Justin Taylor's Blog, page 71

How to Make a Pro-Life Argument in 2 Minutes or Less

Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute and the author of The Case for Life:

For more, here’s a short written summary.

The Urban Legend that Thomas Jefferson Believed in a Wall Separating Church and State

It may be surprising for some people to learn that President Thomas Jefferson—who allegedly held to a “wall of separation between church and state”—endorsed the use of federal funds to build churches and also endorsed the use of federal funds to support Christian missionary work among Native Americans.

Daniel Dreisbach—professor of Justice, Law, and Society at American University and the author of Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (New York University Press, 2003), has a helpful summary article entitled ”The Mythical ‘Wall of Separation': How a Misused Metaphor Changed Church-State Law, Policy, and Discourse.”

He explains:

Jefferson’s wall, as a matter of federalism, was erected between the national and state governments on matters pertaining to religion and not, more generally, between the church and all civil government.

In other words, Jefferson placed the federal government on one side of his wall and state governments and churches on the other.

The wall’s primary function was to delineate the constitutional jurisdictions of the national and state governments, respectively, on religious concerns, such as setting aside days in the public calendar for prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving.

This jurisdictional or structural understanding of the wall can be seen in Jefferson’s correspondence with the Danbury Baptist Association, where he uses the “wall metaphor.”

President Jefferson had been under Federalist attack for refusing to issue executive proclamations setting aside days for national fasting and thanksgiving, and he said he wanted to explain his policy on this delicate matter. He told Attorney General Levi Lincoln that his response to the Danbury Baptists “furnishes an occasion too, which I have long wished to find, of saying why I do not proclaim fastings & thanksgivings, as my predecessors [Presidents Washington and Adams] did.” The President was eager to address this topic because his Federalist foes had demanded religious proclamations and then smeared him as an enemy of religion when he declined to issue them.

Jefferson’s refusal, as President, to set aside days in the public calendar for religious observances contrasted with his actions in Virginia where, in the late 1770s, he framed “A Bill for Appointing Days of Public Fasting and Thanksgiving” and, as governor in 1779, designated a day for “publick and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.”

How, Dreisbach asks, can Jefferson’s public record on religious proclamations in Virginia be reconciled with the stance he took as President of the United States?

The answer, I believe, is found in the principle of federalism. Jefferson firmly believed that the First Amendment, with its metaphoric “wall of separation,” prohibited religious establishments by the federal government only. Addressing the same topic of religious proclamations, Jefferson elsewhere relied on the Tenth Amendment, arguing that because “no power to prescribe any religious exercise . . . has been delegated to the General [i.e., federal] Government[,] it must then rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority.”

Dreisbach also quotes from Jefferson’s Second Inaugural Address (March 1805) for further evidence:

In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the constitution independent of the powers of the general [i.e., federal] government. I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them, as the constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.

So in essence, Jefferson’s federalism led him to judge it inappropriate for the President to proclaim days of religious observance, but he recognized the authority of state officials to issue such proclamations. So the “wall,” for him, was between the federal government and the state governments when it came to religion.

You can read Dreisbach’s whole piece for further information, including how this metaphor was misused by Justice Black to create a modern urban legend.

For a brief comment on the meaning of the “wall” and its proper application, here is Princeton’s Robert P. George:

What C. S. Lewis Would Say about Planned Parenthood

C. S. Lewis:

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of ‘Admin.’

The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps.

In those we see its final result.

But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.

—Preface to The Screwtape Letters.

HT: Doug Wilson

This Kind Cannot Be Driven Out by Worldview Training and Legislation: The Place of Prayer and Fasting for the Pro-Life Movement

And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Mark 9:28-29

John Piper, in his book on fasting, Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer, looks at Francis Schaeffer’s legacy of worldview engagement, and then writes:

But I wonder if many of the young scholars and activists (now in their forties and fifties!) whom he inspired need to hear a balancing word about the power of prayer and fasting, not as an alternative to thinking and acting, but as a radical foundation that says, “The victory belongs to the Lord, even if the horse (of scholarship and politics) is made ready for the day of battle” (see Proverbs 21:31).

Listen to the books crying out for

evangelical renewal and reformation in the life of the mind,
the restoration of Truth in the place of technique,
the recovery of church social compassion from government powerlessness,
the taking of moral high ground in the environmental cause,
and many other causes.

Is there a sense in each of these that the root issues are so intractable to human suasion that the call for fasting and prayer would not only be fitting but desperately needed?

I am commending such a call.

“Fasting,” Piper writes, “comes in alongside prayer with all its hunger for God and says,

We are not able in ourselves to win this battle.

We are not able to change hearts or minds.

We are not able to change worldviews and transform culture and save 1.6 million children.

We are not able to reform the judiciary or embolden the legislature or mobilize the slumbering population.

We are not able to heal the endless wounds of godless ideologies and their bloody deeds.

But, O God, you are able!

And we turn from reliance on ourselves to you.

And we cry out to you and plead that for the sake of your name, and for the sake of your glory, and for the advancement of your saving purpose in the world, and for the demonstration of your wisdom and your power and your authority over all things, and for the sway of your Truth and the relief of the poor and the helpless, act, O God.

This much we hunger for the revelation of your power.

With all our thinking and all our writing and all our doing, we pray and we fast.

Come. Manifest your glory.

Piper continues:

I appeal to you to seek the Lord with me concerning the place of fasting and prayer in breaking through the darkened mind that engulfs the modern world, in regard to abortion and a hundred other ills.

This is not a call for a collective tantrum that screams at the bad people, “Give me back my country.”

It is a call to aliens and exiles in the earth, whose citizenship is in heaven and who await the appearance of their King, to “do business” until he comes (Luke 19:13).

And the great business of the Christian is to “do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31), and to pray that God’s name be hallowed and his kingdom come and his will be done in the earth (Matthew 6:9-10). And to yearn and work and pray and fast not only for the final revelation of the Son of Man, but in the meantime, for the demonstration of his Spirit and power in the reaching of every people, and the rescuing of the perishing, and the purifying of the church, and the putting right of as many wrongs as God will grant.

I join Piper in commending this practice to you. What looks foolish to the world (forgoing food to pray for the protection of the unborn) may look utterly foolish to the world, but it will be pleasing to the God who sees and rewards in secret.

Update: John Piper suggests we consider fasting over lunch on Wednesday, July 15, to pray for the rescue of the most defenseless members of our society. Will you join us?

Planned Parenthood Uses Late-Term Abortions to Harvest Fetal Organs

A deeply disturbing undercover video below exposing Planned Parenthood’s use of fetal body parts after abortions.

Planned Parenthood receives over $540.6 million each year from taxpayers for government health services.

You can read more on the story here.

For more context, you can view the nearly three hours of footage here or read the 60-page transcript.

And please read this excellent exhortation to the Church from Russell Moore. Here’s an excerpt:

The church of Jesus Christ should recommit ourselves to speaking out for human dignity. What we see in this instance is what has always been true of Planned Parenthood: Mammon worship in collision with the image of God, and the image is sacrificed on the altar of profiteering. This does not go unnoticed to God. He has said, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey” (Isa. 10:1-2).

The children torn apart in abortion facilities have no names, but God knows their names. They have no resting places but Jesus grants them rest. If we are called into the kingdom of a just Messiah, one who welcomes children, we should stand up and speak up for the vulnerable ones He loves. These children may be just another line item in the abortion industry’s profit ledger, but they share the humanity of our Lord Jesus—and we must plead for justice for them.

It is time for the reborn to stand up for the unborn.

Update: Joe Carter looks into the law and discovers, to his dismay, that this practice is probably legal, and undoubtedly common. An excerpt:

So what does all this mean? It means that this despicable practice of selling the body parts of aborted children is likely to be legal and an accepted, if not common practice, among abortion providers. The video should serve as a disturbing wake-up call for the pro-life community. We are justified in being outraged by the trafficking in human parts by Planned Parenthood and we should be outraged at the federal government that made it legal to traffic in the sale of aborted human flesh. What’s more we should call on our legislators to act to both defund Planned Parenthood and do ban the sale of fetal tissue.

The Center for Medical Progress responds to Planned Parenthood’s response:

Planned Parenthood makes two key admissions in their statement today: 1) aborted fetal parts are harvested at their clinics, and 2) money is exchanged in connection with this. They also tell several lies: 1) That proper consent is obtained from patients, 2) That Planned Parenthood does not make money off the body parts, and 3) that everything is legal.

You can read their post here with evidence refuting #2.

Update: Here is a pro-lifer who watched the entire unedited video and who finds the editing and marketing of it problematic, though the actual practice still deeply troubling.

Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts

A deeply disturbing undercover video below exposing Planned Parenthood’s use of fetal body parts after abortions.

Planned Parenthood receives over $540.6 million each year from taxpayers for government health services.

You can read more on the story here.

For more context, you can view the nearly three hours of footage here or read the 60-page transcript.

And please read this excellent exhortation to the Church from Russell Moore. Here’s an excerpt:

The church of Jesus Christ should recommit ourselves to speaking out for human dignity. What we see in this instance is what has always been true of Planned Parenthood: Mammon worship in collision with the image of God, and the image is sacrificed on the altar of profiteering. This does not go unnoticed to God. He has said, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey” (Isa. 10:1-2).

The children torn apart in abortion facilities have no names, but God knows their names. They have no resting places but Jesus grants them rest. If we are called into the kingdom of a just Messiah, one who welcomes children, we should stand up and speak up for the vulnerable ones He loves. These children may be just another line item in the abortion industry’s profit ledger, but they share the humanity of our Lord Jesus—and we must plead for justice for them.

It is time for the reborn to stand up for the unborn.

Update: Joe Carter looks into the law and discovers, to his dismay, that this practice is probably legal, and undoubtedly common. An excerpt:

So what does all this mean? It means that this despicable practice of selling the body parts of aborted children is likely to be legal and an accepted, if not common practice, among abortion providers. The video should serve as a disturbing wake-up call for the pro-life community. We are justified in being outraged by the trafficking in human parts by Planned Parenthood and we should be outraged at the federal government that made it legal to traffic in the sale of aborted human flesh. What’s more we should call on our legislators to act to both defund Planned Parenthood and do ban the sale of fetal tissue.

The Center for Medical Progress responds to Planned Parenthood’s response:

Planned Parenthood makes two key admissions in their statement today: 1) aborted fetal parts are harvested at their clinics, and 2) money is exchanged in connection with this. They also tell several lies: 1) That proper consent is obtained from patients, 2) That Planned Parenthood does not make money off the body parts, and 3) that everything is legal.

You can read their post here with evidence refuting #2.

John Piper Poetically Imagines the New Heavens and the New Earth

A portion of John Piper’s poem, “Justified for Evermore,” found in his book, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God, rev. ed. (Multnomah, 2012), 379-82.

And as I knelt beside the brook

To drink eternal life, I took

A glance across the golden grass,

And saw my dog, old Blackie, fast

As she could come. She leaped the stream-

Almost-and what a happy gleam

Was in her eye. I knelt to drink,

And knew that I was on the brink

Of endless joy. And everywhere

I turned and saw a wonder there.

A big man running on the lawn:

That’s old John Younge with both legs on.

The blind can see a bird on wing,

The dumb can lift their voice to sing.

The diabetic eats at will,

The coronary runs uphill.

The lame can walk, the deaf can hear,

The cancer-ridden bone is clear.

Arthritic joints are lithe and free,

And every pain has ceased to be.

And every sorrow deep within,

And every trace of lingering sin

Is gone. And all that’s left is joy,

And endless ages to employ

The mind and heart, and understand,

And love the sovereign Lord who planned

That it should take eternity

To lavish all his grace on me.

Randy Alcorn Opens Up about His Depression

Randy Alcorn talks to David Mathis here:

Here are some resources on battling depression and ministering to those who do:

David Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too
Edward T. Welch, Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness
Edward T. Welch, Depression: The Way Up When You Are Down (booklet)
Jeffrey Black, Suicide: Understanding and Intervening (booklet)
John Piper, When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God—and Joy
John Piper, “Battling the Unbelief of Despondency” (sermon)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure
“Depression and the Ministry” (blog series by the Biblical Counseling Coalition and the Gospel Coalition)

For those in ministry, the writings by and about Charles Spurgeon on depression may be particularly valuable:

Charles Spurgeon, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits” in Lectures to My Students
Zack Eswine,  Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Realistic Hope for Those Who Suffer from Depression
Darrel W. Amundsen, “The Anguish and Agonies of Charles Spurgeon“
John Piper, “Charles Spurgeon: Preaching through Adversity“
Randy Alcorn on how Spurgeon’s writings on depression helped him go through his own depression in 2007 (part 1, part 2, part 3)

Amazing Grace the Musical: Now on Broadway

The musical Amazing Grace, after a run in Chicago, is now on Broadway, telling the story of John Newton’s life.

If you want to go to the show, here’s a way to get discounted tickets (through September 6, 2015):

$85 Tickets (reg. $139) Orchestra & Front Mezzanine
$65 Tickets (reg. $98) Mid Mezzanine

1. You can buy them online through Ticketmaster, using code FAITH1

2. You can call 877.250.2929 and mention code FAITH1

3. You can bring a printout of this offer to the Nederlander Theatre box office: 208 West 41st Street (between 7th & 8th Avenues)

For more information, visit AmazingGraceMusical.com.

*Restrictions & service fees apply.

To read more on Newton, see Tony Reinke’s new book on his vision of the Christian life and Jonathan Aitken’s page-turning biography.

What about Those Who Have Never Heard of Jesus? A Classic Illustration from Francis Schaeffer

A classic illustration from Francis Schaeffer:

If every little baby that was ever born anywhere in the world had a tape recorder hung about its neck, and if this tape recorder only recorded the moral judgments with which this child as he grew bound other men, the moral precepts might be much lower than the biblical law, but they would still be moral judgments.

Eventually each person comes to that great moment when he stands before God as judge. Suppose, then, that God simply touched the tape recorder button and each man heard played out in his own words all those statements by which he had bound other men in moral judgment. He could hear it going on for years—thousands and thousands of moral judgments made against other men, not aesthetic judgments, but moral judgments.

Then God would simply say to the man, though he had never head the Bible, now where do you stand in the light of your own moral judgments? The Bible points out . . . that every voice would be stilled. All men would have to acknowledge that they have deliberately done those things which they knew to be wrong. Nobody could deny it.

We sin two kinds of sin.

We sin one kind as though we trip off the curb, and it overtakes us by surprise.

We sin a second kind of sin when we deliberately set ourselves up to fall.

And no one can say he does not sin in the latter sense. Paul’s comment is not just theoretical and abstract, but addressed to the individual—“O man”—any man without the Bible, as well as the man with the Bible.

. . . God is completely just. A man is judged and found wanting on the same basis on which he has tried to bind others.

—Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, 2d ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 1985), 49-50.

Consider the principles set forth in Romans 2:

1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? . . .

14 . . . When Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

For more thoughts on this, see Sam Storms’s helpful blog post.

The best book I know of on this and related question is Robert Peterson and Christopher Morgan’s excellent edited volume, Faith Comes by Hearing: A Response to Inclusivism (IVP, 2008).