PURIM AND AN ESTHER FAST

 

By James Wilson

 

            Three events converge the first week of March.  March 3 finds Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing both houses of the United States Congress, making his case against Israel’s threatened annihilation.  March 5 the ancient Jewish Feast of Purim celebrates the deliverance of Israel’s people from their intended destruction at the hands of a Persian (Iranian) official named Haman.  Between these two occasions stands March 4 – the Fast of Esther.

 

            Esther, whose Hebrew name is Hadassah, is married to King Xerxes, ruler of the Persian Empire in the Fifth Century BC and known to moderns as Ahaseurus.  When her Uncle Mordecai gets wind of Haman’s planned mass murder he begs his niece to intervene with her husband.  Going to the king unsummoned risks execution, yet Mordecai insists only she can save her people.  He says, “You were born for such a time as this.” 

 

Esther agrees to seek a meeting with the king; meanwhile those of her people who know danger fast three days in repentance and prayer for her protection and for forgiveness of their national sin of persistent idolatry.  Every one of them understands it is sin that landed them in exile and placed them at the mercy of men like Haman.  Their repentance is what we call identificational repentance; each prays not solely for self but on behalf of all their people.  They identify with their people.

 

             Christians and Jews who stand with Israel are invited – exhorted – to spend a portion of March 4 in repentance and prayer for Israel.  The fast is organized by the National Day of Repentance and many ministries are partnering.  No rules are laid upon anyone in terms of how long or how sacrificially the fasting and praying ought to be.  A fast is virtually anything we let go for the sake of God and a prayer is whatever we offer in terms of conversation with Him.

 

               The concept of identificational repentance is a bit more complex.  It is imperative – for one thing – that we not make the mistake of imagining ourselves as the sinless ones stooping down from on high to bless a people less virtuous.  Is Israel sinless?  Of course not.  She is one of the most secularized nations on the planet with rampant pornography and abortion industries, large scale drug abuse and families torn apart by divorce.  Are we any better here in the States?  Is the American Church any better?  The point of repentance for them is repentance with them.  As we go before God on behalf of our Israeli brothers and sisters we confess our own sins and ask forgiveness as we beg God’s intervention in their lives and ours.  We would not dare speak on their behalf if we failed to note we are in the same boat.  Not if we take the message in Romans 3 and 1 Corinthians 6 seriously that all have fallen short and no one is fit to pass judgment.

 

            Israel and her people are the Chosen ones of God.  When we choose them we choose their God.  When we humble ourselves we permit Him to perfect His strength in our weakness.

 

            Another imperative is humility in prayer.  Some Christians think their highest and best use is to imperiously order the devil to leave their friends alone – as though we Christians ourselves are the biggest bad boys in the valley of the shadow.  The biblical approach is outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14.  We are called to humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and turn from our wicked – read stubbornly inadequate – ways if we would find forgiveness and healing.  We cannot stand and point fingers at the same time we kneel with folded hands.

 

            A last imperative is to recognize the power of repentance.  When the steam ship Titanic was sunk by an iceberg in 1912 she was attempting to set a new speed record between England and New York.  Her captain was so arrogantly confident in her unsinkability he deliberately set his course through the ice field as the shortest distance between two points.  While the ship began to sink – after the iceberg tore her hull – the crew got a wireless message through to the Carpathia, hove to about sixty miles away.  Her captain knelt on the deck, confessed his unworthiness to demand anything of God, and begged His protection as he too set off through the icefield at flank speed to the rescue.  The Carpathia was unscathed as she presented the vulnerability of a servant heart.  It is when we submit to God in our weakness that He always perfects His strength.  This is as true when we defend the Alamo – cornered and outnumbered – as it is when we beg God to heal His little ones.

 

            Whatever any of us choose to do March 4 on behalf of Israel and the Kingdom of God, if it is offered in humility and service we will discover that Israel is indeed numbered among His little ones – and so are we.  We were born for such a time as this.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

ONE VOICE IN ISRAEL -- A BAD BUSINESS FOR DECENCY

By James Wilson

 

            President Obama’s government is pressuring Congress to cancel Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 3 invitation to speak.  They cite Speaker Boehner’s bad manners for not running the invitation by the President.  Protocol is protocol; if good manners require notice then an apology should come – from Boehner, not Bibi.  There is no reason to cancel the visit, but let’s talk about good manners for a moment.

 

              It is the President who let the Israeli Prime Minister cool his heels in a reception room for two hours during a previous visit.  It is the President who refuses to meet with PM Netanyahu at all during his upcoming visit – not for the first time.  President Obama excludes Israel from talks – and even briefings – with Iran though Iran is building nuclear weapons for the stated purpose of destroying Israel.  And it is this President who takes bad manners to new levels of outrage in operating a well funded effort – staffed by his own current and former officials – to influence the upcoming Israeli elections toward Netanyahu’s downfall.

 

            What would be the American response to a blatant effort by the Israeli government – or any other – to interfere in our electoral process?  What if Israel announced it was negotiating a separate peace with Al Qaida and said they would persuade or compel America to come aboard at the proper time?  Yet this is exactly what the American exclusion of Israel from peace talks with Iran achieves.  And now the arrogance ascends to outright intervention in Israel’s electoral process.

 

            One Voice is an international organization dedicated to Palestinian causes.  Their activist arm in Israel is called V15 – Victory in 2015; V15s sole purpose is to run Benjamin Netanyahu out of office. Israel has strict laws banning campaign financing from foreign sources.  V15 claims non-partisanship in hopes of skirting those laws, but the truth is obvious.  Former Knesset member Yoel Hasson was listed as a board member until his photo was removed from their web site just days ahead of this writing; now he claims to have never heard of them.  This is just one partisan example.  And then there is the international funding and leadership.

 

            Jeremy Bird – Barack Obama’s National Field Director – and a principal director of V15 – is not the only Obama man on staff.  The organization has multiple grants from the US State Department.  Other funding sources include the European Union, the Palestinian Authority – not Israeli citizens – and the British Labour and Conservative Parties.  America’s vice president and secretary of state have spoken for opposition candidates on taxpayer dollars.  

 

            This is a simple justice issue for those who do not know the Messiah of the Jews and of all the world – Yeshua Ha’Mashiach – as well as common sense for those who know that in history nations who support Israel and the Jews tend to do well in the blessings department and those who do not – like the British – lose their empires.  But for those who know and pledge allegiance to the Lord of Life there is so much more at stake.

 

            Christians who actually believe the Bible speaks truth know there is to be an end-times harvest of belief and believers alongside the times of trouble prophesied prior to the return of the King.  But what escapes many is the intimate tie between blessing Israel and inclusion in that harvest and homecoming.  There is – of course – Genesis 12:3 containing God’s promise to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse her.  But in Amos – the same Amos (5:24) through whom God commands justice rolling like a mighty river – God declares (9:13-1) that harvest features the restored Israel.  In Haggai 2 the Father says on the day He shakes the foundations of the earth He will make Israel His signet ring.  In Zechariah 8:23 He says, “In those days men…(will say to the Jews) ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.” 

 

There are some who imagine these Old Testament promises are fulfilled with Yeshua’s resurrection.  In fact, as they clearly reference the final reign of God known to Jews as the Day of the Lord, they are fulfilled only with Yeshua’s return.  They are never cancelled. 

 

It’s really pretty simple.  Only a fool would forget Iran has called America the great satan and Israel the little satan since 1979; accommodating the mullahs by undermining Israel can only increase Iranian determination to destroy their larger enemy after the smaller.  Common decency calls on common citizens to support the besieged nation of Israel and demand the same of our morally twisted leadership.  Faithful faith calls for – and promises – a whole lot more. 

  

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY

 

By James Wilson

 

            One of my favorite memories is of a friend of mine who has a doctorate and believes in evolution.  It is one of his missions in life to convince me I am foolish to believe my God made everything.  One day exploring some buildings dating to colonial times he pounced.  “Do you believe there was ever such an animal as eohippus?” he asked.  I said I did; we have their fossils.  “Well,” he continued, “everybody knows eohippus is the first horse.  He evolved into the modern horse over millions of years.”

 

            “Have you conducted DNA testing?” I asked.  “Does eohippus have horse DNA?”  He was appalled at my unfairness; nobody can obtain DNA from fossilized prehistoric animals.  He repeated that everybody agrees eohippus evolved into horses.  “You tell me you can prove evolution through this forerunner of a horse, but without DNA you cannot prove this little guy is even related to the horse,” I said.  “Fact is, eohippus looks more like a fox than a horse; he has no hooves, and his legs are of such disparate lengths from front to back that he bounces like a pig instead of running like a horse.”  I ended with a question, “What have you got besides bones resembling tiny horse bones and speculations from generations of paleontologists?  What science have you got?”

 

            Reality is my bones resemble pig bones as much as eohippus bones resemble those of a horse.  Yet nobody imagines I evolved from a pig except people offended at my unbelief concerning evolution.  Reality is without DNA I cannot pass a paternity test for my children but wealthy and powerful people can demand we scratch the idea of a Creator without DNA evidence.

 

            Don’t get me wrong.  Science is a great gift; it is a double gift having content – things observed in patterns of activity and therefore known to (and how) existing – and structure.  The structure is called scientific method for learning by experimentation.  Praise God for the men and women who devote themselves to scientific disciplines – with discipline being the operant word.  When we discipline our minds to accept what can be proven, to hold in tension what has not yet been demonstrated, and to let go of what simply does not emerge from facts in evidence – no matter how much we want or need to believe them – we are practicing science.  When men and women with a lot of letters after their surname ask to be believed not for the evidence they present but for those letters following their name there is nothing scientific occurring.  Such people are simply the mullahs of materialism.

 

            The Wild Horse Nebula is about thirty million light years from earth, so distant it was only discovered after we orbited the Hubble Telescope.  Within the nebula is a black hole about four million miles across.  It is shaped like a cross.  Psalms 19:1 states, “The heavens declare the glory of God”.  These facts – astronomical and scriptural – are verified observations and thus science.  The laminem molecule is what we call an adhesion protein.  So tiny it can only be seen through an electron microscope, it literally binds the cells in our body together.  It is the catalyst that makes a body possible. Colossians 1:17 declares, “In Him (Jesus) all things hold together.”  The laminem molecule is shaped like a cross. Again these facts are observed – the molecule and its description and the corresponding Biblical declaration.  This is science.

 

            Where it gets dicey is in the conclusions.  Have I just proved beyond doubt that an all-powerful God designed the Wild Horse Nebula and the laminem molecule, planting those verses in the Bible so we get His point?  Actually, no.  There is evidence – it looks, quacks and walks like a duck – but nothing compelling about the connection between scripture and these phenomena.  I have no need to compel belief, nor to stifle debate.  (Unlike the evolutionists who go to court to ensure Creationist-believing teachers cannot speak to impressionable children on school campuses.)  But I would rather take my chances in honest and spirited debate than to rely on the arrogance of those who think themselves above scientific proof for their positions.  DNA anyone?

 

            Evolution offers what George Lucas presented in Star Wars, an impersonal and unloving force holding us and ours together.  God offers Himself, and His Son Who comes that we might have His life and love abundantly.  He is not afraid to take His chances in the marketplace of ideas.  The question becomes whether we want the really real, or a fantasy that begins, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…”

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

TIME FOR MEN TO STEP UP TO THE PLATE: A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD MOVIE PROPHESIES THE WAY

By James Wilson

 

            I found myself watching an old film, Six Days Seven Nights, on a recent morning when I did something I don’t do on mornings – watch television. 

 

I have seen this movie before and it is entertaining as is; a career woman vacationing on a Pacific island with her fiancé fly to another island for a work emergency while her intended stays behind.  The plane crashes and Robin (Anne Heche) is marooned with the crotchety Quinn (Harrison Ford).  Over six days and seven nights they must depend on each other to survive, lose the pirates chasing them across the island, and make the plane flyable again.  During that span they move from sniping and carping non-stop to respecting, cooperating with, and loving each other with honor for her prior commitment.  Frank the fiancé – using his fear (she has been missing but days) that Robin is dead as excuse – sleeps with Angelica the very sexy island beauty.  When Robin returns alive he tries to make the island girl responsible for his moral compass by telling her – repeatedly – that he has been “bad…very very bad” and waiting for her to convince him he is not.  When that does not make him feel better he confesses to Robin, who breaks off the engagement.  With her commitment to Frank blasted by Frank himself, she and Quinn come together.  Before my most recent viewing I enjoyed the film without realizing how prophetic it is.

 

The film features two partnered men and women.  (Angelica has a casual relationship with Quinn at the beginning.)  Both men and both women are seriously tempted to sleep with the one who does not belong to them.  Quinn and Robin acknowledge their feelings – and the likelihood their stay on the island is forever – and yet remain honorable simply because their word means something to them.  Angelica and Frank do what feels good at the moment, albeit one amorally and the other with guilt.  The film ends with Angelica and Frank alone, while the pair who honor commitments come together and – presumably – live happily ever after.

 

In both cases it is the men who cast the deciding vote.  Angelica offers herself to Frank as he stands in the open door to her room.  He leaves, citing his commitment to Robin, but wakes in her bed – admitting he cursed himself each of the multiple times he makes love to her the previous night.  He is the one who has chosen.  Likewise Robin admits her longing for Quinn, who tells her he will not dishonor her or her commitment – and that settles the matter.  It does not come up again while they are on the island because he has chosen.

 

Men and women are made to complement one another; neither is subordinate and this is clear from Genesis to Ephesians.  The Hebrew word we tend to translate as “helpmate” to describe Eve actually conveys “one who can look him in the face;” a more egalitarian meaning is not conceivable.  The narrative about mutual submission of wives and husbands – not limited to Ephesians 5 – offers simply gender appropriate ways to submit, one through obedience and the other through sacrifice of self interest.  Conceptually men are made to protect and support women; women are made to nurture and encourage men.  There is nothing in scripture or human nature to preclude women from accepting whatever calling – at whatever level of responsibility – they are given.  But it is the men who are called to be responsible for choosing and implementing a healthy covenant between themselves and their wives.  That is why Adam comes across as such a jerk when he lamely excuses his defiance of God in the Garden by saying, “The woman made me do it.”

 

Six Days Seven Nights depicts a man who shoulders his responsibility despite lacking a conceptual framework for it; he is endowed with a God-breathed conscience and wills to flow with it.  It also depicts a man endowed with the same conscience who chooses to wimp out when something exciting crosses his path with a come-hither wink.  The story ends well for the one who steps up to the plate; not so much for the wimp.

 

I write frequently about God’s promise of renaissance – a Great Awakening – in this nation and others.  I am just as vocal on His call for a season of repentance in His Body the Church as our part in welcoming His promise.  By repentance I understand a progressive re-focus of our attention on God and away from self and self-gratification-because-we-can.  For men that means stepping up to the plate and being men, and not just for fidelity’s sake.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

SONS OF LIBERTY -- ARE YOU SERIOUS?

By James Wilson

 

            The History Channel, the Samuel Adams Brewing Company, and the writers and producers of the mini-series, Sons of Liberty, ought to be deeply ashamed for the tortured view of American History to which viewers were treated the last week in January.  Artists are certainly entitled to spin, embellish, and even introduce items of their own creation when telling history to an audience.  But I have never before witnessed such a blatant and cynical effort to distort and pervert the facts of the American Revolution for the benefit of a crudely obvious political agenda.

 

            The American Revolution was a brand new phenomenon bursting on the world scene in the 1770s and 80s.  People of all walks of life and all levels of wealth and education banded together to make the democratic republic for which they groomed themselves for more than a hundred fifty years before Lexington and Concord.  The records are voluminous; it is not as though we don’t know who the players were, what they wanted, or the issues over which they fought.

 

            “No Taxation without representation,” was the rallying cry from the 1760s when Great Britain imposed taxes on sugar and (notary type) stamps.  Riots and demonstrations, not to mention boycotts, followed the 1765 imposition of the Stamp Tax.  It got so ugly the British were unable to find Americans to collect the tax and eventually repealed the tax.  Other efforts followed – including the Intolerable Acts – sparking continuing and escalating resistance that culminated in the December 1773 Boston Tea Party.  Patriots belonging to an underground organization known as the Sons of Liberty commandeered three British government owned tea ships and destroyed the tea cargo by pitching it into Boston Harbor.

 

            According to the History Channel fiasco it was an economic conflict more than a political one.  We are told the wealthy merchants – of Boston and Britain – want to bleed the colonials, most of whom cannot even find jobs with which to support their families.  We are told Samuel Adams (did I mention the series primary sponsor?) is the lonely catalyst seeking social justice for his fellow colonists as other leaders eventually rally around him in his radicalism.  Taxation without representation is never mentioned in three nights.  What is beaten into the audience is that it is all about class warfare.  The ruling classes – British government and wealthy merchants – live to stick it to the poor of the colonies.  One could paint the wealthy as the Republicans and the poor revolutionaries as the Democrats asking only that the rich pay their fair share.  The producers even set up wealthy John Hancock against destitute Sam Adams to symbolize the conflict in personal terms.  Eventually Hancock’s brethren turn on him and he joins the revolutionaries – carefully and clearly explaining to his new homeys how it is – a perfectly simplistic portrait of a Marxist analysis of society.  The only problem is the set-up is a lie from start to finish.

 

            In fact Hancock (though wealthy) was protégé to the much older Adams.  In fact the conflict was about the very prosperous colonies in which people of all classes were building a life.  Adams himself was a prominent political leader and editor of a newspaper.  The British attitude was they had saved the colonists’ from destruction in the French and Indian War – although it was more like the colonists saving British hind ends – and now they must share some of their prosperity to pay for the war after 1763.

 

            Although there was plenty of socio-economic stratification in colonial times Americans lived in a much more egalitarian culture than the one they left behind.  The literacy rate – usually a sign of shared opportunity – was phenomenal; most people knew and cherished their history (especially their Biblical heritage) and participated in government.  The first colonial legislature had been operating in Virginia since 1619 and all the colonies followed suit.  Sam Adams was an elected official before becoming a revolutionary leader and never operated outside the political structure.  The price of tea was actually lower at the time of the Tea Party – even with the new tax – it was the imposition of any restrictions on their freedom by a body not accountable to them that enraged – as every American child should know by Middle School.

 

            Of course they manage to delete the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 40s as the catalyst that made an American people under God.  It is the Awakening that forged the union in shared revelation of God in Christ that was capable of joining together to fight a war and produce a constitutional government and create a culture – ultimately – in which all could obtain life, liberty, and pursue happiness as they chose.  But every secular depiction leaves out the most important part of our heritage and I’m just sayin…

 

            The televised depiction descends into silliness – as works of art do when they trash reality in favor of agenda.  When the militia in Concord hear of battle in nearby Lexington they haul and hide their gunpowder and cannon in furrowed fields in the time it takes to march from one town to another.  When the Brits search the farm a small band of colonials opens fire from the trees and drives them off.  When the colonials see the British fleet about to land in front of them someone says, “We’d better fortify Bunker Hill,” like that can be done in the hour or two while the British form and march.

 

            In fact the colonial intelligence system was far better than the British and they knew of General Gage’s plans weeks in advance.  Most of the munitions stored in Concord were long gone by the time troops arrived.  Some had been hidden in fields, but well ahead of arriving British.  Although Lexington was a skirmish only – Adams and Hancock too were long gone – Concord was a pitched battle in and around Concord Bridge where the “shot heard round the world was fired,” and a numerically superior militia tore into and drove off the advancing British.  Later in the day a relief force arrived to enable the British retreat to Boston; many more were killed by colonial snipers on that march.  Oh, and the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on the previously fortified Breeds Hill.

 

            The History Channel seems never to have heard of either Concord Bridge or Breeds Hill.  But they claim to know a lot about class warfare.  Which makes them politically correct and factually idiotic.  Frankly, given the abundance of documentation on these events and their causes it is inconceivable that a true story could be so utterly distorted unless the storytellers choosing to re-invent history for reasons that seem good to them.  In case anyone is wondering, I do hold it against them.  Lying is evil.  Always.

 

            When the Hebrew people were decimated and led into exile by first the invading Assyrians and later the Babylonians – both from modern Iraq – God promised to restore them beyond imagination.  He promised them such abundance they would be a blessing to their neighbors, and He has kept that promise in spades with the founding and flourishing of modern Israel.  But He laid a condition on the promise.  “These are the things you are to do,” says God in Zechariah 8:16-17, “Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgments in your courts; do not plot evil against your neighbor and do not love to swear falsely.  I hate all this,’ declares the Lord.”

 

            I hope every reader will let the History Channel and Samuel Adams Breweries know just what you think of their lying and manipulating of our stories, our founding fathers, and the American people, Christian or no.  I hope they pay a much higher price than the costs of production and advertising – that others may profit from their lesson learned.  But of far greater importance is the import of the promise and its accompanying condition for each reader.  If we would hold the plutocrats of beer and broadcasting – and government – accountable for truth and fair dealing we had better repent of our dealings with each other and render true accounts ourselves.

 

            Whether we think ourselves capable – even under God – of turning back the tide of abusive power abroad in the land today is neither here nor there.  The people of the Bible – at God’s insistence as much as His inspiration – invented the concept that He is God of each as well as God of all.  With that came the concept of personal responsibility.  At the end of the day it is not about all so much as it is about each.  Babylon is on the way, but so is our redemption if we will have it.  

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

SPRING CAMPAIGN FOR LIFE READY TO LAUNCH

By James Wilson

 

            Despite massive propaganda to depict on-demand abortion as a rising tide, the momentum is in the other direction.  Science sides with the pro-life cause.  Chile banned elective abortions in 1989.  The MELISA Institute has just published a massive study of the fruit of the ban.  Maternal deaths in Chile have dropped from 41.3 per 100,000 of population to 12.7 – a decrease of 69%.  Legal abortion is not safe, and never has been.  Fewer abortions lead to a lot fewer maternal deaths from all causes; they always have.

 

            Women seeking abortions in Chile have decreased by 2% yearly since 2001, creating a cumulative decrease of about 30%.  Dr. Elard Koch, author and co-leader of the study found 70% of the women seeking abortions cited fear and coercion as their primary motivation.  Koch adds that introduction of education and support services leads to change in these attitudes between 69% and 94% of the time – depending on the risk group being assessed.

 

            Chile, Malta, and Ireland prohibit abortion; all three have a lower maternal mortality rate than does the most developed nation on earth – America.  56% of worldwide maternal deaths occur in Africa, where the nations place high restrictions on access to abortion.  Yet these deaths per 100,000 occur at less than half the rate prevailing in the United States.  Abortion is deadly for more than just the pre-born; always has been.  But the pro-life majority in our country is above 80% for 99% of all abortions performed i. e. abortions for the sake of convenience.  A mere 11% of Americans want unlimited access to abortion throughout the pregnancy according to polls done by CNN and others as recently as 2013.  Yet few Americans seem to have the stomach to engage the debate.  Enter 40 Days for Life.

 

            Founded in 2004 this ministry of volunteers conducts semi-annual campaigns of  prayer and blessing outside abortion clinics.  They now serve in more than six hundred cities worldwide, mostly in the US.  They do nothing but bless, pray, and worship, engaging in conversation with those who approach them.  They have accounted for ninety-seven hundred saved unborn lives – and double that number of parents finding a new lease on life.  Sixty clinics have closed due to their activities; funding or clients or both decreasing below the level of bankruptcy.  More than one hundred workers have resigned; appointments drop by 50-75% when volunteers are on duty.  It is ministries of compassion like this – and pregnancy support centers like Carenet and LifeLight – that account for the change in American attitudes more than revelation of the experience of Chile and other nations, and certainly more than debate.

 

            Of course there is very little actual debate any more.  Planned Parenthood and their surrogates have been very successful at cutting that off.  When I testified before the California Commission on the Status of Women regarding the traumatic effects of abortion on the women who have them the Chairperson asked if I was willing to hear the other side of the question – as though it is pro-lifers who seek to stifle conversation.  I answered that I would be glad to engage, adding that I had been listening to the other side for thirty years and was still awaiting my own turn to speak in such conversations.  Glancing to my right I could see the Planned Parenthood representatives already scuttling out of the room.  When I encountered their leader the next day in the same building I tried to give her my card and was curtly informed, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

 

            These are the same people who indict pro-life witnesses like the 40 Days folks under anti-racketeering statutes.  They seek to accuse these prayer warriors of clinic bombings and – God knows – there have been a few such incidents perpetrated by a very few lunatic hangers-on.  But the record is clear that violence and intimidation against life-supporting people dramatically surpasses incidents against abortion supporters and providers.  It is equally clear the efforts to suppress conversation are all on one side.

 

            Jesus says He is the Way and the Truth and the Life – for all; He is just as much in love with those who defy Him as those who serve Him.  He weeps for the former and rejoices in the latter.  He says He came to bring life – and that abundantly – for all and He specifically includes in His written record the reality that He knows us in our humanity from within the womb and onward.  The Spring 2015 40 Days for Life campaign begins February 18.  Information and the opportunity to participate is available at www.40daysforlife.org – and in your own heart.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net