These Template Books Can Be Customized with Your Pictures and Text.

13×11 Family Album

8×8 Pregnancy Journal

8×8 New Baby Girl Through The First Year

8×8 New Baby Boy Through The First Year

12 x 12 Wedding Album

finds life, righteousness, and honor.”  Proverb 21:21

How do we honor a man of God whose time here is fading, whose body is slowly ceasing function?

Around the world people are praying, awakened in the night with Dad on their hearts. It is truly an amazing thing to see and experience – being carried by prayer. Cards, emails, and visitors from all walks of life have come to share their love and thanks to one who laid down his life for the service of his King. They want to esteem this couple who traded the corporate “good life”  for a missionary’s suitcase. Because now the two will soon become one in the coming weeks or days.

Dad is leaving us.

How can I express my love and admiration for the fight, for the brave warring this man has done against a terrible foe? Cancer may rattle its saber. It may gnash its teeth against his flesh and bone. But all is quiet when his warrior bride stands to worship. His drifting mind, full of morphine and chemicals and mixed signals comes into a place of rest as the music begins to flow. and his spirit sings. And then HE sings – words that would not form are suddenly carried on a tune from battles and victories past.  He looks to his future. “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus”, ” it is well with my soul”, “In Christ alone I put my trust…..in Christ alone.”

My care for him is how I honor my father-in-law. Allowing Jesus to fill me with His compassion, see with His eyes, speak with His words. This is our portion - a heart that overflows with love until it is broken. This is our honor – to serve the one in front of us with that love.  Jesus shows us the way.

So I lend my voice to the song, sharing an extravagant moment with Mom and Dad. Easing my own weariness in the wonder of God’s Name raised high – high above the circumstance, high above the disease, high above sadness and loss. And our perspective is changed. We regain the heavenly view. Pain is defeated. Healing is just on the other side of that door. The Lord holds our times in His hand.

A man of God is almost home.

This Pregnancy Journal is an amazing way for you to document your journey.

Click on the picture below to view the entire journal and/or go to HERITAGE MAKERS to create your own. This is a template that I re-created and I can send you the template…just leave me a comment with an information request. Happy Journaling!

Our seminary friends gave us a CD for Christmas by Nathan Clark George, “Pull Up a Chair.” It is an excellent compilation of songs by a great Christian musician who happens to be related to Dr. Gordon Clark, who was the father of the wife of the founder of our seminary, Dwight Zeller. Lois Clark Zeller is an inspiration to us all, her dedication to the seminary and excellence in music for our chapel services is remarkable. I have heard that Nathan spends a lot of time at Horn Creek Conference Center in the summers, so I hope I get the chance to meet him. We have played his CD almost non-stop on our trips around Westcliffe and when we’re driving to Pueblo. I can relate to his music, being a guitar player myself and his vocal range seems to be close to mine. But more importantly, his love for the Lord comes out in his songs and I find myself worshipping with him as I drive along. You can find him on You Tube and his website is http://www.nathanclarkgeorge.com

Hebrews 10:35-36 says, “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.  You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.”  Have you thrown away the confidence you once had for homeschooling?  Have you been told that your children would be better off in school with professionals who have been trained to teach?  Have you been thinking that your children are missing out on what other kids are getting in school that you can’t offer them at home? Let me assure you that you’re not alone.  We all have our moments of questioning whether we’re really doing the will of God.  None of us is exempt from Satan’s attacks.  He doesn’t like it when we are confident in doing what is right and good. 

Let me also assure you that confidence is not tied to a feeling.  We don’t have to feel confident to be confident. There are many times that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am doing exactly what God wants me to do, but I might be feeling anything but confident.  There have been plenty of times that my level of confidence has more closely resembled a plate of soggy, cold spaghetti rather than a tall, strong oak.  And it is just as likely that I will feel this way with other homeschool parents as with non-homeschoolers.  The past few years I have battled with fibromyalgia, and there are days that I can hardly drag myself out of bed much less perform exciting science projects and guide my children through the complexities of English grammar.  Believe it or not, there are days that my kids just have to muddle through and fend for themselves almost entirely on their own.  Those are days that I don’t feel confident at all. 

The good news is that our confidence does not need to be in ourselves and our human abilities (or lack thereof).  Our confidence rests on our all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present God.  Our job is to keep our focus on His will and to persevere in doing His will.  Scripture reminds us that if we do not throw away our confidence we will be rewarded.  We can be confident in a God who keeps His promises.  We don’t have to second-guess our decisions.  We don’t have to question whether we are able to give our children what they need.  God is able.  Our confidence is in Him. Ephesians 3:20 reminds us that “God is able to do far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. He does everything by his power that is working in us.”

“I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever;  with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations (Psalm 89:1).”

I recently received advice from an old friend about getting my kids (including a couple who are not kids anymore) to participate in our economic situation at home.  We are all living under the same roof for the first time in years, but as it is with a lot of people in this recession, times are tough for us.

I was laying awake in the wee hours the other night thinking, as I sometimes do.  It occurred to me that perhaps we should start some kind of family business. After all, we have a lot of gifted people amongst us.  Surely we could think of something that would help us make some money. 

But there would be other benefits besides money to our involvement in this enterprise. Something of this kind could really serve to unite us.  Working together on a common project bonds people together.

It’s part of my job as a father to train my family.  Even the adult children under my roof should be able to come to me for counsel.   So this weekend I intend to hold a family meeting and broach this idea of a family business and the need for our family to all pitch in as an economic unit.

There are a lot of benefits for a father who participates in the lives of his children.  If we do our job right, our children  will bring us peace, joy, and even delight (Proverbs 29:3,17).  If we ignore our responsibilities as fathers to train our children, especially in the things of God, we do them a disservice. They will be less likely to curb their human capacity to engage in sin, either ones of commission or those of omission. They will make us and themselves miserable.

The apostle Paul had a relationship with a young man he called his “dear son” (II Timothy 1:2).  They weren’r related, but they had a father-son connection. Paul loved this man Timothy. Because of this, he exhorted the young man to “fan into flame the gift of God”.  (This gift was even imparted to Timothy by Paul!)    Paul charged him to be bold  in his use of this gift (I Timothy 1:4-7).

It’s our job as dads to love and teach our children. Their Christian lives  depend on our willingess to do this. So do the lives of their children, and their children’s children.

Time4Learning.com is part of my 4th grade daughter’s homeschool program.  She loves it because it’s entertaining and fun.  The silly humor is right on her level. (Don’t worry, Moms, it’s all clean.)  She also likes that she gets to “do school” on the computer instead of reading boring textbooks all day.

I like Time4Learning.com because I know my child is learning.  Her reading skills and spelling skills are especially improving.  She shares new stuff she is learning with me.  Last week while she was working at her computer and I was sitting next to her working at mine, she shared with me a spelling rule she was learning.  She told me that she wished she had heard that rule earlier, because it would have helped her.  I had missed it.  It gave me a new appreciation for Time4Learning.  I don’t have to be sitting with my child all day long making sure she’s getting her schoolwork done.  I can tend to other things at home and trust that she’s getting what she needs to learn.  I consider the $19.95  monthly fee a wise investment.

It seems that the United State is far beyond the possibility of recovery. Disaster is certain; the only question is, When? On that happy note…

We do not know how long we have to prepare for that uncertain future. Now is the time to be gaining practical skills and eliminating debts, sorting so that we know the difference between the necessary and the accessory. We may have a sharp event but I expect instead a long downward slide.

Certainly, there is no sign that there will be any help from Washington. That system is done for. Time will show this. For now, the lawmakers are still on their acid trip. There is a tension in the air, a recognition that change such as none presently living in America have ever known, is waiting in the mist before us.

You have to admire the “let’s return to the days of the founding of the Constitution” people. They still have not given up on limited government. Disillusionment awaits them. I hope they can bear the landing. They mean well.

So, nothing really profound or new to say here. Rather, one merely attempts to assuage a gnawing sense of “It-has-been-too-long-since-I-have-written-anything-but-I-want-you-to-know-I-am-still-here.” And God still is on His throne. The kind of world we want surely we will not see until Jesus’ Second Coming. But on the way to that, we should be wise. And careful. And with increasing clarity, we should live lives that model that kind of responsible human living that Heaven intended before (and after) man fell. I may only have training wheels on, but at least I am training. May every reader make time and be led and find ways to move themselves and their families into a better situation even as the march of our uncertain future continues to pick up in its decibel count.

LOUISVILLE, KY—At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He’s a member of his school’s swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Faber admitted to reporters Monday. “It’s like I get these weird urges sometimes, and suddenly I’m tempted to go behind my friends’ backs and attend a megachurch service, or censor books in the school library in some way. Even just the thought of organizing a CD-burning turns me on.”

Added Faber, “I feel so confused.”

The openly gay teen, who came out to his parents at age 14 and has had a steady boyfriend for the past seven months, said he first began to suspect he might be different last year, when he started feeling an odd stirring within himself every time he passed a church. The more conservative the church, Faber claimed, the stronger his desire was to enter it.

“It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore,” the frightened teenager said. “Keeping this secret obsession with radical right-wing dogma hidden away from my parents, teachers, and schoolmates is tearing me apart.”

Enlarge Image
Faber’s sock drawer is home to a number of illicit magazines he has secretly accepted from street preachers.
According to Faber, his first experience with evangelical Christianity was not all that different from other gays his age.

“Sure, I looked at the Book of Leviticus once or twice—everybody has,” Faber said. “We all experiment a little bit with that stuff when we’re growing up. But I was just a kid. I didn’t think it meant anything.”

Faber’s instinct was to deny these early emotions. But recently, the Louisville teen admitted, the feelings have grown stronger, making him wonder more and more what life as a born-again right-wing fundamentalist would be like.

“The other week, I was this close to picketing in front of an abortion clinic,” the mortified teenager said, his eyes welling up with tears. “I know it’s wrong, but I wanted so badly to do it anyway. I even made one of those signs with photos of dead fetuses and hid it in my closet. I felt so ashamed, yet, at the same time, it was all strangely titillating.”

Faber’s parents, although concerned, said they’re convinced their otherwise typical gay son is merely going through a conservative Christian phase.

“I caught him watching The 700 Club once when he thought he was alone in the house, and last week, I found some paperbacks from the Left Behind series hidden in his sock drawer,” his mother, Eileen Faber, said. “I’m sure he’ll grow out of it, but even if he doesn’t, I will love and accept my son no matter what.”

Faber’s father was far less tolerant in his comments.

“No son of mine is going to try to get intelligent design into school textbooks,” Geoffrey Faber said. “And I absolutely refuse to pay his tuition if he decides to go to one of those colleges like Oral Roberts University where they’re just going to fill his head with a lot of crazy conservative ideas.”

He added, “I just want my normal gay son back.”

“A wise man fears the LORD and shuns evil, but a fool is hotheaded and reckless…He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge…A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly (Proverbs 14:15,26,29).”

I have a bumper sticker which has content printed in big letters on the back of my car. It was there when I got the car.  I haven’t removed the sticker. Although I don’t really like loud stickers on my car so much, this one I am reluctant to peel off.  This is because it is a personal reminder to mind my “p’s and q’s” in one area of my life.

The sticker says,”Behind every angry man is an angry and absent father”.  I keep it on my bumper because I have a problem with my temper.  Actually, that’s too light a description.  There are times I can go into a fit of rage if I am not careful.  Even though I slip once in a while, I am careful now.

I wasn’t before and I saw how destructive my anger could be.  It harmed my children, my wife and me personally. 

The apostle Paul describes a typical godly father as one who encourages, comforts and urges his children to “live lives worthy of God (I Thessalonians 2:11,12)”. It’s awfully hard to do this when I am yelling at them, putting them down or sending them out of my sight.

I am not proud of the above description of myself. I could excuse my temper as being “just who I am” or part of my Irish heritage. But in fact, I am ashamed.  Thankfully I serve a God of grace and have a loving family that has allowed me time to change. 

The sticker stays.

The architect of George Bush’s march to the White House and the man who engineered anti-gay marriage amendments in the name of “saving” marriage has gotten divorced.

Again. Yes. His second.

In the announcement, his spokesperson asked for privacy.

Really?

He thinks his marriage is a private matter that the press shouldn’t exploit? He thinks we should keep our noses out of it because a marriage or in this case a divorce — is a private matter?

Mr. Rove is the person responsible for all of that “marriage hasn’t changed since Biblical times” and “the sanctity of marriage that gay people are trying to destroy” garbage. Something he made up to scare people; to get right wing extremists, bigots and the mis-informed to the polls. And it worked.

One thing that makes his exploitation of gays and lesbians so heinous is that he was raised by his two gay dads, which he was very close to.

Rove made a concerted effort to push the marriage status of hundreds of thousands of Americans to the center stage of the political process. He treated the issue like a political plaything. Which is easier to do when it’s an abstract notion. Only problem is: For each one of those couples, it’s not at all an abstract issue. And if a politician’s private behavior is at odds with their political stances, well: it’s our job to point it out. Hypocrisy is rampant in Washington D.C., of course, however it does not, nor will it ever become acceptable.

“Indeed, of Zion it will be said,’This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High himself will establish her’(Psam 87:5).”

We just experienced our first Christmas together as a reunited family.  Right before the holiday my family joined me from overseas after a two month separation.  In addition, my oldest son moved here from California shortly thereafter after living apart from us for several years. While our new location and situation is a work in progress, having everyone together again is, to say the least, a wonderful development.

There is something about the traditional family unit that provides the possibility of healthy relationships and stability in the midst of a world that offers neither.  It is true that there are a lot of dysfunctional traditional families out there, but who is to say that other structures such as cohabitation and having children out of wedlock offer a better chance for family health?

One study notes that unwed couples are economically and socially handicapped compared to those who are married.   These couples tend to have less money and less education. They also have more problems with substance abuse and are more likely to suffer from depression.

 But marriage and the traditional family unit isn’t enough to avoid these kinds of problems.  The “something” that provides our traditional family with the prospect of being successful is the fact that Jesus Christ is its Head.  The members of our familyall profess Christ, including Mom and Dad.  With God in charge, we have hope. We can use our spiritual gifts within our family and therefore have a better chance of becoming unified and mature (Ephesians 5:7-13).

Our efforts to pursue godliness give us a better chance for success, also.  Thriving godly people create joy,spread wisdom and justice and are self controlled.  In addition,  godly parents know how to handle their children (Proverbs 29:2,3,6-8,11,15).

On the other hand, families without God in their lives are caught in a trap (Proverbs 29:6).  They are subject to deception, futile thinking and ignorance. As a result, these families are more likely to be desensitized and unrestrained in their actions (Ephesians 4:17-19).  

Unfortunately, the trend is away from the traditional family.  Twenty one percent of the couples in Finland, the country we just moved from, are cohabiting. The percentage is even greater in other Nordic countries. In Britain, married couples will soon be in the minority.

This trend doesn’t bode well for our world.  What is even worse than the move away from the traditional  family is the move away from God.  What we need in Western society is a revival of maginificent proportions.

Layout I Created In My Heritage Makers Studio

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Hebrews 10:23-25

If I had to choose, Hebrews would be my favourite book of the Bible. It is rich of theology. It clearly demonstrates the necessity of the Old Testament and the ancient covenants with the forefathers of Israel. It speaks of sacrifice. It exalts the work of Christ on the cross. It glories the magnificence of Christ’s triumph over death.

As much as Hebrews is such a heavily theological book, it is also laden with personal encouragement and practical ‘relevant’ teaching – if you can swallow it. The verses above are often quoted as the model for Christian fellowship. They set the precedence for relationships within our wider family to be founded on selfless love, gracious community, endearing encouragement and endless support. We as Christians ought to be serving one another in this way, and we ought to spur each other in this direction because we know Christ.

The main reason for Christian service is obvious – because of Christ. This reason has been established since the start of the book of Hebrews. For ten chapters, the author illuminates the total fulfilment of God’s law, plan and mission by our Lord and Saviour. It gives us the substance to grasp the extent, purpose and complete fulfilment of Jesus’ work on the cross and now that we can understand it, we ought to act on it. In knowing the depth of Christ’s love for us, we have an obligation and responsibility to carry out in service – and it is a good service. It is a service that encourages us to move together as a unit. There is no “I” in team.

So while the author of Hebrews lavishes us with deep theological truths, the cumulation of the passage up to this point is to rally Christians to gather together – to fight for His cause and serve Christ together. There is certainly no Christian in this world that should deliberately live alone and isolated. We have others around us to sharpen us “as iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17). Even God proclaimed that “it is not good for a man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18) and so He made us on the foundation of relationships. In terms of service, even Jesus came down not for His own glory, even though it was rightfully His, but He “did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). Whilst we could never come close to doing the work that Christ did on the cross, He is still our example. For God to come and serve us gives a glaring example to the purpose, mission and meaning to our lives. In summary, we are made to sharpen one another, to be in comfort of one another and to serve one another.

Hebrews then speaks of the benefits that are associated with Christian community. It talks of hope, love, good deeds and encouragement.

In terms of hope, together we can all look forward in unison to the Day that Christ returns.

In terms of love, it takes every member of a family to love one another. Only one person can carry the burden of love for the entire world by Himself and that is Christ. While we seek for love and comfort in a Christian sense, we must also give love. If we don’t, then a heavy burden falls on a small handful of those who are commited to love unconditionally. It is the age-old burden of love for one reaching out to a person with depression – they continue to give but receive nothing. This cannot be the case in our lives as Christians. The burden of love for one another is a shared responsibility and an action for the entire body of Christ.

In terms of good deeds, we work together in service. Working alone has its place, but Christian work as a unit and a group creates a bond that cannot be forged in any other way. An in terms of encouragement, you cannot only encourage yourself. The source of encouragement from someone else is an added relief to a life-long service and a hard ministry.

These are all encouraging words. When we stand as a team, we stand firm. When we meet as a family, we keep together. But there is a flip side to this passionate plea. I know of many individuals who seek after the community of believers yet do not take on the harshest of warnings as stated in Hebrews.

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay, “and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 10:26-31

We are warned. Yes, encouragement must be given and grace must abound, but as an individual we must know where we stand in the sight of a Holy God. Yes, while Jesus is unlimited in His outpouring of grace, we are not to test it. Romans 6:1-2. The writer of Hebrews speaks Truth that is unbearable for some Christians to hear. Do not think for a moment that while we live in times of hope, bountiful love, good deeds and united encouragement, we are given freedom to stray off the path and continue sinning. Yes, we encourage the sinning brother or sister to love and good deeds. But they must respond! We gently address a sinner in Truth but repentance is imperative. It may sound like guilt, or judgement, but when we stand before the sight of the living God, surely we ought to be convicted, and if we are the one who is sinning we must respond.

Individually, we must reflect on our lives daily. It is one thing to seek Christian community and comfort in the arms of God’s family, it is another to continue living in sin. The impact of sin on the family will be profound and the consequentially severe. Do not think that sin, whilst in seeking Him, is completely forgiven and utterly forgotten, will not leave a scar in the lives of other Christians. If you seek to be part of the family, your life then becomes the life of the family and not only your own. Really, there is no “i” in team.

As some of you may know, our family has been seeking God’s will about our next steps as a family in serving God through Rise of the Home. We’ve been praying about how to proceed with our work given the increased demand for our time and need for mobility. As we’ve been traveling, things have become more and more difficult on our family going in and out of others’ homes. The lack of consistency in environment has been difficult on all of us, and so we’ve put it to prayer. At least for now, God is asking us to continue working on the road on a somewhat regular basis, and we’re trying to follow His lead.

I traveled to Ohio last week and, through an divinely interesting turn of events, made an offer on a large camper trailer. I was able to put down $2,000 on the purchase from donations we had received. It’s a very nice 2006 Gulf Stream Cavalier in virtually new condition. It will have a few small necessary repairs and a couple of things done to make it more adequate for daily living, but overall it’s a pretty amazing deal. In fact, it’s being purchased for about one-third to one-half of it’s market value. Praise God!

We’re still in the process of raising the money for the remainder of the purchase of the camper trailer and the vehicle we’re going to use to pull it, but know God is working all of that out. We’d love to have prayers as we pack, sort, and try to get our lives down into a small trailer. It’s not an impossible task, but it is nontheless challenging.

Thanks for continually lifting us up before the LORD as we serve Him. We’re excited about the steps of faith He’s asking us to take and the work He’s given us to do. To God alone be the glory for the things He has done.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight”

II Corinthians 5:7 NAS

Thanksgiving means many things to each individual. To me it has truly always been a time of thanks. This year is no different. Below I have written a letter to all with sincere thanks.

When I refer to “family” in the following please note this covers “all” my families…. my international church family comprised of many brothers and sisters of faith all over the world, many I have never seen nor spoken to, my local church family including all of my brothers and sisters at Grace Community Baptist Church in Moncks Corner, SC, my church family from Salem Baptist Church in Richmond, Va. Redeeming Grace Baptist Church in Mathews, VA. Grace Baptist in Talyors, SC. My seminary families at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and The Southern Baptist Seminary. My work family at Genworth Financial, especially those in the Genworth Action Center. Wow, I am so blessed to have all of these brothers and sisters and I have not even mentioned my biological and marital family…… just know that when I say friends and family this includes you.

Dear Friends and Family,

How can I begin to thank God and all of you for the multiple blessings I have recieved this year.

Words alone seem so pale in comparison to the vibrant beauty to be found in the relationships and blessings received.  There have been some large obstacles and some deep times of sorrow and disappointment but these moments seem minute when they stand aside the largesse of those blessings extended through all of you.

May we all look earnestly and acknowledge that which we must be Thankful for….

Again thanks to all of you that the Lord has and will purpose in my life. To God be the glory.

In His Service,

Cindy Bailey

Word4Women

A Call of Christian Conscience

Preamble

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
Declaration
We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is
grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.
Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.
We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.
Life
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10
Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro-abortion ideology prevails today in our government. The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the “need” for abortion—a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as “the culture of death.” We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.
A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called “therapeutic cloning.” This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and “voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of “liberty,” “autonomy,” and “choice.”
We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.
A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.
Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and “ethnic cleansing,” the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.
Marriage
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24
This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33
In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God’s creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society—indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as “holy matrimony” to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.
Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits—the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling—and alarming—indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society—and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average—is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.
We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.
To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.
The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents’ marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.
We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God’s intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire
Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to “a more excellent way.” As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.
We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being—the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual—on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.
We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being “married.” It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.
No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality—a covenantal union of husband and wife—that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as “marriages” sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.
And so it is out of love (not “animus”) and prudent concern for the common good (not “prejudice”), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God’s creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.
Religious Liberty
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. Matthew 22:21
The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: “Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness…, for compulsion is no attribute of God” (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God—a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.
Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.
It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law—such persons claiming these “rights” are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.
We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti-discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of “same-sex marriage” in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital “civil unions” scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here.
In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one’s own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of.1 Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.
As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust—and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust—undermine the common good, rather than serve it.
Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King’s willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.
Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.
Drafting Committee
Robert George Professor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
Timothy George Professor, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
Chuck Colson Founder, the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, VA)
1 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America