the mayor of Portland be so dedicated to the idea of killing unborn children that he would make a vile gesture to born children who were opposing it? The answer is, only under the influence of Satan, who hates children and murders them. Jesus said, “You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him, and when he lies, he speaks his native language for he’s a liar and the father of lies.”

Our Ultimate Judge

There were many ways our sovereign God used the rescue movement in Portland. Kathy Norquist put it this way in an interview for our ministry blog: “I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. God was with us and He was at work.” I think of Romans 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him, to those who are called according to his purpose.”

I vividly remember the holding cells where those of us arrested for rescuing spent hours and prayed and sang worship songs together. They were the ultimate opportunities for evangelism—we literally had a captive audience! Guys wanted to move away from those crazy Christians but had nowhere to go. Others were drawn toward the gospel.

My wife Nanci did sidewalk counseling at Lovejoy every Friday for several years, approaching women who came to the clinic for abortions and giving them one last opportunity to see the truth and rescue the lives of their unborn children. That was a much tougher than rescuing. It was hard for her, but I will always respect her for doing such a thankless job. She had many conversations with clinic employees and Doc Hite as well. There was much to pray about, but the heaviness, the darkness, the weight took a toll on her, and it’s taken a toll on many over the years who continued to minister there.

I remember one time my daughters had been at the clinic with us, and it was a peaceful day with no incidents, no yelling, no excessive force by police. The next day, I looked at The Oregonian to see how much of the coverage was wrong this time. It talked about protesters yelling at women and pushing and shoving them. I handed it to my daughter Karina who was 10 or 11 at the time and asked her to read it and tell me what she thought. She read it and started crying, saying, “Dad, that isn’t what happened! I was there!” What an introduction to media bias.

I remember Judge Ellis, who presided over the Lovejoy trial. I saw that he died in 2020 at the age of 90, and I hope he came to Christ and that we’ll see him in Heaven. I saw a write up on him saying he was fair, impartial, and completely courteous to everyone who appeared in his courtroom. Sadly, that’s not what we who were there in that courtroom in February 1993 remember. Tom Baker, who was then senior pastor of Portland Four Square Church, was on the witness stand. He didn’t rescue but testified to the behavior of those of us who did because he was there a number of times. Suddenly Judge Ellis put down his newspaper he had been reading throughout the trial (I think sending the message to the jury to not listen to what these people had to say). He started yelling at Tom, who was very mild-mannered. I was shocked—I’d never heard of a judge yelling at a witness, and Tom was the last person who deserved to be yelled at. I remember the utter disbelief on Tom’s face.

That night I called Frank Peretti, who’s a good friend, and said, “Frank, this day in court was like pages out of your novels This Present Darkness or Piercing the Darkness. But if you put the specifics into your book, nobody would believe it because it was so over the top!”

The Lovejoy employees lied about us under oath. I thought of 1 Peter 2:23 where it says Jesus committed Himself to Him who judges justly, and it reminded me that God is our ultimate Judge, so we don’t have to be intimidated by what people say. God’s evaluation of our lives is what matters. A human judge or jury do not have ultimate power over us, only the Audience of One.

God Meant It for Good

I’ll never forget getting a call the night before the big Lovejoy trial from our attorney Bill Bailey. He said, “Randy, Lovejoy wants to drop you from the lawsuit.” I said, “Why would they drop me?” He said, “Maybe because you have a platform and you’re in a position to make some public statements they don’t want you to be able to make.” He went on to explain that because they dropped me from the case so late, I had to agree with their decision. Of course, Bill said, anyone with a brain would say, “Sure, drop me and save me a lot of hassle.”

I sat down with my wife and daughters and asked them what they thought we should do. My daughter Karina said, “Dad, I think if the abortion clinic wants you off the case, God wants you on it.” Now, it was a time of possible substantial sacrifice for our family, and the girls knew it was a possibility we could lose our house and they may not be able to go to their private school anymore because we won’t be able to afford it. But Nanci and I saw the hearts of our children, and they were beautiful. (Ultimately, we didn’t end up losing our home, and God provided for the girls’ schooling through an anonymous donor.)

I think sometimes of the woman at our church who said to me during the trial, “Do you realize the harm you’re doing to your children and the privileges you’re taking away from them?” I prayed that these girls would come out with better lives in the most important ways and deeper convictions that there are some things worth standing up and sacrificing for.

To finish that thought, and show how God answered those prayers, eight years later when my daughter Angela was a senior in high school, we were riding bikes and saw a brand-new house for sale for $500,000, which was well over twice the cost of any of the other new homes in our area. (Of course, this was 25 plus years ago!) Angela said, “Dad, isn’t this house great? Look at this view and look at the size of it, and the landscaping. It’s so beautiful!” I said, “It is beautiful, isn’t it? You know, if we weren’t giving away the royalties to my books that are going to all those great Christian causes, we’d be able to pay cash for this house from the royalties that came in just in the last year alone.” (It was a good year for royalties!) I asked, “Do you wish we would have done that?” She looked at me, and laughed and said, “Dad, it’s just a house!” I thanked God because I had seen in both our daughters’ lives that God had given them an eternal perspective, and I praise Him that it has continued to this day.

It was like Joseph said to his brothers in Genesis 50:20, “As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.” Ultimately, Lovejoy did not win. Sure, they won that big court case with a human judge and jury, but that doesn’t matter. The triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the ultimate Judge. He’s the true Supreme Court, not nine people in Washington, DC, wearing black robes.

The Battle Is Not Over

Fast forward thirty years. Some of us became lifelong pro-life advocates. Some of our churches are staunchly pro-life to this day as a result of our involvement in rescuing. We wrote letters and books and preached messages and passed out literature and went into school classrooms to give pro-life presentations. We gave to support pro-life ministries such as the pregnancy resource centers and Oregon Right to Life. They all benefited from what God led us to do. We were just a small part of the battle, and together we each did our part.

Scripture says, “Let us not be weary in well-doing. We will reap in due season if we don’t faint.” We’re told to not lose heart. Yes, Satan hasn’t been thrown into the Lake of Fire yet, but he will be. The end of Lovejoy is a little foreshadowing of that. It’s something to truly thank God for, but also encouragement to redouble our efforts and realize no, the battle’s not over. So let’s do what we can to share Christ and the gospel and bring the pro-life message to others.

I think of Judge Aaron Brown, who died in 2016 at the age of 89. I remember standing before him in that Multnomah County courtroom in 1989, in a trial a few years before the Lovejoy case, surrounded by flash photography, while I shared some remarks quoting Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. When I wrote my words, I had no idea I would stand before an African-American judge. When I finished, with emotion in his voice, he said, “You know, one day I may join you out on that sidewalk.” (A shocking and risky thing for him to say!) He continued, “But today, I’m a judge and I must find you guilty and sentence you to jail.” I was handcuffed with chains that went around my waist, wrists, and ankles, like a serial killer. I was led out of the courtroom by two armed police officers who escorted me to the jail (they were just doing their job, and I get that). The flash was blinding, and the television news was all around to cover this pastor going to jail. It was profoundly disorienting and a much different experience than anything I’d ever known.

I was strip searched together with a dozen other men. I heard the disdaining comments some of the guards made, and that was my first experience of being really deeply disrespected. I thought of the contempt for the lives of the unborn, and as rescuers we were facing consequences going to jail and had a small taste of that contempt. I remember the nurse who wouldn’t allow me to have a granola bar or something to bring my blood sugar back up. She wouldn’t believe that I was having an insulin reaction as an insulin dependent diabetic, and I wasn’t accustomed to not being believed. I thought, Lord, your people have suffered like this and way more than this throughout the ages. This is just a small taste of it.

Frank Peretti later called me and asked to meet with some prolife advocates in our living room, and he and his wife stayed with us a few days.  A dozen of us told our stories. Some of the women had experienced abortions themselves. The focus was on Lovejoy, and the next day I took Frank to Lovejoy so he could see it firsthand. I told him stories as we stood across the street from the building. There was a New Age altar in front of one of the homes across the street, and the owners had placed on it an offering of fresh meat. As we stood there, the clinic owner drove up in her luxury car paid for with the blood of babies, parked in the back, and entered the building right across the street from where we were standing. I won’t describe what she looked like, but let’s just say that day Frank was struck with her evil appearance. In his novel Prophet, Frank used Lovejoy as the basis for the abortion clinic that was a significant part of his storyline. He portrays the web of deception and complicity surrounding legal abortion, and the exploitation of women and the church. That is still a book worth reading!

God’s Promise of Reward

In closing, I want to point out that many church people today are turning from God. Some are renouncing their faith. It’s the age of deconversion. First Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil is going around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”

This time can be very discouraging, especially for those in ministry, including prolife ministry. But remember the faithfulness of Jesus, and if you ever doubt His love and question His care, just imagine Jesus holding out His hands in front of you and asking, “Do these look like the hands of a God who does not care?”

Finally, I want to quote some Scripture about God giving His people an eternal reward for faithfully serving Him, and I pray that for the rest of our lives that God has given us, we would be mindful of this. Jesus said, “Whoever gives one of these little ones of mine even a cup of cold water because he's my disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

In Luke 6 Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.”

This is happening more and more.

He continues, “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy for great is your reward in heaven. That’s what they did to the prophets.”

Luke 6:35 says, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.”

In Matthew 25, when God’s people ask Him, “Lord, when did we feed you? When were you thirsty and we gave you something to drink? When were you a stranger and did we welcome you?” He says, “In as much as you did it to the least of these brethren of mine, so you did it to me.”

God bless you and thank you for your efforts on behalf of unborn children, and above all for your devotion to Jesus and your service for Him. As we celebrate the closure of this stronghold of darkness, we look forward to celebrating the final end of evil, and living in the New Heavens and the New Earth where righteousness dwells. There will be no more sin, no more death, no more tears, no more weeping, for God will wipe away the tears from every eye.

These are the final arguments Randy was asked to write for the Lovejoy lawsuit.

Browse more prolife articles and resources, as well as see Randy’s books  Pro-Choice or Pro-Life: Examining 15 Pro-Choice Claims ,  Why ProLife?  and  ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments . 

Photo by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash

Can Our Loved Ones in Heaven See Us During Important Times in Our Lives?

I addressed this question in a video a few years ago:

Here are some related thoughts:

It’s odd to me that so many assume people who are now in the present Heaven are completely ignorant of what’s going on here on Earth where the great drama of redemption is unfolding—wouldn’t we think they’d be more enlightened, not less?

From what we see in Scripture, it appears people in Heaven have at least some idea of what’s happening here. Now, I’m not making the claim that they know or pay attention to everything that’s going on. But take, for example, the martyrs in Revelation 6, who knew that God hadn’t yet brought judgment on those who killed them. It’s likely that they knew many other things about what’s happening on Earth:

“I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.” (Revelation 6:9-11)

This passage demonstrates that those in Heaven are the same people—only relocated. There’s continuity of identity from this life to the next. Those we love who are there now are part of what Hebrews 12:23 calls the “righteous men made perfect.”

Notice that the martyrs are aware of what happens on earth when they ask God, “How long... until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” They know those who killed them haven’t yet been judged. That means the martyrs remember their lives on Earth, even that they were murdered. Some say people in Heaven can’t remember or see life on earth because knowing of evil would diminish Heaven’s happiness. But that’s not true. The key to Heaven’s joy isn’t ignorance, but perspective.

When called from Heaven to the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah “appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). They seemed fully aware of what was transpiring on Earth, and what God was about to do.

Also consider this: Christ referred to “rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7). Similarly, He said, “there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). It doesn’t speak of rejoicing by the angels but in the presence of angels. Surely this includes saints in Heaven, who would be overjoyed by human conversions, especially of those they knew and loved on Earth. To rejoice over conversions on Earth, they must be aware of what is happening on Earth—not generally, but specifically.

Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” It evokes the image of Greek competitions watched by throngs of engrossed fans sitting high in ancient stadiums. The saints who’ve gone before us are called a “great cloud of witnesses.” This imagery suggests those saints—veteran spiritual athletes—watch us and cheer us on from the great stadium of Heaven. (Note that the witnesses are said to “surround” us, not just to have preceded us.)

Earth is center stage, awaiting the universe’s climactic event: Christ’s return. In Heaven, Christ watches closely what transpires on earth, especially in the lives of believers (Revelation 2-3). If God’s attention is on earth, why wouldn’t the attention of His loyal subjects be here too?

My mom was one of the closest friends I’ve ever had, and she’s been in Heaven for almost forty years. I can’t wait (but I will) to see her again. Mom died just four months after our Angie was born. I said at both our daughters’ weddings, in the summer of 2001, that I believed their two grandmothers were watching from Heaven. And since Nanci’s mom had been blind her last few years here, she was seeing the wedding in a way she couldn’t have even a few months earlier before she died.

I firmly believe this is true, but even if I was wrong on that point (since of course I can’t know exactly when God allows people to see events on Earth and when He doesn’t), I would not be wrong in praying “Lord, please tell Mom her precious granddaughters love You with all their hearts and married young men that do too. That will mean so much to her.”

My guess is that Mom knows all that anyway, and that she is enjoying seeing God at work in the lives of our grandchildren, her great-grandchildren she hasn’t yet been able to hug.

So, I believe Scripture clearly suggests our loved ones now in Heaven are witnessing, in at least some capacity, God’s unfolding plan on earth. They live in a place where joy is the air they breathe, and nothing they see on earth can diminish their joy. Their happiness doesn’t depend on ignorance, but perspective, drawn from the Christ in whose presence they live.

If you’re following Jesus, no doubt your loved ones there are rejoicing over you and looking forward to the great reunion. In fact, when we enter Heaven, I think our family and friends will among those right there with Jesus to give us a “rich welcome” (2 Peter 1:11). 

Browse more resources on the topic of Heaven, and see Randy’s related books, including  Heaven .

Photo by Lamna The Shark on Unsplash

A Giving Opportunity to Help Hungry People Suffering in a Caribbean Country

COVID and the resulting economic devastation have taken a horrible toll on many poorer countries around the world. The following report from my friend Kurt Nelson with East-West Ministries, about a country in the Caribbean (specific name withheld for security reasons), is just heartbreaking. I’ve read other reports of food shortages there so bad people are waiting in line for days to get a frozen chicken to feed their families.

The couple of weeks Nanci and I spent in this country a few years ago showed us a vulnerable nation with wonderful people, many of them believers who now in the wake of COVID are suffering terribly, often eating one meal per day if they can get it. Everything is harder there due to its unique history.

Here’s what Kurt wrote:

Since last year, one particular Caribbean country where East-West has served for more than 25 years, has been facing a devastating humanitarian crisis. Lockdowns in response to the pandemic have shuttered the tourism industry. One of the country’s closest allies has stopped sending aid because its own economy has collapsed. And poor control of the economy has caused astronomical inflation.

These and other circumstances have created a catastrophic perfect storm, leading to severe rationing and shortages of food, medicines, and hygiene products. People wait in line for hours at stores hoping to find what little necessities might be available—all while trying not to get sick with COVID-19, which continues to spike in the country.

Unfortunately, the situation in the country has deteriorated drastically. Families are often eating only one meal a day because of the extreme rations. Bread, a staple in this country, is in short supply, and milk is only given to children up to age 7. Even after 15 months, COVID-19 infection and death rates continue to set new daily records.

Individuals are left feeling utterly hopeless and in deep despair, compounded by the fact that millions of people are living in perpetual spiritual darkness.

But hope is on the move. East-West has partnered with other like-minded organizations and has already sent 25 shipping containers full of food and hygiene products. With each container holding approximately 250,000 servings of food, that’s more than 6 million servings sent so far! Eight more containers are ready to be shipped once funding is received.

The food and supplies are sent to local churches, where pastors and lay leaders distribute food throughout the community. They have visited orphans in foster homes, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and families within their congregations. The local believers who distribute the food take time at each home to pray for the families and share the gospel with those who don’t know Jesus. People are coming to know Christ through this relief effort! Praise God!

You can be a part of giving hope and changing lives in the Caribbean. Each shipping container costs $23,000, which includes the price of obtaining supplies, transportation costs, port fees, and distribution costs. With eight containers ready to be shipped, there’s an immediate need for $184,000 to send the containers to the Caribbean. The hope is to eventually send a total of 50 containers, meaning there’s a total need of $575,000 for this relief project.

Would you prayerfully consider giving a gift today to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of those in the Caribbean? Every gift can help alleviate a person’s temporary need for food and eternal need for the gospel.

Millions of people in this country are waiting for hope. Thank you for considering how you can help reach the least of these in the Caribbean.

EPM has given to this cause from book royalties, special funds, and our general fund, and we will continue to. If you feel led to also give to this relief effort, you can give directly to East-West at www.eastwest.org/relief. You can also give to EPM’s Relief Fund, and 100% of donations will be given to East-West and other worthy organizations working in this country.

I’m reminded of the question of the righteous, who will ask when Jesus credits them for giving to Him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” (Matthew 25:37-39, NIV). Christ will say to them, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (verse 40, NIV).

I love the picture of Jesus rewarding us someday for things He will have to remind us we did! I also love the thought that when we see people in Heaven, some will thank us for giving to them, including those we never met directly. Certainly God sees, values, and remembers our every act of generosity, even when we don’t.

“By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:16-17, BSB).

This passage portrays love as inseparable from giving. In fact, it’s impossible to truly love without giving. No, we can’t give everything to everybody. Yet to withhold our money and possessions from the needy is to withhold from them God’s love and compassion. God doesn’t need our help—He could do everything without us. But He chooses to entrust us with His mission of love. We are the body of Christ, His hands and feet to the needy.

May Christ’s people be His hands and feet to these needy and suffering people in the Caribbean.

Photo; Unsplash

Choose Your Friends Wisely

It’s our nature to be influenced by our surroundings. When we put ourselves in a godly atmosphere with godly people, we are influenced toward godliness. When we put ourselves in an ungodly atmosphere with ungodly people, we are influenced toward ungodliness. God’s Word says, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character’” (1 Corinthians 15:33).

A few years ago, the night before an NFL game, my wife Nanci and one of my daughters and sons-in-law and their two sons, then 12 and 13, met with a quarterback who loves Jesus. I asked him, “What advice do you have for these boys?” He said a number of good things, but one of the central ones was, to summarize what he said, “Choose your friends wisely.” He spoke from his life experiences, both good and bad. There’s no way to overstate the importance of having godly friends.

The principle is, we become like the people we spend the most time with. God speaks of those who are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” and warns us, “Have nothing to do with such people” (2 Timothy 3:4-5).

That’s why my advice to young people, and to people of all ages, is this same thing: “Choose your friends wisely.” Don’t just let friendships happen by circumstance. Make them happen by choice—careful, thoughtful choice.

There are many areas of life where you can make wise choices that will be rewarded, and poor choices that will result in destruction—perhaps none so dramatically as who you choose as friends. Some poor choices (like choosing dinner on a menu that doesn’t turn out that good) are secondary, and you might get away with them. You will never get away with an unwise choice of friends. It will hurt you and haunt you. Don’t let it happen. God tells us exactly how to become wise. Walk with—that is, befriend and spend time with—those who are wise.

Thomas Brooks said, “Let those be thy choicest companions who have made Christ their chief companion.”

Your friends will greatly influence your values, attitudes, and behaviors. I know young people (and older ones too) who love Jesus and have chosen their friends wisely. Their friends have raised the bar for each other, challenging them to jump higher in the areas of following Christ and maintaining purity. I also know people who have made poor choices and have experienced terrible consequences, some that will affect them the rest of their lives.

In this minute-long clip, I talk about the importance of friendships:

I came to Jesus in high school, and I had close friends who studied the Bible together, prayed together, read great books together. We stayed away from the things that tempted us toward evil. We asked each other how we were doing in our walk with God. Find friends like that. They might not just naturally come your way. Look for them. Seek them. Hang on to them. My friend and pastor Steve Keels has been that for me for over 45 years. Other friends who follow Jesus have also had a major influence on my life. Sure, I have friends that aren’t as strong in their walk with Jesus, and I seek to befriend and reach out to those who don’t know Him at all, but my closest friends are strong in Him...and we help each other.

Back away from so-called “friends” who compromise your faith, who encourage you to experiment with what’s wrong, and who take you away from church and from following Christ. Stay away from “friends” who lead you away from obeying God and tempt you to do the same.

These are not true friends, because what they are doing will not help you, but hurt you. True friends don’t do what’s bad for each other. They do what’s good for each other. Be an example to your friends in glorifying God. That’s the best gift you can give to your friends...or get from them.

C. S. Lewis said, “The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.”

I would encourage you to meditate on and memorize these verses. Write them down. Think about them. Put them in your heart, and God will remind you of them. They will encourage you toward strong Christian friendships and save you from the unwise choices of friends that destroy so many people who once loved Jesus:

“He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20).

“Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not travel on it; turn from it and go on your way” (Proverbs 4:14-15).

“Stay away from the foolish man, because you will not find knowledge on his lips” (Proverbs 14:7).

“…rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…Have nothing to do with them” (2 Timothy 3:4-5).

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers” (Psalm 1:1).

“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).

“Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33).

Stay close to godly people, and surround yourself with people who love you enough to tell you the truth...even when it hurts. Because, in the end, as Jesus put it, “The truth will set you free.”

 

Jack Phillips on Why He Didn’t Just “Bake the Cake”

From Randy: Jack Phillips is the owner and artist of Masterpiece Cakeshop who was sued for acting on his convictions and not baking a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. I appreciated this article adapted from his new book The Cost of My Faith: How a Decision in My Cake Shop Took Me to the Supreme Court. What he writes here is unique, powerful, and well communicated (with a bit of light-heartedness too).

Even the most inclusive and loving Christians must insist that some things are right and others are wrong. In doing so, we ensure a degree of unpopularity. Jesus Himself said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.… If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:18, 20). Remaining quiet about hard truths isn’t the way to reach the world for Jesus. Even when it stings us or them, we’re to humbly and graciously tell people what God has actually said.

I think in this article Jack does a good job of demonstrating both the grace and truth of Jesus.

My decision in the cake shop that summer afternoon in July 2012—and my continuing decision to stand by it ever since—has cost me at least tens of thousands of dollars in revenue and eight years and counting of physical threats to my family, insults to my character, and untold hours tied up in legal action of one form or another. Given this, I’m sure there’s an excellent chance that you’re wondering, “What on earth is this guy’s thing about marriage? Is it really that big a deal? Is it really worth all of this pain and aggravation?” Or, as many people have put it, “Why not just bake the cake?” 

My hesitation was not with the men making the request. My objection is never to the person, the customer, asking me to create a cake with a particular message. My objection—in this case—is to the message itself. I can and cheerfully will serve anyone. I cannot and won’t communicate every message. 

I have demurred from creating a lot of non-wedding cakes. I don’t do Halloween cakes, for instance. I personally cannot see Jesus celebrating that day, or encouraging me to do so, especially if the motivation is to glorify things the Bible so explicitly condemns. 

Early on in my cake design career, someone close to me came in asking for a cake with a specific design. Flipping through a reference book for a picture to base the design on, I found out the symbol was occultic. Across the page from the requested emblem was a drawing of an elephant. I’d rather do anything else—even the elephant on that page—than the occult design on this one, I thought. Soon after, the person requesting the cake dropped by, and I gently explained why I couldn’t create anything with the symbol she’d asked for. She shrugged, said she certainly understood, and then thought for a second. 

“Well—how ’bout an elephant?” she said. Another time that God proved to me that he was in control of every aspect of my life. 

So from the beginning, the message has been important to me. I think that’s true of any artist. No one who takes craftsmanship seriously does his work on the assumption that no one else will really notice or pay any attention to it. Why work and discipline yourself to become the best you can possibly be at a skill or talent if no one cares about the result? 

I have no illusions of being in the same league as Michelangelo, Shakespeare, or even Norman Rockwell. But I do have this much in common with each of those guys, and with every other craftsman who ever lived or worked, whatever his medium. Number One, I take my art seriously. Number Two, I want others to appreciate it. And Number Three, I want that work to communicate a clear message to those who do take time to appreciate it. 

If I succeed at Number Two, then there’s no way I fail at Number Three. No one takes time to really appreciate the work of an artist, only to say, “Yep. There’s something that doesn’t mean anything at all.” They may not understand what the art means. They may not like what it means. They may not agree with what it means. But they’ll know that the person who assembled that creation had a definite idea in mind, and have at least some sense of what that idea is all about. 

“Jack,” you’re still saying. “It’s just a cake. Nobody’s thinking anything other than ‘That looks tasty,’ or ‘I hope it’s red velvet.’” But that’s just not true. Especially of a wedding cake. 

Everybody knows a wedding cake when they see one. And most can tell, upon closer examination, whether this cake was custom-made especially for this bride and groom. They can see how much artistry went into the creation. They’ll sense the celebration, and perhaps see in the design something exceedingly personal, something beautifully reflecting the unique love and relationship between these two people. If it’s done well enough, they may even invite someone else to come up and see it, too. Many will ask, “Who made the cake?” 

But whatever their thoughts on the cake itself, two messages are instantly, invariably communicated when people look at a wedding cake. A marriage has taken place. And that marriage should be celebrated. 

As a cake designer, I want to do both of those things. I want to create the cake my customers have requested: something delightful, something delicious, something that celebrates this wonderful coming together of these two unique souls. But to communicate that, I have to believe in the message: that this is a marriage that should take place and that should be celebrated. And that goes directly to what I believe about marriage itself. 

For one thing, I believe marriage was ordained by God. The Bible teaches that God is the one who came up with the marriage idea—early on, in the Garden of Eden—and he had some very specific intentions in mind when he did so. Genesis 2:24 tells us: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Jesus himself affirms this: 

And he answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Those passages tell me several crucial things about marriage. First, this union was God’s idea, and he takes it seriously. Marriage is a sacred thing. Two, that he intended it to be a one-of-a-kind relationship—the physical, emotional, and spiritual union of one man to one woman. (There is no biblical passage that mentions or allows for same-sex marriage.) Three, that he designed marriage to be a pure and permanent commitment. That doesn’t mean divorce is impossible, but it shouldn’t be so easy, so common, that people end up taking marriage lightly. 

All those ideas are magnified and illuminated in Ephesians 5:22–23, which says: 

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies . . . let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Whole books have been written on that passage, and this is not the place for me to explore all the theology of the Bible, or even to explain all the thoughtful elements of these verses. But the main point, I believe, is pretty clear: Marriage is not some casual thing, nor is it simply a convenient institution for any two people who happen to love each other. God designed marriage for his own specific purposes, and directs the behavior of a husband and wife within marriage to illustrate his own relationship with those who commit their lives to him. 

When we mess up marriage—by treating it as less than sacred, by treating our spouse in unkind and unloving ways, or by twisting the relationship itself into something it isn’t—we’re not just destroying our own happiness. We’re misrepresenting God to those around us. We’re painting an inaccurate and unflattering portrait of what his love for each of us looks like. 

And that’s just not a message I’m willing to help communicate. There are too many people out there already who have a hard enough time understanding God or believing his love for them. I’m not willing to use my talents to make it that much harder for them to believe. 

My beliefs don’t have to be your beliefs. But my beliefs are what make me who I am. My commitment to God and to the truth of a book I believe to be his holy Word is the defining premise of my life, the focus of my faith, and the guiding directive for my actions. If you ask me to separate all of that from my work, from my decisions, from my art . . . I simply can’t do that. Not just won’t—can’t. It’s like asking a contractor to build a great building, but first remove the foundation. 

Where do we think artistic creativity comes from? Something outside of ourselves? Of course not. It’s water from the fountain of our soul. It comes from that deep-down place inside each of us where our experiences, our understanding, our intuitions, and our deepest beliefs and convictions about life all stir together. Those can’t be separated from each other any more than you can sift out the various ingredients from a cake after it’s baked. 

That’s why I say that I’ll serve any person, but I won’t communicate all messages. Serving people is merely about recognizing each individual as a person worthy of respect, made in the image of God. I’m not trying to force any person to see the world the way I do, or to embrace my beliefs about God and the Bible. If you want to reject Jesus and purchase a cupcake, go ahead. I’ll gladly sell you that cupcake, and a cup of coffee to go with it, maybe even engage in a conversation about our differences. 

But asking me to draw on my creativity to communicate a message I believe is wrong? That’s asking me to stop being me. To change my own relationship with the Lord. To deny the deepest convictions of my heart, and pretend I haven’t learned the most difficult lessons of my life, or that they don’t matter. That’s not something any person has the right to ask of another. Or a command any government has the right to force one of its citizens to obey.

This article originally appeared on First Things . It is excerpted and adapted from Jack’s book  The Cost of My Faith: How a Decision in My Cake Shop Took Me to the Supreme Court .

Photo: Pexels

Empathy and Understanding in a Conversation Between Clarence, a Black Man, and Ollie, a White Police Officer

The following excerpt from my novel Dominion is a fictional depiction of listening to good officers and understanding the difficulties and pressures they face. Here the main character Clarence, a black journalist, has a discussion with Detective Ollie Chandler. (Ollie is the main character of my later novel Deception.)

“Ollie?” Clarence wondered if he looked as uncomfortable as he felt. “What was the deal with your brutality charge?”

Ollie sighed. “I vaguely remember that. Let’s see, wasn’t there something about it in the Trib?” The sarcasm wasn’t sufficient to mask his pain. “Okay, so you want to hear the story? Well, it was 1987. All started when this dude robbed a 7-Eleven, you know the one over on MLK and Jack?”

Clarence nodded.

“He was flipped out big time. Later we found out it was crack and PCP. Bad combo. Coming up from L.A., I was still a uniformed, before I got into detective division. I was driving on routine patrol. My partner sees this guy in the store facing off with the cashier. He can’t see a gun, but she looks terrified. He says pull over, so I did. My partner, Rick Campbell, he got out of the car just as the dude was comin’ out. The guy looks at Rick out of the corner of his eye but doesn’t run. Smart move. Rick walks in and sees the cashier on the floor, her face smashed up. Turns out the perp pistol-whipped her with a Browning automatic, but she was still conscious. Rick makes sure she’s calling 911, and he’s back out the door chasin’ the guy on foot.

“The perp cuts across a field, my partner chasing him, while I called 911 too, to make sure the girl gets help. I take off in the patrol car thinking I could head them off on a back street. Sure enough, I come around this corner and there they are, both still running, forty feet between them. I pull up, my partner hops in, and the perp suddenly jumps in a car himself. He leads us on a high-speed chase. We go about twenty miles; he dents up three cars along the way, almost hit half a dozen pedestrians. Amazing no one else got hurt.”

“And then?”

“After a fifteen minute chase, we finally pull him over. He shoots at us; we pin him down and run him out of ammo. Then we come after him, hopin’ he isn’t saving a magazine for us. We try to cuff him, but he’s absolutely crazy. Has the strength of five men. We’d handled guys like him with a net before, and no one got hurt, but the ACLU made sure we couldn’t use nets anymore because they’re degrading. Truth is, the nets let us subdue a perp without having to hit him. We can’t just shoot them, of course, unless lives are endangered. Chemical sprays don’t work on the guys flyin’ high on crack, so if they keep fighting, the only thing we can do is hit them with our fists or nightsticks. Which gives bad cops an excuse to do what they want and puts good cops in a position where they have to do what they don’t want to. The bottom line is far greater physical harm both to criminals and cops.”

“So what happened then?”

“Well, I didn’t want to shoot the guy, and cool reason wasn’t real effective. He was resisting arrest, hammerin’ us with his fists, and grabbing for our hands and holsters, trying to get hold of our guns. He was dangerous to himself, to us, to everyone, so as a last resort I used the nightstick on him. Hit him a half-dozen times in the shoulders to get him to stay down so we could handcuff him. After the bad pub­licity in the Trib, there were three or four witnesses who got together and decided I beat him because he was black. Truth is, I didn’t think about what color he was. I just thought about getting him under control and keeping him from hurting anybody.”

“But that’s not what other people thought.”

“Well, the front-page article in the Trib did the real damage. It started something like, ‘White Portland police officer Ollie Chandler, a transfer from LAPD, outraged a North Portland community by his brutal beating of a mentally handicapped black teenager.’”

“You think it came across that bad?”

“Just about. Check it out yourself.”

“I did.”

“Was I right?”

“Not word for word, but pretty close.”

“The funny thing was, the guy was nineteen, but he could have passed for twenty-nine. Besides, when a guy pistol-whips and robs a woman and empties his gun at you, your first thought isn’t to ask him when his voice changed or how long he’s been shaving or whether his neighbors think he’s a nice boy. And mentally handicapped? I didn’t stop to do an IQ test. I’m sure the girl he pistol-whipped felt better once she knew he had a handicap. She had to have reconstructive surgery on her face.”

Clarence nodded, his feelings tearing him two different directions. “I did some homework on your case. I’m curious about something. You didn’t mention just now that your partner Rick was black. Or that the girl at the 7-Eleven, the one he pistol-whipped, she was black too.”

“Didn’t think it mattered. They were people, and they got hurt. Who cares what color they were?”

“Well, people seemed to care about the color of the guy you beat on.”

“Yeah, you got that right. Isn’t it funny? I was concerned about the victims. But some people, all they cared about was the guy who made them victims. They didn’t care about the victim’s skin color, just the perp’s. Weird.”

“I was surprised you had no comment at the time. You should have explained yourself.”

“I was under department orders to say nothing. The problem was the press just took it and treated my silence as if it were an admission of guilt.”

“Did you contact the Trib?”

“I tried to talk to the reporter, but it didn’t do any good. I saw the photographer’s name, so I called her, left a message. Got a call back from somebody else, telling me she was unavailable, and if I had a beef I should contact the publisher’s office.”

“Berkley has an open-door policy. What kind of response did you get from him?”

“I’ll let you know if he ever calls me back. Yeah, I heard about the open-door policy too. Only I think it was the back door and he sneaked out when he saw me coming. His pit bull secretary told me to have my lawyer talk to his lawyer. I said hey, this isn’t about a lawsuit or something. I just wanted to talk man to man, tell him my side, and what it was doing to my family. He never returned my calls.

“His secretary said something about the First Amendment and, ‘The Tribune stands by the story.’ I thought that was pretty funny. If today’s Trib headline was, ‘World will end at noon,’ tomorrow’s follow-up would say, ‘We stand by yesterday’s story.’ Captain told me something I’ve never forgotten: ‘Messin’ with the media is like wrestling with a pig. Everybody ends up getting dirty, but the pig likes it.’”

“I was at the Trib when it all happened,” Clarence said. “I remember it, but I think it got mixed up in my mind with a few other police brutality cases.”

“Yeah. One cop deserved to be fired for what he did—I just wasn’t the guy. There’s a lot of people who still think I hit the perp in the face with the nightstick, that I sprayed him with pepper mace after he was under control, that I even whaled on him after he was unconscious, which he never was, by the way.”

“You didn’t do any of that?”

“No, I didn’t. Look, I’m not saying I haven’t ever gotten in an extra lick that maybe wasn’t absolutely necessary, but it’s subjective, you know? I’m no saint. But the pepper mace and the nightstick were both last resorts. I only used them because he was still out of control and nothing my partner and I did was working.”

“You use mace often?”

“Maybe four times in fifteen years as a uniformed. Nightstick less than a dozen times. See—and I’ll talk slowly because you people in the press don’t understand this—some of these guys won’t come with you to police headquarters if all you say is, ‘Pretty please.’ Truth is, I went to the hospital too. The guy bit me. See this?” He showed him an inch and a half scar on his left hand.

“That’s from this guy? No kidding?”

“No kidding. I could show you all my scars and tell you the stories, but I don’t disrobe for journalists.”

“Thanks. You have no idea how much I appreciate your restraint. So what happened next?”

“The DA’s office came after me. They needed a scapegoat. The Trib and Norcoast made me out to be this brutal racist cop. They described the perp as a ‘mentally handicapped motorist’ and a ‘possible suspect’ in a robbery. Didn’t mention we’d seen him do it, that he pistol-whipped this girl, that he was out of his mind on drugs, trying to kill us and bystanders, that he’d taken us on a high-speed chase, he was resisting arrest, bit me in the hand, and so on. No mention that he was a convicted drug dealer, and who knows how many kids had turned to crime and gangs and died or become killers because of him. None of that mattered.”

“You sound bitter,” Clarence said.

“Maybe I am. Did you see the front-page picture they ran of me, the closeup?”

“Yeah. Barely recognized you.”

“Nobody recognized me. This scuffle went on like fifteen minutes. I guess someone at the Trib was monitoring the police band, and this photographer was already out in Hillsboro, so she had time to get to the scene. This gal keeps getting in close while the perp is swinging these big meathook arms. I was afraid he was going to take her out. She wouldn’t back off. Anyway, she takes these photos, and I swear, I come up lookin’ like Hitler on a bad hair day. I didn’t know it was possible to make this beautiful mug look that ugly.”

 “So you blame the Trib for what happened?”

“Jake told me, ‘The press goes to scandal like a buzzard to entrails.’ They crucified me,” Ollie said.

“You’re seeing the media through the lens of your own bad experiences,” Clarence said.

“Sure. Isn’t that the same lens you see cops through? What bothered me is that I became a cop not to bust heads, but to do some good. I didn’t mind risking my life, but once I was accused of this, suddenly all those years—my career, my record—none of it mattered. I believe to this day if Jake Woods hadn’t done his own investigation and found out the other side and written it up in the Trib, I would have gone to jail.”

“Must’ve been tough.”

“The worst part was when my youngest daughter, then she was sixteen, kept getting harassed by kids and teachers at school who believed the newspaper. One day she comes and asks me, ‘Daddy, did you really do those things to that black boy?’” Ollie’s eyelids got heavy. “That’s when it hurt. Sure, police brutality happens and sure, there are racist cops. I’m not one of them. But I was made to pay for their sins.”

Clarence thought about how often he’d been made to pay for the sins of black criminals who were the exception to the rule.

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