We are not called to live as practical atheists, people who, theoretically, believe in God, and yet act as if God has nothing to do with their daily lives; we are called to rely on God’s provision for us at all times and in all places.
-John Kleinig, Grace upon Grace
Tagged: John Kleinig
We have seen previously how the contraception mandate is a dream of the new fascists: inconsequential sex, disregard for children, erosion of religious liberty, and more power ceded to the government. But there is also money to be made here, and Big Pharma is the winner. Here’s Peter Schweizer on the role of Big Pharma:
It’s important to point out that among President Obama’s biggest financial backers are precisely the Big Pharma companies who benefit from the mandate. Sally Sussman, head of government affairs for Pfizer, is one of his biggest campaign bundlers, who co-hosted a fundraiser for Obama on Thursday night. Pfizer sells numerous contraceptives that now must be covered by health-care plans. Obama’s financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry run deep. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he collected three times more in contributions from pharmaceutical manufacturers than John McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And he will no doubt win the money race again during this election cycle. President Obama’s not the only one who has mandated certain health-care requirements for the benefit of companies with which he has close ties. Back in 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed an executive order that required school girls in Texas be vaccinated with Gardasil, which fights against a sexually transmitted virus linked to cervical cancer (the full cost of the three-shot vaccine is $360). Again, forget the culture war politics for a second. Instead of looking at the bedroom, follow the money to the corporate boardroom: Gardasil is produced by pharma giant Merck, whose chief lobbyist in Texas at the time had been Perry’s chief of staff. Merck was a campaign contributor, and had also made contributions to the Republican Governors Association while he headed that organization. Again, a corporation supports a politician who in turn issues a mandate that creates a bigger market and larger profits for its product.
Back in the nation’s capital, Big Pharma has spent a lot of money over the past couple of years, keeping an army of lobbyists employed. As Tim Carney of theWashington Examiner pointed out last year, since the Obama administration took office, “the drug industry’s $635 million in lobbying exceeds that of Wall Street and the oil and gas industry, combined.” And the lesson seems to be clear: it is money well spent. Not only did they get largely what they wanted from Obama’s health-care-reform law (no caps on drug prices, no reimportation from Canada); now, President Obama’s mandate is broadening the market for their products. With drug prices so high, the best way it can increase demand for its products is to get the federal government to mandate payment for it.
Follow the money. Free love isn’t so free after all.
You can find Schweizer’s entire piece here at the Daily Beast.
Tagged: Big Pharma, Contraception, HHS, Obamacare, Peter Schweizer, Pfizer
Tagged: Crucifix, Immanuel, Kevin Wolf, Photographs
So savage and corrupt is human nature. Marriage is necessary as a remedy for lust, and through marriage God permits sexual intercourse. Not only does He cover the sin from which we are unable to abstain, but He also blesses the union of the male and the female. And yet the whole world shuns this legitimate, divinely instituted union and prefers to indulge in promiscuous relations, which are harmful in more than one way. Property is squandered, bodies are damaged by serious diseases, God is provoked to inflict horrible punishments, and, worst of all, states and households are destroyed.
Why do we not avoid these great evils? Why do we not prefer to seek the blessing of God through a legitimate union? Obviously because our nature is corrupted by sin, rebellious, and intolerant of laws, and does not want to be tamed or restrained.
Tagged: Genesis, Human nature, Lust, Luther, Marriage, original sin, Promiscuity, Sexuality
Besides the Obama administration’s assault on religious liberty, the First Amendment is now being threatened by prominent leftists. Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem are calling for the FCC to silence Rush Limbaugh for “dehumanizing speech,” a reference to his crude remarks about Sandra Fluke. I wish they were as concerned about the dehumanizing act of crushing the skulls of babies. Here’s their opinion piece, published by CNN:
If Clear Channel won’t clean up its airways, then surely it’s time for the public to ask the FCC a basic question: Are the stations carrying Limbaugh’s show in fact using their licenses “in the public interest?”
Spectrum is a scarce government resource. Radio broadcasters are obligated to act in the public interest and serve their respective communities of license. In keeping with this obligation, individual radio listeners may complain to the FCC that Limbaugh’s radio station (and those syndicating his show) are not acting in the public interest or serving their respective communities of license by permitting such dehumanizing speech.
I am no fan of Limbaugh. But I am a huge fan of free speech. Despite their vain attempt to backtrack at the end of their article (posted in its entirety here), they are calling for the government to silence their opponents. That’s the surest indicator that they have no confidence in their own arguments.
Tagged: FCC, First Amendment, Free speech, Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, Rush Limbaugh
Does this image disturb you? Then work to STOP ALL ABORTIONS.
This is the best critique of “after-birth abortion” that I have seen. Andrew Ferguson at The Weekly Standard dismantles the practitioners of “medical ethics” in “Declaring War on Newborns“:
On the list of the world’s most unnecessary occupations—aromatherapist, golf pro, journalism professor, vice president of the United States—that of medical ethicist ranks very high. They are happily employed by pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and other outposts of the vast medical-industrial combine, where their job is to advise the boss to go ahead and do what he was going to do anyway (“Put it on the market!” “Pull the plug on the geezer!”). They also attend conferences where they take turns sitting on panels talking with one another and then sitting in the audience watching panels of other medical ethicists talking with one another. Their professional specialty is the “thought experiment,” which is the best kind of experiment because you don’t have to buy test tubes or leave the office. And sometimes they get jobs at universities, teaching other people to become ethicists. It is a cozy, happy world they live in.
But it was painfully roiled last month, when a pair of medical ethicists took to their profession’s bible, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and published an essay with a misleadingly inconclusive title: “After-birth Abortion: Why should the baby live?” It was a misleading title because the authors believe the answer to the question is: “Beats me.”
Right at the top, the ethicists summarized the point of their article. “What we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”
The argument made by the authors—Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, both of them affliliated with prestigious universities in Australia and ethicists of pristine reputation—runs as follows. Let’s suppose a woman gets pregnant. She decides to go ahead and have the baby on the assumption that her personal circumstances, and her views on such things as baby-raising, will remain the same through the day she gives birth and beyond.
Then she gives birth. Perhaps the baby is disabled or suffers a disease. Perhaps her boyfriend or (if she’s old-fashioned) her husband abandons her, leaving her in financial peril. Or perhaps she’s decided that she’s just not the mothering kind, for, as the authors write, “having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children, regardless of the condition of the fetus.”
The authors point out that each of these conditions—the baby is sick or suffering, the baby will be a financial hardship, the baby will be personally troublesome—is now “largely accepted” as a good reason for a mother to abort her baby before he’s born. So why not after?
“When circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.” (Their italics.) Western societies approve abortion because they have reached a consensus that a fetus is not a person; they should acknowledge that by the same definition a newborn isn’t a person either. Neither fetus nor baby has developed a sufficient sense of his own life to know what it would be like to be deprived of it. The kid will never know the difference, in other words. A newborn baby is just a fetus who’s hung around a bit too long.
You really should read the rest of the article here.
Thanks to Mark H. for alerting me to this article.
The Impressive Clergyman
There’s an interesting discussion here at Rev’d McCain’s blog about whether or not there is an “ideal” Lutheran form of worship, in the comments to a post that warns us of “The High Church Danger to the Lutheran Church.” As best as I can tell, the warning is against the liturgical practice of a departed brother who is now a priest in the Antiochian church, whose order of service was never removed from the church website. Yet McCain seems to suggest a movement of high church pastors and churches, which is a great surprise to me, since I feel virtually alone out here in the Lutheran wilderness.
Truly our Confessions give wide latitude regarding ceremony. Yet is there really no ideal form of practice? Paul McCain says, “There is no ideal.” I am convinced that our Confessions assume an ideal, and it’s articulated in AC XXIV:
Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass. The Mass is held among us and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, except that the parts sung in Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns…. All those able to do so partake of the Sacrament together. This also increases the reverence and devotion of public worship…. The people are also advised about the dignity and use of the Sacrament, about how it brings great consolation to anxious consciences, so that they may learn to believe God and to expect and ask from Him all that is good. This worship pleases God. Such use of the Sacrament nourishes true devotion toward God. Therefore, it does not appear that the Mass is more devoutly celebrated among our adversaries than among us.
The Apology adds to this:
At the outset, we must again make this preliminary statement: we do not abolish the Mass, but religiously keep and defend it. Masses are celebrated among us every Lord’s Day and on the other festivals. The Sacrament is offered to those who wish to use it, after they have been examined and absolved. And the usual public ceremonies are observed, the series of lessons, of prayers, vestments, and other such things. (McCain translation)
One of my goals as a Lutheran pastor has been to actually live out what those words say in the liturgical practice of my parish. What I have discovered is that simply doing what is in the hymnal, along with the terrible Romish sins of crossing yourself and kneeling, will get you branded by your fellow pastors with the scarlet (or rose?) letters HC: “High Church,” a great wickedness which everyone knows is tearing the Synod apart. Gadzooks, how these chasuble-wearing chanters are proliferating!
Well, I’m ready to take this to the next level: If there’s a dangerous, secret cabal of High Church Lutherans actually trying to do what our Confessions say, this is my semaphore: Brethren, contact me! I’d like to join your merry band of idealists. We can be troublers of Israel together.
Tagged: Augsburg Confession, Paul McCain
Art in the Catacombs of Rome: The Raising of Lazarus
A discussion about baptism for the dead came up in the comments on this post. As I was preparing my response, I came across this interesting passage in Luther (AE 28), who also reads 1 Cor. 15:29 as a reference to baptisms happening “among the dead” (in cemeteries).
But Paul adds a phrase to the word “baptize,” pro mortuis. This has been interpreted to mean—and so it reads in Latin—that they had themselves baptized “for the dead,” that is, for the unbelievers in heathendom. Then they would have been baptized twice, once for themselves and the second time for members of their family. But that cannot be. For in Acts 2:38 Peter says: “Be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ, etc.” This does not mean that one should be baptized for another. It is the same as that everyone must repent, believe, and profess his faith for himself. Therefore I adhere to the meaning, in concurrence with the old Greek teachers, which we indicated in a marginal note next to this text, namely: In St. Paul’s day this article [of the resurrection of the body] was still novel and was just being spread. It was unknown and unheard of among the heathen, also among the most erudite in Greece, although they did advance to the point where they assumed that the soul lived after the death of the body, without being able to prove this conclusively. However, that man would rise again and that body and soul would be reunited, of that they knew nothing at all.
In view of this, it was hard for them at first to believe the apostles’ proclamation; and those who believed it had to endure much ridicule. And so, in order to strengthen this article among the people, they had themselves baptized at the graves of the dead in token of their firm conviction that the dead who lay buried there and over whom they were being baptized would rise again. They were so convinced of this that they were, in a manner of speaking, pointing their finger at it. Similarly, we might administer Baptism publicly in a common cemetery or at a funeral. Therefore we read that the congregation at Aquileia had been taught and was accustomed to recite this article in the Creed thus: “I believe in the resurrection of this flesh.” This was undoubtedly done for the purpose of teaching and professing also this article clearly and correctly over against the factious spirits.
One of the most moving experiences of my life was a visit to the San Callisto catacombs outside of Rome. Kassie and I were vacationing there for our tenth anniversary, and we’d gotten on the wrong bus, dropping us off several miles from the catacombs. We were walking on the Via Appia Antica through serene, beautiful countryside, when the road suddenly became very narrow and connected to a major driving road. We were literally forced to walk sideways with our backs against a wall, cars racing by at very high speeds a foot or two away. I became convinced we would die then and there, but we finally made it, and finally entering into the peaceful gardens, we then partook of a deeply spiritual encounter with the artwork of those ancient Christians still present, nearly two millennia later, on the walls of their burial place, where they also worshipped. There they received the Eucharist and confessed the resurrection of JESUS and their own coming resurrection. I suspect there was a similar situation in Corinth, and there a practice emerged of baptizing among the dead.
Tagged: Baptism, Baptism by proxy, Baptism for the dead, Luther
My Catechism class insisted on staying after class this afternoon to sing a hymn. One hymn turned into another and another, and pretty soon they’d stayed 25 minutes after class, gathered with me around the organ, two of them sitting on the bench beside me, happily singing away. I’ve rarely been more filled with joy.
Tagged: Catechesis, Hymns
Planned Parenthood, which maintains the busiest abortion chambers in the U.S., is being sued for obtaining fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements of over $5 million in Texas.
The lawsuit alleges that Planned Parenthood knowingly committed Medicaid fraud from 2007 to 2009 by improperly seeking reimbursements from the Texas WHP program, a new family planning program started in 2007, for products and services not reimbursable by that program.
An estimated 40 percent of the claims submitted by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast to the Texas WHP program were “false, fraudulent, and/or ineligible for reimbursement,” the suit noted.
More specifically, at least 87,075 of the claims made were fraudulent. In turn, Planned Parenthood received and retained reimbursements totaling more than $5.7 million.
You can find the details here.
Tagged: Abortion, Fraud, Medicaid, , generic viagra same