A day for fools and Christians

Note: This was also the first column on Townhall.com, Sunday 4/1/07 (Andrews in Denver Post, April 1) As a staunch conservative, I’ve never had much use for Hillary and Bill. But after their recent civil rights pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama, a change of heart overtook me. I have signed on as national chairman of Republicans for Clinton 2008, and you read it here first.

Actually, you read it here on April First, which means I’m fooling. You weren’t really taken in, were you? It was just too far out of character. Of course, people thought the same thing when such bad actors as Saul of Tarsus, slave trader John Newton, and Nixon hatchet man Chuck Colson signed on as born-again Christians. They were dismissed as frauds, fools, or both. But each man’s turnabout made him a benefactor to society thereafter.

Since the nonsense of April Fool’s and the solemnity of Holy Week coincide this year, it’s worth asking what it might be, besides foolish superstition, that makes the churches overflow on Palm Sunday and Easter every spring. After two millennia of continued human suffering, following the arrival of a Prince of Peace who was supposed to change all that, why do believers still believe?

Paul, the former Saul, cheerfully confessed himself a fool for Christ, take it or leave it. He conceded that the cross, in which the faithful see salvation, may appear as just so much foolishness to nonbelievers. In other words, reasonable people can differ about these things – and God talk comes off poorly in newsprint anyway.

Sticking then to what is, shall we say, historically and sociologically verifiable, it’s a fact that the reason Christians take Holy Week so seriously is their individual and collective experience of finding that forgiveness and love are in the world more fully in our day because -- as they are convinced -- Jesus died and rose in Caesar’s day. The bunnies and colored eggs next Sunday are all very well, so is the foolery this Sunday, but the bottom line is this love thing.

Granted, those of us who claim to be Christ’s followers have a woefully uneven record of living this out. We profess to worship a good man, executed unjustly, who used his dying breaths to redeem a fellow convict, give his grieving mother a new son, and even forgive his murderers. Why do we often dishonor his example by bashing each other with Bibles?

And that’s among ourselves. Christians’ too-common coldness to those outside the fold is another embarrassment. The hardest thing about Jesus for me to imitate is the unconditional love that he’s said to give absolutely everyone. Ouch. The political opponents my column sometimes harshly condemns? He’s fine with them. Marxists and Islamofascists? He cherishes each one personally, err as they may. I am shamed by his gentle patience with each atheist, his tender heart toward each illegal alien.

The Founder of my faith is so far ahead of me in the forgiveness department that I blush to write this. He was harder on religious hypocrites than government hacks, tougher on temple profiteers than drunken prostitutes. Who knew? If we who claim to be his church don’t find ourselves startled and chastened by him every single day, we’d best wake up.

Two good friends of mine (good Christians also, as it happens) share an April 1 birthday. Imagine turning a year older with your high school sweetheart on each Day of Fools, and making a marriage work all the way to grandparenthood. Maybe it's helped them keep the sense of humility – and absurdity – that gets a couple through the rough spots. Personally, on those mornings when I see a dunce in the mirror, I’m a bit kinder to others all day. Christianity at its best does that on the world scale. No fooling.

Unfazed by the gloom-mongers

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) A big home improvement project monopolized my time for weeks. As I tiled, painted, sawed and plumbed, emails and phone messages piled up. Newspapers and magazines went unread. Today I’m catching up and regretting it.

Thanks to the Denver Post I’ve learned that teens have been charged in the brutal slaying of one teen’s mother, conflict has erupted over the use of water, Democrats in the state’s General Assembly are pushing for gay adoption and voter rights for convicts on parole, and Iraqi terrorists have killed more civilians.

Not to be outdone, the Rocky Mountain News, features on-line pictures of tornado-wrought destruction, an article about another school shooting, and a tale about a counterfeiter who bought Girl Scout cookies with bogus bills (not a bad use in my estimation).

Captain America is dead according to CNN and a bunch of disgruntled Vermonters want to impeach the president says Time Magazine. Now that’s newsworthy.

In U.S. News and World Report I can read articles about the high cost of college, hard feelings in Chechnya, a new faux-documentary disproving Christianity, and an article lauding Hillary Clinton (usually it’s Barack Obama). Last week’s edition, as of yet unread, features “America’s Worst Presidents.” Maybe I’ll skip straight to the articles about nuclear war.

On Newsweek online I can be preached at by John Edwards chastising America who thinks Jesus would be disappointed with the US for not helping the world’s poor. When exploiting religion, don’t let the facts get in the way, John. Americans give away more money per person than any other country.

I’m four editions behind in the Economist. Which one should I start with, the edition with the stealth bomber “Next Stop Iran” or the one about global warming “The Greening of America”? The unread World Magazine is about modern slavery. That looks more promising.

It’s a good thing I started off today with National Geographic, my favorite magazine. I’m only two behind there. According to short article (sadly not available online) called “By the Numbers” Americans are substantially better off today than in 1915 and 1967, the two comparison years.

We live longer. The life expectancy in 1915 was 54.5 years. It was 70.5 in 1967. Today it is 77.8. We earn more. In 1915, Americans earned on average $687 ($13,284 adjusted for inflation) compared to today – $34,926. On top of that, we have more earning power. An American in 1915 paid an equivalent of $5.01 in today’s dollars for a gallon of gasoline and the equivalent of $7.22 for a gallon of milk.

Reading this was like discovering a tiny rose in a sea of thorns.

Are Americans so addicted to bad news that news outlets can’t afford to headline good news? It’s depressing. Moreover, bad news fuels duplicitous political dialogue as politicians capitalize on fears.

Al Gore preaches catastrophic global warming from his mansion, an energy black hole, to listeners apparently eager to hear it. Edwards evokes religion to pan American selfishness. Even though the economy is booming, politicians paint a dire picture to support more income redistribution, pork projects, tax and spend proposals, and regulatory command and control policies.

I’m done. The magazines are going back in the rack. I’m going to make a latte from my $3.25 gallon of milk.

Ritter's pro-life pose unmasked

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) Governor Ritter announced in his state-of-the-state speech that he intends to return funding to Planned Parenthood for “pregnancy prevention and family planning programs.” Nationwide, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion providers, receives some $272 million in tax payer funds annual under Title X of the Public Health Service Act for “family planning and reproductive health.” The program, enacted in 1970, funnels state and federal taxpayer funds to public and private agencies for birth control, STD testing and other activities. Such entities can even provide “neutral” information on abortion which seems like an opportunity for some to expand business.

In 1999, the Owens administration blocked funding for Planned Parenthood when an audit revealed that the organization was subsidizing abortion with tax payer funds, a clear violation of the Colorado Constitution. This year, Ritter intends to return the subsidies. While taxpayer funding for abortion is the big issue, no one seems to be asking why tax payers are paying for contraception. I’m more than willing to buy someone food or emergency housing, but if a guy can’t afford the $5 for a box of condoms maybe he shouldn’t be having sex. Maybe he should be out looking for a job instead. If I have to pay for somebody to have sex, maybe others should pay for my hobbies. I could use a new pair of skis. But I digress…

Ritter’s support for Planned Parenthood casts doubt on his commitment to the sanctity of human life. He isn’t the only Democrat to fail the first test of authenticity. Several self-identified pro-life Democrat congressmen fresh from election victories failed to vote pro-life when the first opportunity arose earlier this year.

Talking pro-life isn’t the same as actually standing up for the civil rights of unborn children. Regardless of moderate talk, both top Democrat presidential contenders – Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – support the taxpayer funding for abortion and the barbaric partial-birth abortion procedure. Each received a 100% rating from NARAL, the powerful abortion lobby. Warm smiles and conciliatory language won’t change that.

As the American public grows increasingly squeamish about abortion-on-demand, harsh feminist rhetoric doesn’t resonate as well. Even the most ardent abortion supporter wants to seem a little sensitive. In the end, though, actions speak louder than words.

Abortion holocaust anniversary: 50 million dead

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court struck down most state laws protecting unborn children in the notorious Roe vs. Wade decision. Thirty-four years and 50 million lives later, there seems to be no end in sight for this American holocaust. New “uses” for unborn children as scientific guinea pigs does not bode well; as Eli Whitney’s cotton gin accelerated the demand for slaves, new “uses” for unborn children will likely increase the death toll. Although legislative victories have reduced the incidence of abortion since the late 1990’s, new technology could unleash the demand for human life.

Recent articles foretell a dark road ahead of science used to create and exploit human life. A chilling January Economist article described how scientists are using cloning technology to create human embryos and fusing them with cells from other species. Less macabre but more tragic, a U.S. News and Weekly Report article heralds pre-implantation testing on in vitro embryos to “weed out” those with genetic diseases. Such tests, however, are “increasingly… being used for choices that are less clearly beneficial to the child” such as sex selection,” the article states. The implication here is that death is a benefit to a disabled child but not one for simply being a girl or a boy.

Another January article in U.S. News said that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are now recommending that all pregnant women receive screening to check for Down syndrome in the first trimester “allowing plenty of adjustment time… or an opportunity for an early abortion.” Again, the use of science to “weed out” disabled children is heralded as a good thing. While the magazine may quibble with less noble reasons to snuff out a life, the distinction is quite arbitrary. Whether a child dies because of her gender, disability, or the timing of her conception, she joins the yearly million casualties of choice.

Killing embryos to further an agenda

By Krista Kafer (krista555@msn.com) Two days after the scientific community heralded the benefits of stem cells taken from amniotic fluid, the US House of Representatives passed Rep. Diana Degette’s bill (again) to use taxpayer funds to kill unborn children for their stem cells, a practice that has yet to produce any benefits.

For the record, the human body creates stem cells from conception to death. These cells are special in that they can become other types of cells like muscle cells or a brain cells. In adults, stem cells are present in the blood, bone marrow, skin, brain, liver, pancreas, fat, and hair follicle. They are also present in the placenta, umbilical cord, and amniotic fluid. Stem cells can be harmlessly culled from these sources to be used in medical experiments to treat diseases such as diabetes and spinal cord injuries.

In November of last year, the Rocky Mountain News reported Swiss scientists had grown human heart valves using stem cells from amniotic fluid. Another article on the same page lauded the use of adult stem cells in mitigating muscular dystrophy in dogs. The dogs were able to walk and jump after being injected with adult stem cells. On January 9, the RMN reported American researchers had discovered amniotic stem cells “have many of the key benefits of embryonic stem cells while avoiding thorny ethical issues.”

The “thorny ethical issue” is that the process of extracting embryonic stem cells kills the donor. That embryonic stem cells cause tumors and other complications in recipients is certainly a drawback. The lack of success in curing or mitigating diseases is another, but the main opposition to using taxpayer funds for embryonic stem cell research is that it kills unborn children. While it is legal to kill children from conception until birth and to sell their bodies or tissues including their stem cells (it is also perfectly legal to donate funds to these endeavors), we, the opposition, do not want to be complicit in the death of innocents by virtue of our tax dollars.

We support non-lethal adult, amniotic, placental, and umbilical cord stem cell research which incidentally is the research with the track record of success. Embryonic stem cell research has so little promise that it cannot attract sufficient private investment. So why, two days after yet another scientific breakthrough regarding non-lethal stem cell research, did the House of Representatives vote to use taxpayer dollars for that which is ineffective and opposed by millions of Americans? Do they not read the papers? Do they not talk with scientists or investors?

Perhaps it is not a question of ignorance. Perhaps it is a question of agenda. To back away from embryonic stem cell research is to admit that there might be something wrong with killing one human being to benefit another. To back away affirms the humanity of the child, an admission unacceptable to the abortion interests that profit in its absence. While the success of non-lethal stem cell therapies gives politicians a perfect out to change their votes, the stakes are too high to permit what may seem like a change of heart.