To say that 2020 has been a challenging year would be an understatement. We’ve probably all heard at least one person say, “I can’t wait for 2020 to be over.” Perhaps we’ve said it ourselves. For many, 2020 has been a year of frustration, disappointment, and heartache, and we may be wrestling with how we can give thanks right now. That’s exactly why Thanksgiving is so important this year.
Scripture calls us to “Give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) This doesn’t mean that Christians are to glibly ignore reality. Itmeans that we remember that our joy and hope are based on something—someone—far greater than our circumstances and because of that, we celebrate and give thanks! Because we know that God is on the throne, that his purposes will prevail, and that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, we give thanks in the midst of turmoil.
It’s a paradox: there are more opportunities to connect and communicate with one another than ever before, and yet in many ways, people are more isolated, disconnected, and lonely than ever. This is especially true during a year that has been filled with lockdowns and canceled events, but the loneliness and isolation of a tech-driven culture were already prevalent before 2020. In many ways, technology has overpromised and underdelivered, and America’s teenagers are increasingly feeling this.Drawing off of research from Amy and Andy Crouch in their new book My Tech-Wise Life, Barna Group recently reported on this trend, writing,
Despite the promises of social media to help connect people, teens worry that technology is coming between individuals. In fact, data show that nearly seven in 10 teens (68%) agree that devices keep them from having real conversations, and a third (32%) says devices sometimes separate them from other people. Younger generations see a paradox in which tech simultaneously connects and disconnects them from their peers.
Barna also found that teens and young adults are also aware of the way that technology is affecting their attention span and work ethic.
When Barna asked how technology makes 13–21-year olds’ lives harder, top answers related to productivity, with over half of teens stating issues like wasting time (54%), procrastinating on work (53%) and being generally distracted (50%). Nearly two in five respondents (37%) admit they get bored easily when they are not online.
Between 2016 and 2017, the number of “gender transition” surgeries performed on adolescent girls quadrupled. This shocking increase in teenage girls suddenly claiming they were “born in the wrong body” and seeking life-altering, experimental surgeries is made even more alarming by the fact that this appears to be a “craze”—an intense and often short-lived cultural enthusiasm that spreads like a virus. Unlike other crazes that have affected teenagers in recent years, this one comes with lifelong effects and frequently encourages teens to completely alienate themselves from their parents.
In her recent book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, Abigail Shrier documents this disturbing trend. One of the contributing factors that she highlights is the role that many public schools play in fueling the transgender movement and undermining parents. Shrier reports that in June of 2019, the California Teachers Association’s policy-making branch voted on a proposal that would allow students to leave campus during school hours to receive puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones without the “barrier” of parental consent. In January of this year, the CTA’s Civil Rights in Education Subcommittee recommended creating “school-based healthcare clinics” that would offer “cisgender, transgender and non-binary youth equal and confidential access to a broad range of physical, mental and behavioral services.”
Explaining why she left the pro-life movement, a writer on Medium recently asserted, “There are only two sides to this debate: you can be for women, or against them.” The false dichotomy between caring for women and protecting life is often held up as an argument against the pro-life movement. If pro-lifers really cared about women in difficult circumstances they would support abortion, the argument goes. Anyone who doesn’t is clearly unfeeling, calloused, and anti-woman. But this reasoning not only pits women against their children unnecessarily, it also fails to understand the true nature of compassion. Far from being an act of kindness, holding up abortion as the best or only option for a woman facing unplanned pregnancy is an incredibly harmful response to both women and children.
Protecting life in the womb and showing compassion for women can only be pitted against each other by telling a partial story. The argument that opposition to abortion is at odds with caring for women in difficult circumstances fails to consider the fact that, according to a national study, 64% of the women who have undergone abortion say that they felt pressured to do so, and 65% of those women showed signs of trauma. This is not kindness, but the enablement of coercion and abuse. Consider also thecountlesswomen who experience depression and PTSD after abortions while the abortion industry insists that there's no such thing as abortion regret, or the women who are injured and in some cases even die as a result of the unsafe and irresponsible practices of abortion facilities. There is nothing compassionate about the way the abortion industry silences these women, denies them support, and enables the people in their lives who may be manipulating, coercing, or abusing them.
In March of 2018, the city of Philadelphia issued an urgent call for more foster families, saying that they were in need of 300 families who would be willing to open their homes to vulnerable children in the city. At the time, there were 250 children in Philadelphia in group homes waiting for family placement. These children needed compassion, stability, comfort, and security as they processed and healed from recent abandonment, neglect, abuse, or loss. As the city drew attention to this urgent need, they also made the sudden decision to stop working with Catholic Social Services (CSS), one of the 30 private foster care agencies the city contracts with to help place children with foster families.
CSS has been faithfully ministering to the city of Philadelphia for 200 years. What caused the city to suddenly end their relationship at a time when CSS’s services were more needed than ever? CSS upholds Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality. As such, if they were ever approached by an LGBT couple looking to become foster parents, they would refer the couple to another agency. Despite the fact that this has never happened, that there have been no complaints about this policy, and that CSS has always been one of the top-ranking foster care agencies in Philadelphia, the city stopped referring foster children to them and demanded that they abandon their sincerely held religious beliefs if they wanted to continue serving in foster care in Philadelphia.
There has been a lot of uncertainty and misinformation about the election results in key states. We wanted to share a quick update with you about where things stand in Minnesota and nationally.
Minnesota Update
As we forecasted last week, a pro-life majority in the Minnesota Senate has been decisively maintained, and pro-life legislators made gains in the Minnesota House. This is cause for celebration! There is talk that some Minnesota elected officials (specifically Senator Amy Klobuchar and Attorney General Keith Ellison) might be tapped to fill roles in a Joe Biden administration. We will keep you posted and keep fighting for life, family, and religious freedom in Minnesota.
National Update
Yesterday a state courtin Pennsylvania ruled that provisional ballots cast by voters who did not present ID at the polls and failed to verify their ballots by the November 9th deadline could not be counted, ruling that the state did not have the authority to extend the deadline from November 9th to November 12th. This decision came in response to a challenge from the Trump campaign after the Pennsylvania Secretary of State extended the “fix-by” date by three days following a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that extended the deadline for accepting mail-in ballots to November 6. The court ruled that Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar did not have the authority to make this decision, and as such, ballots not verified by November 9th will not be counted.
Yesterday’s ruling does not affect the roughly 10,000 ballots in Pennsylvania received after 8:00 P.M. on election day that Supreme Court Justice Alitoordered to be set aside “in a safe, secure, and sealed container separate from other voted ballots” following Pennsylvania’s court-extended deadline for accepting mail-in ballots. Former Vice President Biden currently leads in Pennsylvania by roughly 55,000 votes.In Georgia, where Biden leads with a little over 14,000 votes, election officials have begun a manual recount of all ballots cast in the presidential election.
“[T]he government cannot provide what children need specifically from a father: discipline, structure, protection,” wrote World magazine’s Tim Lamer in a recent article on the impact of fatherlessness. Drawing on US and international data, Lamer points out fatherlessness’s impact on economic disparities and high crime rates, especially in international settings, describing fatherlessness as “the worst systemic injustice in America.
The economic impact of fatherlessness touchesmillions of children throughout the U.S.,but the effects go far beyond economic outcomes. The Institute for Family Studies recently reported on a study from Social Service Review on the role that involved fathers play in their children’s lives. The study found that over a 10-year period, increased father involvement reduced behavioral outcomes such as aggression, depression, and delinquency by 30-50% in children who did not live with their father, and 80% in children who did live with their father. “The study shows the effects are long lasting, with a father’s earlier life presence having a significant impact on latter adolescent behavior,” wrote Brad Wilcox.
In other words, kids who are having trouble in their teens often lacked a fatherly presence earlier in their lives, not only during their teen years. Cash support—formal or informal—had little effect. It was the social engagement of the fathers that made the big difference.
Should a faith-based social services agency be excluded from participating in a city’s foster care program, simply for operating in accordance with its sincerely held religious beliefs? The answer is no - unless the agency is located in the city of Philadelphia.
On November 4th the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a significant matter concerning the free exercise of religion in the First Amendment. Catholic Social Services (CSS), along with two women who have participated in their foster care program, challenged the city of Philadelphia’s discriminatory actions – specifically the city’s refusal to place foster kids with the agency unless it changed its policies regarding same-sex marriage. Consistent with Catholic teaching, CSS cannot endorse same-sex couples as foster parents in partnership with their agency, as it would be in conflict with the sincerely held religious beliefs of the Catholic Church. As a result of CSS’s deeply held religious beliefs about marriage, it was barred from its placement arrangements with the city of Philadelphia.
Never mind the fact that the City received no complaints about CSS, or that CSS has been serving some of Philadelphia’s most vulnerable and at-risk children for over a century (well before the city of Philadelphia even engaged in the foster system) and within that time frame not a single same-sex couple has approached CSS about becoming a foster parent. Rather, the City refused to work with CSS after reading in a newspaper that CSS could not endorse same-sex couples as foster parents through their agency.
While Fulton is about a social service agency and foster parents seeking reprieve from Philadelphia’s attack on their faith, there’s more. CSS also asked the Supreme Court to revisit the Court’s long-standing approach to analyzing religious freedom claims, specifically asking the Court to revisit its analysis in a case called Employment Division v. Smith. Previous to Smith, the Court evaluated laws infringing upon religious freedoms with the utmost scrutiny (“strict scrutiny”). However, Smith, as decided in 1990, changed the course of how courts approach free exercise claims, looking instead to the neutrality and general applicability of a law. Thus some laws that severely limit certain religious beliefs and practices have been upheld.
This election cycle, Minnesotans turned out to the polls in potentially record-breaking numbers and what could be the highest voter turnout rate in the nation. As the results are finalized, we can celebrate some key pro-life victories in our state! If current results hold, Minnesota will maintain a pro-life majority in the state senate. This is wonderful news that will have life-saving implications in the upcoming legislative session!
On the Congressional level, Minnesota’s election results have also yielded four pro-life congressional seats, with Representative Jim Hagedorn defending his seat in southern Minnesota (District 1) and Michelle Fischbach ousting incumbent Colin Peterson in District 7.
