December 2005 Archives

Life moves fast. If we don’t take the time to chronicle the providences of God, we forget them. If we don’t take the time to say thank you to those who have invested in our lives, we actually cultivate a spirit of ingratitude in our own hearts.

Here is a little practice that I was taught, and would like to share with you. Each year, during the last week of December, do two things:

I. Outline and Chronicle the Many Providences of God

“Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” (Hab. 33:2)

First, using simple bullet points, outline the key events for every week of every month of the year. Take the time to do the research which will help jog your memory and allow you to make an accurate record. I find that reviewing bills, blogs, journals, newspaper headlines, letters, and even organizing my photographs chronologically are enormously helpful tools. Those individuals who were faithful to journal or keep a diary will have little problem reconstructing key events. Give yourself a good week to reconstruct your own outline of the year. Also, by making this a family project, you will not only build your list with greater speed and precision, but (in the hands of a loving patriarch) the very act of chronicling the providences of God in your life is a blessed tool for family discipleship.

Every family will have a different set of priorities directing what they should record. In addition to recording the key events and providences of the year chronologically, I try to take the time with my family to record some of the following information on separate bullet lists:

1. Where did I/we travel?
2. What were the titles and key texts of sermons I preached?
3. What books/articles did I write?
4. What significant household projects did we accomplish in 2005?
5. What were the most important meetings of the year?
6. What special friendships were made this year?
7. Which children lost teeth, and how many?
8. Who grew in physical stature and how much did they grow?
9. Who learned to read this year?
10. What diet and physical exercise regimen did I maintain to honor “my temple”?
11. What books did I read? Did we read as a family? Did my children read?
12. What Scriptures did my family memorize?
13. What loved ones died this year?
14. What were the great personal/ministry/national tragedies and losses of the year?
15. What were the great personal/ministry/national blessings of the year?
16. What were my most significant failures/sins for the year 2005?
17. What unresolved conflicts/issues am I bringing into 2006?
18. What significant spiritual and practical victories did I experience?
19. In what tangible ways did I communicate gratitude to those who have blessed me and invested in my life?
20. What are the top ten themes of 2005 for my family?

II. Say ‘Thank You’ to Those Who Have Invested in Your Life

[I] cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. (Ephesians 1:16)

Whatever happened to the man who first opened to you the words of life from the Scripture? Where is the comrade, coach, or instructor who believed in you and helped you to accomplish a great goal? What about the Bible teacher whose careful handling of the Word opened up new vistas of understanding? Where is the friend who stood with you through thick and thin? Most importantly, what have you communicated to the mother who carried you in her womb, loved and nurtured you, or the father who labored to provide for and shepherd you?

When was the last time you responded to their investment in your life with gratitude, blessings, and even money? Jesus reminds us of those ungrateful recipients of blessing who simply went their way without demonstrating gratitude (Luke 17).

Before the year ends, make a list of two types of people: The first list are the names of people whose life, ministry, or personal investment in you have deeply touched you and changed your life. (In my case, the list includes parents, pastors, and even some teachers from the early years of my Christian walk that I did not meet until much later in my life, but whose books and tapes were crucial to my personal discipleship as a young Christian.) The second list should include those people who played the most significant role in your life in 2005.

Write a brief, meaningful letter to each of them. Be specific in your gratitude. Explain what they did for you and why it was important to you. Show them how they were God’s instrument of blessing in your own life. Pray over each letter, asking God to grant you rich insights on the character qualities of each individual and on the way those qualities changed your own life. Where appropriate, include a check or special token of appreciation that reflects your desire to show them, tangibly, that you recognize that you are in their debt. You cannot imagine the joy this will give to someone from your past who may think you have forgotten them. Give generously and without concern for getting a tax deduction. I strongly recommend sending money to your parents. Keep in mind that you will never be able to return their personal and financial investment in your life, except through your testimony of faithfulness, covenant keeping, and honor to the Lord.

Also, your children need to know the people who have blessed their parents. They need to see that Mom and Dad are grateful and generous. Share your letters with them. In our household, we ask our children to write to some of the people who have blessed Mommy and Daddy, because our children are the indirect recipients of these blessings on their parents.

This will take a day or two to complete. You may have twenty letters to write, but you will never regret saying “thank you.”

One last thought: One reason why Christians are often limited in vision, energy, and blessings is that, contrary to the Lord’s command, we are ungrateful, unforgiving, and bitter. Far too many who profess the name of Christ spend more time obsessing on those who have wronged them, than rejoicing in those who have blessed them. Letters and tangible expressions of gratitude are not only pleasing to Christ, but an antidote to heart-sickness.

Conclusion

As 2006 comes to a close, take time to remember and to say “thank you.” It is appropriate that we do so on the birth of a new year. Remember that God gave man the stars on Day Four, in part so that he could order and structure his days based on a clock/calendar system of days, seasons, and years (Genesis 1). He tells us to “remember” acts and to “number” our days. In Scripture, the formal act of remembering providences of God in our life is linked to hope, honor, and generational success (e.g., Psalms 44, 78, etc.). By February 2006, the year 2005 will be a distant memory. Strike now while the iron is hot. The opportunity to remember and to say “thank you” may never come again.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 29, 2005 | Permalink

My good friend Adam McManus, host of KSLR’s Take a Stand, is out of town today and tomorow and has kindly asked me to host this top-rated show in his absence. Topics include Intelligent Design Theory and Big Bang Theory; Christians and Hollywood; top stories of 2005; New Year’s resolutions for Christian daughters, sons, fathers, and mothers; and much more. Guests include Dr. John Morris; Dr. Russel Huphreys; Howard Phillips; Scott Brown; Geoff and Isaac Botkin; Elizabeth and Anna Sophia Botkin (authors of So Much More). The show is found on KSLR AM 630 from 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. and can be listened to live online.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 29, 2005 | Permalink

Doug and Matt (right) on Memorial Day

Today, December 28, Vision Forum friend Matt Chancey not only turned 30, but learned that his dear bride Jennie is expecting his sixth and seventh child — twins! Now that is a God-blessed birthday present. Praises be to God.

Congratulations, Matt and Jennie.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 28, 2005 | Permalink

Dear Vision Forum Family: We just received and viewed The League of Grateful Sons DVD over Christmas. We could not have imagined ahead of time the impact it would have on us. To just say we loved the documentary would not express accurately the fullness of our hearts. Instead, let’s say this: because of it, we love the Lord all the more, who through that generation preserved the freedoms we enjoy today. We can’t express our gratitude enough for all of your efforts in honoring those who have gone before us. THANK YOU for not letting us forget. —The Chris C. Family

Dear Vision Forum: We gave a copy of The League of Grateful Sons DVD to my father for Christmas, along with a card expressing our gratitude for what he’d done on our behalf in WWII. My sons and I each signed our names as a part of the League of Grateful Sons. He was very emotional and called on Christmas afternoon, already having watched the entire film! He said he was going to frame the card. Thank you for doing such an outstanding job on an area that is a blind spot for so many and also for helping us to gain an insight into our father’s life before it’s too late. —Dave M.

Dear Doug: My wife and I have just finished watching your documentary, The League of Grateful Sons. It touched us deeply. I trust that it will find a wide audience. I am pleased that we could feature it as we did in the July issue of Citizen magazine. —Tom Minnery, Senior Vice President, Focus on the Family

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 27, 2005 | Permalink

It is not often that Americans are given the opportunity to cast their vote for a public official who has been martyred in the court system for his uncompromising defense of the name and word of the Lord God. In 2006, Alabama citizens will have just such an opportunity as former Chief Justice Roy Moore faces off against Bob Riley for the office of Governor of the State of Alabama.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 27, 2005 | Permalink

To Our Dear Friends in the Work of the Lord:

Greetings in the name of the Savior! I thank God for each of you, for your love for us, and for the way so many of you have expressed that love through prayers, support, and notes of encouragement. We appreciate every single testimony of the faithfulness of God you send our way. This year we have receieved hundreds, perhaps thousands of these testimonies and they have filled our heart with gladness. We are so grateful for you.

The purpose of this letter is to offer a few personal thoughts on the significance of 2005 in light of the many special providences of God throughout this year in the life of Vision Forum Ministries.

2005: A Retrospective
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. (Psalm 145:3)

This year, the Vision Forum team collectively traveled more than a quarter of a million miles across the nation and around the world. We traveled, preached, taught, filmed, and wrote in pursuit of a solitary mission: the glorification of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in the defining crisis of our generation — the battle to defend, restore, and advance the biblical family.

Having first sought the Lord for His blessing, we began our year by drawing “a line in the sand,” purposing to stand fast without compromise. Quoting Nehemiah, and remembering a generation which once gathered to fight as families, we resolved to do our part as families in the great wall-building task of our generation:

Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. (Nehemiah 4:14)

The Great Commission declares that we are to “go” and “make disciples of nations” and “teach all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” In 2005, this going, discipling, and teaching took form in hundreds of hours of preaching, publishing books, CDs, and pages upon pages of content for articles, producing a professional documentary film, teaching at several dozen conferences, launching new training academies, and creating a new bi-annual newsletter called The Family Vision.

When all was said and done, this meant that tens of thousands of Christians in person, hundreds of thousands by radio, and more than a million through printed material, had been encouraged to embrace the great doctrines of the Cross of Jesus Christ; the sovereignty of God; the doctrines of grace; the sufficiency of Scripture; salvation by grace through faith alone; the literal, historical-grammatical understanding of the Genesis account of creation; the beauty and relevence of the law of God; and the blessing and significance of the local church, etc. — and to rejoice in the practical application of these truths for every day life, leading (we humbly pray), to the encouragement of the saints through sound orthopraxy.

How do you summarize such a year? One way is to see 2005 in terms of God’s providentially decreed antithesis, warfare, friendships, and victories.

Providential Antithesis
If Christianity is the thesis, then everything else is the antithesis. As believers who reject the myth of neutrality, we “force the antithesis” when our thinking and our lifestyle stand in stark opposition to vain thoughts and deeds of fallen man.

The year 2005 was a year of antithesis. It was a year in which the Lord set before the American people the way of life and the way of death. The horrors of a culture immersed in immorality and teeming with fatherless families was evidenced on the streets of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But in contradistinction to the horrors of New Orleans, 2005 was also a year where hope was reborn as many men placed God’s Word at the center of their homes and renewed their efforts to lead their families faithfully before the Lord.

Providential Warfare
Obedience to the Great Commission necessitated that Vision Forum Ministries engage in formal, public, apologetic defense of the “hope that is [within us]” in opposition to what the Bible describes as “vain deceipt, after the traditions of men.” This meant addressing a number of highly controversial issues directly related to the Lordship of Christ in the culture of the Christian family. The positions we took drew significant fire and criticism, not merely from secular humanists, but from liberal and neo-orthodox elements within the broader community of professing Christians. (At times thess criticisms reached levels of sarcasm, vitriol and venom which transcend anything one sees coming from “the world.”) They also generated piles of thank-you notes from thirsty Christian families relieved to receive a drink of spiritual encouragement.

The apologetic ministry meant “reproving” works of darkness and promoting good. If you have been following the work of this ministry, you have seen that we vigorously challenged the Christian community to rethink cultural syncretism in every form. This meant bringing epistemological integrity to our theory of literature, a subject that was addressed in our position paper raising concerns about the ungodly abuse of the fantasy genre in the case of the Harry Potter series. It meant rejecting statist and humanistic education, and embracing basic truths from the all-sufficient Scripture concerning both the outcomes and the methodology of distinctively Christian education. It meant challenging the destructive, androgynous, and feministic vision of womanhood, including the widespread acceptance of female soldiers. It mean rejecting the satanically-inspired anti-child mentality, and reminding our brethren of the blessing of the fruit of the womb. It meant encouraging Christians to break with Hollywood, and to rebuild Christian culture from the ground level-up through presuppositionally solid and Christ-exalting media. It meant encouraging Christians to resist the dark trend toward eugenics and euthanasia by fighting for the precious life of Terri Schiavo.

Simultaneously, we aspired to cast a vision for hope by inspiring our daughters to achieve “so much more” as feminine, Titus 2 women of God; to encourage fathers to reclaim their role as shepherds, visionaries and sacrifical leaders; and to build Christ-exalting local churches which take seriously their commitment to encourage, not tear down, the biblical family. We urged sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, churchmen and church leaders, to consider and embrace the biblical doctrine of honor as a key to God-blessed relationships.

Providential Friendships
More than any other year of the new millennium, 2005 was a year in which the Lord kindly sent us new friends and yoke-fellows in the battle. We thank the Lord for a fleet of new Christian filmmakers, for promising young men we have had the privilege of training, and for key speakers, businessmen, pastors, and families who have risen up to co-labor with us. It seems that God is preparing an army for an important work.

Providential Victories
It is great to cast vision, but it is even greater to see God bless a vision and providentially bring it to pass. The year 2005 was a year of warfare, but it was also a year of many providential victories. Two special victories were the following:

Victory #1: God Brings a Four-Year Vision to Completion — The year 2005 saw the completion of a vision cast in 2001. Our prayer was that God would allow us to produce a compelling and professional film that would explain the providence of God in the lives of our World War II fathers, in the context of the message of Psalm 78 and the Fifth Commandment. After four years of planning, The League of Grateful Sons was shot, produced, and released. The testimonies of adult sons and daughters who have been inspired through its message have been numerous. Thanks to the generosity of one of our supporters, this film will be screened on the U.S.S. Missouri in Oahu (the boat on which the Japanese surrender was concluded) and will be advertised to nearly a million people on a major television network in January. Our hope is that 2006 will be a year of harvest in which great spiritual rewards are reaped from this four-year vision to train a generation of Americans to honor their fathers and record the providences of God in their lives. Our motto is: “Son’s must ask; fathers must tell.” (See more on this below.)

Victory #2: God Answers a Four-Year Prayer — After nearly four years of petitioning our local county government, Vision Forum Ministries was finally granted tax-exempt status for our properties. This is a wonderful blessing of the Lord. It means that we will be able to save tens of thousands of precious dollars of the Lord’s money each year.

Moreover, the Lord was kind to bring victory to each of the following projects which we set before Him this past year:

Uniting Church and Family Around the World
In 2005, with director Scott Brown at the helm, the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches had the honor of sharing the vision for the sufficiency of Scripture and its implications for integrating church and home around the globe. With mini-conferences held in the Pacific islands of Guam, Oahu, and Kauai, to regional conferences held on the continent in the states of Washington, Texas, North Carolina, and Alabama, we saw the Lord turning the hearts of fathers and pastors back to God’s Word as it relates to family and church life.

The Faith of Our Fathers Project
On March 12, 2005, the Vision Forum Faith of Our Fathers film team hit the beaches of Iwo Jima with more than eighty aged veterans who battled on those same black sands in 1945. Our day on Iwo was part of a journey of honor — a three-week tour of the Pacific in which we sought to record on film the wisdom of those surviving men whose lives were forever marked by thirty-six days of hellish warfare. On this day, men did their duty — fathers told their sons and grandsons how God had preserved their lives during the bloody battle for Iwo Jima. These grey-headed grandfathers poured forth lessons on godly manhood so that their sons might be strong and overcome as they had done, by God’s grace, sixty years ago.

The testimonies of these faithful fathers, along with those of the sons who journeyed to Iwo to honor them, are chronicled in The League of Grateful Sons, which premiered October 28 at the second annual San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival.

Father and Daughter Retreat
On April 8-10, more than 450 fathers and daughters gathered at Georgia’s beautiful Callaway Gardens for a blessed weekend of fellowship as part of the 2005 Father and Daughter Retreat. There we saw fathers turn their hearts toward their daughters and commit to lovingly lead them to walk in the joy of the Lord.

Father and Son Retreat
On August 11-13, nearly four hundred fathers and sons met in Colorado at the Crooked Creek Ranch for the 2005 Father and Son Discipleship Retreat. The message of honor, multi-generational faithfulness, sacrificial manhood, and family vision was clearly articulated. Arnold Pent, who authored the book Ten P’s in a Pod more than forty years ago, presented a compelling message on the importance of Scripture reading to family life. (His talk was entitled: “Seven Things My Father Taught Me.”) The testimonies of restored father and son relationships were numerous and beautiful.

Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy
On July 26-30, more that one hundred students gathered at the historic Mimslyn Inn in Luray, Virginia for the 2005 Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy. Students were taught the scriptural foundations for property, tort, and contract law; the influence of Christianity on the Constitution; the relationship between the case laws of Exodus and the Common Law; and the writings of Sir William Blackstone, among other topics. Featured speakers included Alabama Justice Tom Parker, former Chief Justice Roy Moore, Dr. Paul Jehle, the Honorable Howard Phillips, Dr. Edwin Vieira, William Einwechter, and Dr. John Eidsmoe.

Mission Katrina
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Vision Forum Ministries made several quick strikes into the heart of the devastation to offer both physical and spiritual aid to the men and their families who were among the faithful remnant there. The Lord gave us the opportunity to extract some individuals from the troubled areas, to distribute food and supplies, and to put teams together to help a local church repair its facilities.

Faith and Freedom Tour
On October 3-10, Vision Forum Ministries led our first Faith and Freedom Tour through the Middle Colonies — Pennsylvania and New Jersey. There we visited the great landmarks of Philadelphia, such as Carpenter’s Hall and Old Swede’s Church; stood on the shore where Washington crossed the Delaware; and offered prayers to God at the sacred graveyard at Princeton where the great John Witherspoon, Jonathan Edwards, and Samuel Davies lie buried, with many other stops along the way.

Christian Filmmaker’s Academy and San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival
On October 24-26, Vision Forum Ministries hosted the first-ever Christian Filmmaker’s Academy. Students who attended received more than sixteen hours of formal classroom instruction from seasoned industry professionals and had the opportunity to network and build professional personal relations with like-minded individuals interested in independent Christian filmmaking. A number of fathers and sons took part in this inaugural event.

More than a thousand participants representing states from New York to Washington and foreign countries from New Zealand to Romania attended the second annual San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival held October 27-29 at the Lila Cockrell Theatre in downtown San Antonio. More than 130 films were submitted to this year’s festival.

The “Best of Festival” Jubilee Award — a $10,000 grand prize — went to No Greater Love, a sixteen-minute film produced and directed by Arthur and Hanna Rasco of Ideal Images. Set in Hungary during the refugee flight of 1956, this short film, which is based on a true story, contrasts two fathers: one who is willing to sacrifice for his family and one who is not.

A Vision for 2006
Our staff will be meeting in January and February for intensive, two-year planning. We view the blessings and victories of 2005 as prelude to greater responsibilities and opportunities for serving the Lord. In addition to all of our regular events, here are some of the special ministries before us in 2006 for which we solicit your prayers.

History of the World Mega-Conference: Our most ambitious conference to date, featuring a large and distinguished faculty, the History of the World Mega-Conference will provide students of all ages with a panoramic perspective on the providential history of God over six-thousand years of earth history tracing every major civilization. This event will be held near beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia (after the Faith and Freedom Tour) in July. To our knowledge, this is the first time a conference has ever attempted to cover the history of the world in this manner.

Entrepreneurial Boot Camp: For half a decade we have dreamed of creating an innovative training academy to build and equip families of entrepreneurial vision. Thanks be to God, the Lord has now provided us with the team and the resources to do just this. We are grateful that He has blessed this vision as we prepare to launch our first national Entrepreneurial Boot Camp for Christian families in August 2006.

Christian Boys’ and Men’s Titanic Society Tenth Anniversary Celebration: For ten years, the CBMTS has been training young men to put women and children first. This year, on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we will gather in Washington, D.C. for a gala celebration featuring great food, the manly music of Charlie Zahm, and inspirational messages.

Faith of Our Fathers Project and the Quadricentennial: The Faith of Our Fathers Project is our ongoing work to tell the stories of the providence of God through the families that make up American history. In 2007, America celebrates the four hundreth birthday of the founding of Jamestown. The humanists are already at work, hoping to spin this event in a manner that robs God of the glory. Our top-secret mission (stay tuned in 2006 for details) is to counter such influences by launching a major effort to proclaim the providences of God and to creatively and professionally explain (potentially to millions) the true message of the founding of America. Toward this end, Vision Forum Ministries is spearheading an effort that includes collaborative work with some of the more important ministries in America dedicated to the same common cause.

A World of Gratitude
I love my work. It is not merely a calling, but it is a passion. My wife and children love their role as my co-laborers and yoke-fellows in this ministry. The men and women who make up the families of Vision Forum feel the same way. The privilege of preaching, teaching, and casting Gospel vision with my family by my side, yoked with likeminded families, is an unspeakable joy. It is a gift of God.

Speaking for the men and women who make up the families of Vision Forum, I want to thank God for this gift. We never want to take it for granted. We know that there is nothing special, righteous, brilliant, or lovely in us, but only to the extent that the incomparable glories of Jesus Christ shine through the humble and broken pottery of humanity that makes up our staff. We remind ourselves often that our work is not a right but a gift of God which could be taken away tomorrow. Also, we know that the work of Vision Forum Ministries is, and only will be, useful as long as the Lord sees fit to make it so. We tremble when we stop and consider the sinful state of our own hearts and how close each of us would be to the precipice of destruction apart from the mercies of our God.

I also would like to extend my personal thanks to all of you who have joined us in the work of the Lord through your prayers and generous financial gifts. You are the conduit through which this ministry advances the work of the kingdom set before us. Please also remember that our staff is praying for you. It is our joy to lift before the Lord the needs of those saints who bless us with specific prayer requests.

As we enter a new year, our prayer is this: “...O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath, remember mercy” (Habakkuk 3:2).

May the Lord continue to turn the hearts of fathers to their families — to bring hope and revival to our land, and to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Persevero,
Douglas W. Phillips

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 26, 2005 | Permalink

My first love was a dog, and my second astronomy. My father’s role as the director of a government agency landed me the very special privilege of a behind-the-scenes look inside the Apollo 11 spacecraft (before its departure) and gave me the opportunity to have some exciting discussions with scientists at NASA’s Mission Control. By the age of ten, I was struggling with whether to be a priest or an astronomer when I grew up. My conversion nullified the former interest, but actually exacerbated the later as I found myself devouring the writings of creationist scientists and theologians. Especially beneficial for me in those days was the apologetic ministry of Dr. John Whitcomb, a presuppositionalist student of Van Til and co-author of the ground breaking book The Genesis Flood. Dr. Whitcomb’s lectures on space travel, the moon, and cosmology in general were thrilling. My passion for creation science grew and grew. From this passion bloomed two boyhood dreams: The first was to dig up dinosaurs. The second was to someday travel in a spacecraft and break the earth’s atmosphere to observe creation from the vantage point of space. God has been kind to grant me the first, and I do not in any way presume on the second. I am delighted, however, to see that consumer space travel will likely be a reality over the next decade.

CNN reports that, “Canada’s London, Ontario-based firm PlanetSpace unveiled designs for its Silver Dart spacecraft, an eight-person vehicle derived from experimental aircraft studies in the 1970s, Thursday with hopes of carrying fare-paying passengers into orbit and resupplying the international space station (ISS).”

P.S. Dr. Whitcomb is still spry, sharp as a tack, and inspirational at the age of eighty-four. He will be a key lecturer on the ancient world at the Vision Forum Ministries 2006 History of the World Mega-Conference in July.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 23, 2005 | Permalink

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood and an advocate of eugenics, mocked prolific mothers by viciously dubbing them “baby machines.” In several nations, the anti-“baby machine&#148 mentality has resulted in state-mandated sterilization of women. China is an example of one such nation, and India another. But now, in the wake of this year’s tsunami which resulted in the death of more than 231,000 Indians, women are seeking reversal surgery to restore children to their homes and communities.

CNN reports:

NAGAPATTINAM, India (Reuters) — It’s the most unlikely setting for hope — a dingy shack filled haphazardly with pots and pans, surrounded by puddles of filthy water, overflowing drains and rain-soaked furniture. Its resident, Geetha, a fisherwoman living in a camp for tsunami survivors in southern India, is five months pregnant. She is the first survivor to conceive after undergoing surgery to reverse her sterilization in the hope of having children, after daughters Jotika, 5, and Sosika, 3, were swept away by the sea last year.

Her success story has rekindled the faith of other couples desperate to become parents again and fill a void created by a catastrophe that killed more than 231,000 people in a dozen Indian Ocean nations, most of them women and children.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 21, 2005 | Permalink

In his 1987 novel, Patriot Games, author Tom Clancy presents a chilling scene of what was then new satellite technology in the hands of NSA bureaucrats who were authorized to order and observe military hits real-time, from their desks in Washington, D.C. Eighteen years later, both the technology and the boldness of the federal government to use computers for spying on suspected citizens, or for overseas assassinations of suspects based solely on voice recognition technologies, has reached new heights.

MSNBC Reports:

In Yemen in November 2002, a U.S. spy satellite picked up a cell phone call from a passenger in the front seat of a car on a remote road. The phone number triggered a National Security Agency (NSA) computer in Fort Meade, Md. The man’s voice didn’t match any known terrorist.

But then another man was heard, talking from the back seat. The NSA quickly identified him as Abu Ali al-Harithi — wanted for the bombing of the USS Cole two years earlier. The CIA ordered a missile strike from an unmanned predator aircraft. Everyone in the car was killed.

“It shows how just somebody riding in the back seat of a car in a remote part of a remote desert, and somebody sitting at a desk at NSA could actually hear their voice and take action immediately,” says electronic intelligence expert James Bamford, the author of the book “The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America’s Most Secret Agency.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 21, 2005 | Permalink

Last week, I posted about MacArthur’s efforts to destroy the false religion of Shinto and to encourage the spread of the Gospel (non-coercively, of course) with the help of American missionaries. The following is a video blog shot at the Punch Bowl on Oahu which addresses the same subject.

(To view the video, you must have QuickTime 7 installed — available as a free download.)

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 20, 2005 | Permalink

Dear Mr. Phillips and all of Vision Forum, Thank you for all the work you do! Your ministry has blessed me! Your crossbow, sword, and shield have reminded me to protect and be brave. Your Pilgrim costume, Civil War hats, and tri-cornered hat have reminded me of heroes of the past. Your Pocket Knife, Little Bear’s Outdoor Adventure Guide, and compass have reminded me to love being outdoors. Your books, like G.A. Henty books, Cabin on the Prairie, Pilgrim’s Progress, and many others have remind[ed] me to LOVE reading! The electric train, forever flashlight, stellarscope, badge, and rocket have just been plain fun! Thank You! A Soldier for Him,
Micah A.B., Age 9

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 19, 2005 | Permalink

We are one of the families who have recently purchased this book [So Much More]. I am reading it aloud with my four oldest daughters (ages 18, 16, 15, and 13) and we have been so blessed with the encouragement we have found. I often cannot read without tears of either repentance or just a humble gratefulness over finding someone who has put into words what our culture so desperately needs to hear. Since we are lacking role models who understand these principles, we have been delighted to find them in the pages of this book. —Lisa E.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 19, 2005 | Permalink

Dear Mr. Phillips:

About once a week, I log onto your blog while I wait for my morning pot of coffee to brew. I go there for encouragement and to be reminded that I am not alone. For there I read about what God is accomplishing through your familiy, your church, and Vision Forum. I see pictures of other people throughout these United Stated who are not conforming to this “present evil age” and I feel hope....

With gratitude,
Mrs. Phillip W.

Thank you for your tremendously encouraging note, Mrs. W. Your kind words remind me of the fact that we are less than nothing in value, except insofar as the matchless treasures of Jesus Christ be revealed through the broken pottery which makes up the team of redeemed sinners who are part of this ministry. Thank you for giving us hope through blessed words of a grateful sister in Christ.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 19, 2005 | Permalink

[Hope] carries cheerfully through all the difficulties of this life and makes hard things sit easy. —John Gill

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 19, 2005 | Permalink

Perhaps there is no military leader in American history with a more overtly gospel witness than Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. For those of you who have read Beloved Bride, The Life and Campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, or Christ in the Camp, I believe you will enjoy this article from The Washington Times.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 19, 2005 | Permalink

They preach, they fence, they read Van Til — they are the Vision Forum intern class of 2005.

From the left: “Books” Billings; Phillip “The Saber” Bradrick; “Macintosh” Green; “Gentleman” Joshua Harris; “Mustang” Muela; and William “The Fontologist” Clayton.

Congratulations, men, on the completion of six months. You have distinguished yourselves through your honor to your parents, your hands-on service to the Body of Christ in our community, your studies, your testimony of integrity, and most importantly, in the sincerity of your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well done.

We love you and dearly thank God for you.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 19, 2005 | Permalink

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 17, 2005 | Permalink

Thanks to Scott Brown for sending me this important quote from one of our favorite Puritans, Mr. Richard Baxter:

Holy families are the seminaries of Christ’s church on earth, and it is very much that lieth upon them to keep up the interest of religion in the world. Hence come holy magistrates, when great men’s children have a holy education. And, oh, what a blessing is one such to the countries where they are! Hence spring holy pastors and teachers to the churches, who as Timothy, receive holy instructions from their parents, and grace from the Spirit of Christ in their tender age. Many a congregation that is happliy fed with the bread of life, may thank God for the endeavors of a poor man or woman,that trained up a child in the fear of God, to become their holy, faithful teacher. (The Reformed Pastor, Vol. 4, The Poor Man’s Family Book, p. 230.)

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 16, 2005 | Permalink

A Liberty and a Beall in front of the Liberty Bell.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 15, 2005 | Permalink

On this day sixty years ago, General Douglas MacArthur officially dismantled and declared illegal the Shinto religion as the national religion of Japan. In one sweeping blow, unparalleled in the annals of modern history, millions of people lost their faith within less than an hour. The emperor went on national radio, confessed that he was not the god he had claimed to be, and told the Japanese people that he should no longer be worshipped.

At the same time that MacArthur denounced and destroyed this hellish pagan religion, he specifically called for large numbers of Christian missionaries to invade Japan, discipling these lost, pagan people in the truth of the Gospel and the doctrines of Christianity.

To make sense of this remarkable Great Commission act (“make disciples of nations”), one must first understand that the America of 1945 believed itself to be a Christian nation fighting a war against anti-Christian forces. Even liberals like FDR were not afraid to say just that.

There are several remarkable aspects to the MacArthur story: First, MacArthur’s approach differed fundamentally with the policies of nineteenth century and early twentieth century imperialist Great Britain who not only refused to bring the Gospel to their colonies, but (in the case of nations like India) actively inhibited and persecuted missionaries for disturbing the peace with the local pagan potentates.

Second, tearing down Shinto and replacing it with Christianity was a personal conviction of MacArthur as well as a strategy for rebuilding the nation. He had full authority to implement this policy.

Third, it is difficult to imagine that any of our modern Ramadan-in-the-White-House-celebrating leaders would do what MacArthur did. In fact, in the case of Iraq, having conquered (at least in theory) the ruling Muslim government, we have bent over backwards to show our support for Muslim rule and have largely inhibited Christian missionaries from having a role in the rebuilding process of the nation. All this in just sixty years. All this in the lifetime of our fathers.

Fourth, the tragedy of what happened sixty years ago is this: Despite the fact that MacArthur called for missionaries, few actually came. There simply were not enough willing and ready to do the work. Though the few that did travel to Japan had a phenomenal impact, a great opportunity was lost because the Christian community was unprepared and lacked vision. In the wake of this vacuum of spiritual leadership, Japanese culture turned to the other god that Americans love to boast about — the marketplace. Today, both America and Japan have replaced the God of Scripture with the god of materialism.

Several years ago, I had the honor of preaching in major cities throughout the nation of Japan. I met with pastors whose children were in gangs, husbands with broken marriages who worked an average twelve hour day, six days a week, and families that had been laid desolate by the Japanese adaptation of the Western vision of success.

We saw a lot of social chaos, but we also saw tremendous hope. By and large, the hope came from what we affectionately call “MacArthur’s children” — those grandparents and their progeny who were converted by the Holy Spirit working through the missionaries who responded to General MacArthur’s appeal. I will never forget meeting one of them — a man in his eighties with a very long, grey beard. He introduced himself to me after my sermon by proudly proclaiming that he was one of the men who had responded to the Gospel presented by a missionary in 1947, that today his children and grandchildren are home schooling in order to be faithful to Deuteronomy 6, and that he and his sons had read The Institutes of Biblical Law. Amazing!

This anniversary is important because it represents the last day in the history of our nation, when our leaders were more interested in exporting Christianity, than democracy.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 15, 2005 | Permalink

It was February 18, 1956.

“It was mad of the Tories to bring in commercial television,” Churchill said. “It is no wonder the country is going soft.... It’s the loss of masculinity and virility that’s troubling me. I would like to speak about it in the House, to warn the country.”

(Lord Moran, Winston Churchill, The Struggle for Survival, Heron Books, London, 1966 p. 690)

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 14, 2005 | Permalink

Writer’s fury after police probe views

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 14, 2005 | Permalink

The facination with the second most-written about maritime journey in history continues with the opening of a reproduction Titanic in Branson: Titanic: World’s Largest Museum Attraction.

See also our own Christian Boys’ & Men’s Titanic Society Web site.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 14, 2005 | Permalink

I am pleased to announce a new, enormously helpful resource created, launched, and maintained independently by Isaac Botkin, author of Outside Hollywood and guest faculty lecturer at this year’s Vision Forum Ministries Christian Filmmaker’s Academy. The Web site is dedicated to helping our film students (and others) by addressing the many technical questions associated with filmmaking. In my view, this is one of the most important and helpful new “free” resources available to the budding Christian independent filmmaker. Congratulations, once again, to Isaac Botkin, and the many talented members of the Botkin family, for their role training and communicating hope to a generation of Christ-magnifying culture changers.

www.outside-hollywood.com

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 13, 2005 | Permalink

This is one of the most amazing stories I have heard in some time. Thank God for His mercies.

Skydiver survives fall, gets baby surprise

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 13, 2005 | Permalink

Far too often, modern Christians are not looking for Christ-honorning, presuppositionally biblical films. Instead, these belivers have declared an unconditional surrender to Hollywood and the culture as a whole. The result is that many are happy to settle with films which simply can be described as “not grossly offensive.” A half a century of what Geoff Botkin describes as “Frankfurt School Theology of Film” has rendered the Christian public entertainment-craving, undiscerning film addicts. Consequently, Christians have an enormously high threshold for accepting as “Christian” pretty much anything Hollywood sends them with a “redemption theme,” as long as the film is devoid of explicit nudity and rampant profanity.

Though Christians have an enormously high threshold for compromising on film, the non-Christian Hollywood elite, on the other hand, have an enormously low threshold for accepting anything which unapologetically presents biblical Christianity. The result is that Hollywood has learned how to manipulate Christians.

The marketing of Narnia is a classic example of Hollywood’s manipulation. The basic strategy behind the Hollywood marketing of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is this: (1) Seek to make money off the budding and highly lucrative Christian market by presenting the new film as a glorious representation of Lewis’s distinctively Christian vision; and, simultaneously (2) Seek to make millions from the mainstream secular market by making great efforts to deny that The Chronicles of Narnia has anything whatsoever to do with the Christian faith.

Read more about this phenomenon here: “Religion in ‘Narnia’ left up to audience.”

Also, The Chicago Tribune mentions Vision Forum Ministries’ San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival as part of the response to Hollywood’s anti-Christian bigotry: “With ‘Narnia,’ Disney reaches out to Christians.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 12, 2005 | Permalink

I had some ado to prevent Joy and myself from relapsing into Paganism in Attica! At Daphni it was hard not to pray to Appolo the Healer. But somehow one didn’t feel it would have been very wrong — would have only been addressing Christ sub specie Apollinius. (Roger Lancelyn Green quoting C.S. Lewis in the biography C.S. Lewis: A Biography)

C.S. Lewis’s love affair with Greek paganism is clearly seen in the selection of characters for his masterfully written and much-beloved series, The Chronicles of Narnia. The mysterious and wonderful world of Narnia is home not only to the Christ-like Aslan, but is teeming with the icons of ancient pantheistic and idolatrous religions. Pagan gods, demi-gods, and Aslan all dwell together in harmony.

These characters include:

The Roman God Bacchus: Worshipped by millions of pagans from the ancient world as the god of wine, Bacchus is associated with drunkenness, revelry, and immorality. In The Chronicles of Narnia, Bacchus makes occasional visits to Narnia. He is mentioned in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and makes an appearance in Prince Caspian, as does Silenus, a figure from Greek mythology who was the teacher of Bacchus. In Greek mythology, Bacchus goes by the name Dionysus.

Maenads: The ancient Greeks and Romans knew the maenads as the special attendants to Bacchus (which is why they also went by the names Bacchae and Bacchantes). The word maenad literally means “raving ones.” They were believed to have occult powers. In Narnia, they are “madcap” girls that still attend to Bacchus. Of Maenads, Wikipedia has this interesting explanation: “They were known as wild, insane women who could not be reasoned with. The mysteries of Dionysus inspired the women to ecstatic frenzy; they indulged in copious amounts of violence, bloodletting, sex, and self-intoxication and mutilation. They were usually pictured as crowned with leaves, clothed in fawnskins and carrying the Thyrsus and dancing with the wild abandonment of complete union with primeval nature.”

Fauns: Half humans and half goats, fauns find their origin in Roman mythology as followers of the gods Pan (god of the field) and Bacchus (god of wine). They are generally portrayed in myth as troublemakers. Fauns play a central role in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and can be found throughout The Chronicles of Narnia, but unlike their Roman counterparts, Lewis’s fauns are kind, beloved creatures.

Centaurs: In religious worship and mythology, centaurs are half human, half horse — wicked demi-gods given to violence and sexual excess. (Exception: The centaur Chiron (trainer of Achilles) was depicted as just.) Centaurs are important figures in the Narnian landscape. Lewis portrays them as generally loyal to Aslan, and as star-gazers that tell the future by the stars.

Dryad and Naiads: Pantheism (the worship of God in nature) is a critical element of ancient paganism. Dryads are yet another mythological manifestation of this anti-Christian idolatry. A dryad is a tree spirit linked to an individual tree. In Lewis’s Narnia, Dryads are mysterious, tree/spirit beings who are faithful to Aslan and Narnia itself. In ancient mythology, naiads were water nymphs. (They appear less frequently than Dryads in the Chronicles.)

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 12, 2005 | Permalink

The Temple to Bacchus at Baalbek, Lebanon

Bacchus is a rather insignificant figure in The Chronicles of Narnia, but he is unequivocally there. Lewis presents him as a cute, rollicking Narnian. Lewis draws from the specifics of Greek myth when describing the entourage of Bacchus (maenads, Silenus, etc.). The point I would make seems painfully obvious — Bacchus is a pagan deity who (like Baal) represents all that Christianity despises and seeks to overthrow. There is nothing even remotely Christian about favorably including such a figure in a book or series of books which hopes to present an analogy for Christianity.

The following scholarly overview of the worship ritual of the god of wine can be found here:

The core ritual associated with the worship of Dionysus [Bacchus] was orgiastic, meaning that it involved states of trance-like ecstasy, “outside-of-oneselfness,” merging with and possession by the god. It was celebrated every two years, at mid-winter near the time of the solstice, on barren mountain tops, especially Mt. Parnassus overlooking Delphi. There were three parts to this ritual:

Oreibasia (mountain dancing): To the accompaniment of flutes, drums, and cymbals, the worshippers, particularly women, danced themselves into ecstatic trances.

Sparagmos (tearing to pieces): In these trances they caught snakes and small animals and dismembered them with their bare hands.

Omophagia (eating raw flesh): By eating the bloody flesh of these animals, the worshippers became one with the god and with the wild natural forces that he represented.

These facets of Dionysian ritual are woven into many myths. For example, the poet Orpheus angered some maenads by rejecting all women, so these women dismembered him.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 12, 2005 | Permalink

Even long-term Bush supporters like the Heritage Foundation are expressing fundamental concern about the President’s approach to fiscal responsibility. According to the Heritage Foundation, federal deficits are expected to rise to $1 trillion per year by the year 2017, with a $16 trillion national debt, twice today’s level. After that, deficits should grow to $2 trillion per year.

Financial commentator Bill Bonner writes this: “George W. Bush will go down in history not as a great war president, we recall predicting earlier this week, but as the greatest debt-beat president the country has ever had. In his few years in office, the feds have borrowed more than $1.05 trillion from foreign governments and banks. This is more than all the rest of the nation’s administrations put together, from 1776 to 2000. Last month, the U.S. national debt passed the $8 trillion mark. This year’s budget deficit alone added $319 billion to the country’s obligations. According to the feds themselves, deficits will rise to $873 billion per year within 10 years. Two years more and they will be at $1 trillion per year, with a national debt edging up to $20 trillion. By 2017, annual deficits are supposed to reach $2 trillion per year. These figures are not just guesses. They’re projections based on boondoggle laws already on the books.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 9, 2005 | Permalink

Feminism has replaced thousands of years of biblically decreed and transcendent principles of Christian patriarchy as the ruling paradigm, not only of the West, but of the modern Evangelical church, argues William Einwechter in an article entitled, “The Feminization of the Family,” posted yesterday on the Vision Forum Ministries Web site:

Men have fallen away in fear at feminist charges of sexism, repression, tyranny, and exploitation, as a coward would wither before the charge of a determined enemy on the battlefield. Nothing seems to have terrified men more than the angry glare and words of feminist ideologues.

Einwechter goes on to outline six areas in which “feminist’s radical vision of social revolution” has triumphed:

1. Marriage has been destabilized, and divorce is rampant.
2. Male headship in the family has been replaced by an “egalitarian” arrangement where the husband and wife “share” in the leadership responsibilities of the family.
3. The man as provider has been rejected for a new model of joint economic responsibility.
4. The woman as a full-time homemaker is scorned, and the working woman who seeks fulfillment and independence in employment outside of her home is now a cultural norm.
5. The biblical norm of a woman as a nurturer of children has been replaced by the feminist ideal of a working mother who places her children in “daycare” so that she can pursue other important matters.
6. The idea that a large family is a “blessing” is rejected for notion that a small family of one or two children (and for some, no children at all) is far better.

Einwechter rightly observes that it is the “passivity of the church” that has lead to feminism’s success, and he charges Christian men to once again take the lead:

Men must lead by precept and example in eradicating all aspects of feminist influence from the life and structure of their family and restore it to a biblical pattern. Men must prove themselves men and shoulder the full load of responsibility given to them by God. Men must stop being intimidated by feminist rhetoric and radicals and fearlessly promote God’s order for the family.

Click here to read the entire article.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 9, 2005 | Permalink

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 8, 2005 | Permalink

This kind word just in:

Our family would like to express our appreciation of the work you are doing at Vision Forum. I purchased The League of Grateful Sons for my husband’s birthday in October and our family, who included my brother and his family and our parents, watched it on Thanksgiving Day. What an appropriate time to be able to express our love and appreciation to our father for his part in WWII. I have always been grateful for the sacrifices our soldiers have made for us, but as our father never talked about it, I never thought to actually thank him before. There were no dry eyes in the room. Thank you for making us aware of how much we have to be thankful for in our father and his legacy! May this spread throughout the entire United States!

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 8, 2005 | Permalink

A loving daughter is the apple of a father’s eye.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 7, 2005 | Permalink

On this Pearl Harbor Day, gather the children to hear one of the most iconic presidential messages in our nation’s history.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 7, 2005 | Permalink

So they stood and was still to the Birkenhead drill,
Sodier and Sailor too. Rudyard Kipling

This April 15, Vision Forum Ministries will celebrate in Washington, D.C., the tenth anniversary of the Christian Boys’ & Men’s Titanic Society with a gala event. The Society is dedicated to advancing the biblical virtue of men sacrificing for women and children. In an age of androgeny-blessing preachers, an androgenous military, androgenous dress standards, and a general androgenous approach to culure, the horror of a world which does not embrace “women and children first” is becoming more evident. To see the consequences of abandoning biblical patriarchy, one need only look to the bed of Terri Schiavo, see the implications of the sexual liberation of women tallied in the death of unborn babies, watch the body bags of female soldiers carried back from Iraq, or observe an entire lost generation of promising young women who have exchanged their birthright as women of virtue and daughters of the King, for a mess of feminist pottage. All this on our watch.

In our view, the story of the Titanic is a helpful vehicle for contrasting the the imperfect, but largely Christian ethic of premodern world with the present. By setting the best stories before our sons and daughters, we hope to offer them a perspective they will never receive drinking from the morally-repugnant font of Hollywood media elites or the evolutionary values of the priests of government education.

Another blessing of the Titanic story is that nearly a century has passed since the tragedy, but facination with the greatest maritime disaster of the twentieth century continues. See the following story: “Scientists ponder Titanic discoveries.”

Also see our books, The Sinking of the Titanic and The Birkenhead Drill.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 7, 2005 | Permalink

Please pass on a hearty bravo to everyone who worked on The League of Grateful Sons. We received our copy in the mail yesterday afternoon and rushed through lunch to watch it afterwards. One of the central pillars of my church is Generational Visions and I have never seen a movie so poignantly and effectively put living flesh and life on the doctrine of Generational Faithfulness and a sober warning of falling short of it. Vision Forum’s labor was put to great use and I look forward to more tears of enjoyment and encouragement as I pass it out to our family and friends. —Erik E.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 6, 2005 | Permalink

Our friend, Roger Erber, showed the film The League of Grateful Sons to his entire congregation. Today he sent us the following recommendation:

As I watched the film, I quickly realized that it mattered little whether one’s own father saw combat or not. As Americans — as Christians — we all share in the legacy that these wartime heroes have given their sons, and are richer for it. But we each have our own legacies to claim, as well. The League of Grateful Sons not only tells the tale of men of gratitude, but stirs each viewer to become one, themselves. It is a moving collection of stories, and an effective exhortation to ask, honor, and tell. We have seen tears fall, prayers ascend, and men walk away from the film armed with resolution to strike a blow at our individualistic mindset and sit with their fathers and ask them for the stories, the experiences, the lessons — the treasures.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 6, 2005 | Permalink

A husband and father is the head of his household, a family leader, provider, and protector, with the authority and mandate to direct his household in paths of obedience to God. (Gen. 18:19; Eph. 6:4)

A man’s authority in the home should be exercised with gentleness, grace, and love as a servant-leader, following the example of Jesus Christ. Leadership is a stewardship from God. (Ps. 103:13; Mal. 3:17; Matt. 11:29-30; Col. 3:21; 1 Pet. 3:7)

The authority of fathers is limited by the law of God and the lawful authority of church and state. Christian fathers cannot escape the jurisdiction of church and state and must be subject to both. (Rom. 13:1ff.; Eph. 5:21; 6:4; Heb. 13:17; 1 Pet. 2:13ff.)

From “The Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 4, 2005 | Permalink

It was a delight to worship today with Timothy Pent, the youngest male “P” from Ten P’s in a Pod, the Vision Forum book authored more than forty years ago by Timothy’s older brother, Arnold. Our dear and most beloved physician and church deacon, Dr. Mo Gill (right), joins us for the photograph.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 4, 2005 | Permalink

Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine [shewing] uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. (Titus 2:6-8)

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 4, 2005 | Permalink

Things are humming at the Vision Forum warehouse this week. We thank the Lord for the opportunity to send Christ-exalting, Christian family-encouraging books and tapes to each of the fifty states and around the world. Under the able direction of Perry Coghlan (our Director of Fulfillment) and his excellent team, our warehouse staff have their collective hands full — sometimes shipping more than a thousand packages in a day.

We are so proud of the integrity and Christian charity they bring to their work. Thanks also to those of you who have sent in notes of appreciation for the quick order turnaround because of the faithful efforts of this team. To God be the glory. (Our fulfillment director, Perry Coghlan, has seven daughters. The three girls in the front are part of his clan. They came to the office to visit their father today... yet another blessing of the flexibility of home education.)

Rachel Short is always a bright light of encouragement. She sometimes assists her father at the office, and we are always happier for the spiritual encouragement she brings, as well as her example as an honoring and faithful daughter. On special occasions, Rachel and her sister Ruth bring a musical offering of praise on their ocarinas. We love it, and we love them.

Because our staff is small, we try to make up for our limited size by asking God to multiply our efforts through focused application of our energies. In the above image, Anthony (Tony) Pradia, Jr. (left) and Chance Winberry (right) put some hustle behind their muscle to get the job done! Both are stellar examples of intense Christian young men (and members of our community of like-minded local churches) from whom we expect a bright future. I just love the picture from my previous blog of Chance teaching his younger brother how to throw a boar spear.

Over the years we have seen so many tender mercies of the Lord poured out on the work of the families who make up the Vision Forum. It seems that when our faith has been seriously tested through loss, challenges, and even attacks from the enemy, the Lord has shown Himself a God of great compassion and abundance. Our 32,000 square foot office which once served as a bowling alley, is modest by the world’s standards, but was a gift from the Lord given to us during a season of fiery trials. When I walk in the door, I am reminded: God provides. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Today the building serves as an educational facility, an office, a studio, and a warehouse.

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 1, 2005 | Permalink

Columnist Jeff Robinson reports why Southern Baptist leader decries the fact that many Evangelicals unwitingly live as feminists and stated that “If evangelical homes and churches are to recover from the confusion of egalitarianism, Moore said, they must embrace a full-orbed vision of biblical patriarchy that restores the male to his divinely ordained station as head of the home and church.”

From BP News:

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (BP) — Egalitarians are winning the gender debate because evangelical complementarian men have largely abdicated their biblically ordained roles as head of the home and have, in practice, embraced contemporary pagan feminism, Russell D. Moore said in a presentation at the 57th annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) Nov. 17 in Valley Forge, Pa.

Complementarianism is the view that men and women have been created equally in God’s image but have different yet complementary roles. Egalitarianism is the view that that men and women have been gifted equally so that no role is limited to one sex.

Moore called for a complementarian response built upon a thoroughly biblical vision of male headship in which men lead their families and churches by mirroring God the Father, whom Scripture portrays as the loving, sacrificial, protective Patriarch of His people. Moore is dean of the school of theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Many complementarians are living according to egalitarian presumptions, and research has shown many conservative and evangelical households to be among the “softest” when it comes to familial harmony, relational happiness and emotional health, Moore said.

“Evangelicals maintain headship in the sphere of ideas, but practical decisions are made in most evangelical homes through a process of negotiation, mutual submission, and consensus,” Moore said. “That’s what our forefathers would have called feminism — and our foremothers, too.”

Egalitarian views are carrying the day within evangelical churches and homes, Moore said, because complementarians have not dealt sufficiently with the forces that drive the feminist impulse: Western notions of consumerism and therapy.

This therapeutic and consumerist atmosphere has led evangelicals away from a view that sees Scripture as the external, objective standard of truth and has pushed them to look inside themselves to find ultimate truth, Moore said. Because self and not Scripture is the final authority, evangelical homes and churches hold complementarian views but practice egalitarianism, he said.

“Complementarian churches are just as captive to the consumerist drive of American culture as egalitarians, if not more so,” Moore said.

If evangelical homes and churches are to recover from the confusion of egalitarianism, Moore said, they must embrace a full-orbed vision of biblical patriarchy that restores the male to his divinely ordained station as head of the home and church.

Moore pointed out that the word “patriarchy” has developed negative connotations, even among evangelicals, in direct proportion to the rise of so-called “evangelical feminism,” a movement that began in the 1970s. But the historic Christian faith itself is built upon a thoroughly biblical vision of patriarchy, he said.

“Evangelicals should ask why patriarchy seems negative to those of us who serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — the God and Father of Jesus Christ,” Moore said.

“We must remember that ‘evangelical’ is also a negative term in many contexts. We must allow the patriarchs and apostles themselves, not the editors of ‘Playboy’ or ‘Ms. Magazine,’ to define the grammar of our faith.”

The model of biblical patriarchy/male headship that evangelicals must rediscover is tied to Scripture’s teaching of the fatherhood of God, Moore said. The Bible portrays God the Father as existing in covenant relationship with the Son in a way that defines the covenantal standing and inheritance of believers, he said.

The fatherhood of God is central to the Gospel and male headship, and, when practiced biblically, offers a living picture of the redemption believers have in Christ, Moore said.

“Even the so-called ‘egalitarian proof-texts’ not only fail to demonstrate an evangelical feminist argument, [but] they actually prove the opposite,” he said. “Galatians 3:28, for example, is all about patriarchy — a Father who provides his firstborn son with a cosmic inheritance, an inheritance that is shared by all who find their identity in Christ, Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free.

“This understanding of archetypal patriarchy is grounded, then, in the overarching theme of all of Scripture — the summing up of all things in Christ [in Ephesians 1:10]. It does not divide God’s purposes, His role as Father from His role as Creator from His role as Savior from His role as King.

“To the contrary, the patriarchal structures that exist in the creation order point to His headship — a headship that is oriented toward redemption in Christ [in Hebrews 12:5-11].”

An embrace of biblical patriarchy also protects the doctrine of God from aberrations such as the impersonal deity of Protestant liberalism and the unstable “most moved mover” of open theism, he said.

A rejection of male headship leads to a redefinition of divine Fatherhood and divine sovereignty, Moore said. He pointed to open theism (a view that argues God’s knowledge of the future is limited) as an example of the dangers of rejecting biblical patriarchy. Open theism is built upon a denial of the Scripture’s portrayal of God as the sovereign Head of His creation, he said.

“Open theism is not more dangerous than evangelical feminism, or even all that different,” Moore said. “It is only the end result of a doctrine of God shorn of patriarchy.”

Moore pointed out that a growing trend exists within evangelicalism in which “soft” complementarians seek to indict other complementarians for not writing frequently against spousal abuse. This charge is a red herring, Moore said, because complementarians address the issue consistently.

This charge itself, however, reveals a tacit acceptance by evangelicals of a false egalitarian charge that says male headship leads to abuse, he said. Instead, Moore said, a biblical view of male headship and gender roles actually protect against spousal and child abuse because it does not posit male privilege, but instead demands male responsibility.

“Ironically, a more patriarchal complementarianism will resonate among a generation seeking stability in a family-fractured Western culture in ways that soft-bellied big-tent complementarianism never can,” Moore said.

“And it will also address the needs of hurting women and children far better, because it is rooted in the primary biblical means for protecting women and children: calling men to responsibility. Patriarchy is good for women, good for children, and good for families.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 1, 2005 | Permalink

I am delighted to learn that some of the ladies of the blogosphere decided to try my wife’s peanut soup recipe for Thanksgiving. Here is an example of one such experiment: “Beall Phillips Peanut Soup! DELISH!.” And here is the original article: “Recipe for Greatest Thanksgiving Day Soup in the World.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on December 1, 2005 | Permalink