Abortion: A Rational Look At An Emotional Issue


R.C. Sproul - 1990
    R.C. Sproul employs his unique perspective as a highly experienced pastor-theologian and a trained philosopher to provide well-considered and compassionate answers to the difficult questions that attend termination of pregnancy. Dr. Sproul strives for a factual, well-reasoned approach informed by careful biblical scholarship. He considers both sides of this issue in terms of biblical teaching, civil law, and natural law. This edition includes a new foreword by Dr. George Grant and has been updated to reflect developments in the issue of abortion. Appendixes provide further background on the issue of when life begins and list sources for pro-life resources.

Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents


Rod Dreher - 2020
    Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Civil liberties are increasingly seen as a threat to "safety". Progressives marginalize conservative, traditional Christians, and other dissenters. Technology and consumerism hasten the possibility of a corporate surveillance state. And the pandemic, having put millions out of work, leaves our country especially vulnerable to demagogic manipulation.In Live Not By Lies, Dreher amplifies the alarm sounded by the brave men and women who fought totalitarianism. He explains how the totalitarianism facing us today is based less on overt violence and more on psychological manipulation. He tells the stories of modern-day dissidents--clergy, laity, martyrs, and confessors from the Soviet Union and the captive nations of Europe--who offer practical advice for how to identify and resist totalitarianism in our time. Following the model offered by a prophetic World War II-era pastor who prepared believers in his Eastern European to endure the coming of communism, Live Not By Lies teaches American Christians a method for resistance: - SEE: Acknowledge the reality of the situation. - JUDGE: Assess reality in the light of what we as Christians know to be true. - ACT: Take action to protect truth.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can't happen in their country. Many American Christians are making that mistake today, sleepwalking through the erosion of our freedoms. Live Not By Lies will wake them and equip them for the long resistance.

The Abolition of Man


C.S. Lewis - 1943
    Alternative cover for ISBN: 978-0060652944The Abolition of Man, Lewis uses his graceful prose, delightful humor, and keen understanding of the human mind to challenge our notions about how to best teach our children--and ourselves--not merely reading and writing, but also a sense of morality.

Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood


John Piper - 1991
    All main passages of Scripture that are relevant to the questions are considered.

Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line


Abby Johnson - 2010
    That simple act became a national news story because Abby was the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas who, after participating in her first actual abortion procedure, walked across the road to join the Coalition for Life. "Unplanned" is a heartstopping personal drama of life-and-death encounters, a courtroom battle, and spiritual transformation that speaks hope and compassion into the political controversy that surrounds this issue. Telling Abby’s story from both sides of the abortion clinic property line, this book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the life versus rights debate and helping women who face crisis pregnancies.

The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture


Scott Klusendorf - 2009
    Too many Christians do not understand the essential truths of the pro-life position, making it difficult for them to articulate a biblical worldview on issues like abortion, cloning, and embryo research.The Case for Life provides intellectual grounding for the pro-life convictions that most evangelicals hold. Author Scott Klusendorf first simplifies the debate: the sanctity of life is not a morally complex issue. It's not about choice, privacy, or scientific progress. To the contrary, the debate turns on one key question: What is the unborn? From there readers learn how to engage the great bio-tech debate of the twenty-first century, how to answer objections persuasively, and what the role of the pro-life pastor should be.

When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment


Ryan T. Anderson - 2018
    In the space of a year, it's gone from something that most Americans had never heard of to a cause claiming the mantle of civil rights.But can a boy truly be "trapped" in a girl's body? Can modern medicine really "reassign" sex? Is sex something "assigned" in the first place? What's the loving response to a friend or child experiencing a gender-identity conflict? What should our law say on these issues?When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment provides thoughtful answers to all of these questions. Drawing on the best insights from biology, psychology, and philosophy, Ryan T. Anderson offers a balanced approach to the policy issues, a nuanced vision of human embodiment, and a sober and honest survey of the human costs of getting human nature wrong.He reveals a grim contrast between the media's sunny depiction and the often sad realities of gender-identity struggles. He introduces readers to people who tried to "transition" but found themselves no better off. Especially troubling is the suffering felt by adults who were encouraged to transition as children but later came to regret it.And there is a reason that many do regret it. As Anderson shows, the most helpful therapies focus not on achieving the impossible--changing bodies to conform to thoughts and feelings--but on helping people accept and even embrace the truth about their bodies and reality. This discussion will be of particular interest to parents who fear how an ideological school counselor might try to steer their child. The best evidence shows that the vast majority of children naturally grow out of any gender-conflicted phase. But no one knows how new school policies might affect children indoctrinated to believe that they really are trapped in the "wrong" body.Throughout the book, Anderson highlights the various contradictions at the heart of this moment: How it embraces the gnostic idea that the real self is something other than the body, while also embracing the idea that nothing but the physical exists. How it relies on rigid sex stereotypes--in which dolls are for girls and trucks are for boys--while also insisting that gender is purely a social construct, and that there are no meaningful differences between women and men. How it assumes that feelings of identity deserve absolute respect, while the facts of our embodiment do not. How it preaches that people should be free to do as they please and define their own truth--while enforcing a ruthless campaign to coerce anyone who dares to dissent.Everyone has something at stake in today's debates about gender identity. Analyzing education and employment policies, Obama-era bathroom and locker-room mandates, politically correct speech codes and religious-freedom violations, Anderson shows how the law is being used to coerce and penalize those who believe the truth about human nature. And he shows how Americans can begin to push back with principle and prudence, compassion and grace.

Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe


Voddie T. Baucham Jr. - 2021
    As riots rocked American cities, Christians affirmed from the pulpit and in social media that “black lives matter” and that racial justice “is a gospel issue.” But what if there is more to the social justice movement than those Christians understand? Even worse: What if they’ve been duped into preaching ideas that actually oppose the Kingdom of God? In this powerful book, Voddie Baucham, a preacher, professor, and cultural apologist, explains the sinister worldview behind the social justice movement and Critical Race Theory—revealing how it already has infiltrated some seminaries, leading to internal denominational conflict, canceled careers, and lost livelihoods. Like a fault line, it threatens American culture in general—and the evangelical church in particular. Whether you’re a layperson who has woken up in a strange new world and wonders how to engage sensitively and effectively in the conversation on race or a pastor who is grappling with a polarized congregation, this book offers the clarity and understanding to either hold your ground or reclaim it.

Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality


Nancy R. Pearcey - 2018
    A two-time winner of the ECPA Gold Medallion Award, Pearcey has been hailed by The Economist as "America's preeminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual." In Love Thy Body she offers a respectful but riveting exposE of the secular worldview that lies behind trendy slogans and political talking points. A former agnostic, Pearcey is a sensitive guide to the secular ideas that shape current debates. She empowers readers to intelligently and compassionately engage today's most controversial moral and social challenges.In a surprise shattering of stereotypes, Pearcey demonstrates that while secularism promises much, in reality it delivers little. She turns the tables on stereotypes that portray Christianity as harsh and bigoted, and invites a fresh look at its holistic, life-affirming principles: it is a worldview that matches the real world and fits with human experience.All along, Pearcey keeps readers entranced with gripping stories of real people wrestling with hard questions in their own lives--sharing their pain, their struggles, and their triumphs.

Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation


Ronald Reagan - 1984
    President while he held office. With new photos and all new supporting materials, the original work by President Reagan shines with a timeless, poetic beauty. At a time when concerted efforts are being made to excise President Reagan's legacy from history, his prophetic view of the sanctity of human life, and his commitment to the "integrity of the human person" stands as a beacon of moral leadership. Contributions from Wanda Franz, Ph.D., President of the National Right to Life Committee; Brian P. Johnston, California Commissioner on Aging; and the Honorable William Clark, Chief of Staff to then-Governor Reagan, National Security Advisor to the President, Secretary of the Interior, and the man whom Edmund Morris, official Reagan biographer, called, "the most important member of both Reagan administrations, and the man spiritually closest to the President."

Persuasive Pro Life: How to Talk about Our Culture's Toughest Issue


Trent Horn - 2014
    Either we think the subject is too impolite, or we don't want to be branded an intolerant fanatic, or we're afraid we won't represent the pro-life side well enough. With a little knowledge and a few practical and proven techniques, you can become a bold and effective advocate for life.Drawing on over a decade as a pro-life organizer, Horn cuts through the diversions of the "pro-choice" side in order to accurately frame the legal, historical, and medical issue surrounding abortion. He demonstrates with vivid personal examples from years of campus activism the importance of being charitable in all abortion discussions. We must be not just warriors for the pro-life cause, he says, but ambassadors for it.The struggle over abortion has never been hotter, and the stakes could not be higher. Read Persuasive Pro-Life today and never again be afraid to speak up for the precious and fundamental right to life.

Heretics


G.K. Chesterton - 1905
    K. Chesterton, the "Prince of Paradox," is at his witty best in this collection of twenty essays and articles from the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on "heretics" — those who pride themselves on their superiority to Christian views — Chesterton appraises prominent figures who fall into that category from the literary and art worlds. Luminaries such as Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and James McNeill Whistler come under the author's scrutiny, where they meet with equal measures of his characteristic wisdom and good humor.In addition to incisive assessments of well-known individuals ("Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small" and "Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants"), these essays contain observations on the wider world. "On Sandals and Simplicity," "Science and the Savages," "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family," "On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set," and "Slum Novelists and the Slums" reflect the main themes of Chesterton's life's work. Heretics roused the ire of some critics for censuring contemporary philosophies without providing alternatives; the author responded a few years later with a companion volume, Orthodoxy. Sardonic, jolly, and generous, both books are vintage Chesterton.He is criticizing those who hold incomplete and inadequate views about "life, the universe, and everything." He is, in short, criticizing all that host of non-Christian views of reality, as he demonstrated in his follow-up book Orthodoxy. The book is both an easy read and a difficult read. But he manages to demonstrate, among other things, that our new 21st century heresies are really not new because he himself deals with most of them.

Embryo: A Defense of Human Life


Robert P. George - 2008
    Religious conservatives are so adamantly opposed to stem cell research in particular that President Bush issued the first veto of his presidency over a bill that would have provided federal funding for such research. Now, in this timely consideration of the nature and rights of human embryos, Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen make a persuasive case that we as a society should neither condone nor publicly fund embryonic stem cell research of any kind. Typically, right-to-life arguments have been based explicitly on moral and religious grounds. In "Embryo," the authors eschew religious arguments and make a purely scientific and philosophical case that the fetus, from the instant of conception, is a human being, with all the moral and political rights inherent in that status. As such, stem cell research that destroys a viable embryo represents the unacceptable taking of a human life. There is also no room in their view for a "moral dualism" that regards being a "person" as merely a stage in a human life span. An embryo does not exist in a "prepersonal" stage that does not merit the inviolable rights otherwise ascribed to persons. Instead, the authors argue, the right not to be intentionally killed is inherent in the fact of being a human being, and that status begins at the moment of conception. Moreover, just as none should be excluded from moral and legal protections based on race, sex, religion, or ethnicity, none should be excluded on the basis of age, size, or stage of biological development. George and Tollefsen fearlessly grapple with the political, scientific, and cultural consequences arising from their position and offer a summary of scientific alternatives to embryonic stem cell research. They conclude that the state has an ethical and moral obligation to protect embryonic human beings in just the same manner that it protects every other human being, and they advocate for embryo adoption--the only ethical solution to the problem of spare embryos resulting from in-vitro fertilization.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything


Christopher Hitchens - 2007
    "God did not make us," he says. "We made God." He explains the ways in which religion is immoral: We damage our children by indoctrinating them. It is a cause of sexual repression, violence, and ignorance. It is a distortion of our origins and the cosmos. In the place of religion, Hitchens offers the promise of a new enlightenment through science and reason, a realm in which hope and wonder can be found through a strand of DNA or a gaze through the Hubble Telescope. As Hitchens sees it, you needn't get the blues once you discover the heavens are empty.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Revised Edition)


Francis A. Schaeffer - 1979
    Wade and the Baby Doe Case, no one is safe. Once quality of life is substituted for the absolute value of human life itself, we all are endangered. Already respected scientists are calling for a time period following birth (a week or so) to decide if newborns have sufficient quality of life to be allowed to live. Already committees of medical professionals would like to decide whether the quality of life of the elderly or anyone seriously ill is high enough to allow them to go on living.In this moving book, the renowned pediatric surgeon and Surgeon General of the United States, C. Everett Koop, M.D., joins with one of the leading Christian thinkers of our day, Francis A. Schaeffer, to analyze the widespread implications and frightening loss of human rights brought on by today's practices of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. They see the present as a crucial turning point. Choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices once labeled unthinkable are now considered acceptable. The destruction of human life, young and old, is being sanctioned on an ever-increasing scale by the medical profession, by the courts, by parents, and by silent citizens.But what can I do? you ask. I'm just one person. You can start by reading this book. Yes, it will shock you. And it will make you weep. But it will also help you see how you can actually make a difference.