Free Republic

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. As we await the final vote on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, we might want to ask ourselves, “What have we learned from the process?” One possible answer: a great deal about the clash of worldviews that made the process so bitter. In his opening statement, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois (D) set forth what he called his “test for a Supreme Court nominee.” It was not “where he stands on any one specific issue”—no litmus tests for the gentleman from Illinois. Instead, what...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. In 2003, government leaders in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, adopted what they called “Vision 2025.” The plan is billed as the “largest set of public redevelopment projects in the history of Tulsa County.” The members of Centennial Baptist Church in Sand Springs call it something else: an “unholy land grab.” It’s a land grab for which we have the Supreme Court to thank. Part of “Vision 2025” calls for redeveloping “an abandoned industrial area” in Sand Springs for “big box retailers” and other stores. However, the area in question isn’t...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. What’s the most important thing most of us will do? The answer is, obviously, raise our kids. And that’s what New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote in his New Year’s Day column, but believe it or not, he caught all sorts of grief. Brooks was responding to a recent piece in the American Prospect by Linda Hirshman of Brandeis. She criticized the idea that “staying home with the kids is just one more feminist option.” For Hirshman, “the family—with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks— . . ....

BreakPoint with Charles Colson January 4, 2005 Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. On Election Day, initiatives defining marriage as one man and one woman passed overwhelmingly in all eleven states that had them on the ballot. But this victory isn’t necessarily permanent. Unless we continue to make a compelling case for the sanctity of marriage, public opinion is quite likely to drift in the other direction. And it’s going to be increasingly difficult to make that case unless we deal with some of the skeletons in our own closet. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, a...

To paraphrase the late conservative intellectual Richard Weaver, election results have consequences. The consequences of the off-year 2001 elections will not be limited to the manner in which the victors govern; they will have a national impact as future pretenders to public office ponder their meaning and plan campaigns accordingly. Republicans are likely to draw all the wrong lessons from November 6 and do so at their peril. To review, the GOP lost the governorship in both Virginia and New Jersey while retaining the mayor's office in New York City (the Houston mayoral race will be decided in a runoff)....

Virginia-2005 Election Reults---------------------------------------------- Precincts Reporting: 2418 of 2426 (99.67%) Registered Voters: 4,451,542 Total Voting: 1,971,284 Voter Turnout: 44.28 % ---------------------------------------------- Kaine-(D)-1,019,366-51.71% Kilgore-(R)-907,212-46.02% Potts Jr-(I)-42,919--2.18% Write Ins-----1,787--0.09% Total:----1,971,284 ---------------------------------------------- Virginia-2001 Election Reults---------------------------------------------- Precincts Reporting: 2493 of 2493 (100.00%) Registered Voters: 4,108,104 Total Voting: 1,905,511 Voter Turnout: 46.38 % ---------------------------------------------- Warner-(D)-984,177-52.16% Earley-(R)-887,234-47.03% Redpath(L)--14,497--0.77% Write Ins------813--0.04% Totals---1,886,721 ----------------------------------------------New Jersey-2005 Election Results 6,131 of 6,310 Precincts Reporting ---------------------------------------------- Corzine(D)-1,152,347-53.03% Forrester(R)-948,372-43.64% Other---------72,453--3.33% ---------------------------------------------- New Jersey-2005 Election Results---------------------------------------------- McGreevey(D)-1,214,043-56% Schundler(R)---908,984-42% Schluter-------23,475---1%

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. Warning: This commentary contains graphic information not suitable for younger readers. You may have heard the uproar over a new teen novel called Rainbow Party. The controversial book by Paul Ruditis concentrates on one afternoon in the lives of thirteen high-school sophomores. One of them, a girl named Gin, is planning a sex party. The other kids are trying to decide whether to attend. The book takes explicitness to a whole new level. Several different sex acts are described. Even before the party starts, two sex acts take place,...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. Much of the late John Paul II’s pontificate was spent clarifying what Catholicism did and, just as importantly, didn’t teach. These clarifications, especially in areas such as humanity, sexuality, and the sanctity of human life, often earned him the enmity of self-styled “progressives.” There was one area, though, in which many of these same “progressives” hailed the late Pope: And that was evolution. His 1996 statement calling evolution “more than just a hypothesis” was seen as an acceptance of the compatibility of Darwinian evolution and Catholic faith. It turns...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. When "BreakPoint" first went on the air, crime ranked at the top of Americans' concerns. A record 2,250 homicides had been committed in New York City alone. Today, New York is on pace to record 450 or one-fifth as many homicides, and crime no longer ranks among Americans' top ten concerns. This precipitous drop has prompted many explanations. Some of them, like better policing and the end of the "crack wars," make logical and moral sense. But there's one persistent explanation that makes no sense at all, and that...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. When the New York Times is willing to consider the possibility that evil exists, you have to wonder what’s really going on. Joking aside, the Times ran an intriguing article, titled, “For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be ‘Evil.’” It gives valuable insight into a secularized culture grappling with the question of what makes people do bad things. Author Benedict Carey writes, “Most psychiatrists . . . avoid the word evil, contending that its use would precipitate a dangerous slide from clinical to moral judgment that could...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. What does it mean to be conservative and Christian in a red and blue America? Chuck Colson recently attempted to answer that question in a speech he gave to the Council for National Policy. The answer he gave was not the answer you might expect. But I believe it was an answer that a lot of us need to hear. Judging from the response Chuck received from the audience—a group made up of many different races and backgrounds—they felt the same way. The theory of a divided America is...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. One of the most devastating things any parent can hear is that their child probably will not survive past birth. But that’s the news Susan and Saqib Ali received when they were expecting their first child. Their unborn daughter, Leila, was diagnosed with a brain condition called holoprosencephaly, or HPE. Most children with this condition die in the womb; those who survive birth usually die before they reach six months. And the condition causes severe physical and mental problems. According to the Washington Post Magazine, the number of HPE...

You’ve seen all the press lately on parents’ demanding to know if a sexual predator is in their neighborhood. Likewise, what parent wouldn’t want evidence of a possible sexually based offense against a child reported to the authorities? Yet, when my good friend state Attorney General Phillip Kline recently took steps to make these things happen, it was labeled an “inquisition.” Why? The almost sacred status of the “right to an abortion.” Earlier this year, Phillip Kline, the attorney general of Kansas, subpoenaed the medical records of ninety women “who received late-term abortions at two Kansas clinics in 2003.” In...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. It was a strange coincidence that Terri Schiavo’s ordeal took place during Holy Week. What she went through, and the nation’s reaction to it, taught us a sobering lesson about suffering and redemption. The things that ordinary, sensible Americans were saying about Terri’s case were shocking and upsetting. “Let the poor woman die” was one of them. But Terri was not dying before her food and water were taken away. She simply needed to eat and drink, just like the rest of us. Then there were the various media...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. “You either have a wedding or you burn down something.” That was the recipe for garnering ratings during sweeps week back when the TV show Happy Days was in syndication. But no longer—things have changed. Today, shows like The O.C. and One Tree Hill take advantage of kisses to gain publicity—but not just any kisses. The sweeps attraction today is the now nearly pedestrian lesbian kiss. It might be predictable, but as Virginia Heffernan writes in the New York Times, it can “transform a lackluster show into a news...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. Two bottles of Romanian plum brandy had been enough to end the life of seven-year-old Constantin’s father and with it the violence that he inflicted on his family. Turning to seven-year-old Constantin, now the man of the house, and his three younger siblings, the doctor shook his head. “Poor children,” he muttered, “you aren’t guilty. Why should you have such a hard life?” Forty-one years later, Constantin Asavoaie is the founder of Prison Fellowship Romania, and he runs three homes for delinquent, street, and prisoners’ children. Today, as he...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. Since the 2004 election, the American media are trying to understand religion’s role in the lives of Americans. It’s a difficult task for them because, as CNN’s William Schneider once put it, “the press . . . just doesn’t get religion.” A recent high-profile attempt to “get religion” is the new issue of Time magazine. In it, Time identifies what it calls the “25 most influential evangelicals in America.” These are people “whose influence,” in Time’s estimation, “is on the rise or who have carved out a singular role.”...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. On Election Day, initiatives defining marriage as one man and one woman passed overwhelmingly in all eleven states that had them on the ballot. But this victory isn’t necessarily permanent. Unless we continue to make a compelling case for the sanctity of marriage, public opinion is quite likely to drift in the other direction. And it’s going to be increasingly difficult to make that case unless we deal with some of the skeletons in our own closet. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, a well-known author and lecturer on marriage, pointed...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. America was about to go to war—again—and liberal theologians were appalled. We are making a terrible mistake, they warned. We are demonizing the enemy and rushing to war. We are not fighting for democracy, but we’re about to engage in a "clash of imperialisms." And, in fact, we are really to blame for our enemies' evil acts. As it turned out, the theologians were wrong—but many refused to admit it until World War II was over. Six decades later, as Joe Loconte, the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. When you hear the name Charles Dickens, what comes to mind? A Christmas Carol? Sentimental tales of poor but loving families, or helpless orphans saved by wealthy benefactors? All of those impressions are accurate, but there’s a lot more to Dickens than that. In fact, there’s a lot more to this great novelist than even many literary critics have been able to see. Author, editor, and critic Myron Magnet suggests that this is because so many readers and critics bring their own preconceptions to their reading of Dickens (along...