Archive for month: July, 2013

Preacher and author John Piper responded to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of black teen Trayvon Martin in Florida, saying the court’s verdict will not save Zimmerman from his real guilt of sin for his actions.

“Christians, who have a high view of the Bible and high view of God’s justice, and that Jesus Christ is going to be the judge of all people someday have a very important message because justice will be done,” Piper said in an interview posted on DesiringGod.org.

“Either the sins of George Zimmerman will be on Jesus on the cross because George Zimmerman has humbled himself, repented of his sin, trusted in Jesus, and made Him his Lord and Savior by faith, or he will suffer in hell, forever, for all of his sins, including these – that’s the choice in front of all of us,” added Piper, who retired earlier this year from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn.

Last week, a jury of six women acquitted neighborhood watch volunteer Zimmerman of second-degree murder and manslaughter. In February 2012, Zimmerman, whose parents are white and Hispanic, shot 17-year-old Martin. Many believed the killing was racially motivated, but Zimmerman said the shooting was in self-defense.

Piper was interviewed about a question and answer session at the Campus Outreach Global Staff Conference in Orlando, where a group of African American ministry leaders asked him why he chose not to respond to the issue.

The theologian said he didn’t respond earlier “because I didn’t know what to say… I was perplexed.”

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He went on to say that America had historically seen “disproportionate finding of guilt for blacks and less guilt for whites.”

However, Piper added that Christians needed to ask the deeper question that asks, “Where is all of this coming from in our world? Where is it all going to lead?” He added God wants to go down to the place where all of our sins, whether it is racism or pride, start, and to sever the root with faith in the finished work of Christ.

In March, Piper wrote on his blog, “Zimmerman is a hundred pounds bigger and ten years older. He had the gun, not Martin. Reportedly he has been arrested before on assault charges. As he was following Martin in his truck, he called 911 and was told ‘we don’t need you to do that.’ The police were on the way. But Zimmerman followed him anyway. His comments on the 911 recording (I listened to them) suggested possible racial frustration that ‘they always get away.’ Martin’s call to his girlfriend suggested he was troubled by being followed. Not all the witnesses corroborate Zimmerman’s story.”

In the article, Piper said race plays a huge role in our society even today, noting that it is also an issue central to biblical salvation. In the New Testament there were incidents “constantly revolving around ethnic realities,” he said.

During a question and answer session at a North Carolina ministry conference in March, Piper said the church needed to continually discuss issues related to racism. “Stay at the table when the conversation is happening, which means for the rest of your life,” he said. “The most sad development is to watch people make an attempt in racial harmony, get hurt, and walk away.”

And last March, Piper, along with Pastor Tim Keller and Dr. Anthony Bradley, participated in a discussion on race and the Gospel in New York City. In his talk, Piper characterized racism as a “history-long, global problem” that could only be explained by the biblical narrative of sin and the Fall.

The sin of pride, Piper said, causes humans to find satisfaction in themselves rather than in God, providing the basis for racism. “That is because humans are in rebellion against God. That’s where that comes from. Exalting ourselves over our maker and of course, if over our maker, over each other. That’s a given,” he said.

In November 2011, Piper said he was once “racist to the core” and a born-again Christian at the same time. But thankfully, he added, “God had mercy on this teenage racist who little by little was awakened to something beautiful – namely racial diversity – and to something horrible – namely my own sin – and to repentance as an ongoing way of life.”

Governor Rick Perry of Texas will sign the ban on late-term abortions tomorrow morning in a bill signing ceremony, after weeks of debate in the state legislature and passage of the bill despite an unruly pro-abortion mob.

After a day filled with pro-abortion threats, pro-life people hiding in secure areas of the capitol fearing for their safety and protestors disrupting the Senate proceedings, democracy finally prevailed. Members of the state Senate approved the bill to ban late-term abortions on a 19-11 margin on second reading. The chamber then approved the bill in third reading by the same 19-11 vote.

The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks and hold abortion clinics accountable by making them meet basic health and safety standards that have closed facilities in other states that are unable to comply. The bill also requires all abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety regulations as an ambulatory surgical center, requires a doctor providing abortions to secure admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and lastly, requires a doctor to personally administer the abortion-inducing drugs to the patient.

After the House voted, Perry issued a statement saying: “The tremendous outpouring of support for this legislation has demonstrated how Texas stands for life, and I commend everyone who wore blue, turned out and spoke up in support of life in our state. Now is not the time to waver, however, as the Senate continues its important work in support of women’s health and protecting the lives of our most vulnerable Texans.”

Perry issued a call for a special session of the Texas legislature to pass the bill that a pro-abortion mob prevented the legislature from passing last week.“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas. Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state,” Perry said.

“Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do.”

The last attempt to pass the bill was halted in the state Senate with a pro-abortion filibuster but state Sen. Wendy Davis said she would not filibuster the bill a second time.

A recent national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law. Polling from Texas also shows support for the legislation.

Even a Huffington Post poll found a majority of Americans support banning late abortions — on a 2-1 margin.

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy.

The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it. He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote. “Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.

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With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center has provided further research to substantiate their work.

“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified.

She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”

This week, a pro-abortion activist had to be removed from a hearing and another read a disgusting poem to legislators equating her vagina to a gun.

The protesters at the Texas capitol have exploited children by making them hold signs supporting their protest against a ban on late-term abortions. Today the Internet is abuzz with shock and disgust over another sign, along with a video showing abortion activists chanting Hail Satan.

Meanwhile, a little girl is shown in a picture along with pro-abortion protestors holding a sign saying, “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d f— a senator.”

How much money can a state Senator from Texas make for her campaign account by filibustering against a bill to ban late-term abortions?

“Texas state Senator Wendy Davis has reaped nearly $1 million in political donations since she staged a nearly 11-hour filibuster that ultimately failed to stop the Texas legislature approving stringent new restrictions on abortion in the state, her office said on Monday,” according to Reuters.

From the report:

Davis, 50, who is running for re-election to the state Senate in 2014 and has been called upon by some fellow Democrats to run for Texas governor, raised $933,000 in two weeks and now has more than $1 million in her campaign coffers, her campaign said.

Texas campaign finance reports, due by midnight Monday for fundraising in the first six months of the year, show that Davis has a large following in Texas as well as outside the state. She received donations from 15,290 contributors, her campaign said.

The report shows Davis raised $580,000 from Texas contributors and the balance of $353,000 from out-of-state donors. The majority of the funds were raised in the period after she staged the filibuster.

In a new column at National Review, pro-life writer Rich Lowry says Davis is the perfect example of an abortion extremist.

Wendy Davis is the country’s most prominent defender of late-term abortions. What Rosa Parks was to desegregation, what Eunice Kennedy Shriver was to respect for the disabled, what Elizabeth Cady Stanton was to women’s suffrage, the Texas state senator is to abortion after 20 weeks of fetal development.

Texas just passed a law banning abortion after that point, a measure supported by the public and by common sense, but not by the stalwart Davis. For her trouble, she has been accorded fawning media coverage and showered with $1 million in donations, showing that abortion radicalism sells in America — so long as it is pro-abortion radicalism.

A ban after 20 weeks, near the end of the second trimester, represents a minor restriction on abortion by any reasonable standard. Many European countries, which we tend to consider laxer on such matters, ban abortion well before 20 weeks. It’s not just that Wendy Davis is out of step in Texas; she would be out of step in Belgium and France, where abortion is banned after 12 weeks.

Davis likes to say that fewer than 1 percent of abortions in Texas take place the 20th week or later, without realizing how that damns her own case. By her own admission, she is not willing to give up even 1 percent of abortions. Nationally, opponents of the 20-week prohibition cite the same 1 percent statistic. Even if it is accurate — and no one can know for sure — that means 8,000 abortions a year after 20 weeks.

If the balance of the Democratic party weren’t invested in protecting abortion as a kind of secular sacrament — “sacred ground,” as Nancy Pelosi calls it — it would recoil from Wendy Davis in embarrassment. Instead, it lionizes her. And why not? She exemplifies its moral and political bankruptcy on this issue.

The day after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the February 2012 fatal shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., President Barack Obama on Sunday urged “calm reflection” and efforts to curb gun violence.

“I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher,” Obama said in a statement on Sunday.

On Saturday night, a jury of six women acquitted neighborhood watch volunteer Zimmerman of second-degree murder and manslaughter. In February 2012, Zimmerman, whose parents are white and Hispanic, shot 17-year-old Martin. Many believed the killing was racially motivated, but Zimmerman said the shooting was in self-defense.

After the shooting, Obama said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin.”

“The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America,” Obama said Sunday. “But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son.”

The president went on to say that the nation should think “if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities.”

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“We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to honor Trayvon Martin,” Obama said.

However, some Republicans blamed Obama for politicizing the case.

“The evidence didn’t support prosecution, and the Justice Department engaged in this, the president engaged in this and turned it into a political issue that should have been handled exclusively with law-and-order,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said on “Fox News Sunday.”

In the same show, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the case was an “American tragedy.” “No matter where you stand, this was a tragedy,” he said. “What we need to do is come together as a nation of laws, of courts and of civil rights.”

The Justice Department also issued a statement on the verdict, saying its Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, and the FBI continue to evaluate the evidence generated during the federal investigation, as well as the evidence and testimony from the state trial.

“Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction, and whether federal prosecution is appropriate in accordance with the Department’s policy governing successive federal prosecution following a state trial,” the statement said.

Many churches and Christians responded to Martin’s death last year by going to church wearing hooded sweatshirts, showing solidarity with Martin, who wore one when he was killed.

On Sunday, a group of churches from Florida’s Seminole County called Sanford Pastors Connecting announced noon prayers on Monday in response to the verdict, according to USA Today.

“Our call is to pray for our community for the long-term unity, peace and strength of relationships,” the Rev. Charlie Holt of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Lake Mary, Fla., was quoted as saying. “Our churches welcome any and all to come and offer prayer to the Lord for ourselves, for all involved and for our community.”

As Texas moves a bill forward that would ban late-term abortions and could put some abortion facilities out of business that can’t follow basic health and safety laws, abortion activists are lamenting how states are passing so many pro-life laws.

A pro-abortion group that is a former Planned Parenthood affiliate and still receives funding for the abortion business, says the number of laws approved this year by state legislatures is ahead of 2012 and could break the record number of pro-life laws set in 2011.

From the Washington Times:

In a report released Monday, the Guttmacher Institute said that states’ efforts to restrict abortion — including clinic regulations — were on pace to exceed those enacted in 2012. The institute also reported that there were nearly 3,000 U.S. abortion providers in the early 1990s and fewer than 1,800 providers since 2008.

Abortion rights supporters say regulations, many passed in states where Republicans dominate the legislatures, are not-too-subtle efforts to drive clinics out of business and deny women their rights to abortion, even while allowing abortion to remain nominally legal on the books. Techniques include raising treatment standards clinics must meet, blocking relationships with public hospitals and banning online technology that enables abortion doctors to treat patients in remote locations.

“Extremist politicians” made “a blatant attempt to shutter the Red River Women’s Clinic, the sole abortion provider in North Dakota, with a law that would require the clinic’s doctors to unnecessarily have admitting privileges at a local hospital,” said the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is planning to block the law in state court this summer. Pro-choice activists call these measures targeted restriction of abortion providers (TRAP) laws.

Pro-life groups counter that in the wake of the May murder conviction of abortionist Kermit Gosnell — his inner-city Philadelphia “house of horrors” clinic operated for years under lax state rules and oversight — it is imperative that state officials step up their oversight of the abortion industry and leading practitioners such as Planned Parenthood.
“The taxpayer-funded abortion Goliath, Planned Parenthood, is trying to take over with its extreme agenda that is out of touch with Texas — and American — values. We are in Austin to tell them the eyes of Texas, and America, are upon you. You won’t get away with subverting the democratic process to protect Gosnells in Texas — or anywhere,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said Monday.

Every U.S. state still has at least one abortion provider, according to the Guttmacher Institute, but in 87 percent of U.S. counties, there are no doctors, hospitals or clinics that offer abortion services. Lone clinics in Mississippi and North Dakota are fighting to survive TRAP laws, pro-choice advocates say.

The Guttmacher Institute reports that 83 pro-life laws were passed in 2011, than double the previous record of 34, enacted in 2005, and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010.