Many Iraqi Christians Won’t Be Home for Christmas. One Group Is Determined to Change That

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For the past two Christmases, historically Christian neighborhoods and towns in Northern Iraq have passed the holiday without church bells, thanks to ISIS occupation. While this year will be different, those communities are still a long way from fully coming home. One organization is now trying to engage U.S. congregations and parishes to make their return possible.

News broke in October that the military campaign to retake Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, from the grips of ISIS’ occupation was met with hopeful anticipation.

In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population numbered around 1.4 million. Thirteen years later, that number has dwindled to just under an estimated 300,000, with most of it concentrated in lands once held by ISIS. Now, Iraqi Christians who want to return home have been met with post-occupation aftermath that leaves many of them wondering when they’ll be able to start putting the pieces of their lives back together.

The problems for those who are trying to repatriate are “multi-layered,” explains Juliana Taimoorazy, founder and president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council (ICRC) and senior fellow at the Philos Project.

“First off, it’s cold,” she explained, noting the issues of trying to move populations during northern Iraq’s harsh winters. “Secondly, they’re returning to ground zero. The cities that have been liberated, completely … have been completely devastated.”

Taimoorazy is herself an Assyrian Christian. She was smuggled out of her native Iran into Switzerland in 1989 due to religious persecution from Iran’s Islamist regime. She eventually was granted asylum in Germany a year later before coming to the United States in 2000. Now, she works as an advocate for persecuted Christians in the Middle East with ICRC.

One of the biggest problems in the area has been ISIS’ use of chemical warfare and the lasting effect it has on the area. She notes that in one city alone, 60 percent of the homes have been chemically targeted, while many of the farms in the fertile region along the

Tigris River have also been chemically polluted.

Even worse, in many cases ISIS’ devastation has gone beyond the structural and economic damage done to homes, businesses, churches and farms, to something far more fundamental: the family.

“So many people are returning while their mothers and sisters have been sold into ISIS sex slavery, their fathers have been executed, or their kids are missing, ” Taimoorazy said. “So the family unit has been torn apart. It’s not the same as it used to be in many cases. In many ways, their crisis has just gotten worse.”

“This is where we’ve been asking the international community and the Iraqi government to think seriously about what [the displaced individuals’] return and rebuilding is going to look like,” Taimoorazy said. In response, she’s working through her organization to rebuild things, block by block.

The Iraqi Christian Relief Council began planning Operation Return to Nineveh shortly after the military campaign to reclaim Mosul began, launching it in mid-November. The operation’s mission is to “support the return of thousands of families to their ancestral towns [through] the rebuilding of community centers, schools, homes and churches destroyed by ISIS.”

ICRC’s focus currently is primarily on the town of Teleskof, north of ISIS lines, along with Bartella, Baghdeda (Qaraqosh), Karmlis, and Batanya in the Nineveh Plains region, which has been home to Christians since the first century A.D.

One of the group’s biggest efforts right now is to convince American congregations to adopt and sponsor churches in liberated areas for reconstruction and renewal.

“In a lot of these places, the local church structure is still standing, along with a lot of the homes,” Juliana Taimoorazy explained to CR. “But the things inside have been destroyed, looted, or burned.”

“Right now, the biggest challenge is that people are coming back to ground zero with very few [outsiders] stepping up to help,” she added, stating that the conditions present too big an obstacle for some to return at all.

“For the past two years a lot of the people I talk to say they have been living in limbo. They’ve had dreams of returning, and they haven’t been able to see what’s happened to their homes, their churches, and their community centers,” she said. “Now that they’ve been able to return and assess the damage, they’re completely heartbroken. Reality sinks in.”

While funds have come in from “all over the world,” Taimoorazy said, 95 percent of the money raised so far has come from individual donations in the United States. They’ve gotten sums raging from “$2.50 to thousands of dollars.” (Interested parties can donate to VictimsofISIS.org.)

“We are seeking churches to adopt ‘sister churches’ in the region to help them rebuild,” she said. “For example, we have a proposal from St. George’s Church in Teleskof that tells us how much the floor costs, how much the ceiling costs, the price of windows, and things like that.”

ICRC is also seeking corporate and nonprofit partners in their efforts, which have even earned the endorsement of evangelical author Erwin Lutzer, former senior pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago.

“This is an ongoing project and it’s going to be broken into phases,” said Taimoorazy. “Phase 1: the street, the block, so-and-so has been cleaned. Check mark. Phase 2: the Church rebuilding has begun. Check mark.” And so on.

But these efforts, and others like them, need all the help they can get to succeed. (Or even begin, in many cases.)

“I thank people [in the West] for standing with these [Christian refugees] while they were in displacement for two-and-a-half years,” Taimoorazy said. “But now the work begins. Now they need the church’s help, and American help, and Canadian help, and European help more than ever to help them rebuild their lives.” (For more from the author of “Many Iraqi Christians Won’t Be Home for Christmas. One Group Is Determined to Change That” please click HERE)

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5 Things Pro-Lifers Have to Celebrate as 2016 Comes to a Close

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2016 has been rough on everyone, and the pro-life movement is no exception. With the loss of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in February, followed by a major pro-abortion victory in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the calendar year has been capped off by President Obama’s feeble, 11th-hour attempt to force states to fund Planned Parenthood.

However, as the numbers and some key developments illustrate, advocates for the unborn actually have great cause to celebrate at year’s end. Here are five signs of hope and encouragement.

1. Polling shows that a majority of Americans are pro-life

Almost 44 years after the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down in January of 1973, a majority of Americans identify as “pro-life” and support substantial restrictions on abortion:

A July survey conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Policy found:

[A]bout 8 in 10 Americans support substantial restrictions on abortion (78 percent), and would limit it to, at most, the first three months of pregnancy. This number includes 62 percent of those who identify as pro-choice, 85 percent of African-Americans and 84 percent of Latinos …

Furthermore, a Gallup poll in May found that more Americans regard themselves as “pro-life” than “pro-choice” (48 vs. 45 percent, respectively). “What’s more,” writes Jeffrey H. Anderson at The Weekly Standard, “opposition to abortion is rather plainly on the rise, as those numbers were effectively flipped 10 years ago — and as, in the mid-1990s, the number of people who considered themselves ‘pro-choice’ outpaced the number who considered themselves ‘pro-life’ by about 20 percentage points.

A November poll by the polling company, inc./WomanTrend found that a stark majority of Americans (64 percent) support a nationwide ban on abortions after 20 weeks (with the mother’s life, rape, and incest exceptions), when the unborn child is believed to feel pain. The measure was especially popular with African Americans and millennials, 70 and 78 percent of whom supported it, respectively.

2. Abortion clinics are closing nationwide

Recent findings from pro-life group Operation Rescue show that 31 abortion facilities across 18 states closed in 2016. According to the Christian activist group’s report, the number of facilities providing surgical and medical abortions currently stands at 731 nationwide, a 15 percent decrease from the 860-facility high in 2012.

“The political pendulum has swung our way, and we plan to work very hard to take advantage of this opportunity to immediately call for enforcement of laws that will shut down abortion facilities and save lives,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.

“I believe this dramatic reversal of fortunes will pave the way for the eventual end to abortion in our country. There is now no excuse for failure.”

3. Abortion rates are down, in a big way

Data most recently available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that abortion numbers and rates are on a general decline. The latest figures, from 47 states, shows a total of about 665,000 abortions performed in 2013.

“[C]ompared with 2012, the total number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions for 2013 decreased by 5%,” writes the Family Research Council’s Arina Grossu. “From 2004–2013, the number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions also decreased 20%, 21%, and 17%, respectively, reaching their lowest level across the board for that time period.

“Additionally, the abortion rate for 2013 was 12.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years, about half of the 1980 recorded rate. The Associated Press reported that the CDC has not recorded a lower abortion rate since 1971, two years before the Roe v. Wade landmark decision.”

4. Pro-life laws are on the rise at the state level

According to the Guttmacher Institute (also known as Planned Parenthood’s research arm), the year 2016 continued a growing trend of pro-life laws at the state level.

By July, states had already adopted 46 new abortion restrictions, the Guttmacher Institute lamented. The report goes on to say that, since 2010, states have passed 334 pro-life laws, which make up 30 percent of all such measures.

And with Republicans now controlling a record number of state legislatures, the trend is certain to continue.

5. The 2016 election results hold some serious pro-life promise

Perhaps some of the most heartening numbers for social conservatives this year are the following: 1 president, 2 houses of Congress, 4 big promises.

The sanctity of life played a tremendous part in the 2016 presidential election, and President-elect Donald Trump’s promises to pro-life voters were a big part of the coalition that arguably brought him over the finish line.

And he made some pretty big promises, too.

Now with a Republican-run legislative and executive branch stacked up to govern in January, there’s literally no reason whatsoever not to defund Planned Parenthood, replace Justice Scalia’s seat with a pro-life constitutionalist, pass and sign a pain-capable abortion ban, and make the Hyde Amendment permanent law.

2016 has indeed been a doozy, but — for pro-lifers, at least — the numbers are looking good for the year to come. (For more from the author of “5 Things Pro-Lifers Have to Celebrate as 2016 Comes to a Close” please click HERE)

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This Privately Run NYC Shelter Offers the Homeless Something Big Government Programs Can’t

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This Christmas, 60,000 homeless New Yorkers are feeling the sting of failed Big Government policies that were instated to help them.

New York City’s (Marxist) Mayor Bill de Blasio recently expanded his administration’s 2016 budget for homeless services to $1.6 billion, an historic high and a 60 percent increase from when he took office in 2014. An even more damning commentary on the mayor’s hopeless governance, is the source of de Blasio’s record budget.

“Funding from city funds seems to be flat,” Doug Turetsky, of the city’s Independent Budget Office, told The New York Times. “Any increase in the overall budget seems to be driven by state and federal aid.”

Improving the city’s homelessness problem was a key platform of de Blasio’s 2013 campaign, but as a new election year draws near, New York’s homeless population has risen by close to 20 percent — including nearly 24,000 in the city’s shelters.

“They keep creating new programs because they still believe that they will find a magic bullet,” Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, a former New York City deputy mayor who oversaw homelessness until she resigned last year, recently told The Wall Street Journal. “Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the immediate crisis and to forget that you need to step back and create more permanent solutions.”

What sort of solution would it take to eliminate a problem as pervasive and complicated as homelessness? On whom or on which group should this responsibility fall? In other words, whose job is it to care for these individuals? The federal government? The city? Churches and nonprofits? Local residents?

James Winans, chief development officer at The Bowery Mission, a faith-based homeless shelter located on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, told Conservative Review that he believes all of these groups have an important and irreplaceable role to play in combatting homelessness.

“Homelessness is a crisis in our entire community, and so it takes the entire community to respond,” Winans said. “We actually feel like government, nonprofit organizations, churches, individuals all have a role to play. It actually takes all of us together, working together, to effect this problem. It’s not something any one sector of our society is going to solve on its own.”

The Bowery embodies the economic principle of subsidiarity, which holds that what can be accomplished by smaller bodies should not be usurped by larger, more complex institutions. The idea is that local organizations are best equipped to handle local issues, because they are more intimately tied to these issues than a larger, faceless government entity.

Aside from one city partnership serving 77 program participants at a time, the Bowery is privately funded. Since its founding in 1879, the shelter has relied on the generosity of individuals, businesses, and other local institutions to keep its doors open.

CDO James Winans, who first began serving in one of the Bowery’s men’s recovery programs 17 years ago, told CR that high-dollar government programs are often unsuccessful because they only focus on immediate, material needs like food and shelter. A complex problem like homelessness requires a personal, human response that addresses the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of these individuals.

“The city of New York is going to invest $1.6 billion this year in the problem of homelessness,” he said. “And we feel like their response is not holistic enough — that, in fact, it’s a community-based organization like the Bowery Mission that can actually offer a holistic response.”

According to Winans, when it comes to long-term recovery, community is key. The Bowery provides the same services as many shelters — meals, lodging, showers, clothing, and medical care — all in a “community of care.” And what sets this mission apart is its dedicated community of staff, volunteers, Christian church leaders, and donors that is truly invested in the personal wellbeing of its individuals.

“We want to invite people to change the direction of their life,” Winans said.

The Bowery’s residential recovery program was created with this major goal in mind. The one-year program offers counseling, the mission’s daily chapel services, job-training classes, and assistance in reconnecting with family, all while living in that community of care.

Winans noted that, for all of the stereotypes, for some homeless people, all it took was a health crisis, the loss of a job, or a dissolving marriage for them to find themselves on the street.

More than money, he said that the homeless people he meets are longing for something many people take for granted: a support system. In order to meet this crucial need, the Bowery staff relies on thousands of volunteers who are willing to invest their time in someone else’s future.

“People giving generously of their time creates a community where life transformation happens,” Winans said.

The Bowery, once referred to as New York’s “Skid Row,” is now a bustling cosmopolitan district with high-end stores, restaurants, and museums. And though some may assume that a homeless shelter would offer a deterrence to urban renewal, the Bowery Mission’s Winans has found that many of these businesses are eager to partner and share their prosperity with the less fortunate in New York City.

For example, this holiday season, a designer shoe store across the street from the mission is running a shoe drive, encouraging customers to donate their old pairs of shoes to the shelter. The store has even offered to repair badly worn shoes for free.

The Bowery staff has been able to witness the power of private charity and the spontaneous order that emerges in the absence of notoriously inefficient Big Government programs. And while gigantic bureaucracies with an endless flow of cash can’t help but continue getting in their own way, the effectiveness of the mission community approach speaks for itself. Subsidiarity works, and it can be applied in any community — big or small.

“Make no mistake about it: There is homelessness in every community,” Winans told CR. “Be it urban, rural, suburban communities, there are people experiencing life without a home. Life without a support system. Life without a support structure.”

James Winans understands that human problems require human solutions. Flourishing occurs when individuals acknowledge their duties as not merely compulsory taxpayers, but neighbors, leaders, mentors, caretakers, and friends.

The Christmas season is always among the busiest times of year for the Lower East Side Bowery. And while this is to be expected, Winans believes that these people are looking for more than just physical warmth:

“The holidays [are] a time when people are seeking community. They’re seeking to not be isolated and lonely. They’re seeking to be … connected with others”

It is this type of insight that has helped restore hope to so many people who have come to the Bowery Mission in a desperate state. It is something money simply can’t solve and simply can’t buy. (For more from the author of “This Privately Run NYC Shelter Offers the Homeless Something Big Government Programs Can’t” please click HERE)

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Scientists Keep Trying to Deny the Heartache of Abortion — With Poor Science

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Our culture is in a worrisome state when major medical journals ignore the foundation and methods of science in service to a political end. Equipped for decades with billions in grant revenue, ideological control of the academy, and agenda-driven professional organizations, scores of scientists have suspended personal and professional ethics to safeguard women’s right to end the lives of their children and suffer the concomitant effects. Dr Antonia Biggs and colleagues are just the latest to march down this path with their JAMA Psychiatry article titled “Women’s Mental Health and Well-Being 5 Years after Being Denied an Abortion: A Prospective, Longitudinal Cohort Study.”

What once appeared to be a subtle mainstream journal bias in favor of publishing results, suggesting abortion poses no threat to women’s psyches, has morphed into a peer-review process, blind to scientific deficiencies as long as the results further leftist abortion rights initiatives. These are desperate times for the pro-choice community, as they seek to block women-centered abortion laws rooted in strong empirical evidence and the voices of brave women standing up to share their post-abortion struggles.

What better way than to grab bullet points from a JAMA article and flood the popular media with them? Women deserve better and here is why the latest study results have absolutely no merit and will not hold up in any court.

Study results and their obvious bias

The authors compared women who received abortions just under legal gestational limits with women who wanted an abortion but were denied, because they were just over the facility gestational limit (Turnaway Group) relative to psychological outcomes. The Turnaway Group was subdivided into those who gave birth and those who obtained an abortion subsequently or miscarried. The authors summarized the results by stating “Women who were denied an abortion, in particular those who later miscarried or had an abortion elsewhere (Turnaway no-birth group), had the most elevated levels of anxiety and lowest self-esteem and life satisfaction 1 week after being denied an abortion, which quickly improved and approached levels similar to those in the other groups by 6 to 12 months.”

The authors’ objective for publishing the study is introduced in the opening line: “The idea that abortion leads to adverse psychological outcomes has been the basis for legislation mandating counseling before obtaining an abortion and other policies restricting abortion” and it is nailed down at the end of the article when they state “…there is no evidence to justify laws that require women seeking abortion to be forewarned about negative psychological responses.” As scientists we never make such sweeping conclusions based on a single study, particularly when there is an abundant literature comprised of sophisticated studies with discrepant conclusions.

Courts throughout the US have concluded that women should be appraised of the risks before consenting to abortion; it is absurd that these researchers have attempted to shift the tide based on this one study. Funding was predictably secured from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation among other sources with a political agenda. As described on their website, “Our work in the United States seeks to advance reproductive health and rights for women and young people by improving access to quality comprehensive sexuality education, family planning and safe abortion care.”

Results are inconsistent with the current state of knowledge

The results of hundreds of studies published worldwide over the past three decades indicate that abortion is a substantial contributing factor to women’s mental health problems. I published a meta-analysis on the association between abortion and mental health in the British Journal of Psychiatry (BJP) in 2011. In a meta-analysis, the contribution of any particular study to the final result is based on objective scientific criteria (sample size and strength of effect). The BJP sample consisted of 22 studies and 877,297 participants.

Results revealed that women who aborted experienced an 81% increased risk for mental health problems. When compared exclusively to unintended pregnancy delivered, women were found to have a 55% increased risk of experiencing mental health problems. This review offers the largest quantitative estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion currently available. Evidence of this nature has influenced informed consent legislation in many states. For example, upholding the South Dakota law in 2012, the US Court of Appeals relied upon the emerging body of data.

Methodological shortcomings

• Only 37.5% of women invited to take part in the study actually participated, and across the study period 42% of these dropped out, rendering the final sample comprised of under 22% of those eligible for inclusion! The 78% of women whose voices are not included were likely those who had the most serious post-abortion psychological complications. With sensitive topic research, securing a high initial consent rate and avoiding sample loss are vitally linked to the validity of the conclusions. The authors acknowledge this fact as they state “we cannot rule out the possibility that women with adverse mental health outcomes may have been less likely to participate and/or been retained.” We really can just stop here, because this is a fatal flaw.

• In a previous article with the same data published last year in PLoS ONE, the authors noted that the sample had a high concentration of women from low socioeconomic backgrounds, obviously not representative of US women undergoing abortion today. Now we hear from the research group that “given the large number and range of recruitment facilities representing geographically diverse regions in the US (30 clinics from 21 states), and that our sample demographics are consistent with those of nationally representative samples of women seeking abortion, we believe these results are generalizable.” A sample is either representative or it is not.

• The authors failed to reveal the specific consent to participate rates for each group. Second trimester abortions have been established as potentially more traumatizing than first trimester procedures; therefore it is likely that a significantly higher percentage of women in the first-trimester group compared to those in the second trimester group consented to participate. If the rates were comparable, why not report this? Failure to report critical information increases suspicion that this “near limit’ group is in no way representative.

• In the Turnaway Study, women who secured abortions near the gestational limits included women for whom the legal cut off ranged from 10 to 27 weeks. There is a wealth of data indicating that women’s reasons for choosing abortion and their emotional responses to the procedure differ greatly at varying points of pregnancy. Women aborting at such widely disparate gestational ages should therefore not be lumped together, particularly when such information is available in the data.

• The authors do not explain how the sites were actually chosen. What type of sampling plan was employed? Why were only those identified with the National Abortion Federation used? What cities were included? Which areas of the country were sampled?

• All 4 outcome measures are shockingly simplistic with 2 variables containing only 6 items and 2 variables measured with single items. This is inexcusable given the many psychometrically sound multiple item surveys available in the literature. Further, no theoretical basis is given for the cut-score employed to determine clinically relevant cases of depression or anxiety. Well-trained behavioral science researchers should not measure complex human emotions in such a superficial manner; and ethically responsible scientists would not extrapolate from minimalistic assessments to women’s emotional reactions to one of life’s more challenging decisions.

The authors suggest that later abortions are healthier for women than childbirth when women seek abortions, obscuring the well-documented risks of late abortions to women’s physical well-being in addition to the elevated psychological risks. For example, using national data, Bartlett and colleagues reported in 2004 that the relative risk of abortion-related mortality was 14.7 at 13–15 weeks of gestation, 29.5 at 16-20 weeks, and 76.6 at or after 21 weeks. This compares to a 12.1 rate for childbirth. Bartlett reported that the causes of death during the second trimester included hemorrhage, infection, embolism, anesthesia complications, and cardiac and cerebrovascular events.

Many women who make the decision to abort do so without a thorough understanding of the procedure. A number of studies have revealed that feeling misinformed or being denied relevant information often precipitates post-abortion difficulties. There is also considerable evidence that a high percentage of women walking into abortion clinics are conflicted about the choice.

In a 2006 study I published with colleagues in the Journal of Medical Ethics, we found that 95% of a socio-demographically diverse group of women wished to be informed of all possible complications associated with drugs, surgery, and/or other forms of elective treatments, including abortion. Fortunately state-level legislation has responded to the needs of women, respecting the gravity of an abortion decision by mandating dissemination of accurate information on the procedure and risks involved, time to reflect on the decision, and sensitive pre-abortion counseling.

This latest study in JAMA will be aptly tossed on the dusty stack with other similarly compromised studies that have yielded results palatable to a culture fighting to normalize a procedure that will never feel natural or right to countless women. The studies will be unattended to by the average person, clinicians, and the science-savvy alike, because the results simply do not align with the lived experiences of women. (For more from the author of “Scientists Keep Trying to Deny the Heartache of Abortion — With Poor Science” please click HERE)

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What Should Christians Do After a Year Like 2016? The Bible Has Some Suggestions

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In 2016, the presidential election dominated everything. It consumed nearly every social media post I scrolled past, every conversation I heard and every news report I watched. If it wasn’t one candidate saying, doing or being accused of something scandalous, it was the other.

Christians on both sides made equally impassioned cases for their version of the right thing to do, complete with doomsday prophecies, if-then predictions, and even suggestions that anyone voting for the other candidate must not really be saved.

Overwhelmed with the bombardment of “advice” and disheartened at the ugliness I often saw between candidates and voters, I would sometimes think, under the shadow of a double-handed face palm, What is happening to our world and what the heck am I supposed to do?

But then one day, God showed up with a much-needed reminder. I don’t remember exactly when this happened or how. All I know is that I was in the middle of one of my frustrated-at-everyone fests (scrolling through Twitter was likely involved) when the reminder dawned on me, kind of like a light bulb that flicks on quietly in the corner, lending a soft glow to the darkness.

Moral Depravity Surrounds Us

First, God reminded me that I shouldn’t be surprised at the moral state of our society.

If there is one thing the past election cycle did well, it exposed how significantly religion’s influence in America has waned. We have witnessed the rejection of God’s perfect design for men and women, the acceptance of brutality against unborn innocents, promotion of assisted suicide, and threats to religious liberty — just to name a few hot issues.

But this shouldn’t catch us off guard. “Understand this,” Paul tells us,

that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

This is human nature, and it’s nothing new. In the time between Christ’s ascension and his return, we are told that we will encounter the exact kind of behavior we are seeing today. This is the way politicians, celebrities, and even our neighbors will behave.

Acknowledging the inevitable depravity of humanity, even in our own country, will help us to deal with it accordingly. When it feels like the entire culture is calling goodness evil (Isaiah 5:20), that’s when it’s most difficult to obey. Paul tells us to “Abhor what is evil; host fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9).

But thankfully, we are well equipped to do so: “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13).

Our Ultimate Calling

Then, God reminded me that no matter how bad the world is and no matter what I political preferences are, my calling as a Christian remains the same:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).

If I am getting so caught up in the election of temporary, earthly rulers that it clouds my faith and distracts me from this ultimate call, then I need a serious gut check.

Everything In Love

Finally, God reminded me that carrying out this calling must be done in love.

It’s easy to be upset, angry and bitter about what is happening in our nation politically and culturally. Often, it seems like it’s even easier to be angry toward fellow believers with whom we disagree on politics than with nonbelievers with whom we don’t expect to agree.

But that is not how Jesus calls us to shine his light. In John 13:35 he tells us, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

And that love isn’t just for our brothers and sisters in Christ:

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked (Luke 6:35).

In a post-election America where many people just as divided and angry at each other as they were before November 8, this reminder couldn’t be timely enough.

Three Resolutions

I’ll need a many more light bulb reminders before I really get it. But for now, instead of perpetually shaking my head in exasperation, I’ll start 2017 with these three resolutions:

Don’t be surprised at the state of our world. Put on God’s armor and hold fast to truth. Keep sharing that truth, and do so with love for all. (For more from the author of “What Should Christians Do After a Year Like 2016? The Bible Has Some Suggestions” please click HERE)

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Feel the Hate, Feel the Love, and Thanks for the Teamwork

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As we come to the end of 2016, by all counts a highly unusual and even surreal year, I wanted to take a moment to thank each of you who have read my articles or watched my videos and shared them with others. Through our teamwork here online, we are getting a message out to the world, and together, we are making a difference. I couldn’t do it without your help!

Of course, not everyone likes it when you tackle the controversies, confront the culture, and challenge the status quo, and to the extent you hit the target, you will get a lively, sometimes ugly response.

Feel the Hate

In response to one of my video debates, where I called out a professing Christian leader who wished that the American government would execute gays, one man wrote, “Dr. Michael Brown is a sell-out and a failure and lost because of his old age he needs to give up the show because he’s irrelevant besides his 60 plus year old YouTube video subscribers.”

Another wrote, “You are a f—–g joke. You kiss the a– of f-gs.”

In response to my video on National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution,” one woman posted, “You don’t deserve to live in a liberal world,” while another added, “I was expecting something actually smart and thought stimulating but this is some religion bs lmao also stop misgendering you Old idiot.”

Then there are the regular death wishes and occasional death threats, like “Dr. Brown you should be stoned”; and “Your days are numbered you freak”; and, “Go away and f–k yourself, Dr. Brown. I hope you die of cancer, long slow and painful.”

Of course, there are the constant accusations that I do what I do for selfish gain, such as these: “you are Jew first [meant as an insult] and a Christian for $”; “you are a rightwing shill”; “you serve the g-o-d of mammon”; “this man is a con”; and, “Don’t buy the book. Vampires like Brown only want your money. They use Christianity for get rich quick schemes.”

Then there are the religious conspiracy theories, like this one: “It looks to me like he’s had Jesuit training.” But of course!

And there are the endless accusations of sexual perversion, most to vile even to repeat. Among the more mild is this: “You’re obviously a closeted tranny chaser so just come out with it already.”

There are even some readers who get the color of my skin wrong, despite my picture accompanying my articles, like this woman who was upset with my warning to believers about voting for Hillary: “You are BLACK…do you think you are exempt from Lord Trump’s discrimination? Go sit down!! or get your dumb A$$ in the basket of deplorables!!” (This is almost as bad as the man who called me a “shill for Hillary.”)

Conversely, a black man reprimanded me for denying that Jesus was black, saying, “Dr. Brown you are a f—-g demon and have no knowledge the scriptures” and, “You so called white ppl are devils . . . are gonna pay for your whitewashing brainwashing genocide and just being a f—-g cancer to the planet.”

In a similar spirit, a viewer taking exception to my video lecture, “Is Israel an Evil Occupier” began his post with, “Good speech Dr s–t liar mother f—-r,” before getting to his points.

One gay man, whom I tried to reach out to, even branded me “the least Christ-like pastor of all time,” while a Muslim told me that, “Ali Khamanei [the Supreme Leader of Iran] is closer to Jesus than you are.”

Feel the Love
This, of course, is the tiniest selection of hate-filled posts coming from a wide range of viewers and readers on a daily basis, but they are completely outweighed by comments from those whose lives have been positively impacted, like the two, young Christian men from Syria, recent refugees to Australia, who said to me with tears, “You are our voice”; or the Christian woman who emailed me, eager to share how she had been completely delivered from an intense, long-term lesbian relationship and was now happily engaged to a man; or the 15-year-old high-school student who thanked me for being the grandfather she never had and for helping to preserve her sanity in the midst of the hostile environment.

Thank God for the lives He has touched!

As for all the hate mail, it’s actually a source of encouragement to me, a sign that we’re doing the right thing (Matthew 5:10-12) and another reminder to pray for those who malign us. May they receive the same grace and mercy I received 45 years ago.

So, as we enter this new year, a year filled with opportunity and expectation, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your help in disseminating our message, for your constructive and thoughtful comments (including when you disagree), and for your prayers and support.

You would be massively encouraged and full of hope if you could sit where I sit and see and hear the reports that come our way on a regular basis, and you would be full of faith as we enter 2017, eager to prove out the Scripture that says that nothing is impossible to him or her who believes (Mark 9:23.)

It’s true! (For more from the author of “Feel the Hate, Feel the Love, and Thanks for the Teamwork” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

They Grew up in a Poor Neighborhood. How School Choice Changed These Brothers’ Lives.

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Carlos and Calvin Battle grew up in the poorest neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where nearly two-thirds of children are living in poverty. In 2016, only 42 percent of students attending the local public high school graduated.

In an attempt to get her sons a better education, their mother, Pam Battle, enrolled Calvin and Carlos in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The program provides low-income families vouchers to send their children to private schools, and has shown a promising ability to increase graduation rates. However, many—including teachers unions, the Obama administration, and the education establishment—have worked to shut down the program.

Watch the video to see how the program influenced the Battle family, and to hear why Calvin and Carlos think programs like it could help others succeed not just in school, but in life. (For more from the author of “They Grew up in a Poor Neighborhood. How School Choice Changed These Brothers’ Lives.” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

13 Victories Conservatives Want From President Trump by Next Christmas

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What should conservatives expect from Donald Trump’s first 100 days of presidency?

Aided by full Democratic control of Congress, President Obama was able to do much harm in his first 100 days of White House control. In 2009, Obama had virtually free reign to implement his agenda.

He used that free reign to … pass a then-$787 billion stimulus bill; create a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq; pass a budget appropriating funds for Obamacare, expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (i.e. SCHIP); relax enforcement of federal marijuana laws; formally endorse the U.N. Statement on ‘Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity’; end the federal funding ban on embryonic stem cell research; and overturn a ban on federal funding for international abortion providers.

Now the tables have turned. Donald Trump is president-elect and the Republicans have full control of Congress. What follows is the conservative’s Christmas 2017 wish list. These are the agenda items Republicans should demand of the Trump administration in its first 100 days of White House control.

1. Full repeal of Obamacare

This is the big one. The Republicans emphatically won control of the House of Representatives in 2010 solely on the “stop Obamacare” wave and promise. They gained control of the Senate in 2014 on the same promise. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly broken their promises on this disastrous law.

Now is the time. Donald Trump needs to pressure the Republicans in Congress to fulfill their promises and deliver on a full and complete repeal of Obamacare. They can accomplish this by using budget reconciliation to pass the repeal without giving the Democrats an opportunity to filibuster. Failure to immediately deliver on this, as health insurance premiums continue to rise for American families, will break American confidence in the Republican Party and doubtlessly put GOP control of Congress in jeopardy in the 2018 midterms, along with Trump’s chance for reelection in 2020.

2. Border security and The Wall

While Obamacare’s repeal is the signature policy demand on the Right, illegal immigration and a southern border wall between the U.S. and Mexico are the signature issues that propelled Donald Trump to the front of the pack during the Republican presidential primary.

Trump has proposed a concrete wall anywhere from 35 feet to 50 feet or higher, estimating the cost of his proposal to be as high as $12 billion. He’s also famously pledged to make Mexico pay for it.

Daniel Horowitz has previously written for CR on the necessity for a legitimate southern border wall. And while some question the practicality of a concrete wall, a double-layered border fence is practical, effective (where it has been tried in San Diego and Israel), would cost roughly $2 billion, and, in fact, is already required by the 2006 Secure Fence Act.

The construction of the wall will not be completed overnight. But in the same way that President Obama budgeted funds for Obamacare before that law’s passage in his $3.5 trillion 2010 budget, Trump ought to insist Congress do the same to address the porous southern border.

3. Government lobbying ban

As part of his promise to “drain the swamp,” President-elect Trump pledged to institute a five-year lobbying ban for former officials after they leave the White House or Congress. Additionally, Trump has proposed a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.

These are common sense reforms that would decrease the influence of lobbyists for crony capitalists in D.C., and they have bipartisan support. Trump can accomplish his lobbying ban through executive order, but going through Congress would obviously have more force and social capital.

4. Repeal Dodd-Frank

“Dodd-Frank has made it impossible for bankers to function.” Donald Trump told Reuters back in May. “It makes it very hard for bankers to loan money for people to create jobs, for people with businesses to create jobs. And that has to stop.”

He is absolutely right. This atrocious piece of 2010 legislation (officially the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act) established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Financial Stability Oversight Council — two boards of unelected bureaucrats that hang over the heads of banks in this country, zapping them with millions of dollars in fines and draining needed capital for investment and growth out of the marketplace to … only God knows where.

While liberals and populists love the idea of sticking it to the Big Bad Banks, like most all liberal policies, it has had the unintended consequence of hurting the little guy (small community banks) the most.

As of June 2015, American financial institutions suffered more than $160 billion in losses to government fines, which translates to a loss of approximately $3 trillion of potential growth, stifling job creation. Congress should enact and President Trump should sign a repeal of Dodd-Frank, unleashing capital into the economy and stimulating job growth in parts of the country that so desperately need it.

5. Nominate a pro-life justice to the Supreme Court

For many voters, keeping Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat out of the clutches of a liberal Clinton-appointed judicial activist was the single reason to vote for Donald Trump. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to nominate a pro-life justice to the court.

Trump won, and to the victor goes the Supreme Court nomination. The president-elect has floated a widely praised list of legal minds. The problem is, as the Eagle Forum’s Andy Schlafly told Conservative Review contributor Steve Deace, though many justices on Trump’s list have the backing of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist society, “most of them are actually not pro-life.”

Take Wisconsin Justice Diane Sykes, “probably the top pick of the Federalist Society,” according to Schlafly. “If you dig into her record you find that when she was a state court judge, she sentenced two pro-life advocates to jail for 60 days for a peaceful protest they engaged in. She also struck down an Indiana law that defunded Planned Parenthood,” Schlafly stated.

“This is not a pro-life judge,” he said. Conservatives need to hold President-elect Trump’s feet to the fire on this issue. Trump must nominate a justice who has a clear record of unabashedly pro-life, pro-Constitution rulings. Anything less would repeat the mistakes of previous Republican presidents, and lead to the nomination of another liberal David Souter or back-stabber John Roberts.

6. Pain-capable abortion ban

It is not enough to simply nominate a pro-life justice and trust the courts to take care of the abortion issue. Congress and enforcement from the executive branch is necessary to end the inhumane and evil practice of late-term abortions. Trump went so far as to promise a “Pro-life Coalition” on the campaign trail.

Trump can move beyond campaign rhetoric by signing into law a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks, the point at which a child is capable of feeling pain. The cruelty and inhumanity of abortion is the same at all stages of a child’s development in the womb. Public opinion has swung in favor of the pro-life movement, and tangible policy achievements by the incoming Republican administration are more possible than ever (and the pain-capable abortion ban has already passed through the House of Representatives once).

7. Defund Planned Parenthood and make the Hyde Amendment permanent

The abortion mill that was caught on tape allegedly discussing the illegal sale of baby body parts has been formally recommended for prosecution by the special House committee responsible for investigating the illicit activities first exposed by the Center for Medical Progress. Efforts by conservatives to defund Planned Parenthood have been repeatedly defeated by threats of an Obama presidential veto and spineless Republicans who melt at the whisper of “shutdown.” But no more.

With the self-proclaimed pro-life Donald Trump in the White House, the veto threat is gone, and the worry over a government shutdown with it. There is no excuse to continue funneling tax dollars to Planned Parenthood now. And President-elect Trump should make the Hyde Amendment — which outlaws federal funding for abortion — permanent law, as he promised to do during the campaign.

8. First Amendment Defense Act

Congress and the president must act to protect the First Amendment rights of religious Americans. And President-elect Trump can accomplish that by signing into law the First Amendment Defense Act.

As the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah (A, 100%), explained, “The First Amendment Defense Act (S. 1598, H.R. 2802) would prevent any federal agency from denying a tax exemption, grant, contract, license, or certification to an individual, association, or business based on their belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.”

“For example, the bill would prohibit the IRS from stripping a church of its tax exemption for refusing to officiate same-sex weddings.”

Trump has previously expressed conditional support for the legislation. “If Congress considers the First Amendment Defense Act a priority, then I will do all I can to make sure it comes to my desk for signatures and enactment,” Trump wrote in a letter last year.

Congress ought to make First Amendment protections for the religious a top priority. And Donald Trump ought to keep his promise to sign that legislation into law.

9. Fix the Fed

President-elect Trump has consistently railed against the Chinese and has pledged to designate the communist country a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office. He would do well to also look inward and tackle the number one manipulator of U.S. fiscal policy: the Federal Reserve.

John Gray and Tommy Behnke have written on the opportunity for Trump to affect major policy change at the Fed by filling two vacant positions on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (and potentially up to four by 2018) with hard-money advocates. The leadership at the Federal Reserve is responsible for run-away inflationary policies that have cut the purchasing power of the dollar, and for artificially low interest rates that have recklessly disrupted the business cycle. The Fed’s created bad incentives for entrepreneurial capital investment — creating the environment for another great recession.

In a positive sign, Donald Trump has endorsed a return to the gold standard, and voiced awareness of the Fed’s bad leadership. “Sadly, we all know what’s happening to the dollar,” Trump told The Street in 2011. “The dollar is going down, and it’s not a pretty picture, and it’s not being sustained by proper policy and proper thinking.” Trump should appoint members to the Federal Reserve Board that share his thinking on hard money and believe that a change in policy is necessary.

Additionally, Trump ought to sign into law Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%)’s legislation to audit the Fed to ensure accountability. He can also fight to enact positive reform by pushing to end the Fed’s dual mandate to keep the money supply stable and fight unemployment — a reform supported by Vice-president-elect Mike Pence.

10. Tax reform

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 40%) recently announced that comprehensive tax reform is all but guaranteed in 2017 using the budget reconciliation process, and stated he prefers a “revenue-neutral tax package.”

Republicans need to think bigger than “revenue neutral” and go for, as Brian Darling wrote for Conservative Review, “a wholesale scrapping of tax credit cronyism and massive tax cuts for business and individuals alike.”

What would that look like? It looks very much like adopting a plan proposed by President-elect Trump on the campaign trail. As CR’s John Gray wrote last year (“Donald Trump’s Tax Plan is YUUGE”), the Trump tax plan offered the largest tax cuts of any Republican plan proposed during the presidential primary:

The (Trump) tax cut not only easily surpasses all other candidates’ tax cuts in size, but it surpasses all of the other tax cuts combined! You heard that right. According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, Jeb Bush’s tax cut of $3.665 trillion, Rand Paul’s tax cut of $2.974 trillion, and Marco Rubio’s tax cut of $4.14 trillion add up to an aggregate cut of $10.779 trillion. At $11.98 trillion, the Donald’s tax cut is YUGE.

Since his initial proposal, Trump has tweaked the plan to address criticisms. The latest iteration would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, eliminate the death tax, permit families to deduct the full cost of child care, permit businesses to immediately expense all capital investments, and substantially lower individual income tax brackets to 12 percent, 25 percent, and 33 percent. These are great pro-growth ideas that conservatives ought to see signed into law next year.

11. Scrap Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders (DACA to start)

This is a Day 1 pledge from Trump that has been long-awaited by conservatives. Trump has promised to “cancel immediately all illegal and overreaching executive orders,” and he needs to start with President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty.

Recent statements by the president-elect indicate that he could be going back on his word and wavering on his promise to repeal the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals executive order that granted amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants. That is unacceptable equivocation.

Failure to repeal DACA, which Trump himself has called “illegal and unconstitutional,” would constitute a broken campaign promise of the highest order and signal that Trump is no different from the amnesty-embracing Establishment Republicans he railed against on the campaign trail.

12. Repeal the EPA “Waters of the United States” rule

The Environmental Protection Agency is on a constant crusade for ever more control over every aspect of Americans’ everyday lives. In 2009, the agency moved to declare carbon dioxide — otherwise known as human breath — a “dangerous pollutant” in order to introduce a slew of new regulations to control the economy.

Likewise, in 2015 the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jointly issued a new water regulation that, in practice, illegally gave the EPA the authority to regulate non-navigable waters by redefining terms to circumvent restrictions on the EPA’s regulative authority in the Clean Water Act of 1972.

The result, as the National Federation of Independent Business concluded:

If rain collects on your property somewhere or you happen to have a pond or a stream bed that remains dry but for a small amount of time per year, then chances are the federal government will be requiring you to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a permit.

Landowners in violation of the rule could be fined an average of $37,500 per day. The EPA’s power grab essentially granted the administration an unlimited ability to extort land owners. Congress has attempted to pass a repeal bill to rein in the EPA, but President Obama vowed to veto any and all such repeal legislation. President-elect Trump needs to sign that repeal legislation in 2017.

13. National right to carry

“The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans,” reads Donald Trump’s official policy position on the right to bear arms. “The Constitution doesn’t create that right — it ensures that the government can’t take it away. Our Founding Fathers knew, and our Supreme Court has upheld, that the Second Amendment’s purpose is to guarantee our right to defend ourselves and our families. This is about self-defense, plain and simple.”

To that end, the president-elect has called for national concealed carry reciprocity. He declared: “A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.”

Almost every Republican in Congress claims to be pro-gun rights, and now with Republican control of the government, it is time to finally restore the constitutional right to bear arms for every American with a national concealed carry permit.

These are the campaign promises. These are the agenda items. 2017 is the time to transform talk into action.

Check back with Conservative Review next Christmas to see which promises President Trump fulfilled, and which ones he broke in 2017. (For more from the author of “13 Victories Conservatives Want From President Trump by Next Christmas” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

6 Times the PC Police Tried to Steal Christmas This Year

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We are in the heart of Christmas season, so that means it’s time for the tolerance Grinches to come out of their closets once again. And, despite its dumpster fire excesses, it is only fitting that the year 2016 close with the memory of these recent incidents and examples of America’s perennial War on Christmas.

1. No to “religious-themed” displays of Santa deity

An Oregon school district instructed staff to sacrifice Christmas symbols at the altar of “diversity.” According to a memo sent by the Hillsboro School District, school staff could still decorate their offices, but were asked to “be respectful and sensitive to the diverse perspectives and beliefs of our community and refrain from using religious-themed decorations or images like Santa Claus.”

Santa Claus is now too much for this Portland-adjacent school district.

2. Emergency Christmas tree memo

Government officials threatened to trash a Christmas tree in a cubicle at the Department of Veterans Affairs office in Philadelphia. A VA employee, who asked to remain anonymous, informed The Washington Times of one “chilling” memo:

“There is a Christmas tree, ornaments, and decorations in the cubicle across from Luis Stevenson’s desk (the same cubicle where the scanner is housed),” VA supervisor Rebecca Cellucci told workers in a late November email marked “high” importance. “If this belongs to you, please claim it. Otherwise, it will be discarded on Friday.”

3. It’s religious censorship, Charlie Brown

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is alleged that a middle school staffer’s First Amendment rights were violated after school officials tried to censor a “Charlie Brown Christmas” holiday poster, as it also contained a Bible quote.

CBS DFW reported:

A Patterson Middle School staffer had placed the poster depicting a “Charlie Brown Christmas” on a school door. It showed Linus and the line from the Bible “unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior.”

The principal told the staffer that the drawing could remain, but the biblical quote had to go.

A.G. Paxton joined a lawsuit against the school, invoking the state’s 2013 “Merry Christmas law” (under then-Gov. Rick Perry) that permits biblical references to Christmas material. A district court judge eventually ruled in favor of the teacher’s rights, restoring the display of the poster.

4. “Civil liberties” triggering

A lawsuit taken up by the ACLU forced the small Indiana community of Knightstown to take down a cross from its Christmas tree, after the local town council decided it could not win a legal battle involving the ACLU.

The local resident who filed the lawsuit claimed that the existence of a cross-bearing Christmas tree on public land “violated his civil liberties.”

5. No school choirs for this Tar Heel Christmas concert

A list of school choirs in Wake County, N.C., were prohibited from performing at an off-campus Christmas celebration after a lawsuit from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which regularly brings cases against any semblance of theism in the public square.

According to the Raleigh News & Observer:

The Wisconsin-based foundation argued that it was unconstitutional for the school choirs to perform at the annual nativity celebration sponsored by the Church of Latter-day Saints in Apex. Wake school officials said they acted after the foundation forwarded a YouTube video in which a church official makes statements such as how the event “represents a wonderful opportunity for you to bear testimony of Christ to your friends.”

“The advice of Tharrington Smith (the district’s attorney) is that it put the district in the position of potentially endorsing a religious viewpoint,” a school district spokesman told the Observer.

6. The war on … “holiday”?!

And if all the Christmas holiday sterilization on America’s college campuses wasn’t enough for you, one professor at Texas Woman’s University now wants you to stop saying the word “holiday” in association with the season altogether.

An online post on the university website suggested holding a “secular celebration,” offering suggestions on how to avoid “missteps” that might be beyond the diverse and multicultural pale … or something like that.

Though since removed by the school, Dallas’ WFAA 8 offers what is allegedly the original text, on Scribd:

Consider naming the party, if it is scheduled for December, without using the word “holiday.” “Holiday” connotes religious tradition and may not apply to all employees. For educational institutions, a December gathering may instead be called an “end of semester” party. For a business office, an “end of (fiscal) year” party may be more appropriate.

Further benevolent suggestions:

Try to assemble and include a diverse group of employees in the planning of the party. This would include, as much as possible, non-Christian employees of Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and other religions, as well as non-believers.

Avoid religious symbolism, such as Santa Claus, evergreen trees or a red nosed reindeer, which are associated with Christmas traditions, when sending out announcements or decorating for the party. Excellent alternatives are snowflakes, snowmen or winter themes not directly associated with a particular holiday or religion.

Avoid playing music associated with a faith tradition, such as Christmas carols. Consider a playlist of popular, celebratory party music instead.

I’d just say forget the whole thing and grab lunch together, but the potential presence of a Christmas tree in the restaurant might send someone into shock. You have to be careful about these things, after all.

The attempts to get around the fact that countless objects and events during the winter season revolve around a major Christian holiday get more absurd every year, it seems. And even though our president-elect has assured that we’re going to start saying “Merry Christmas” again, that probably won’t deter the P.C. police and the secularist Grinches from continuing to try their darndest to ruin the holiday for the rest of us.

Either way, the season is still upon us, and that’s always cause for joy. Eat a cookie, drink some egg nogg, lend a helping hand, enjoy your priceless family’s company, and have a Merry Christmas, everyone.

Or don’t, your call. Just don’t try to ruin it for everyone else. (For more from the author of “6 Times the PC Police Tried to Steal Christmas This Year” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Sheriff’s Deputy Receives ‘Best Gift’ — a Kidney — From Fellow Officer Just in Time for Christmas

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A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy received just the present he wanted a little early this year — a lifesaving kidney from a fellow officer.

The men met when Sergeant Darrin Offringa was Deputy Kevin Ay’s supervisor in July 2010. The two men became good friends and kept in touch over the years. So, when Ay was diagnosed with kidney failure in November 2013, Offringa began checking in on him from time to time. It was during one of those visits that the men learned they shared the same blood type, ABC News reported.

Offringa said his faith drove him to help his friend and fellow officer. “As I’ve dived deeper in my faith, my heartstrings were pulled to help out Kevin in this way and give him this gift,” Offringa said. Offringa’s left kidney was determined to be an ideal match for Ay.

On November 29, Offringa endured a four-hour surgery to remove the kidney.

The two deputies say that the transplant has “strengthened their relationship.”

“Words can’t really express how grateful I am to Darrin for what he did for me,” said Ay in a recent press conference. “So, if our story can help convince anybody to go through and make that donation, it’s the best gift anybody can give.”

Both men are doing very well.

(For more from the author of “Sheriff’s Deputy Receives ‘Best Gift’ — a Kidney — From Fellow Officer Just in Time for Christmas” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.