This past week, Rebecca and I flew down to Dallas to attend the funeral of her sister-in-law who had suffered with various ailments for 20 years. She leaves behind her husband, three children, and several grandchildren. Every time I attend a funeral I’m reminded that this is where our Christian faith comes most clearly into focus: we are convinced that all who die are fully conscious in the afterlife, and those who are believers are with the Lord and their bodies await the resurrection. We shall someday join them, and “forever we shall be with the Lord.” Any religion that …
I want to address my remarks to the church of Jesus Christ, to those of us who are followers of Christ. We stand here today united in our opposition to abortion, but I want for us to focus for a moment on the brokenness that abortion produces in the life of a young mother, and then ask ourselves if we are willing to apply the grace of God to this brokenness. We must not merely protest against the darkness but be a shaft of light to those who are hurting, those who do not know where to turn.
The terror attacks in Paris make us realize that freedom of speech cannot be taken for granted. What happened in Paris can happen in any of our cities, including Chicago. Of course most Muslims are personally against violence and intolerance, but they are irrelevant in our ongoing war with Islamist extremists. The fact is that the radicals set the agenda, and unfortunately, moderate Muslims are often fearful to show personal opposition to the larger, more radical agenda of Islam because they fear being accused of “siding with the enemy” or “falling into apostasy.”
Virtually all Muslim terror groups—ISIS, Boko Haram, …
