An ocean of truth

The Standard of Liberty Voice
For God,Religion,Family,Freedom
A publication of The Standard of Liberty Foundation
www.standardofliberty.org
May 19, 2006, #22

An Ocean of Truth –
Our trip to L.A. for a Regional World Congress of Families

Living in landlocked Utah I am always up for a trip to any coastline if only to catch a glimpse of ocean. This time Steve and I hopped in the car and drove the ten hours to L.A. to attend a regional gathering of the World Congress of Families (April 25-26, 2006) sponsored by the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, as it prepares for its next international congress in Poland May 2007. We heard several excellent speakers and enjoyed the overarching Christian/religious theme. (The meeting was hosted by the Azuza Street Centennial celebrating the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in America.) We were pleased to hear and meet some of the most influential, energetic, and scholarly players in the worldwide pro-family, pro-faith movement, people whose work we’ve been studying for the past year since we started our foundation. We came home with renewed validation for our views and lots of encouragement to continue our work in our own cranny of the country, plus a little sand in our pockets having stopped to enjoy the seashore (and some crab legs) on the way home. Here are highlights from my personal notes which I hope accurately represent the distinguished speakers' messages-- please bear in mind that these are just the bits and pieces I pulled out and that each of these talks was calm and measured. These are top-level researchers, academics, church leaders, and goverment officials who courageously go about sharing truths little-heard these days, truths more far-reaching and permanent than the Pacific Ocean.

Speaker: Allan Carlson
President of The Howard Center and founder of World Congress of Families

Religious, pro-family conservatives are being labeled with strangely progressive language such as “reactionaries” and “right wing.”

America is divided by two conflicting belief systems: radical secular individualism (feminism, population control, abortion, homosexual rights activism, etc.) which seeks to reshape the family out of existence (they believe the family undermines the progressive agenda), and traditional values and family based on marriage and focused on children.

Maybe people didn’t realize the threat. Now they are realizing it isn’t hysteria. Every tyrannical regime has been anti-family.

Speaker: Wade Horn
Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Dept. of Health and Human Services
“The Story of the Family: An Overview of Family Problems in America”

What’s your career ambition? To understand what is true and what is eternal, to get to heaven.
The family needs support, encouragement, ability to do its work.
Because of the sexual revolution, is it any wonder children are growing up disconnected from their bodies?
There is not one historical example of retreat from marriage being good for society.
The world is saying that marriage is the most dangerous place for women. Not true.
The world is saying that supporting the traditional family is ignoring the single family. Not true. If you say marriage matters and that children do better in two-parent homes in Washington, you get enemies. Good researchers are not afraid of research because it reveals the truth.
For the last 50 years government has been driving families apart. Welfare says, “Don’t get married!” Is it surprising that marriage is disappearing in low-income society?
It is a myth that single parenting is the thing – married couples are everywhere.
Relationship and marriage education is a good idea. Church and family are in the best position to do this. Abstinence education until marriage is a good strategy (no pregnancy, no disease). Why this truth is denied is beyond comprehension. I call myself the assistant secretary of the obvious.
Prevention by practice is impossible. Contraception education (condoms) sends a double message which makes no sense: We don’t want you to do it but let’s practice! Kids want clear, consistent messages. They don’t get it from media, TV, movies. That message is: no consequences (have sex, use a condom). Wrong. 14,000 teens contact an STD every day. When children face self-destruction government should not be neutral.
Government discriminates against churches when it should be a partnership. As if there’s something unclean about religion! They say, if you want to help, you have to take your cross down. This is wrong. We don’t have to eradicate religious motivation. There are some who want you to feel ashamed because you’re a person of faith. Be involved in your schools. Whatever your values, you have the right to voice them.
(It was especially nice to hear the above speech coming from a U. S. government official.)

Speaker: Cherri Gardener
Representative for the California Marriage Ammendment

About same sex marriage, gays say it’s just about love and is a human right. They equate domestic partners with marriage. They say marriage only between a man and a woman is unconstitutional.

No judge has the right to attack or diminish this sacred institution. As California goes, so goes the nation.

These things are going on unchecked. It’s time we said enough is enough. We have the power. California has very creative gay legislators. They are passionate and loud but there are not very many of them. We cannot let evil prevail in any arena. And why do the gays want marriage? To abolish marriage. We must prevent marriage from being abolished.

Speaker: Pat Fagan
Family and Cultural Issues Research Expert from the Heritage Foundation
“Disturbing Data: What’s Happening to Families Around the World?”
(This amazing speaker showed us 30 different statistical graphs in 30 minutes – a huge amount of fascinating info on the relationships between marriage, family, religion, economy, education, crime, drugs, teen sex, etc. I hope you can get a sense of his important message from my incomplete notes – I couldn’t write fast enough!)

The sexual revolution equals a sexual cave-in. Marriage has a huge effect on everything. Single parenthood has a huge effect on poverty. Divorce equals an economic disaster bigger than the Great Depression. Never-married people have the lowest net worth. Married people have the highest. Income is highest among intact families who participate in weekly worship. Kids who go to church are less likely to use drugs.

Statistics show that a little religion is dangerous thing – it’s almost a denial of its importance, as if you know but you don’t care or you only pretend to believe. If it’s only an outward show of religion, religion doesn’t work.

Data is very good for changing minds as long as you don’t over-interpret or stretch the facts. Social science done well can’t help but illustrate the obvious, such as kids’ with highest GPAs come from intact, church-going families.

Least rate of break-up of couples occur when they have had sex only with each other after marriage. Highest rate of break-ups are between multi-cohabitators. Monogamy is critical to marriage success. Delay of sex reduces the number of lifetime partners.

Girls who feel their father cares about them have the highest virginity rate. Get this: Boys of divorced parents who worship weekly have highest number of sex partners. This is because they play out what their parents do. Partner and then abandon, repeatedly. Even though they come to church to worship God, the fact that they feel they have no father has more influence on their behavior than what they hear in church. Broken homes makes for a culture of rejection. Children’s sexuality goes all wrong early and unravels eventually.

The best marriages are in Turkey, Greece, Israel. The worst are in Russia. Everywhere else is in between. We have to teach people to find their way back to wanting to belong to only one other person for life and raising their own children.

For more info on these findings go to www.familyfacts.org

Speaker: Ted Baehr
MOVIEGUIDE Publisher and Chairman of The Christian Film and Television Commission
“Family, Hollywood, and the Media”

We live in the best of times and the worst of times. This conference is a major start for revival and renewal. In 1985 there was only one movie with Christian values. Now we have 47%! For example, The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia (which the secular press said wouldn’t do well!). Only 1.2% of the population saw Brokeback Mountain (they couldn’t even get all their own people to see it!). Most gays are working in Washington and Hollywood. It is lust of the flesh and pride. The more sex they watch, the more sex they engage in. If you expose yourself to evil, you will participate in evildoing. We have church that has lost its focus.

According to the Da Vinci Code, the holy grail is a woman’s private parts and sex is the way to access spirituality. Ninety per cent of the so-called facts in this book/movie are not accurate. It is a lie from beginning to end. It contains a lusty, Satanic sex orgy. People say it’s only fiction but it is presented as fact and children (and some adults) can’t distinguish between fact and fiction.

Media creates culture. Culture elects politicians. Every night on TV there is an acceptable homosexual.

Emotion trumps the law every time.

You cannot expose kids to something they cannot cognitively understand and expect them to not be hurt. You’re feeding them to the wolves.

The world has a very bad impression of America from movies and other media: violence, sexual immorality, materialism, crime. We have infected the world with this attitude. Hollywood is our mouth. What is in our heart? Kids are susceptible.

Children can be taught to be media-wise. Teach them to understand the influence of the media. We must protect the eyes of innocence. God condemns Satanism. It hurts people who need God the most. If you don’t warn them their blood is on your hands. By the time today’s kids turn 18 they’ve been taught by 63,000 media hours. We’ve allowed the media to capture our kids.

But still, Christianity does better at the box office. You’re giving them the gospel! People want good to triumph over evil. And when they find out how difficult that is, they want a Savior.

Speaker: Gwen Landolt
REAL Women of Canada
“What’s Happening to Families: Effects of the Homosexual Agenda in Canada”

Canada is the third country in the world to pass a same sex marriage bill. It’s a libertine nightmare. In Canada the party in power can order the cabinet to vote a certain way. Only 1 out of 40 resigned. All others decided they would retain their status quo and vote for same sex marriage. The government bribed them to vote for it. The Canadian people did not want same sex marriage. We expect another vote in the fall. Will be very close. Not sure how many will be bribeable this next time. Same sex marriage has only been law for nine months and has had an effect on clergy. When there is a conflict between gay rights and religious rights, courts are choosing gay rights. Churches get fined and pay high court costs. If churches refuse to cater to homosexual couples they are punished. Teachers who refuse to teach homosexual ideologies have their jobs on the line. Schools are refusing to notify parents. Homosexual lawyers are arguing that even private religious schools must promote homosexuality. The implication to children is horrendous. Holland, Belgium, Canada, Spain all have same sex legislation. Gay adoption and foster parenting is a social experiment on real children. What on earth are we talking about with same sex parenting? Homosexual coupling includes short duration, high infidelity, acceptable outside sex, lack of communication, increased mental illness, suicide, drugs, violence, and introducing sex to children.

This is a serious attack on God. It’s believers vs. nonbelievers, an abandonment of reason, a removal of all moral restraints, a pushing of religious beliefs off the public square so only secular humanists will dominate. France says NO. We will not accept same sex marriage because of the detrimental effect on children. The Family Coalition in Canada hopes to look to France. Only by the grace of God can Canada succeed. They wrote letters to every church in Canada to get involved. The churches are saying, “Oh no! What about our tax exempt status?” They better get involved. The future of children and religious freedom is dependent upon defeating same sex marriage. Pray for Canada. Will people of religious beliefs have a voice or be silenced?

Speaker: Don Schmierer
“Preventing Homosexuality in Families”

Has researched this for 3 years. Read all the books from the other side. Homosexuality is seeing a huge rise overseas.

Influences on children include abuse, media, pornography, moral relativity, parental adultery, chemical imbalance, peers. Mom and Dad can’t have problems and not expect them to affect the kids.

Five traumas: incest, molestation, emotional abuse, physical abuse, rejection(neglect).
Rejection is the most damaging to a sensitive child with a domineering parent.
Same sex attraction is a set of deficits: physical, emotional, environmental.
Hurt people hurt people. We pass on our histories in different ways. We can prevent homosexuality from ever happening. One homosexual said, “All I want is a relationship with my dad.”

None of us are trapped in our personality type. The same power that rose Christ from the dead can help us. We have more power than we need. Change is possible.

Acts 8. God has made known in the scriptures everything we need for life and Godliness. We may not have discovered it yet or applied what He has said.

Listen first, then your kids will listen to you. Be genuinely interested. Acknowledge their words/feelings. Repeat what you are hearing them say. Fix your eyes on theirs. Engage your mind. Don’t try to solve their problems for them.

Jesus spoke the truth with no compromise.

What changes are you willing to make?

Speaker: Don Feder
President, Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation
“Why a Conservative Jew Defends Christian Values”

There is a war going on in this country involving family, church, faith, Christianity, words, deeds, court decisions, administrative decrees, etc. every bit as deadly as conventional warfare. Fifty per cent of Americans believe there is a war on Christ going on. The others don’t read, watch TV or leave home.

“V for Vendetta” is the most anti-Christian film to date. America has gone from “The Song of Bernadette” to “The Da Vinci Code.” NBC portrays Christians negatively. Courts are the most anti-Christ entity because of bad judges. In California a court issued a $150,000 fine to a business for firing a male employee who came to work in a dress. Schools lose accreditation. The Bible conflicts with curriculum. Christians have been called a clear and present danger to liberty, moral retards, an ugly, violent lot, a party of paranoia, fundamentalists like Saudi Arabians, narrow and hateful, all in the New York Times signed by the Jane Fonda and Ed Asner. Christians are being persecuted for exercising their first amendment rights.

In comparison, no one hates the Amish. Hollywood does not make anti-Amish movies. Why? Because the Amish don’t seek to influence anyone. They have no interest in the world. They don’t vote. They don’t do anything political. The anti-Christs know the Amish are harmless. But Christians are active. They write letters, run for office, boycott, picket, fight the normalization of perversion and the pornographication of America. They promote creationism/intelligent design. Many Christians home school their children which deprives humanism of many of its victims. Christians are the principle obstacle to the anti-God liberal agenda for America. It seeks to stigmatize, marginalize, and lessen Christian influence on public affairs, to keep them from opposing the neo-paganism. If it succeeds, the results will be catastrophic.

Our second president, John Adams said our country was made for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. This is as true today as it was 208 years ago.

Europe has 5 % church attendance. The U.S. has 45%. Europe has a declining birthrate, moral malaise, hopelessness. Americans are more apt to believe their country stands for something greater than themselves. I care about my country, my family, my faith. We can be a nation that teaches children modesty and decency or a nation that recruits children for the sexual revolution. The current chapter in America includes the ideas that we are all animals, the normalization of perversion, the devaluation of human life, etc.

Charlton Heston, after he played Moses, didn’t get invited to many Hollywood parties. People don’t want to look up and see Christians staring at them because they are reminded of God and they don't want to be reminded of God.

When one side knows it’s at war and the other side doesn’t, guess who wins?

Speaker: Larry Christensen
“A Biblical vs. Secular Model for the Human Family”

When the place of the husband and father at the table is no longer honored, it will soon be empty.

Putting a label on something affects the way we handle that issue. Terms get floated and then picked up.

What does God say about marriage?

Every marriage is a committed relationship but not every committed relationship is a marriage. There are committed business relationships, friendships, coaches, teachers, brothers, etc.

The first purpose of marriage is godly offspring. An obedient child is usually a happy child. If we are unhappy we are not obeying in some way. Very disturbed children have been raised with no rules.

Speaker: Janice Clouse
Concerned Women For America
“Feminism and the World Congress of Families”

Women have always been lifted by Christianity. Feminism has been taken over by the liberal left. What we think determines how we act. Scripture is significant. The word became flesh. Mere words? They stand for intangible concepts like liberty, truth, justice. The world wants tangible things like material wealth. Language is redefined. Truth is thought to be relative. There is a war between “rights” and “truth” which subordinates the family to the state. “Women’s rights” is a code word that means abortion is a human right.

Feminism says, “You raise a little boy right and he can grow up to be a female!”

The Christian family represents the highest form of life. It celebrates life. Others say that any group of people can be just as effective as the traditional family. Values and policies affect society. The natural family is the target of the modern culture of death.

Amnesty International is pushing for enforced abortion, punishing individuals and organizations who fight against abortion saying they are committing violence against women. (!)

In 1960 there were 3 incurable STDs. Now there are more than 2 dozen. 65% are occurring in people under 25. The number of cases in this age group has tripled in the last 6 years.

HPV is the fastest spreading STD. Three of more partners increases risk of cervical cancer fifteen times. Girls think they can sleep with up to 10 men and still think they are not a “slut.” Sex trafficking amounts to $10 billion a year. Liberals call these “sex workers” and glamorize them in the media. There is a demand for prostitution involving younger and younger kids. The current age of entry into prostitution is 12-14 years old. All prostitution is harmful.

Realistic policy based on correct understanding of human nature is indispensable. Women are doing great except in their personal lives.

The world’s educated elite (such as Marx and Darwin) started the world’s worst events.

It’s no accident that the abortion rate went down with the invention of the sonogram.

Peter Singer (at Princeton) is pushing for parents being able to decide within a month of their baby’s birth whether or not they want their baby to live!

Feminists are never going to give up.

There is a weakness in the churches today. They are substituting soft sentimentality for strong values. Christians are not showing up in Washington.

Pregnancy is only a fraction of the teen sex issue. There are 30 incurable STDs. That means NO CURE.

Christians need to rise to this occasion.

Speaker: Allan Carlson

Why should Christians be involved in a pro-family movement?

1 Timothy 4: 3 says some will depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons . . . forbidding to marry. . .

These were the second and third century’s gnostics (meaning secret knowledge) who promoted infanticide and man-boy sex. They either had no sex at all or free, endless sex. To them, religious orgies were good but procreation was bad. The early Christian movement which was pro-family and pro-life came upon a culture every bit as sexually corrupt as today’s. In the 16th century sexual corruption/licentiousness crept back into the church. Early reformers wrote about this. The Protestant Reform was pro-family. Martin Luther wrote in “The Estate of Marriage,” “For it is not a matter of free choice or decision but a natural and necessary thing, that whatever is a man must have a woman and whatever is a woman must have a man.”

Today we have an anti-life, anti-family, anti-woman, anti-man society. The gnostic movement is back. It is an anti-everything movement. Most of Europe has succumbed. For example, the Da Vinci Code is a rejection of Christianity, full of lies coming through popular culture very successfully. It is a battle as old as the Christian Church. We are called again to be witnesses to the natural family.

-Stephen & Janice Graham

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