Has it been a tough year? For many, it has. But Christmas reveals the depth of God’s grace to us: His love is sweetest when the world around us appears darkest; His humble birth in a manger, and the salvation of the world that was heralded in Bethlehem, is all the more significant when we consider the disease and discord that have troubled us this year, as they did in 2020.
We will never realize that Jesus can truly save us until we realize that we need saving. We need salvation from our own sin, from disease and death, from the power of the Devil, from a fractured nation. This is what the Lord Jesus offers to us through the mighty work He began in Bethlehem, and completed at Calvary. When we accept that, then Christ's work is truly for us. Nothing can take it away from us! We can do all things if Christ is the one who gives us strength!
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has proposed draft legislation for a bill to protect fairness and opportunity in women’s and girls’ sports. If passed, the bill would prohibit biological males from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams. Noem has indicated that she would like to get the bill through the legislature within the first two weeks of the 2022 session, which begins on January 11.
Supporters were disappointed earlier this year when Governor Noem vetoed the a similar Women’s Sports bill passed by the legislature, just weeksafter she had expressed her eagerness to sign it. Along with other pro-family organizations, Minnesota Family Council sent a letter urging Governor Noem to withdraw her veto. At the time, Noem cited concerns about potential litigation,although many questioned if this was really her reason.South Dakota currently has an executive order intended to protect girls sports, but the South Dakota High School Activities Association allows male students to participate in girls’ sports on the basis of “gender identity.” An executive order applying to colleges and universities recommends banning biological males from women’s sports teams but provides no enforcement.
This draft legislation is a hopeful sign. Women and girls in South Dakota need better protection of their athletic opportunities than current executive orders provide. This bill offers much stronger protection than those orders and would preserve fairness and opportunity for women and girls in sports. Representative Rhonda Milstead and Senator Maggie Sutton, the sponsors of last session’s bill said in a press release,
We are pleased that the Governor confirms that collegiate athletes need to be protected as well as k-12. It is also encouraging that the Senate President Pro Temp understands the danger it is to female athletes success when any biological male participates in girls competitive sports. Getting a bill across the finish line is critical to the future of women’s sports.
PLYMOUTH, MN - Before a sold-out crowd, five leading conservative candidates presented their vision for Minnesota at Minnesota Family Council's Minnesota Leadership Forum in Plymouth last Wednesday, under the watchful eye of moderator Hugh Hewitt. Thousands of Minnesotans tuned in through a live YouTube stream by Alpha News and radio feed on AM 1280 The Patriot, in addition to the nearly 600 conservative voters and activists in the seats at Providence Academy’s Performing Arts Center.
The Leadership Forum, the largest event of the 2022 gubernatorial campaign so far, brought a focus on social issues that was missing in earlier events. “On behalf of the millions of pro-life voters in Minnesota, I was incredibly pleased to get strong assurances from the five candidates that each of them pledges, if elected, to use the ’bully pulpit’ of the governorship to protect life from conception to natural death,” said John Helmberger, CEO of Minnesota Family Council and principal organizer of the event. “We also heard strong commitments from the candidates supporting increased protections for religious freedom and better school choice options. The advantage of an event like this, early in the campaign, is that it allows conservative voters to hear from all the candidates as we approach the party endorsement process. As Minnesota’s largest Christian education and public policy group dedicated to life, family, and religious freedom, we feel it’s crucial to give conservative voters all the facts as they make their personal choice as to which candidate to support,” Helmberger continued.
For many years people have insisted that the online world is not the “real world.” There are elements of truth to this —a screen avatar can never capture the fullness of who someone is and the filtered versions of ourselves that we present on the internet can often hide what is actually happening in our lives — but in the nearly two years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have found ourselves, at some point or another, living significant portions of our lives online. As we grapple with this brave new world it is important that we recognize how the shifting digital landscape affects children and teens and the ways that it can harm them.
A recent report from Thorn found that 14% of 9 to 12-year-olds had shared explicit images of themselves in 2020 and 21% said it was normal for kids their age to do so. Nearly one in five teens had shared sexually explicit images of themselves. Thorn’s report also found a rise in children using secondary accounts to avoid online supervision. In 2020, 25% of 9-12-year-olds surveyed said that they were using at least one secondary account and 73% said they would prefer not to say. This lack of supervision leaves kids vulnerable to online predators and exposure to explicit content.Of the minors who reported that they had shared sexually explicit images of themselves, half said that they had shared those images with someone they had never met in real life, and over 40% reported having shared the images with someone over the age of 18.
Earlier this year the New York Times reported that 27% of American adults are currently estranged from at least one family member. 12% of parents over the age of 65 are estranged from at least one adult child. In parent-child estrangement, the adult child is usually the one who has cut off contact. Value-based disagreements play a significant role in these estrangements, especially when the rift is between a parent and an adult child. Family therapists have pointed out that rising political tensions in the past half-decade have coincided with increased family rifts.
John Stonestreet has described the consequences of the “thinning out” of society — family breakdown and increased isolation leave people looking for a source of meaning and belonging, so they turn to politics and ideology. “To put it bluntly, our politics cannot handle the amount of weight we currently expect of it,” he writes.
Politics can never replace the family, but as the rise in family estrangement shows, far too many adults, especially younger adults, are attempting to do just that, to the point that they are willing to cut ties with family members with whom they have political and ideological disagreements. No family is perfect, but every family is valuable, and the ease with which young adults have begun cutting off family members over political and ideological disagreements is truly heartbreaking. Family is the bedrock of society, and family relationships are worth fighting for.
It was thrilling to be present at a pro-life rally on the steps of the Supreme Court of the United States this week while oral arguments for the Dobbs v. Jackson case were going on inside. I had a sense that our team and I were truly living through history. I hope to soon be able to tell my grandchildren, “I was outside when the Supreme Court charted a course for LIFE in this country.”
One thing that struck me was the contrast between the pro-life crowd on one side, and the pro-abortion crowd on the other, separated by a metal barricade erected by the Capitol police, although in reality there were many pro-lifers on the other side of the fence, because pro-lifers had a vast advantage in numbers.
But the difference went beyond the size of the two crowds. You could see it on their faces and hear it in their voices. Both sides saw the same thing coming - the approaching fall of the pro-abortion regime thrust on our nation by the Court’s abominable Roe v. Wade ruling nearly 49 years ago - but they reacted very differently to that prospect.
Looking at the pro-life side, there were smiles and looks of hopeful anticipation. Voices were cheerful and I even heard hymns sung. I saw signs asking for compassion for the unborn and for women.
For years, the abortion industry has denied, downplayed, and deflected on any link between abortion and depression. Abortion proponents have insisted that post-abortion syndrome is a “makey-uppy thing” and denied the reality of abortion regret.In doing so, they have consistently trivialized the real experiences of women who have been harmed by the abortion industry and have suffered throughabortion regret when faced with the realization that their abortion ended their child’s life. Now, a pro-abortion researcherhas come forward and saidthat the medical community resisted publishing his research pointing to a link between abortion and depression. Dr. David Fergusson’s 30-year longitudinal study was published in 2006. He recently told the New Zealand Heraldthat his study, which is frequently downplayed by the abortion industry, was rejected by three different medical journals, something that he said is very unusual, noting that his research team’s work is typically accepted the first time they submit it for publication. Although Fergusson himself is not pro-life, this study, which presents strong evidence against an abortion industry talking point, was stifled.
But no science is completely conclusive - it's cumulative. Our study is strongly suggestive of a link between abortion and developing mental illness. What people should be saying is, 'This is interesting ... we need to invest more to answer this important question'.
