United Methodist Church lifts 40-year ban on LGBTQ clergy

The church was going the wrong way before. Now it still it’s still going that way. It leaders and others in that church need to truly repent. If not it for sure will face the judgment of the Lord.

California Colleges wants to kill future students

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What is with California and their colleges? For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet with The Point.

The drama of the California legislature and its colleges and universities continues. After threatening the existence of Christian colleges two years ago, California lawmakers are now debating a bill to require community colleges and state universities to provide free abortion pills upon request to women up to ten weeks pregnant. This would, according to the bill’s sponsor, remove the so-called “burden” of having to secure transport to an abortion clinic for so-called “health care.”

The bill, which would take effect in 2020, would also require campuses who fail to offer the abortion pill to provide a free transportation program to abortion clinics for students who request it.

This “service” would be added to a host of other required “services,” like free contraception and STD testing, and would in fact just about complete the state’s commitment to one of the core ideals of the sexual revolution, the divorce between sex and procreation… an ideal now not only taught in California classrooms but fully integrated on their campus.

 

Resources

California Democrat Wants to Mandate State Colleges Have Abortion Pills Ready for Students

• Grace Carr | The Daily Signal | December 29, 2017

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BreakPoint: The True Beauty of Women “I Will Do It for You, Baby

 

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by: Eric Metaxas &  Anne Morse 
Category: , Christian Worldview

December 26, 2017

Audio Player

 

 

 

02:26

 

03:55

You won’t believe what one lingerie company is doing to show what makes a woman truly beautiful. I’ve got a great story for you. Get a hankie.

When it comes to lingerie companies, we’ve gotten used to some pretty graphic ads. You know the kind I mean: ones that feature impossibly perfect, airbrushed models wearing frilly and revealing underwear.

But the other day I came across the most amazing lingerie ad I’ve ever seen. No, I was not reading a Victoria’s Secret catalog. I was watching an online ad created by the Thailand branch of Wacoal, a Japan-based lingerie company. It was part of a three-part series called “Beauty Inside.” And it magnificently depicts the true value of women.

The first ad opens with a married couple sitting nervously in their doctor’s office, holding hands. “After trying so hard for many years, she finally got pregnant,” the husband says. But today they’re getting some bad news.

“I know it’s hard,” the doctor says sympathetically. “But please make a decision as soon as possible.”

The couple, clearly stunned, drive home, hold one another, and cry.

“On that day at the hospital,” the husband relates, “the doctor told us that she’s got cancer. She has only two choices. First, she might be cured if she took chemotherapy. But that may cause our child a disability. Or we might lose our baby. The alternative is to keep our child. But she might have to fight the cancer alone, without any remedy.”

The woman cries as her husband holds her. The next morning, she gets up and walks to the living room, where the baby’s crib is still sitting on its box. She runs her fingers along the crib and makes a decision: “I will do it for you, baby.”

The mother begins putting the crib together and plays with a stuffed animal, anticipating her child’s birth. Now she is back in the hospital, in labor. When her doctor holds up her healthy baby, she cries with joy. After cuddling and kissing her child, the mother hands him to her husband. She smiles at her little family as a nurse takes her down the hall and into the chemotherapy room.

These ads—which are both profoundly pro-women and pro-life—have become a global phenomenon. Millions of people have watched them online. Clearly they’ve hit a nerve—and I think I know why.

First, most lingerie ads focus on women’s bodies, suggesting that a woman’s appearance is the most important thing about her. But these ads challenge young women to value themselves in other ways: To celebrate strength and sacrifice, courage and compassion.

They’re teaching women something else, as well: that a worthwhile man will value them, not based on outer beauty, which is fleeting, but on inner beauty, which is based on character. And when life throws them a curve ball—such as cancer during a pregnancy—a strong man will help his wife through it.

Finally, I believe modern young women may be getting tired of being encouraged to take the easy way out when they run into a problem—such as a problem pregnancy. Women are, I think, moved by the idea that self-sacrifice is noble, and can be the source of great joy.

It’s hard to watch this ad without crying, especially when you find out it was based on a true story. Whether it meant to or not, the Wacoal company gives us a perfect illustration of 1 Corinthians 13:7: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

I hope you’ll watch these ads, and share them with your friends, sisters, and daughters. Their positive messages will help cancel out the hundreds of negative ones that bombard young women every day.

And you just might consider buying the woman in your life some lingerie, not from Victoria’s Secret, but from the company that teaches that the value of women is in the nobility of their character.

 

(This commentary originally aired March 2, 2017.)

 

The Beauty of Women: I Will Do It for You, Baby

As Eric highlights, the true value of a woman is not found in appearance but in integrity of character. To see this demonstrated in the arts, watch the Wacoal “My Beautiful Woman” ad series. We’ve included the links below.

 

Find a BreakPoint radio station in your area–Click here.

Resources

My Beautiful Woman Campaign – Part 1, Youtube video

My Beautiful Woman Campaign – Part 2, Youtube video

My Beautiful Woman Campaign – Part 3, Youtube video

 

 

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Nebraska 4th grader saves the life of another student

Read the story.

 

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Rachel Scott

Listen to a commentary on why we should never forget her.

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Is Average Good Enough?

Listen to what Dr. James Dobson thinks. 

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Christmas film favorites

 

Nov. 27-Dec. 1 Christmas Film Favorites by Todd Kappelman, read by Dr. Ray Bohlin
Nov. 27	A Christmas Carol	Listen Online
Nov. 28	Miracle on 34th Street	Listen Online
Nov. 29	How the Grinch Stole Christmas	Listen Online
Nov. 30	It’s a Wonderful Life	Listen Online
Dec. 1	A Charlie Brown Christmas	Listen Online
Right-click to download the whole week as a single mp3 Podcast

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The Point: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

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Charlie Brown didn’t get much right, but Charles Schulz did. For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet with The Point.

We’ve all seen “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” in which Charlie Brown messes up the Christmas play and Linus reminds everyone what Christmas is all about.

Another of my favorites is “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” Poor Chuck’s friends show up expecting a feast, but he and Snoopy serve them jelly beans and popcorn.

Thankfully, Linus is there again to tell the true story of Thanksgiving.

But it’s Marcie who reminds Charlie Brown that the Pilgrims at Plymouth didn’t come to dinner expecting to receive something. They were there to commemorate what they’d already received—life, provision, and friendship with the Wampanoags.

We’re better off today than they were, yet many of us will sit around the Thanksgiving table grumbling and fighting about politics. If Linus and Marcie were thankful for Charlie Brown’s leftover Halloween candy, can’t we take one day to thank God for our blessings?

Hopefully you won’t have jelly beans and popcorn for dinner, but I do hope you enjoy some Peanuts this Thanksgiving.

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A family dog…and what he taught about “adoption”

The commentary is here.

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The Point: What Constitution?

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It’s time for a civics refresh. For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet with The Point.

A new study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center finds that Americans are woefully misinformed about basic constitutional provisions. More than half believe that illegal immigrants have absolutely no rights under the Constitution.

Three-quarters of Americans can’t name all three branches of government. And perhaps worst of all, over a third can’t name any of the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment, including freedom of speech, press, or religion.

This doesn’t bode well for public education, which began as a means of producing well-informed citizens. But Christians should be the first to insist on good civic education, because we stand to lose so much freedom.

In his book, “A Free People’s Suicide,” Os Guinness shows how modern views of freedom are incompatible with the views of the American founders, and argues that “the ultimate threat to the American republic will be Americans.”

He also sketches a plan for good civic education—a plan to implement if our Republic is to last.

 

 

Resources

A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future

• Os Guinness | IVP Books | July 2012

Americans Are Poorly Informed About Basic Constitutional Provisions

• Annenberg Public Policy Center | University of Pennsylvania | September 12, 2017

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