How to Be “Sweethearts for a Lifetime” in Your Marriage

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Guest: Wayne Mack, author, Sweethearts for a Lifetime

Understanding God’s purposes for marriage and applying biblical principles to this life-long covenantal relationship can be difficult today with all the man-based, psycho-babble being spouted from the culture and even the church.

With couples getting married for all the wrong reasons and then contending in marriage with unbiblical perspectives, it’s no wonder such a high percentage of marriages end in divorce, not the least of which are amongst professing Christians.

Wayne Mack, a professor of biblical counseling and author of our June-August Book Club selection, Sweethearts for a Lifetime, will join us live from South Africa this Saturday on The Christian Worldview to explain Read more

On Mission, Changing the World, and Not Being Able to Do It All

We welcome a new contributor to The Christian Worldview, Kevin DeYoung, senior pastor of University Reformed Church, author, and blogger.

This is a topic I’ve thought about a lot. It is sort of a personal issue as well as theological, so this post gets a tad lengthy. I thought about posting this over several days, but I think people tune out over a week. Plus I want you to be able to read the whole thing at once, so that you don’t wonder where I’m going with this thread.

Busy, Busy, Dreadfully Busy
I have always been a busy person. I don’t say this as any kind of pat on the back. Sometimes busyness is a good thing. Sometimes it’s not. It’s just the way things have been for me. In high school I ran track, cross country, played intramural basketball, did National Honor Society, marching band (French horn thank you very much), tried the Spanish Club, sang in a musical, did church twice on Sunday, Sunday school, youth group, and a Friday morning Bible Study. In college I ran a season of track, played several intramural sports, led our Fellowship of Christian Students group, went to voluntary chapel every time it was offered, sang in the church choir, sang in the college chapel choir, participated in the church college group, helped with Boys Brigade on Wednesday nights, went to church on Sunday, then Sunday school, then evening church, then our chapel gathering that could go until 11:00pm. I have always tried to do a lot of different things. I like doing things. I like being involved.

Needless to say, I was very busy in high school and college, too busy at times. But I found a way to manage my time, get things done, and do pretty well to very well at most things. But once I got to seminary my usual busyness, already a problem, was weighed down further by feelings of guilt, misplaced guilt I think. I was studying hard in my classes, going through the lengthy ordination process for my denomination, interning at my church, preaching once in awhile, singing in up to three different choirs, playing ultimate frisbee every Saturday, participating in an every-week accountability group, doing the usual church twice on Sunday plus Sunday school, plus midweek children’s catechism class, and I was leading the missions committee at seminary. I had lots of fun in seminary. It was a great time of life. But I also felt burdened, not only by all the things I was doing, but by all the things I could be doing. High school and college has plenty of opportunities too, but in seminary all of the opportunities were good, godly, this-is-what-good-Christians-do kind of opportunities. Sure, I did a lot, probably more than most, but I didn’t go to every chapel. I didn’t take advantage of every special speaker. I didn’t do much with the evangelism committee (only going into Salem to do street evangelism once on Halloween–yikes!). I attended a lot of prayer meetings, but those amazing Koreans always attended more. I didn’t have the time, it seemed, to do everything the Bible required of me.

And even if I could have found time to do all that was available, I knew that deep in my heart I just wasn’t as interested in youth ministry (to cite one example) as some others. My passion didn’t run as deep for the 10/40 window as I wanted it to. I just couldn’t muster sufficient enthusiasm for all the good causes and ideas out there. I couldn’t even keep up with all my prayer cards for all these good things.

Doing More for God
I understand there are lazy people out there (and believe me I can be lazy too sometimes). I understand there are lots of Christians in our churches sitting around doing nothing and they need to be challenged not to waste their life (seriously, I love that book and think Piper motivates for radical Christianity in the right way). I understand that many people in the evangelical world are far from generous with their resources and fritter their time away on inane television shows. But even with these important caveats, we really must be much more careful with out urgent and incessant pleas to “do more” for God. It’s the lazy and/or immature preacher who ends every sermon with a call to do more–more evangelism, more discipleship, more prayer, more giving, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. It’s the Seinfeld approach to application: “More anything? More everything!”

I know the “buts.” But people are selfish. People are insulated. People are pursuing the American dream instead of risk-taking discipleship. Amen to all of those concerns. We need to be challenged, but in ways we can actually obey, not pummeled into law-induced submission until we finally feel completely rotten about most everything in life and admit we aren’t doing enough for the poor, the lost, the children, the elderly, the least of these, the…you fill in the blank. Is the goal of Christianity really to leave everyone feeling like terrible a parent, spouse, friend, or neighbor all the time?

I believe there will always be more indwelling sin in my life and I believe that I will never do a good deed perfectly. But I don’t believe God gives us impossible demands in which we should always feel like failures. For example, God wants us to be generous. That’s clear from the Bible. And while it’s true that so long as we have something we could always give more away, isn’t it possible that some people you know actually are generous. Sure, they could do more. We always can do more. But they are still generous. They are obedient to this biblical command.

When the pastor preaches on generosity the goal should not be to make every last person feel like a miserable, miserly wretch. Because unless you live in some Godforsaken locale, there are probably people in your church who practice generosity. A good sermon on generosity might spur them on to further love and good deeds but it should not leave them feeling like complete failures. We may all have reason to repent after every sermon. But we don’t have to repent for every issue brought up in a sermon. Sometimes, by God grace, we do get it right. The problem with “do more” Christianity is that no one is ever allowed to get it right. And the problem, ironically enough, with never allowing anyone to get it right, is that fewer people feel like getting it right really matters.

Thing One and Thing Two (And Thing Three and Thing Four…)
The Bible is a big book and there’s a lot in there. So the Bible says a lot about the poor, about marriage, about children, about evangelism, about missions, about justice; it says a lot about a lot. Almost anyone can make a case that their thing should be the main thing or at least one of the most important things. But what often happens in churches (or church movements) is that the person with the “thing” thinks everyone else should devote their lives to the “thing” too. So churches squabble over limited resources, and people feel an abiding sense of guilt over not caring enough or doing enough about the ten other things that other people in the church care about more than they do.

Maybe it’s because I’m Type A or left brained or a beaver or an ESTJ or a good pastor or a people-pleasing sinner, but I often feel like I could, perhaps should, be doing more. I could do more evangelism. I could pray more. I could invite people over for dinner more. Because of this tendency I actually prefer the “do not” commands of Scripture. “Do not commit adultery”–that’s tough if you take the whole lust thing into account. Obeying this command requires prayer, accountability, repentance, and grace. But it doesn’t require me to start a non-profit or spend another evening away from my family. I just (just!) need to put to death the deeds of the flesh, die to myself and live to Christ.

Not committing adultery is, of course, easier said than done, but the command doesn’t overwhelm me. Changing the world, doing something about the global AIDS crisis, tackling homelessness–those things overwhelm me. What can I do? Where do I start? How will I find the time? I have four small kids, a full-time job, I give much more than 10% away to Christian causes, I try to share Jesus with my neighbors, I pray with my kids before bed, I’m trying to be a better husband. So is it possible, just possible, that God is not asking me to do anything about sex trafficking right now?

Before you think I’m a total nut-job and scream “physician heal thyself”, let me hasten to add: I do understand the gospel. I know that all this talk of what I should be doing or could be doing is not healthy. I know that. And I’m really doing fine. I’m not on the verge of burnout or breakdown or anything like that. Most days I don’t feel guilty about all the stuff I’m not doing. But that’s only because I’ve learned to ignore a lot of things well-meaning Christians say or write. I’m only 32 and already I’m worn out by urgent calls to transform the culture or rid the world of hunger or usher in an age or world peace. I’m not a cynic, at least I hope not. I just realize there is only so much I can do. I also realize that right now that my main work is to lead my family, shepherd my church, and preach faithful sermons. If I do these things, by God’s grace, and grow in one more degree of glory this week (again, by God’s grace), should I still feel guilty for all that I’m not doing in the world?

Two Blessings Along the Way
Two resources were very helpful to me as I wrestled with all of this in seminary. The first was the senior sermon preached to my class by Gordon Hugenberger of Park Street Church. The sermon was based on John the Baptist’s words “I freely confess I am not the Christ.” Hugenberger’s point to a group of soon-to-be pastors was simple. “Look, you are just the best man, not the groom. You are not the Messiah. Don’t act like it. Don’t let people force you to be something you are not. Don’t let them expect too much from you. Confess to yourself and to your people: I am not the Christ.” I still have a copy of the sermon (thanks Joey) and listen to it from time to time. Many pastors would do well to remember this humble and freeing confession. And many churchgoers would be thankful to have their pastors let up on all the “go do the mission of Jesus” sermons. He was the Christ after all and we are not.

The second resource that helped me was a little book called Beyond Duty: A Passion for Christ, A Heart for Mission by Tim Dearborn, who, at the time of the book’s publication, worked for World Vision (and still may, I don’t know). Dearborn talks about all the urgent appeals in the church to “modify our lifestyles to enable a more just distribution of the world’s resources, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, build homes for the poor, tear down all barriers that unjustly divide humankind, enable the reduction of the world’s arsenals in pursuit of peace…” He argues that for too long the church has motivated people to mission by news of natural catastrophes, complex humanitarian disasters, unreached people groups, and oppressed and exploited minorities. We’ve been given statistics and we’ve been told all about the sad condition of the world. The take home from all this has been to give more, care more, serve more, love more, sacrifice more. The good news of Christ’s death and resurrection had been turned into bad news about all the problems in the world and how much more we have to do to make things right.

Again, I know what you are going to say: but we do need to love, serve, and sacrifice. Absolutely, we do. But here’s what else we need to realize:

1) We all have different callings. Every Christian must give an answer for the reason for the hope that we have, but not everyone will do beach evangelism. Every Christian should be generous, but not everyone will live in the inner city. Every Christian should oppose abortion, but not everyone who march in protests or volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers.

2) The church, not the individual Christian, is God’s body in the world. We all have different gifts and the body has many different members. Even if I never directly engage the issue of AIDS in Africa, the church (through individuals or corporately) can still be showing the compassion of Christ to these orphans.

3) Even Jesus left good work undone some days. Even Jesus got tired. Even Jesus couldn’t do it all (in a manner of speaking).

4) God is the one who does the work, builds his kingdom, renews his world. As Dearborn says, “It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a church in the world.”

5) Greater is he that is in me that he that is in the world. The most important work to be done in the world has already been accomplished.

On top of all this, we need to make sure our exhortations to do more rise to the level of God’s glory and sink deep into the gospel. If the exhortations don’t culminate in the glory of God then the youth people and the evangelism people and the poverty people are not really after the same thing. They are just competing interest groups in your church or in your mind. And if the exhortations don’t go deep into the gospel (and they often don’t), then we are just beating up others and ourselves with utopian dreams and masochistic oughts.

The gospel of Christ crucified for sinners is of first importance after all. So don’t forget: God loves you. God forgives you. God redeems you. God keeps you. God was here before you and will be here long after you. The truth, the world, the church, the lost, the poor, the children are not dependent upon you.

Light and Easy, No?
I’m not for a minute advocating a cheap grace or an easy-believeism. But the yoke still is easy, right? And the burden still is light, is it not? The danger–and it’s a danger I’ve fallen foul of in my own preaching–is that in all our efforts to be prophetic, radical, and missional, we end up getting the story of Pilgrim’s Progress exactly backwards. “Come to the cross, Pilgrim, see the sacrifice for your sins. Isn’t that wonderful? Now bend over and let me load this burden on your back. There’s a lot of work we have to do, me and you.” A cross, yes. Jesus said we would have to carry one of those. But a cross that kills our sins, smashes our idols, and teaches us the folly of self-reliance. Not a burden to do the impossible. Not a burden to always do more for Jesus. Not a burden of bad news that never lets up and obedience that is always out reach.

No doubt some Christians need to be shaken out of their lethargy. I try to do that every Sunday morning and evening. But there are also a whole bunch of Christians who need to be set free from their performance-minded, law-keeping, world-changing, participate-with-God-in-recreating-the-cosmos shackles. I promise you, some of the best people in your churches are getting tired. They don’t need another rah-rah pep talk. They don’t need to hear more statistics and more stories Sunday after Sunday about how bad everything is in the world. They need to hear about Christ’s death and resurrection. They need to hear how we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. They need to hear the old, old story once more. Because the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.

Inside the Revolution: The Powerful Story of a Palestinian Revivialist

We all know how dangerous it is when a Palestinian boy becomes a Radical Muslim and a devout follower of jihad. But have you ever stopped to consider just how beautiful  — indeed, miraculous — it is when a Palestinian boy becomes a Revivalist and a devout follower of Jesus instead?

A fascinating new book — My Enemy, My Brother – has just been published that was written by a Palestinian man who was born and raised in Jerusalem. You’re not likely to hear about it on the Today show or Good Morning America. But I  commend to your attention. I have known the author, Hanna Shahin, for nearly two decades, and I can tell you first hand that his is an extraordinary and must-read story. During the 1967 war, as the fighting between Jordanians and Israelis was at its most intense in the battle for the Holy City, Hanna begged God to save all the members of his family from death, and if God did that, he promised to serve the Lord in full-time ministry for the rest of his life. In a series of gripping events that Hanna shares in the book, the Lord heard that prayer and answered it in an amazing way. In time, Hanna went on not only to become a minister of the gospel, but one of the most influential Revivalists in the region, using the power of radio broadcasting to beam the good news of Jesus’ love and mercy to untold Muslims and nominal Christians throughout the epicenter.

It was my honor to write the foreword to this book at Hanna’s request, and I have included it here to give you a sense of the man and his message. I hope you will pick up a copy from Amazon or your favorite Christian bookstore, as well as share one with a friend.

FOREWORD TO MY ENEMY, MY BROTHER

The book you hold in your hands is, at its core, a love story – one of the most beautiful and powerful I have ever read.

It is the story of God’s extraordinary love for a Palestinian boy in Jerusalem, a boy who grew up lonely and sad and afraid until one day Jesus Christ personally reached out and took this little boy into His arms and told him, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”

It is the story of a young man who becomes transformed by Christ’s love, a young man both called and compelled to share the good news of that powerful love and amazing grace with his fellow Palestinians, and eventually with the entire Arabic speaking world.

It is a story I suspect will touch your heart as it has touched mine, and my hope is that it will move you not only to pray faithfully for Hanna and his family and his team, but also for the Palestinian people and the entire Muslim world that all might know Jesus Christ in a real and personal way.

I first met Hanna Shahin nearly two decades ago at a church conference in the Washington, D.C. area. He and his Egyptian-born wife, Evelyn, had come to talk about how powerfully Christ was moving among Muslims, drawing them into a personal relationship with Him in numbers never before seen in human history. The Shahins explained how God was using radio broadcasting to beam the gospel message over the heads of the Arab governments who opposed the message and into the hearts of Arab men, women and children so hungry and thirsty to know that Christ really loved them and had a wonderful plan and purpose for their lives.

My wife, Lynn, and I were transfixed. We were newly married and new to Washington. We had long been fascinated with the history and future of the Middle East. But mostly what we knew was Jewish and Israeli history, given my Jewish roots. Honestly, we had never thought much about God’s specific love for Arabs. Neither of us had grown up to hate Arabs in general or Muslims in particular. But we hadn’t personally known any Palestinian or Egyptian followers of Christ. We hadn’t really studied the Scriptures carefully enough to see God’s love for Israel’s neighbors, and her enemies. But I believe the Lord brought the Shahins into our lives, in part, to help open our eyes.

We bonded quickly at that conference, and our friendship has grown and sweetened over the years. We have prayed for Hanna and Evelyn. We have invested in their ministry. We have wept with them when hardships have come. And we have rejoiced when the Lord done great and mighty things in and through their lives, which is often!

For years, I encouraged Hanna to carve out time from his schedule to write his story. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am now that he has. Indeed, I thought after all these years that I knew his story. But the truth is I have learned more about Hanna, more about Evelyn, and more about God’s love and mercy through this book than I could have imagined. I have been blessed. I know you will be, too.

When I think of Hanna, I often think of the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:37. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” From time immemorial, God has loved the people of Jerusalem. Tragically, the people of Jerusalem have not always loved Him.

This is the story of one son of Jerusalem who was willing to accept Christ’s love and be gathered to His heart. May his tribe increase.

The “Christian” Left’s Case for Taxpayer-Funded, Government-Run Health Care

Podcast: Download (9.1MB)

In a national teleconference call this week titled “40 Minutes for Health Reform“, President Obama, leaders of the “Christian Left” like Jim Wallis and Joel Hunter, along with 15 different religious groups, spoke to some 140,000 listeners about the moral imperative for health care “reform”, otherwise known as taxpayer-funded and government-directed health care insurance for all.

The President used biblical phrases like “I am my brother’s keeper” and said that there are “a lot of folks bearing false witness”  about his health care plan and that health care is Read more

Of Lutherans, Gay Clergy, and Timely Tornados

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Guest:  Pastor Tom Brock, pastor, Hope Lutheran Church

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) held their 2009 churchwide assembly this week at the Minneapolis Convention Center with the key issue of debate being whether the church should allow practicing homosexuals to serve as clergy (the vote takes place Friday).  No doubt if Martin Luther were alive today, he would be nailing far more than 95 Theses to the doors of the Lutheran church across the street from the Convention Center where a freak tornado broke the cross off the steeple on Wednesday just as the ELCA was Read more

David Wheaton Faith Story on 700 Club

A crew from the 700 Club came to Minnesota in July to film a short feature on David’s background, faith story, and current work that aired on Thursday, August 20th. 

CLICK HERE TO WATCH the 700 Club feature.  The full transcript is below.

Please pray that God would use the message of the feature to prompt viewers to be in a “right relationship with the God of this universe” which begins through repenting of your sin and placing your faith in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as God’s required punishment for that sin.  ”What is more important than that?” the feature rightly concludes.

 

David Wheaton: A Turn in the Right Direction

By Will Dawson, 700 Club

TRANSCRIPT

CBN.com – Will Dawson [reporting]: He wasn’t born with a tennis racket in his hand, but it didn’t take long for David Wheaton to find one.

David Wheaton: At the youngest of age, I think I was four years old, I was taken down to the public courts just down the street from our house, and my mom started tossing me balls.  I was wearing like a stars and stripes speedo bathing suit with no other clothes on besides that with a little cut-off wood tennis racket.

Dawson: Do you have a picture of that?

Wheaton: I think I do, but I’m not going to show it to you.  I don’t want to be blackmailed later by it.

Dawson [reporting]: Eventually David gave in and shared this footage with us.  But despite his questionable fashion sense, David says childhood was a joy.

Wheaton: Part of that idyllic childhood had to do with the fact that my parents were very strong Christians.  They had a purpose in raising all of us to be followers of Christ.  So I really had a great modeling in the home of what it meant to be a Christian.

Dawson [reporting]: His parents encouraged him as he developed his tennis game to pursue his dream of becoming a professional tennis player.  David made the high school tennis team when he was in the seventh grade.  As a freshman, he won the Minnesota state championship.  At 15 David was offered a full scholarship to the famous Nick Bollatieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where he competed against other young upcoming stars like André Agassi and Jim Courier.

Wheaton: I was in that realm of being in the very competitive junior tennis world, playing tournaments throughout the year.  It’s a pretty tough scene actually.  Tennis was really my focus at that particular point in my life.

Dawson [reporting]: David won the U.S. Open junior title and achieved a number one ranking in the junior tennis circuit in 1987.  The following year he accepted a tennis scholarship to Stanford – one of the premiere college tennis programs in the nation. As a Christian though, David found more challenges in college off the court than on it.

Wheaton: Going to college is hard.  You are away from your parents for the first time, the temptations of the flesh on campus, sexual immorality, drugs and alcohol.  So going off to college I went down that sort of partying lifestyle, and I was going down the wrong path.

Dawson [reporting]: Although David was making poor choices in his personal life, his tennis career was taking off.  He helped Stanford win the 1988 national championship his freshman year.  From there he pursued his lifelong dream of playing professionally.  In 1990 just two years after he turned pro, David won his first major tournament.

Wheaton: I beat Agassi and [Ivan] Lendl along the way to get to the semi-finals of Wimbledon that year, and so it was a very heady time sort of jumping up the ranks quickly.

Dawson [reporting]: David qualified to play in the year-end Grand Slam Cup.  At the time it was the biggest prize money event in the history of tennis.  David beat Michael Chang in the finals in front of a worldwide audience.  But to his surprise, the thrill of victory quickly evaporated.

Wheaton: Within 10 or 15 minutes after the biggest win of my career, biggest moment of my life in tennis up to that point, most everyone was gone.  I remember thinking, ‘Wow! That was really over in a hurry.  My goodness!  Where’s the victory lap here?  Am I going to be running around the court or what’s going on?!’  And it was the first time in my life where I really realized that fame, fortune, success, what so many people chase after in life — that wasn’t going to be very fulfilling.

Dawson [reporting]: That’s when David began to question his purpose in life.

Wheaton: My relationship with my parents was very broken because of the way I was living my life. My relationship with God was obviously very broken.  The relationships I had with other people were not right and just the things going on in my life.  Yeah, outwardly I was very successful, but inwardly, I was very conflicted.

Dawson [reporting]: David turned to the his Bible for answers.

Wheaton: As I began to read the Word and just be under the conviction of God in my life,  I came to realize how much I was offending God with my life and how much I couldn’t change myself.  At that particular time over that month or two period, I came to a point of real repentance in my life, and I committed to following Christ. I believed that He was the Savior of my sin, and I trusted to follow Him as Lord.  My life changed immediately 180 degrees in the right direction.

Dawson [reporting]: David went on to win four more tournament titles that spanned a 13-year career.  Now 40, he still plays occasionally on the senior circuit.  In fact he and his partner won the 35 and over doubles tournament at Wimbledon in 2004.   Most of his focus these days though is as an author and host of a nationally broadcast radio talk show called The Christian Worldview.  But of all his successes, there is one David regards more highly than any others.

Wheaton: Being in a right relationship with your Creator, being reconciled to God —  this is the highest purpose in life.  You can have everything. You can have nothing. Whatever situation you are in if you’re not in a right relationship with the God of this universe, you are never going to have a satisfying fulfilling life on earth. [And then] there’s the eternal benefit of having eternal life with Christ in heaven.  What’s more important than that?

Why Health Care Reform is Bad for Your Health

Guest blogger bio: Michael Bauman, Professor of Theology and Culture, at Hillsdale College, and Scholar in Residence for Summit Semester.

The president says he wants to control health care costs, on the one hand, and to bring millions upon millions of new persons into the health care system, on the other.

Seen together, the president’s goals are contradictory and mutually exclusive.  Here’s why:  If you intend to introduce tens of millions of new health care consumers into the system, then the demand for health care products and services will rise dramatically.  When demand rises dramatically, prices rise dramatically as well.  If the president wants to achieve his first goal, that of reducing health care costs, then achieving his second goal will make it impossible.  What his left hand gives, his other left hand takes away.

But suppose he succeeds.  That is, suppose he succeeds not at both these goals, which is impossible, but at just one of them.  What happens when the government drives down prices, and what consequences follow when demand for health care products and services rises dramatically?

When the government tries to control health care costs, the consequence for health care providers like drug companies, medical instrument manufacturers, and doctors, is to drive some of them out of health care altogether.  That is, if Washington restricts the profits of health care providers, some of those providers will re-allocate their quite considerable investments in directions away from health care, to places where government interference does not hinder or limit their financial success.  They simply leave.  In the wake of the coming state-induced exodus from the tyranny of price controls, fewer health care providers can or will remain.  Fewer providers mean fewer products and fewer services.  In your very first economics lesson, you’ll recall, you learned that when the supply of a thing goes down, its price goes up.

In other words, the president’s program to control health care costs will produce the opposite result.  I promise you, health care after the president’s reform goes into effect will not be cheaper than it is today.  Health care after his reform will be more expensive than ever, far more expensive.

Count on it; plan for it.

The costs faced by a pharmaceutical company to develop new and effective drugs are staggering.  Laboratories and equipment are expensive.  Outstanding scientists demand high salaries.  The path to FDA approval is arduous, time consuming, and fraught with uncertainty.  The advertisement and distribution of the drugs that win approval are more costly still.  The upshot of all that expensive research, certification, and advertisement is dicey at best, and massive sums of money can be — and have been — lost.

In order to pay for the development, approval, advertisement, and distribution of new drugs and the cures they might make possible, therefore, drug companies must make enormous amounts of money on existing drugs.  If they do not, the development of new drugs cannot well continue.  Thus, by holding down prescription costs, by prohibiting what it considers exorbitant drug company profits, the government is, therefore, also prohibiting future drug development and future cures — perhaps the one that will save your life or the life of a loved one.  We will never know what things could have been accomplished and would have been accomplished in health care if the government puts a lid on prescription costs.  If Obama’s health care reform passes, more people will get sick, more people will stay sick, and more people will die.

Count on it; plan for it.

Consider the doctors:  If the government puts a cap on what a doctor can make for, say, intestinal surgery, then the very talented and intelligent folks who otherwise would have worked very hard to become wealthy surgeons will figure out how to make a very good living in other ways, perhaps in architecture, nuclear technology, or international trade.  In the shadow of government-restricted prices (and therefore government-restricted incomes), fewer and fewer of them will decide to undergo the long, difficult, and exceedingly expensive path through college, through medical school, through residency, and through certification in order to become doctors who can expect to earn less for themselves and their families than they would have earned had they turned their talents elsewhere and followed an easier and less restricted path to greater wealth.  The same thing will happen with the pharmacists.  If the president’s program goes into effect, the result will be fewer doctors and pharmacists serving the millions and millions more patients the president wants to get into the system.  In other words, there will be long lines — very long lines — at the clinic, at the emergency room, and at the pharmacy.

Count on it; plan for it.

The lesson of price controls is not new.  Simply think of the government-imposed control on gas prices in the 1970s and the chaos, shortages, long lines and rationing that followed in its wake  — only substitute health care for gas and clinics for gas stations.

Or, to take a lesson from countries like Canada and the UK (where government health care plans have been in place for many years), waiting lines are unconscionably long and some people actually die waiting for their turn in surgery because there aren’t enough surgeons and operating rooms to meet the needs.  To avoid that fate, Canadians often cross the border to get medical care at their own expense in the US, in cities like Detroit or Buffalo, where medical care is far more readily available than in Canada.  In other words, they come to the system the president is trying to reform, and they leave the sort of system he is trying to emulate.  If the president’s counter-productive plan goes into effect, even Canadians will die.

My point, if it’s not obvious, is that, judging by the incentives it creates and the consequences it generates, this is a health care plan from hell.

But it’s worse than that, far worse.  By introducing millions more folks into the system at the same time that his cost control measures are shrinking that system, the president’s plan will strain our remaining health care resources enormously, perhaps to the breaking point, laying an unbearable demand upon what survives of a health care supply system shrinking under the effects of government policy.  The results for millions of Americans needing medical care will be catastrophic.  In order to meet the burgeoning demands that an expanding clientele puts on a shrinking system, the government will institute rationing.

Put succinctly, price controls lead to shortages; shortages lead to higher prices and to long lines; long lines lead to rationing; rationing health care leads to suffering and death.

When family and friends suffer or die because they couldn’t get the health care they required, Americans will begin to regret the votes they cast in recent years, and they will struggle to return to the system that served them better — if by then a return is still possible.

My dire tale of higher prices, shortages, long lines and rationing is understated.  I have purposely left the most expensive and most dangerous part of the President’s health care reform until the end.  To this point, I have focused primarily on health care providers and health care consumers.  I turn now to health care bureaucrats — perhaps the most wasteful and dangerous element of the President’s entire misbegotten scheme.

Depending upon precisely what sorts of things one includes in the equation, health care is approximately one-seventh of the entire American economy.  To bring that much business under the watchful (but myopic) eye of government requires a simply enormous army of bureaucrats.  To them will fall the power of evaluation and analysis of every sort, and the power to enforce their decisions.  Almost nothing could be worse.

The notion that government bureaucrats and career politicians are competent to determine (from a distance, at a desk, or in a committee with other bureaucrats) what drugs “ought” to be prescribed, what tests “ought” to be conducted, what procedures “ought” to be undergone, and what “ought” to be the proper cost of every consultation, operation, test, or procedure in every American locality from Anchorage to Key West is unmitigated hubris and foolishness beyond measure.  Those bureaucrats do not even know or understand how little their own jobs and services are worth; they absolutely cannot know the worth of the jobs of medical researchers and neuro-surgeons in varied localities across the nation, and what they “ought” to be paid for doing them.  Nor will they know what things “ought” to be done for and by patients they have never met and never will meet.

Precious few of the apparatchiks empowered by the government to make these decisions will be medically trained.  Indeed, there aren’t enough properly trained bureaucrats in the world to make this program work.  Almost none will have seen face-to-face even one of the persons whose lives and health they hold in their red tape entangling hands.  Indeed, they will not be dealing with persons at all, as they see it, but with “cases” – cases that must be dealt with according to the case book, the standard operating procedures complied by other bureaucrats in other parts of government who spend their professional lives doing equally impossible jobs with equally deleterious effect.

Like all other persons, bureaucrats are creatures of incentive.  Those with careers in the medical bureaucracy will wish to succeed.  They will wish to rise ever higher in the bureaucracy, to be in charge of ever increasing portions of taxpayer money and to exercise more power than now they do.  In order to rise up the bureaucratic ladder, they must preside well over the affairs inside their bailiwick.  They must follow the rules.  They must keep their departmental budgets balanced.  While I am in favor of governments living within their means, the implications of doing so in health care are staggering.

It often happens that almost 90% of a person’s health care expenses occur in the last two or three years of life. When we get old, we get expensive. If the government is overseeing the program by which your health care costs get paid, and if that program is dangerously low on money, the bureaucrat in charge of your case, who knows that it’s cheaper to die than to live, who knows that his budget is nearly depleted, and who wants to look good to his or her superiors, will be sorely tempted to reason this way:  “At 76, old Joe has had a long life.  His country has been good to him for many years.  It’s time for Joe to pay the system back.  It’s time for Joe to cash in his chips.  That way, his own physical suffering is ended; my personal and professional burdens are eased; and others can move one step forward in the waiting line.  If old Joe dies, it’ll be better for everybody, including me and Joe.”

If you think I am making this up, I absolutely am not.  I have seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears directly from government bureaucrats themselves. I kid you not.

When government bureaucrats invade health care, the inevitable result is something much like veterinary medicine:  If your dog is sick and you take it to the vet, the vet examines it and says, “Spot has a problem, and it will cost $300 to fix it.  What would you like to do?”  The vet asks you, not Spot, because you are paying the bills. If you don’t have the money to pay for the necessary procedures, it’s bad news for Spot.  Spot might die.  When the government is in charge of paying the health care bills, and the bureaucrat in charge of your case doesn’t have the money, you’re Spot.

Count on it; plan for it.

The Hidden Reality of Abortion — Empowering Men

America’s long war over abortion has classically been defined as a struggle between competing rights — depicted as the right of a woman to have an abortion versus the right of an unborn child to the protection of life. This long-familiar framing of the issue suggests, at the very least, that the rights of women and their unborn children are, or at least they can be, presented as an irresolvable conflict.

From the very beginning, this has been an unsatisfactory approach to the abortion controversy. Those who contend for the sanctity of human life at every stage of development are, by virtue of moral necessity, also concerned with the health, welfare, and well-being of women. The reduction of the abortion question to a matter of “rights” is itself a symptom of our moral confusion.

One of the most insidious aspects of the abortion controversy has been the success of the feminist movement in presenting abortion on demand as a matter central to the liberation of women. The feminist logic suggests that women can never be seen as equal to men in terms of career so long as the “risk” and reality of pregnancy and motherhood are present. As the feminists argue, abortion becomes a mechanism for leveling the playing field and for liberating women.

As far back as the 1970s, at least some feminists saw through this logic. Catherine MacKinnon, a radical feminist legal scholar, argued that legal abortion would merely facilitate the “heterosexual availability” of women. In other words, abortion would be a benefit to men, who would be liberated to take sexual advantage of women, knowing that the availability of legal abortion would effectively remove their risk of the entanglements that would come with pregnancy and parenthood.

MacKinnon is a radical legal theorist whose arguments on both abortion and pornography have been of considerable interest to conservatives for some time. Even as her ideology puts her on the far left of contemporary feminism, her argument that the availability of abortion and pornography is deeply injurious to women offers something of an awkward common ground with conservatives. At the very least, she is noteworthy for seeing what so many of her fellow feminists simply refuse to see.

Writing in the August/September 2009 issue of First Things, Richard Stith argues that the legalization of abortion “was supposed to grant enormous freedom to women, but it has had the perverse result of freeing men and attracting women.”

Over 30 years after Roe v. Wade, we now know that abortion “has increased the expectation and frequency of sexual intercourse (including unprotected intercourse) among young people,” Stith observes. As he explains, the post-Roe expectation is that a woman now has less justification for refusing the sexual advances of a male. By and large, abortion has liberated men from the fear of parenthood, if not of pregnancy. Beyond this, if the woman with whom they are having sex becomes pregnant, the availability of abortion serves, in the mind of men, to reduce if not to remove their responsibility for fatherhood.

The availability of abortion means, in the thinking of many men, that the entire responsibility for pregnancy and parenthood now falls to women. If a woman refuses to have an abortion, having the baby is simply her “choice.” As Stith realizes, this gives many men even more leverage as they demand an abortion as the cost of continuing the relationship. Stith cites a report from the Medical Science Monitor indicating that 64% of American women who have had abortions felt pressure from others to do so.

As Stith explains:

Prior to the legalization of abortion in the United States, it was commonly understood that a man should offer a woman marriage in case of pregnancy, and many did so. Though with the legalization of abortion, men started to feel that they were not responsible for the birth of children and consequently not under any obligation to marry. In gaining the option of abortion, many women have lost the option of marriage.

The Culture of Death often presents itself in terms of liberation. Yet, at every turn, this liberation is actually an enslavement. The availability of legalized abortion has led to the deaths of over 40 million unborn children in the United States alone. Beyond this, it has produced a social catastrophe evident in patterns of female poverty and the abandonment of both women and children by irresponsible males. Furthermore, it has severely weakened the moral protections and obligations that bound men to women and children, effectively allowing men to demand abortion as a means of escaping their responsibility to marry and to take responsibility for their children.

As Richard Stith rightly summarizes, “Elective abortion changes everything.” As he explains, “A woman’s choice for or against abortion breaks the causal link between conception and birth. It matters little what or who caused conception or whether the male insisted on having unprotected intercourse. It is she alone who finally decides whether the child comes into the world. She is the responsible one. For the first time in history, the father and the doctor and the health-insurance actuary can point a finger at her as the person who allowed an inconvenient human being to come into the world.”

The obvious question is this — how is it that feminists, the abortion industry, and the advocates of abortion rights get away with their claim that abortion liberates women? In truth, the availability of abortion has served to liberate irresponsible men from duty, morality, and responsibility. Of course, the even greater tragedy is the death of unborn children by the millions.  Only the Culture of Death would present the slaughter of the innocents as liberation.

Saint vs. State: Choosing a School for Your Child

Podcast: Download (9.0MB)

Guest: Harold Naylor, co-founder, Discover Christian Schools

If God has given you children, you’re sure to be confronted with the question of how and where to educate them.  Should you pay to send them to a private Christian school where a biblical worldview will be woven into coursework by Christian teachers?  Should you send them to a state school down the street for “free” (i.e. paid for by your taxes) where their peers and teachers will most likely not have a like-minded Christian worldview?  Or should you home school Read more

The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards

Podcast: Download (9.1MB)

Guest: Dr. Steven Lawson, senior pastor, Christ Fellowship Baptist Church

Jonathan Edwards, the highly influential preacher of the Great Awakening in the first half of 18th century America, was a man known for his great intellect, powerful sermons (e.g. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”), and time-tested books (e.g. Freedom of the Will).

Beyond all this though, Edwards was perhaps most revered for his personal piety, his resolve to living a sanctified life to the glory of God.  This commitment was spelled out in his well-known 70 Resolutions Read more

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