The 108th Congress began with swearing-in ceremonies on Tuesday, January 7th. Despite all the news of a Republican "sweep" in the midterm election, the party holds power in the House and Senate by small margins. The Senate remains a problem for President George Bush. Republicans have 51 of the 100 seats in the Senate and this allows them to control all committee chairmanships. However, it only takes one Senator to block the progress of legislation onto the floor for a vote. It takes 60 votes to cut off a senator who has stopped legislation by "filibustering."

As a result of the backlog of legislation in the Senate that is required for the government to do business, social conservatives should not expect immediate work on legislation such as the partial-birth abortion bill. I actually expect Senator Frist to first work on a prescription drug bill and some expansion of Medicare with prescription coverage before addressing many of the issues supported by social conservatives.

There is also the terrible backlog of confirmation hearings for federal judges. Senator Daschle had made it a central part of his leadership to block the Bush appointees. Just before the Democrat controlled Senate adjourned in 2002 it did confirm 100 judges in an attempt to cover-up its bizarre behavior before Republicans took control. Daschle did not want a Republican show in January of hundreds of judges being sworn in.

On the House side Republicans picked up a few seats and now have a 229 to 205 edge. (There is one more Democrat coming ... the brother of AOL chairman Steve Case bought a seat for himself from his vacation paradise home in Hawaii.) This is the highest total of Republican House members since 1996. Not all of these Republicans are social conservatives. At least 60 are liberal Republicans who vote with the Democrats at least some of the time on social issues such as abortion. Again, don’t expect the social conservative agenda to move that fast. We cannot get discouraged.

While the primary work of the Religious Freedom Coalition is in Washington, DC, we do maintain a presence in other nations to assist persecuted Christians there as well. In what is known as the West Bank, the RFC supports Christian schools. One of those schools was burglarized during Christmas time. We have since sent the funds to place bars on the windows and that is now being done. The rate of crime in the areas controlled by Yassar Arafat and his gang of thugs is staggering. Crime against Christians is ignored by his "police."

In March I will be returning to the Holy Land to inspect funding projects. We have numerous applications from students who require financial aid to attend Christian schools. If a Christian student cannot afford to attend a private Christian school, he must be subjected to the culture of death in the Islamic schools run by Yassar Arafat.

Two adult brothers who converted from Islam to Christianity have been condemned to death by Yassar Arafat’s gang of thugs. They have escaped to Israel where they now have a thirty day permit. When that permit expires they and their families will be extradited back to the West Bank area controlled by Arafat and they will be murdered. The RFC is currently working with a congressman to intervene with Israel. We are hoping and praying that we will be able to find a third nation for these families to move to and the two brothers will not face the death penalty because of their conversions to Christ. At some point I may ask your help in contacting authorities in Israel and the United States to help these two men and their families.