Dr. Michael Brown

It wasn’t that long ago that both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates sounded proud to be Americans. That, broadly speaking, both parties sounded patriotic, deeply appreciative of our heritage. That is certainly not the case this past July 4th.

One party is proud of America, the other ashamed. One party recognizes the serious errors of our past but sees a greatness beyond that. The other party sees us as defined by our errors and failings.

Just after July 4th, I tweeted, “Do you remember the day (not that long ago) when both the Democrats and Republicans sounded patriotic?”

Do you remember the day (not that long ago) when both the Democrats and Republicans sounded patriotic?

— Dr. Michael L. Brown (@DrMichaelLBrown) July 6, 2019

In response, Raymond E. Grim commented, “This July 4th I really saw the separation between the Republicans and Democrats on love of our country. The Republicans talked about the greatness of our country. The Democrats complained about President Trump and patriotism.”

And my colleague at Stream.org, John Zmirak, wrote, “Yep. The VENEER of patriotism was kept up under Obama, but only to allow him to ‘fundamentally transform’ the country. (Remember Michelle wasn’t proud of America till HE GOT ELECTED.)”

It is not surprising that it was a Republican, Senator Ted Cruz, who exposed Colin Kaepernick’s selective quotations from Frederick Douglass, which Kaepernick posted on July 4th.

The former NFL quarterback wanted Americans to remember the perspective of Douglass, who famously said, “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? July 4th is yours, not mine” And, “There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.”

Sen. Cruz pointed out that this speech was delivered in 1852, more than a decade before the Civil War. That makes a big difference.

Cruz then cited some of the closing words of this important speech, which included: “Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably, work the downfall of slavery. ‘The arm of the Lord is not shortened,’ and the doom of slavery is certain.”

And, “I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from ‘the Declaration of Independence,’ the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.”

It is this note of hope, of national pride, of confidence in the solid foundations of our country, that is so lacking in today’s Democratic party which believes:

• The Founding Fathers were bad men. (I can virtually guarantee you that the voting districts and educational institutions most upset with the Founders tilt heavily Democrat.)
• Capitalism is evil. (Oh, if only we were a socialist country!)
• Whiteness is shameful, especially when it is male whiteness. (And our country was founded by white men and is run by white men until this day.)
• Yes, we have a lot of apologizing to do. In fact, we need to apologize simply for being ourselves. It’s embarrassing to be an American.
• Illegal aliens are heroes, and we are morally obligated to support them and provide their health insurance. In contrast, secure borders are selfish and a strong military is hateful.

And on and on it goes, coming to a head on this July 4^th.

As John Nolte wrote, that rather than joining President Trump in celebrating America on July 4h, they the Deomocrats raged against the idea of celebrating the birth of the nation. “The mall was packed with Americans who weathered a literal storm to celebrate the country they love, everything went off without a hitch — from the flyovers to the fireworks — and Trump gave one of the best speeches of his presidency, a speech that had nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with the greatness of our nation.”

pic.twitter.com/ldrobJIbrN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2019

No one who moves to the USA goes back home

Interestingly, while taking a taxi from Manhattan to LaGuardia airport this past Tuesday, my driver, who came to the States from Pakistan in 1992, said to me, “No one who moves to America from another country goes back home.”

Obviously, this was not meant to be a scientifically accurate statement, but the overall sentiment is undeniably true. America is the land of opportunity, incredibly so. America is the “can do” country, where anything seems possible. America is the desired destination of countless millions who would love to make our country their home. America is the land of freedom. (When I asked on the radio this week, “What are some of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of our country?”, one of my staff members replied, “The fact that we can have this conversation openly is one of our greatest strengths.”)

Without a doubt, from a prophetic perspective, America has many serious needs and is guilty of many sins. Having written books referring to our sickly condition, I would be the last to dispute this assessment.

And it is part of the duty of Gospel ministers to call us to repentance and change. Count me in for that, on virtually a daily basis.

But America is also an amazing country, a country with wonderful roots. And one would expect our political leaders to celebrate our heritage rather than denigrate it.

Even political pragmatism would suggest that you would have a better chance of rallying voters by cultivating a healthy sense of national pride rather than a crippling sense of national shame.

So, by all means, let’s recognize our ongoing problems and let’s address our very real shortcomings. But let’s do so realizing that we really are privileged to live here in America, which was and is intended to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” May our political leaders take heed.

The views expressed in this post are the writer’s personal opinion. GOD TV as an organisation and a registered US charity does not endorse any particular political party.

Despite our many national failings, it cannot be denied that our nation has deep Christian roots. And it is because of, not despite, these Godly, Christian origins that America has become a great nation and that our daring national experiment has succeeded as wildly as it has.

After all, in the beginning, we were just a bunch of struggling, fragmented colonies, and it seemed like the height of folly to take on the might of the British homeland. How then did we become the greatest global super-power in world history?

It is our biblically-based foundations that paved the way. To the extent we have cast those off, we have deteriorated.

Consider the original charters of our first colonies. Stephen McDowell cites these representative examples.

The First Charter of Massachusetts (1629) states the desire that all the inhabitants would “be so religiously, peaceably, and civilly governed, as their good life and orderly conversation may win and incite the natives of country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of mankind, and the Christian faith, which in our royal intention and the adventurers’ free profession, is the principal end of this plantation.”

Adopted January 14, 1639, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut began with the inhabitants covenanting together under God “to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess.”

In 1682 the Great Law of Pennsylvania was enacted revealing the desire of Penn and the inhabitants of the colony to establish “laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civil liberty, in opposition to all unchristian, licentious, and unjust practices, (whereby God may have his due, Caesar his due, and the people their due).”

Not surprisingly, in some of these colonies, Sabbath (Sunday) laws were enforced, church attendance was mandatory, and Biblical morality was required.

Obviously, we cannot return to those days, since America today is greatly diversified. And even among professing Christians, we are far from totally unified. Plus, we cannot expect tens of millions of non-Christians and non-believers to practice some form of Christianity.

To be quite frank, it would be dangerous to think that by passing certain laws, we could turn 21^st Century America into 18^th Century America.

Certainly not. To do so would be the equivalent of trying to make America into a Christian theocracy, which is something I categorically reject.

But that doesn’t mean we cannot recover much of the spirit and ethic of our earliest founders. And it certainly doesn’t mean that followers of Jesus cannot live as followers of Jesus. To the contrary, given the unique history and Constitution of our country, our nation depends on it. And without a thriving Church, America cannot be truly great.

So, as the colonies developed and the USA was born, as the population grew and diversified, changes had to come. And they most certainly did. There were greater divergences in Christian expression along with ever-increasing secularism.

But the Bible still remained prominent in American thinking. And, quite certainly, the nation identified as Christian and was, broadly speaking, a God-fearing country.

This is reflected by the observations of the French philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville during his celebrated visit to America in the 1830s.

As he famously remarked, “Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.”

De Tocqueville noticed how bookseller shops contained “an enormous quantity of religious works, Bibles, sermons, edifying anecdotes, controversial divinity, and reports of charitable societies.” He also spoke of visiting people living in log cabins whose only book was the Bible.

So, despite the diversity of the US in the 1830s, the Biblical principles on which the nation was founded continued to have a profound influence.

As de Tocqueville also noted, “The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom.”

And, he added, “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other. Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts – the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.”

Ultimately, it was our Christian foundations that enabled us to eradicate slavery and fight against other injustices. If we believe in certain fundamental God-given rights, they must apply to all.

As our first president George Washington said in his Farewell Address, “religion and morality” are the “firmest props of the duties of men and citizens” and therefore are “indispensable supports” of “the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity.” And, he added, “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

On this Fourth of July, we do well to remember his words. Our very freedoms are at stake.

(Excerpted and adapted from Michael L. Brown, Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Transformation.)

As broken down by NBC News, the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia – forming a connected chain – along with Utah, have passed strong pro-life bills. (In the vocabulary of NBC, of course, these are “anti-abortion” laws.)

Of interest is the fact that, in most of these states, the bill passed with overwhelming approval in each of the legislative houses. For example, the Alabama bill, prohibiting all abortions and with severe penalties for abortion practitioners, passed by a vote of 74-3 in the House and 25-6 in the Senate. That’s what you call decisive.

In Missouri, where all abortions after 8 weeks were prohibited, the bill passed by a margin of 110-44 in the House and 24-10 in the Senate.

In Louisiana, which prohibits abortions once the baby’s heartbeat is detected (one of 5 states to pass this law), the vote was 79-23 in the House and 31-5 in the Senate. This bill is also noteworthy in that it was signed into a law by a Democrat governor.

Let’s take a look at the NBC map of America to see where things stand at the moment.

A solid block of states against abortion

And there are 6 more states which have considered (or are considering) new pro-life legislation (Florida, South Carolina, Minnesota, West Virginia, and Tennessee; a pro-life bill did not succeed in Maryland). Grouping these on the map along with the 8 states that have already passed pro-life bills makes for a solid block, especially in the southeastern United States.

If we add in Texas, where a very strong pro-life bill failed to pass in April, that block becomes even bigger.

A battle is also taking place in North Carolina (again, adding to this significant block of states), where legislators are trying to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the Born Alive Protection Act.

It’s also significant that there are presently 6 states with only one abortion clinic (North and South Dakota, Missouri, Mississippi, Kentucky, and West Virginia), with Missouri poised to close their last clinic until stopped by a federal judge just days ago.

Without question, major strides are being taken by pro-lifers, and sooner or later, one of these state laws will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, potentially leading to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Still much work to be done against abortion

Unfortunately, New York, Virginia, Kansas, and now, Illinois have passed (or, ruled on) new bills that are the most extreme pro-abortion laws in our country’s history. And in California, Governor Gavin Newsom is inviting women to come to California to abort their babies. (Is this not utterly macabre?)

As for the new law in Chicago, Liberty Counsel explains that it “is even more extreme than New York’s infanticide law. The ‘Reproductive Health Act’ repeals the state’s ban on partial-birth abortion, allowing abortions through nine months, and requires insurance companies to provide coverage.”

Yes, the bill “strips all rights from unborn children” – this is done quite explicitly, stating that the fertilized egg or embryo or fetus has no rights – and it “changes the definition of viability, and legalizes abortions through all nine months of pregnancy, up to the moment of birth, for any reason. The bill eliminates the Abortion Performance Refusal Act so that medical professionals will be forced to recommend, perform or assist in abortion procedures. This legislation also compels insurance plans to provide ‘coverage for abortion care,’ and all licensing requirements for abortion facilities would be removed.”

So, while state after state is choosing life, other states are choosing death, even allowing for things as barbaric as partial birth abortion, along with refusing to guarantee medical care for babies who survive abortions.

Surely these grotesque and obscene bills will ultimately be overturned. Surely Americans will wake up to their defense of the indefensible. Surely the tide will turn – at least, that is my fervent prayer and hope.

As for the impending (and already growing) civil war over abortion, Axios quotes these representative, polar-opposite positions.

According to Sue Liebel, Missisippi director for the pro-life, Susan B. Anthony List, “For pro-life folks, these are huge victories. And I think they’re indicative of the momentum and excitement and the hope that’s happening with changes in the Supreme Court and having such a pro-life president.”

In contrast, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America’s Kristin Ford, “The gloves are off” (among abortion opponents). “They feel like they have the wind at their backs and they don’t have to dance around their true intentions anymore.”

Indeed, we do feel the wind at our backs, but it is the wind of life, of esteem for every person, no matter of how fragile, of love for both the mother and her child.

It’s up to us, now, to seize the moment, to continue to change hearts and minds through every Godly means at our disposal, to make the case for life.

The opposition will be fierce, but we’re gaining ground every day, and with a concerted, nationwide effort, bathed in prayer and fasting, we could witness a glorious, transformative pro-life revolution. And the more vehement the hatred that comes our way, the more determined we must be to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

Let’s do it for the sake of the little ones.

Also Read: A Response To The Alabama Abortion Bill – The Coming Civil War Over Abortion

We can debate exactly what Rep. Rashida Tlaib meant when she said, “There’s kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust,” since there was a larger context to her words. But what is not debatable is the fact that the larger context of her words is patently false to the point of being ridiculous.

Allow me to explain.

This is the full text of Tlaib’s relevant quote: “There’s kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports.”

She continued, “I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time, and I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right, and it was forced on them. And so when I think about a one-state, I think about the fact that, why couldn’t we do it in a better way?”

When questioned, she emphasized that she was “coming from a place of love, for equality and justice” and that she wanted a “safe haven for Jews.”

At worst, her comments are beyond insensitive and ugly, as if there could be any “calming” effect from thinking about the Holocaust, where 1.5 million Jewish babies and children were slaughtered. Where 90 percent of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews were murdered. Where whole families (including multiple generations) were wiped out. Where fiendish “medical” experiments were performed on Jewish twins, often without anesthesia.

What could possibly be “calming” about any of this?

No wonder that Tlaib received a hail of criticism, from President Trump to other members of the House, to political pundits and commentators.

But what if, giving her the biggest possible benefit of the doubt, she meant to say this? “As horrible as the Holocaust was, what calms me is to know that my people, the Palestinian people, made great sacrifices on behalf of the Jewish people, so they could have a safe haven.”

What if that was her point?

Well, she missed it just as badly here. As CNN’s John King noted, Tlaib “ignored the fact that Palestinian leaders at the time allied themselves with Hitler and that total war is how the Arab world reacted to the declaration of Israeli independence.”

So, not only did they not make sacrifices to create a safe haven for the Jews. They fought tooth and nail against that safe haven.

One of the most prominent Palestinian Arab leaders of the day, the Grand Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini, was a confidant of Hitler. He was responsible for the first intifada against the Jewish population of Palestine in 1936, and he advocated for the genocide of the Jews. (For more on Al-Husseini, see Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam. The front cover features a famous picture of the two men meeting together.)

The Nazis, for their part, appealed to centuries of Islamic antisemitism, helping to fuel the fires of Jew-hatred among the Muslim population in the Middle East. They even printed 1 million copies of an Arabic language pamphlet that proclaimed, “O Arabs, do you see that the time of the Dajjal has come? [The Dajjal was a false Messianic figure in Islam.] Do you recognize him, the fat, curly-haired Jew who deceives and rules the whole world and who steals the land of the Arabs?… O Arabs, do you know the servant of God? He [Hitler] has already appeared in the world and already turned his lance against the Dajjal and his allies…. He will kill the Dajjal, as it is written, destroy his places and cast his allies into hell.”

As for Al-Husseini’s meeting with Hitler in 1941, Time.com summarizes the relevant content of their discussion, which was published by the German government: “Al-Husseini began the conversation by declaring that the Germans and the Arabs had the same enemies: ‘the English, the Jews, and the Communists.’ He proposed an Arab revolt all across the Middle East to fight the Jews; the English, who still ruled Palestine and controlled Iraq and Egypt; and even the French, who controlled Syria and Lebanon. . . . He also wanted to form an Arab legion, using Arab prisoners from the French Empire who were then POWs inside Germany. He also asked Hitler to declare publicly, as the German government had privately, that it favored ‘the elimination of the Jewish national home’ in Palestine.”

Not surprisingly, when the UN recognized the state of Israel in 1947-1948, the surrounding Arab nations sought to wipe Israel off the map, with Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, declaring, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.”

This was hardly the self-sacrificing Arab population of Palestine saying, “We’ll grudgingly give up our lands for these suffering Jews.”

To the contrary, these Muslim leaders were intent on finishing what Hitler started.

Is it true that Palestinian Arabs have suffered over the last 70 years?

Yes, those who fled from the war in 1948 have suffered greatly, while those who became citizens of the fledgling state of Israel have grown from 200,0000 in 1948 to over 1.5 million today.

But the Palestinians who suffered the most (and still suffer today) are suffering primarily because of the bad decisions of their leaders rather than because Israel is a genocidal, apartheid state. That’s a hard pill to swallow, but it is true.

To be sure, critics of Israel will challenge this statement, putting more blame on the Jewish nation for the suffering of the Palestinians. That is a debate we will continue to have.

But what is not debatable is Tlaib’s rewriting of history, along with her terribly poor choice of words.

What on earth was she thinking?

Photo: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The Internet is full of debate as well as some ridicule in response to Alyssa Milano’s call for a ‘sex strike’ until Georgia’s fetal heartbeat bill is overturned. But while it’s easy to mock her words, they deserve to be analyzed carefully, since they articulate pro-abortion philosophy.

Alyssa tweeted, “Our reproductive rights are being erased. Until women have legal control over our own bodies we just cannot risk pregnancy. JOIN ME by not having sex until we get bodily autonomy back. I’m calling for a #SexStrike. Pass it on.”

What, exactly, does she mean by “reproductive rights”?

If you were just learning the English language, you might safely deduce that this phrase meant “the right to reproduce.” But that would be a logical deduction, and there is nothing logical about this Orwellian reasoning.

Instead, “reproductive rights” means a woman’s right to kill the baby in her womb

Classic doublespeak

This is classic doublespeak, but in an especially deadly form, as “reproduction” here means “termination.”

“No sex until we have the right to kill our unborn!”

Alyssa, of course, references a woman’s “legal right” over her body, reflecting the pro-abortion mentality that the baby is not an independent human being who has a “legal right” to life. Instead, the baby is an appendage of the mother’s body.

Some have even likened the baby in the womb to a tumor or a growth or a clump of cells. Mothers should have the “legal right” to dispose of such intrusions. This is what Alyssa also means by “bodily autonomy.”

In contrast, the baby has no autonomy. If the child wasn’t planned and isn’t wanted, it has only one choice: to meet with a violent end. To be a casualty. The unborn have no rights.

And note carefully what Alyssa is saying: It’s not worth having sex if you have to “risk pregnancy.” So, it’s sex for recreation, not procreation, and abortion is just another form of birth control.

Of course, the left doesn’t normally put things so plainly (and honestly).

Instead, pro-abortionists will remind us of the (very difficult) cases of a woman carrying a severely disabled baby, or a 15-year-old rape victim, sexually abused by her own step-father.

Cases like that are meant to evoke compassion and sympathy, and rightly so.

But Alyssa let the cat out of the bag. That’s not the main concern with most who are “shouting” their abortions today.

The issue is that recreational sex just might lead to an unwanted pregnancy, and abortion is the simple solution. It’s birth control after conception rather than before conception, just a little messier and bloodier.

But not to worry. If you don’t want the baby, don’t have the baby. And if that choice is taken away from you, Alyssa argues, then don’t conceive the baby. (For the record, that’s called abstinence, as others have gleefully pointed out, including this tweet: “Not sure this was thought through, but the Pro-Life crowd supports your call to abstinence to prevent abortions. Well done!”)

Not sure this was thought through, but the pro life crowd supports your call to abstinence to prevent abortions. Well done! https://t.co/rnWK5ukZLK

— The Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) May 11, 2019

It would seem that Alyssa is intending to punish men as well, withholding sex from them – after all, this is a “strike” – since all men are somehow guilty. After all, it was mainly men who voted for Georgia’s Pro-Life bill and a male governor who signed it.

So, she apparently reasons, let’s hit these men where it hurts and withhold sex.

Bette Midler, though, seems to have taken this one step further, tweeting, “I hope the #womenofGeorgia stop having sex with men until these indignities are overturned.”

In other words, lesbian sex is fine, since it cannot result in a pregnancy. Plus, women are not the culprits in passing this new law. Instead, punish those evil men, but let the ladies have fun as they please. (Am I reading too much into the words “stop having sex with men”? I think not.)

What Bette Midler and Alyssa Milano fail to grasp is that there are millions of couples in America who have sex to be intimate as well as to reproduce. For them, the greatest news a wife could share with her husband would be, “I’m pregnant!” And millions of Americans welcome children into the world every year, with tears of joy and gratitude.

All that is lost on those for whom pregnancy is a “risk” you take when you have sex, abortion is a method of birth control, and “reproductive rights” refers to the right to stop reproduction.

They have made themselves perfectly clear, and the logic is deadly.

And so, while some of Alyssa’s followers and colleagues will go on strike, abstaining from sex and producing no offspring, Pro-Lifers will continue to have sex and have babies.

It works out well after all.