Sep 19, 2023 | News
Speaking recently at Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand event, researcher George Barna attributed our societal problems to a transition from a biblical worldview to alternative philosophies.
Christian post reports that Barna contends parents err in prioritizing “academic achievement, emotional happiness, and good health” over “worldview development,” and wanting their children to be a “good person” as opposed to being a disciple of Christ. Currently, Barna says, “less than 1 percent of adolescents and teens are on track to have a biblical worldview.” This means our world is in desperate need of true disciples.
Barna notes that a disciple is not simply someone who believes in God, but rather is someone who follows Jesus’ teachings and adheres to His commandments. Doing so requires us to be counter-cultural. A disciple’s life should look radically different from those around him, and will almost certainly involve some level of cultural challenge or even persecution.
It’s not wrong to want children to do well in school, be emotionally and physically healthy, or be a good person. But they should first and foremost be disciples who see the world through the lens of Scripture. Without a biblical worldview, children will ultimately struggle in every area because such a worldview grounds them and prepares them for discerning true from false, good from evil, and right from wrong. This calls for intentional, purposeful parenting.
A crucial part of instilling a biblical worldview in our children, especially in our modern culture, is teaching them what the Bible has to say about the value of life.
For example, Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Similarly, Isaiah 49:1 says, “The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.” Lastly, the sixth commandment forbids the direct and intentional killing of another person.
God makes it very clear. Christianity and abortion are entirely incompatible.
Unfortunately, we are now living in a state where innocent lives are once again being taken under the guise of “healthcare.” Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin resumed abortions yesterday in Madison and Milwaukee. The Associated Press reports that appointments at the Milwaukee clinic were completely filled within 24 hours of Planned Parenthood announcing that it would resume abortions, despite the fact that our state’s pre-Roe abortion ban is still in place. (Our press release in response to PPWI’s illegal, life-taking decision is available HERE.)
The good news is that this battle is far from over. Please pray for our judicial system and all those involved. As Christians, we are called to do everything in our power to end abortion in Wisconsin. Doing so will require that we raise up the next generation to be disciples of Christ who see life, from the moment of conception, through a biblical worldview.
Apr 19, 2023 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
As radical gender ideology continues to spread throughout health care in the U.S., the left is taking aim at practices that stand in its way while disregarding First Amendment freedoms and the needs of people.
Currently, 20 states have banned the intentionally misnamed “conversion therapy,” which is actually just the practice of providing counseling to help individuals with same-sex attraction or gender confusion reorient in synch with their God-given sexuality. However, the name “conversion therapy” – a misnomer much like “reproductive health care” in relation to abortion – is intentionally used by the left to conjure up images of patients being effectively tortured, badgered, or bullied into renouncing homosexual interests or abandoning transgenderism.
Banning counseling efforts to guide a patient through struggles with their sexual orientation is a direct violation of free speech, freedom of religion, and patients’ freedom to seek the treatment they want. It also threatens parents’ rights to direct the mental health care and education of their children.
Some on the left are even attempting to expand the definition of “conversion therapy” to include any form of opposition to homosexuality and transgenderism. Doing so could criminalize even private conversations in which individuals advocate for abstinence from homosexuality or Biblical sermons on God’s design for human sexuality.
Those struggling with any mental health problem need guidance rooted in Truth and reality, not in lies rooted in the baseless religion of progressivism.
Despite the lack of data regarding the psychological ramifications of the “gender-affirming” approach, and the growing body of evidence that this method doesn’t remedy mental health problems, the left wants “affirmation” to be the only therapy available to struggling minors.
Thankfully, a U.S. district court has ordered the city of Boca Raton, Florida, to pay a combined $75,000 in damages to two therapists, while also ordering Palm Beach County to pay a fine of $100,000 for passing so-called “conversion therapy” bans for minors seeking help with unwanted homosexual attraction.
Boca Raton and Palm Beach County passed laws prohibiting conversion therapy for minors in 2017. The two plaintiffs, marriage and family therapists Robert Otto and Julie Hamilton, filed lawsuits arguing that their therapy was voluntary and focused on reducing unwanted homosexual attraction rather than changing the client.
Liberty Counsel, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the judge’s order sets a “precedent that minors who are struggling with gender confusion can get the help they need from counselors who are free from political censorship” and it should “be a warning to any government that has not repealed similar counseling bans.”
Several municipalities in Wisconsin have audaciously enacted these bans that blatantly violate counselors’ First Amendment freedoms and rob confused minors of the real help and hope they need. Hopefully, these local governments in our state pay attention to this case and reverse course.
As Christians, obeying God and loving our neighbor require us to call out sin and point one another to God’s Word. The left has no right to stand in the way of our allegiance to God with laws enforcing anti-Christian beliefs about gender and sexuality. Please pray that this case is the first of many victories when it comes to restoring religious liberty and free speech in mental health care and the Wisconsin communities where these bans have been enacted will indeed do the right thing and revoke such policies.
Apr 12, 2023 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
Since 2011, the American Bible Society (ABS) has been issuing an annual report entitled State of the Bible USA. Earlier this month, ABS released the first installment of its 2023 report, which tracks key metrics about Scripture engagement, Bible use, and perceptions of the Bible in America. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the newly released report shows a continued downward trajectory in Scripture engagement, which is not good for America in just about any way we can think of. The good news is that this is a reversible trend.
While our founders and founding documents were undoubtedly very influenced by Christian principles, sadly, over the years, our nation has become less and less overtly Christian, and part of that is because of the diminishing influence of the Bible in every aspect of our culture.Christianity cannot thrive when its definitive authority, the Bible, is not accepted and genuinely adhered to by the faith’s followers.
We’ve known for years that biblical literacy is waning. In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down any compulsory Bible reading in public schools. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court also decided public schools couldn’t display the Ten Commandments in a classroom or anywhere else in a school.
These Supreme Court decisions along with a number of other cultural happenings, including the breakdown of the family unit, pretty much ensured that upcoming generations would be unfamiliar with biblical teachings and disengaged from Scripture.
The State of the Bible USA report documents these unfortunate realities. Putting people into three broad categories—Bible Disengaged, Moveable Middle, and Scripture Engaged—the report looks for trends, both favorable and unfavorable. This year, the first chapter of the report says the data collected suggests three things. First, when people engage deeply with the Bible, their lives and relationships are better. In other words, they flourish. Second, fewer people in America are engaging with the Bible. Scripture engagement is not rising yet; it continues on a downward trajectory. And third, there are signs of hope. The Movable Middle has rebounded, and Bible disengagement has fallen in the past year.
The reality is America cannot sustain its republican form of government with “we the people” as the central characters, its free-enterprise, capitalistic economy, and its unprecedented wealth and freedom long-term without the influence of the Bible and its clear teachings on what true Christianity is. John Adams told us early on that “[o]ur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” At that time, Adams knew people understood he was talking about Christianity and the Bible when he referenced “a moral and religious people.”
Thankfully, the loss of the influence of the Bible in our country can be reversed. That reversing won’t happen in public schools, to be sure, even if the courts decided to reverse course on Bible reading and posting of the Ten Commandments in those schools. However, as dads and moms make the Bible an integral part of their personal and their family’s daily lives, the next generation will become more biblically literate and more Scripturally engaged. Churches should help families in this area in really practical ways; but ultimately, we reverse this dangerous trend one family at a time.
Dec 20, 2022 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
Couples struggling with infertility are increasingly turning to artificial reproduction, namely in vitro fertilization (IVF). While this technology seems to provide hope to couples with a well-intentioned longing to start a family, the reality is that IVF exploits women and strips tiny children of their fundamental right to life.
Oxford University fertility expert Professor Imogen Goold notes that artificial reproduction clinics “are selling anxious women a false dream” and “preying on women” by charging them for a procedure that almost never works.
When it comes to Big Fertility, there is no independent overseer, and among women aged 42 to 43 who try IVF, a mere three percent will end up with a baby. “Clinics offering egg-freezing rely on women being scared and wanting to throw money at a problem. But these clinics have a vested interest in convincing women they need to buy into this process as an insurance policy, highlighting their success rates while burying their failures,” writes British doctor Max Pemberton.
The lack of success and exploitation of desperate couples is not the only problem with IVF. Most importantly, every time an IVF cycle is performed, multiple tiny children are destroyed.
In the first stages of IVF, clinicians perform a preimplantation screening of early embryos for chromosomal or genetic abnormalities. The tiny humans that are determined to be “healthy” are implanted or frozen to be used in the future. The remaining embryos are simply discarded.
Further, many of the embryos who aren’t discarded during the first stages of IVF lose their lives during the implantation phase. In fact, only seven percent of embryos created through IVF are born.
Each of these embryos is a human life formed by God. Once fertilization takes places, a human being made in the image and likeness of God is formed, regardless of where or how that life is conceived.
Approximately 12 percent of married couples suffer from infertility or struggle to sustain a pregnancy, which creates deep emotional and physical stress. These couples deserve care and support as they suffer from the immense pain associated with the unfulfilled longing for a child, and a healthy society must encourage couples to have children and build strong families. However, lab-created children are not the answer. Instead, we should provide hope to couples struggling with infertility by encouraging them to adopt. Adoption benefits and respects the rights of everyone involved.
Unfortunately, couples trying to conceive through IVF aren’t made fully aware of what the process entails. Unless they ask the right questions of the doctors, they won’t know what the problems with this procedure are. It’s up to Christians and pro-lifers to share the truth about IVF with compassion for those who are desperately trying to conceive.
Once again science and technology are ahead of our ethics. Just because we can do something, does not mean we have a moral imperative to do it. It’s never right to create human life with the intention of it being expendable.
Dec 5, 2022 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
Chaplains at Wisconsin Children’s Hospital preach anti-Christian ideas and parents need to push back. Children are being bombarded with radical gender ideology from every direction. Even their medical care providers are taking part, as our premier children’s hospital in Wisconsin is now hiring “trans” activists as chaplains and “spiritual care interns.”
The new hires were announced with fliers posted in the inpatient units. The posters read, “Meet Your New Chaplain: Kate Newendorp.” Newendorp’s gender ideology was made clear, as the posters declared her pronouns as “she/her/hers” and those of her fiancé, a female who identifies as “they/he.”
While the posters themselves are cause for concern, they leave out some important details. Newendorp holds social Marxist views; and she is an advocate for transgender surgeries, abortion, and the rejection of religious teaching when it contradicts her personal views.
The new “chaplain” boldly rejects biblical Christian doctrine, which clearly affirms the value of life in the womb, defines the sexes as only “male and female,” and decries same-sex relationships.
“Love Jesus. Be gay. Get ordained,” she wrote on Facebook in June. “What better way to celebrate Pride than being ordained?! Many thanks to my church and classis for being willing to stand for queer folks being included in ministry and for allowing me to follow God’s call.”
She has also twisted Scripture on Facebook by falsely proclaiming that loving one’s neighbor requires voting for Democrats. She even called abortion a “religious freedom” in a post proudly announcing her pro-choice views. Lastly, she started a GoFundMe to help her fiancé undergo a double mastectomy as part of her gender “transition.”
Unfortunately, Newendorp isn’t the only anti-Christian “chaplain” at Children’s. Fellow “chaplain” Ian Butts interrogated the hospital’s staff members who requested religious exemptions from the Covid vaccine mandate.
These are the people who are influencing our children under the guise of Christianity. Parents cannot afford to allow their children to be taught by secular society, or even many of those who claim to be “Christian.”
Parents must have tough conversations with their children about what the Bible really teaches, and how to approach these topics with Truth and love. Talk to them from early ages about how God designed them to be distinctly male or female and how His design is good.
Parents should also foster an environment at home where children feel comfortable asking questions. This also means that parents need to be well-educated on this subject. “Becoming an expert emboldens you to live out Deuteronomy 6:7, teaching the truth ‘diligently to your children … when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise,’” writes Them Before Us director Katy Faust.
A growing number of children are identifying as transgender thanks to the influence of mentors like Newendorp. Parents need to know how to steer their children in the right direction when it comes to their sexuality. There are plenty of resources, such as Them Before Us by Katy Faust that can help prepare parents to raise Godly children in a morally depraved culture. Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier provides interesting and important insights into the transgender craze as it impacts girls. Shrier is not a Christian and is not 100% opposed to the LGBTQ+ agenda, but she is alarmed by the “attack” on young girls in particular.
Further, if your children are in public schools, ask questions. Stay informed about exactly what your children are learning and get involved. Bealert to signs that your son or daughter might be struggling in this area.
Lastly, but most importantly, pray for the hearts and minds of your children daily. This is a spiritual battle, and the devil is working hard to influence them. Pray for their protection and most of all that they come to know and love Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, rather than succumbing to the evil ideas that surround them.
Oct 28, 2022 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
This week, WFA held a “Lunch With a Purpose” webinar with Dr. Wayne Grudem, who serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona.
Participants engaged in an excellent discussion on politics according to the Bible, and we trust that it was helpful for all who attended. For those who weren’t able to attend, a recording of the webinar is available on our website and may be accessed HERE.
Below are a list of resources that were mentioned in the webinar:
- Politics According to the Bible by Dr. Grudem is available from Amazon HERE.
- A copy of the booklet “Why Christians Should Seek to Influence Government for Good” by Dr. Grudem is available from Wisconsin Family Council (888-378-7395), or you can access a pdf download for free HERE.
- A copy of the booklet “Christians and Politics: Five Wrong Views” by Dr, Grudem is available online HERE.
- Election resources for your church are available on Wisconsin Family Council’s website HERE.
- Wisconsin Family Council’s Voter Information Publication can be found HERE.
We encourage everyone to take a look at these materials to gain a better understanding of why it’s so important for Christians to engage in government. It’s vital that we know why participating in politics is so important not only so that we do so ourselves, but so we can encourage our friends and family to do the same.
Government is God’s idea, not man’s. He calls us to engage in the political sphere as a way of caring for the spiritual and temporal lives of our neighbors. Jesus says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). This means we must seek laws and elect leaders who will protect the unborn, support marriage and the family, and protect children from immoral influences.
Further, politics and morality are inseparable. Every law is based on some kind of moral compass, whether that compass comes from the false god of self or the One True God.
Dr. Grudem notes, “The Bible says that a government official is ‘God’s servant for your good’ (Rom. 13:4), but how can government officials effectively serve God if no one is allowed to tell them what they believe God expects of them? The Bible says that government officials are sent ‘to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good’ (1 Peter 2:14), but how can they do that if no spokesmen from any of the world’s religions are allowed to give them counsel on what is ‘good’ and what is ‘evil’?” Society can only thrive when our laws are based on God’s unchanging law.
Ultimately, without Christian influence, our government will have no clear moral compass, and Christians are obligated to exercise this influence.
The midterm election is just over a week away. Let’s respond to our calling and head to the polls. Don’t forget to do your research, know what each of the candidates stands for, cast an informed vote grounded in biblical principles, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.
Oct 17, 2022 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
Christian cake shop owner Jack Phillips and graphic designer Lorie Smith are fighting for their First Amendment rights in court. Hopefully their cases will reaffirm the right of every American to live or run a business according to their deeply held beliefs without fear or retribution.
In 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court heard Phillips’ case after a couple sued the baker for refusing to bake them a cake celebrating their same-sex wedding. The court ruled in Phillips’ favor and found that the state of Colorado had discriminated against him.
However, before the court gave its ruling, another complaint was filed against Phillips, this time for refusing to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition.
On the same day that the Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips’ original case, Colorado lawyer Autumn Scardina called Phillips’ bakery to ask for a cake celebrating his transition from male to female. Scardina admitted that he only wanted to “challenge the veracity” of Phillips’ claim that he would serve LGBT people. Phillips’ family told Scardina they could not make the cake because the message it conveyed contradicted their personal beliefs.
Phillips has frequently served LGBT customers. He is not discriminating against the customers themselves. He simply refuses to make cakes with messages that contradict his religious beliefs such as Halloween cakes, sexually explicit cakes, and demeaning cakes, as is his God-given right.
A district court ruled against Phillips in this case, but Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys appealed the decision to the Colorado Court of Appeals.
ADF Senior Counsel Jake Warner says, “No one should be forced to express a message that violates their beliefs and conscience. Activists and state laws have threatened artists like Jack and graphic artist Lorie Smith because they can’t express messages on marriage and gender that violate their core beliefs. In this case, an activist attorney demanded that Jack create expressive cakes to test him and ‘correct the errors’ of his thinking. The attorney even promised to sue Jack again if the case is dismissed for any reason. Free speech is for everyone. The Constitution protects the freedom of every American to express ideas even if the government disagrees with those ideas.”
Warner is absolutely right. Phillips is completely within his rights to refuse to serve a same-sex wedding or bake a cake with an anti-Christian message. Hopefully, the Colorado Court of Appeals makes a decision informed by the Constitution.
In Jack’s first case, the US Supreme Court granted Phillips a partial victory, but failed to address the heart of the issue: Does the Constitution protect freedom of speech and the freedom not to speak, as well as religious freedom, or does the LGBTQ agenda trump those rights?
The good news is that the high court has a case this session similar to Jack’s, giving them another opportunity to get this issue right. Lorie Smith, a Christian graphic designer, is challenging the same law that brought Phillips to the Supreme Court.
Smith designs websites for weddings as long as they align with her belief that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. However, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act forces her to create websites for same-sex marriages.
This is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to affirm every artist and business owner’s right to refuse to send a message they don’t agree with. Let’s pray the court gets it right this time.
Even WFA has been denied graphic design services more than once because of who we are and what we believe- even by vendors who say they are Christians. While we could sue, we never have, because as Christians, we really do believe business owners should have the right to refuse any business they wish.
At the core of human dignity is our right to live in accordance with our deeply held beliefs. No one has the right to an artist’s services. Only the artist has the right to determine which services he or she will provide. While this First Amendment right is under severe and constant attack, Phillips and Smith’s cases give us a chance to realign the law with the Constitution and prevent more unwarranted complaints against Christian business owners.
Oct 6, 2022 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
A new leader abroad is representing the rise of conservatism in Europe, and she provides an excellent example of unwavering commitment to Christian values for our leaders here in the United States.
Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Italy’s conservative party Brothers of Italy, was recently elected Prime Minister of Italy, making history as the first female leader of the country. Even more impressively, she is standing firm for biblical values and the nuclear family.
Meloni’s leadership is desperately needed in Europe, as the EU’s progressive social and economic agenda is spreading much like the left’s in the United States. Despite tremendous backlash from her adversaries, Meloni has consistently and unapologetically spoken the truth.
During a speech at the 2019 World Congress of Families that has recently gone viral online, she declared, “Why is the family an enemy? Why is the family so frightening?… Because everything that defines us is now an enemy… And so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity…”
“I cannot define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother. No… I must be… ‘gender x,’ ‘parent 1’… I must be a number…” she continued.
“We will defend God, country and family. Those things that disgust people so much. We will do it to defend our freedom, because we will never be slaves…”
Meloni has also condemned many of the evils that the left continues to champion such as surrogacy, same-sex marriage, abortion, and child gender transition hormone therapy.
She has even bemoaned Italy’s low birth rate, which is just 1.2 children per woman, reflecting the culture’s poor view of marriage and family. This is an issue we’re seeing in Wisconsin, as we’ve had a below replacement birth-rate since 1974.
Meloni’s commitment to the traditional family unit and Christian values is exactly what we need from our leaders here in the U.S., especially as a growing number of children are undergoing bodily mutilation at the hands of abusive doctors.
This kind of leadership is difficult to come across, as it comes at a high price now that censorship, name-calling, and persecution have become the norm in our political landscape.
The left is criticizing Meloni’s views and politics as “semi-fascist” – although this is blatantly false – simply because her political beliefs align with biblical teachings.
YouTube has censored her speech, claiming that the video “violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” In reality, the left-wing platform simply disagrees with Meloni’s politics and is silencing her voice as it often does to conservative speakers.
Our leaders should expect the same persecution if they follow her lead, but it can’t hinder them from fiercely marching forward in proclaiming God’s truth and boldly speaking out for children and the traditional family. Children are being mutilated, and now is not the time for spineless leadership.
Without representatives who refuse to cower to the woke mob and are steadfast in their goal of preserving traditional American values, parental rights, religious liberty, and free speech will continue to diminish.
Thankfully, we have an opportunity this fall to elect leaders who will follow Meloni’s lead and catalyze a return to a pro-family America. Over the next month, we should focus on getting informed about the candidates and encouraging fellow Christians to elect Christ-centered leaders who will guide our country toward virtue and away from the many evils pervading our culture.
We need to elect candidates who are proud to send the same message in the U.S. that Meloni is sending to Italy: “Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death.”
Apr 22, 2022 | News, Wisconsin Family Voice
We are in the midst of a troubling crisis of faith in America. As church attendance continues to decline, fewer people are picking up their Bibles and staying rooted in God’s Word.
Last week the American Bible Society released the results of its State of the Bible 2022 survey. It revealed an unprecedented drop in Bible reading among Americans over the last year, decreasing from 50% to 39% of self-described Bible users.
In the survey, Bible users are defined as those using the Bible at least three to four times each year on their own outside of a church setting–not an extraordinary amount of time by any means. For Americans who use the Bible, at least 73% percent were introduced to it as children. Of those who don’t use the Bible, 55% come from homes with little or no Bible engagement.
Just 10% of U.S. adults use the Bible daily and 5% read the Bible once a week. This means the vast majority are not relying on the Word of God on a daily basis.
These results are sobering since the Bible is God’s Word to mankind, giving us the Gospel, direction, wisdom and more. The Bible must influence our everyday decisions and change the way we live our lives. Without God’s Word as our guide, we are forced to rely on our flawed and sinful nature.
Further, it is vital that our worldview comes from the Bible rather than our pagan culture. Society tells us that the purpose of life is to discover and express our most authentic inner selves. The Bible, however, tells us to lean on God and His wisdom rather than on our own understanding and submit to Him in all things (Proverbs 3:5-6). Unless we continuously read and remind ourselves of God’s Word, we will surely fall victim to the lies of the devil being promoted by our culture.
One positive take-away of the American Bible Society’s survey is that when children are exposed to the Bible, they are likely to grow up to be Bible users. Thus, the tonic to America’s spiritual illness is to raise the next generation with God’s Word. Parents should regularly read the Bible to and with their children.
Parents must be countercultural as they raise their children and instill in them a biblical worldview. Simply living as everyone else does will lead our children to moral decay as they are formed by the anti-Christian culture. We must honor God’s Word first and foremost through our own example and secondly through intentional at-home education. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” says Proverbs 22:6.
Please pray for a Christian revival and a return to biblical principles in Wisconsin and our country at large. A free and prosperous nation is only possible with a moral people, and the only reliable morality comes from God’s Word.
