Signs and Wonders 04.18

What's in a name? You may have seen the bumper sticker that says, "Love My Country. Fear My Government." A Rasmussen survey released this week puts numbers to the fear. Rasmussen Reports asked Americans which government agency they fear most, the Internal Revenue Service or the "occasionally ham-handed" (Rasmussen's words) Transportation Security Administration, which handles airport security. A plurality (43 percent) said the IRS. Just 20 percent, in fact, feared the TSA more. Thirty-six percent were undecided.

Slashed! When Marc Andreas of the Michigan-based Bethany Christian Services sent me an email saying an abortion clinic in Orlando was posting discount coupons online, I didn't believe it. Or, at least I didn't want to, but then I saw the coupon for myself, and I went from anger to sadness and back to anger again. The coupon offers a $50 discount on an abortion if you bring it in on a Sunday. Why a Sunday? Pro-life demonstrators are usually at church on Sundays. Andreas is right when he calls the ad "powerful and awful." And worse. Much worse.

Apartheid trumps Holocaust. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped end apartheid in South Africa, but the world-famous cleric uses his global stature to bless abortion and same-sex marriage. So his invitation to be commencement speaker (and receive an honorary doctorate) at Gonzaga University, a Catholic institution in Spokane, Wash., has stirred a controversy. Pro-life alumni and supporters of the school have asked Spokane Bishop Blasé Cupich to ask the university to rescind the invitation. The requests have so far gone unanswered. Gonzaga's invitation to Tutu appears to violate the 2004 U.S. Catholics Bishops' directive "Catholics in Political Life," which states, "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." By the way, according to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2008 there were 43.8 million abortions worldwide. Maybe Gonzaga will want to mention that when it gives Tutu his honorary degree.

True persecution. I know we have to fight for our rights here in the United States, and I applaud those who take a stand so we can say prayers at football games, or display the Ten Commandments. Seriously. But I also think we sometimes take offense too easily when I read stories like the one Compass Direct News recently reported: In India's West Bengal state, Rekha Khatoon, 22, was attacked on March 9 by her parents and Muslim extremists for becoming a Christian. Her response: "I boldly told those who beat me up that I may leave my parents, but that I will not leave Jesus." The same mob also harassed the Christian woman who encouraged Khatoon to trust Christ. About 20 Muslim radicals surrounded her house at night, shouted anti-Christian slogans, threatened to harm her and her family, and falsely accused her of "luring" Khatoon to convert to Christianity. Again, I'm not saying we should keep quiet here in the United States when wacky secularists wage their puny battles against us, but I think we should be careful about throwing around the word "persecution." We've got it easy here, and we should be grateful.