Come Reason's Apologetics Notes blog will highlight various news stories or current events and seek to explore them from a thoughtful Christian perspective. Less formal and shorter than the www.comereason.org Web site articles, we hope to give readers points to reflect on concerning topics of the day.
The Bible is unique among sacred texts in that it is set against a historical backdrop. Do recent archaeological discoveries validate or discredit the Biblical accounts? Listen to this complete series as Lenny explores the relationship between the Bible and archaeology and shows why the Bible can be considered reliable historically.
The plot of Michael Crichton's 1978
film Coma turns on a surgical resident who uncovers a private medical facility
that induces comas in healthy, young patients in order to sell their organs on
the black market. After the film's release,
one reviewer cautioned "See it and worry" but Dennis Schwartz
dismissed the film as
"more entertaining than credible."
Yet, today the story is breaking that
Planned Parenthood has been selling the organs of aborted babies on the black
market for some time and they've even captured top Planned Parenthood staff
negotiating a deal and explaining how they do it. Live Action News just released
the hidden camera footage (embedded at the bottom of this post) along with
the story of Planned Parenthood Federation Senior Director of Medical
Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola talking with two undercover reporters about how
to order children's hearts, livers, legs, or other parts they desire.1
The video is gruesome. It shows the actual web-based order form that allows
customers to select gestational age, the type of tissue you would like, the
quantity, and shipping options, like these are automobile parts and not organs
of a human being who must be killed for them to be harvested.
The undercover
meeting with Nutacola is no easier to watch. There, she explains how they will
alter their method of aborting the child in order to preserve whatever parts are
requested by their customers. One undercover reporter asked, "How much of a
difference can that actually make, if you know kind of what's expected or what
we need?" Nutacola cooly responds:
It makes a huge difference. I'd say a lot
of people want liver. And for that reason, most providers will do this case
under ultrasound guidance, so they'll know where they're putting their
forceps...
We've been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because
we know that, so I'm not gonna crush that part, I'm gonna basically crush below,
I'm gonna crush above, and I'm gonna see if I can get it all intact. And with
the calvarium, in general, some people will actually try to change the
presentation so that it's not vertex.
You may have missed the meaning of
Nucatola's last statement about changing the presentation. She is stating that
she will turn the baby in utero from a head-down position to a breech position
of feet first in order to make the mother dilate more as the abortion progresses
and the baby's head won't need to be crushed. That's the textbook definition of
partial-birth abortion which is
illegal under federal law. Of course
so is the buying and
selling of human fetal tissue. 2
What You Can Do About It
This is all horrifying and many will be shocked. Others will say, "What did
you expect? The abortion industry has many
gruesome stories." However, I think this particular case, given the
high-level involvement and the clearly illegal nature of the acts affords us a
unique opportunity.
1. Ask Your Elected officials to
Revoke all Planned Parenthoood Government Funding
The level of corruption within Planned Parenthood is s patently obvious from
the video. There, even PPFA President and CEO Cecile Richards is caught praising
Nucatola after the reporter told here "We do fetal collection and she's been
very helpful with figuring out who to talk to." It would take a fool to believe
that Richards doesn't know what's going on especially when Planned Parenthood's
lawyers are providing council on how to handle this from an organization's legal
liability perspective.
Listen, Planned Parenthood, according to their own
reports, received $524 million last year from various government grants.3
Given the horrific nature of these crimes, every person needs to call their
elected official and demand the suspension of all grants to Planned Parenthood
programs, no matter what their purpose, until this case can be properly
investigated. The money stops now.
If you think this is a long shot, think
again. It took only 24 days of public outcry over the Confederate battle flag to
force the state of South Carolina to remove it from their capitol. Twenty four
days for a change to happen that had no direct factor in the killing of those
nine church members. Certainly something this terrible warrants investigation
and given both houses of congress are currently controlled by Republicans who
are less sympathetic to Planned Parenthood, now is the time to act.
2. Spread the Word.
I anticipate the major media outlets will ignore this story like they
ignored the Gosnell trial. But if enough people make enough noise, they
won't be able to turn away. If the House of Representatives debates pulling all
funding for PPFA, the media will cover it. Therefore, we need to spread the
word. Tweet about this. Share this story and share the video with everyone you
know. Keep up the pressure. Challenge people to watch it. Don't let up. Make it
news too big to ignore. If you are more outraged by a Confederate flag than
this, you're a monster.
3. Pray
Lastly, let's pray that God will use this discovery to dismantle Planned
Parenthood. PPFQA is the #1 abortion provider in the United States. They are
based on the
racist beliefs of Margaret Sanger and were formed as an avenue to practice
eugenics. 4 Pray that God will open people's eyes and we
can put an end to this bloody chapter in America's history.
In his review of
the movie Coma, Schwartz believed that the film's premise wasn't creditable.
Perhaps he may be right; the patients in the film simply weren't young enough.
As the video shows, reborn babies are much easier to harvest and dismember for
parts. See it and worry.
In book four of Mere Christianity,
C.S. Lewis tells of having a conversation with an old air force officer who
believed in God, but felt that the theologies we teach somehow diminish his
reality. The officer proclaims, "I know there's a God. I've felt Him: out alone
in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't
believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him."1
This "all I need is Jesus" concept has only grown since Lewis' writing that
story, and I can understand why. For those that have been delivered from a life
of misery or the effects of addition, the real changing presence of the Gospel
is powerful and moving. Theology seems to be about somehow deconstructing God,
making him more distant than He is experientially. Lewis agreed with that
assessment, yet he cautioned against abandoning learning theology simply because
it is less experientially powerful than the direct witness of the Spirit. He
used the analogy of an Englishman learning about the Atlantic Ocean by walking
along the beach. Surely this experience, too, has a feel that informs the man
in a far more powerful way than seeing the ocean drawn upon a map. Yet, the map
is important. Lewis explains:
The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have
to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and
thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way
it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have
from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the
map fits all those different experiences together.
In the second place,
if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you
are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than
looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the
beach if you want to get to America.
Now, Theology is like the map.
Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop
there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got
in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that
map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in
touch with God—experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings
you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very
confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the
map.2
A Map to God's Character
I like Lewis' analogy. The study of theology is perhaps drier than the
experiential aspects of the Christian life, but it informs us about God as he
is, not simply the small sliver we experience. Further, when difficulties come
into our lives, we can refer back to our learning of who God is and how he works
and have confidence in his character. We grow in our devotion to him as we grow
in our understanding of him.
The writer to the Hebrews rebuked those Christians for not moving beyond the pure milk of the word. He expected them to mature in
their relationship with God as Christians. He wanted them to deal with more
complex theological ideas than "repentance from dead works and of faith toward
God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection
of the dead, and eternal judgment" (Heb. 6:1-2, ESV). Those are all important
foundations of the gospel, but there is so much more to learn.
If we wish to
love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we need to learn more
about his essential nature and his character. We need a map to guide us on our
journey in understanding him better. We will need to be shown those hidden
treasures that can build us up as believers. After all, what lover doesn't want
to know everything he can about his beloved?
References
1. Lewis, C. S. "Mere Christianity."
The Complete
C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002.
127-128 Print. 2. Lewis, 128.
Recently, Lenny was a featured guest on the Urban Theologian radio show, which broadcasts in the greater Phoenix area. Urban Theologian has been bringing stellar interviews by noted apologists; previous shows recently featured Dr. J.P. Moreland, Dr. Paul Meier, and Dr. Paul Nelson among others.
In this interview, Lenny comments on the need for apologetics in student ministry, how Christians can effectively reach out on college campuses, and how to shift the conversation on ideas like teaching about sex. You can listen to the entire interview below or visit the show's web site at http://urbantheologianradio.com/
Everyone loves the holiday movie A Christmas Story. It's become a family favorite in my house. It can also be useful as an illustration when talking about difficult issues such as sexual purity with your children. Check out this short video that helps kids understand a little of what they may lose by becoming sexually promiscuous.
"Lenny Esposito's work at Come Reason Ministries is an invaluable addition to the realm of Christian apologetics. He is as knowledgeable as he is gracious. I highly recommend booking Lenny as a speaker for your next conference or workshop!"
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