The mindset revealed in the quotes of the Christian leaders cited above is THE REASON legalized abortion continues over three decades after homocide of unborn babies was legalized in this nation.
The Confusion That Rules This Nation:
How Christians Caused It
By
Neal Horsley
(Christian Gallery News Service, July 6, 2002) For years I worked as Regional Director of the largest prison ministry in the world called Prison Fellowship. I’ve been in hundreds of prisons and interacted with tens of thousands of convicts. Our goal was evangelism in the prisons and the focus of our ministry was murderers, etc. But did anybody ever say that we should teach Christians that the only thing they had to do to stop prospective murderers was simply go around telling everybody about the gospel? Of course not. It would have been preposterous to even consider. We knew full well that many of the people in prison had been determined mockers of God who before coming to prison had heard the gospel preached to them many times without saving effect. We also knew the horrible carnage that had been wrought by many of the people we ministered to in prison. We knew full well the absolute necessity of arresting such people using any means necessary, even deadly force, if that was what was required to stop such people from carrying out their murderous intentions against innocent victims. We all knew that it was after those people got arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison by government that many began to see the error of their ways and became willing subjects of our evangelism, of our gospel ministry. If someone came along and said that Christians should teach everybody that the only thing God allowed in dealing with the murderous ways of the candidates for prison was preaching the gospel message to them while they were prowling the streets, well, let’s just say they would not have been applauded. But today a huge percentage of the Christian leaders speaking in public and from behind the pulpit are in effect saying exactly that. If you don’t believe it, read the following quotes and you will be given another opportunity to understand why God’s children are being butchered by the millions and most people in this generation are presently bound for hell.
|
“I think the question of conscience and punishment ought to be left in [God’s] hands, and that what we ought to be trying to do…we ought to be representing the truth that converts the heart…” Alan Keyes speaking to me on his MSNBC television program about why I should not expose people going into abortion clinics on abortioncams.com. |
|
"Our duty is not to force someone to not have an abortion." Randy Alcorn, best-selling Christian author, quoted by Christian Broadcasting Network |
|
“Like slavery before it, abortion is preeminently a Gospel issue. The Cross of Christ is the only solution.” Flip Benham, Operation Save America Purpose Statement. |
The mindset revealed in the quotes of the Christian leaders cited above is THE REASON legalized abortion continues over three decades after homocide of unborn babies was legalized in this nation. | |
Look around any city bookstore and you will see evidence of the revolution that has occurred in this nation in the last generation. Books similar to the one entitled THE GOD DELUSION spell out in intricate detail why Christians and other monotheists are the problem that is causing this world to go to figurative hell. Furthermore, there is much evidence to prove that the neo-pagan analysis is correct. History might actually record some day in the future that the generation of Christians roaming the highways and byways of the United States of America is about the sorriest excuse for the breed since Judas Iscariot decided to hang himself.
One of the most revealing facts out of all the facts available in this nation is this: The preceding analysis of the condition of Christianity is self-evident to everybody in this nation except for two groups: 1. the present leaders of the myriad Christian churches and Christian para-church organizations in this nation, and 2. those people in the pews who hired them and paid them to oversee this present debacle.
To prove how confused present Christians leadership has become, most Christians leaders look at the quotes from the three Christian leaders above and nod approvingly, never suspecting the horrible confusion those Christian leaders create.
Chances are you are looking back at the quotes and saying to yourself, What’s wrong with them?
What’s wrong with them is they utterly ignore the distinctions and differences that the Bible teaches exist between God’s ministry of the Gospel and God’s ministry of government. This generation of Christians, especially Evangelical Protestants, has been steeped to the gills in Biblical teaching about evangelism but has utterly failed to learn what the Bible says about the ministry of government. But since they don’t know their failure; they act like what they teach is a balanced exegesis of Scripture. That is a text book example of what confusion looks like at ground zero.
Furthermore, this confusion is at the root of this nation’s problems. If Christians are the only salt a dying world can expect, and those Christians lose their saltiness and replace it with silliness, then the root problem tracks back to the Christians. By ignoring what the Bible teaches about the ministry of government and through word and example teaching that the Bible requires Christians to solely participate in the ministry of grace, Christians lead others inexorably to an unbiblical neo-pacifism and become instruments of confusion rather than truth, sources of darkness rather than light.
| Click the picture and listen to what this “pro-life leader” says God
wants His people to do when mothers decide to kill God’s unborn children today
based solely on the “legal” permission given by five judges who sit on the Supreme
Court of the |
Did you notice this pro-life leader builds her total response to legalized abortion on the idea that we, the good Christian people of the United States of America, are not supposed to get the bull to charge. Her entire view of her responsibility as a Christian is summarized by her idea that we are not supposed to wave a red flag at the bull because the bull will charge.
Now let's think about what the bull stands for in this context, what the bull symbolizes. In context there is only one possible candidate for what the bull symbolizes: the bull is legalized abortion authorized and sanctioned and defended by the full faith and power of the federal government of the United States of America.
In her mind the idea has never occurred that her God would want her to make that bull charge. It is simply inconceivable to her.
But if the bull is legalized abortion, and the bull is reponsible for goring and trampling to death some thousands of little babies each week that passes in the USA, why would God not want that bull killed? Does God love bulls more than He loves little babies? Would God refuse to raise up Matadors who would come to kill the bull?
But what if God did in fact want to raise up Matadors come to kill the bull wantonly destroying untold numbers of human beings? Would that Matador want to wave a red flag at the bull?
Actually that is exactly what Matadors do to the bull, and they do it precisely so that the bull will charge.
The Matador's strategy is simple: He, or these days she, waves the red flag at the bull; the bull charges; the Matador does it again and again until the bull totally spends all the vast energy contained in his massive bull body; then the Matador approaches the bull and slides a cold, hard steel blade through a precise point between the bull's shoulder blades down into the massive beating heart of the bull; and the bull crumples in place and rapidly dies. End of strategy.
The Christian pro-life leader quoted above has never for an instant thought about doing anything with the bull except keeping him from charging. She symbolizes and embodies the spirit of the pro-life movement in this nation today. Where once it could be said that there were Christians willing to fight the bull unto death, with the devastation of the non-violent resistance phase of the pro-life movement, those Christians disappeared and all that remained were the non-red flag waving pro-life leaders.
Those people have created a new theology for Christians in this nation. What this person, and all the Christians like her have done, is taken the sacrificial pacifism of the ancient church martyrs and extrapolated from that model and created a theology today that says even in a nation like ours, when millions of people claim to be Christians, and those Christians own millions of guns, that those Christians have no recourse to any political response other than quietly being led to the slaughter when a central government does to God’s children today what the central government of Rome did in the first, second and third century A.D.
Look closely at that “pro-life leader” and decide if you think that is the theological position she would have developed if it was her life that had been decreed to be forfeit by those same judges.
Battling Confusion
It is only through returning to a balanced understanding of the Biblical message about the ministry of grace and the ministry of government that we will be used by God to arrest the desecration that has overtaken this land and destroyed God’s plan for government in the USA…as well as the lives of countless millions of His children through legalized abortion.
Look at what the Apostle Paul said: (1 Tim 1:9-11 KJV) Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, {10} For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; {11} According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
When he wrote the words above to Timothy, the Apostle Paul would have reasonably expected Timothy to remember what Paul had written in his letter to the Romans concerning the officers of government that enforce the law, “But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”
The point is the Apostle Paul never said that the problem of crime or lawlessness or evil in this world was “…preeminently a gospel issue…” The problem of righteousness before God was a gospel issue. Crime—of which legalized abortion is a perfect example—as the Apostle Paul tried to tell us, was a matter that God had ordained government to contend with.
The critical Biblical guide is found in Romans 13: “1Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 5Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. 6For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
The day the Supreme Court legalized child slaughter, the unthinkable occurred:
the government of the
But it was not only the government of the United States of American that was
defiled and made a slave to Satan. Because the government of the
At that moment, the Christians in the
On the one hand, Christian teachers were tempted to interpret Romans 13 to mean that since government did it, God wanted all His people to obey. But that interpretation had one obvious problem. If legalized abortion was contrary to God’s will, God would in effect contradict His own will by requiring His people to obey a government that contradicted the Will of God.
Most Christians sidestepped the problem by developing a “practical theology”
that allowed them to give lip service to the idea that legalized abortion was
against God’s Will while, at the same time, they supported the government even
to the extent of providing the funds that were used to commit abortion. Confusion
was sown that is bearing horrible rotten fruit in this generation.
The Only Antidote For Confusion is Truth—factually accurate information of demonstrable effect
I have been led by the Lord Jesus Christ for the last fifteen years to seek to find the teaching that will resolve this confusion. And I have no doubt that I have found what the Lord led me to seek.
If you are Christian, unless you are willing to grapple with the confusion
created in you because of your unique relationship as a US citizen to the ministry
of government, there is zero doubt in my mind that you are going to be judged
by the Lord Jesus Christ to be guilty of mortal sin because of your refusal
to resist that confusion. That judgment will occur because the very words you
are reading now have warned you of your personal culpability as a carrier of
confusion that is costing the lives of God’s aborted children here in the
Flip Benham
Those like Flip Benham, quoted at the beginning of this article, who take a leadership position in the pro-life movement but do not teach people to understand what the Bible teaches about the necessity and purpose of the work of government sow a confusion that has wreaked the present havoc we see around us.
Since hope does spring eternal, the people who know what horrible shape the churches are in focus on the crisis in the Catholic Priesthood or the fact that the government is in the process of making it illegal to pledge allegiance to a nation under God and think those examples are so horrible that they will bring Christians back to an effective role in this nation. Or others, like Flip Benham, cite statistics that hold out the false hope of victory through evangelism alone. He says, “…the entire abortion industry is crumbling under the weight of its own sin and it knows it. Abortions are at their lowest level since 1976. New doctors are not entering the abortion industry…There are 675 fewer abortion mills today than they were in 1991. The battle for the lives of children is being won as gentle Christians live out their faith at abortion mills.”
Benham lies: the lives of children are not “being won.” Benham speaks as a general who goes to war and returning declares a victory even though every one of his soldiers was slaughtered except for the small and bedraggled band standing by his side. Benham is an example of legions of professional “pro-life” Christians who have been saying the same messages over and over and over for three decades and still say them today. Why? Because the people who send them money send money to hear them say it, that’s why. Such people are in denial, in bondage, not to truth, but to wishful thinking.
On December 6, 2001, Rev. Flip Benham was asked during a telephone interview with a Christian Gallery News Service reporter, “Are you a pacifist?”
“No,” Rev. Benham replied, “Absolutely not. I advocate just war. We’re the church militant.”
Expanding on that theme, Rev. Benham said, “We bring church to the streets…What we do works. The word of God becomes flesh in the streets. I had the privilege to lead Norma McCorvey to Christ. Bernard Nathanson became a Christian. We’re not shooting them; we’re winning them to life. We’re street people who believe in Jesus.”
Then Rev. Benham expounded on what he thought about me and others like me who contend that unborn babies deserve to be treated the way we would treat any other American citizen, the way we would want to be treated our self.
“Those people,” Rev. Benham said, “when they’re unbridled by the gospel, can do anything…The difference between us and them is that we are Christians, but they are not. They are governed by a gospel that is reflected in their own eyes. They become like the god they worship.”
Is it not clear that Rev. Benham, and those who follow him, are convinced that the Bible allows them to do nothing more in defense of God’s unborn children than they are presently doing?
Rev. Benham’s words make it clear that he and those who he leads have interpreted Scripture so that they have literally no obligation to create change beyond that which they are presently doing. They actually believe that their efforts, which they applaud to high heaven as evidence that they are “winning the battle,” redound to God’s glory and make it possible for people to understand the meaning of the message in Holy Scripture.
Yet they do this at a time when the rest of the world has developed classes from high school to college, and theological seminaries as well, talking about what it means to live in a post-Christian culture.
It would seem that the facts prove conclusively that Rev. Benham is engaged at the very least in wishful thinking. The battle is not being won. God’s children are being legally butchered without the due process of law we would grant to a Muslim terrorist; the cause of Jesus Christ is in fast retreat; and the emerging generation is bold to believe the day will come when nobody will grant serious credibility to the God of Holy Scripture.
Wishful thinking is not the truth that is the word of God. Wishful thinkers speak in vain and become instruments of confusion rather than truth thereby. Until the confusion infesting Christians in this nation is routed, things will only continue to disintegrate, get worse. These existing leaders are utterly powerless to do anything other than lead the blind once they have allowed confusion to find a stronghold in their thought processes.
Another example of the confusion will show you what I mean.
Randy Alcorn
Randy Alcorn is an author of "Christian" books generating millions of dollars in cash flow. In addition to being a best selling author, Mr. Alcorn is also a graduate of the non-violent civil disobedience phase of the pro-life movement. He was arrested and sued for those activities, and therefore speaks as a Christian minister who is a leader of the "pro-life" movement.
The Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson's public communication vehicle, interviewed Mr Alcorn for an article prophetically entitled "The State of the Pro-Life Movement" published on June 27, 2002.
In an example of what amounts to literally terminal confusion, Mr. Alorn said, "… God calls us to be faithful, and that's not always being successful, it's being faithful. It's like evangelism. You don't measure success by the fact that still most of the world doesn't know Christ. You determine that we have to get the message to them. That's measuring success, I think, in a proper way. That's our duty. Our duty is not to force someone to come to Christ. You can't do that anyway. Our duty is not to force someone to not have an abortion. You can't do that either. But our calling is to get to those people and offer alternatives, and explanations, and insights."
Mr. Alcorn is such a dangerous teacher because he almost tells the truth. He took what the Bible tells us about the ministry of evangelism and accurately defined its limitations. He said, "Our duty is not to force someone to come to Christ." The entire history of the Christian Church says amen to the idea that people cannot be forced to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior because such acceptance is an action of belief alone and entails nothing other than the will of the individual. But then note that Mr. Alcorn took that which can be said about the ministry of evangelism and applied it whole cloth to people who are going to commit abortion. It is right there that grave and fatally dangerous confusion was revealed not only to exist in Mr. Alcorn's mind but to be a part of Mr. Alcorn's very ministry for Jesus Christ. For a teacher of God’s word to almost get it right is to sow confusion in those parts that were almost correct, but in fact wrong.
The Proper Relationship of the Ministry of Grace to the Ministry of Government
Consider the subject of evangelism, properly called the ministry of grace. Evangelism is engaged with one individual whose decision to follow or reject Jesus Christ will cause eternal consequences, but that individual literally cannot be forced to believe that which is not actually believed by that individual. Duress might obtain words of faith from the individual but those words would be lies and have no real saving effect unless the person believed without duress.
Now consider the person on the way to commit abortion: that person not only has their own personal welfare at risk, but the very life of another human being is at risk…or so Mr. Alcorn has always said. That other human being--the passenger within the person going to commit abortion--can be saved if the prospective aborter is deterred from carrying out her abortion goal for a few short months. In other words, duress can force the person to delay their actions, thereby preventing them from killing another human being.
Now Mr. Alcorn would tell us that we have no "duty" to "force someone not to have an abortion…"
The confusion of his position comes clear the moment we ask ourselves if Mr. Alcorn would say that about any other person who was on their way to commit murder. Would Mr. Alcorn say if we knew in advance of the intention to murder, that we could not force such a prospective murderer to refrain from the crime?
It is impossible for an accomplished author such as Mr. Alcorn to be so dense.
There is another explanation. Is Mr. Alcorn a pacifist--an Amish or a Mennonite perhaps--who believes that a Christian under no circumstances would lift a hand in force against another human being, even to protect the lives of his wife or his children or the people who buy his books? Perhaps that explains the apparent confusion in Mr. Alcorn's words. For centuries there have been pacifist Christians who literally taught that it was evil for Christians to engage in force against another human being. Those Christians have paid a terrible price for their convictions. Is Mr. Alcorn one of them?
Look at his picture again. Its word value is high. The man is no Amish or Mennonite Anabaptist.
Mr. Alcorn is a garden variety Protestant or Catholic--it doesn't really matter which--both are quick to say that government is fully authorized to use force, even deadly force, in the just enforcement of the law.
But somehow, Mr. Alcorn is utterly oblivious to the obvious contradiction of his believing that abortion kills a human being while at the same time he denies that he has a "duty" to see the law applied in the defense of that human being the same way the law is applied in the defense of every other human being in this nation.
Now that is confusion with a capital C.
CHRISTIANS HAVE ABDICATED RESPONSIBILITY TO ENFORCE THE LAW
There was a time when Christians in the
Alan Keyes Defined Why Christians Have Allowed This Confusion to Grow for Thirty Years
If what I am saying is true, then a question remains
that must be answered: Why would Christians in the
To really put this in perspective, you’ve got to see who Alan Keyes is. For over a decade, Alan Keyes has had a high profile in this nation and especially in the pro-life movement. A perennial candidate for President from the Republican Party and a host of nationally broadcast television and radio programs, his point of view has influenced millions. Few would deny that he is a leading spokesman for the Evangelical Christian consensus in this nation.
During an interview with me on his television program
broadcast on MSNBC in June, Alan Keyes berated me for the actions I have taken
in resisting legalized abortion. Without planning to do it, Alan Keyes revealed
during that interview with me the underlying reason why legalized abortion
and the other grievous examples of the desecration of God’s authority continue
in the
| Click the picture and you will see the entire 10 minute segment of Alan Keyes MSNBC program. |
Keyes purpose for having me on his show was to tell me he thought I should stop publishing pictures of people around abortion clinics. He said to me, “But I want to tell you quite bluntly that I think that what you are doing is wrong, that it’s harmful to the pro-life movement, that it represents the kind of tactic that will disgrace and discredit what we are trying to do, and that it involves a tactic that because it disregards what ought to be our own principle of care and concern for life is actually contrary to the truths we’re supposed to stand for. And I want to say quite bluntly on behalf of the pro-life movement itself, I wish you’d stop it.”
Because I had great respect for Alan Keyes I did not laugh in his face when he said my actions were “harmful to the pro-life movement.” The idea that anybody can do anything to harm the pro-life movement has to be one of the most bizarre ideas the mind can conceive. How can you harm something that has been a total failure for thirty years? If you haven’t noticed, the “pro-life movement” has been a complete failure. In attempting to deter people from butchering God’s unborn children, the only movement that has been effective at all has been the movement of individuals who were willing to place themselves in opposition to the “pro-life movement” by doing things that the “pro-life movement” was always opposed to. Research the non-violent civil disobedience phase of the “pro-life movement” and you’ll see that the leaders of the “pro-life movement” decried the tactics from beginning to end. And that is only one example. On top of that, how is it possible to do anything that would result in more babies being killed when literally anybody who wants to kill an unborn baby can kill that baby even after portions of the baby’s body have begun to protrude from its mother’s birth canal? What did he think? My actions were going to make it possible for people to not only kill their children but to then legally eat them as well?
Anyway, I responded to Keyes’ rebuke by first telling him that he had blessed me in the past for standing up and speaking the truth in this nation, then I got to the point by saying, “But I think you’re wrong right now, because I think you’re, you’re ignoring the fact that these people are going to kill God’s children. And what I’m trying to do is to point out that fact. And you can say that it’s wrong to point it out, but a woman who goes and kills her baby is involved in some degree of homicide and she’s going to be punished. And we can pretend she’s a victim, but the reality is she knows what she’s doing. And God knows she knows what she’s doing. And we’ve got to start acting like that’s the truth or else we confuse people.”
If you will examine the remainder of my conversation with Alan Keyes’, you will see that his response proves what I had long suspected: “pro-life Christians” will do nothing with the power to arrest legalized abortion because they are afraid that to do anything other than the failed tactics of the last thirty years would endanger themselves.
Fear Among Christians Is At the Root of the Continuing Desecration
Listen closely to what Alan Keyes says and you will see the fear he harbors.
Alan Keyes responded to me, “We ought to be representing the truth that converts the heart. And I’ve got to tell you, it seems to me that standing there, especially if you’re adopting a tactic that might convey to this woman, you don’t care about me, you don’t care if somebody comes and hurts me, that’s not going to open her heart to the truth. That’s not going to open her heart so that she’ll listen to the plea that God puts in our mouths on behalf of her child. We want her to hear us, not shut her heart against us.”
I then asked him, “Why don’t you say that to the policemen who we hire to go out and interrupt people who are about to commit homicide. The fact is you’re treating these people like they’re not fixing to kill their babies. No wonder they’re confused. No wonder they don’t understand that what they’re doing is a heinous sin.”
Listen closely to what Alan Keyes then says to me and you will see that Alan Keyes, along with the Christian consensus that he is a spokesman for, is literally in bondage to fear.
Keyes said, “Quite the contrary. Neal, what I am doing is I a treating this situation as what it is, a situation in which we must not unleash greater evils in what we do to stop the evil we’re looking at. And if we go forward in a way that suggests we’re declaring some kind of physical war on people, then the end result will be a worse situation, and we’ll be to blame for it. I plead with you again...”
I interrupted, “I’m not doing what you say, Alan…You’re not talking about what I’m doing…”
Alan Keyes was not talking about me posting pictures
on the Internet of people at abortion clinics. Alan Keyes was saying that
anybody who did anything other than things that had been done for the last thirty
years risked unknown consequences, consequences that could cost even more people
their lives than the babies who were surely going to die if things continued
to be the same. The point is obvious: in Alan Keyes eyes any risk whatsoever
to born people could not be tolerated even if unborn babies continued to be
legally slaughtered in the
Look again at what he said: “We must not unleash greater evils in what we do to stop the evil we’re looking at.” In other words, Alan Keyes was saying that the evil “we’re looking at” is acceptable if the alternative is to risk any possibility whatsoever of “greater evils.”
What does that mean except Keyes and all the people he speaks for are willing to accept literally millions of babies being legally slaughtered rather than do anything except continue the impotent tactics and actions that have been repeated over and over ad nauseum for thirty years.
Do you see what the actions of this generation of “pro-life leaders” prove? Based on thirty years of investment in a self-serving theology designed to justify why God’s people tolerate the slaughter of God’s unborn children, the “pro-life” Christians like Alan Keyes and the Christians he speaks for can be trusted to do nothing that carries the slightest theoretical risk to either themselves or the people they speak for.
Can you see that that is a recipe for political coma?
Why?
Everything carries a theoretical risk. A silly, fearful mind can find threats in every motion of the universe, in every sound that’s heard, in every statement that’s made. I know this for a fact. I’ve heard for over four years people take my words and hear in them “true threats” even when no dictionary of English could find such a meaning in my words. I have heard over and over for four years about the horrible consequences that might occur because I posted the names of abortionists on the Internet. Federal courts even ruled my publications to be “true threats” of imminent bodily harm. Yet not one person ever listed on my site was attacked after they were listed!
But people in bondage to fear will always find words to justify their fear. And people in bondage to fear will always be able to find words to dismiss someone like myself who is not in bondage to fear. People in bondage to fear will not ever accept someone like myself who is determined to keep trying to do new things as long as those things are allowed by Holy Scripture as a just response to the fact that God’s children are being slaughtered before our very eyes by the thousands each day that passes in the United States of America.
The Apostle Paul says of those like himself, “But we have not received the spirit of fear…”
What about you? What spirit leads you? Is it the
spirit of fear? Or is it the Holy Spirit who cries out today about the horrible,
legalized butchering of His children in the
One thing is for certain, how you respond to this article will go a long way toward demonstrating conclusively which spirit you serve.
See How Your Refusal to Enforce the Law of God Destroys the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ Help The Creator's Rights Party Establish God's Law in the USA Help With the AbortionCams Project Return to Christian Gallery News Service