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Want to Make a Difference? View Children the Way God Does

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Relationships, Sexy or holy?, tagged baptism, behavior, campus life, choices, education, expectations, grandparents, Jesus Christ, life's purpose, mentoring, parents, school, sexuality, sin, spiritual, teenagers, wisdom on June 22, 2013| 2 Comments »

I will never forget the mom and professional church worker who told me she hoped her sons and daughters would practice safe sex. We were serving together on a life task force and, during lunch break, she confided, “I raised them to be chaste . . . I want them to wait for marriage. But, once they started college, I encouraged them to use protection because, after all, they’re sexual, too, and I’m scared to death they’re going to be like everyone else.”

I remember the grandma who toured our local pregnancy center. She thought the best thing parents could do for their daughters was to get them on The Pill so they wouldn’t need a pregnancy test.

Then there was the single father who raised his daughter to believe in Jesus, but made sure she had the Gardasil shot and was using birth control. “I know what I was like at her age and I know she’s just going to sleep around so I have to look out for her.”

And there was the pastor who told me that he’s taken some girls from his congregation for abortions because “their parents wouldn’t be supportive of an unplanned pregnancy.” These girls are “just going to do it,” he explained. “They can’t help it . . . so I need to be there for them.”

Can’t help it? What does this say about the way adults view children?

Children are sinful human beings born into a love-to-sin-world. Do we say, “My child is a sinner. It’s just who he is, so I’m going to help him lie, cheat, and steal with the least amount of damage.” Is this how God sees children? Is this how He helps them?

When we don’t see children the way God does, then our mentoring role in their lives is compromised.

Yes, children are sinful… just like their parents and grandparents. But baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God sees us as His adopted sons and daughters in Christ. Jesus won for God’s children the privilege of becoming heirs of the heavenly kingdom. This not only bestows value but defines purpose.

Identity matters! Our sons and daughters are not “sexual from birth” as Planned Parenthood sees them. They are not captive to instincts and desires. They are persons created more in the image of God than the image of wolves and rabbits. To see children as God does is to realize they are more than flesh and blood but spirit and, because they are spirit, every choice they make will take them either closer to — or farther from — God.

It is the children who suffer when we fail to see them as God does. Expectations for their purpose and behavior are lowered. Their future appears grim.

Identity matters. And, because it does, my grandchildren need me to remind them of what happened at the baptismal font. Their baptism “is an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him” (1 Peter 3:21-22). I can literally tell my grandchildren that their Lord and Savior rules! This means that someday, when they are teenagers, they won’t have to be subject to raging hormones or made foolish by lack of judgment. In remembering who they are, they will know the source of their wisdom and strength. This will affect their choices and behavior. But that’s not all.

When boys and girls see themselves the way God does, the way they view each other will improve. Relationships will take on new meaning. Think about it. If boys see themselves in light of their baptism as sons of God and girls see themselves as daughters of God, then all baptized people become brothers and sisters in Christ.

Can you imagine? I mean, really! Can you imagine the impact this would have on high school and college campuses… at the beach… in the workplace… around the neighborhood… and for society as a whole?

I can. And it renews my hope.

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Government Fails Daughters But Shame On Us All

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Sexy or holy? on June 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This government has failed to defend our daughters and granddaughters.

With its blessing of Planned Parenthood, this administration embraced a profiteering assembly line dangerous to women and fatal for children. Now, the administration has decided not to fight a judge’s ruling to allow girls of any age to get the morning-after-pill over the counter – with or without parental permission. Shame on this administration.

In fact, shame on us all – parents, grandparents and the Church – for approving pills, shots, and devices for our girls instead of providing boundaries, long-term mentoring, and truth about their bodies, minds, and souls.

The young women in my life are worth defending. Because I respect them as persons, I lovingly tell them the truth. It is for this reason that I vow to continue mentoring privately in my home, one on one, and publicly through Titus 2 Retreats. I begin with an apology for the women of my generation who were deceived during a silly season of feminist fantasies. Today, those fantasies are the social norm for our daughters and granddaughters. The mantra hasn’t skipped a beat: Men and women are just the same. But, no matter how a feminist might want to manage, minimize or manipulate the female body, she cannot fool the Master Designer.

Our daughters are not the same as our sons. Girls are influenced by oxytocin. This hormone produces a warm, cuddly feeling with the touch or kiss of a boy. Oxytocin is great for married women who want to bond with their husbands, but not so great for 16-year-olds. Girls are not ready for sexual intimacy. Their pre-frontal cortex, the thinking and decision-making part of their brain, is not fully developed and ready for dependable use until the late teens or early twenties. Girls have a sensitive ecosystem. The cervix plays a vital role in female sexual health, but can actually increase a girl’s vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) because it, too, is undeveloped. A mature cervix can better guard against infection with its layers of 20-30 cells, but an immature cervix has only one layer of cells. Might this be the reason why girls under the age of twenty are hit hardest by the STD epidemic, most especially HPV and Chalmydia? (HPV can cause cervical cancer. Chalmydia can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and infertility.) A girl’s cervix is easily penetrable and becomes a nesting place for nasty bugs whose single purpose is to multiply.

So, when our government and the laws of this land disregard the science of our daughters’ anatomy to instead guarantee them access to the morning-after-pill, how must parents with the support of the Church respond? We should confess our own failures and then press boldly forward to defend those entrusted to our care.

It is to moms and dads that God entrusts children. God does not leave parents ill-equipped but gives them everything they need in His Word. The Church is to support parents in their courageous endeavor. Shamefully, it is parents who have handed over their mentoring responsibility to government schools. Every day, in public schools across the country, the government educates our children in sex. Shamefully, parochial schools assist busy or overwhelmed parents by wrapping Jesus around government-produced sex-ed material. But whether in a public or parochial classroom, talking a great deal about sex and encouraging a child’s celebration of sexuality has sure and certain consequences for vulnerable bodies and minds lacking maturity of judgment.

The government, confident in its role of educator, also sees itself as problem-solver. Shamefully, fearful parents entrust their daughters to government-funded industries such as Planned Parenthood and chemical companies who produce the before-sex-pill, the after-sex-pill, the just-in-case-shot, and the use-it-and-be-safe-device.

God did not give to government the role of parenting. Government has no personal, vested interest in helping girls be patient for love while their bodies mature and their brains kick in gear. Government was instituted by God to guard life and the pursuit of right things, make safe the highways and byways, and stand against enemies of the state. An amoral government has more interest in perpetuating itself rather than the people it was instituted to serve.

The government and courts of law have a voice. They can mandate a policy or a procedure. But they have no hands to pick up the pieces, no arms to hold the sick and dying, no way to nurture relationships, no heart and soul to comfort the brokenhearted and hopeless.

Parents and grandparents have a voice, too. With informed voice, we must dare to speak truth even at risk of being labeled intolerant or judgmental. And, while we speak, we can do what no government can do. We can use our hands to lead away from danger, our arms to embrace the confused and fearful, our homes as safe places to mentor and nurture relationships, our hearts to love unconditionally, and our souls to bring hope in the midst of hopelessness.

Note: I highly recommend Unprotected and You’re Teaching My Child What?
by Miriam Grossman, M.D.

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Sobered by Oklahoma’s Loss

Posted in Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, tagged children, death, devastation, faith, heaven, Jesus Christ, Moore OK, salvation, Savior, tornado, tragedy, weather on May 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

All is not well. The earth knows… and groans.

When God created the earth and every living thing, He designed an earth in harmony with those who dwell upon it. Sin changed everything. The tornado that stole away precious lives in Oklahoma was evidence of a sin-altered world.

I pray that we all mourn the loss of lives for whom Christ died. More importantly, I pray that parents everywhere prepare their children for eternity. In a blink of an eye, any one of us or our children or grandchildren might draw our last breath. After death, where will we be?

The arms of Jesus are open for all who call upon His name. May we parents and grandparents teach our children by word and example that Jesus is the only Savior. He is the only way to perfect life… literally out of this world.

May we help children know their identity as God’s sons and daughters in Christ. Why? So that they grow in Wisdom… and, whenever their last day on this earth might come, we’ll know where we’ll see them again.

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Gosnell, Abortion and Identity

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Sexy or holy?, tagged children, choice, Jesus Christ, Kinsey, Planned Parenthood, self, sex, sexuality, spirituality, the lie on May 14, 2013| 1 Comment »

There are no words to describe what abortionist Gosnell did. I won’t try to come up with any. What he did in his little shop of horrors is no different than what goes on every day in abortion clinics across this country. Gosnell is guilty of murder. So is Planned Parenthood.

Abortion is the greatest child abuse. But it is also abuse of women. Abortion ends the life of a child God calls by name, but it forever changes the mother of that child. Babies carried into an abortion chamber by their mothers never exit. Mothers may exit, but they are physically, psychologically and spiritually altered. The way they see themselves and life itself is never the same.

What happens in abortion clinics will continue to happen until we all begin to see ourselves the way God sees us. Women will continue to seek abortions, men will pay for them, and churches will defend them until we stop identifying ourselves the wrong way.

Never – ever, has God identified boys and girls as “sexual from birth.” Before Alfred Kinsey, no one ever labeled children in such a way. But, for the last 60+ years, children have been told beginning as early as kindergarten that they are “sexual from birth.” Can we be so surprised that abortion was legalized some twenty years after men and women took on this new identity? If we’re told from childhood that we are “sexual,” then it can’t be helped. It is, after all, who God made us to be. Abstain? It would go against nature, wouldn’t it, to abstain from what is natural.

There is this one thing. Behavior is shaped by identity. However we see ourselves and others determines how we treat ourselves and others. Gosnell looked at the women and children who entered his clinic as less than human. He saw the women as sexual beings and the babies were products of that sexuality. Gosnell failed to see them all as God sees them. When we mis-identify our children as “sexual from birth” (which is taught in every sex education class) then we are failing, too. We are failing to see women, men and children as spiritual beings. Sexuality may have something to do with our bodies and minds, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with our spirits. Our spirits will live forever, you see, either with God or apart from Him.

Abortion, I’m afraid, is a sinful choice that will continue for as long as we sinful people inhabit this earth. However, people who love the lives that God creates could remove many of the excuses for abortion if only we would stop telling our children: You are “sexual from birth.” It’s just not true.

Repeat a lie often enough and many will believe it. They will act upon it. But, I’d like to be one of the different people God calls followers of Jesus to be. The kind of people who resist being labeled by the world and who call other people by their rightful identity.

To do so will make a difference, one man, one woman, one child at a time.

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Are Women Just One of the “Brothers?”

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Citizenship, Culture Shifts, Life issues, Relationships, Vocation, tagged air force, army, Col. McSally, combat, equality, marines, military, national defense, navy, wisdom, women's rights on April 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Twenty years ago on April 28, then Defense Secretary Les Aspin first authorized female pilots. Women aviators have claimed a series of “firsts.”

Now, female pilots like retired Air Force Col. Martha McSally are offering advice to women’s advocates and the Pentagon on how best to integrate women into the all-male world of ground combat.

Col. McSally has a distinguished career. Of course she was challenged. Women don’t easily enter the “man’s world.” But, said Col. McSally, “I have three older brothers. I’m Irish. I’m fiesty. This wasn’t my first rodeo with these kinds of dynamics.” Hurdles included the ready room where men were not used to women and proving that she could meet the same standards as men. She sued the Defense Department to contest a policy that required women personnel to wear the Muslim head scarf while off-base in Saudi Arabia. Col. McSally was awarded the Air Force’s Distinguished Flying Cross for her heroics in Iraq and Afghanistan. (The Washington Times National Weekly, 4-1-2013)

I have never doubted that women are equal to men, but we are different. I admire so many qualities about men but that doesn’t mean I covet their vocation or role. I often prefer activities and conversations with men more than women just because I find our different abilities and perspectives so fascinating. At the same time, I mourn what happens when men don’t have the help of a woman.

I believe in serving my country, but I know a woman does this in a myriad of ways. And, the best way might not be to become one of the “brothers.”

As we prepare to integrate women into the all-male world of ground combat — infantry, armor and special forces operations, I am compelled to ask: Who is asking for this change in policy? Is it the young women who may have to face the enemy? Is it the men who have been taught to be chivalrous and respectful of sisters, mothers, girlfriends, and wives? Is this departure from time-honored tradition for the good of the nation… or on behalf of “women’s rights?” Is distraction on the gridiron or the battlefield a good thing? As enemies grow all-male armies a million strong, will we regret tampering with our defense during a time of relative peace?

“The ancient tradition against the use of women in combat,” writes George Gilder, “embodies the deepest wisdom of the human race. It expresses the most basic imperatives of group survival: a nation or tribe that allows the loss of large numbers of its young women runs the risk of becoming permanently depopulated. The youthful years of women, far more than of men, are precious and irreplaceable.”

He continues, “Beyond this general imperative is the related need of every society to insure that male physical strength and aggressiveness are not directed against women . . . All civilized societies train their men to protect and defend women. When these restraints break down . . . the group tends to disintegrate completely and even to become extinct . . . military services, however, are unanimous in asserting that successful use of women in battlefield units depends on men overcoming their natural impulses to treat women differently and more considerately.” (Men and Marriage)

In all of my years, I have found great joy in working beside men and dialoguing with them. I could linger for hours in a room of gentlemen. But, there comes a time when I am wise to give them some space. To let them breathe. Work. Communicate in their own way. Do what they do the way they do it best.

I am usually happier for it.

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What Is Truth?

Posted in Faith & Practice, Life issues, Relationships, tagged ethics, family, Good Friday, Jesus Christ, marriage, Pilate, sancitty of life, Supreme Court, truth on March 29, 2013| 1 Comment »

It is Good Friday. I am thinking about courts of law… and truth.

I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Pilate asked,

What is truth?”

There are Pilates everywhere. They say that truth is “whatever you want it to be.” There is “my truth” and “your truth.”

So, on this Good Friday I have the answer to Pilate’s question. It is the only answer that will serve the good of self and others. It is the answer for ethics, relationships, and courts of law. What is truth?

Jesus Christ is Truth.

A truth by any other name is shifting sand.

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What Makes Us Human?

Posted in Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged alzheimers, brain tumor, Jesus Christ, memory loss, personhood, worldview on March 13, 2013| 4 Comments »

It has been said that we are the sum total of all that we’ve experienced. But, if we have no memory, are we less human?

What makes me “me” and you “you?” Is it how we look? What we do? What we say? But, what if we are not beautiful in the eyes of the beholder? What if we can’t do anything? What if we can’t speak? Are we, then, less human?

Gary is my friend. He is married to Dena, the love of his life, but theirs has become a journey of bitter terror, cureless medicines, and lost conversations. Over 30 years ago, radiation was used to remove a tumor from Dena’s optic nerve. Her brain compensated… for a while; then gradually Dena settled into a child-like dependence on her husband. Gary explains that with darkness comes anxious wakefulness. “If she sleeps, what more will she forget?”

Memories once shared are replaced with excruciating embarrassment. Has all that made my friend’s wife “human” been snatched away?

There are those who think so. For some, losing their memory is the death of personhood.

I do not agree. Dena’s personhood – her very identity – is not her memory. Nor is it her appearance, her health or, for that matter, her sexuality.

Dena’s identity is this: She is a creation of God and a treasure of Jesus Christ. Dena’s identity never changes, no matter the circumstances of her life.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if we remember who we are. What matters is Whose we are. The Creator and Redeemer of our lives will never forget His own.

Nor does He forget those who are faithful in caring for His own.

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Cohabitating Seniors and the Meaning of Marriage

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Relationships, Sexy or holy?, Vocation, tagged living together, marriage, mentoring, senior citizens, setting example, shacking up on March 6, 2013| 2 Comments »

What is marriage?

When do we stop mentoring the truth about marriage?

I submit for your consideration a strange phenomenon. An increasing number of older men and women are moving in together. But, it appears to me that their rationale is fear-based. Perhaps their spouse has died. They don’t want to be alone. Financially, it seems practical not to marry and, instead, live together. Perhaps it seems less complicated to keep their business affairs separate for the sake of their children and grandchildren. Perhaps insurance coverage or a life-savings will be better protected if they just cohabitate. After all, it isn’t so much about sex as it is companionship and being a couple in a “couple’s world.”

So, what is a cohabitating senior, especially a cohabitating Christian senior, saying about marriage?

Is marriage all about the joys of pro-creational sex? Or is it more?

Marriage, from a Biblical worldview, is the practice of generational faithfulness. It is the union of one man and one woman with all that they uniquely bring into partnership for the benefit of family and community. In God’s words, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18 ESV).

We tell young people not to live together because marriage, more than anything else, is for the benefit of children. God knows and evidence proves that if a man and a woman have a child, that child will do better when raised by a father and mother who are committed to one another in the life-long relationship of marriage. Son or daughter will benefit from seeing the vocations of male and female played out in the home. If a man and woman are married but cannot bear their own or adopt children, they remain an example to nieces, nephews, and neighboring children that marriage is a meaningful union that strengthens society. It is one man committing to unselfishly love, partner with, and guard one woman under God. It is one woman committing to unselfishly respect, partner with, and complete one man under God. It is intimacy… far beyond the sexual.

So, what is an older couple who chooses to live together saying about marriage?

Are they saying that God’s institution of marriage is important for young people but not for those over 65?

Are they saying that one marriage was good and, out of loyalty to their first spouse, they won’t marry again?

Are they saying that financial stability and not God’s design is in their better interest?

Are they saying that marriage is all about sex and if they sleep in different beds then living together is no big deal?

Are they saying that they no longer need to set an example for children, grandchildren, or any child in the neighborhood?

Is the man saying there’s no need to guard his woman’s reputation and cover her with his name?

Is the woman saying she doesn’t need to help and complete her man?

When do we stop mentoring generational faithfulness?

Can you tell me?

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Can A Person Truly Change?

Posted in Commentaries of others, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged consequences of sin, depression, despair, drug abuse, hope, human dignity, Jesus Christ, liar, new life, prison, satan, sin, thief on February 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Is it possible to change our thinking and behavior? Leave bad habits behind? Resist evil and despair?

Yes.

Evidence of change is all around me. For some, change has come with maturity or wisdom gained from experience. Some literally kicked and screamed all the way to a new place in their life where change took them by surprise. Some are being changed through pain and suffering. Others are changing, but only after falling into the darkness of bitter despair.

Travis is one of them. Travis had fallen so deeply into the pit that he could never pull himself out. I believe that Jesus literally reached down into that pit to lift Travis upward. The circumstances in which Travis finds himself are grave. He is serving 20 years in a federal penitentiary without parole. Travis is in a place of shame but, face to face with his Savior, true freedom and dignity are being restored.

What follows is a letter from Travis:

Often, people ask, “Why did you throw everything away to pursue a life on drugs? You threw away your relationships with good friends. You threw away your good reputation. You threw away the respect of your family. You threw away everything that you ever worked hard for. Why?”

I have never been able to come up with a rational answer to these questions. Sin, I’ve figured out, is always irrational. Sin doesn’t consider the consequences. It just leads us to say, “I want more.” In my case, becoming addicted to meth was that sin that gave Satan a strong foothold in my life.

I’ve come to see things a little more clearly today. In John 10:10, Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy.” Satan wants to steal my joy. He wants to steal my freedom. He wants to kill and destroy everything that makes my life worth living: my relationships, my peace, my sanity. He will use any means: deception, lying, and false promises to keep me from enjoy God’s plan for my life.

When I was enslaved to my sin of addiction it was evident that something was wrong with me. Not everyone noticed, however, because I put on a good mask. But, my life was full of filthiness. My thoughts, speech, conduct, and even my house was filthy. I would find a lewd or filthy element in any situation.

Satan was working to steal my morals, relationships, will, and dignity. In the end, Satan wanted my life.

Once I started doing meth, I experienced dreams and visions. While driving on a particular curve into town, I imagined taking my own life. Perhaps, I thought, it would relieve the pain I was experiencing.

I didn’t like the person I had become. A couple of girlfriends tried to help get me sober. One helped me escape to her family’s cabin. She would help me detox and get sober. I would sleep, eat, and begin to act normal… only to return to my habit five days later when I got home. Another girl begged me to get sober. She wanted my family to help. I said, “No!” How could I face the people that had raised me so well? The last thing I wanted to do was admit I was a failure. I thought I could do it on my own.”

Travis is suffering the terrible consequences of his addiction and sinful ways. He is separated from his family and shamed by incarceration. Although his faith has grown, he is taunted by unbelievers. He has explained to me that despair comes often to visit, yet the mercies of God really are new every morning.

Those mercies recently came through a fellow prisoner. Travis was feeling especially low at Christmastime when, unexpectedly, he crossed paths with a man he had met early in his imprisonment. Travis had befriended that man and encouraged him with words of hope. The man apparently never forgot Travis and, in a moment of darkness, the man reappeared as a ray of light with reciprocal words of encouragement. “You made a difference,” the man told him. “You helped me get through a tough time.” Travis was reminded that Jesus knows just what we need when we need it most.

Travis is painfully aware that Satan, in partnership with his own sinful nature, is a powerful force. Alone, Travis cannot defeat the liar and thief. But, another force is working in Travis’ life. It is the force of love. Forgiveness. Hope and new life. Satan wants to steal Travis’ soul, but Jesus Christ died for that soul. He has already won for Travis the victory over sin and death. Victory is hard to see through the veil of depression and discouragement; even so, I believe that the Holy Spirit has been at work in Travis adjusting his perspective and restoring the dignity of his personhood.

Perhaps prison is the Potter’s wheel where Travis is being carefully shaped as a vessel for noble service. I really do believe that Travis sees himself a different man than when he stood haughtily before the federal judge. As a different man, he will find himself at odds with the world.

In that world, Satan will continue to press on Travis. Satan doesn’t want change. He wants Travis captive to his sinful nature. He wants him haughty. Dependent on self, yet burdened by failure. But, in Christ, Travis is no longer bound to old sins and failures. In Christ, Satan holds no lasting power over Travis.

Travis told me,

Addiction never filled me up. I was never satisfied. The thief really does come to steal, kill and destroy, but read the rest of the passage! Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

Is change possible? God says it is.

“Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Put away falsehood, speak the truth with your neighbor . . . give no opportunity to the devil . . . Let all bitterness and wrath and anger . . . be put away from you . . .” (Ephesians 4:22-32).

Because change is possible, Travis can live as the beloved son of God in Christ that he is. He can leave the filthiness and foolish talk and crude joking behind. He was in darkness, but now he is in the light of the Lord. He can try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Expose deception. Be filled with the Spirit. Give thanks. (Ephesians 5:1-21).

Yes, echoes Travis,

Thanks be to God!”

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Will We Respond: “Viva Crista Rey?”

Posted in Citizenship, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Vocation, tagged abortion, birth control, Body of Christ, Calles Law, Catholic Church, Cristiada, eugenics, For Greater Glory, freedom of religion, Knights of Columbus, Lutheran Church, religious liberty, religious persecution on February 11, 2013| 3 Comments »

What do you know of Mexico’s struggle for religious freedom? Have you ever been told about the Cristero War? Would you be surprised to learn that Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, supported this war against people of faith?

Here in the U.S., many people of faith are asking: “What is the price of religious liberty?” During the 1920s, people of faith in Mexico knew the answer: Life itself.

I had never heard about the Cristero War until the movie “For Greater Glory” was released in 2012. I purchased the DVD and companion book by Ruben Quezada (Ignatius Press) as gifts for my husband. We have shown this epic film three times to family members and plan to show it again… and again. How fitting that this movie made its debut the same year that our federally mandated health care made its.

Please. Rent or, better yet, purchase this DVD. Host a movie night and invite your Bible study, youth, or parent group. Hear young people raise their voices as one, proclaiming: “Viva Crista Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”) Understand that what happened in Mexico was an aggressive war on the Catholic Church which resulted in the death of 200,000 people of faith. But, recognize that what is happening here in the U.S. is an insidious and, thus, potentially more devastating assault on those who seek to follow the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rather than man.

Mexico was the original cradle of Christianity in the New World. Missionaries were dispatched from Mexico to North and South America. Yet, this deeply Catholic country was repressed by an atheist-socialist regime. Following the revolution in 1917, the government vowed to free the people from “fanaticism and prejudices.” President Calles, clever with his language, spoke of defending “Mexican dignity” against “foreign intruders” (the Holy Roman Catholic Church). Public displays of faith were outlawed. Churches, seminaries and convents were desecrated. Catholic schools and newspapers were shut down. Priests were tortured and killed, many shot while celebrating Mass. But, so were fathers, mothers, grandparents, and young people.

Cristiada, the name given to the Cristero movement, was a response to the direct attack on the Catholic faith by the Mexican president and his “Calles Law.” The Cristiada movement was organized by the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty. (Does this name bring to mind our own Alliance Defending Freedom or Becket Fund for Religious Freedom?) Initially, the League advocated peaceful resistance to the Calles Law in the form of boycotting taxes and nonessential goods. Petitions were signed, but refused by the Mexican Congress. It soon became evident that Catholics would have to fight back or surrender their religious freedom. The Cristero War was costly. Relative peace may have come after the bloody years between 1926 and 1929, but practice of the Catholic faith in a predominately Catholic country has never been the same.

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, supported the Mexican dictator’s war against Catholic people of faith. Sanger, writes Maureen Walther and Jennifer Daigle, “praised Calles’ campaign against the Church as a strike against intolerance and a step toward making her work easier: ‘With the yoke of medievalism thus thrown off we can anticipate a splendid development of the government work for birth control already begun in Mexico.’” (www.kofc.org “The Voice for Religious Freedom” 4/26/12)

Sanger was a devout advocate of eugenics and a society of the “most desireable.” She worked tirelessly to promote birth control, most curiously in Hispanic and African American communities. We should not be deceived. Birth control has its roots in the eugenic movement. Sanger, the mother of eleven living children, was a believer in eugenics or a “race of thoroughbreds.” Her original organization, the American Birth Control League, was quickly renamed Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Birth control may be masked as a “woman’s reproductive freedom,” but can you tell me why advocates of eugenics would join forces with those promoting birth control?

“Religious persecution,” writes Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus, “rarely begins with blood. It begins with redefinition – redefinition of the religion’s role in personal lives, in ministers, in churches, in society and in government. In Mexico’s case, the clergy were the state’s first target. It began with a simple statement: all priests must register with the state. The problem was that by this law, the state gave itself the authority to determine who was a minister and who was not. A state that can decide ministers can also decide what doctrines it will permit to be preached. Priests and [the] religious were forbidden from criticizing the government.” (“For Greater Glory,” p. 95)

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remind us that we, in the U.S., enjoy “freedom of worship.” But, this is deception. It is a redefinition. This is not what was guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Correctly stated, American citizens enjoy “freedom of religion.” Freedom of religion means more than just being able to “go to church.” It means being able to speak and live the faith; to set up schools, hospitals, and agencies of servanthood in the name of Jesus Christ.

Oh fellow frogs in the boiling pot! Know your history! Learn from our neighboring people of faith in Mexico while we have opportunity. Resist evil. Guard liberty. Teach the faith.

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