Top 5 Books on Apologetics

Compiled by J.P. Moreland, author of Kingdom Triangle.

Planned Parenthood's "Creative Subterfuge"

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, is attempting to open a humongous, 22,000-square-feet abortion clinic in Aurora, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. No problem, right? Abortion's legal and all that.

Well, not so fast. Yesterday U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle denied the organization's request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the clinic to open. It seems that PP didn't disclose to city fathers that it owned the building--after applying for permits under another name--nor that abortions would be performed there. Not only is the clinic's opening delayed, now the county's states attorney is looking into whether any laws were violated.

Abortion-rights supporters, such as Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, applaud what PP did--calling it "creative subterfuge"--to sneak a "reproductive health clinic" into Aurora. Zorn writes:

Well of course Planned Parenthood representatives didn’t tell the truth to Aurora city officials while they were building a new clinic in the western suburb.

They hid behind the name of a subsidiary company, Gemini Office Development, and were misleadingly vague when asked along the way about the identity of prospective tenants for the $7.5 million facility.

Their goal was straightforward: To open a reproductive-health clinic on land zoned for such purpose.

But they had to use a certain amount of stealth because abortion is one of the services Planned Parenthood offers. And foes of abortion rights, longtime losers in the battle for public opinion, traditionally raise all kinds of rukus [sic] when Planned Parenthood comes into a community.

The foes not only picket construction sites, but they also send picketers out to harass subcontractors at their homes and businesses, try to spread alarm and disgust in the immediate neighborhoods and attempt to browbeat civic officials into implementing just the sort of craven, politically motivated delays we’re now seeing in Aurora.

Then when Planned Parenthood is revealed to have tried to prevent such pressure tactics by using a little creative subterfuge, the opponents of abortion-rights carry on indignantly, as though the deceptions were an effort to skirt the law.

Let me see if I have his reasoning down correctly: (1) the ends justify the means, if the ends are to promote abortion; and (2) it's all the fault of pro-lifers, anyway.

Such situational relativism may work on "24," but it doesn't work in the real world, Eric. Also, if you pro-choicers have really won in the court of public opinion, why do you have to resort to deception to get a clinic without the public's knowledge?

And what would you say if pro-lifers engaged in a little "creative subterfuge" of their own? It seems to me that they have been (unfairly) pilloried by abortion supporters because they don't advertise the fact that their crisis pregnancy centers don't offer abortions. They are criticized for not advertising a service they don't offer. Of course, who does? But in this instance, PP is not advertising a service they do offer. I wonder why?

This whole episode highlights a persistent problem for abortion-rights advocates: an aversion to telling the truth about abortion, which has taken the lives of 50 million unborn children since 1973.

A Life Shorn of Fearful Caution

Tony Snow finished his job as White House press secretary last Wednesday. Snow, who wrote the article "Cancer's Unexpected Blessings" for CT in July, announced earlier this summer he was stepping down.

A report in the September 13 Washington Post observed:

Battling a recurrence of cancer, Snow looks more haggard these days, his hair thinning and his face gaunt. But as he leaves for what he says are financial reasons, he seemed genuinely nostalgic, calling the job "the most fun I've ever had."

"I'll miss it," he said in a tone that, unlike most press secretaries on their last day, suggested he really meant it. "I love these briefings."

But Snow has made optimism and positive energy in the face of adversity a trademark and plans to speak and write on his struggles with cancer. "Life will continue," he said, "including for me."

Snow is a Christian gentleman who deserves our admiration and prayers. Beyond these, he deserves our attention. As he eloquently wrote in his CT article:

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.

May Christ continue to grant Tony Snow--and the rest of us--a faith-filled life shorn of fearful caution.

The Best Research Yet

Two psycologists say that homosexuals should not be discouraged from seeking change.
By Tim Stafford

Fumbling Religion?

When it deals with Christians and churches, the NFL doesn't always have a good game plan.
By Mark Moring

Hostages' Pastor: 'Remorse Is the Face of the Church'

Interview with Park Eun-jo: 'I don't want this to be a stumbling block for missions.'
By Sarah Pulliam

A Passion for Souls

My only personal encounter with D. James Kennedy did not go particularly well. I was still a somewhat wide-eyed marketing and radio writer at Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale in 1987 and 1988. About a year and a half into my job of producing copy for his radio and TV broadcasts, study guides based on his sermons, program notes, product catalogs and the like, I had decided I would go to the very conservative Columbia Biblical Seminary in South Carolina to study world missions.

As Providence would have it, one day I met Dr. Kennedy, who was striding briskly to an appointment with several members of his retinue. Screwing up my courage, I said hello and told him I would be going to Columbia for grad school.

Dr. Kennedy physically recoiled and thundered in his trademark baritone preacher's voice, "Columbia? I wouldn't send my worst enemy to Columbia!"

It felt as if I had been slapped in the face. But recovering quickly, I figured out he was talking about that bastion of liberalism, Columbia Theological Seminary—not Columbia Biblical Seminary. With that matter cleared up, he wished me well, and we went our separate ways.

Dr. Kennedy always was one to dream big, act decisively, and let the chips fall where they may. His melding of conservative politics with his role as pastor rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. He could sound and look a little imperious—though part of his stiffness was probably from the brace this former Arthur Murray dance instructor wore to control chronic back pain.

All who knew him, however, talked most not about his views on abortion or school prayer but about his integrity and warm pastor's heart. To me, that heart is most exemplified not in the imposing Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (with a 30-story steeple it was known as "the rocket-ship-to-God church"), nor in the school and seminary he founded, nor in his media empire, nor in his now-defunct Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. Rather, his heart is exemplified in two simple questions:

Do you know for sure that you are going to be with God in Heaven?

If God were to ask you, "Why should I let you into my heaven?" what would you say?

I'm speaking, of course, about the two famous diagnostic questions of Evangelism Explosion, which Dr. Kennedy founded in 1962. While other Christian leaders, such as Billy Graham, are rightly lauded for their outreach efforts, Dr. Kennedy—known primarily by the outside world as a member of the much-feared Religious Right—put together perhaps the best known and most widely used evangelistic training curriculum in church history. EE officials say millions have come to Christ using this program, which has spread to every nation on earth.

I believe Dr. Kennedy, for all his passion for "reclaiming America," would agree that claiming souls for the Savior is his best and most lasting work. You may not agree with all of Dr. Kennedy's priorities. But it's hard to argue with his passionate commitment to see people come to Christ. It was a commitment this pastor lived—and died—by.

"Now, I know that someday I am going to come to what some people will say is the end of this life," he once said. "They will probably put me in a box and roll me right down here in front of the church, and some people will gather around, and a few people will cry. But I have told them not to do that because I don't want them to cry. I want them to begin the service with the Doxology and end with the Hallelujah chorus, because I am not going to be there, and I am not going to be dead. I will be more alive than I have ever been in my life, and I will be looking down upon you poor people who are still in the land of dying and have not yet joined me in the land of the living. And I will be alive forevermore, in greater health and vitality and joy than ever, ever, I or anyone has known before."