A message to you who are Fathers

My ever-thoughtful mother forwarded me an electronic prayer letter from Mark Earley of Prison Fellowship. As my wife and I prepare for the arrival of our first child in December, it was a particularly pertinent read.

Dear Friends,

"Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you." Deuteronomy 32:7 (NIV)

A message to you who are Fathers:

In the plan of God, it is fathers who explain to their children who God is and how He has loved them and been faithful to them. One generation passes along to another the love of God and the Gospel in words and in deeds.

Every child asks two questions: “Who is God?” and “Who am I?” God’s plan is that fathers should be on the frontlines in answering those two questions. They are to answer it with their lives and with their lips. They are to put flesh and works on God’s love for their children every moment of every day.

What happens then when fathers become a vanishing breed? Simply put, chaos erupts in homes, communities, and nations. In our nation’s capital the percentage of out-of-wedlock births now stands at nearly 40 percent.[1] Nationwide, it is estimated that 34.5 percent of children are being raised without a father present in their lives.[2]

In the Church, how many fathers intentionally pass on to their children the legacy that is theirs in Christ? Too few. Fathers wait for the church, the parachurch, the school, or someone else to do it for them. This is an abdication of their God-given responsibilities. We are failing our children. In the latest research done by George Barna, 60 percent of twenty-somethings who were involved in church as teenagers no longer practice their faith (attend church, read the Bible, or pray).[3]

The best evidence of the chaos being created in our nation by the lack of fathers or poor fathering is found in the prisons. More than 60 percent of prisoners grew up in households without a father.[4] Some 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes.[5] Although I do not know the statistics, far too many of the women I meet in prisons were victims of abuse at the hands of their fathers. It breaks my heart when I go into prisons, because the lack of fathers or poor fathering is right under the surface of all the dysfunction that is taking place.

Fathers who were intended to lead their children to an awe-filled awareness of God and the love He has for them are instead driving their children straight to the gates of hell and dropping them off.

In our ministry, we teach men how to be fathers again. We help them reconnect and reconcile with their children. In short, we help them live as men were meant to live: bringing life-giving hope and truth to their children throughout their lives. We love their children when they cannot love them and we do it in the name of their heavenly Father and the name of their imprisoned father.

As go fathers, so go families, so goes a nation. There is no way to recover healthy fathers in our nation apart from Jesus bringing new life through the Gospel.

Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program is in full swing as we count down to Christmas. Angel Tree connects parents in prison with their children. The vast majority are fathers. This is not just a gift-giving exercise; it is a life-giving exercise. The Gospel is demonstrated, proclaimed, and made real.

Pray for the Church, that we may repent and embrace the role of fathers and family in God’s kingdom.

Pray for the fathers in prison to whom we minister, that they may love God, love their families, and love their children.

Pray for the children of prisoners, that their fathers may be restored to them.

If you are a father, ask God to show you how you can be more like your heavenly Father.

As Christmas approaches we are all reminded of how our Father in heaven has loved us. Let us all recommit ourselves to loving the sons and daughters He has given us in the same sacrificial way He loved us.

Thank you for praying for us at Prison Fellowship. Please don’t stop.

In His grace,

Mark L. Earley

1 Corinthians 1:9

P.S. I am not unmindful of the indispensable importance of mothers in the plan of God. Next month we will talk and pray about that together!

In A Sane World, This Report Would Kill Obamacare

That's the headline used by Hugh Hewitt, and I simply can't do any better.

Hewitt is referring to this report, released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services -- a non-partisan oversight agency of the federal government.

Hugh lays out the key takeaways from the report:

*After 10 years under the new regime, 23 million Americans would still be without insurance;

*The bill cuts $570 billion from Medicare; and

*The bill does not stop the exploding cost of health care.

In a nutshell, Obamacare uses massive new tax hikes and massive cuts to Medicare to give health benefits to some of the currently uninsured, but does nothing to contain health costs. The Democrats spin on this devastating report cannot conceal that Obamacare fails every test of genuine "reform." It is being pushed solely for political reasons, primarily to expand the size and reach of government and with it the public sector employee unions that power so much of the Democratic Party machinery.

Read that again, friends. Twenty-three million Americans would still be uninsured, Medicare would be slashed, and main concern about the American health care system would not even be addressed.

Insanity, folks. In-san-i-ty.

The Hill has more.

World Leaders Do Not Bow to Japan's Emperor

Contributing to what Little Green Footballs refers to as a "nontroversy", here's a quippy video put together by the UConn College Republicans pertaining to President Obama's latest bow.


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I guess if President Obama's bow is a sign of his deep cultural sensitivity -- as the Left has proclaimed -- the 46 world leaders depicted in the video are being... culturally insensitive?

Or perhaps they're just a little more well-versed in the protocols of international diplomacy.

Obama Bows... Again

Less than eight months ago the White House told us President Obama did not bow to Saudi King Abdullah but rather, was picking something up off the floor. Those of us outside the president's tractor beam laughed, especially after the video confirmed that was clearly a lie.

But the attempt to dismiss the incident was for one reason and one reason alone: even the White House knew what a deviation from presidential protocol it represented. The president's handlers didn't want us to believe he could make such an amateur mistake, certainly not that soon after the junior senator from Illinois was elected to the highest office in the land.

Well, good luck explaining away his latest bow.


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How low will the new American president go for the world's royalty?

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference to a superior.

To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better. Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain's Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit? America's royalty tends to make movies and get bad reviews and lots of money as a sign of respect.

Obama could receive some frowns back home as he did for his not-quite-this-low-or-maybe-about-the-same-bow to the Saudi king not so long ago.

Now, Obamapologists will defend the bow, to be sure. A sign of President Obama's deep cultural respect and global perspective, they will label it.

But let's be clear: American Presidents do not bow to royalty. Further, heads of state do not bow or genuflect to each other throughout the normal course of diplomacy.

The only question is how will the White House attempt to spin this one?

Article of the Week: Medicalizing Mass Murder

Medicalizing Mass Murder by Charles Krauthammer.

What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre downplaying Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs.

"I cringe that he's a Muslim. ... I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists ... to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs." While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

They suffered. He listened. He snapped.

Continue reading.

They Must Become Happy

"[I]f we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."

-- Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 29 November 1802

How terribly far we've come.

234 Years of Excellence

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Is Robert Gibbs Really this Naive?

Here's a joke to kick off your weekend.

"I will continue to say what I've said before. You hear in this debate, you hear analogies, you hear references to, you see pictures about and depictions of individuals that are truly stunning, and you hear it all the time. People -- imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11. Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler."

Haha! Oh, Robert Gibbs, such a joker.

Wait, the White House Press Secretary wasn't kidding? Then he's apparently unfamiliar with a little thing I like to call... the Bush Years.

Let me be clear: any one comparing President Obama to Hitler is an idiot, an intellectual dwarf. The same is true for those who compared President Bush to the Nazi leader. I guess what separates me (and presumably you) from someone like Gibbs is that I'm conscience of the idiocy on both sides.

Gibbs apparently only sees the former.

Hat tip: Hot Air