Incrementalism vs. Immediatism – Just Stop It!
Imagine for a moment if pro-life legislator answered, when asked, “Are you pro-life?”
“Yes, I am pro-life. I’m against partial-birth abortions. I’m against federal funding of abortions. And I believe in a strong parental consent notification law.”
Pro-lifers for the most part would gladly accept that response.
Remember that position: Pro-life. That is the position of Clarke Forsythe and Americans United for Life, the Roman Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life and a host of other groups. They have each actively opposed or refused to endorse the Personhood initiative — a strategy for passing state amendments that would recognize the right to life of all human beings from conception to natural death — thinking that pushing for an outright ban on abortion would be counter-productive at this point in time. Instead, they choose the pragmatic approach. To be fair, I must point out that these individuals and organizations actually do support Personhood, but only deny that it is the correct strategy at the current time.
Meanwhile, in the current political climate, former Republican Senator Scott Brown from Democratic Party dominated Massachusetts, once said in a campaign interview, when asked, “Are you pro-choice?”
“Yes … The difference between me and maybe others is that I’m very — I’m against partial-birth abortions. I’m against federal funding of abortions. And I believe in a strong parental consent notification law” (Barbara Walters interview, ABC News, Jan. 31, 2010).
The point here is that whenever we speak of the incremental strategy, what we are speaking of are laws that literally advocate the position of Roe v. Wade and “pro-choice” rhetoric. Roe used the exceptions to allow abortion under certain circumstances. On the same day that Roe was handed down, the companion decision, Doe v. Bolton, expanded these exceptions to abortion on demand. So in reality, these laws with exceptions seek to narrow Doe while keeping Roe intact.
Immediatists like to point out this compromise whenever a such a “pro-life” bill with exceptions is proposed. Incrementalists like to point out that even the most compromised laws might save some lives and we need to “do what we can” while Roe stands as a legal precedent.
I strongly encourage people on both sides of the debate to stop using the straw man terms of “incrementalism” vs. “immediatism.” This is a false dichotomy. We should begin to speak in terms of obedience to God’s law vs. willful sin. In reality, when immediatists speak of abolishing abortion, we are not speaking of “overnight-ism” or “all-or-nothing-ism.” We are merely speaking of moving forward without exceptions and compromise. In reality, those speaking of the strategy of incrementalism want the abolition of all abortion.
The issue isn’t “gradual vs. absolute” or “incremental vs. immediate.” The issue is whether we are willing to compromise God’s moral mandates found in scripture.
One of the disheartening outcomes of this debate has been that immediatists will often portray incrementalist tactics as wicked, cowardly and willfully pro-abortion. I strongly believe that the need of this time is to have a rational debate without name calling and instead patiently educate all people for the need of Constitutional state nullification of Roe under the 9th and 10th Amendments. Although they agree with us that Roe is not law, the incrementalists’ thinking is that any direct challenge to Roe could result in a negative decision with Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing the majority opinion. Their fear is that any direct challenge could result in five Supreme Court Justices actually making Roe stronger. So the heart motivation of the pro-life incrementalists is to abolish all abortion. The problem is that our movement has a long history of acquiescing to judicial activism.
We all agree that Roe is not valid law. Therefore, our goal now ought to be to educate and convince legislators to ignore Roe — using the provision in the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the 9th and 10th Amendments that the duty of protecting the rights of the preborn is delegated to the states.
To accomplish a restoration of Constitutional and biblical thinking in the pro-life movement and among pro-life legislators is a tall order. Yet it is the lynchpin in winning the battle.
We must cease to think in terms of tactics and think instead in terms of God’s ultimate strategy in using His Church. So my resolution is whenever I find myself tempted to go off the rails into the heated immediatist vs. incrementalist debate on some well-known social media network, I think of the following Bob Newhart comedy sketch, “Just Stop It!”
Strategy vs. Tactics
Our overall strategy must be to end abortion. All Christians should all agree on that. A tactic is a method or means to an end. When we employ a tactic, we need to ask two questions. First, is our method pleasing to God? Second, is it an effective use of our talents, time and resources? A tactic that is effective, yet violates God’s commandments – dishonoring to our God or our parents, murder, lust, theft, bearing false witness, covetousness – is a sinful tactic. A strategy to end abortion that is not Christ-centered grieves the heart of God. Yet not all think this way. I recently read a comment by a well-known “pro-life” leader who literally wrote:
I, frankly, don’t care how we get there, but I’m going to save every baby I can, I’m going to close every abortion mill, I’m going to crush the enemy in every way I can, and if y’all think it’s wrong, stupid, or immoral I could care less. Maybe Jesus will send me to hell, but I’ll be okay as long as I kick the “rear” of the baby killers. I’m here for one reason: to win! Period end. I’m going to win by hook or by crook. And I refuse to stand on some fictitious moral high ground as long as babies are being murdered. I’ll leave the moral high ground and wallow in the mud with the pigs — as long as the babies win.
I can only hope that this person was being sarcastic and that this does not truly represent his view. But I have actually heard many pro-life leaders use similar rhetoric. I post this quote because it speaks volumes about the spirit behind a certain segment within the “anti-abortion” movement. (I used that term because I hesitate to even call them “pro-life.”)
Over the years, I have had long conversations with people who believe in so many words that “the ends justify the means” in ending the abortion holocaust. We can kill, steal, vandalize and lie in order that preborn lives may be saved. In the end, these are tactics that are not only incrementalist, but counterproductive. Or to put is conversely, sinful, counterproductive tactics are the ultimate form of compromised incrementalism. God has a much better strategy.
God’s Strategy: The Church
To counter that idea, I use the following quote by 19th century Arminian evangelist Charles Finney (a man whose theology I have many disagreements with) who was correct about the need for the Church to be an army to bring about the reformation to society.
Now the great business of the Church is to reform the world — to put away every kind of sin. The Church of Christ was originally organized to be a body of reformers. The very profession of Christianity implies the profession and virtually an oath to do all that can be done for the universal reformation of the world. The Christian Church was designed to make aggressive movements in every direction — to lift up her voice and put forth her energies against iniquity in high and low places — to reform individuals, communities, and governments, and never rest until the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High God — until every form of iniquity shall be driven from the earth.
Jesus said the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:17-19). The important point is that we are moving as the Church, not as a pro-life organization. This does not necessarily mean an institutional church – although that would be ideal. The institutional church has government, material resources and the mandate to make disciples. However, the “Church,” from a minimalist point of view, can be “two or more” who are gathered on the foundation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Regardless of tactics, we must go forward in a Christ-centered mindset as the Church. Our way of thinking ought to be that wherever two or more are gathered, Jesus Christ is at the center, not on the periphery.
I submit that the source of incremental thinking is a Christ-less, Church-less strategy that sees that politics is the art of compromise. If you can’t get a whole loaf of bread, it’s better to get a few crumbs than to starve. God’s plan is much higher than that. His strategy through the Church is infinitely more powerful. I have never thought that the solution to the abortion holocaust is political. However, if the Church led by courageous pastors and elders would stand up in a unified force against wickedness, we can see any evil stopped in its tracks.
Can we really legislate morality?
A friend of mine who was a pastor and leader in the Operation Rescue movement, Phil Vollman, gave a great answer to this question in the 1990s. What I like about his response is that Phil will be the first to tell you that he points the finger at himself as one who knows weakness and failure. Yet despite our failures, we must stand up in this hour and be bold and courageous.
To pastors, I speak as a pastor and I want pastors to hear me. Two things are needed in this hour. Number one, sound orthodoxy is needed. For as one noted theologian has noted recently, “You can’t beat something with nothing.” If we don’t return to a Reformed faith, that is to say, the orthodox historic Reformed faith, we will not have the tools ethically to take dominion in the earth in time and history as Christ Jesus has commanded us to do. There is no arguing that point.
But there is something else that is needed on this hour and I think it is equally important. Pastors need courage. There is a great famine of courage. It will take courage to embrace the historic Reformed orthodox Christian faith. I know this personally. But it will also take courage once we have embraced that faith to apply that faith then in time and history locally in our neighborhoods where we live. When God begins to judge a nation, the first thing he does is begin to give his people a cowardly clergy. I am very fearful today that America is being sanctioned, judged, with cowardly clergy. They are all around us. You look at the clergy today and what do you see? You see politically correct and religiously correct men of the cloth who are afraid to speak the truth for Christ.
What is it costing us? So far there are over 40 million dead babies. Militant homosexuality, militant feminism, militant humanism are running amok in our culture. We have a madman in Michigan named Jack Kevorkian who has right now killed or been responsible for over 86 deaths. There is not one prosecutor in Michigan who will stand up to him. We have two states now with right to die laws. And we have the most wicked, vile president in our history. There is no end in sight.
Now I’m a pastor. I know about fear. I know about loneliness. I know about the loss of reputation. But I am convinced that if we don’t see a revival in courage in this nation. If we don’t see some men begin to stand up in courage, conviction and Christian principle and stand faithfully in a world of cowardice and compromise, then we are going to deserve everything that is coming our way, we and our children.
The great Russian prophet, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wrote many prophetic things about his own people and the future of America.
When asked, what went wrong in Russia that God would visit upon them the brutality of communism, he only had one thing to say, “Russia forgot God.” America has forgotten her God. She’s forgotten her God because her shepherds have forgotten her God. This is not rocket science. When the pastors are walking in the fear of God and yet the comfort of the Holy Ghost, when the pastors are teaching sound orthodoxy, when they are wedding that with courage, to the things that they must do, there is victory, there is peace, and there is hope.
If we don’t see a raising of the black regiment in this hour. If we don’t see a parson’s revolution. Well then I would say, America is about to enter a long and a dark period. For as the pastors go so goes the Church. As the Church goes, so goes the nation.
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
The following is an excerpt from the script of a video to be produced in the future, Christ’s Victorious Kingdom: Postmillinnialism Rediscovered. Some of the following has been edited from the writings of my friends, Bob and Rose Weiner.
The Immeasurable Power of the Gospel
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.And in despair I bowed my head,
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.”Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep,
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth good will to men.”— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” December 25th, 1864
The U.S. Civil War was still raging when Longfellow wrote these words. Over 600,000 died, more than half due to disease and primitive medical care. He had just received news that his son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, had suffered crippling wounds as a soldier in battle. Just two years earlier, he had lost his wife to an accident with fire. Sitting down at his desk that Christmas Day, he heard church bells ringing. It was in this setting that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a committed Christian, wrote these lines.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep,
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth good will to men.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1868
While it might have looked as though the apocalypse was at the doorstep of his nation, Longfellow quoted scripture and persisted in what was known in early America as the “Puritan Hope” – that the Gospel was strong enough, not only to convert souls, but also to transform the nations bringing “peace on earth.”
The historic belief of the Church that the Gospel is destined to overcome all opposition is totally opposite of the ideas of the end-times that have been propagated throughout evangelical Christendom over the last century. The presence of evil in the world and sin in our nation has been viewed by modern Christians as an indication that civilization is crumbling, and that we Christians on that “sinking ship” should spend as much time as possible trying to rescue as many of the passengers as we can. This has resulted in an escape-orientated Christianity rather than dominion-oriented Christianity.
As David Chilton wrote in Paradise Restored:
Regardless of their numerous individual differences, the various defeatist schools of thought are solidly lined up together on one major point: The gospel of Jesus Christ will fail. Christianity will not be successful in its worldwide task. Christ’s Great Commission to disciple the nations will not be carried out. Satan and the forces of Antichrist will prevail. Jesus returns at the last moment, like the cavalry in B-grade westerns, to rescue the ragged little band of survivors.
As a result of almost a century of this type of teaching, the Church has lost many major battles to the enemy. The Gospel is just as powerful today as it was in the days of the Reformation and the two Great Awakenings in America. It is not the Gospel that has changed; it is the orientation of the Christian that has made the difference.
Therefore, some questions we ought ask ourselves.
Do I have an eschatology of defeat or an eschatology of victory?
Do I see the devil running the world and getting more and more powerful all the time?
Do I see the ministry of the church as mainly that of a rescue mission, with no other lasting effect in the world other than saving a few individuals from hell?
Is my message for the “last days” simply: “Antichrist is coming, run to the wilderness”?
- or -
Does the Gospel center on a powerful vision that sees Christianity becoming victorious throughout the entire world before the second coming of Christ?
Such a worldview was completely foreign to many of the great Christian scholars of past centuries. On the contrary, the view of the Church in history was held by such godly and respected men as throughout history, such as, Athanasius, Augustine, Eusebius, John Calvin, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, Robert L. Dabney and Benjamin Warfield to name just a few.
This ought to tell us that the postmillennial worldview is well worth considering.
Why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?
The date of Christmas was not determined by Church Fathers by copying the date of a pagan Roman winter solstice festival. Instead, the date was calculated from the Jewish calendar using the date of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, September 22nd, 6 BC, when Gabriel appeared to Zecharias in the Temple according to Luke 1:5. The conception of John occurred “immediately after that” when Zecharias returned home to Elizabeth to the hill country of Judea, by calculation on September 24th, 6 BC.
The conception of Jesus was calculated to have occurred when Elizabeth was “in her sixth month” (Luke 1:26,36) on March 25th, 5 BC, which was also the first day of Passover in that year. John’s birth was June 24th, 5 BC, followed by Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem on December 25th, which was also the first day of Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights, in that year. The Church Father, Hippolytus of Rome, in his work Chronicon, saw that each date had allegorical significance.
So why is Christmas celebrated on December 25th?
The usual answer to this question is that it was adjusted, like many Church feast days, to coincide with the pagan feast days, this one being the winter solstice. This is a convenient explanation, but the exact date of December 25th is for another reason entirely. It was proposed by several of the Church Fathers at least as early as the second century. Since the “celebration of Christmas” was a custom instituted later, the second century is far too early for the “pagan copycat” thesis to be valid. To explain how the Church Fathers arrived at this date, we need to examine first the date of John the Baptist’s conception as told in Luke.
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zecharias, of the division of Abijah (Luke 1:5).
According to 1 Chronicles 24:7-19, King David had divided the priests into 24 divisions who took turns serving in the Temple. During their service they lived in the Temple and were separated from their wives and children. Each order served for a period of eight days twice a year. The priests of the course of Abijah served during the 10th and 24th weeks of the Jewish year. Luke goes on to recount how the angel Gabriel appeared to Zecharias while he was serving in the Temple.
So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zecharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zecharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:8-15).
Note here that “the whole multitude of the people” (i.e., the whole nation of Israel) was present outside the Temple. Some have attempted to reconstruct the weeks of service according to Josephus’ account in Antiquities 7:14:7, which relates that the first division, the division of Jehoiarib, was on duty when Jerusalem was destroyed on August 5th, AD 70. Using this date as an anchor, the eighth division of Abijah would serve two times in the year, one of them being in late September. However, it is uncertain if these allotments began on exactly the same day of the year, since there would be four extra weeks to account for at the end of the year. But there were only two times in the year when the “whole multitude of the people” of Israel was required to be in Jerusalem worshiping at the Temple. These were the fall and spring feast days. Zecharias’ vision apparently occurred on one of the high feast days, several of the Church Fathers thought it was the Day of Atonement, and then Zecharias returned to his home immediately after that.
So it was, as soon as the days of his service were completed, that he departed to his own house. Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived (Luke 1:23,24).
Since “the hill country of Judea,” where Elizabeth lived according to Luke 1:39;65, is no more than a day’s journey from Jerusalem, the conception of John the Baptist must have occurred soon after that. Several of the Church Fathers noticed this correspondence and made the inference that John must have been conceived shortly after the Day of Atonement, which usually falls in September. In fact, the Church Father John Chrysostom thought that Zecharias was actually the Jewish High Priest because he was in the Holy Place on the Day of Atonement, which in 6 BC fell on September 22nd. So September 24th was calculated as the date of John’s conception. The birth of John occurred exactly nine months later on June 24th.
Since Jesus was conceived six months after John (Luke 1:26,36), various dates around this time, December 25th, January 2nd and 6th were given by various Church Fathers and each of these have been celebrated as the Nativity of Jesus. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church has always used January 6th or 7th as the date of Christmas.
If John was conceived during one of the spring feasts — Passover or Pentecost, which were the other two times in the year when the “whole multitude of the people” of Israel was required to be in Jerusalem — then we would have a winter birth for John and a summer birth for Jesus.
Notwithstanding, the Day of Atonement fits well as an anchor date because it points to a winter birthday for Christ. Josephus notes that Herod died shortly before the Passover in 4 BC, which began on April 11th of that year. This gives several months for the events surrounding the Nativity and fits the narrative accounts of both Matthew and Luke.
We should not be dogmatic about the exact day. However, we can use December 25th as the anchor date. This date helps explain several events recorded in the Nativity accounts and is important for establishing a timeline that supports the historicity of the Gospels.
In Memory of Dr. Pat McEwen
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen (Matthew 28:18-20).
Pat McEwen, missionary to the nations, died on Thursday, September 12th, 2019. “Miss Pat” had been a friend of mine since the fall of 1993. From 1993 to 2000, I lived in and owned a house across the street from an infamous abortion center in Melbourne, Florida. Due to a restrictive “no-free-speech” buffer zone, the site became a “hot bed” for pro-life activism. During that time, sidewalk evangelists and counselors cut the abortion rate in our county in half. This is while the abortion rate in every other county in Florida rose. The abortion center finally closed in 2000. The building was demolished and there is no abortion center in Brevard County today.
This is the demolition of Aware Woman Center for Choice in 2000. No abortion clinic operates in Brevard County today!
See a playlist of videos with Pat McEwen about Central Florida’s abortion industry.
I first met Pat on the sidewalk in 1993, when she first moved to Melbourne. Her reputation as an effective sidewalk counselor preceded her. Dr. Patricia McEwen was a retired university professor and horse enthusiast from upper state New York. She had sold her horse farm and moved to Florida to become a full-time pro-life evangelist. When I first saw her on the sidewalk next to the abortion center, I immediately introduced myself to her. I wanted to know how she was so effective in getting so many women to choose life. “I just do something crazy!” she said. Pat had a way of getting abortion-minded women’s attention. Then when they were engaged in conversation with her, more often than not they chose life for their babies. She was the most effective sidewalk counselor I have ever known and I have known some good ones. Not only did she rescue babies and train other counselors, but she also made sure the entire Melbourne pro-life street ministry was organized so that there were at least two counselors standing at the “gates of hell” every minute it was opened for business. After she arrived, the pro-life ministry began to function in a much more unified and organized manner.
I got started in full-time Christian work as a publisher, writer, video producer shortly after I spent a weekend in jail with Operation Rescue in Brookline, Massachusetts, on New Year’s Eve weekend of 1988/1989 as part of a peaceful prayer rescue. After that experience, I resolved that I’d stay involved in pro-life work, but as a writer. I did not envision myself ever being arrested again.
However, after I moved to central Florida in the 1990s, I was involved with Miss Pat in other arrests, which were dismissed in court, for challenging unconstitutional buffer zone laws. One of these cases, Madsen, made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Although we lost that aspect of the case, I was pleased to see our court testimonies quoted by none other than Justice Antonin Scalia in a scathing dissent. Because we continued to challenge the buffer zone injunction, we eventually encountered fair judges who realized that an injunction that we were not individually named in could not apply to us. Shortly after that, the city of Melbourne made the decision to stop arresting Christians for peacefully gathering on a public sidewalk. This story exemplifies the tireless attitude of service of Pat McEwen. She would not give up until righteous judgment prevailed.
Another arrest came from challenging yet another unconstitutional “no-free-speech” buffer zone in Winter Park, Florida. This case took a lot of twists and turns, as I chronicle here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. But eventually that case was thrown out because the city’s key witness, Jenna Tosh, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando, moved to California and would not return for the hearings. Whenever you did anything with Pat McEwen you knew you were in for an adventure fraught with adversity, but God would be victorious.
In 1993, the pro-life organization Operation Rescue National was based in Melbourne, Florida, a small community on Florida’s “space coast.” The director at that time was Keith Tucci who was also the pastor of Christian Life Family Church where Pat and I were members. Keith turned the national organization over to Flip Benham in Dallas, Texas in 1994. Pat continued for over 20 years to work as an administrator for Operation Rescue / Operation Save America at national and regional pro-life events. Her work was as a “ministry of helps” to several “type-A” personalities. I helped her organize several events in central Florida and I was amazed at her tirelessness and patience.
Keith Tucci had also founded Life Coalition International (LCI), which was meant to be the missionary outreach for Operation Rescue to assist pro-life ministries of all types overseas. In 1995, I was pleased to help LCI organize the first national pro-life conference in the history of Russia attended by hundreds of pastors from all over the former Soviet Union. Pat McEwen eventually took over as the director of LCI. She was sent out from our church to pioneer pro-life and other missionary works in New Zealand, Australia, China, India, Europe, Israel, Central America, South America, and Africa.
In the 1990s, she was involved in helping refugee Christians from China find residency and jobs in several countries in South America. These were people fleeing China’s one-child policy, where women and men are sterilized against their will by the communist government. Although Representative Chris Smith took up their cause, the Clinton administration refused to work with LCI and other groups in allowing them to immigrate to America. So Miss Pat worked tirelessly to find them refuge elsewhere.
When Personhood USA led by Cal Zastrow, Keith Mason and later Dan Becker began a Florida affiliate, they insisted that the organization must have Pat McEwen as a co-sponsor of the state constitutional amendment petition and executive board member. Pat later served as a delegate to Personhood Alliance, the national organization for all Personhood state affiliates, as well as on the boards of other national and international pro-life groups. In addition to all of this, she also served as a volunteer church administrator in Christian Life Family Church in Melbourne.
Of all the ministries Pat was involved in, her greatest love was for the mission field. Even during her cancer treatments, she made several mission trips a year and travelled to pro-life conferences all over the world. Her message was for the Personhood of all human beings with no exceptions and no compromise.
At a conference in 2001, she said in an address to fellow Christian missionaries, “Jesus chose the ordinary working people. Peter was fishing. Matthew was collecting taxes, not a popular profession in any time. What made them special? They were special because they were ordinary.”
Pat may have seemed ordinary at first glance, but she influenced many pro-life leaders and organizations around the world in the paradigm shift toward the no compromise, no exceptions stance of Personhood. She even had the opportunity to meet and speak with government leaders in various countries.
As the coordinator for LCI in Africa, she also travelled with Doctors for Life, a missionary group that worked in the African bush with tribesmen that were in dire need of medical care. she travelled through war torn areas where the roads were being actively shelled by artillery. She even contracted a number of diseases that can lead to blindness or even death. We in the west have eradicated these maladies through modern medicine, but these are rampant in the remote areas of Africa. She helped treat lepers and AIDs victims, but her group specialized in performing eye surgeries in areas that were difficult to reach.
Dr. Pat McEwen worked with Doctors for Life and Life Coalition International. All you have to know about the video is that when these African tribesman are happy they dance! Watch all the way to the end and you will be blessed.
After going to Africa several times a year since 2009, she was thankful she could still go on some “Aid 2 Africa” outreaches even though she was suffering with cancer. She would time her chemotherapy to be able to make these trips. Pat compiled numerous stories of tribal people who would dance or burst into laughter when they discovered that their vision had been restored after surgery. She even witnessed miraculous healings on the mission field due to prayer.
These areas are pretty remote and people cannot just go to an optometrist in a city to get testing and glasses. I spotted a lady who was an albino, in the queue. I asked Benerio to bring her in for a pair of sunglasses because the African sun often blinds the albino. After giving her the glasses, I examined her and found that she already had severe vision loss. She could only count fingers at about four feet, even with a -10 lens, the strongest we can test for. I could not help her and was feeling so sorry that we had nothing to help her severe problem. She was almost blind. Prayerfully, I looked through our glasses just in case. By God’s grace, I found a -15 pair that also were very dark sunglass. When I took away the original sunglasses, her face fell, but when I placed the new pair on her face, she burst into laughter because she could see. Our motto is “so the blind might see” and it means both physical and spiritual sight. She, like most of our patients, listened intently to the Gospel message and left with a tract in her native language clutched tightly to her chest. There is no joy like seeing someone’s eyes open to the Gospel.
There are many more stories from the mission field that Pat compiled over the years. But one story that stands out is her work in training Christians in the Zulu territory along South Africa’s east coast to do sidewalk counseling. After several days of training, they decided to name the ministry, “11th Hour Counselors” since there are no sidewalks in front to the abortion clinics in Africa. On the day that the group was to put their training into action, they loaded up a school bus to go off to an abortion center in Zululand. People were crowded onto the bus three to a seat for the long, hot journey through the Zulu territory so there was no more room. Some cried when they had to be left behind.
When Pat called several months later from America to find out how the “11th Hour” ministry was going, she was told. “Oh, we don’t go to the abortion centers anymore!” After a moment of shocked disappointment, she was told that the abortion center in the Zulu territory had shut down due to their ministry.
Jesus told His disciples not just to preach the Gospel to make converts, but to “make disciples of all nations” teaching them to obey all of the counsel of the Word of God. The nations scripturally are the ethne, or “peoples groups” of the world. The nations are not geopolitical countries, but rather every ethnic group with its own language, culture, beliefs, customs and mores. Although the Zulus are part of South Africa today, they are a “nation” or “peoples group.”
How many people can say that they were responsible for closing every abortion center in an entire nation? How many can say they even know someone who accomplished that? Although I am grieved and will miss my friend, I am happy when I think of the crown she is wearing as a glorified member of the Church Triumphant in heaven.
Nathan Chilton endorses In the Days of These Kings
I was blown away! My father [David Chilton] covered the book of Revelation quite thoroughly and I have been wanting to read an exposition of the book of Daniel which was also written from a preterist perspective.
— Nathan Chilton
In the Days of These Kings (Book)
Perfect-bound Paperback — 740 pages
The Book of Daniel in Preterist Perspective
“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever” (Daniel 2:44).
The overarching message of Daniel is that Jesus the Messiah is even now ruling over the nations. He is the King of kings. Daniel tells us that Messiah’s kingdom will advance in the whole world from “generation to generation” (Daniel 4:4,34). Christ’s dominion is “given to the people of the saints of the most High” (Daniel 7:22). Our purpose then is to see “all people, nations, and languages … serve and obey him” (Daniel 7:14,27).
This comprehensive work offers a fascinating look at the book of Daniel in preterist perspective. Great attention is paid to the writings of ancient and modern historians and scholars to connect the dots and demonstrate the continuity of Daniel’s prophecy with all of Scripture.
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Why Creeds and Confessions? (Book)
High Quality Paperback — 219 pages
Foundations in Biblical Orthodoxy
Driving down a country road sometime, you might see a church with a sign proudly proclaiming: “No book but the Bible — No creed but Christ.” The problem with this statement is that the word creed (from the Latin: credo) simply means “belief.” All Christians have beliefs, regardless of whether they are written.
Yet a single book containing the actual texts of the most important creeds of the early Church will not often be found. Out of the multitude of works on the evangelical Christian book market today, those dealing with the creeds of the Church are scarce.
Why Creeds and Confessions? provides a foundation of biblical orthodoxy as a defense against the false and truly heretical doctrines advanced by the spirit of this age.
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The Abortion Matrix: Defeating Child Sacrifice and the Culture of Death (DVD)
Download the free Study Guide!
Is there a connection between pagan religion and the abortion industry?
This powerful presentation traces the biblical roots of child sacrifice and then delves into the social, political and cultural fall-out that this sin against God and crime against humanity has produced in our beleaguered society.
Conceived as a sequel and update to the 1988 classic, The Massacre of Innocence, the new title, The Abortion Matrix, is entirely fitting. It not only references abortion’s specific target – the sacred matrix where human beings are formed in the womb in the very image of God, but it also implies the existence of a conspiracy, a matrix of seemingly disparate forces that are driving this holocaust.
The occult activity surrounding the abortion industry is exposed with numerous examples. But are these just aberrations, bizarre yet anomalous examples of abortionists who just happen to have ties to modern day witchcraft? Or is this representative of something deeper, more sinister and even endemic to the entire abortion movement?
As the allusion to the film of over a decade ago suggests, the viewer may learn that things are not always as they appear to be. The Abortion Matrix reveals the reality of child-killing and strikes the proper moral chord to move hearts to fulfill the biblical responsibility to rescue those unjustly sentenced to death and to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 24:11,12; 31:8,9).
Speakers include: George Grant, Peter Hammond, RC Sproul Jr., Paul Jehle, Lou Engle, Rusty Thomas, Flip Benham, Janet Porter and many more.
Ten parts, over three hours of instruction!
Running Time: 195 minutes
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Freedom: The Model of Christian Liberty (DVD)
“Give me liberty or give me death!”
Patrick Henry’s famous declaration not only helped launch the War for Independence, it also perfectly summarized the mindset that gave birth to, and sustained, the unprecedented experiment in Christian liberty that was America.
The freedom our Founders envisioned was not freedom from suffering, want, or hard work. Nor was it freedom to indulge every appetite or whim without restraint—that would merely be servitude to a different master. No, the Founders’ passion was to live free before God, unfettered by the chains of autocracy, shackles that slowly but inexorably bind men when the governments they fashion fail to recognize and uphold freedom’s singular, foundational truth: that all men are created in the image of God, and are thereby co-equally endowed with the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
This presentation is a similar call, not to one but many. By reintroducing the principles of freedom that gave birth to America, it is our prayer that Jesus, the true and only ruler over the nations, will once again be our acknowledged Sovereign, that we may again know and exult in the great truth that “where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17).
Welcome to the Second American Revolution!
This DVD features “Liberty: The Model of Christian Liberty” along with “Dawn’s Early Light: A Brief History of America’s Christian Foundations.” Bonus features include a humorous but instructive collection of campaign ads and Eric Holmberg’s controversial YouTube challenge concerning Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.
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Massacre of Innocence (DVD)
Exposing The Occult Roots of Abortion
This presentation looks at the spiritual roots of abortion and exposes the myths surrounding child killing. Little known historical facts about abortion and how they relate to modern feminism are presented logically and accurately. Has been effective in converting many to a pro-life position.
Massacre of Innocence goes where no pro-life presentation has gone before in “tearing the lid off abortion” to reveal the spiritual realities we must battle if we will bring an end to this crime. The presentation is absorbing, fast-paced, informative and incredibly devastating to any attempt to justify abortion.
“… an extraordinary statement … a powerfully articulate presentation about what abortion really means, and why a great and moral nation like the United States must not allow the slaughter to continue.”
— Congressman Robert K. Dornan
Running time: 85 minutes
Packaged in a double DVD case with the updated The Abortion Matrix DVD.
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Dr. Francis Schaeffer - How Should We Then Live? (DVD)
Special Two-Disc Set!
After 40 years of intense study and world-wide ministry, Dr. Francis Schaeffer completed his crowning work of scholarship – to present profound truths in simple film language. Dr. Schaeffer’s brilliant analysis of the past and predictions for current trends have proven so uncannily accurate that this amazing series still feels contemporary almost three decades after its initial release. Ultimately, Schaeffer concludes that man’s only hope is a return to God’s Biblical absolute, the truth revealed in Christ through the Scriptures.
Available for the first time on DVD, this documentary spectacular also includes intimate in-depth conversations with Francis and Edith Schaeffer. With the on-disc study guide, this presentation forms a unique course of comprehensive study. While this series forms an innovative analysis of the past, this outstanding work is more than history. Each episode focuses on a significant era, yet speaks clearly to 21st-century man with answers for modern problems.
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