Paraclete March 2012

NOTE: The Renewal For Life^® site, is no longer password protected. However, if you are enrolled in Renewal For Life^® you will need your username and password to access the FORUM. Also, Life Advocate training will only be accessible for RFL congregations.

Renewal For Life^® in Texas!
Are you aware of the new regional director position in Texas? Jean Amundson, president of Lutherans for Life of Texas and state representative on the Lutherans For Life board of directors, and a part-time secretary at an Anglican Episcopal church, is married to Robert, a router for Walmart, “Me-Ma” to seven grandchildren, and mom to four grown children. She was hired as the first part-time regional director of Texas in January 2012. Since then she has been very busy. Here is a short update from her:

 
Howdy! from the regional director of Texas. Great things are happening with forming Life Teams in the churches that are signed onto to Renewal For Life^®. Currently, there are two churches that wish to be trained to be Life Teams and two Life Team leaders who are anxious to be trained.

One of the Life Team leaders informed me that what he likes best about the new program is that he will not be alone, someone is there to encourage him and of whom he can ask questions, as well as assistance.

God has truly blessed Lutherans For Life and we continue to “Equip Lutherans to be Gospel-motivated voices For Life!”

Hello!
by Dale Olson

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Dale Olson. I I joined The Life Center team on February 14th as the Director of Operations. I grew up in Lake Mills, Iowa, where I married my wife Kris. We have been blessed with two sons and three grandchildren.

After earning a B.A. degree in accounting from Buena Vista College, I worked for Cummins Engine Company for 37 years in many different managerial positions and locations. I was able to travel internationally for several years in my last assignment with Cummins, which provided opportunities to learn about many new cultures—and I continue to enjoy friendships from these travels around the world. I retired form Cummins at the end of 2008 and within seven weeks was led to work for Fender Guitar in California. I worked for Fender for two years and retired a second time! I spent 2011 enjoying my family in Ames, Iowa, where we now reside. I serve as chairman of Bethany Lutheran Church in Ames. I also lead Bethany’s Sunday morning adult Bible study.

The Lord has blessed me richly and He poured out another blessing on me when He led me to Lutherans For Life this year. I am so excited to work with this fine group of Christians here at the Life Center who have a zeal to carry on the Mission of Lutherans For Life “Equipping Lutherans to be Gospel-motivated voices For Life.”

I would ask that you continue to pray for the success of the ministry of Lutherans For Life. I hope to meet many of you at the Lutherans For Life conference in August. Please contact me at Lutherans For Life if I may help you in any way.

FORUM: The event calendar will now be updated on a monthly basis with events that the national office will participate in. If you have a local event you would like added to the calendar, email jrichard@lutheransforlife.org for instructions.

Devotional Thoughts

by Rev. Dr. James I. Lamb

It sent shock waves across the Internet—well, at least for awhile. The article, After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? appeared in the February 23rd edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics. The authors defended the thesis by saying the same arguments that apply to killing a human baby before birth should also apply to killing a newborn human baby. For example, if it is okay to kill an unborn baby because tests indicated he has Down syndrome, then it should be permissible to kill a born baby with Down syndrome. If it is okay to kill an unborn baby because the mother feels she could not afford a child—officially a “health” exception—then it should be okay to kill a born baby if the mother feels the same after she gives birth.

Their thesis flows from this presupposition: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life.’” They define person this way: “We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” Twice they refer to children with “severe abnormalities” or those with “certain pathologies” as having lives “not worth living.” This is frightfully akin to the arguments made in the pre-Nazi Germany publication Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens (Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life).

So maybe you can understand the shock waves. But personally, I honestly do not understand what the shock and fuss is all about. (Now that sentence may have also shocked you!) But this has been going on for thirty-nine years. Fifty-four million times we have said, as a society, “That life is not worthy of life.” About every thirty seconds we brutally destroy such “unworthy life,” day after day, month after month, year after year. Killing born babies for the same reasons is a logical extension of decades of slaughtering unborn babies. We should not be shocked at all.

Neither should we be shocked as this logic extends to “lives unworthy of life” at other points in life’s continuum; if personhood can arbitrarily be assigned, it can arbitrarily be removed. We’ve seen it happen in the Netherlands where they now have non-voluntary euthanasia which they call, “termination of the patient without explicit request.” We headed down this same path by legalizing assisted-suicide in three of our states.

On a personal level, what does shock me is that I often find myself no longer shocked at the carnage of abortion. I deal with abortion and the other life issues in one way or another every day. It can become routine, “another day at the office.” Satan hides the terrible realities of his hatred of life behind schedules and appointments, meetings and deadlines. Maybe you observe such tactics in your life from time to time. The really important matters of faith and life become obscured in the background by a flurry of “critical” issues that “just can’t wait.”

Where does one turn? Of course, we know the answer to that. It’s the Sunday school answer—Jesus! This month gives us a particular place to turn in Jesus’ life that I have found helpful in renewing in me that great value God gives to human life and, subsequently, renewing the sense of urgency to speak up for and defend that life—Mary’s fallopian tube!

“The angel said to Mary, ‘And behold you, will conceive in your womb …'” (Luke 1:31a ESV).

On March 25th we observe the Annunciation of our Lord. Nine months before Christmas, it marks the conception of Jesus. Besides the obvious exception of His cross, I find His conception an amazing demonstration of our Lord’s love for life from its very beginning. He started where we did. He had to. We were sinful from that moment (Psalm 51:5). Our Lord’s making Himself nothing (Philippians 2:7), was not just seen in a baby lying in a manger, but in this speck in a fallopian tube moving along to Mary’s uterus. The God that the highest heavens cannot contain becomes a speck.

What a profound expression of His love! What a testament to the value He gives to “specks,” to embryos, to unborn children. This shocks me back into being shocked once again at the wanton destruction of human life going on every day. For it is more than human life. It is human life loved and given value by God’s action in Jesus, action that begins in a fallopian tube, lies in a manger, walks upon the earth, and then, the object of our Lenten journey, is lifted up from the earth and nailed to a cross. We view that cross with heads bowed for our complicity in making it happen. We view that cross shocked that He would love us anyway and this much. We view the cross with a heavy, hopeful heart. For we know the story does not end here, but in the shocking news of an empty tomb.

So should we be shocked that two philosophers coined and defended the phrase, “After-birth abortion”? I suppose not. It results from the not-so-shocking-anymore path we have been on for thirty-nine years. It is the precursor of the path that lay ahead. But perhaps it can shock us into being shocked again and renew our resolve, zeal, and energy to be Gospel-motivated voices For Life.

I thank you for your prayers for LFL. I invite you to continue them so that we may never let our guard down and make Satan think he has a fighting chance. He doesn’t! He’s defeated by a cross and a resurrection!

May the Lord of Life bless you upon your Lenten journey.

Renewal For Life Resources

Brand New Resources!

Reflections on Motherhood – Mother’s Day Bulletin Insert

A Father’s Responsibility – Father’s Day Insert

The Handiwork of God – A Bible study DVD with Dr. Lamb

Also available:

The Handiwork of God brochure

Essays and Articles: An article for parents titled, Safe sex?, 12 tough questions for Christian parents, by Linda Bartlett is a helpful resource for parents in addressing the issues of sexual purity with their teen. Specific questions, with biblically based responses will help guide discussions between parent and teen.

Brochures: Mystery of the Mixed Message and More than Sex Can Say are just two of the many brochures LFL offers regarding sexual purity. Click on the links and order through CPH.

The Annunciation: The path to the cross did not begin in Bethlehem but in Nazareth! March 25 is the most appropriate time to celebrate the Incarnation. God became man at Jesus’ conception in Mary. Since our beginnings were sinful (Psalm 51:5), Jesus had to take our place from that very moment. Part of the redemptive process was for Jesus to pass through all stages of our development. What powerful implications for the value of human life from the very beginning! Jesus’ divinity and humanity at the moment of conception attest to our humanity from that moment. Resources available through Lutherans For Life include:

• Bulletin Insert: Miracle of the Incarnation
• Sermon: Pregnant with God. You can download free from the RFL site: Resources/Creation/Worship Resources/Worship sermons/Pregnant with God.
• Worship Service: The Annunciation of our Lord. You can download free from the RFL site: Resources/Creation/Worship Resources/Worship Services/The Annunciation of our Lord.

• Brochure: The Annunciation and Abortion

Other resource:

Word of Hope is LFL’s post-abortion ministry, which offers confidential, post-abortion referral, counseling, and reconciliation.

Youth Projects

Need some ideas on how to get the youth in your congregation involved in the life issues? Check out the booklet, “How You Can Speak” on the RFL site. Life Advocate training/teaching tools/how you can speak.

Video Idea: One idea you can implement at a Lutheran school, or youth group is to have a YouTube video contest. You can have your own rules, or use the guidelines featured in the spring 2011 edition of Directions.

Life Quotes

Life Thoughts

Life Quotes and Life Thoughts can also be found on the Home page in the Renewal For Life library.

Life Tube®

Life Blog

LFL on Facebook

LFL on YouTube

Prayers

Downloads

Calendar

Store

Support Lutherans For Life

To receive the latest and most up-to-date information on the life issues, visit the LFL Life Blog. The link can also be found on the main page of the RFL site.

Past issues of the Paraclete can be found on the RFL site in the Life Advocate Training section.

RFL Team:

Jerilyn Richard

Director of Renewal For Life^®

^{jrichard@lutheransforlife.org}

^{Kim Nessa}

Renewal For Life^® Administrative Assistant

^{knessa@lutheransforlife.org}