TEN COMMANDMENTS - SCHOOL PRAYER VICTORIES
Editors note: The following is a greatly expanded version of an alert memo sent to supporters several weeks ago.

For weeks a great battle was waged in the halls of Congress over the Juvenile Justice Act. The battle began in the Senate just after the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and just before the Memorial Day recess. The liberal media put forth the argument that the problem in schools was the ownership of guns and as a result the Senate battle centered around laws restricting guns. Senator Ted Kennedy led the fight for the liberals.

Kennedy and the liberals in the Senate had one point to make: school shootings were caused by the lack of gun laws. Their chant was that more anti-gun laws would stop school shootings. Most in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, missed the big picture. The two young shooters in Colorado violated some forty gun laws. There are laws, federal and state, against having guns on school grounds. Both boys violated those laws. They were also underage to buy handguns, as both were only seventeen. Kennedy wanted to raise the age to buy a handgun to twenty-one. He claimed this would have stopped the shooters. How? If the shooters violated the law to get guns at age seventeen, how would raising the age limit from eighteen to twenty-one help in this case?

Every Senator missed the main problem--the lack of God’s Word in the schools. In the end, the battle was between the anti-gun liberals and the pro-gun conservatives, with not a moral concern in sight. The vote was a tie, fifty to fifty, in the Senate and arch-liberal Vice-president Al Gore cast the tie- breaking vote for more anti-gun legislation.

In today's Congress the House of Representatives is a more conservative, more godly body of men than the Senate, despite the presence in the House of such men as homosexual activist Barney Frank. Both the Majority Leader, Dick Armey, and the Majority Whip, Tom DeLay, are born-again Christians. When the Juvenile Justice Act came up in the House the leadership did not see the school shootings as a gun problem, but rather as a moral problem.

Majority Leader Armey gave the task of dealing with moral issues in the Juvenile Justice Act (HR-1501) to Congressman DeMint of South Carolina. Mr. DeMint met with his fellow members in the Congressional Family Caucus and with members of the Values Action Team (VAT) to come up with a moral solution to the school shootings.

The Family Caucus is made up only of congressmen. The Values Action team is made up of congressmen and the leaders of pro-family, moral conservative groups. I am a member of the Values Action Team.

Those of us who worked with DeMint’s office saw the need for several potential amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act to bring about change in the schools to stop violence. First, we wanted to get the violent video games and music out of the hands of very young children. Henry Hyde (R-IL) prepared an amendment to prohibit the sale of extreme violence to those under the age of sixteen.

Ernest Istook (R-OK) proposed a school prayer amendment. Ernest Istook had worked with family groups for four years on a school prayer amendment to the Constitution. Now he was trying to add school prayer as a rider to the Juvenile Justice Act. His amendment was rolled into a religious freedom of expression amendment offered by Congressman DeMint.

The amount of work done to pass the various pro-family, pro-faith amendments to HR-1501 by conservative Christian and pro-family groups in Washington, DC was unprecedented. Those of us who are active in such things worked day and night with members of Congress. In the end we won major victories. Although Henry Hyde’s amendment concerning violent videos and music failed, we won on three major amendments to HR-1501.

1. First Amendment Right to Freedom of Expression. The amendment filed by Congressman DeMint (R-SC) would allow Christian kids to pray voluntarily in school. Kids could also pass out tracts and witness to other students without fear of being punished by the school. The amendment also stops the ACLU from filing any further lawsuits on the issue by stating that those filing suit could not claim any damages or receive any financial awards for attorneys’ fees. (The Istook language was rolled into the DeMint amendment.)

2. Ten Commandments Amendment. Congressman Aderholt’s (R-AL) amendment to permit the display of the Ten Commandments in schools and other public places received both Republican and Democratic support. You may recall that Aderholt has been pushing a Ten Commandments bill similar to this since Judge Roy Moore of Alabama was ordered to remove a copy of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom. Judge Moore resides in Aderholt’s district.

3. Public School Memorials Amendment. This amendment, written by Congressman Tancredo (R-CO), also passed. It would allow fitting memorials on public school property to contain religious speech and symbols. The Columbine school shootings occurred in Tancredo’s district. There is now a major fight with the ACLU threatening lawsuits if any reference is made to God when a memorial is constructed to the victims, all of whom were Christians. I was there the day Tancredo was informed of the shootings and returned to Colorado. He was heartbroken that such violence could occur in a suburban school in his district. He was also appalled when informed that the ACLU would fight a memorial to the Christian kids that were killed.

Even the liberal media accepted the fact that the school shootings had moved American public opinion away from the liberal logic that has controlled our schools for decades.

Hanna Rosin of the liberal Washington Post wrote a blistering story about the passage of the amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act (HR-1501). She said, "Three of the religious amendments that would have been unthinkable before the Columbine school shootings breezed through, with surprising support from the Democrats."

HR-1501 did indeed pass the House of Representatives with all three pro-family amendments attached. Unfortunately the House version of the Juvenile Justice Act is totally different now from the Senate version. The Senate did not pass any pro-family amendments to its version of the Juvenile Justice Bill. The version passed by the Senate has no provision for school prayer and none for the display of the Ten Commandments.

As a result, none of these provisions which many fought for will become law unless the Senate agrees to accept the House version in a conference committee. (See related story.)

Even though HR-1501 passed the House with the amendments, the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed until the Senate approves the bill and President Clinton signs it into law. I know a lot of people read that the Ten Commandments display amendment passed - and it did, but the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed in schools without more of a fight.

Out of this whole HR-1501 affair there was a great victory, whatever action the conference committee may take. We have congressmen now on record as supporting moral concerns!

Hundreds of congressmen are now on record as voting to allow the display of the Ten Commandments.

Hundreds of both Democratic and Republican congressmen are on record as supporting voluntary school prayer.

Hundreds of congressmen voted to return freedom of religious expression, including voluntary prayer, to the public schools.

This is a major victory. When pro-family, moral issues come up again, these congressmen will be hard pressed to refuse to vote for these values.

WHAT IS A CONFERENCE COMMITTEE?

It is a very rare occurrence when a House version and a Senate version of a bill are the same. During the committee process in both the House and Senate, numerous amendments and changes are offered and voted upon.

Members of the House and Senate are appointed by the leadership of the two houses to negotiate changes to the different versions of the bill. The joint committee is called a conference committee. The two sides meet and negotiate changes in language in the two versions. Many times the leadership gives the conference committee complete power to change the bills. Other times restrictions are placed on the conferees either by leadership or within a version of the bill itself. For example, any bill from the Senate may state specifically that an item may not be changed by the conferees without a new vote in the Senate. The House can place the same restrictions.

We have lost many major issues in conference before. Last year the House passed an amendment to the Health and Human Services (HHS) budget which required federally funded medical clinics to inform parents when their minor children were given birth control drugs or devices. The conferees killed that and handed President Clinton the budget he wanted, including contraceptives for kids without parental notification.

Pro-family Christian conservatives must be very alert that the conference committee assigned to the Juvenile Justice Act does not toss out these hard fought for victories. (Watch the RFC Internet site for a list of conferees at www.rfcnet.org.

RFC HOLDS MAJOR CAPITOL HILL EVENT

On Wednesday, June 16th, just hours before the final vote on the Juvenile Justice Act, the Religious Freedom Coalition held a major news conference on the Capitol grounds. A dozen congressmen came to our news conference and several, including Congressmen Aderholt and DeMint, spoke. Majority Whip Tom DeLay was also present and he fought vigorously with the media to present our side of the issues.

More than one hundred clergymen from New York City chartered a bus and came to Washington to attend our press conference. Most of those who came from New York were from the African-American and Hispanic communities. These pastors from the inner city know more than anyone that when God’s authority came out of the schools, guns went in. After the press conference these men of God visited the offices of every New York congressman who had voted against school prayer in the past.

The liberal media accused these godly pastors from the inner city of being "pawns" of the National Rifle Association. Liberal congressmen said we were trying to add "poison pills" to HR-1501 because we were "pro-gun". Guns were not on the minds of the pastors assembled; God and His authority were on our minds. Every pastor, every congressman working to pass these amendments knows the real reason for school violence--the absence of the Word of God in the public schools.

CITIES AND STATES HOSTILE TOWARD MORALS

A home for the retarded in Lewiston, Maine may be closed by the Department of Human Services because they will not supply pornography to those in their care or allow sexual activity.

The Jaricot Foster Home is operated by Monique Dostie, a devout Roman Catholic. She forbids sexual activity and pornography at the group home saying, "I teach them it is wrong, that they don’t need sex to survive."

State rules say that those with mental retardation in group homes have a "right" to pornographic materials and sexual acts such as masturbation and out-of-wedlock "consensual" sex. Those in Monique Dostie’s care have the mental age of three year olds. They cannot manage day-to-day affairs. They don’t understand what a bank account is and could not buy food (or for that matter condoms) on their own. But the state says that they have the right to sex and pornographic material.

Several national organizations have come forward to side with the state of Maine and against the group home. Both the American Network of Community Options and National Association of Protective and Advocacy Systems insists that these retarded people would be far better off it they were allowed to have pornography and taught about sexual activity. So far only the American Catholic Lawyers Association has come to the defense of the group home.

Since the young men and women have a mental age of three, is the state of Maine promoting pedophilia? Most of those in the home cannot read or write, nor can they sign a marriage contract. What happens to the resulting children who are born as a result of the state promoting sexual activity among those who are so severely retarded?

"G" RATINGS ARE THE MOST PROFITABLE

While the state of Maine is forcing pornographic material on retarded people, Hollywood is finding that family shows are far more profitable than the filth that is for the most part produced.

Paul Kagan Associates recently completed a study of 2,380 films released over a period of ten years. The results showed that for every one G-rated movie there were 17.4 R-rated movies produced in the period from 1988 to 1997. Hollywood continues to produce R-rated movies at a rate of nearly 20 to every one G-rated movie despite how profitable the G-rated movies are.

G-rated movies earn 8.35 times more profit per film than R-rated movies. For every $100 dollars an R-rated film makes, a G-rated film makes $835 profit. PG-rated movies are second in profits after G-rated movies and R-rated films next and NC-17 movies come in as the least profitable.

Like the state of Maine pushing pornography on the retarded, the film industry targets youth with their filth. Columnist Armstrong Williams pointed out that "Cruel Intentions" and "American Pie" promotions and advertising were marketed directly to the teen market despite the fact that the films were R-rated.

Why do the film executives continue to pour filth out of Hollywood to the detriment of their financial interests? Perhaps their minds are so much in the gutter that the filthy content of their movies is more important to them than money.

ANOTHER CHILD BORN DURING ABORTION PROCEDURE

I pass through the Cincinnati Airport several times a month on my way to preach someplace in the nation because it is a Delta Airlines hub. From Washington National airport I must either fly to Cincinnati or to Atlanta and change planes to get almost anywhere. I stopped flying on America Airlines because of their overt support of the homosexual agenda

The Cincinnati area is interesting. There are numerous Southern Baptist churches in southern Ohio founded by folks who migrated north from Kentucky for jobs early in this century. In contrast, the area is also home to quite a lot of pro-abortion activists and atheists.

God sent a reminder of His presence in Ohio when a child was born during a partial birth abortion procedure in a Cincinnati hospital in April of this year. The birth changed the lives of many on the hospital staff for life. Some nurses are still undergoing counseling.

The partial birth abortion procedure is a three day process that begins with a drug treatment and ends when a doctor sticks a vacuum hose into the base of the baby’s head and sucks out his brains. The procedure was being conducted at the Dayton Women’s Med Center in Dayton, Ohio.

In this case the mother was rushed to a Cincinnati hospital during the second day with severe cramps from the drugs. At the hospital she gave birth to a twenty-two week old baby girl. The baby’s lungs were underdeveloped; however, she lived for three hours. Nurses at the hospital called her Baby Hope and the nurses took turns holding her in their arms until she died.

One of the nurses, Connie Boyles said:

"Staff who cared for her on the night of her birth have experienced a myriad of emotions from sadness and grief to peace - peace that she was comforted, held close and even sung to until she took her last breath

"This emotional trauma inflicted on our department is deeper and will last longer than the physical frailties that we deal with on a daily basis."

Many of the staff of the hospital have spent hours in counseling as a result of the horror they were exposed to by this brutal murder of a child by the Dayton Women’s Med Center. As a result of this atrocity both Democrat and Republican state law makers are preparing legislation to stop this barbaric procedure.

With such barbarism evident in the pro-abortion community, I was shocked to see the wife of Leo Mullin, the president of Delta Airlines, lobbying with anti-life groups in Washington. I saw Mrs. Leah Mullin, along with the current Miss America, in the offices of several congressmen pushing for "fetal research". "Fetal research" is the code word used by the pro-abortion community for the dissection of the unborn for use in experiments. The latest fad is to say this is required to obtain stem cells to treat illnesses such as Alzheimer's. This is a lie. In reality stem cells can be harvested from the bone marrow of adults. When treated with stem cells harvested from the patient’s body, there is no rejection and no chance of viral contamination.

I do not know how Mrs. Mullin, who is reported to be a born-again Christian, wound up in the halls of Congress promoting experimentation and destruction of human embryos. I believe she was duped as several congressmen have been. In reality, the pro-abort people need the embryo research to continue to "prove" that the unborn are not human.

ANOTHER ADULT CHILD OF THE SIXTIES’ SEX CROWD

Everywhere I preach, someone tell me that I am so unique to have found Christ even though I was raised in an atheist home. I tell each and every one of those folks that I am not unusual at all and point to the dozens of men and women around my age who rejected their parents’ radical beliefs.

Now there is yet another, the daughter of self-proclaimed sex queen Erica Jong. Erica Jong wrote several books including Fear of Flying. In her point of view, she was a pioneer of female sexual emancipation and a peddler of soft porn.

Her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast says, "My mother’s generation was stuck in an indulgent malaise - give me Prosac, cosmetic psycho pharmacology; we don’t have feelings, we have problems.

"My generation has to be more responsible and accountable. I don’t want to hear whining. That’s not going anywhere."

Molly grew up hearing or reading about all of her mother’s sexual exploits. She has refused to read any of her books and she says it is "...fun to be square ... that having sex with a different person every night is a way to ruin a life, not enjoy life."

Molly is yet another person determined to escape the empty values of the "sexually liberated" generation.

THE LIBERALS AND THE MARK OF THE BEAST

Several years ago I wrote an article entitled "Would You Accept Money to Wear the Mark of the Beast". Tens of thousands of reprints of the article were ordered and it was reprinted in dozens of magazines. The article was one of the first to detail the new privacy-invading technologies the liberals like so much.

The Washington Post recently ran a front page article extolling the virtues of an ATM machine that reads the iris of an eyeball. The article marvels at the technology by pointing out that no bank card is needed. An individual simply walks up to a machine and allows it to scan the eye.

Bank United, one of the three largest bank chains in Texas is promoting the technology. It is the first large private firm to use this biotechnology to identify people. Both the bank and the Washington Post fail to understand human behavior. Under the old system a theft can take your ATM card and get money. Under the new system the thief cuts our your eyeball to put it up against a screen.

Liberals demand privacy, but only when it comes to sex. They claim anything to do with sex is a private matter. They don’t even want AIDS testing or even government notification to victims of those who spread venereal diseases. But--when it comes to anything else, the liberals condemn privacy and believe private companies and the government should have access to everything we have.

Several states have tried to add biometrics information to drivers licenses. Georgia tried to add finger prints and the public just refused. There is a growing effort to add biometrics information to identification. Now many customers of Bank United are voluntarily giving eye-prints to the bank that can be used not only by the bank, but by anyone else who can get access to them. It is a growing trend for people to give up this data or to wear some special device for "security". They are really surrendering much more than they know.

STOP THE Y2K MADNESS SALES TAKEOFF

Stop the Y2K Madness is a big seller. The ministry office is receiving many multi-copy orders. One ministry supporter ordered ten copies to give to family members who are caught up in the Y2K hysteria. Several pastors have also ordered multiple copies of Stop the Y2K Madness to give to friends who have gone off the deep end over Y2K.

Stop the Y2K Madness is now carried by Amazon.com on the Internet, and we hope to have it available in several other outlets and chain stores. The ministry self-published the book because no Christian publisher would take it. All of the major Christian publishers were making too much money publishing Y2K scare books.

When Amazon.com accepted Stop the Y2K Madness they told our office that they had seventy-five Y2K books listed and that mine was the only one that didn’t try to scare people to death.

At every church where I preach, I sell out of Stop the Y2K Madness no matter how many copies I take with me. Most people in the evangelical church knew that most of Y2K was just pure hype-- a way for some people to make money. Then, so many people got involved in the process that they were afraid to say anything.

Stop the Y2K Madness may go to a second and third printing this summer. To help get the word out not to panic over Y2K, I am making a special offer for the summer. The first book is just $10.00 including postage and handling, but each additional book is just $5.00. That’s right ... one book is $10.00, two books $15.00, three books $20.00, four books $25.00 etc.

This is your chance to get several copies of Stop the Y2K Madness and give them to your friends who may be in a state of panic.

MORE CONSERVATIVES SPEAK OUT AGAINST Y2K PANIC

Since the publication of Stop the Y2K Madness some other conservative leaders have come forward to support my position. Tom DeWeese, who publishes The DeWeese Report, now agrees with my position. He knows, as do I, that Y2K panic sales are big business in the conservative Christian community. At the beginning of his report he included a notice to the reader: "... I pull no punches when taking a stand. Truth, even if it hurts, is my quest. My goal is to deliver the facts as I’ve researched them and know them to be."

His front page story, "We Will Survive Y2K" then goes on to debunk much of the doomsayers’ claims about the power supply, the food supply, etc. He explained to his readers why we do not have to fear computers or the entire Y2K issue.

He ends his article with much the same conclusion as I have reached:

"The real threat that is facing the American people is their own reaction to the situation. A real threat to liberty can be created by panicking and giving in to hysteria. If services do indeed temporarily break down, causing shortages of food or power, panic in the streets most assuredly will cause the government to go into emergency mode and marshal law will be a real possibility. It becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Y2K AND THE MARKETS

I am reducing my market alert for the end of the year. As time goes by, fewer and fewer people are in a state of panic. Early on I believed that the market could drop 25% to 40% as people were led astray by the likes of Michael Hyatt and the other panic purveyors. I no longer believe that. Calm is setting in where there once was fear.

That does not mean the market is out of the woods completely for this year. The economy is very hot and the bond market is under pressure. In the area of Virginia where we live, the unemployment rate is now under one percent.

If interest rates climb, the market may well decline by this fall. In the past I have held cash to buy bargains in the stock market if there was a Y2K panic sell-off. I am still holding some cash looking for bargains. True to my book I never touched my retirement money. My retirement funds are still in the same Vanguard accounts they were in the day the Y2K scare started. Since Michael Hyatt and others told everyone to sell, my retirement fund values have increased about 30%. Meanwhile the gold coins so many bought have decreased in value.

Big market tip: If you want a generator for your home wait until January to buy one ... there will be a lot of bargains.

FINAL NOTE: THANK YOU RUNNER’S WORLD

From time to time I read Runner’s World because both I and my wife run several times a week. Normally we run from three to four miles at a time. This is a great help to me because of all my travel. If I didn’t keep in shape I would not be able to keep the schedule I do.

Runner’s World normally gives me tips on the latest kind of running shoes and nutrition information. "Running on Faith" was a feature article in the June issue. The main point of the article was that faith helps physically and may even help runners run faster and longer.

Under the subtitle "Why Faith Works" the author concluded, "People who are religious are more likely to practice healthy habits as a result of religious doctrine. In other words, they are less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, drink excessively or smoke." The article also pointed to new books in the medical professional that promote the role of faith in healing.

Although the article by Alisa Bauman wasn’t overtly Christian, it did promote faith in a positive light overall. This is something unusual for most mass market secular publications.