Candace Cameron Bure starred in thirty Hallmark Channel movies, ten of which were Christmas films. Many of her fans were surprised when she announced last April that she was leaving Hallmark Media to develop, produce, and star in projects for the new traditional-family-oriented network Great American Family.

Now she has explained her career move in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: “My heart wants to tell stories that have more meaning and purpose and depth behind them. I knew that the people behind Great American Family were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment.”

By contrast, Hallmark will release The Holiday Sitter next month, the network’s first original film to focus on a same-sex couple. Bure has no plans to follow suit: “I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core.”

Predictably, Bure is being criticized by some in the industry. Actress Hilarie Burton Morgan slammed her as “disgusting” and a “bigot,” adding, “I don’t remember Jesus liking hypocrites like Candy. But sure. Make your money, honey. You ride that prejudice wave all the way to the bank.” Dancer and actress JoJo Siwa called Bure’s stance “rude and hurtful to a whole community of people.”

Of course, those who support traditional marriage are a “whole community of people” as well.

Drag queen delivers the children’s sermon

In related news, the Senate voted yesterday to advance legislation that would cement same-sex marriage protections into law. The so-called Respect for Marriage Act is a major issue for religious freedom in America, a topic I plan to discuss in detail tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we are learning that at least four hundred LGBTQ candidates won their midterm races last week. And a Methodist church in St. Petersburg, Florida, recently invited a drag queen to deliver the children’s sermon during a Sunday service.

These are just a few examples of the ongoing quest to normalize LGBTQ behavior in our society. This strategy is succeeding. According to Gallup, the percentage of US adults who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual has now risen to 7.1 percent. This is double the percentage from 2012, when Gallup first measured it.

Among Generation Z (those born from 1997 to 2003), about 21 percent identified as LGBTQ. Among Millennials (those born from 1981 to 1996), 10.5 percent identified as LGBTQ. The numbers declined significantly in each older generation.

“My body, my choice”

It is clear that LGBTQ advocacy is here to stay.

It’s not enough for same-sex marriage to be legal—we must embrace same-sex couples or be considered “disgusting” and a “bigot,” as Candace Cameron Bure has learned. It’s not enough for LGBTQ activities to be more popular and accepted than ever—we must embrace and celebrate them or face the wrath of those who do.

The reason is simple: fallen people want to be the king of our personal kingdoms. We want to be our own gods (Genesis 3:5) with authority over our own lives. “My body, my choice” is the mantra of our post-Christian culture. It applies to everything from abortion to euthanasia, from gender issues to legalizing drugs.

Medical science has helped us gain such apparent sovereignty over our bodies. For example, medication abortions can be obtained and performed at home. Physician-assisted death is more available than ever before. Physicians can modify our bodies and “transition” our genders through hormones and surgeries in ways heretofore unthinkable.

As a result, evangelical Christians should be prepared to face unrelenting and escalating attacks on biblical morality. Our children will be ridiculed at school; we will be pressured to adopt Pride Month and other LGBTQ advocacy at work; our churches, schools, and ministries will be marginalized and worse.

“I have great love and affection for all people”

You and I must resist two temptations in response.

One is to privatize our faith, to back down in the face of opposition and withdraw from the “culture wars.” This we must not do: we are commanded to “honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Every person you know deserves to know what you know about the Lord and his perfect will for our lives.

A second temptation is to condemn those who condemn us. This we must not do: we are commanded “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2). We are not to be “culture warriors” but “cultural missionaries,” committed to “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) no matter how others treat us.

Candace Cameron Bure modeled such a response when she replied yesterday to her critics: “All of you who know me, know beyond question that I have great love and affection for all people. It absolutely breaks my heart that anyone would ever think I intentionally would want to offend and hurt anyone.”

She added, “To those who hate what I value and who are attacking me online: I love you.”

“The best way to destroy an enemy”

The simple fact is that you and I are just as fallen and temptable as those who oppose biblical morality. Our sins are no less sinful than theirs. The difference is that “by grace [we] have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). We have received a transforming gift we are now called to pay forward to those who need the grace we have experienced.

So, when you hear about Christians being ridiculed for biblical morality, pray for your fellow believers and for those who disparage them. When you face such ridicule, pray for the grace to “bless those who curse you” and to “pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28).

Theologian F. F. Bruce observed, “The best way to destroy an enemy is to turn him into a friend.”

What new friends will you make today?

Denison Forum

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

My wife and I tested positive for COVID-19 a few days ago. While more than ninety-seven million Americans have contracted the virus since the pandemic began, this was our first time. We are both vaccinated and boosted and are under our doctors’ care, so we’re experiencing mild symptoms. This could be far worse—nearly twenty-eight thousand Americans are currently hospitalized with the disease, which is causing more than three hundred deaths a day.

Our experience with the pandemic has brought back terrible memories of the days before the vaccines when it seemed that anyone could infect anyone and anyone could die as a result. Things are much different now, but humanity’s overall mortality rate is unchanged. Every one of us will die of something someday unless the Lord returns first.

From Sunday’s multiple fatalities at the University of Virginia and the University of Idaho, to last Saturday’s deadly midair collision at a Dallas air show, to comedian Jay Leno’s burn injuries following a gasoline fire, each day’s news is filled with reminders that life is finite and fragile.

And as with most gifts, the more fragile life becomes, the more precious it seems.

Unless, that is, we’re discussing the most fragile lives of all.

Abortion vote an “unmitigated disaster”

Most commentators discussing the midterm elections have focused on control of Congress, with more than a dozen House seats still uncalled as of last night. I have been watching a different story line, one that reveals something deeply urgent about the state of our culture.

According to NPR, “in every state where voters were asked to weigh in directly on abortion rights, they supported measures that protect those rights and rejected initiatives that could threaten them.” Voters in several states approved measures to enshrine abortion rights in their states’ constitutions. And Kentucky voters rejected a measure explicitly stating that the state constitution contains no right to an abortion, a defeat Southern Seminary president Albert Mohler called an “unmitigated disaster.”

These outcomes further reinforce the cultural narrative we discussed yesterday: our postmodern, post-Christian society is increasingly antagonistic to biblical moral values. In a post-Roe world, abortion will be legislated on a state-by-state and community-by-community basis. If the majority of your community is for elective abortion, they will elect pro-abortion leaders who enact pro-abortion legislation.

Consequently, protecting the most fragile of our fellow humans becomes your job and mine.

Three responses

One response is logical: unborn humans are humans.

From the moment of conception, the fetus contains all forty-six human chromosomes and is able to develop only into a human being. Nothing new will be added except the growth and development of what exists from conception. At twelve weeks, the unborn baby is only about two inches long, but every organ of the human body is clearly in place.

As a result, a child prior to birth deserves the same legal protections it will receive the moment it is born. All that happens in that moment is that it changes locations from inside its mother’s womb to outside of it. Making the case that pre-born children are children is foundational to saving their lives from abortion.

A second response is practical: pregnant women deserve all the support they need.

Every reason women cite for choosing abortion is a need we can meet. From financial support (the #1 cause of abortion) to counseling and medical resources, churches and ministries can help mothers choose life.

A third response is spiritual: our culture is being deceived.

A caller on a radio program where I was being interviewed made the claim that she is personally opposed to abortion but doesn’t feel she has the right to make this decision for others. Tolerance is the cardinal ethos of a relativistic culture in which “we have no right to force our beliefs on others.” Abortion decisions are best left to the mothers who must make them, or so we’re told.

Of course, in every other dimension of life we enact laws to protect us from each other and even from ourselves. From illegal drugs to seat belt laws, we “force our beliefs” on one another. The greater the consequences, the more strict the law and the more severe the punishment.

But when innocent, defenseless pre-born humans are at risk, we decide we cannot “force our beliefs” on those who would take their lives. This deception comes from “the father of lies” (John 8:44) who blinds the minds of those he deceives (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “comes to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

“Fearfully and wonderfully made”

The fight for life is shifting into a new season in which every community is on the front lines. This means you and I are on the front lines as well.

We need to make the logical case for life wherever we can. We need to support ministries that support pregnant women considering abortion. And we need to pray daily for a spiritual awakening that would expose the darkness of deception to the light of truth.

Then every unborn child across our land will be able to say one day to God, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

Joni Eareckson Tada observed, “Though gradually, though no one remembers exactly how it happened, the unthinkable becomes tolerable. And then acceptable. And then legal. And then applaudable.”

What will you do to reverse this tragic trajectory?

Millions of unborn lives are in the balance.

Denison Forum

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts (Zechariah 4:6).

Democrats will continue to control the US Senate after Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was projected on Saturday to win reelection. Whatever the outcome of the December 6 runoff in Georgia, Democrats will have fifty votes in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote when needed.

This news is far more consequential than it may seem.

The “filibuster” is a rule requiring sixty votes in the Senate to pass legislation. It was suspended on a simple majority vote by Democrats in 2012 to confirm then-President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees and again in 2017 by Republicans to confirm then-President Donald Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court.

President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have each called for suspending it again to pass legislation codifying abortion regardless of states’ objections or legislation. There have been similar calls in support of the so-called Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ rights with no protections for religious freedom.

Two Democratic senators—Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)—have refused to suspend the filibuster in the past. If Democrats win the Georgia runoff, they will be one vote from doing so even over the objections of both.

One vote away?

As the leader of a nonpartisan ministry, my purpose today is not to advocate for or against any political party or leader. Rather, it is to illustrate the problems inherent in advancing biblical morality through secular legislation.

For example, if you believe on biblical grounds that marriage should be between a man and a woman, you should be strongly opposed to the so-called Equality Act (EA) which has passed the US House of Representatives twice but does not have the sixty votes it needs in the Senate. But if the filibuster were suspended on this issue, the EA would pass and be signed by President Biden. And legislation considered to be the most invasive threat to religious liberty in American history would become law.

We may be one vote in the Senate from this scenario becoming a reality. Pro-life supporters could face a similar scenario with proposed legislation that would codify abortion access regardless of states’ laws or objections.

In both cases, Christians would be depending on one or two senators to prevent legislation that has broad public appeal. For example, 58 percent of Americans support a federal law establishing a right to an abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb; 70 percent support same-sex marriage.

From Moral Majority to moral minority

My entire professional life, conservative Christians have engaged our culture on the premise that the majority of Americans agreed with us. For example, Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979 to advance conservative social values; the name was meant to signify that he and his supporters spoke for the majority of Americans on cultural and moral issues.

At the time, 70 percent of Americans believed (PDF) same-sex sexual relations were “always wrong”; in 1988, only 10 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage. Electing lawmakers who would support traditional marriage was not only the right thing to do biblically—it reflected the broad consensus of Americans.

This consensus is now gone.

If lawmakers vote in ways that reflect popular consensus today, biblical morality will increasingly lose. You and I will hope for the “right to be wrong” on the basis of our First Amendment religious liberty protections, but these can be overturned on a case-by-case basis as with the so-called Equality Act.

Not to mention all the other ways a “moral minority” can face the opprobrium of the majority, from demands that the NCAA exclude evangelical schools, to threats against federal funding for schools deemed “discriminatory” against LGBTQ students, to calls for ending tax-exempt status for organizations that do not support same-sex marriage.

Could this be the start?

More than ever before in American history, America’s Christians will need to be both courageous and persuasive. We will need to stand for biblical morality whatever the personal cost, remembering that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). And we will need to persuade our fellow citizens that biblical morality is best for them and for society since we can no longer depend on legislation and legislators to do that job for us.

In other words, Christians in the twenty-first century are returning to the first century. We are returning to a day when we had little or no social standing. We owned no buildings, so we taught “in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20), going to those who would not come to us. We had no official clergy, so each of us was responsible for “the work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:11–12).

And by Acts 17:6 we had “turned the world upside down” and birthed the mightiest spiritual movement in human history.

Our secret was simple: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). Paul testified, “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:4–5).

Could it be that we have relied in recent decades on politics to do what only the Spirit can do? Could America’s widespread embrace of unbiblical morality and rejection of biblical Christianity force us to depend on the Spirit more than ever before?

If so, could this be the start of the spiritual awakening we and our nation need so desperately?

Denison Forum