There is a deep divide in our country about exactly what it will take to make America great. Our nation’s character is more than the bottom line of its great corporations, but that truth is not communicated very well in this ad. Nevertheless, I appreciate it anyway. I like its optimism and grittiness, and I also like Clint Eastwood. Is it true? I don’t know. You could argue it either way. That being said, this ad strikes a chord because people want it to be true even if it is not. I hope it is.

American liberals have abortion as their sacrament and Planned Parenthood as their temple. It is the holy ground upon which liberals will tolerate no one to tread. They seek not only to defend abortion rights but to promote abortion. If you doubt that this is true, just look at the two big stories about abortion that have been in the news that last two weeks: (1) President Obama’s decision to force religious groups to pay for abortions, and (2) Planned Parenthood’s bullying of the Komen foundation.

George Will appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” and Will nailed it on both the Komen decision and the Obama order. The video is above, and the transcript is below. The last sentence of the first paragraph says it all:

This is not about women’s health. This is about providing 300,000 abortions a year. Planned Parenthood cleverly cast this saying, ‘We are in the mammogram business.’ They’re not in the mammogram business — they are in the referral of mammograms. This showed two extraordinary things, George. First, the American left cares about ending wars and they care about poverty and they care about the environment, but they really care about — when they’re not perfunctory — is when you touch abortions. And historians will marvel that American liberalism in the first part of the 21^st century is defined as defense of abortion.

Second, all these people describing themselves as pro-choice said it is illegitimate to choose not to be involved in abortion. And a much more important decision politically that was taken this week was the Obama administration saying that Catholic institutions have no choice — and this was applauded by pro-choice people — have no choice but to provide contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization.

Thus these two bad ideas come together, pressing in like the jaws of a vise, and making a woman feel she has no escape but abortion. Feminism sought (1) increased access to public life, and (2) increased sexual freedom. But that participation in public life is significantly complicated by responsibility for children, and uncommitted sexual activity is the most effective means of producing unwanted pregnancies. This dilemma—simultaneous pursuit of behaviors that cause children and that are hampered by children—inevitably finds its resolution on an abortion table.

Feminists defend abortion with desperate passion because the whole shaky structure of their lives depends upon it…

This is why the fight against legal abortion cannot stand alone. If we could padlock all the abortion clinics tomorrow, we’d see the next morning a line 3,200 women long pounding on the doors. We wouldn’t have solved the problems that make their pregnancies seem unbearable. We wouldn’t have changed the context that normalizes promiscuity and undermines their power to say no. We wouldn’t have restored respect for the profession of mothering, or respect for fathering for that matter, so that men would be proud to love the moms and support the children whose lives they begin.

These three interlocking bad ideas—abortion, careerism, and promiscuity—present a complicated picture, and initially a depressing one. If you’ve ever played the game of pick-up sticks, you know how impossible the task looks at the beginning, when you must gradually and carefully dislodge the first sticks one at a time without collapsing the pile.

While pro-choice advocates present abortion as an act of autonomy, pregnant women experience it rather as a response to abandonment. Pregnancy is the icon of human connectedness, binding a woman to her child and the father of the child. Abortion shatters those connections and leaves her desolate.

This article is fantastic and well-worth your time to read. Feminist ideals have become so much a fixture of American life that many people hardly realize the extent to which their own worldview has been shaped by it. I would challenge readers to test yourselves as you read this article to see how deeply you may have drunk from the well of feminism. Read the rest here.

Lee Habeeb tells the story at National Review online about how Charles Schultz’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas” almost never came to be. The sticking point was Linus’ reading of Luke 2:8-14 near the end of the story (see video above). In short, network executives and even the voice of Snoopy (Bill Melendez) thought that Linus’ reading from the King James Bible would make the program a flop in the ratings. As we all know by now, they turned out to be very wrong. Here’s a snippet from Habeeb’s article:

The executives did not want to have Linus reciting the story of the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke. The network orthodoxy of the time assumed that viewers would not want to sit through passages of the King James Bible.

There was a standoff of sorts, but Schulz did not back down, and because of the tight production schedule and CBS’s prior promotion, the network executives aired the special as Schulz intended it. But they were certain they had a flop on their hands.

“They were freaking out about something so overtly religious in a Christmas special,” explained Melendez. “They basically wrote it off, like, hey, this is just isn’t going to be interesting to anyone, and it’s just going to be like a big tax write-off.”

Melendez himself was somewhat hesitant about the reading from Luke. “I was leery of the religion that came into it, and I was right away opposed to it. But Sparky just assumed what he had to say was important to somebody.”

Which is why Charles Schulz was Charles Schulz. He knew that the Luke reading by Linus was the heart and soul of the story.

Schulz was right. The reading is essential. There is nothing remarkable about this little cartoon. The production standards are low even by 1965 standards. The child actors giving voice to the characters sound stilted—as if they were reading their lines from a script. The power is not in the production but in the story itself. The narrative is what has given this program staying power. And the central conflict of this short story is resolved in Linus’ reading from scripture. Without that reading, I doubt that we would still be talking about this program today some 46 years later.

ABC has contracted to air “A Charlie Brown Christmas” through 2015. It will air this year at 8pm ET, Monday, December 5.

(HT: Mike Frantz, who has absolutely no online presence for me to point you to)

-Psalm 30:4-5

One of Easy Company’s very best officers was Maj. Dick Winters. He was the kind of guy anyone would wish to call their boss. Late in the war, one of his soldiers, Floyd Talbert, wrote him a letter from an Indiana hospital, thanking him for his loyalty and leadership. “You are loved and will never be forgotten by any soldier that ever served under you,” Talbert wrote. “I would follow you into hell.”

Who was this man who inspired such loyalty and such acts of bravery? And shouldn’t we study men like this to better understand our history? To better lead our families, our houses of worship, our companies — and our nation?

The answer is yes, we should. So read the rest of this one here.

It is inconceivable to me that someone could witness sexual abuse and then simply report it and leave it to their supervisors. The right response is to intervene by force at the moment, and with the police immediately thereafter.

The rest of this article has some practical advice for churches to help them protect children against predators:

1. Conduct a background check on every current and future worker.

2. Implement a 6 months/2 people rule.

3. Conduct regular mandatory staff and volunteer training.

4. Require all volunteers to submit an application to serve.

5. Pray for your workers. Pray for your children.

Read the rest here.

TRANSCRIPT:

What are your thoughts on Halloween?

It’s kind of one of those questions of, “Do you see Christ against culture, Christ in culture, or Christ over culture?”

I would guess that at our church there would be people from one end of perspective to the other.

That is, some who say, “We don’t want anything to do with that demonic holiday! Why would you even be involved with that at all?” And others who would have their children dress up as a butterfly and go knocking on doors and say, “Trick or treat!” And then in the middle would be people who do counter events, like a thing at the church where you dress up like biblical characters and have a great time.

I’m totally OK with the middle one and the first one. And sort of OK with the second one. I grew up trick-or-treating. We were pretty serious trick-or-treaters, right into teenage years.

There isn’t much in my neighborhood. We’re kind of an inner-city neighborhood, and it’s not the most lucrative place to go knocking on doors. You’re not going to fill your bag up with the best. You better go to the suburbs if you want to get a good pile.

So I would hope that all Christians would think biblically and carefully about any holiday, any event, and how they might be salt and light in it. And if they feel like this can be of value to the kids in some way, to teach them—if it can be an innocent way of enjoying God’s grace and teaching lessons—so be it.

I’m willing to run the risk of attachment to worldliness in order to be biblically faithful in witness. The same thing with Christmas and birthdays and Easter and worshipping on Sunday. All of these things have pagan connections.

I want to be loose and broad and give freedom to believers to find their way to be most effective. So I respect those who are renouncing it as too connected with evil, and I respect those who say, “No, let’s redeem it and penetrate it and use it.”

(HT: Josh Etter)

Has anybody out there ever been a fan of The Killers? I remember their hit song from the mid-2000′s “Mr. Brightside”, and in light of that song the video above is a complete surprise to me. This is not what I thought the lead singer would be like. You have to watch until the very end to get the last surprising twist. After you’ve done that, go read Mike Pohlman’s reflections on the meaning of all of this.