One of the consistent themes of Issues in Perspective is the centrality of the family, the bedrock institution of civilization. From the Christian perspective, it was the first institution God created. From the perspective of sociology and the broader social science disciplines, the family is central to rearing children, to personal well-being and to a stable economy.
Since the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, evangelicals have played a major role in presidential politics. They played a decisive role in Reagan?s 1980 election, his 1984 reelection, the Republican victories in 1994 and the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004. But the evangelical influence appears to be waning and the 2012 presidential election adds credence to that claim. Despite the fact that 79% of white evangelicals voted for Romney (about the same percentage Bush received in 2004) this November, Obama won a decisive victory. On top of that victory, four states voted to legitimize same-sex marriages. What is going on?
As a nation, the monstrous evil in Newtown, Connecticut will haunt us during the 2012 Christmas season. It is unimaginable that someone could kill 20 children, all of them either 6 or 7 years old. How could this occur? How could God, who is good, permit such horror? This despicable act of evil will now doubt affect public policy decisions on gun control and mental health care. But it also serves to remind us that nowhere is truly safe. Evil will always find a way to raise its ugly head. To help us process this indescribable terror, I am drawing on some comments of several months ago on Issues in Perspective. May these comments give us a context and help us as we pray that God will bring good out of such sadness and loss.
This Christmas season, as we sing ?Peace on the earth, good will to men, From heaven?s all gracious King,? from the magnificent Christmas carol, ?It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,? we echo the words of the angels in Luke 2:14 at the birth of Jesus. The ?peace? that the angels proclaimed and about which we sing reflects a deep longing of the human heart: Our lives are often in turmoil and wracked by personal hardships.
That the family is the bedrock institution of civilization is a given. But what constitutes a family is now being debated, and increasingly the state is taking over more of the family?s function. As a Christian, it is difficult for me to see this as a positive development; in fact, I believe it is one of the most worrying developments of the postmodern era. For that reason, I want to focus on the state of the family in this Perspective.
The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is a portent of a much more serious crisis looming on the horizon for Israel. It is a crisis that has political, military and profound security implications for Israel. In this edition of Issues in Perspective, I seek to place this entire conflict in a proper context.
Because of the economic crisis facing America, many were surprised at how strident the abortion issue was during the recent campaign and election. President Obama ran an aggressively pro-abortion reelection campaign, and, as columnist Michael Gerson argues, was ?seeking culture-war advantage on an issue he seldom mentioned four years ago.? This blatant thrust of abortion into his campaign followed on the heels of an equally aggressive first-term crusade against religious institutions. His Justice Department, in the Hosanna-Tabor case, argued against the existence of any ?ministerial exception? to employment rules. Further, Obama sought to mandate that Catholic schools, hospitals and charities offer insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients. Gerson concludes as well that ?His revised policy still asserts a federal power to declare some religious institutions secular in purpose, reducing them to second-rate status under the First Amendment.?
The story of the Pilgrims is the story of the beginning of the holiday we know as Thanksgiving. But sometimes in America, we equate the Pilgrims with the Puritans, and assume they were identical groups. They were not. Pilgrims were also known as ?Separatists,? meaning they chose to separate from the established Church of England, the Anglican Church. The Puritans remained in the Anglican Church and chose to attempt to ?purify? it from within?hence the name ?Puritan.? In 1608, this group of Separatists, who would become the Pilgrims, fled England and settled in Holland. They desired freedom of worship there.
One of the many precious liberties we enjoy as Americans is freedom of religion. Indeed, the First Amendment to the US Constitution reads, ?. . . Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . .? This Amendment guarantees that America will never have a state church and it also guarantees that the state will always protect the freedom of religious expression. It is the ?free exercise? clause that is so dear to us, especially to Christians. . . . [R]eligious freedom in our nation is coming under a sustained and rather relentless attack. What is the evidence for this claim? Matthew J. Franck, Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute, offers several poignant examples of this claim:
As I am writing this, the 2012 national election is only days away. With the ridiculously long primary season, we have been in this presidential cycle for nearly two years! That this is one of the more important elections in recent memory is a given. Whoever becomes the next president and whoever is elected to the House and the Senate will face challenges of historic proportion . . . It is imperative that we remember we will also be voting for other national offices. In addition, we will vote for state officials and local officials, all of whom will represent us at various levels . . . In this Perspective I offer several broad guidelines and principles. Much of my analysis will focus on the presidency, all the while remembering that there are other significant offices for which we will vote.
