Abortion

After Lou Engle claimed that the devastating tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri was God’s punishment for legal abortion, Engle’s youth group Bound4Life now says that God is getting ready to punish America for reproductive freedom. Bound4Life is based in JHOP, the International House of Prayer’s Washington D.C. affiliate, and seeks to end “the holocaust of abortion” through spiritual warfare. Bound4Life’s Susan Tyrrell writes that judges who defend abortion rights will compel God to punish America:

Make no mistake, God will hold accountable those who rule with tyranny without fearing Him—they are those who take power into their own hands, and pound it with their gavel as if they are representing a people instead of a few.

Tyranny, you say? Indeed. Tyranny is defined as “arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.” To be a lone twister of justice of a law that’s gone through the proper channels of government and bow the knee to the evil entities that drive the abortion industry is perhaps one of the best visuals for tyranny that exists in modern day America.

Often we think because there is no immediate consequence, on a people or a nation, God has somehow closed His eyes, but in actuality what we are seeing from the throne room of heaven is a great outpouring of mercy; however, the Bible is clear that mercy will end:

Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. (Ecc. 8:11)

Clearly, the sentence is coming—this window is the nation’s opportunity for repentance, not a condoning of our national sin or excuse of our national culpability.

…

Abortion has caused us to acquiesce our justice system, but it’s not too late. It’s time to stand up for those who can’t (proverbs 31:8) and defend the unborn. If we don’t fight for justice in the courtroom of heaven, we will continue to lose our battles in the courtroom of earth, opening the path wider to the coming judgment for sucking life from 54 million innocent babies in the womb.

On Friday, Rachel Maddow looked into the extreme political activists and pastors that Texas Governor Rick Perry is working with to put on his The Response prayer rally. In the segment, Maddow discusses Mike Bickle, the founder and executive director of the International House of Prayer and an endorser of The Response. Maddow cites research from Right Wing Watch on Bickle and his claim that Oprah Winfrey is the precursor to the Antichrist. Bickle’s IHOP ministry is closely involved in organizing Perry’s prayer rally, modeling it after the IHOP-linked The Call prayer rally which preaches the use of spiritual warfare against legalized abortion and gay rights.

Gerard Nadal, a columnist for the anti-choice and anti-gay website Life Site News, is infuriated that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic, signed a marriage equality bill into law. He calls on Roman Catholic bishops to get tough on the “sins of the Ted Kennedys, Andrew Cuomos and Nancy Pelosis” and all “Catholic pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage politicians,” insisting that they be refused communion and eventually excommunicated. Nadal believes that only religious pressure can compel a progressive politician to “undo their grave injustices” of supporting reproductive rights and marriage equality:

The sins of the Ted Kennedys, Andrew Cuomos and Nancy Pelosis are so vast, so deeply rooted, and entirely the fabric of the Democrat Party, that any confession by these people needs to have a public recanting of their deeds and concrete evidence of an action plan to undo them as the penance. If the politician is unwilling to work within the political system to undo their grave injustices and work toward a restoration of justice under law, then they are not contrite.

We have run out the rope on the excuse by so many bishops that we don’t know the private state of their souls. That simply strains credulity. If the politicians remain the same week after week, month after month, year after year, then as we say in Brooklyn, that’s a clue.

It’s a clue to their impenitence, and it is a sin against charity to confirm them in their impenitence by allowing them to eat and drink condemnation upon themselves, as Saint Paul put it.

As I’ve said before on this blog, if the fight was “too political” for the bishops in the past, the threat is now existential going into the future. The faithful are enraged over this law, and the bishops have a once-in-a-generation opportunity here to publicly call upon Catholic pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage politicians to publicly repent or face severe sanctions, beginning with being barred from the Eucharist, and leading to excommunication. There is a small window of opportunity here to reclaim the leadership most have eschewed for far too long.

For great good, or great evil, this is an historical moment for the United States Bishops in general, and New York’s bishops in particular. This is the great moment where the bishops can define what it means to be a Catholic in terms of sacramentality, and how to be a Catholic in the public square. This is the time for a muscular response. The faithful will back them to the hilt.

Governor Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally already has support from self-proclaimed prophets and apostles like Cindy Jacobs, Mike Bickle, Che Ahn, Doug Stringer, John Benefiel, and Jay Swallow, and now we can add one of the most prominent leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation to the list of endorses: C. Peter Wagner.

Not only is Wagner one the founders of the International Council of Apostles, but he is also a chief advocate of Seven Mountains Dominionism, which holds that fundamentalist Christians should have control over all aspects of society, and a foremost proponent of ‘Spiritual Warfare.’ Wagner’s wife, Doris, is also an endorser of The Response. She is author of How To Minister Freedom, a collection of works that includes chapters on “Freedom From Homosexual Confusion,” “Freedom from Abortion’s Aftermath,” and “The Believers Authority over Demonic Spirits.”

Following the deadly earthquake in Japan earlier this year, Peter Wagner argued that the disaster was punishment from God because Japan “invited national demonization” and the pagan Sun Goddess had “sexual intercourse with the Emperor” of Japan. He similarly blamed Japan’s economic problems on the Emperor’s supernatural sex life: “Since the night that the present emperor slept with the sun Goddess, the stock market in Japan has gone down - never come up since.”

In his book, Hard-Core Idolatry-Facing the Facts, Wagner praised the burning of Roman Catholic, Mormon, Native American, and other non-Protestant religious objects: “The leaders explained how important it would be to do spiritual housecleaning in their homes before they came to the meeting. They began mentioning the kinds of material things that might be bringing honor to the spirits of darkness; pictures, statues, Catholic saints, Books of Mormon, pictures of former lovers, pornographic material, fetishes, drugs, Ouija boards, zodiac charms, good luck symbols, crystals for healing, amulets, talismans, tarot cards, witch dolls, voodoo items, love potions, books of magic, totem poles, certain pieces of jewelry, objects of Freemasonry, horoscopes gargoyles, native art, foreign souvenirs, and what have you.”

But in Rick Perry’s Christians-only, proselytizing prayer rally, endorsements from extremists like Wagner should come as no surprise as the Religious Right continue their embrace of Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation.

A coalition of groups opposed to abortion rights wants the government to place graphic warning labels on emergency contraceptives and abortion clinics in the same way cigarette packs are now required to display explicit images. Disregarding the fact that abortion is an exceptionally safe medical procedure, a spokesman for the campaign said, “If you’re going to force cigarette manufacturers to put graphic images on every single pack of cigarettes, you should do the same thing with abortion.” In fact, a number of states already force doctors to read false statements that abortion causes breast cancer and other ailments. In a petition-drive launched by organizations including The Radiance Foundation (best known for placing billboards that refer to legal abortion as “black genocide”), Operation Rescue, Pro-Life Nation, and Students for Life, the coalition urges the government to impose labels to shame women:

The FDA recently announced new restrictions on cigarette packages, forcing manufacturers to feature prominent graphic images on the front of every cigarette package to warn smokers of harmful effects that smoking can have on their health and those around them.

When picking up their cigarette packages, smokers will see pictures of a man blowing smoke out of a hole in his neck, a smoker’s mouth riddled with cancer, a baby under a cloud of smoke, and a deceased man, among other colored graphics.

This marks the biggest change in cigarette package warnings in over a quarter of a century and notes the shift in American public opinion about smoking. Smoking has become passe.

Yet, what about abortion?

Where are the warning labels on abortion?

Where are the warnings to tell women that abortion will kill their child and scar them for life?

Sign your name to this petition to tell the FDA that all abortion facilities and abortion-causing drugs should come with graphic warning labels - showing women what an abortion really does.

The Ohio State House finally voted on and passed Janet Porter’s “Heartbeat bill,” which would criminalize abortion in most cases. Conspicuously absent was a statement from the state’s leading anti-choice group, the Ohio Right to Life Society, which actually opposed the bill because it is blatantly unconstitutional. Now Porter’s prized legislation moves on to the Senate, and her group Faith2Action released a congratulatory statement:

“For every battle weary pro-lifer who didn't see how children were going to be protected in our lifetime, come see what God is doing in Ohio. Protection for babies with beating hearts is within reach for the first time since Roe stripped their rights away. I have never been more hopeful for restoring protection to babies with beating hearts than I am right now,” declared Janet (Folger) Porter, president of Ohio-based Faith2Action and a former legislative director for Ohio Right to Life.

In meetings with bill supporters, several of the state senators have expressed interest in serving as a sponsor or co-sponsor for the bill.

The bill was backed by a number of national Republican figures including presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, and Porter even had two fetuses “testify” in favor of the bill.

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