All posts by Wintery Knight

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Two reasons why Christians and conservatives should not donate to United Way

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Well, it’s that time of year again, when corporations bully their employees into donating to the United Way. I thought it might be a good idea to urge all Bible-believing Christians to avoid donating to the United Way.  Please share this post if you agree with it!

Let’s start with abortion. The United Way gives TONS of money to fund abortion providers.

In 2008, United Way affiliates send $1.9 million to Planned Parenthood:

The national United Way does fund Planned Parenthood; their website states:

United Way funded programs through Planned Parenthood include community health maintenance, e.g. communicable disease prevention; medical care service; family planning; health education; public awareness services; and family preservation and strengthening services, e.g. counseling and family life education.

Nationally in 2008, local United Ways distributed an estimated $1.9 million to Planned Parenthood agencies.

Any finances being donated to Planned Parenthood (even if not specifically for abortion services) will free up more of their money to be used toward abortion services.

In 2015, United Way sent $3 million to Planned Parenthood:

Last year, on the heels of shocking videos showing the Planned Parenthood abortion business selling the body parts of aborted babies, a new expose’ from a group that monitors corporations that finance the abortion giant reveals the United Way is a major donor. That expose found United Way agencies giving $2 million to the abortion giant.

A new expose’ released this week shows that figure has increased to $3 million.

In 2016, United Way sent $3 million to Planned Parenthood:

Analysis of the most recent IRS Form 990 filings and other documentation found 62 United Way affiliates sent $2,756,799 to Planned Parenthood abortion organizations in tax year 2016. 2ndVote’s latest findings indicate an increase of $168,806 from the $2,590,994 United Way funneled to Planned Parenthood in 2015.

We’re living in a time when abortion rights involves such issues as sex-selection abortions, race-selection abortions, covering up statutory rapists, Democrat support for infanticide, attacking Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, selling the body parts of unborn babies, etc. I don’t think we can count on United Way to come down on the right side of these issues. We’re already being forced to fund abortions with our tax dollars, thanks to Democrats. I don’t think we should give any more money to abortion providers and their secular leftist allies.

That’s abortion. What about gay rights? We’ve seen a lot of pressure on traditional values coming from the secular left lately. They redefined marriage AGAIN to deprive children of their biological mothers or fathers. They’re pushing for the Equality Act, which would have huge religious liberty repercussions for Christians.

Texas attorney Maria Martinez explains on the American Thinker:

The Equality Act is more draconian that any state or city conversion therapy ban to date because it takes away the traditional constitutional exemption for religious freedom.  The act specifically states that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) may not be invoked as a defense, marking the first time in history that Congress has limited the reach of RFRA.  This means that it could become illegal for Christian pastors, churches, schools, and ministries to communicate a message that sexual orientation or gender identity can change.  The Equality Act is unprecedented in its overreach, impacting even adults who are willingly seeking counseling.

By contrast, therapy of any kind that pushes a person toward same-sex attraction or gender transition is not impacted by the law at all.

Banning counseling isn’t the only thing the Equality Act will do:

  • Parents could lose custody of their children if they decline to assist in their gender transition.  Parents in Ohio recently lost custody of their female child because they would not give her testosterone supplements to help her “transition” to look like a male.

  • Doctors and hospitals could be subject to lawsuits for refusing to perform so-called “sex change” surgeries.  In California and New Jersey, Catholic hospitals are already being sued for discrimination for refusing to perform these surgeries.

  • Battered women’s shelters could be required to admit members of the opposite sex.  In Anchorage, Alaska, a male who was refused access to a shelter for abused and trafficked women sued the shelter for “gender identity discrimination.”

  • Faith-based adoption and foster care agencies that believe that children do best with both a mother and a father could be forced to shut down.  This has already occurred in at least six states in this country.

I wonder what United Way thinks about attacks on Bible-believing Christians by LGBT activists? All I could find on the Facebook page of the national organization was this:

United Way is pro-gay-rights anti-marriage anti-religious liberty
Where does United Way stands on gay rights vs religious liberty?

I don’t find that very encouraging, do you? And this is not the only pro-LGBT image I found on United Way Facebook pages. By the way, I saved a copy of their Facebook page, in case it disappears.

As a Bible-believing Christian, maybe I would be better off giving money to an organization that protects religious liberty, like Alliance Defending Freedom. I understand that many people who call themselves Christians think that the United Way’s positions are compatible with the Bible. But not everyone who calls herself a Christian actually takes the Bible seriously. Especially when it interferes with their career advancement and peer approval. This is especially true of people who work in Human Resources.

Please, don’t give money to the United Way

You don’t HAVE to give money to the United Way, just because the godless progressives in your office try to bully you into it. Instead, why not send the money to the Life Training Institute, or Ratio Christi, or Alliance Defending Freedom? These are groups do operate on Bible-based principles. I do think that Christians need to be careful about who they donate their money to. It doesn’t make sense for Christians to get up and go to work and earn money, and then give it away to anti-Christian groups who want Christianity to disappear from American life. Paul talks about how God rewards those who give gifts to partner for the gospel in Philippians. Make sure that you are not wasting your money on anything less.

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Why social conservatives should support free market capitalism

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The free enterprise system should not be adopted simply because it is the best system for creating wealth. The best reason to support free market capitalism is a moral reason. Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, and a Christian, describes the moral argument for free market capitalism.

Excerpt:

It might seem that the best case for free enterprise is the material one. Free enterprise lets people make more money, buy more and nicer stuff, and have a greater degree of comfort. The freer our economy is, the more competitive the US economy is vis-à-vis the rest of the world. And so on.

But these aren’t our best arguments. There is another reason, a transcendent reason, for which free enterprise matters most—and this is the case we all must be able to make today.

We all learned early on in school that the Declaration of Independence claimed for each of us the unalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Note that the founders didn’t assert a right to be happy; such is the domain of tinpots and crackpots, of 1984’s “Ministry of Plenty” and Josef Stalin’s aggrandizing self-description as the Soviet Union’s “Constructor of Happiness.” So what, in practice, does this right to pursue happiness mean?

It means the right to define and earn our happiness through our ideas, hard work, and gumption, to earn our success by creating value honestly, in our own lives and in the lives of others. It doesn’t mean the pursuit of a big lottery win or an inheritance. Those bring money, but not happiness. And a mountain of evidence shows that after a fairly low threshold, more money doesn’t make us happier. The best case for free enterprise has nothing at all to do with money or material goods or wealth. Those are just icing on the cake. We must stop talking about free enterprise as just an engine of wealth creation. It’s much more than that.

In short, the secret to the pursuit of happiness is earning our own success; creating value with our lives and in the lives of others. This earned success is the fruit of hard work and just rewards in a system built on merit. Only in a free enterprise system is effort and innovation rewarded over connections and predation. (And this means that we have to draw a distinction between free enterprise, which is based on opportunity and competition between ideas, and corporate cronyism, which is just another form of statism masquerading as free enterprise.)

Here are 3 reasons why I think that social conservatives should support free market capitalism.

1) Right to work

It’s very important for Christians to have an economic system in place that allows them to work without having to promote anti-Christians ideas. But when government gets too big, what happens is that Christians are no longer free to take any job they want, and still keep a clear conscience. In some states, you have to join a union which uses your union dues to elect Democrats, who very often are liberal on social issues. Or, you have big government forcing Christians to perform abortions against their consciences. Or, you have big government forcing Christian organizations to provide health insurance plans that cover abortions and contraceptives. That’s why Christians need to vote against big government regulations on employment – we need the freedom to work at a job that does not violate our consciences.

2) Right to earn

It’s very important for Christians to keep what they earn so that they have the maximum amount of money to make decisions that make sense for them, according to their consciences. Take the example of day care and education. The big government statist is constantly trying to to create more and more government-run day care and public schools. Why? They want to take money away from families so that they cannot afford individualized private and parochial schools, and lump them all into government run schools that are more “equal”. The problem is that this is bad for Christians who want more oversight into what their children learn. For example, what sense does it make for a Christian man to pay for day care and public schools when he marries a teacher who becomes a stay at home homeschooling mother for his children? He has to pay for day care and public schools he will never use, and it eats into the money he has to afford a stay-at-home homeschooling mom. Christians should oppose a day care and education system run by a secular leftist government. They will never reflect the values of Christian parents.

3) Right to spend

It’s very important for Christians to have the freedom to purchase products and services that make sense in their worldview. Take the example of health care. Secular leftists would love to force private medical insurance companies to cover things like abortion and contraception as health care. In some states, these things are specified as mandatory for every health care plan. That means that Christians who purchase health care are being forced to pay for services like abortion which they will never use themselves. This is nothing more than the redistribution of wealth in order to lower the cost of abortions for people, in order to encourage them to be sexually active before they are able to accommodate children. Christians need to oppose this – we do not want to have to pay for things that go against our consciences.

So, in addition to the reasons that Brooks mentioned (the happiness of earning your own way and serving others), it’s important for Christians to understand how free market capitalism fits into their plans. We do not want to support big government, especially when big government so often is not compatible with Judeo-Christian values. In the free market, it is much harder for ALL the businesses to conspire together to block Christians from working, earning and spending according to their consciences. We must resist top-down control of the free market so that we have the liberty to do what we ought to do in order to be virtuous.

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How should Christians redeem their regrets over past decisions?

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Recently, I posted a dating ad from a 39-year-old never-married single mother. She explained that she was now a Christian and was looking for a man to marry her, so that she could have a second child “the right way”. Some people thought we should take her conversion at face value. Others thought she was desperate and looking for a financial bailout. How can we tell if she is really sincere?

Well, I was still thinking about the comments on that post when I saw another great post from Laura, who writes at An Affair With Reason. Her post is about the feelings of regret that people have because of their past mistakes, and how Christians should deal with those regrets.

She writes:

As I thought about what to write I became distressed, sorrowful, angry, and even despondent over some of my own decisions. As I sobbed inconsolably, I noticed that every caustic thought began with, “If only….” That’s when I realized I was still carrying the burden of regret and I didn’t know how to let go. It wasn’t that I still needed God’s forgiveness or that I had any doubts about my standing with him; I knew I was forgiven. It was the lifelong consequences that I experience to this day which embittered my soul and squelched my joy.

The “if onlys” are a heavy burden to carry. They represent shattered dreams that will never be recovered in this life. They invoke feelings of discontentment, grief, and doubt. They cause us to sob with regret for what could have been, to pray for second chances that we know will not be granted.

So what do we do with the regrets that we must live with for the rest of our lives? Lately, as I’ve reflected on conversations I’ve had with many women who have made regretful decisions over the years and on the direction of our culture, I’ve noticed two very distinct paths:

1. Attempt to assuage our own guilt and regret by convincing others to make the same foolish, and even sinful, decisions we made.

 OR

2. Humble ourselves, grieve our losses, and commit to teaching the younger generations to choose a better way.

The first path is the wide and well-traveled one. Tragically and despicably, most people today seek to justify themselves and ease their consciences by getting others on board with their own ignorance, foolishness, and sinfulness.

She’s got quite a few examples of the kinds of regrets that men and women have, and different ways of dealing with those regrets. Some ways self-serving, others God-serving. Her examples are really interesting. It reminds me of “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis, where he explains why some people don’t resist God, and others do. Some people want to justify the past, and keep making decisions to benefit themselves. Others want to serve God. They want to take on the difficult work of opening up to others, and loving them by telling them the truth.

When I hear someone with a past say that they have now become a Christian, I normally ask “is this conversion just convenient for you or is it the result of some process where your mind was changed through study?” You can ask the person to show their work – how did they get to the right answer? And what has becoming a Christian cost them? How does it affect their relationships with non-Christians?

People “convert to Christianity” all the time based on need. Sometimes they’re trying to get something for themselves, e.g. – wanting to not be judged for their past, so they can attract a partner to financially support them. But other people spend years reading books and changing their minds page by page, debate by debate. Then they put their knowledge into practice.

I have mentored women who did this. One girl who contacted me through the blog wasn’t able to talk to her smart atheist brother about her faith. Then, she read a bunch of apologetics books about science and history, then called me and slipped the phone into her pocket and let me listen to her make a bold, informed stand for her Christian worldview for two hours. She won every point.

When people really become Christians, they don’t do it in order to be happy and or to be liked. They take on work, and they take on shame, because they have a Boss now. That’s how you can tell that real repentance has taken place. The letters of Paul in the New Testament are filled with advice for Christians who want to be bold, put themselves second, and advocate for their Boss. You should read them. When you read the Bible, try to put aside your feelings, your desires, and your concerns about what people will think. You’ll find that putting work for the Boss ahead of what you want is worth the price of being “second”. I would start with Philippians, then go on to 1 Peter.

By the way, this isn’t the first time I’ve linked to Laura’s posts. Here are some of the other times I’ve linked to her work on my blog: on voting, on Islam, on mentoring boys, on fighting with pastors, on learning what works when dealing with atheists. She had a 10 part series advising women how to choose a husband, which really made me feel good as a man. Today, most people see a husband as an accessory – like a handbag. He’s there to provide, or to be a handyman, or to complain at if the wife is unhappy. Men should read that series, and find out what we can do in a marriage, if we are valued for our distinctive male nature.