Fatherlessness is a growing problem in Australia and the Western world. Whether caused by divorce and broken families, or by deliberate single parenting, more and more children grow up without fathers. Indeed, 85 per cent of single parent families are fatherless families.

Writing about the situation in America in 1996, sociologist David Popenoe said this: “The decline of fatherhood is one of the most basic, unexpected, and extraordinary social trends of our time. Its dimensions can be captured in a single statistic: In just three decades, between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of U.S. children living apart from their biological fathers more than doubled, from 17 percent to 36 percent. By the turn of the century, nearly 50 percent of American children may be going to sleep each evening without being able to say good night to their dads.”

And these trends are not without negative consequences. Father absence has been shown to be a major disadvantage to the well-being of children. The following is a summary of the evidence for the importance of fathers and the need for two-parent families.

One expert from Harvard medical school who has studied over 40 years of research on the question of parental absence and children’s well-being said this: “What has been shown over and over again to contribute most to the emotional development of the child is a close, warm, sustained and continuous relationship with both parents.” Or as David Blankenhorn has stated in Fatherless America: “Fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation.”

Another expert puts it this way: “There exists today no greater single threat to the long-term well-being of children, our communities, or our nation, than the increasing number of children being raised without a committed, responsible, and loving father.”

Bryan Rodgers of the Australian National University has recently re-examined the Australian research. Says Rodgers: “Australian studies with adequate samples have shown parental divorce to be a risk factor for a wide range of social and psychological problems in adolescence and adulthood, including poor academic achievement, low self-esteem, psychological distress, delinquency and recidivism, substance use and abuse, sexual precocity, adult criminal offending, depression, and suicidal behaviour.” He concludes: “There is no scientific justification for disregarding the public health significance of marital dissolution in Australia, especially with respect to mental health.”

A New Zealand summary of the data based on national and international research conducted over the past two decades also found major positive outcomes for children when fathers are present, and negative outcomes when fathers are absent. The report states:

“The weight of the evidence is that fathers can make unique, direct contributions to their children’s well-being. These findings held true after controlling for a range of factors, including mothers’ involvement, children’s characteristics, children’s early behavioural problems, family income, socio-economic status over time, stepfather involvement and family structure.” It goes on to list the many specific ways in which fathers positively contribute to the well-being of children.

And the importance of fathers is neither a recent nor a merely Western truth. The need and importance of fathers is an historical and universal given. As anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski put it, “The most important moral and legal rule concerning the physiological side of kinship is that no child should be brought into the world without a man – and one man at that. . . . I think that this generalization amounts to a universal sociological law.” There may be cultural variations, yet “through all the variations there runs the rule that the father is indispensable for the full sociological status of the child as well as its mother, that the group consisting of a woman and her offspring is sociologically incomplete and illegitimate.”

Here then is a sampling of the evidence:

Economic difficulties

In America, among families with dependent children, only 8.3 per cent of married couples were living below the poverty line, compared to 47.1 percent of female-headed households.

Also in the US, a nationally representative sample found this: “In 2005, the median income for married couples was $66,067, which was $35,000 more than the median income for single mothers, $19,000 more than that of single fathers, $43,000 more than that of single women, and $24,000 more than that of single men. Married couples made up 79 percent of the highest quintile income and 17.9 percent of the lowest income quintile.”

In Australia, a recent study of 500 divorcees with children five to eight years after the separation found that four in five divorced mothers were dependent on social security after their marriages dissolved.

Figures from Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research show that family break-up, rather than unemployment, is the main cause of the rise in poverty levels in Australia.

A joint report from AMP Life and Canberra University’s National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling says that divorce leaves both partners worse off economically, but women tend to experience the biggest fall in disposable income.

A recent US study “found that by far the ‘biggest factor’ associated with child poverty in a county is the proportion of households headed by unwed mothers with children under 18 years of age. They established that every 1 percentage-point increase in these households correlates with a 1.2 percentage-point increase in the county’s child-poverty rate.”

Educational performance

American children from intact families have a 21 per cent chance of dropping out of high school whereas children from broken families have a 46 per cent chance.

American school children who became father-absent early in life generally scored significantly lower on measures of IQ and achievement tests.

A recent Concordia University found clear positive effects of a father’s influence on the behavioural and cognitive development of children. For example, “for both boys and girls, fathers’ positive parental control predicted higher Performance IQ and fewer internalizing problems over six years later.”

A study of Australian primary school children from three family types (married heterosexual couples, cohabiting heterosexual couples and homosexual couples) found that in every area of educational endeavour (language; mathematics; social studies; sport; class work, sociability and popularity; and attitudes to learning), children from married heterosexual couples performed better than the other two groups. The study concludes with these words: “Married couples seem to offer the best environment for a child’s social and educational development”.

A Melbourne University study of 212 children found that fathers, even more than mothers, had a major beneficial influence on children in their first year of school. The study found that kids with regular father involvement were more cooperative and self-reliant in school than kids who did not have father involvement. The more regular involvement the father has with the child, the study’s author said, the better the child does in his or her first year of school.

Criminal involvement

A British study found a direct statistical link between single parenthood and virtually every major type of crime, including mugging, violence against strangers, car theft and burglary.

Also in the UK, studies have shown that “children from broken homes are nine times more likely to commit crimes than those from stable families” and “seven out of 10 offenders come from broken homes”.

One American study even arrived at this startling conclusion: the proportion of single-parent households in a community predicts its rates of violent crime and burglary, but the community’s poverty level does not. Neither poverty nor race seem to account very much for the crime rate, compared to the proportion of single parent families.

In Australia, a recent book noted the connection between broken families and crime. In a discussion of rising crime rates in Western Australia, the book reported that “family breakdown in the form of divorce and separation is the main cause of the crime wave”.

Maryland researchers found that bullying and aggressive behaviour are associated with family breakdown. This is especially the cause of girls’ aggressiveness: “the percentage of single men and mother-alone families rival neighborhood violence as providing the most explanatory power” for aggressiveness among girls.

Involvement with drugs and alcohol

A UCLA study pointed out that inadequate family structure makes children more susceptible to drug use “as a coping mechanism to relieve depression and anxiety.”

Another US study found that among the homes with strict fathers, only 18 per cent had children who used alcohol or drugs at all. In contrast, among mother-dominated homes, 35 per cent had children who used drugs frequently.

A National Institutes of Health study showed a clear connection between non-intact families and child drug abuse: “Our analyses indicated that children from intact families used significantly less inhalants, marijuana, and amphetamines than children from single-parent families.”

A New Zealand study of nearly 1000 children observed over a period of 15 years found that children who have watched their parents separate are more likely to use illegal drugs than those whose parents stay together.

A South African study found that teens from single parent homes were more likely to consume alcohol and do so from an earlier age. Of those who ever drank, 81 per cent of the teens aged 16-18 lived with parents who were divorced compared to 51 per cent of students whose parents were married and living together.

Sexual problems

Studies from many different cultures have found that girls raised without fathers are more likely to be sexually active, and to start early sexual activity. Father-deprived girls “show precocious sexual interest, derogation of masculinity and males, and poor ability to maintain sexual and emotional adjustment with one male”.

A US study found that girls who grow up without fathers were “53 percent more likely to marry as teenagers, 111 percent more likely to have children as teenagers, 164 percent more likely to have a premarital birth, and 92 percent more likely to dissolve their own marriages.”

Another US study made this conclusion: “youth who spend part of their childhood/youth living in a household that does not include their biological father are more likely to smoke regularly, become sexually active, and be convicted of a crime.”

New Zealand research has found that the absence of a father is a major factor in the early onset of puberty and teenage pregnancy. Dr Bruce Ellis, Psychologist in Sexual Development at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch found that one of the most important factors in determining early menarche is the father: “There seems to be something special about the role of fathers in regulating daughters sexual development”.

A British study found that girls brought up by lone parents were twice as likely to leave home by the age of 18 as the daughters of intact homes; were three times as likely to be cohabiting by the age of 20; and almost three times as likely to have a birth out of wedlock.

Part Two is here: www.billmuehlenberg.com/2013/05/17/the-facts-on-fatherlessness-part-two/

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From nations as diverse as Finland and South Africa, a number of studies have reported that anywhere from 50 to 80 per cent of psychiatric patients come from broken homes.

A Canadian study of teenagers discharged from psychiatric hospitals found that only 16 per cent were living with both parents when they were admitted.

A study of nearly 14,000 Dutch adolescents between the ages of 12 to 19 found that, “In general, children from one parent and stepparent families reported lower self-esteem, more symptoms of anxiety and loneliness, more depressed mood and more suicidal thoughts than children from intact families.”

A massive longitudinal study undertaken in Sweden involving over one million children found that children from single parents showed increased risks of psychiatric disease, suicide or suicide attempt, injury and addiction. The authors, writing in The Lancet, concluded that growing up in “a single-parent family has disadvantages to the health of the child”. Bear in mind that Sweden is one of the most highly advanced welfare states on earth. Thus even with a comprehensive welfare net, children still suffer when not in two-parent families.

A US study of 2,733 adolescents found this: “The greater the fathers’ involvement was, the lower the level of adolescents’ behavioral problems, both in terms of aggression and antisocial behavior and negative feelings such as anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.”

Researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles have shown that fatherlessness is directly related to childhood obesity. Statistical analysis of the data established that “family structure was significantly associated with the obesity rate.” In each grade, children from single-mother families had higher rates of obesity than children from two-parent families.

A researcher from the University of South Australia’s School of Health Sciences found that children from single families do less well than those from married families because they are less active and do not have as much opportunity for physical activity.

A more recent Australian study showed that obesity among girls in single-parent households continues to be a major problem. Deakin University health researchers studied nearly 9000 children aged between four and nine and found higher rates of overweight and obesity in girls from single-parent families than those in two-parent families.

A recent study from Rhode Island found that while “the incidence of mental-health problems ran particularly high (33 percent) among children living with parents reporting high levels of parental stress… the complete story involves not just parental stress. It involves family structure as well: the rate for mental-health problems came in significantly higher among children living with a single mother (25.7 percent) or in a stepfamily (26.6 percent) than it did among children living with two biological or adoptive parents (13.3 percent; p<.001).”

 Social costs

In the UK the costs of family breakdown is astronomical: “The 2012 total cost of family breakdown to the UK was £44 billion (£43.94 billion), up from £42 billion last year. The annual cost per taxpayer is now £1,470.”

An even newer UK study said this: “Family breakdown is costing taxpayers almost £50 billion a year and the bill is rising fast, a new analysis said yesterday. The costs generated by family breakdown -  including subsidised housing, crime, health and social care and disrupted education – have gone up by nearly a quarter in just four years.”

Dr Bruce Robinson, University of Western Australia, and author of Fathering from the Fast Lane, has estimated the cost of fatherlessness in Australia to be over 13 billion dollars per year.

In Australia it has been estimated that marriage breakdown costs $2.5 billion annually. Each separation is estimated to cost society some $12,000.

Also, Australian industry is reported to lose production of more than $1 billion a year due to problems of family breakdown.

Homelessness is also closely linked with family breakdown.  A recent Australian study conducted at two Melbourne universities has found that children whose biological parents stay together are about three times less likely to become homeless than those from other family types.

Child abuse

A 1994 study of 52,000 children found that those who are most at risk of being abused are those who are not living with both parents.

A recent American review of the studies found that “fathers, especially married fathers who live with their children, play an important role in protecting their children from abuse and neglect”. It found that 15.5 children out of 1000 children were mistreated in married-parent families, whereas 27.3 children per 1000 were mistreated in single-parent families.

A Finnish study of nearly 4,000 ninth-grade girls found that “stepfather-daughter incest was about 15 times as common as father-daughter incest”.

A study examining 126 profiles of perpetrators of fatal assault in United States found that non-biological parents were 17 times more likely to commit a fatal assault toward a child than biological parents.

In Australia, former Human Rights Commissioner Mr Brian Burdekin has reported a 500 to 600 per cent increase in sexual abuse of girls in families where the adult male was not the natural father.

A recent study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that “a relatively high proportion of substantiations [of child abuse] involved children living in female-headed one-parent families and in two-parent step or blended families.”

And more recent Australian research continues to bear this out: “The data shows that that almost half of all proven cases of child abuse and neglect involved ‘broken’ families in 2010-11, even though (according to the ABS Family Characteristics Survey) only 26 per cent of all Australian children lived in sole-parent and step or blended families.”

Conclusion

The evidence of the harmful effects of father absence could fill many pages. The above is just a small sampling of a very large body of research findings on the issue. The social science research on the need for children to be raised by both a biological mother and father, preferably cemented by marriage, is vast and growing.

Indeed, the evidence is so overwhelming that the reader is advised to look at recent summaries of the data. However, several recent academic studies can be mentioned here, which demonstrate the importance of children growing up with their married biological mother and father.

One American study of 19,000 young people conducted by the Bowling Green State University (Ohio) found that teens fare best when living with two married biological parents: “Adolescents in married, two-biological-parent families generally fare better than children in any of the family types examined here, including single-mother, cohabiting stepfather, and married stepfather families. The advantage of marriage appears to exist primarily when the child is the biological offspring of both parents. Our findings are consistent with previous work, which demonstrates children in cohabiting stepparent families fare worse than children living with two married, biological parents.”

Another large-scale American study found that there are “overall disadvantages” in not living with both biological parents. The author concludes, “My analyses have clearly demonstrated some overall disadvantages of living with neither parent. Among adolescents from all six family types, those in non-biological-parent appear to rank the lowest in academic performance, educational aspiration, and locus of control. Further, they appear to fare less well in the remaining outcome areas (self-esteem, behavior problems, and cigarette smoking).”

Cornell University Professor Urie Bronfenbrenner, a leading expert in developmental psychology, summarises the evidence in this fashion:

Controlling for associated factors such as low income, children growing up in [single-parent] households are at greater risk for experiencing a variety of behavioral and educational problems, including extremes of hyperactivity or withdrawal; lack of attentiveness in the classroom; difficulty in deferring gratification; impaired academic achievement; school misbehavior; absenteeism; dropping out; involvement in socially alienated peer groups; and, especially, the so-called ‘teenage syndrome’ of behaviors that tend to hang together – smoking, drinking, early and frequent sexual experience, a cynical attitude to work, adolescent pregnancy, and in the more extreme cases, drugs, suicide, vandalism, violence, and criminal acts.

Similar comments can be made about the situation in Britain. After amassing a wealth of data on the negative effects of fatherless in the UK, Rebecca O’Neil makes this concluding remark:

The weight of evidence indicates that the traditional family based upon a married father and mother is still the best environment for raising children, and it forms the soundest basis for the wider society. For many mothers, fathers and children, the ‘fatherless family’ has meant poverty, emotional heartache, ill health, lost opportunities, and a lack of stability. The social fabric – once considered flexible enough to incorporate all types of lifestyles – has been stretched and strained. Although a good society should tolerate people’s rights to live as they wish, it must also hold adults responsible for the consequences of their actions. To do this, society must not shrink from evaluation of the results of these actions. As J.S. Mill argued, a good society must share the lessons learnt from its experience and hold up ideals to which all can aspire.

Wade Horn, the head of the National Fatherhood Initiative in the USA offers this concluding word: “The news is not good when large numbers of children are growing up disconnected from their fathers. It’s not that every child who grows up in a fatherless household is going to have these kinds of difficulties. But it is true that there’s an increased risk of these negative outcomes when kids grow up without fathers.”

With the rise of fatherlessness Australia and the Western world has also experienced a marked rise in social problems. And the brunt of these problems has been borne by children. We owe it to our children to do better. We urgently need to address the twin problems of fatherlessness and family breakdown. Public policy must begin to address these crucial areas. Until we tackle these problems, our children and our societies will continue to suffer.

Part One is here: www.billmuehlenberg.com/2013/05/17/the-facts-on-fatherlessness-part-one/

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One group at least seems to argue against any such consolation. I refer to the word of faith teachers, or the positive confessionists. They basically claim that all “negative” experiences, such as sickness, suffering or poverty, are of the devil, and have no place in the believer’s life.

Consider the comments of just one representative figure here, Charles Capps. In his book, Why Tragedy Happens to Christians, he says: “We have heard many sermons about how God led the children of Israel in the wilderness: and most of these sermons seem to convey that the ‘wilderness experience’ was to perfect them or make them stronger. But it did not make them stronger. It did not perfect their faith. It was not the will of God that they be in the wilderness all those years. Their ‘wilderness experience’ was not God’s blessing – it was a curse!”

There are a number of biblical passages on this episode, and they seem to give a rather different slant to the story. The relevant texts speak of God leading Israel through the desert (Ex. 13:17,18; Deut. 8:2; Ps. 136:16); of blessing them (Deut. 2:7; Ps. 78: 24-25); of caring for them (Hos. 13:5); of giving his spirit to instruct them (Neh. 9:20), and so on.

Indeed, as Dale Allison notes, “despite the tradition of disobedience and murmuring in the desert and the fact that there is no nomadic or desert ideal in the OT, the time in the wilderness was sometimes described in glowing terms (e.g., Is 63:11-14).”

All this does not sound like a curse to me. Sure, it is true that Israel did snub God’s good provision and blessing, and tested God, for which Yahweh grew angry (Deut. 9:7; Ps. 78:40-41; Heb. 3:8-10). But the point remains: God did indeed lead them into the wilderness.

Take for example Deuteronomy 8:2 which reads, “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.”

Here the concepts of God’s leading and the educational function of the wanderings are stressed. Eugene Merrill suggests that in the light of the verbs ‘humble’ and ‘test’, “it may be best to see the desert itinerary as a learning experience rather than a punishing one. . . . Thus this is discipline in the positive sense of education.”

Thus it is not all gloom and doom. Indeed, Raymond Brown puts a very positive spin on this period. God had “been good to them in the barren desert. They had learned lessons there which prosperity could never have taught them. Through those bleak wilderness years, he had been like a compassionate father who occasionally has to discipline his children for their own good. Some lessons can only be learnt in trouble.”

Now the thinking of Capps and others is not without some foundation in this regard. Passages like Numbers 14:32-34 speak of God’s judgment on Israel, stating that they would suffer and die for their sins in the wilderness. But this came after their disbelief of the spies’ report on Canaan (Numbers 13).

This period of 40 years judgment (38 years according to Deut. 2:14) began after over a year of wilderness wanderings. As Chris Wright perceptively remarks, “There is always more than one way of looking at history. . . . Like other events in biblical history (e.g., the story of Joseph, the rise of the monarchy, and ultimately, of course, the cross itself), the wilderness wandering is presented to us both as arising out of human sin and rebellion and as having a divine purpose.”

An important New Testament commentary on the Old Testament wilderness wanderings is the story of Jesus’ own wandering into the wilderness to experience temptations. Most careful scholars acknowledge that among other things, Jesus is here acting as the true Israel.

What Israel was called to do and failed, Jesus did successfully. As Schneider and Brown comment, “The temptations of Jesus recapitulate, in his individual life as the Son of God, the temptations of the nation of Israel in their corporate life as the son of God.”

David Hill remarks: “In his confrontation with Satan, Jesus triumphs over the temptations to which Israel succumbed in the desert, and takes upon himself the destiny of Israel to carry it to its fulfilment.” Or as N.T. Wright put it, “the story of God’s people is being encapsulated, recapitulated, in his own work”.

The interesting point is that we are clearly told that Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the wilderness, being “full of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1). No Satanic source here. God was fully behind it. Now if Jesus was indeed meant to be a kind of showcase of what the new or true Israel was meant to be, can we take the principles and extend them backwards?

That is, can we argue that Israel too was led by God into the wilderness, contrary to the claims of the faith teachers? It seems that the biblical texts already cited, plus the example of Christ, could result in an affirmative response. Thus the biblical imagery of the wilderness contains both positive and negative elements. It is not to be seen purely in terms of judgment or curses.

It is, as Ryken, Wilhoit, and Longman write, “an ambivalent image in the Bible. If it is a place of deprivation, danger, attack and punishment, it is also a place where God delivers his people, provides for them and reveals himself.” Thus there is a case to be made for God taking his people into ‘wilderness’ situations.

If we keep in mind that God is more concerned with our holiness than our happiness, then such periods of testings and hardship can in fact be welcomed and not shunned. As P. C. Craigie remarks, “The wilderness makes or breaks a man; it provides strength of will and character. The strength provided by the wilderness, however, was not the strength of self-sufficiency, but the strength that comes from a knowledge of the living God.”

So when you next find yourself in a ‘wilderness situation,’ allow God to do his work in your life. While all the why’s of the situation may not be apparent, the who’s are – God will be with you in the desert, just as he was with his son Jesus.

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Well then we have a place for you. The First Church of Sin believes we should welcome everyone and reject no one. We embrace all people and all lifestyles, so just come as you are and feel free to stay as you are. You won’t hear any negative sermons here.

If you are put off by all those intolerant words like sin, holiness, righteousness, repentance, judgment, and hell then you will just love our church – we never say those things here. All you will hear is how terrific you are. All you will hear is that you are just fine as you are, and no one should tell you any differently.

No questions asked. No conditions. No statement of beliefs. No moral policies. No membership rules. No church discipline. No excommunication. No Bibles in the pews. In fact, no pews. Just one big lovey-dovey place where we burn incense, chant eastern tunes, hug each other, and smile all the time.

Yes we are proudly the First Church of Sin. And we are so noted for our openness, our acceptance, and our tolerance, that a newspaper has just written up our story. The headline is this “Sinning faithful win church’s blessing”. The story begins this way:

“A Queenscliff church is standing up for equality with a special project designed to raise awareness of sinners’ rights…. [One member said], ‘Going to church I didn’t feel welcome because of people’s attitudes towards the sinners community, and I started self-harming because I didn’t want to live any more. I got the message that it wasn’t normal, that it wasn’t right, that I wasn’t right.’

“On leaving the church and then school at the start of Year 11, his mental health began to improve. A loving relationship has boosted his self-esteem even further. ‘I’m the happiest now I’ve ever been in my life,’ he said.”

Well there you go folks. If you are going to a church that claims you are sinful, and says you must stop sinful activity, then why waste your time there? Why let them drag you down? Why soak up all the negativity and intolerance? Come to our church. We sure won’t badger you about being a sinner.

We will welcome you with no questions asked. You can live just as you please. Then you too will experience how it is to “never be happier”. Yes, we are the church of acceptance and happiness. We just want you to be happy. That is all that matters. Why be burdened down with all this baloney about sin, repentance, the cross and other negative and unloving concepts.

Surely that can’t help your self-image. That won’t make you feel happy. So come to our place – we would love to have you. We are just one big happy church – just one big happy family. As one of our pastors has said, “We want to offer a sense of inclusion and openness to the community and to the wider church, because we know the church can have a reputation for not being that inclusive.”

So come one, come all. Leave all that guilt and shame behind. We won’t say a word about whatever lifestyle you prefer, or whatever activity you are involved in. Inclusion is the name of the game here. Tolerance, acceptance and inclusion – that is our statement of faith.

*****

OK, by now you might have gathered that this is a bit of a spoof. But sadly it is not at all far from the truth. Indeed, the stuff above in quotation marks is actually 100 per cent true. Simply change the word sin for homosexuality, and you have the actual story.

You can read all about it in the link below. Here we have another clear case of apostasy in our midst, and another prime example of wolves in sheep’s clothing. And it all sounds so good, doesn’t it? After all, who isn’t in favour of tolerance, acceptance and inclusion?

These are the new weasel words being used by the false shepherds to lead many into a lost eternity, and to keep them trapped in a deadly and dead-end lifestyle. Shame on them. They will stand before their Lord one day and face the music.

This denomination has been going down the tubes for decades now. It has long ago snubbed its nose at the Word of God and his authority. It is now simply a law unto itself. It just makes things up as it goes along.

Oh, and no prizes for guessing which denomination this is.

www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2013/05/14/364969_news.html

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I have dealt with this teaching elsewhere, eg: www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/09/29/problems-with-the-positive-confession-movement/

Here I want to focus more closely on the nature of God and the nature of prayer. It seems that the positive confession movement has a defective understanding of both. Indeed, it seems that for many evangelicals (not just the word of faith folks), prayer has become much more of a magic charm, a magic wand, or a type of amulet, instead of what it is intended to be – a means of communication and relationship with God.

Dennis Okholm warns about confusing prayer with magic: “Magic attempts to control or manipulate the divine will in order to induce it to grant one’s wishes, especially through the use of techniques such as charms, spells, rituals, or ceremonies. Christian prayer involves a struggle of wills in which the pray-er attempts to persuade God, all the time seeing prayer as a divinely given means whereby the pray-er can participate in God’s agenda.”

To argue that prayer should be understood in this sense is not to deny the element of petition and request. That is certainly there. But it seems to be a minor sub-point, not the main theme. W. Bingham Hunter in his 1986 book The God Who Hears develops this idea nicely:

“Most of us tend to view getting answers as the goal and prayer as the means to that end. But God views it differently. Given the perfection of his person, it is certain that God does not need us to talk to him because he’s lonely or insecure, nor does he depend on our advice or help in running the universe. Yet the commands in Scripture to pray suggest that he wants us to pray; he actually enjoys having us speak to him. Developing a relationship with us is God’s goal, and answers to prayer are a means he uses to foster self-disclosure, growth and understanding of both him and ourselves.”

Indeed, this idea of relationship is vital. It gets at the heart of the matter concerning the purpose of prayer. If prayer can simply be defined as talking to God, then prayer is, at its core, the means to relationship with God. We tend to see prayer in an instrumental sense – as a means to an end. But God desires prayer for the purpose of fellowship with himself – a love relationship. Augustine could go so far as saying that “true, whole prayer is nothing but love”. Many believers – and not just positive confessionists – miss this vital truth.

Jesus did not pray a lot to “get” things from his father. He prayed because of the love relationship found within the divine trinity. Michael Green and Paul Stevens put it this way: “Prayer for Jesus was not primarily a ‘discipline’ but the daily meat and drink of fellowship with the Father. Prayer is like fellowship. As in friendship, prayer is not for anything at all, even for ‘answers’. It is for the relationship. It is for communion. . . . Jesus reveals that what God wants from our prayers is not the substance but the relationship implied in our praying”.

A major problem with the idea of positive confession is that it treats God as some cosmic servant, waiting to do our every bidding. And prayer is simply the means by which we get the divine dispenser to dish out the goods. Such a view not only cheapens the concept of prayer, but turns our understanding of God into idolatry. As H. D. McDonald puts it, “that prayer is a sort of Aladdin’s lamp, which anyone can operate at will once he has learned the secret”.

Moreover, this view too highly stresses the role of the one who prays while minimising the role of the one who answers prayer. That is, all the emphasis is on having faith, being persistent in prayer, standing on the promises, and so on. It is as if whatever good comes to the believer is the result of his or her own efforts, instead of the goodness and grace of God. Again, prayer must be distinguished from magic.

In this regard David Crump has some incisive things to say about the nature of prayer. In his volume on Jesus and prayer in Luke-Acts, he notes that to speak to the efficacy of prayer is to misunderstand it. Prayer, he insists, is “a means by which individuals discover God’s will revealed to them so that they may become attuned to it and participate in its continuous unfolding”. Thus the issue does not lie in how much we pray or how fervently we pray or how often we pray:

“God enlists human prayer in the outworking of his plan, but the efficacy of prayer is not determined by anything which the pray-er brings, except agreement with the will of God. It would be difficult to find a more non-magical view of prayer than that presented in Luke-Acts. The distinctive feature of magical thought, wherein one seeks to control or compel divine forces to operate in a desired fashion through the careful use of specific techniques, is far removed from the attitudes expressed by Luke.”

The positive confession mindset also seems to render senseless the concept of unanswered prayer, and/or the silence of God. A theology that demands God’s instant response to our every hue and cry will certainly struggle with the idea that God might be silent, absent or distant. Yet this theme is found throughout Scripture, and has been the experience of many devout believers throughout the ages.

The moving words of C.S. Lewis, written soon after the death of his wife, are a classic example: “When you are happy … you will be – or so it feels – welcomed [by God] with opened arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.”

And consider just a few of the passages which address this theme:

-Psalm 10:1: Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
-Psalm 13:1-2: How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
-Psalm 22:1-2: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.
-Psalm 28:1: To you I call, O LORD my Rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit.
-Psalm 83:1: O God, do not keep silent; be not quiet, O God, be not still.
-Isaiah 45:15: Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel.
-Habakkuk 1:2: How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?

These and other passages make it clear that often God is silent, or at least appears to be. For reasons we may not understand, it is part of the walk of faith to experience this silence, this absence, this sense of God’s abandonment. As Winkey Pratney once put it: “Everyone who has set his heart on serving God will have this darkness come at some point”.

The question is not, ‘should I be experiencing this sense of forsakenness and darkness?’, but, ‘how will I respond to this temporary but painful chapter in my life?’ Or as Hunter remarks, “Truly victorious Christians are those who admit their humanness and who admit the emotional insult of God’s apparent silence when we suffer” (1986, 90).

Finally, we must acknowledge that a loving God will of necessity often say no to our prayers. It is a distorted picture of God, and a faulty understanding of Scripture, to assume that God should grant us our every request. No loving parent would do such foolishness. Neither does God.

Indeed, of necessity some of our prayers must go unanswered. As Lewis remarks, “anyone can see in general that this must be so. In our ignorance we ask what is not good for us or for others, or not even intrinsically possible. Or again, to grant one man’s prayer involves refusing another’s. There is much here which it is hard for our will to accept but nothing that is hard for our intellect to understand. The real problem is different; not why refusal is so frequent, but why the opposite result is so lavishly promised.”

The biblical accounts of the prayers of God’s people receiving a divine no are numerous and well known. One thinks of Job, David, Jesus and Paul, to name but a few. Thus we are in good company when a request is denied or a prayer not answered as we would like.

Leith Anderson devoted an entire volume to the dilemma of unanswered prayer. He provides many examples of the unanswered prayers of saints past and present and writes, “God doesn’t act the way we choose. He doesn’t always give the answer we want. No is a common word in the divine vocabulary with regard to prayer – even when answering the greatest of the saints”.

Thus we must have a fuller and a more biblical understanding of prayer than what we so often get from the positive confession camp. If not, we will see many more people shipwreck their faith.

[1690 words]

The jury has yet to decide if he should get the death penalty for these horrific murders. The really ironic thing is these clear cases of infanticide are something the president of the United States has long championed. So here we have a jury deliberating on whether this baby killer should be executed for the very thing Obama thinks is just fine.

The good thing about this trial is that it finally begins to lift the lid a bit on this sordid and evil money-making industry. Gosnell is a very rich man – all thanks to the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of babies he has personally executed.

Mega-abortion mills like Planned Parenthood, which receive millions of tax dollars by avid supporters like Obama, of course are doing the very same thing. They are slaughtering millions of babies, including born-alive babies. The only difference between Planned Parenthood and Gosnell is better marketing techniques.

This is business as usual for the baby killing machines. They should be on trial as well. But with Obama speaking at their conferences, telling them that ‘God blesses’ them, and lavishing them with millions of dollars of blood money, it is not likely this will happen any time soon.

But the Gosnell butchery is just standard procedure in the abortion industry. He just happened to get caught out. Plenty of other baby butchers are still doing their thing, and still getting rich off all the slaughter of the innocents. We know there are plenty of other Gosnells out there.

In fact, this is simply the tip of the iceberg. Lila Rose of Live Action has been doing undercover video-taping of other baby killing clinics, and we have on tape the abortionists proudly admitting to their gruesome baby-killing techniques, even when the baby is still alive after the procedure.

They have now done four such videos, and they are shocking in the extreme. Once again the MSM is ignoring this, while courageous media outlets like Foxnews have ran with them. You can see them here: www.liveaction.org/

In addition to these mind-numbing videos, there are a number of investigations under way about similar episodes. They make for horrific reading. But we must read them nonetheless. Let me just offer these two paragraphs for starters. Read them and weep:

“They saw her breathing and moving, curling up in the doctor’s hand. Showery seemed to have trouble figuring out how to kill the baby. According to witnesses, he dropped her into a bucket of water. The witnesses saw bubbles rising to the surface of the water as the baby began drowning. Despite what they were seeing, none of the clinic workers stepped forward to save the baby.

“Apparently, the child was not dying fast enough for Showery. He pulled her out and put her in a plastic bag. Witnesses testified that they saw the bag move with the infant’s breath. Shortly after that, another clinic employee put the plastic bag into a freezer where the other (successfully) aborted babies were stored.”

Did you just get that friends? Did you read that? Did it break your heart and cause you uncontrollable grief? If it did not, you better pray that God softens your heart – and fast. This is some of the most grizzly and demonic child abuse you will read about. It is deliberate infanticide by baby killers who get rich out of such activities. Let me offer it now in its larger context:

“Abortion provider Raymond Showery was accused and eventually convicted of killing a five-pound baby girl who survived an abortion at his clinic Southside Medical Center in El Paso in 1979. Showery aborted the baby by hysterotomy. This is a type of abortion where the abortionist cuts open the woman’s uterus in a kind of C-Section and removes the baby. It is a seldom-used abortion technique, almost unheard of today.

“Clinic workers later testified that the infant girl had light brown hair and was about a foot long. They saw her breathing and moving, curling up in the doctor’s hand. Showery seemed to have trouble figuring out how to kill the baby. According to witnesses, he dropped her into a bucket of water. The witnesses saw bubbles rising to the surface of the water as the baby began drowning. Despite what they were seeing, none of the clinic workers stepped forward to save the baby.

“Apparently, the child was not dying fast enough for Showery. He pulled her out and put her in a plastic bag. Witnesses testified that they saw the bag move with the infant’s breath. Shortly after that, another clinic employee put the plastic bag into a freezer where the other (successfully) aborted babies were stored.

“This story is especially difficult for me to write about, because I was born prematurely and weighed only a few more ounces than this baby girl. I was born in 1975, three years before the murder. I was transferred to a unit that specialized in caring for premature babies, and was given the best treatment available. I have been told that I was regarded by the nurses as one of the ‘good’ babies, a ‘big’ baby, because many of their patients were much smaller, weighing only a pound or two. Yet many times these babies survived as well. It is clear that had the baby girl in this story been given the chance, it is very likely she would have survived.

“It is not clear how the murder came to light, but Showery was charged with the baby’s murder. He was accused also of falsifying medical records and successfully hiding the body of the baby. Five clinic workers would testify against him. In the trial, it was revealed that he may have killed other babies that were born alive.”

And there are many more such stories out there. Gosnell is not alone. He is in good company – or bad company really. There are plenty of these baby butchers still freely doing their thing, making millions of dollars, and all with the complete support and approval of Barack Hussein Obama.

If there was only one reason to impeach Obama, and try him for crimes against humanity, this would be it. Of course there are many other diabolical crimes this man is guilty of – just think Fast and Furious. Think Benghazi. The list goes on and on.

But when baby killing like this reigns supreme in a land, and the leader of the nation fully supports it, then you know the end must be near. The life-giving God of the universe must act when bloodshed covers the land, and evil is celebrated and endorsed from high places.

www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/13/jury-split-on-2-counts-in-trial-abortion-doctor-kermit-gosnell/

www.lifesitenews.com/abortionist-killed-living-newborn-by-placing-it-in-freezer.html

[1157 words]

But let me immediately stop here and say this: I have had people tell me I can’t use the slippery slope argument, that it is not sound philosophically or logically. Let me reply in this fashion: at this point I am not at all interested in mere philosophy or theory – I am interested in reality. And the reality is this: the slippery slope is already occurring right before our very eyes.

Every day we see more examples of it occurring. So those who take umbrage at my use of the term can feel free to just think of something else when they see it – maybe such terms as:
-the domino effect
-the knock-on effect
-the open door effect
-the ripple effect

I am happy to use anyone of these terms if you prefer. But the slope is certainly here, and it is certainly slippery. So in terms of logical fallacies, we can agree that x may not of necessity always lead to y. But as I say, I am not interested in just theoretical mental exercises here, but what in fact is actually happening.

The ripple effect of homosexual marriage is now fully evident for anyone with eyes – and without ideological blinders – to see. There are four main areas we can clearly see the knock-on effect taking place here: polyamory (group love/marriage); paedophilia; bestiality; incest.

I have been documenting all four cases for years now. It seems each week we find more clear examples of the slippery slope in action in these areas. Let me again return to polyamory. As I have already documented in my recent book, Strained Relations, the push for group love and group marriage is now moving along in top gear.

There are countless groups which are now deadly serious in their calls for the complete recognition and legalisation of group marriage. And they are all riding on the coat-tails of the homosexual marriage activists. One recent example of this is so blatantly in your face, and sadly so honest about what is being promoted here, that it is worth dealing with at length.

A few weeks ago writer for the Slate makes an unashamed case for polygamy and polyamory. Jillian Keenan’s piece is entitled “Legalize Polygamy! No. I am not kidding” and begins as follows:

“Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?

“We can only hope. Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.”

She looks at a number of objections to polygamy and then ends her piece this way:

“Finally, prohibiting polygamy on ‘feminist’ grounds—that these marriages are inherently degrading to the women involved – is misguided. The case for polygamy is, in fact, a feminist one and shows women the respect we deserve. Here’s the thing: As women, we really can make our own choices. We just might choose things people don’t like. If a woman wants to marry a man, that’s great. If she wants to marry another woman, that’s great too. If she wants to marry a hipster, well—I suppose that’s the price of freedom. And if she wants to marry a man with three other wives, that’s her damn choice.

“We have a tendency to dismiss or marginalize people we don’t understand. We see women in polygamous marriages and assume they are victims. ‘They grew up in an unhealthy environment,’ we say. ‘They didn’t really choose polygamy; they were just born into it.’ Without question, that is sometimes true. But it’s also true of many (too many) monogamous marriages. Plenty of women, polygamous or otherwise, are born into unhealthy environments that they repeat later in life. There’s no difference.

“All marriages deserve access to the support and resources they need to build happy, healthy lives, regardless of how many partners are involved. Arguments about whether a woman’s consensual sexual and romantic choices are ‘healthy’ should have no bearing on the legal process. And while polygamy remains illegal, women who choose this lifestyle don’t have access to the protections and benefits that legal marriage provides.

“As a feminist, it’s easy and intuitive to support women who choose education, independence, and careers. It’s not as intuitive to support women who choose values and lifestyles that seem outdated or even sexist, but those women deserve our respect just as much as any others. It’s condescending, not supportive, to minimize them as mere ‘victims’ without considering the possibility that some of them have simply made a different choice.

“The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less ‘correct’ than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting adults. Though polygamists are a minority—a tiny minority, in fact—freedom has no value unless it extends to even the smallest and most marginalized groups among us. So let’s fight for marriage equality until it extends to every same-sex couple in the United States—and then let’s keep fighting. We’re not done yet.”

There we have it again: “the definition of marriage is plastic;” “marriage equality;” and “we’re not done yet”. And where have we heard all this before? Oh yeah, this is the very thing the homosexual activists have been saying for decades now. No wonder it so nicely flows off the tongue of other sexual anarchists. The groundwork has already been well and truly laid.

But the nice thing is here we have another case of the other side nicely spilling the beans. Forget what I have to say about this, or any others who might be dismissed as fear-mongers from the “religious right”. Indeed, there is no question that she has absolutely nothing to do with our side.

She is a card-carrying secular lefty whacko when it comes to all things sexual. Simply consult an earlier piece she had on Slate about “paraphilic disorders”. The very fact that many of you will need to run to your dictionaries for this one tells you this gal is a longstanding resident of moonbattery lane.

And she did not write about this as some disinterested outside observer. Nope, she is one of them, as she confesses in her opening paragraph: “The American Psychiatric Association has decided that people with kinky sexual interests (which—let’s just get this out of the way—includes me) don’t necessarily have mental disorders.”

Thus we can certainly rule out the claim that she is writing on behalf of the Vatican, the Republican Party, or the Moral Majority. She is writing as a paid up member of the radical left. So stop shooting the messenger already. I am merely passing on what she has said about homosexuality and the next obvious steps.

It’s all out of the horse’s mouth – I’ve just passed it along. And it sure sounds like a slippery slope to me.

www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/04/legalize_polygamy_marriage_equality_for_all.html www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/03/sexual_kinks_in_the_dsm_v_paraphilic_disorders_describe_unhappy_kinksters.html

[1298 words]

Sadly the history of how the West deals with expansionist tyrannical ideologies remains constant. We tend to not believe them when they say they want to kill us. Remember Khrushchev? “We will bury you.” Today the Islamists are saying the same thing, yet hardly anyone believes them.

During the communist menace, Lenin famously spoke of the “useful idiots” in the West who do their work and become their apologists. We have plenty of those today when it comes to Islam. But fortunately we have had those who sounded the alarm about the ideology of bloodshed and death communism was.

Solzhenitsyn of course produced his famous Gulag Archipelago, documenting the hellhole of life in the Soviet Union for dissenters, non-conformists and political prisoners. And there was Armando Valladares’ Against All Hope, the horrific account of his 22 years in Cuban prisons for standing up for freedom.

Fortunately we have the modern-day equivalent describing life under totalitarian Islam, and how Christians are being horribly persecuted by this political ideology. It should be a wakeup call to anyone under the illusion that Islam is a religion of peace, and that there are just a few bad eggs spoiling an otherwise nice religion.

Buy this from Amazon: Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians by Raymond Ibrahim Click Here

Of course the useful idiots said the same thing about communism. They had their heads in the sand and refused to believe that communism was an evil ideology that can only be sustained by violence and murder. Islam is no different: it is a religion of the sword. It spread by military conquest and it exists by terror and oppression.

While there is plenty of ugly persecution going on in the world, it is Islam which leads the way. Says Ibrahim, “The ratio of Muslims to Christians in any given country is the primary factor explaining which countries see the most and the least Christian persecution.”

And in this important book we find a blow by blow description of all the incessant and diabolical persecution of Christians taking place around the Islamic world. Although Christians have always felt the wrath of the followers of Islam, it seems that things have really hotted up in recent times.

Whether it is the Sudan, or Egypt, or Syria, or Nigeria, or Turkey, or Morocco, or Indonesia, the amount of suffering, persecution, torture and death is simply overwhelming. As such, this is not a pleasant book to read, but it is a most necessary book to read.

In 300 pages we find it all: the rapes, the beatings, the burnings, the bombings, the acid attacks, the honour killings, the lootings, the churches destroyed, the homes razed, the villages decimated, and countless lives lost. And what is so important about this book is the fact that most of this you will never hear about from the mainstream media in the West.

Not only do most media elites in the West share the same hatred of America, Israel and the West as do so many Muslims, but even if they did want to actually cover these stories, and report fairly, most of it is hidden from them. But Ibrahim, who is fluent in Arabic, is able to carefully and daily monitor the Arabic media to find out firsthand what is taking place.

He simply translates the stories from Arabic media outlets, and presents them on his website – and here – since most of the MSM refuses to cover this persecution. And of course Hollywood and academia are just as guilty of the deliberate whitewashing of Islam and its sustained assault on Christians and Christianity.

That is why you will hardly ever hear of imams calling for the death of Christians, the destruction of all churches, and the total take-over of the free West. These calls are being made all the time in Arabic, but our media is either unaware of them or chooses to ignore them.

So both the big picture (Islam’s openly declared war against the West and Christianity) and the smaller picture (stories of individual persecution and terror) are routinely missed by the MSM. But ignorance of Arabic is no excuse here. There are getting to be almost as many atrocities committed in the West by Muslims as in Muslim lands.

As Ibrahim remarks, this manifests itself “wherever significant numbers of Muslims live side by side with non-Muslims”. Thus he has plenty of horror stories from within the West as well. Consider the Muslim child-rape gang in the UK.

Islam views non-Muslim women and children as objects of sexual gratification, and so it should not be surprising that “pillars of their community” were recently found guilty of horrific child sex abuse. In Liverpool five victims (the youngest just thirteen) were plied with alcohol and drugs and “passed around” a group of men aged 24 to 59 for sex in apartments, taxis, and kebab shops.

But the bulk of this book deals with the mind-numbing violence and slaughter of believers in Muslim-majority countries. Sub-Saharan Africa is certainly a major site of jihad on churches, and Nigeria is especially a tragic place. In September 2011 for example, Muslims hacked to death thousands of Christians, including many children and pregnant women. A 79-year-old Christian woman had her throat slit in her home.

In April 2012 Muslim attackers set upon a church service, throwing explosives and opening fire as worshippers attempted to flee. In December of that year four more churches were torched and ten Christians murdered. Twenty houses were burned and other churches assaulted, all to the cries of “Allahu Akbar!”

I can recount such horror stories for hours on end here. But why should I, when it is all found in this book. You must get this book. You must read it. You must let it wake you to the tragic truth that there is a war going on, and your faith makes you the enemy of Islam.

Muslim activists have vowed to kill you and destroy your faith. It is simply not good enough to just sit by and pretend it is not happening. The truth is out there. It is clearly found in this vital book. And knowledge of this means you can no longer say, “I never knew”.

[1023 words]

In this brief booklet (a 40-page essay with 30 pages of Q&A) the president of Catholics for the Common Good lays out some helpful pointers in how to engage in the homosexual marriage debate. He shows us what the real nature of marriage is, why it is so important for children, and how it fundamentally differs from non-heterosexual relationships.

The most important aspect to this entire debate is to get a proper understanding of just what exactly marriage is. A faulty understanding of marriage will simply provide fodder to those who seek to deconstruct it for their radical purposes.

Marriage is not the mere public recognition of adults who are in a relationship for the sake of personal fulfilment. Any number of combinations could be called marriage if that were the only definition. Not only homosexual relationships, but two or more close sisters living together, or a threesome or foursome of committed, loving, adults, etc.

Buy this from Amazon: Getting the Marriage Conversation Right: A Guide for Effective Dialogue by William B. May Click Here

Marriage, properly understood, has always been about that which unites a man and a woman with each other and any children who may come from this union. Clearly all relationships are not equal. The social good of marriage is the uniting of a man and a woman and the protection of any children resulting from that union.

If marriage had nothing to do with children, then there would be no need for state and public recognition of marriage. But marriage is always about at least the possibility of children. And children have a fundamental right to know and be cared for by their own mother and father.

Marriage is that public institution which specifically unites children with their own parents. That is why talk of “same-sex marriage” is simply an oxymoron. It is not marriage and can never be marriage. It is simply a radical attempt to fully redefine the very nature and purpose of marriage.

Instead of talking about homosexual marriage, May says we should more wisely describe the issue as “redefining marriage to accommodate same-sex couples”. For that is exactly what is being attempted here. And he offers a number of other pointers in how to conduct the debate on this issue, such as avoiding religious language, and so on.

In the second part of the book a number of common objections and questions are raised which are handily answered by May. He continues to offer pointers as to how best to frame the discussion. For example, instead of saying “I oppose homosexual marriage” say instead: “I oppose redefining marriage to accommodate homosexual couples”.

As to the question of allowing two types of marriage to exist side by side, May replies that this would simply weaken and nullify the real institution of marriage, and governments would then enforce the public recognition and acceptance of the counterfeit.

As to the supposed “right” to homosexual marriage, May says, “Everyone is made for love, but not everyone is made for marriage”. While plenty of loving relationships exist, not all of them are about marriage, nor can be. Recall that marriage unites children with their own parents.

And he deals with the claim that we all have a right to a child: “No one has a right to another person. Does anyone have a right to you? Thinking that way treats a child as property instead of a gift – a person of equal value and dignity to the adult.”

He also rejects the suggestion that we allow civil unions or domestic partnerships. They simply create confusion about the real nature of marriage, and again falsely imply that any and all relationships deserve public and state recognition and approval.

As to infertile married couples, May replies: “Not all married men and women have children, but every child has a mom and a dad, and marriage is the only institution that unites them in a family. That is the primary interest of marriage.”

But, some argue, “Changing marriage will not impact you”. But it does of course. Anyone who disagrees with the new law changes will be regarded as discriminatory under the law and subject to prosecution of various types. And that is happening already wherever such changes have taken place. Everyone is put at jeopardy if they do not accept the redefinition taking place.

And those who argue that heterosexual marriage is already in bad shape are missing the point; making it worse by redefining it out of existence helps no one. Sure, heterosexual marriage needs to be reformed and restored, but this is not done by altering its very nature and design.

Other queries and objections are briefly looked at here. This short volume is a welcome addition to a number of books which have appeared of late making the case for marriage, and withstanding the attempt to redefine it into oblivion.

[795 words]

In fact, the homosexual activists have long called for the lowering of the age of consent – or abolishing it all together. Sadly they are not alone in all this. Just recently a leading legal eagle in the UK called for the age to be dropped to 13, to stop the ‘persecution of old men’! Yes, that is what she actually said. As a newspaper report says:

“A senior human rights barrister has sparked a storm of outrage after calling for the age of consent to be lowered to 13 in order to prevent the ‘persecution of old men’. Barbara Hewson made the controversial suggestion in an article for the online magazine ‘Spiked’. In the column, Hewson, who is a barrister at Hardwicke in London, stated that the move was necessary in the wake of the Savile scandal. She refers to Operation Yewtree as the ‘Savile Inquisition’ and describes its inquiry as reminiscent of Soviet-era Russia. She goes on to suggest some of the offences investigated were ‘low level misdemeanours’.”

Fortunately not everyone took kindly to the idea: “Peter Watt, Director of the NSPCC helpline said: ‘These outdated and simply ill-informed views would be shocking to hear from anyone but to hear them from a highly experienced barrister simply beggars belief. Stuart Hall has pleaded guilty to abusing children as young as 9 years-old, we think most people would agree that crimes of this nature are incredibly serious.

“Thankfully the law, and most people, are very clear on this matter. To minimise and trivialise the impact of these offences for victims in this way is all but denying that they have in fact suffered abuse at all. Any suggestion of lowering the age of consent could put more young people at risk from those who prey on vulnerable young people’.”

But worse yet, there are now many “experts” who are arguing that paedophilia is an innate predisposition and orientation, just like is claimed about homosexuality. A number of illustrations of this can be provided here. Take for example this ominous headline: “Some homosexual activist groups a ‘dream’ to pedophiles”. The piece begins as follows:

“Two psychologists testified before a parliamentary session on a bill related to sexual assault on children that pedophilia is a ‘sexual orientation’ just like homosexuality or heterosexuality. Lifesitenews reported on the testimony at a parliamentary session in Canada regarding a bill intended to increase mandatory minimum sentences on child sex offenders for particular crimes.

“Dr. Vernon Quinsey and Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem were testifying on how offenders responded to treatment. Van Gijseghem, psychologist and retired professor of the University of Montreal, said, ‘Pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offense from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality.’ He went on to say, ‘True pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation. He may, however, remain abstinent’.”

We find here the same line used for homosexuals: this is an orientation from which no change is possible. And just as groups like the American Psychiatric Association (APA) were hounded by the militants to change their stance on homosexuality, so too the paedophile activists are trying to do the same thing.

Consider the words of Matt Barber who attended a pro-paedophilia conference in Baltimore in August 2011. In an article by Jeremy Kryn we get to hear from Barber and what he experienced: “As a former law enforcement officer I’ve dealt with situations involving suicide, homicide and other violence. That said, I’ve never felt the level of spiritual oppression and evil that I felt in that room.”

He continues, “These mental health ‘professionals,’ and self-described pedophile and ‘gay’ activists were inexplicably able to cavalierly discuss, in an almost dismissive way, the idea of child rape. They used flowery, euphemistic psychobabble to give quasi-scientific cover to a discussion about the worst kind of perversion.” Kryn describes the conference:

“The organization B4U-ACT sponsored the event in Baltimore last week, which was attended by pro-pedophile activists and mental health professionals. The conference examined the ways in which ‘minor-attracted persons’ could be involved in a revision of the American Psychological Association (APA) classification of pedophilia. Conference panelists included Fred Berlin of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Renee Sorentino of Harvard Medical School, John Sadler of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and John Breslow of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

“Speakers addressed the around 50 individuals in attendance on themes ranging from the notion that pedophiles are ‘unfairly stigmatized and demonized’ by society to the idea that ‘children are not inherently unable to consent’ to sex with an adult. Also discussed were arguments that an adult’s desire to have sex with children is ‘normative’ and that the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) ignores the fact that pedophiles ‘have feelings of love and romance for children’ in the same way adult heterosexuals and homosexuals have romantic feelings for one another.”

Another alarming piece entitled “Many researchers taking a different view of pedophilia” in the Los Angeles Times also notes how so many of our sexperts are arguing that paedophilia is an unchangeable condition. It begins with a “case study” of a man who claims his desires for children are intrinsic to who he is. It then says this:

“In the laboratory, researchers are coming to the same conclusion. Like many forms of sexual deviance, pedophilia once was thought to stem from psychological influences early in life. Now, many experts view it as a sexual orientation as immutable as heterosexuality or homosexuality. It is a deep-rooted predisposition — limited almost entirely to men — that becomes clear during puberty and does not change. The best estimates are that between 1% and 5% of men are pedophiles, meaning that they have a dominant attraction to prepubescent children.”

Once again we see this as a mere “sexual orientation” which we are meant to simply accept. And the real worry here is this: in numerous places laws are being enacted which makes it a criminal offence to “discriminate” against anyone based on their “sexual orientation”. So the obvious concern here is this: if paedophilia is just another sexual orientation, must we now accept, embrace and promote it like we now must do with homosexuality?

And this is no hollow concern. Consider a pro-homosexual bill in California which is based on this very way of thinking. This is what one report says about the proposed law:

“California Congresswoman, Rep. Jackie Speier CA (D), wants to federalize a state law to prohibit counseling to change a person’s sexual orientation. Under the bill’s language, a mental health counselor could be sanctioned if there was an attempt to get a gay individual to change his or her behavior or speak negatively about their behavior as it relates to sexuality. The bill calls on states to prohibit efforts to change a minor’s sexual orientation, even if the minor requests it, saying that doing so is ‘dangerous and harmful.’ The text of the legislation doesn’t specifically ban ‘gay’ conversion therapy. Instead, it prohibits attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation.”

Said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, “This language is so broad and vague, it arguably could include all forms of sexual orientation, including pedophilia. It’s not just the orientation that is protected—the conduct associated with the orientation is protected as well.”

But thanks to the homosexual activists, we now are having a very hard time saying no to any of this. Indeed, we know things will not stop there. Soon every conceivable “sexual orientation” imaginable will be argued for and publically championed – and eventually legalised. You see, there is still so much “sexual inequality and injustice” which needs to be dealt with.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/stop-persecution-of-old-men-by-lowering-age-of-consent-to-13-says-top-human-rights-barrister-8608794.html

www.greeleygazette.com/press/?p=8934

www.lifesitenews.com/news/evil-attendees-at-prominent-pro-pedophilia-conference-horrified-by-sessions?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b2ebd041ea-LifeSiteNews_com_Intl_Headlines08_23_2011&utm_medium=email

articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/14/local/la-me-pedophiles-20130115

www.rethinksociety.com/government/pedophilia-is-a-sexual-orientation-under-ca-bill/

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