* Janet Folger Calls it Bickering : writing for WorldNetDaily.com, pro-life columnist Janet Folger said that "pro-lifers bicker about whether the partial-birth abortion ban was strong enough." Not one of the coalition groups raising the new standard of leadership in the pro-life movement have ever said that the PBA ban wasn't strong enough. What virtually all pro-life industry leaders have either not understood, or have chosen to ignore, is our warning that:
1) pro-lifers disobey God when they defend rulings and advocate laws that regulate the killing of unborn children;
2) child-killing regulations, being immoral, easily backfire on the unborn, making abortion appear more reasonable to judges and governing officials, and less offensive to voters;
3) the brutally-wicked PBA ruling is the bad-fruit evidence of a secular humanist 30-year strategy of National Right To Life, Americans United for Life, Jay Sekulow, etc., which moral relativism is crumbling the spiritual foundation of the Body of Christ in America;
4) by the evidence amassed throughout 27 years since Ronald Reagan was first elected president, apparently, every single one of "our" Justices, whom our Republican presidents have put on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, apparently every single one of our judges reject the personhood and God-given right to life of the unborn child , all of this being done without even acknowledgment or warning from Dr. James Dobson or any leader in the pro-life industry warning.
And Janet Folger refers to all this as bickering.
* Matthew 18 Principles Followed: The signers of the Open Letters (Brian Rohrbough, CRTL, Rev. Tom Euteneuer, HLI, Rev. Flip Benham, OR/OSA, Bob Enyart, DBC, and Judie Brown, ALL) followed the principles declared by Jesus Christ in Matthew 18. Some pro-lifers have expressed concern that the signers of the Open Letter to Dr. James Dobson (May 2007, Washington Times, etc.) did not meet their Christian obligations because we did not attempt to reach him personally, or did not give Dr. Dobson sufficient time to respond prior to publication of our letter. Dr. Dobson runs a $150 million dollar enterprise, and has worldwide celebrity status, and as such (understandably), few Christian leaders can pick up the phone and talk to him. And if Dr. Dobson or any leader makes public statements that are untrue, there is no biblical requirement that a correction must first be private. But regardless, the signers have published their open letter only after an intensive two-year effort to reach Dr. Dobson personally with a warning about the partial-birth abortion travesty.
On June 29, 2005, we sent four men to Focus on the Family headquarters and they presented a lengthy warning in-person, meeting with James Dobson's V.P. of Public Policy Tom Minnery and with Dr. Dobson's judicial analysts. One result of this meeting was another meeting with a Focus staff lawyer, James Odom at the private club called the El Paso Club, which meeting he characterized as private, but during which we urgently addressed our concerns regarding his employer. Another result of our meeting was a personal letter written by Tom Minnery suggesting that perhaps he would invite our group back to Focus to present our concerns at another gathering of staff. (By the way, attorney Odom, father and husband, was fired by Focus on the Family the week we published our Open Letter, primarily because of his very brief interaction with the signers cautioning us to consider the seriousness of our action.) Also, a far less confrontational open letter to Dr. Dobson was published almost exactly two years prior to the second letter, warning Focus that "today's abortionists simply use a different method on late-term babies" other than PBA, and that a PBA ban will "not cancel a single abortion as a result." Also, on May 15, 2007 we sent three Federal Express letters to Focus on the Family, one to president Jim Daly, another to Focus Institute president Del Tackett, and the third to Dr. Dobson, offering them a chance to discuss the matter with us prior to publication. The cover letters stated, "We plan to run the enclosed Open Letter as a full page ad in a Colorado newspaper and a condensed version in a national Christian magazine, signed by pro-life ministries including American Life League, Operation Save America / Operation Rescue, Denver Bible Church, and Colorado Right To Life . If you would like to discuss this with us before publication, please call Bob Enyart of DBC or Brian Rohrbough of CRTL." Focus never called. They didn't call CRTL. They didn't even call one of the signers, longtime stalwart of the pro-life movement, Judie Brown, at American Life League.
Any reader of the open letter can see our prior efforts to reach Dr. Dobson, and the letter even quotes from his own personal correspondence addressing our concerns, showing that we have in fact already reached him personally. Dr. Dobson wrote personally, probably because the letter he was replying to was mailed to his home address. On Focus on the Family letterhead, and including a hand-written note (shown in the CRTL Forty Years DVD), on Feb. 24, 2006 Dr. Dobson responded to "KGOV.com... questions" by actually defending decisions of judges who rule to kill the innocent, as long as they are following precedent. That any Christian leader would embrace such moral relativism and legal positivism is grievous; that James Dobson has done so is devastating beyond words. If this tragic development does not distress any particular Christian, then no defense of the form of our criticism will matter. In 2000, federal judge Samuel Alito voted to keep PBA legal in New Jersey; Dr. Dobson (along with Family Research Council's Gary Bauer, etc., see the Forty Years DVD) commended him for that ruling because Alito was merely following "the long-established principle" of "precedent." But there is an older legal precedent which the pro-life industry has relegated to a second-tier authority, Thou shall not murder. Over the years the pro-life movement has slid to where it now advocates the legal theory of the defendants at Nuremberg: that following precedent justifies rulings to murder the innocent. Please stop and consider this last statement. In just over a half-century, America's morality has fallen to where now our Christian pro-life leadership advocates the corrupt humanist legal theory put forth by the German defendants after World War II. This is indisputably true. Do you think this has no dire consequence? Dr. Dobson has allowed lawyers to rob the moral strength of the pro-life movement. The result is a worldview travesty that cannot provide the moral, philosophical, or legal foundation necessary for upholding the God-given right to life. Very few Christians care about any of this, or have even noticed the slide. Dr. Dobson's tragic defense of judges who voted to keep partial-birth abortion legal is only the most public indication of a thousand particulars that show the pro-life movement has adopted moral relativism and legal positivism, which principles inherently spell continued death for the unborn.
Some Christians criticize the very use of Open Letters. They forget, however, that Paul's Epistles are open letters, some of which publicly rebuke individual believers, even by name, and even including renowned leaders like Barnabas and Peter (Galatians 2). We have written our open letters in hopes of restoring our brother. Please pray for us, and for Dr. Dobson.
* Janet Folger Calls it Bickering : writing for WorldNetDaily.com, pro-life columnist Janet Folger said that "pro-lifers bicker about whether the partial-birth abortion ban was strong enough." Not one of the coalition groups raising the new standard of leadership in the pro-life movement have ever said that the PBA ban wasn't strong enough. What virtually all pro-life industry leaders have either not understood, or have chosen to ignore, is our warning that:
1) pro-lifers disobey God when they defend rulings and advocate laws that regulate the killing of unborn children;
2) child-killing regulations, being immoral, easily backfire on the unborn, making abortion appear more reasonable to judges and governing officials, and less offensive to voters;
3) the brutally-wicked PBA ruling is the bad-fruit evidence of a secular humanist 30-year strategy of National Right To Life, Americans United for Life, Jay Sekulow, etc., which moral relativism is crumbling the spiritual foundation of the Body of Christ in America;
4) by the evidence amassed throughout 27 years since Ronald Reagan was first elected president, apparently, every single one of "our" Justices, whom our Republican presidents have put on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, apparently every single one of our judges reject the personhood and God-given right to life of the unborn child , all of this being done without even acknowledgment or warning from Dr. James Dobson or any leader in the pro-life industry warning.
And Janet Folger refers to all this as bickering.
* Matthew 18 Principles Followed: The signers of the Open Letters (Brian Rohrbough, CRTL, Rev. Tom Euteneuer, HLI, Rev. Flip Benham, OR/OSA, Bob Enyart, DBC, and Judie Brown, ALL) followed the principles declared by Jesus Christ in Matthew 18. Some pro-lifers have expressed concern that the signers of the Open Letter to Dr. James Dobson (May 2007, Washington Times, etc.) did not meet their Christian obligations because we did not attempt to reach him personally, or did not give Dr. Dobson sufficient time to respond prior to publication of our letter. Dr. Dobson runs a $150 million dollar enterprise, and has worldwide celebrity status, and as such (understandably), few Christian leaders can pick up the phone and talk to him. And if Dr. Dobson or any leader makes public statements that are untrue, there is no biblical requirement that a correction must first be private. But regardless, the signers have published their open letter only after an intensive two-year effort to reach Dr. Dobson personally with a warning about the partial-birth abortion travesty.
On June 29, 2005, we sent four men to Focus on the Family headquarters and they presented a lengthy warning in-person, meeting with James Dobson's V.P. of Public Policy Tom Minnery and with Dr. Dobson's judicial analysts. One result of this meeting was another meeting with a Focus staff lawyer, James Odom at the private club called the El Paso Club, which meeting he characterized as private, but during which we urgently addressed our concerns regarding his employer. Another result of our meeting was a personal letter written by Tom Minnery suggesting that perhaps he would invite our group back to Focus to present our concerns at another gathering of staff. (By the way, attorney Odom, father and husband, was fired by Focus on the Family the week we published our Open Letter, primarily because of his very brief interaction with the signers cautioning us to consider the seriousness of our action.) Also, a far less confrontational open letter to Dr. Dobson was published almost exactly two years prior to the second letter, warning Focus that "today's abortionists simply use a different method on late-term babies" other than PBA, and that a PBA ban will "not cancel a single abortion as a result." Also, on May 15, 2007 we sent three Federal Express letters to Focus on the Family, one to president Jim Daly, another to Focus Institute president Del Tackett, and the third to Dr. Dobson, offering them a chance to discuss the matter with us prior to publication. The cover letters stated, "We plan to run the enclosed Open Letter as a full page ad in a Colorado newspaper and a condensed version in a national Christian magazine, signed by pro-life ministries including American Life League, Operation Save America / Operation Rescue, Denver Bible Church, and Colorado Right To Life . If you would like to discuss this with us before publication, please call Bob Enyart of DBC or Brian Rohrbough of CRTL." Focus never called. They didn't call CRTL. They didn't even call one of the signers, longtime stalwart of the pro-life movement, Judie Brown, at American Life League.
Any reader of the open letter can see our prior efforts to reach Dr. Dobson, and the letter even quotes from his own personal correspondence addressing our concerns, showing that we have in fact already reached him personally. Dr. Dobson wrote personally, probably because the letter he was replying to was mailed to his home address. On Focus on the Family letterhead, and including a hand-written note (shown in the CRTL Forty Years DVD), on Feb. 24, 2006 Dr. Dobson responded to "KGOV.com... questions" by actually defending decisions of judges who rule to kill the innocent, as long as they are following precedent. That any Christian leader would embrace such moral relativism and legal positivism is grievous; that James Dobson has done so is devastating beyond words. If this tragic development does not distress any particular Christian, then no defense of the form of our criticism will matter. In 2000, federal judge Samuel Alito voted to keep PBA legal in New Jersey; Dr. Dobson (along with Family Research Council's Gary Bauer, etc., see the Forty Years DVD) commended him for that ruling because Alito was merely following "the long-established principle" of "precedent." But there is an older legal precedent which the pro-life industry has relegated to a second-tier authority, Thou shall not murder. Over the years the pro-life movement has slid to where it now advocates the legal theory of the defendants at Nuremberg: that following precedent justifies rulings to murder the innocent. Please stop and consider this last statement. In just over a half-century, America's morality has fallen to where now our Christian pro-life leadership advocates the corrupt humanist legal theory put forth by the German defendants after World War II. This is indisputably true. Do you think this has no dire consequence? Dr. Dobson has allowed lawyers to rob the moral strength of the pro-life movement. The result is a worldview travesty that cannot provide the moral, philosophical, or legal foundation necessary for upholding the God-given right to life. Very few Christians care about any of this, or have even noticed the slide. Dr. Dobson's tragic defense of judges who voted to keep partial-birth abortion legal is only the most public indication of a thousand particulars that show the pro-life movement has adopted moral relativism and legal positivism, which principles inherently spell continued death for the unborn.
Some Christians criticize the very use of Open Letters. They forget, however, that Paul's Epistles are open letters, some of which publicly rebuke individual believers, even by name, and even including renowned leaders like Barnabas and Peter (Galatians 2). We have written our open letters in hopes of restoring our brother. Please pray for us, and for Dr. Dobson.
Today's Resource : Have you ordered extra DVDs for your friends and church library of our 40 Years in the Wilderness video? Please help us distribute the extraordinary presentation recorded at the Colorado Right to Life 40 Years in the Wilderness event at the Supreme Court chambers in Colorado's capitol building. Speakers include Alan Keyes, Bob Enyart, Flip Benham, and Judie Brown. This is the most powerful DVD that BEL has ever helped create!