I received quite the birthday present from God this year.

My husband was in a car wreck on the way to speak at a church, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he was checked out because his chest hurt. A lot. (Airbags hit your chest at 200 mph!) No broken bones, just a scratch on the forehead, a lot of soreness, and a residual (but slowly subsiding) sense of fragility.

When I walked into the exam room, Ray murmured wryly, “Happy Birthday.”

And it was, because my beloved husband was all right. God protected him from serious harm, and I am so thankful! That was a wonderful gift to me.

This was the second time I was called to the ER. Several years ago, Ray was “T-boned” on the driver’s side by a car speeding through a red light. He received a concussion and nine months of soreness, but again nothing broken, no internal injuries. He still has no memory of being hit (or even being extracted from his totaled car or taken to the hospital by the paramedics).

There was a big “no accident” to the timing and location of that first wreck. He was hit three blocks from home, just a couple of months before our older son started basic training in the Air Force. My mama’s heart was of course concerned about what could happen to our son in the military during a war. I got the message loud and clear: “Ray wasn’t safe from danger three blocks from home, and I protected him. You can trust Me to protect Curt no matter where he is or what he’s doing.”

The Lord knew that both of Ray’s accidents were going to happen. Months before, I had been invited to speak at women’s retreat in Germany. I was excited about the invitation, but as I prayed about it, God gave me a resounding “NO!” in my spirit. I had no idea why He wouldn’t let me go, but obediently, regretfully declined. When Ray had his wreck three days before I would have been scheduled to fly to Europe, I was so grateful for God’s goodness in the timing. I was grateful for the “no.”

For years, I have been hanging into what is probably the most important truth I have ever learned in my life: a loving God is in control. This year, for my birthday, God gave me the gift of saying, “Yes, I am, and let me show you once again how true that is.”

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/car_wrecks_and_god’s_care
on March 16, 2010.

Sunday, April 18, 2010 – This is not a story with a happy ending, because the story hasn’t ended yet. Ray Bohlin, Todd Kappelman and I, along with millions of other travelers stranded around the globe, are in Frankfurt, Germany far longer than the eighteen hours we expected to be here on our way home from Minsk, Belarus.

For two weeks, we were privileged to share some of Probe’s worldview and apologetics material with young adult believers and future church leaders in Belarus. This country was part of the former Soviet Union, located between Poland and Russia. Until “freedom came” (their term) in 1991 with the fall of the USSR, it labored under the oppression of communism. The spiritual darkness of this country is part of the oppression as well. One of Ray’s spiritual gifts is discernment, and he feels the weight of oppression and darkness from the moment we get off the plane. Even though God has blessed me with a sunny disposition, the unending ugly gray, featureless, monstrously huge apartment buildings thrown up by the government to house millions of citizens as if they were animals, depresses my spirit as well.

But it was a good, rich time with our friends in Belarus; they appreciated our teaching styles, the (very different!) material we presented, and the way we loved them. The warm reception from those we spent time with last year was encouraging to us, as were the tears at the farewell ceremony from this year’s new friends. We have been invited back with opportunities to expand our ministry there, and we look forward to returning next year.

Belarus is not kind to people with disabilities. As one now living in the throes of post-polio syndrome (muscle weakness, fatigue and pain), the ubiquitous stairs make getting around more difficult than I am used to in the U.S., especially since many of my supporters and friends gave generously to allow me to buy a mobility scooter. Neither a scooter nor a wheelchair are of any use in a country with lots of stairs but not elevators or usable ramps, so we don’t bring them to Belarus.

Our time with Belarusian believers was wonderful, but we gladly flew to Frankfurt, where we were grateful for simple things that are easy to take for granted, like absorbable and flushable toilet paper, and safe tap water. Before leaving Minsk we learned about the volcanic eruption in Iceland, but it was too far away to have any impact on our flight. We checked our bags all the way through to DFW from Minsk, since we only had a one-night stay in Frankfurt. My small sack with nightwear and a change of clothing was inadvertently stuck in one of the checked bags instead of a carry-on, but I shrugged it off since it was only one night.

That’s what we thought.

The Frankfurt airport was closed to air traffic at 8 a.m. Although the lines to rebook flights were impossibly long, Lufthansa (my new favorite airline) designates an office and waiting area for special needs passengers, especially those with handicaps. They got us confirmed seats on the next day’s flight, and Lufthansa gave us vouchers for hotel rooms and that night’s dinner in the hotel restaurant. Since the rooms would not be available till after 2 p.m., we enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the airport. There were so many people it reminded me of being at Disneyland on New Year’s Day.

A shuttle took us and a bus full of other passengers to the hotel, ten minutes from the airport. And here we stay, so grateful to have been provided a bed to sleep in and three meals a day when thousands of people are stuck at the airport because their airline does not cover these needs, or their visa does not allow them to leave the transit zone.

As the world now knows, the ash plume continues to push its way into Northern Europe, at the same high altitude as the jets fly, where they can suck in small, jagged pieces of volcanic rock and glass that also conduct electricity and cause total engine failure. No one knows when it will be safe to fly again. No one knows when we will get to our destinations. And there is no one to get angry with, no one to blame, no one to sue.

Processing this experience through the grid of a biblical worldview colors the way we think about our “adventure.”

We know that God is in control of volcanoes, and eruptions, and winds, and the timing of it all. He is in control of the world’s flight systems. He is in control of our schedules. He knew when He allowed us to be stranded in Germany that Todd had classes to teach at Dallas Baptist University, that Ray had a number of events and meetings scheduled in his role as president of Probe, that I had several Christian Women’s Club luncheons to speak at in New Mexico this week. And He allowed us to be stranded in far-easier Germany, not in Belarus; twenty-four hours later, and our flight out of Minsk would have been cancelled. He provided food and shelter for us. He has given grace for Ray and me to have our laptops with us with easy internet access from our room, and He helped me find and disable the virus that infected Ray’s computer last week.

We don’t know how long we will be here, or when we’ll see our luggage again. We DO know that God is good, and the fact that we have been blessed with so much favor doesn’t mean that He loves the people stuck inside security at the airport any less. Or that any of us did anything wrong to have Him punish us.

And we are aware that the more the world grows flat and interconnected, the greater the fragility of the systems. So much of our comforts and our technology relies on everything continuing to run smoothly without interruption. It is good for us as human beings to be reminded that we are not the masters of our fate or the captains of our souls, as the obnoxiously humanistic poem Invictus declares. God is bigger and more powerful than we are; a nature that has been impacted by the Fall, producing things like the disruptions from volcanic eruptions, is bigger and more powerful than we are. We are tiny and insignificant in the face of something like Iceland’s exploding mountain; and yet, God still counts the hairs on our head and is still Immanuel, God with us, whether in an “adventure,” or a disaster, or the blessedly uneventful days of blessedly uneventful routine.

The bottom line: God is still good. He is still loving. He is still sovereign.

And we rest, as trustful children, in these wonderful truths. All the way to the end of the story, however it ends.

Addendum: April 20, 2010

It is a happy ending!

Late yesterday afternoon, Lufthansa summoned their international passengers to the airport because they were going to let a handful of flights depart. One of them was to the U.S., and Ray said, “It doesn’t matter what city it is, if it’s on American soil. We can always get to Dallas, if we can just get out of Germany!” Although this flight to Chicago was fully booked, not all the passengers made it to the airport, and all three of us were given seats. We arrived in Chicago at midnight, and to our amazement, all our bags were on that flight. Since they were tagged for Dallas/Ft. Worth and there was only a small window of time from when we received our boarding passes, we were amazed and delighted to see them.

We were able to get some of the last seats on a 6 a.m. flight to Dallas, and a few hours later we were back at home, grateful, blessed and tired.

And ready for a shower and a change of clothes!

© 2010 Probe Ministries

“Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., is called that because it usually allows retailers to go into the black. But this year, the early morning shopping frenzy turned deadly. A Walmart employee was trampled to death by New York shoppers who broke down the door before dawn, anxious to get into the store and get their hands on the sale merchandise.

The next day, the Dallas Morning News carried a short story providing analysis of why shoppers turned into killers.

* Fear of being unable to afford gifts drives shoppers to shop competitively

* The urge to snap up discounts can cause people to abandon their normal behavior

* When people are jostled in a crowd, their personal space is shattered, resulting in loss of individual judgment

* Individual identity can become erased, and one becomes part of the crowd

* People’s frustration at things like linecutting and being denied access to a big sale flares into rage

Interesting suggestions, these psychological profiles. But something’s missing.

Sin. And the nasty ugliness of unfettered flesh.

God has His own explanation:

Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside you? You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions. (James 4:1-3)

And perhaps the scariest part of that horrendous killer stampede at the Walmart is that every single one of us is equipped with the same nasty, ugly, unredeemable flesh. But for the grace of God, those shoppers could have been us.

Could have been me.

Which is why we all need a Savior.

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/black_friday_and_dark_hearts on December 2, 2009

Where is the Bailout Money?

The bailout has been a topic of conversation at nearly every social gathering I am been at in the last few weeks. And most of the time one question surfaces, where is the bailout money? The reason taxpayers are asking that is due to a news story that came out before Christmas stating that the largest banks can’t exactly track how they are spending the money.

Now I did have one lawyer explain to me that often these funds are placed in a pool so it isn’t easy to track them. And I will give the banks some slack on that since I realize that is probably the case. But let’s think about this for a moment.

If I were asking for a loan from the bank, wouldn’t you expect them to ask me where the money is going? And if I needed an additional loan, wouldn’t you expect the bank to want a detailed history of what I did with the previous loan? Now keep that in the back of your mind as you hear what some of the bank officers have been saying.

A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase said: “We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’re not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it.’”

A spokesman for SunTrust Banks said: “We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking.” By the way, they have already received $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

A spokesman for Regions Financial Corp said: “We manage our capital in the aggregate.” They also have received $3.5 billion from the financial bailout.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t inspire much confidence in me. Remember that lawmakers did bring bank executives to Capitol Hill and encouraged them to lend the money and not hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses. It appears that some have, but there does not seem to be any negative consequences for doing so.

One of my recent guests [on the Point of View radio program] is Representative Scott Garrett (a member of the House Financial Services Committee) who asks: “Where is the money going to go to? How is it going to be spent? When are we going to get a record on it?” These all sound like good questions that need to be answered.

What Caused the Financial Crisis?

What caused the financial crisis? We have heard lots of accusations and criticisms, but it is hard to know who to believe. President-elect Barack Obama said throughout the presidential campaign that it was deregulation and a conservative approach to economics that was to blame. He said: “Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class American have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

So is the current crisis a result of these policies? Is deregulation the culprit? Kevin Hassett proposes a simple test of this view. He points out that countries around the world have very different regulatory structures. Some have relatively light regulatory structures, while others have much more significant intrusion into markets.

If the premise by Barack Obama is correct, then those countries that have looser regulations should have a greater economic crisis. But that is not what we find. If you plot the degree of economic freedom of a country on the x-axis and the percent of change in the local stock market on the y-axis, you find just the opposite of what Barack Obama states.

The correlation is striking. Draw a line from countries with low economic freedom (like China and Turkey) to countries with greater economic freedom (like the United States) and you will notice that most of the countries hug the line. Put another way, the regression line is statistically significant.

If Barack Obama is correct the line should be downward sloping (meaning that countries that are freer economically had a biggest collapse in their stock markets). But the line slopes up. That seems to imply that countries that are economically free have suffered less than countries that are not. Of course, a single graph and a statistical correlation certainly does not tell the whole story. But it is interesting that the current data seems to prove just the opposite of what Barack Obama has been arguing.

Cost of the Bailout

How much is that bailout going to cost us? Nobody seems to know, but even when I try to give some numbers for it, it doesn’t compute. So I was encouraged to see that someone took the time to put the current bailout numbers in perspective.

Barry Ritholtz is a financial blogger and Wall Street analyst. He has found (as I have found) that people have a hard time comprehending the dollar amounts. While doing research for his book, Bailout Nation, he needed some way to put this into proper historical perspective. He says that if you add the latest Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6 trillion dollars. By the way, I have seen numbers much larger than that (which may include loan guarantees which may not actually end up costing us). But what does $4.6 trillion dollars look like?

Jim Bianco (of Bianco Research) crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The current bailout actually costs more than all of the following big budget government expenditures. The Marshall Plan ($115.3 billion), the Louisiana Purchase ($217 billion), the New Deal ($500 billion est), the Race to the Moon ($237 billion), the Savings and Loan bailout ($256 billion), the Korean War ($454 billion), the Iraq war ($597 billion), the Vietnam War ($698 billion), and NASA ($851.2 billion).

Even if you add all of this up, it actually comes to $3.9 trillion and so is still $700 billion short (which incidentally is the original cost of one of the bailout packages most people have been talking about).

Keep in mind that these are inflation-adjusted figures. So you can begin to see that what has happened just in the last few months is absolutely unprecedented. But until you run the numbers, it seems like Monopoly money. But the reality is that it is real money that must either be borrowed or printed. There is no stash of this money somewhere that Congress is putting into the economy.

The current economic meltdown is significant, but the solution that members of Congress and financial experts on Wall Street are offering is terribly expensive.

Government Ownership of Banks?

One of the lingering questions about the bailout is how long the government will have ownership of the banks. At the moment, the federal government is planning on purchasing $250 billion worth of shares in American banks. Is it possible that government will hold the bank shares indefinitely? Terrence Jeffrey of CNSNews.com believes that this could be an unintended consequence. Let me explain.

While the law doesn’t say that government can buy ownership interest in banks, it does allow purchases in “any financial instrument that the secretary, after consultation with the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, determines the purchase of which is necessary to promote financial market stability.” This act also allows “such actions as is necessary, that the secretary might deem.”

So how long can the treasury secretary hold these assets? Actually, the law sets no limits. A Treasury spokesman told CNSNews.com that “We can hold them for as long as we want.” Now, let’s be fair, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson does not envision the government having a permanent ownership stake in various banks. But let’s also be realistic. He won’t be the treasury secretary next year.

The plan that was drafted envisions the government selling the stock back to the banks. It also prevents elected officials from using government ownership of the banks for their own political advantage. This is oversight actually takes place through the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Now the plan does allow banks to buy back its shares from the government in the first three years, if it can raise 25 percent of the value of the shares by selling stock. But these are subject to the approval of the primary bank regulator.

But the bottom line is this: banks are not guaranteed they can buy back their stock. Although Congress didn’t intend for government to permanently own banks, it is possible they may do so anyway.

Seven Hundred Billion

How much is $700 billion? When these numbers are so big we lose all proportion of their size and potential impact. So let me use a few comparisons from a recent Time Magazine article to make my point.

If we took $700 billion and gave it to every person in America, they would receive a check for $2,300. Or if we decided to give that money instead to every household in America, they would receive $6,200.

Here’s another idea, if we took that money and decided to start paying the income taxes for each American, it would pay the income taxes for every American who makes $500,000 or less a year.

Since gas prices have been high, what if we decided to use this money to buy gasoline for every car in America? If we did that, no one would have to pay for gas for the next 16 months.

What if we were able to use $700 billion to fund the government for a year? If we did so, it would fully fund the Defense Department, the State Department, the Treasury, the Department of Education, Veterans Affairs, the Department of the Interior, and NASA. If instead we decided to pay off some of the national debt, it would retire seven percent of that debt.

Are you a sports fan? What if we used that money to buy sports teams? This is enough money to buy every NFL team, every NBA team, and every Major League Baseball team. But we would have so much left over that we could also buy every one of these teams a new stadium. And we would still have so much money left over that we could pay each of these players $191 million for a year.

So how would $700 billion stack up against the economies of various countries in the world? This amount of money would create the 17th largest economy in the world, roughly equal to the economy of the Netherlands.

Is $700 billion a lot of money? Of course it is, and we all need to think about this the next time Congress votes to spend money. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

© 2009 Kerby Anderson

Time to be thinking about the holidays. Next one up, Thanksgiving.

Oh joy.

It’s not too hard to come up with a list of reasons to grump about the Thanksgiving holiday:

• Lots of work in the kitchen
• Lots of cleaning to do
• Lots of cooking to do
• Lots of buying food to do
• Crowds in the stores as we prepare
• The stores already have their Christmas decorations out—like since Halloween
• Spending time with family where the worst in people easily spills out
• Too much football on TV
• Too much food

But to cultivate a biblical mindset, we can take this list and turn it inside out to reveal the embarrassment of riches and lavishment of blessings that are attached to each item by invoking our own personal thanksgiving:

Lots of work in the kitchen: Thank You, Lord, that I have a fully functioning kitchen! Thank You for my stove and my oven and my refrigerator and my sink and my counters and my storage of my many many kitchen items.

Lots of cleaning to do: Thank You, Lord, for running water that is safe and tastes good. Thank you for a sink that drains. Thank You for buckets. Thank You for dusting cloths and my vacuum. Thank You for the energy to clean!

Lots of cooking to do: Thank You, Lord, for recipes. Thank You that my stove and oven work! Thank You for the various pots and pans that enable me to cook more than one item at a time. Thank You that I can store cooked things in my fridge until it’s time to bring them out, and thank You for the microwave to zap them to serving temperature.

Lots of buying food to do: Oh Lord! Thank You for money to buy our Thanksgiving meal! Thank You for well-stocked grocery stores with a dazzling number of choices. Thank You for 24/7 electricity that powers refrigerators and freezers, both in my home and in the stores, which means I don’t have to go to a market every single day for provisions. Thank You that I have the luxury of making a list, driving to the store, and getting everything on my list because it will all be there and I don’t even have to think about it.

Crowds in the stores as we prepare: Thank You, Lord, that all those people also have the money to be able to make our purchases. Thank You for a culture where people will wait in line instead of all demanding to be served first. Thank You for stores to go to in the first place.

The stores already have their Christmas decorations out—like since Halloween: Thank You, Lord, that we live in a place that still celebrates Your birth even if many forget YOU. Thank You for Christmas decorations period. It means we are in a country that understands the importance of Your impact on our culture.

Spending time with family where the worst in people easily spills out: Thank You, Lord, for giving us families. Thank You for people to love, even if sometimes it needs to be in Your strength because we don’t like them right then. Thank You for these people You chose to be in our lives. Thank You that being with family, even if it’s church family and not bio-family, means we are not alone and isolated.

Too much football on TV: Thank You, Lord, that we even have a television. Thank You for a culture and a lifestyle with the luxury of offering entertainment instead of constant, unrelenting survival mode. Thank You for living room furniture to sit in or lie on while we watch TV. Thank You that the football is only for a few days and not every day!

Too much food: Thank You, Lord! Thank You! Thank You! Millions of people are starving and cannot even imagine the abundance of food at our meal. We are so blessed for every single dish and every single item we get to prepare and serve and then eat. You have lavished blessing and honor on us, and we don’t deserve any of it. Thank You. Thank You.

© 2008 Probe Ministries

This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/turning_thanksgiving_inside_out on November 18, 2008.

April 4, 2007

Congress is once again weighing the possibility of passing a hate crimes bill that would give special federal protection based upon race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) introduced the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (HR 254) in January. Many believe that if the bill is passed, it could open the door to prohibit any opposition to homosexuality whether in the church or the society at large.

It is quite possible that hate crimes legislation might even be used to define biblical language as hate speech. For example, city officials have already had a billboard removed in Long Island, NY, because it was classified as hate speech. The billboard read: If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. (Leviticus 20:13)

Consider how hate crimes legislation in Philadelphia was used against Christians. In 2004, six men and five women were arrested in Philadelphia while preaching and speaking during a public homosexual celebration known as OutFest. These Christians (later known as the Philadelphia Eleven) walked into the gathering singing hymns and carrying signs encouraging homosexuals to repent. They were immediately confronted by a militant group of gay activists known as the Pink Angels. These activists blew loud whistles and carried large pink signs in front of the Christians in order to block their message and access to the event. Many of the gay activists screamed obscenities at the Christians.

Those arrested ranged in age from a 17-year-old girl to a 72-year-old grandmother. After spending twenty-one hours in jail, the Philadelphia District Attorneys office charged five of them with various felonies and misdemeanors stemming from Pennsylvanias hate crimes law. If the Philadelphia Eleven were convicted of these charges, they would have faced forty-seven years in prison and $90,000 in fines each.

Even though a video clearly showed that no criminal activity took place, the prosecution refused to withdraw the charges, and characterized the groups views in court as hate speech. The judge for the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge finally dismissed the charges, saying that she found no basis whatsoever for any of them.{1}

But even apart from the concerns about how a hate crimes law could be used to promote the homosexual agenda are deeper concerns about hate crimes legislation in general. For example, there is a major question whether hate crimes are really the problem the popular press makes them out to be. The FBI annually publishes Hate Crime Statistics. The most recent report shows that hate crimes reached an eight-year low in the last reporting period. A study by the Family Research Council found that there are significant discrepancies between hate crimes reported by law enforcement and the media.{2}

Hate crimes laws also rest on the flawed assumption that enhanced penalties deter crimes. First, there is no evidence of this. Most of these crimes are crimes of passion and are not likely to be influenced by greater criminal penalties. Second, the argument for greater deterrence usually comes from those who argue that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. Do they really believe that a hate crime law deters a criminal simply because he or she might spend a few extra months in jail?

A final objection to these laws is that they criminalize thought rather than conduct. Hate crimes laws essentially punish thought crimes. They punish people because of their point of view. Criminal prosecutions delve into more than the defendant’s intent; they inquire into the opinions about his or her victim. And trying to distinguish between opinions and prejudice is often difficult.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”{3}

We may not like what some people think, but we should not have laws on the books to punish thought crimes. We already have laws on the books to punish what a person does. Those laws are sufficient to punish those who commit crimes of hate.

Notes

1. “Judge drops all charges against Philly Christians,” WorldNetDaily, 17 February 2005, www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42905.
2. Leah Farish, “Hate Crimes: Beyond Virtual Reality,” Family Research Council, www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS03K01.
3. Oliver Wendell Holmes, United States v. Schwimmer 279 U.S. 644 (1929).

© 2007 Probe Ministries

November 1, 2007

Does fertility affect voting patterns? Apparently it does much more than we realize. And this has been a topic of discussion for both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans.

Arthur Brooks wrote a significant op-ed on the “Fertility Gap” last year in the Wall Street Journal. He said: “Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They’re not having enough of them . . . and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result.”

He noted that “if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids.” That is a “fertility gap” of 41 percent.

We know that about 80 percent of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote essentially the same way as their parents. This “fertility gap” translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats who will vote in future elections.

So what could this mean for future presidential elections? Consider the key swing state of Ohio which is currently split 50-50 between left and right. If current patterns continue, Brooks estimates that Ohio will swing to the right and by 2012 will be 54 percent to 46 percent. By 2020, it will be solidly conservative by a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent.

Now look at the state of California that tilts in favor of liberals by 55 percent to 45 percent. By the year 2020, it will be swing conservative by a percentage of 54 percent to 46 percent. The reason is due to the “fertility gap.”

Of course most people vote for politicians, personalities, and issues not parties. But the general trend of the “fertility gap” cannot be ignored especially if Democrats continue to appeal to liberals and Republicans to conservatives.

©2007 Probe Ministries

October 11, 2007

How should a Christian evaluate social and political issues? Here are a few biblical principles that can be used. First is the sanctity of human life. Verses such as Psalm 139:13-16 show that God’s care and concern extend to the womb. Other verses such as Jeremiah 1:5, Judges 13:7-8, Psalm 51:5 and Exodus 21:22-25 give additional perspective and framework to this principle that applies to many areas of bioethics.

A related biblical principle involves the equality of human beings. The Bible teaches that God has made “of one blood all nations of men” (Acts 17:26). The Bible also teaches that it is wrong for a Christian to have feelings of superiority (Philippians 2). Believers are told not to make class distinctions between various people (James 2). Paul teaches the spiritual equality of all people in Christ (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11). These principles apply to racial relations and our view of government.

A third principle is a biblical perspective on marriage. Marriage is God’s plan and provides intimate companionship for life (Genesis 2:18). Marriage provides a context for the procreation and nurture of children (Ephesians 6:1-2). And finally, marriage provides a godly outlet for sexual desire (1 Corinthians 7:2). These principles can be applied to such diverse issues as artificial reproduction (which often introduces a third party into the pregnancy) and cohabitation (living together).

A final principle concerns government and our obedience to civil authority. Government is ordained by God (Rom.13:1-7). We are to render service and obedience to the government (Matt. 22:21) and submit to civil authority (1 Pet. 2:13-17). Even though we are to obey government, there may be certain times when we might be forced to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). These principles apply to issues such as war, civil disobedience, politics, and government.

Every day, it seems, we are confronted with ethical choices and moral complexity. As Christians it is important to consider these biblical principles and consistently apply them to these issues.

©2007 Probe Ministries

January 21, 2008

In an earlier commentary I talked about the importance of a voter ID. That case out of Indiana has gone before the Supreme Court, and we will hear their verdict in the next few months.

Although the case shouldn’t be that controversial, it centers on the requirement in Indiana that voters show photo identification when they cast their ballot. Given the simple fact that we have to show photo IDs for so many routine actions, you wouldn’t think that requirement would be that controversial.

Opponents argue that this imposes an unconstitutional burden on voters. Yet the law allows those few citizens without a driver’s license (estimated to be around one percent) to obtain a free, state-sponsored picture ID. And even if someone arrives at the polling place unprepared, they are given a provisional ballot that they can validate later.

Opponents also argue that this law will disenfranchise low-income voters, minorities, or seniors. Yet a statistical analysis by the Heritage Foundation demonstrated that voter ID laws in other states do not depress voter turnout. It does however limit the number of dogs, cats, or deceased people who try to vote in an election.

One critic suggested that this voter ID law would move us closer to a national ID. But if you are concerned about that, you might want to have the government rethink the use of a photo ID in so many other areas of life. After all, most people vote once every two years or once every four years. But they are required to show a photo ID every time they board a plane or every time they cash a check.

How the Supreme Court rules on this case will not only affect Indiana, but may have an impact on 24 other states that have various kinds of laws on the books to prevent voter fraud. Former president Jimmy Carter pointed out that the United States is merely attempting to do what most countries already do. He said: “Voters in nearly 100 democracies use a photo identification card without fear of infringement on their rights.”

Let’s hope the Supreme Court takes that into account.

©2008 Probe Ministries

January 8, 2008

While we find ourselves in the midst of the election season, there is an issue in the background that will have a profound impact on future elections. It is simply the question of whether election officials can ask you for a photo ID before you vote.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case out of Indiana that required potential voters to present a photo ID in order to prove their identity before they can vote. One would think this would hardly be a contentious issue. You need to provide an ID to cash a check. You need an ID to board an airplane or rent a car. In fact, often you need to provide an ID with your credit card. So you would think that requiring an ID before you vote in an election would not be contentious.

If you thought that, you would be wrong. Columnist Cal Thomas quotes from a recent Washington Post article in which an election-law expert at Loyola Law School said that the court’s decision will decide “whether protecting the integrity of the voting process from fraud is of equal or greater value than making sure as many eligible voters as possible take part in the process.”

In other words we may have to allow voter fraud in order to assure that as many people as possible can vote. While that sounds noble, you have to remember that we are already facing major problems with voter fraud. Four years ago, John Fund with the Wall Street Journal wrote the important book, Stealing Elections. Just in the last four years, we have had enough new examples that he could publish a volume two to that book.

Try getting on an airplane without a photo ID. Try checking a check without a photo ID. In fact, call your credit card company and then refuse to answer the questions they ask to confirm your identity. I would like to see how far you get. But go into a polling place and you can probably pick up a ballot with very few questions asked.

We will see how the Supreme Court rules in this case. I trust they will protect the integrity of the voting process.

©2008 Probe Ministries