Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Sermon Notes from Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012 the sermon series on the church continued with a message "The Church is Built on Holiness" Here are the notes.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
"October Baby" and a December Baby by Michael Catt
by Michael Catt (Pastor of the church that made "Facing the Giants" and "Courageous")
I’ve just returned from the local movie theater, where Terri and I watched October Baby the new movie by Jon and Andrew Erwin. Jon and many of the others who worked behind the scenes on the movie have also been a part of Sherwood Pictures. Provident Films made a wise decision in being behind this movie.
It was obvious there was wise counsel in the writing. The “feminine touch” in the writing added a powerful dimension to the script. This is a heart movie. It pulls at your heart. Theresa Preston, who co-wrote the script, did an excellent job. Jon and Andrew are to be commended for how they have crafted all this into a cinematic benchmark. Every movie dealing with the issue of adoption and abortion will have to look back on “October Baby” as the standard.
This is the kind of movie our culture desperately needs. It is honest and deals with a painful and often divisive issue in a graceful way. I cannot imagine anyone, regardless of the budget or cast, doing a better job. Let me be clear, the movie is enlightening, encouraging, and edifying. I would consider it a must see movie for every teenager and parent. It should be recommended by every pastor and priest in our land. There is power in this movie that can only be explained by the hand of God upon it.
From a purely movie making standpoint, it is stunning in its cinematography. It is well shot, well edited, and well written, and the acting is superior. The characters are believable. It’s as powerful a movie as any I’ve ever seen. There was humor, but, more importantly, the movie touched a deep chord in my heart. I found myself wiping away tears during much of the movie.
The message hits close to home. If you don’t know my story, you may not understand. Without going into all the details, the young lady in the movie found out she was adopted when she was a teenager. I found out I was adopted when I was 39. She was angry at her parents for not telling her. I can still remember the anger I felt with my parents for not telling me. I found out in a bizarre way that caused me to go into the tank and to be filled with anger. It took me a long time to come to grips with all of this and to find victory in it.
I found myself, twenty years after learning of my adoption, reliving those emotions as I watched the movie. Not the anger, but identifying with the anger. I had “been there, done that.” I knew exactly what the girl was going through because I had felt the same thing. I knew the struggle because I had the same struggles.
For the longest time, I was angry with my parents for not telling me. Then, to top it off, a woman who knew my birth mother refused to tell me who she was or where she lived. I tried to write my birth mother a letter and tell her who I was, tell her I was grateful she didn’t abort me, and tell her about her two grandchildren, Erin and Hayley. I didn’t get that chance. The letter was returned to me, unopened.
I never got to resolve the issue with my parents. Of course, I was born and adopted at a time when you didn’t talk about adoption. Although it seemed everyone in my home church knew I was adopted except me, I was never told. Through an amazing and bizarre, set of circumstances, my wife found out and had the painful responsibility of telling me one night.
When I discovered the extent to which my parents had gone to hide the facts from me, I was at a loss for how to ever talk to them. The details are boring, but suffice it to say it was, at some level, deceptive. I’ve often asked myself, “Why? What harm would it have done to tell me?” Then I thought about the line in the movie when the adoptive dad said, “I wanted to tell you, but days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and years…” I guess that’s what happened to my folks too…but they never told me.
I don’t think their failure to tell me was malice, but more out of fear. So, for lack of honesty, my parents lived their days in fear. Fear that I would find out. Fear that I would reject them. Fear that I would discover who my birth mom really was. How many parents have lived with fear because of a failure to be honest?
I was born in Jackson County Hospital in Pascagoula, Mississippi, just 29 miles from Mobile, Alabama, where part of October Baby was filmed. The birth records are long gone. The chances I’ll ever know all the facts are slim to none.
I was born on December 25, although my birth certificate has been revised so I doubt if that was my actual birthday. I think my parents saw me as a Christmas gift to them, since they were unable to have children, and had the official date of birth changed by a judge.
My middle name is the name of the doctor who delivered me. He was our family doctor. He’s been dead for a long time and all his records are gone. Believe me, we’ve explored all possible avenues. About all I know about my birth mom is that she was an airline stewardess and that our daughter Erin (according to some who know what my birth mom looked like) looks just like her.
I would love to have the opportunity to say to the woman who gave birth to me, “Thanks for not having a back alley abortion. Thanks for giving me up for adoption. God worked it all for good. I love you for giving me life, and I thank you for loving me enough to give me up for adoption.” I truly love a woman I’ve never met.
I wish I had the opportunity to have the resolution with my parents on this issue. Both died rather suddenly, and I was never able to get release from the Lord to talk to them about it in their declining years. The scene at the end where the daughter and dad get it right is something I’ll not be able to do this side of heaven. I am grateful for being placed in a Christian home. I am grateful for parents who wanted me when my birth mom didn’t, or couldn’t.
Only my wife and Jesus know the pain I have felt through the years. The movie is about an October baby. I was a December baby. For the first time in my life, I do feel like someone captured on film much of what I’ve wrestled with deep in my soul over these years. While the stories are not identical, there were so many reminders in this film of where I’ve been.
Like the young girl at the end of the film, I continue to walk forward, but glance over my shoulder tonight with gratitude for a heavenly Father who has guided my path and loved me unconditionally. I look back and thank God for parents who loved me, even though they often didn’t know how to tell me. I’m grateful for people who loved me and prayed me through the process of dealing with my pain. I’m grateful for a wife who listened to me and was patient with me as I wrestled with my emotions. I’m grateful that God blessed me with two incredible daughters.
Finally, I’m more committed than ever to our Alpha Crisis Pregnancy Center and our ministry to unwed mothers. I’m more committed than ever to the unborn. As the nurse in the movie says to the young girl, “They told me it was just unviable tissue.” And then she says something like, “but when you heard the sounds I heard and saw what I saw…” As one who was spared from abortion, I hear the cries of the unborn. As long as God gives me breath, I will not be silent for those who never had an opportunity to speak for themselves.
I am more than viable tissue. Jeremiah says, that God knew me before I was in my mother’s womb. Mom, wherever you are, if you ever read this, I was no accident. God had a plan for you and for me. Thank you for not having an abortion. Thank you for loving me enough to give me breath. I hope that one day you will see and know how God has used all this for His glory.
I’ve just returned from the local movie theater, where Terri and I watched October Baby the new movie by Jon and Andrew Erwin. Jon and many of the others who worked behind the scenes on the movie have also been a part of Sherwood Pictures. Provident Films made a wise decision in being behind this movie.
It was obvious there was wise counsel in the writing. The “feminine touch” in the writing added a powerful dimension to the script. This is a heart movie. It pulls at your heart. Theresa Preston, who co-wrote the script, did an excellent job. Jon and Andrew are to be commended for how they have crafted all this into a cinematic benchmark. Every movie dealing with the issue of adoption and abortion will have to look back on “October Baby” as the standard.
This is the kind of movie our culture desperately needs. It is honest and deals with a painful and often divisive issue in a graceful way. I cannot imagine anyone, regardless of the budget or cast, doing a better job. Let me be clear, the movie is enlightening, encouraging, and edifying. I would consider it a must see movie for every teenager and parent. It should be recommended by every pastor and priest in our land. There is power in this movie that can only be explained by the hand of God upon it.
From a purely movie making standpoint, it is stunning in its cinematography. It is well shot, well edited, and well written, and the acting is superior. The characters are believable. It’s as powerful a movie as any I’ve ever seen. There was humor, but, more importantly, the movie touched a deep chord in my heart. I found myself wiping away tears during much of the movie.
The message hits close to home. If you don’t know my story, you may not understand. Without going into all the details, the young lady in the movie found out she was adopted when she was a teenager. I found out I was adopted when I was 39. She was angry at her parents for not telling her. I can still remember the anger I felt with my parents for not telling me. I found out in a bizarre way that caused me to go into the tank and to be filled with anger. It took me a long time to come to grips with all of this and to find victory in it.
I found myself, twenty years after learning of my adoption, reliving those emotions as I watched the movie. Not the anger, but identifying with the anger. I had “been there, done that.” I knew exactly what the girl was going through because I had felt the same thing. I knew the struggle because I had the same struggles.
For the longest time, I was angry with my parents for not telling me. Then, to top it off, a woman who knew my birth mother refused to tell me who she was or where she lived. I tried to write my birth mother a letter and tell her who I was, tell her I was grateful she didn’t abort me, and tell her about her two grandchildren, Erin and Hayley. I didn’t get that chance. The letter was returned to me, unopened.
I never got to resolve the issue with my parents. Of course, I was born and adopted at a time when you didn’t talk about adoption. Although it seemed everyone in my home church knew I was adopted except me, I was never told. Through an amazing and bizarre, set of circumstances, my wife found out and had the painful responsibility of telling me one night.
When I discovered the extent to which my parents had gone to hide the facts from me, I was at a loss for how to ever talk to them. The details are boring, but suffice it to say it was, at some level, deceptive. I’ve often asked myself, “Why? What harm would it have done to tell me?” Then I thought about the line in the movie when the adoptive dad said, “I wanted to tell you, but days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and years…” I guess that’s what happened to my folks too…but they never told me.
I don’t think their failure to tell me was malice, but more out of fear. So, for lack of honesty, my parents lived their days in fear. Fear that I would find out. Fear that I would reject them. Fear that I would discover who my birth mom really was. How many parents have lived with fear because of a failure to be honest?
I was born in Jackson County Hospital in Pascagoula, Mississippi, just 29 miles from Mobile, Alabama, where part of October Baby was filmed. The birth records are long gone. The chances I’ll ever know all the facts are slim to none.
I was born on December 25, although my birth certificate has been revised so I doubt if that was my actual birthday. I think my parents saw me as a Christmas gift to them, since they were unable to have children, and had the official date of birth changed by a judge.
My middle name is the name of the doctor who delivered me. He was our family doctor. He’s been dead for a long time and all his records are gone. Believe me, we’ve explored all possible avenues. About all I know about my birth mom is that she was an airline stewardess and that our daughter Erin (according to some who know what my birth mom looked like) looks just like her.
I would love to have the opportunity to say to the woman who gave birth to me, “Thanks for not having a back alley abortion. Thanks for giving me up for adoption. God worked it all for good. I love you for giving me life, and I thank you for loving me enough to give me up for adoption.” I truly love a woman I’ve never met.
I wish I had the opportunity to have the resolution with my parents on this issue. Both died rather suddenly, and I was never able to get release from the Lord to talk to them about it in their declining years. The scene at the end where the daughter and dad get it right is something I’ll not be able to do this side of heaven. I am grateful for being placed in a Christian home. I am grateful for parents who wanted me when my birth mom didn’t, or couldn’t.
Only my wife and Jesus know the pain I have felt through the years. The movie is about an October baby. I was a December baby. For the first time in my life, I do feel like someone captured on film much of what I’ve wrestled with deep in my soul over these years. While the stories are not identical, there were so many reminders in this film of where I’ve been.
Like the young girl at the end of the film, I continue to walk forward, but glance over my shoulder tonight with gratitude for a heavenly Father who has guided my path and loved me unconditionally. I look back and thank God for parents who loved me, even though they often didn’t know how to tell me. I’m grateful for people who loved me and prayed me through the process of dealing with my pain. I’m grateful for a wife who listened to me and was patient with me as I wrestled with my emotions. I’m grateful that God blessed me with two incredible daughters.
Finally, I’m more committed than ever to our Alpha Crisis Pregnancy Center and our ministry to unwed mothers. I’m more committed than ever to the unborn. As the nurse in the movie says to the young girl, “They told me it was just unviable tissue.” And then she says something like, “but when you heard the sounds I heard and saw what I saw…” As one who was spared from abortion, I hear the cries of the unborn. As long as God gives me breath, I will not be silent for those who never had an opportunity to speak for themselves.
I am more than viable tissue. Jeremiah says, that God knew me before I was in my mother’s womb. Mom, wherever you are, if you ever read this, I was no accident. God had a plan for you and for me. Thank you for not having an abortion. Thank you for loving me enough to give me breath. I hope that one day you will see and know how God has used all this for His glory.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Chuck Colson writing on "October Baby" opening today
Stories of Life
October Baby and Doonby
March 23, 2012
Movies that deal with the sanctity of life are suddenly in the news. One of these, the long anticipated independent film Doonby, is scheduled to open in theaters later this year. And another one, October Baby, opens in theaters today, Friday, March 23.
Both of these films delve deeply and fearlessly into an issue that the entertainment industry has rarely been brave enough to tackle.
But of course, the biggest question is, how do they handle that issue? As I’ve said more than once, Christian filmmakers must always remember that a movie needs to be a movie, not a sermon. Movies reach people not by preaching at them, but by telling stories — stories that resonate with us and move us.
And that’s what these filmmakers are doing. They tell stories about people whose lives have been deeply, permanently affected by abortion. And in doing so, they remind us of the human dimension of an issue that’s too often treated as nothing more than a political football.
In October Baby, we have the story of Hannah, a college student suddenly hit with earth-shattering news. Not only is she adopted, but her biological mother had tried to abort her. Her overprotective adoptive parents had tried to shield her from the truth, but the lingering health problems caused by the procedure finally force them to tell her what happened.
The devastating news propels Hannah on a journey to learn more about her origins, but she finds out even more than she bargained for.
Hannah’s cinematic story was inspired by the real-life story of Gianna Jessen. Gianna was born with cerebral palsy after a botched abortion and has become a celebrated pro-life speaker. After watching October Baby, Gianna said that watching the film was a healing experience for her.
For those of us who haven’t been through anything like what Gianna has, the film is a valuable glimpse at experiences that we can hardly begin to imagine. It raises awareness of the unseen person who is always involved in an abortion, and asks us to identify with that person in a way that we never have before.
But another one of October Baby’s strengths is that it doesn’t present only a single perspective. Hannah talks with a nurse involved with her abortion. She learns about a clinic bombing that affected that nurse’s life.
The film, you see, doesn’t do any demonizing; it shows the pain that surrounds this issue for everybody, from the abortion-minded mother to the adoptive parents dealing with the fallout of her decision.
As I mentioned, October Baby, which is rated PG-13 for mature themes, opens today. Come to BreakPoint.org, and we’ll link you to the movie’s website so you can see if it’s playing at a theater near you. Then go and see this strong yet sensitive depiction of the human side of abortion, and take your friends.
As October Baby and Doonby show, a good story can do so much — even more than a sermon or a lecture — to reach people and help them look at life in a whole new way.
And we Christians would do well to support films and filmmakers that do just that.
October Baby and Doonby
March 23, 2012
Movies that deal with the sanctity of life are suddenly in the news. One of these, the long anticipated independent film Doonby, is scheduled to open in theaters later this year. And another one, October Baby, opens in theaters today, Friday, March 23.
Both of these films delve deeply and fearlessly into an issue that the entertainment industry has rarely been brave enough to tackle.
But of course, the biggest question is, how do they handle that issue? As I’ve said more than once, Christian filmmakers must always remember that a movie needs to be a movie, not a sermon. Movies reach people not by preaching at them, but by telling stories — stories that resonate with us and move us.
And that’s what these filmmakers are doing. They tell stories about people whose lives have been deeply, permanently affected by abortion. And in doing so, they remind us of the human dimension of an issue that’s too often treated as nothing more than a political football.
In October Baby, we have the story of Hannah, a college student suddenly hit with earth-shattering news. Not only is she adopted, but her biological mother had tried to abort her. Her overprotective adoptive parents had tried to shield her from the truth, but the lingering health problems caused by the procedure finally force them to tell her what happened.
The devastating news propels Hannah on a journey to learn more about her origins, but she finds out even more than she bargained for.
Hannah’s cinematic story was inspired by the real-life story of Gianna Jessen. Gianna was born with cerebral palsy after a botched abortion and has become a celebrated pro-life speaker. After watching October Baby, Gianna said that watching the film was a healing experience for her.
For those of us who haven’t been through anything like what Gianna has, the film is a valuable glimpse at experiences that we can hardly begin to imagine. It raises awareness of the unseen person who is always involved in an abortion, and asks us to identify with that person in a way that we never have before.
But another one of October Baby’s strengths is that it doesn’t present only a single perspective. Hannah talks with a nurse involved with her abortion. She learns about a clinic bombing that affected that nurse’s life.
The film, you see, doesn’t do any demonizing; it shows the pain that surrounds this issue for everybody, from the abortion-minded mother to the adoptive parents dealing with the fallout of her decision.
As I mentioned, October Baby, which is rated PG-13 for mature themes, opens today. Come to BreakPoint.org, and we’ll link you to the movie’s website so you can see if it’s playing at a theater near you. Then go and see this strong yet sensitive depiction of the human side of abortion, and take your friends.
As October Baby and Doonby show, a good story can do so much — even more than a sermon or a lecture — to reach people and help them look at life in a whole new way.
And we Christians would do well to support films and filmmakers that do just that.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Sermon Notes from Sunday, March 11, 2012
This past Sunday, March 11, I concluded the "mini-series" on church leadership with the sermon "The Church is Built on Leadership - Their Purpose" from Ephesians 4: 11-16. Notes are here.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Sermon Notes from Sunday, March 4, 2012
Sunday, March 4 I completed a two-part mini-series on why church leadership (elders, pastors, bishops) can be "Male Only." Here are the notes from the second part of the sermon. Click here for part two notes.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Debate Is about Conscience, not Contraceptives
by Richard Land
Richard Land is President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Note to our readers: Many Christians – both Catholics and evangelicals – have expressed profound concern about the Obama administration’s decision to force employers to include abortifacients in all health care insurance plans (including those who have religious objections to being required to do so). Although the House of Representatives passed a measure to allow for moral exceptions to this requirement, the Blount amendment failed by just a few votes in the Senate this week. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, provides a Christian perspective and reflects on First Amendment rights to help our readers grapple with this important issue.
Let’s begin by making one thing crystal clear. The debate generated by the Obama administration’s requirement that virtually all health care insurance plans provide free contraceptives, abortifacients (abortion-causing drugs) and sterilization services is not a debate about contraception or “reproductive services.”
This debate is about coercion, not Catholics; conscience, not contraception; and freedom, not fertility.
We believe as Americans that every human being has a God-given right of freedom of faith and conscience. Due to our forefathers’ persecutions, persistence and insistence, this freedom is acknowledged and recognized in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The “free exercise of religion” goes well beyond the “freedom of worship” concept so often used today by those who fail to understand, or reject, the Constitution’s religious freedom protections. For them freedom of worship is restricted to church and home, to the space between your ears and the space between your shoulders. But free exercise of religion is far more robust and includes the rights to share one’s faith and to live out its implications in the social and economic spheres — in other words, the freedom to exercise or act and the right not to be coerced. We must not stand by and allow our God-given rights to religious freedom, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, to be atrophied, confined and restricted into mere freedom of worship.
The Obama administration’s recent actions, as Cardinal Dolan said in his Feb. 22 letter to his fellow Catholic bishops, “have attempted to reduce this free exercise to a ‘privilege’ arbitrarily granted by the government as a mere exemption from an all-encompassing, extreme form of secularism.” Cardinal Dolan has hit the proverbial nail on the head. This controversy is about conscience, not contraception. In America our First Amendment freedom of religion does not depend on government benevolence or toleration. Typical of the secular mindset dominating the media and the higher precincts of the Obama administration is the misguided declaration of New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristoff who wrote in a recent column (Feb. 22): “The basic principle of American life is that we try to respect religious beliefs, and accommodate them when we can.”
Given this secularist mindset one could argue that the HHS mandate violates not only the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, but the establishment clause as well. When the federal government asserts the right to universally mandate actions, trample religious convictions, and then grant exemptions to those it chooses, the government is behaving perilously like a secular theocracy granting ecclesiastical indulgences to a chosen few.
Our forefathers knew how tenuous, unreliable, and intolerant such government toleration could be. Roger Williams, a 17th-century Baptist minister and the founder of Providence Plantations (later Rhode Island) asserted that, “Man hath no power to make laws to bind conscience,” and went on to say that forcing a person’s conscience was “the rape of the soul.”
Thomas Jefferson, chief drafter of the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s third president, argued in 1779 during the campaign for the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” Jefferson, in the last year of his presidency (1809), looking back on the accomplishments of the American Revolution, declared, “No provision of our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprise of the civil authority.”
The great 18th-century Baptist leader John Leland, friend and colleague of both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who help framed the First Amendment free exercise clause, declared “that religion is a matter between God and individuals, religious opinions of men not being the objects of civil government nor in any way under its control” (1791).
Indeed, at the time of the American Revolution, when our forefathers took on the world’s first superpower, the British Empire, the Continental Congress (1775), needing every able-bodied man to fight off a powerful invading force intent on crushing the rebellion, granted exemption from military service to the Moravian and Quaker colonists whose religious convictions included the renunciation of participating in war. Of course this tradition has been continued with the government granting conscientious objector status from a military draft for those with similar religious convictions throughout our history, even when the government was under dire threat. In modern times Pope John Paul II correctly identified religious freedom as the “first freedom” and as “the premise and guarantee of all freedoms that ensure the common good.” In his 1999 papal letter, “Respect for Human Rights” Pope John Paul II explained: “Religion expresses the deepest aspirations of the human person, shapes people’s vision of the world and affects their relationships with others; basically, it offers the answer to question of the true meaning of life, both personal and communal. Religious freedom therefore constitutes the very heart of human rights.”
People of all faiths — and no faith — should rise up and demand that the Obama administration rescind its HHS mandate that insurance-subsidized and free contraceptives, abortifacients and sterilization procedures be required of all but churches. Such government coercion of conscience is intolerable.
The president’s supposed “compromise” of having insurance companies pay for these services is an accounting trick, a distinction without a difference. The cost to the insurance companies will be built into the premiums, paid by the religious organization or the individual.
This controversy is about freedom, not fertility. As Cardinal Dolan asks in his letter, “If the government can, for example, tell Catholics that they cannot be in the insurance business today without violating their religious convictions, where does it end?”
Indeed! Let’s all understand what is at stake here. Unless you are a priest or a minister working for a church or you work for a firm with less than 50 employees, here is the dilemma you will face. If the U.S. Supreme Court does not strike down Obamacare’s mandate that all people purchase health insurance upon penalty of a substantial fine, and if Obamacare, unimpeded, takes effect as scheduled Jan. 1, 2014, millions of Americans will be faced with a tortuous choice. If you have religious conscience objections to subsidizing contraception, or abortifacients, or sterilization in your health insurance program, you will face a stark choice. Under Obamacare, all health insurance programs will be required to offer free reproductive services (i.e. contraception, abortifacients, sterilization), which means that many Americans will face the choice of violating their deeply held religious convictions and purchasing health insurance which forces them to financially subsidize that which they find unconscionable (i.e. reproductive services) or pay a substantial fine for declining to purchase health insurance and not having health insurance for their families.
A government imposed fine for following your religious convictions? In America? Say it isn’t so! Our Founding Fathers would be aghast.
This article was originally posted here on March 1, 2012 by Baptist Press and has been reposted by permission of the author and Baptist Press.
Richard Land is President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Note to our readers: Many Christians – both Catholics and evangelicals – have expressed profound concern about the Obama administration’s decision to force employers to include abortifacients in all health care insurance plans (including those who have religious objections to being required to do so). Although the House of Representatives passed a measure to allow for moral exceptions to this requirement, the Blount amendment failed by just a few votes in the Senate this week. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, provides a Christian perspective and reflects on First Amendment rights to help our readers grapple with this important issue.
Let’s begin by making one thing crystal clear. The debate generated by the Obama administration’s requirement that virtually all health care insurance plans provide free contraceptives, abortifacients (abortion-causing drugs) and sterilization services is not a debate about contraception or “reproductive services.”
This debate is about coercion, not Catholics; conscience, not contraception; and freedom, not fertility.
We believe as Americans that every human being has a God-given right of freedom of faith and conscience. Due to our forefathers’ persecutions, persistence and insistence, this freedom is acknowledged and recognized in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The “free exercise of religion” goes well beyond the “freedom of worship” concept so often used today by those who fail to understand, or reject, the Constitution’s religious freedom protections. For them freedom of worship is restricted to church and home, to the space between your ears and the space between your shoulders. But free exercise of religion is far more robust and includes the rights to share one’s faith and to live out its implications in the social and economic spheres — in other words, the freedom to exercise or act and the right not to be coerced. We must not stand by and allow our God-given rights to religious freedom, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, to be atrophied, confined and restricted into mere freedom of worship.
The Obama administration’s recent actions, as Cardinal Dolan said in his Feb. 22 letter to his fellow Catholic bishops, “have attempted to reduce this free exercise to a ‘privilege’ arbitrarily granted by the government as a mere exemption from an all-encompassing, extreme form of secularism.” Cardinal Dolan has hit the proverbial nail on the head. This controversy is about conscience, not contraception. In America our First Amendment freedom of religion does not depend on government benevolence or toleration. Typical of the secular mindset dominating the media and the higher precincts of the Obama administration is the misguided declaration of New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristoff who wrote in a recent column (Feb. 22): “The basic principle of American life is that we try to respect religious beliefs, and accommodate them when we can.”
Given this secularist mindset one could argue that the HHS mandate violates not only the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, but the establishment clause as well. When the federal government asserts the right to universally mandate actions, trample religious convictions, and then grant exemptions to those it chooses, the government is behaving perilously like a secular theocracy granting ecclesiastical indulgences to a chosen few.
Our forefathers knew how tenuous, unreliable, and intolerant such government toleration could be. Roger Williams, a 17th-century Baptist minister and the founder of Providence Plantations (later Rhode Island) asserted that, “Man hath no power to make laws to bind conscience,” and went on to say that forcing a person’s conscience was “the rape of the soul.”
Thomas Jefferson, chief drafter of the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s third president, argued in 1779 during the campaign for the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” Jefferson, in the last year of his presidency (1809), looking back on the accomplishments of the American Revolution, declared, “No provision of our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprise of the civil authority.”
The great 18th-century Baptist leader John Leland, friend and colleague of both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who help framed the First Amendment free exercise clause, declared “that religion is a matter between God and individuals, religious opinions of men not being the objects of civil government nor in any way under its control” (1791).
Indeed, at the time of the American Revolution, when our forefathers took on the world’s first superpower, the British Empire, the Continental Congress (1775), needing every able-bodied man to fight off a powerful invading force intent on crushing the rebellion, granted exemption from military service to the Moravian and Quaker colonists whose religious convictions included the renunciation of participating in war. Of course this tradition has been continued with the government granting conscientious objector status from a military draft for those with similar religious convictions throughout our history, even when the government was under dire threat. In modern times Pope John Paul II correctly identified religious freedom as the “first freedom” and as “the premise and guarantee of all freedoms that ensure the common good.” In his 1999 papal letter, “Respect for Human Rights” Pope John Paul II explained: “Religion expresses the deepest aspirations of the human person, shapes people’s vision of the world and affects their relationships with others; basically, it offers the answer to question of the true meaning of life, both personal and communal. Religious freedom therefore constitutes the very heart of human rights.”
People of all faiths — and no faith — should rise up and demand that the Obama administration rescind its HHS mandate that insurance-subsidized and free contraceptives, abortifacients and sterilization procedures be required of all but churches. Such government coercion of conscience is intolerable.
The president’s supposed “compromise” of having insurance companies pay for these services is an accounting trick, a distinction without a difference. The cost to the insurance companies will be built into the premiums, paid by the religious organization or the individual.
This controversy is about freedom, not fertility. As Cardinal Dolan asks in his letter, “If the government can, for example, tell Catholics that they cannot be in the insurance business today without violating their religious convictions, where does it end?”
Indeed! Let’s all understand what is at stake here. Unless you are a priest or a minister working for a church or you work for a firm with less than 50 employees, here is the dilemma you will face. If the U.S. Supreme Court does not strike down Obamacare’s mandate that all people purchase health insurance upon penalty of a substantial fine, and if Obamacare, unimpeded, takes effect as scheduled Jan. 1, 2014, millions of Americans will be faced with a tortuous choice. If you have religious conscience objections to subsidizing contraception, or abortifacients, or sterilization in your health insurance program, you will face a stark choice. Under Obamacare, all health insurance programs will be required to offer free reproductive services (i.e. contraception, abortifacients, sterilization), which means that many Americans will face the choice of violating their deeply held religious convictions and purchasing health insurance which forces them to financially subsidize that which they find unconscionable (i.e. reproductive services) or pay a substantial fine for declining to purchase health insurance and not having health insurance for their families.
A government imposed fine for following your religious convictions? In America? Say it isn’t so! Our Founding Fathers would be aghast.
This article was originally posted here on March 1, 2012 by Baptist Press and has been reposted by permission of the author and Baptist Press.
Friday, March 2, 2012
A Closer Look: The Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls
by Ed Stetzer
With the recent archaeological discovery of what is thought to be fragments Gospel of Mark, it's only fitting to take a closer look at another famous archaeological find: the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The author of this week's article is Peter W. Flint, one of the foremost scholars on the Dead Sea Scrolls in the world.
As I'm doing all year long, I am giving away a free HCSB study Bible to a commenter. To be entered to win this week's giveaway, share with us your thoughts on biblical archaeology or let us know if you've been to some biblical history sites in the middle east.
hcsbsb.jpegThe Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient manuscripts that were found at several sites near the western shore of the Dead Sea. The most important site was near Qumran, where eleven caves containing scrolls or artifacts were discovered from 1946 to 1956. Also notable are discoveries at Murabba'at (1951), Nahal Hever (1951 or 1952), Wadi Seiyal (1951 or 1952), and Masada (1963-65). Professor W. F. Albright, America's foremost archaeologist, described the scrolls as "the greatest archaeological find of modern times."
At least 941 scrolls were discovered in the Qumran caves (715 in Cave 4 alone). They are dated on paleographic and radiocarbon grounds to between ca 250 b.c. and a.d. 68, when the site was destroyed by the Romans. The Qumran library is divided into two basic categories: 240 biblical scrolls and 701 nonbiblical scrolls. The nonbiblical scrolls are further divided into: Apocryphal scrolls (such as Tobit), Sectarian scrolls (such as the Rule of the Community), and Pseudepigraphic scrolls (such as the Prayer of Nabonidus).
Most scholars agree that the Sectarian scrolls were produced by a group of Essenes who had a settlement at Qumran. Proposals to the contrary may be discounted due to lack of firm evidence.
Five Reasons Why the Dead Sea Scrolls Are Significant
The scrolls were discovered and copied in Palestine (Israel). In fact, they are virtually the only manuscripts that survive from the Second Temple period (which ended in a.d. 70). It is even possible-- though not likely--that Jesus or some of His followers handled some of these manuscripts before they were brought to Qumran.
The scrolls were written in the three languages of Scripture. Of the 240 biblical scrolls from Qumran, 235 are written in Hebrew and 5 in Greek, and of the 701 nonbiblical scrolls, 548 are written in Hebrew, 137 in Aramaic, and 5 in Greek. This means that at least some Jews could speak Greek in late Second Temple Palestine, and reinforces the idea that Jesus and His followers knew Greek.
The biblical scrolls both affirm and enhance the Hebrew Bible used by scholars. Prior to their discovery, the oldest complete Hebrew Bible was the Leningrad Codex (a.d. 1008), on which most scholarly editions are based. Even older medieval manuscripts are the Aleppo Codex (early tenth century), part of which is missing, and some fragments from the Cairo Genizeh (ninth century onwards). In contrast, the oldest Bible scroll found at Qumran (4QExod-Levf) is dated from about 250 b.c., and the latest ones to a.d. 68. This puts scholars much closer to the time of the texts' origins. Two of the most prominent and best-preserved Bible scrolls are the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa, about 125 b.c.) and the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa, a.d. 30-50).
Scrolls with sufficient writing for an assessment to be made fall into four textual groups: Proto-Masoretic (i.e., the consonantal text behind the Masoretic Text, represented by about 40% of the scrolls), Proto-Samaritan (about 15%), Pre-Septuagint (about 5%), and mixed or nonaligned (about 40%). The Proto-Masoretic scrolls in particular affirm the accuracy and great age of the Hebrew text found in modern Bible editions.
On the other hand, many scrolls (in all four groups) preserve original or preferable readings that are convincing enough to have been adopted by modern English OT translations. One example is at Isaiah 19:18, where the Masoretic Text reads "City of Destruction," but two scrolls (1QIsaa, 4QIsab) and even a few Masoretic manuscripts read "City of the Sun," which makes better sense. The reading found in the scrolls has also been adopted by many modern Bibles, including the HCSB, RSV, and NRSV. A second example is the missing verse in the acrostic Psalm 145. This verse is present in 11QPsa and the LXX, and hence it is now included as verse 13b in the HCSB, RSV, NRSV, NIV, and so forth. At least 100 such examples have gotten modern Bible translators closer to the original text, and the majority of these discoveries have been adopted by the Holman Christian Standard Bible.
Most of the nonbiblical scrolls throw light on Judaism in the late Second Temple period. Certain scrolls illuminate our understanding of Jewish sects, namely the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Sectarian documents such as the Community Rule and the Damascus Document reveal the doctrines and teachings of the Essenes: for example, their expectation of two separate Messiahs (of Aaron and of David) and their ascetic lifestyle. One fascinating text named Some of the Works of the Law (4QMMT) is a manifesto which details how the Essene interpretation of some 25 laws from the Pentateuch differed from those of the Pharisees.
Some scrolls illuminate our understanding of Jesus and the early Christians. None of the Qumran scrolls was written by or for Christians, but several are relevant for understanding the historical context of Christian origins. The three books most commonly found at Qumran are Psalms (36 scrolls), Deuteronomy (30), and Isaiah (21). These are
66x, and Deuteronomy 54x). This is hardly a coincidence, but speaks to similar messianic expectations and covenantal themes among the Qumranites and the early Christians.
Key nonbiblical scrolls are just as pertinent. For example, the Messianic Apocaplyse (4Q521) describes the works and wonders that will accompany the Messiah's coming in language that is very close to Jesus' words in Luke 4:18-19 (will bring good news to the poor, set the captives free, open the eyes of the blind, and lift up the oppressed) and in Matthew 11:4-5 and Luke 7:21-22 (will open the eyes of the blind, make the dead live, and bring good news to the poor). This scroll helps Bible readers see that Jesus is claiming to be a prophetic Messiah in the Gospel passages just mentioned. Another striking example is Some of the Works of the Law (4QMMT), since the term "works of the Law" occurs nowhere else except in Romans (e.g., 3:20, 28) and Galatians (e.g., 3:2,5,10). In this light we now know that Paul is using a term identified with the Essenes, and so is criticizing Essene Jews or Christians who have been influenced by Essene doctrines concerning works of the Law. A final example is the sectarian New Jerusalem Text, which is found in several scrolls (1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q544-55, 5Q15, 11Q18), and describes the coming New Jerusalem with language that would be developed further in the Book of Revelation (21:9-27).
In conclusion, the Dead Sea Scrolls help scholars get closer to the original OT texts where variants have entered the tradition, plus they help set the historical and cultural context for the Intertestamental and New Testament eras.
With the recent archaeological discovery of what is thought to be fragments Gospel of Mark, it's only fitting to take a closer look at another famous archaeological find: the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The author of this week's article is Peter W. Flint, one of the foremost scholars on the Dead Sea Scrolls in the world.
As I'm doing all year long, I am giving away a free HCSB study Bible to a commenter. To be entered to win this week's giveaway, share with us your thoughts on biblical archaeology or let us know if you've been to some biblical history sites in the middle east.
hcsbsb.jpegThe Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient manuscripts that were found at several sites near the western shore of the Dead Sea. The most important site was near Qumran, where eleven caves containing scrolls or artifacts were discovered from 1946 to 1956. Also notable are discoveries at Murabba'at (1951), Nahal Hever (1951 or 1952), Wadi Seiyal (1951 or 1952), and Masada (1963-65). Professor W. F. Albright, America's foremost archaeologist, described the scrolls as "the greatest archaeological find of modern times."
At least 941 scrolls were discovered in the Qumran caves (715 in Cave 4 alone). They are dated on paleographic and radiocarbon grounds to between ca 250 b.c. and a.d. 68, when the site was destroyed by the Romans. The Qumran library is divided into two basic categories: 240 biblical scrolls and 701 nonbiblical scrolls. The nonbiblical scrolls are further divided into: Apocryphal scrolls (such as Tobit), Sectarian scrolls (such as the Rule of the Community), and Pseudepigraphic scrolls (such as the Prayer of Nabonidus).
Most scholars agree that the Sectarian scrolls were produced by a group of Essenes who had a settlement at Qumran. Proposals to the contrary may be discounted due to lack of firm evidence.
Five Reasons Why the Dead Sea Scrolls Are Significant
The scrolls were discovered and copied in Palestine (Israel). In fact, they are virtually the only manuscripts that survive from the Second Temple period (which ended in a.d. 70). It is even possible-- though not likely--that Jesus or some of His followers handled some of these manuscripts before they were brought to Qumran.
The scrolls were written in the three languages of Scripture. Of the 240 biblical scrolls from Qumran, 235 are written in Hebrew and 5 in Greek, and of the 701 nonbiblical scrolls, 548 are written in Hebrew, 137 in Aramaic, and 5 in Greek. This means that at least some Jews could speak Greek in late Second Temple Palestine, and reinforces the idea that Jesus and His followers knew Greek.
The biblical scrolls both affirm and enhance the Hebrew Bible used by scholars. Prior to their discovery, the oldest complete Hebrew Bible was the Leningrad Codex (a.d. 1008), on which most scholarly editions are based. Even older medieval manuscripts are the Aleppo Codex (early tenth century), part of which is missing, and some fragments from the Cairo Genizeh (ninth century onwards). In contrast, the oldest Bible scroll found at Qumran (4QExod-Levf) is dated from about 250 b.c., and the latest ones to a.d. 68. This puts scholars much closer to the time of the texts' origins. Two of the most prominent and best-preserved Bible scrolls are the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa, about 125 b.c.) and the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa, a.d. 30-50).
Scrolls with sufficient writing for an assessment to be made fall into four textual groups: Proto-Masoretic (i.e., the consonantal text behind the Masoretic Text, represented by about 40% of the scrolls), Proto-Samaritan (about 15%), Pre-Septuagint (about 5%), and mixed or nonaligned (about 40%). The Proto-Masoretic scrolls in particular affirm the accuracy and great age of the Hebrew text found in modern Bible editions.
On the other hand, many scrolls (in all four groups) preserve original or preferable readings that are convincing enough to have been adopted by modern English OT translations. One example is at Isaiah 19:18, where the Masoretic Text reads "City of Destruction," but two scrolls (1QIsaa, 4QIsab) and even a few Masoretic manuscripts read "City of the Sun," which makes better sense. The reading found in the scrolls has also been adopted by many modern Bibles, including the HCSB, RSV, and NRSV. A second example is the missing verse in the acrostic Psalm 145. This verse is present in 11QPsa and the LXX, and hence it is now included as verse 13b in the HCSB, RSV, NRSV, NIV, and so forth. At least 100 such examples have gotten modern Bible translators closer to the original text, and the majority of these discoveries have been adopted by the Holman Christian Standard Bible.
Most of the nonbiblical scrolls throw light on Judaism in the late Second Temple period. Certain scrolls illuminate our understanding of Jewish sects, namely the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Sectarian documents such as the Community Rule and the Damascus Document reveal the doctrines and teachings of the Essenes: for example, their expectation of two separate Messiahs (of Aaron and of David) and their ascetic lifestyle. One fascinating text named Some of the Works of the Law (4QMMT) is a manifesto which details how the Essene interpretation of some 25 laws from the Pentateuch differed from those of the Pharisees.
Some scrolls illuminate our understanding of Jesus and the early Christians. None of the Qumran scrolls was written by or for Christians, but several are relevant for understanding the historical context of Christian origins. The three books most commonly found at Qumran are Psalms (36 scrolls), Deuteronomy (30), and Isaiah (21). These are
66x, and Deuteronomy 54x). This is hardly a coincidence, but speaks to similar messianic expectations and covenantal themes among the Qumranites and the early Christians.
Key nonbiblical scrolls are just as pertinent. For example, the Messianic Apocaplyse (4Q521) describes the works and wonders that will accompany the Messiah's coming in language that is very close to Jesus' words in Luke 4:18-19 (will bring good news to the poor, set the captives free, open the eyes of the blind, and lift up the oppressed) and in Matthew 11:4-5 and Luke 7:21-22 (will open the eyes of the blind, make the dead live, and bring good news to the poor). This scroll helps Bible readers see that Jesus is claiming to be a prophetic Messiah in the Gospel passages just mentioned. Another striking example is Some of the Works of the Law (4QMMT), since the term "works of the Law" occurs nowhere else except in Romans (e.g., 3:20, 28) and Galatians (e.g., 3:2,5,10). In this light we now know that Paul is using a term identified with the Essenes, and so is criticizing Essene Jews or Christians who have been influenced by Essene doctrines concerning works of the Law. A final example is the sectarian New Jerusalem Text, which is found in several scrolls (1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q544-55, 5Q15, 11Q18), and describes the coming New Jerusalem with language that would be developed further in the Book of Revelation (21:9-27).
In conclusion, the Dead Sea Scrolls help scholars get closer to the original OT texts where variants have entered the tradition, plus they help set the historical and cultural context for the Intertestamental and New Testament eras.
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