There is nothing in the Enneagram that exposes us to true the knowledge of our utterly bankrupt evil nature and the good gifts which come only from the God Who is truly holy. The Enneagram doesn’t reveal our sinful condition, separation from God, His holiness, His love for us, and provision for salvation. 

Christians hold a general idea that the indwelling Holy Spirit will completely protect them from being deceived. This idea is taken from a portion of John 16:13:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…
There are two fundamental problems with attempting to use the passage in this way. The first problem is the context. As with all passages in scripture, context must be considered to gain a proper understanding of the text in question. The context of this verse is the coming persecution (John 16:1-4a) of the disciples after Jesus’ departure, the work of the Holy Spirit to help them in that regard—once He is sent to them (John 16:4b-11). How would the Holy Spirit help them in that regard? Jesus explained the type of truth the Spirit would guide them into that would help them through this devastating and discouraging time ahead:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.(John 16:13)
The disciples would need the Spirit’s presence and close guidance to keep them from falling away from their mission. (John 16:1) This is part of a much longer narrative by Jesus, which the Apostle John began in chapter thirteen. Jesus was preparing the disciples for rough days ahead and “the things that are to come.”
Second, even if this admonition was aimed not at the disciple’s immediate need but at all Christians in all times ahead, there is nothing in the context that states or implies believers will necessarily follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Christians may allow—and do allow—themselves to be deceived in spite of warnings of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. There are numerous warnings in the New Testament to believers that had been deceived.1 Paul’s challenge to the Galatians who were believers that had been deeply deceived is direct and to the point:
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.(Galatians 3:1)
Any of us can be deceived, particularly if we ignore the guidance of the Holy Spirt and the word of God. Reading Thomas Nelson’s latest contribution to the world of the Enneagram within the Evangelical church is a reminder of the importance of guarding against deception. We do not doubt the sincerity of Meredith Boggs, the author of The Journey Home: A Biblical Guide to Using the Enneagram to Deepen Your Faith and Relations (Meredith Boggs, Thomas Nelson; January 24, 2023). However, someone can be very sincere and yet be sincerely wrong—which can lead from self-deception to having a role in deceiving still others. The Apostle Paul warns Timothy of this truth in 1 Timothy 3:13:
…while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
There are “evil people” and “imposters” (pretenders to the faith) who intentionally deceive. Then there are those deceived by these intentional deceivers, who unintentionally deceive still others. Has Meredith Boggs been deceived, or is the Enneagram truly a spiritual tool God uses to supplement the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the word of God? The reader will have to decide.
In the Introduction of her book, Boggs begins “the bottom line” with:
The Enneagram is not the gospel.2
On that, at least, we completely agree. The second one is somewhat mixed:
The Enneagram can help you grow personally and spiritually, but don’t use it to replace God’s Word. That will lead you astray more than any cult.3
Anecdotally, it may be that Boggs and others believe they have grown personally or possibly even spiritually while using the Enneagram, but correlation does not imply causation. Could someone’s marriage improve as they started talking together after being introduced to the Enneagram? Sure, that could happen. But did it improve because of the Enneagram or because they began talking to each other? The Enneagram has not been demonstrated to be a valid profiling tool. Jay Medenwaldt performed the only valid psychometric test to date, and in his General Conclusion, wrote:
Unless you’ve done graduate work in psychometrics, the scientific data probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to you (which is why there are two parts to this article). For those who have studied psychometrics, it’s a no-brainer that the enneagram simply cannot do all its proponents claim it can. Any scientist who studies personality would simply look at the reliability scores and conclude the test is not accurate enough to be helpful, and therefore, they wouldn’t use it because the potential for harm will be too high.
Medenwaldt sees absolutely no reliability in the Enneagram and, in fact, warns of its potential for harm. Medenwaldt is not the only source of research on the Enneagram. Boggs, in Footnote #1 of Chapter Two on page 16, cites:
The WEPSS (Wagner Enneagram Personality Style Scales) test has been statistically validated, and that’s the one I recommend. For more information, see the Resources section.4
We have no doubt someone communicated this idea to Boggs, and she believed it, but there is no evidence the claim is true. In “The reliability and validity of the Open Enneagram of Personality Scales,”  Kayleigh Kastelein wrote on page 5:
With small sample sizes, weak support from factor analysis, and low quantity of studies, there is not enough support for reliability and validity of the WEPSS for it to be considered a strong assessment of the Enneagram.
The American Journal of Psychiatry raises similar concerns in their General Conclusions:
We advise caution in integrating these concepts too quickly, as the Enneagram is more complex than this brief overview suggests. We hope to expand on this overview in future papers targeted specifically at the practical value of the Enneagram for medical education and clinical psychotherapy.5
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As the reader probably has noticed, there is now a great divide between Evangelicals and Progressives. Can that divide be bridged? It is impossible to know, though it doesn’t appear likely at this time. Our understanding of God and His word are very different.

In our book, A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and the Christian Life, the Epilogue, “Fear of Flying,”  was included to help the readers understand how those in cults and high-demand authoritarian groups can feel trapped. They have been given a view of God as a malevolent being that is on the lookout for them to step out of line – whereupon He will happily crush them. Many of these people give up or “deconstruct” their abusive faith and opt for atheism or agnosticism. “Joshua Harris – Kissing WHAT Faith Goodbye?” was one who followed that path.
Still, others adopt a faith system that gives them what they believe is greater personal control over their lives – and so they cast off their harsh view of what they thought was the Biblical God and embrace Wicca or some other New Age belief. Many cultists and some former Evangelicals fall into this camp.
We have helped many that have left such groups unwind their false beliefs and embrace grace. It takes time, patience, and availability. There will be many questions the person has to sort through, and it may be some time to begin to trust the word of God again to discern what is true from what is false. Jinger Duggar Vuolo’s book, Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear tells, her story of growing up under the authoritarianism of Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles.1 Jinger’s transition did not cause her to abandon the Christian faith and the Bible. She instead learned to recognize false teaching, legalism, and authoritarianism and gain a spiritually healthy understanding of the biblical faith.
Many people who leave authoritarian groups or churches are rejecting the very dark view of God they were taught and shifting toward progressivism. Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Rachel Held Evans, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, and others made that trek – and have taken many with them – over a relatively short period of time.  Richard Rohr has been the pied piper for many of them. Progressives give a nod to the Bible but adopt what they view as a kinder, more inclusive idea of Jesus –while ignoring or outright rejecting His exclusive claims. As sociologist and professor of sociology at Baylor University, George Yancey points out:
It’s not surprising that the image of Jesus for progressive Christians differs from the image of Jesus for conservative Christians. For progressive Christians, Jesus is the model of inclusion and tolerance. For example, one progressive Christian drew a cartoon of Jesus saying, “The difference between me and you is you use Scripture to determine what love means and I use love to determine what Scripture means.” Progressive Christians focus on the actions and teachings of Jesus that reinforce their values of tolerance and inclusion, which they see as examples of love.
For conservative Christians, Jesus is interpreted through a traditional historical framework. They have less of a problem interpreting Jesus as teaching an “intolerant” faith that excludes from salvation those who don’t follow him. Both progressive and conservative Christians affirm the majesty of Christ, but they greatly differ on what values they see emerging from his life and ministry.2
For Progressives, determining the meaning of Scripture has little to do with what God has said in the historical-grammatical context. They judge and understand scripture by the individual’s personal “social values.” One consequence is that Biblical justice is abandoned and replaced with Marxism’s Social Justice.
For one example, Martin Luther King’s maxim of judging someone by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin is rejected by Progressives today, replaced by completely judging people by their skin color and according to their loyalty to all progressive issues.
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People cannot identify false prophets by the way they appear because they come to us disguised to look as one would expect true prophets, or true Christians, to look. You can only judge false prophets by their false prophecies and false teachings because when they appear at your door, online, or on television, they look like Christians.

One of the most used and abused verses of scripture among cults and pseudo-Christian groups, in our opinion, is Matthew 7:16, where Jesus said to His disciples, “You will know them by their fruit.” Every cultic group, by ignoring the context, abuses this verse to prove to outsiders that their group are the true Christians. The common attitude of the cults is, “Look at our GOOD works and judge for yourselves whether or not we are the TRUE CHRISTIANS.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) boast, “We don’t participate in war, and we are the only ones going door to door to spread the gospel,” etc. The Mormons brag, “Our founder, Joseph Smith, received the truth from an angel. We are the only group that has a living prophet and apostles, and we also have the strongest and closest-knit families, etc.” Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate fame might say, “Oh, you think that’s Christian? We have deserted our families to follow the new ‘ Christ’ – Applewhite himself – and we are the only ones who have truly followed Jesus’ advice about cutting off offending body parts. Isn’t it obvious from our ‘fruit’ that WE are ‘the truth’?”
For one thing, quite a few groups go “from door to door” proclaiming falsehood, claim to have received their truth from “angels,” and say they are the only true truth, etc. We don’t really know of another group besides Heaven’s Gate that has literally cut off “offending” body parts, and frankly, we really don’t want to know. The point is, any group can say they are the only true Christians based upon their squeaky-clean appearance or the “good works” their group supposedly exhibits, and most Bible-based cults do make that claim.
But Jesus Christ said that He, not any organization or religion or church, is “the truth” (John 14:6). And these cult groups really should give Matthew 7:15-20 another look because it does not say what they try to make it say. Jesus in the passage was not talking about identifying Christians at all! He was warning his listeners to beware of false prophets (verse 15) and instructing them to judge the false prophets by their fruits!
And what, my dears, are the “fruits” of false prophets that we are to judge? False prophecies! Apple trees bring forth apples, and pear trees bring forth pears, and “false prophet trees” bring forth false prophecies! You can bank on it. These false prophecies can be in the form of false predictions of future events (Deuteronomy 13:1-3), or they can be in the form of false teachings that contradict scripture (Deuteronomy 18:20-22). Cults often meet both criteria. Did Armageddon come in 1914, 1925, or 1975 as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (JWs) predicted? Has Jesus – allegedly Michael the archangel – already returned “invisibly,” as they also claim? Can human beings become gods, as the Mormons teach? Did Joseph Smith receive hidden golden plates from the angel Moroni, as Joseph – a tall tale teller if there ever was one – himself claimed?
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It is unfortunate that Pastor Zach Tyler and so many other Enneagram proponents have embraced and defended this idol as a spiritual tool through which the word of God is interpreted. Can a Christian honestly accept concepts like “shaman, shamanism, magic songs, altered states of consciousness, animal or nature spirits, channeling, hallucinogens, shamanic soul restoration, divination, automatic writing, and other undeniably dark New Age practices? How are they in any way compatible with biblical Christianity?

One of the recurring themes in the book of Judges is the Israelites’ replacement of the One True God with created idols. We find it in Judges 2:11:
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.
God judged His people and then raised up judges to deliver them from the egregious results of His righteous judgment. However, after each judge died, the people turned back to their worship of idols. It was a spiritual process of cleanse, rinse, and repeat. (Judges 2:16-19; cf. Judges 3:7-11) When Gideon broke down his father’s Baal idol and cut down the Asherah, the town’s people were out for blood. Gideon’s blood. (Judges 6:25-30) Christians today are inclined to shake their heads and give these passages a tsk, tsk – while claiming they don’t understand how the Nation of Israel could have so easily turned from the God Who delivered them to idols they had created by their own hands. Is the church that much better, though? It doesn’t seem so.
As the occult origins of the Enneagram are pointed out to those happily engaged in the Enneagram craze, a very common defense is, “Choosing to use the Enneagram or not is like the question of eating meat sacrificed to idols.” (1 Corinthians 8) In other words, Christians are as free to engage with the Enneagram as the Christians in the early church were free to eat meat that had been “sacrificed to idols.” But, as our good friend and associate Marcia Montenegro succinctly points out,
The Enneagram is not like meat sacrificed to idols. The Enneagram IS the idol.
In her October 2022 article, “Is the Enneagram Like Meat Offered to Idols?” Marcia correctly explains that meat is spiritually neutral. It is just food and not a spiritual tool. The Apostle Paul voiced this very sentiment:
Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. (1 Corinthians 8:8)
The issue wasn’t about shunning meat that was used in a ritual to an idol, but that we are to “flee from idolatry” itself. That is pretty straightforward. Even so, Intervarsity Press, Zondervan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, and Russell Moore at Christianity Today are all in on promoting this idol as the current spiritual tool of choice – and why not? Like the very best idols in the ancient past, this one is very profitable.
In a 2010 interview, Claudio Naranjo confessed that he invented the story that the Enneagram is ancient and that he channeled the specific Enneagram types through automatic writing. Naranjo’s lies concerning the Enneagram’s origins and his “channeling” of the specifics occurred six years before IVP introduced the Enneagram idol into the Evangelical church. When informed of its true origins and of Naranjo’s channeling of the types, IVP – and the other publishers we contacted – ignored the evidence and simply resent their form letter asserting its ancient origins. As more Christians are becoming aware of its occultic connection, this is becoming an increasing problem for the Enneagram priests and priestesses. Pastor Zach Tyler at Gospel for Enneagram recently attempted to mitigate Naranjo’s automatic writing confession in his Gospel for Enneagram Youtube video, “Is the Enneagram Demonic? An Informed Response.” Is Tyler providing an “informed response,” or is this an uninformed or deceptive attempt at defense for something that is incompatible with Biblical teachings?
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Unfortunately, as we look at the list of many of the sources5, Eubanks lists that he draws upon for his knowledge of the Enneagram, his worldview and his understanding of the word of God. He primarily draws from heretics, New Agers, and non-believers who are the leading lights in the Enneagram movement. This alone would show that the material in this book is not informed by scripture – but rather, scripture is interpreted through the New Age spiritual sources who created the Enneagram.

One of the newest books promoting the Enneagram to Christians is How We Relate: Understanding God, Yourself, and Others through the Enneagram by Jesse Eubanks.1 We will grant that Eubanks probably has good intentions and very likely desires to help his readers understand themselves and their relationships. However, we must ask, is the Bible insufficient for faith and practice? Is something needed to fill the void God left in His word regarding human relationships? Is that special something to be found in the Enneagram?
Since its introduction into the Evangelical church by IVP in 2016, the Enneagram has been racing through the church and has become the go-to resource for Christians. Pastors are using it for a nine-week sermon series. It is used for marriage counseling, retreats, church membership classes, and discipleship. It provides opportunities for the budding new growth industry of Enneagram “coaching.” One can be trained by such New Age luminaries as Ginger Lapid-Bogda or Beth McCord, who received her training from five popular New Age teachers.2  About five years ago, Marcia Montenegro and MCOI warned this would happen. At last count, Christian publishers have produced over 160 Enneagram titles.
In the Introduction of How We Relate: Understanding God, Yourself, and Others through the Enneagram, Eubanks includes comments on the origins of the Enneagram:
The origins of the Enneagram are mysterious and often contested. Some say it came from the early church in the fourth century. Others say it was primarily developed in the last hundred years. It’s not really clear, but what is clear is that, with such a broad list of contributors (both Christian and not), the Enneagram is best understood not as a ‘Christian’ tool but as a human tool.3
Actually, we do clearly know the Enneagram’s origins, but its promoters have obfuscated and changed their stories as a result of our exposure.4 Eubanks is proposing another strategic change, calling the “Enneagram a “human tool,” and not a “spiritual tool.” Of course, the Enneagram is a “spiritual tool,” originating from occultic spiritual sources, and NOT Christianity. Besides that little detail, it has no validity as a beneficial “human tool.” After performing a psychometric test, Jay Mendenwaldt concluded in his report, “The Enneagram, Science, and Christianity – Part 1,” that it does not perform for the purpose for which it is being used:
For those who have studied psychometrics, it’s a no-brainer that the enneagram simply cannot do all its proponents claim it can. Any scientist who studies personality would simply look at the reliability scores and conclude the test is not accurate enough to be helpful, and therefore, they wouldn’t use it because the potential for harm will be too high.
Even if it were a valid “human tool” used to inform us about how to relate to God and others (the premise of this book), it would have to be subjected to Scripture as the final authority for faith and practice of Christians. Non-Christians have the choice to opt for whatever tool that strikes their fancy, but Christians are and have always been tied to a biblical foundation for life and practice. Unfortunately, as we look at the list of many of the sources5, Eubanks lists that he draws upon for his knowledge of the Enneagram, his worldview and his understanding of the word of God. He primarily draws from heretics, New Agers, and non-believers who are the leading lights in the Enneagram movement.

Richard Rohr, Franciscan Monk,6 (Contemplative mystic)
Russ Hudson (New Age)
Don Riso (New Age)
Brennan Manning, Franciscan7 (Contemplative mystic)
Beth and Jeff McCord (Trained by five New Agers)
Ian Morgan Cron (associate of Richard Rohr and has taught at Rohr’s Center)
Suzanne Stabile (Mentored by Richard Rohr)
Beatrice Chestnut (New Ager)
Sarajane Case8

This alone would show that the material in this book is not informed by scripture – but rather, scripture is interpreted through the New Age spiritual sources who created the Enneagram.
In the Introduction, Jesse Eubanks describes his once-growing resentment toward God due to:
The gap between my dreams of how life could be and the reality I was trapped in had grown bigger than I could hold.9
Struggling with our life circumstances has been an issue for the people of God all down through history. We find examples of how the heroes of the faith wrestled with life’s disappointments and yet stayed focused on the faith. David would cry out to God in the Psalms, asking why those who hate God seem to be prospering while he was suffering. We then see how his focus shifts, often within a few verses, from his present circumstance to God as the center of his attention. God gave Elijah a great victory over the prophets of Baal, but when threatened by Queen Jezebel, Elijah turned his focus from God, fled into the wilderness, hid in a cave, and prayed to die. God refreshed Elijah and reminded him of the greatness of God and of His preservation of His servants. (1 Kings 19:1-18). We could write a book on these examples, but then we already have one – the Bible. We often need to turn our focus from our present circumstances to God and His word.
Out of his struggle, Eubanks poses a question:
“What is the purpose of life?”10
This is a great question, perhaps the most important question in life. He then proposes an answer:
If I could be so bold, I would like to humbly submit my answer: The purpose of life is relationships11
The answer the Enneagram provides sets the “purpose of life” bar far too low. An analogy may be helpful. Something we learned about driving a semi (and all vehicles, really) is to “AIM High in Steering.” (Smith System 5 Keys to Driving) The simple explanation is to not focus our primary attention on what is immediately in front of us but on what is down the road 15 or more seconds ahead – perhaps a quarter or half a mile. In so doing, we take in everything in between our present position and the point we are looking at down the road. If something happens that far ahead, we can safely prepare for our next move. We remain aware of what is immediately in front of us, of course, but we also take into consideration what waits ahead of our immediate view.
King Solomon concluded that the purpose of life is to,
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
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In an effort to bring more people into the church, many churches have replaced sound biblical teaching with user-friendly messages. Large segments of the church today, though thankfully not all, are failing to faithfully teach the word of God and discipling their people. As a result, there has been a massive decline in congregational understanding of vital doctrine and even a misunderstanding of the very gospel itself.

When the 2022 State of Theology Report came out last year, the results were far less than encouraging. For example:
– 43% of US Evangelicals agreed with Statement No. 4: “God learns and adapts to different circumstances.” In other words, for nearly half of US Evangelicals, God it not omniscient or all-knowing.
– 53%, over half of US Evangelicals, agree with Statement No. 16: “The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.”
– 42% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement No. 27: “Gender identity is a matter of choice.”
– 46% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement No. 28: “The Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today.”
– 56% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement No. 3: “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” (the heretical view called perennialism)
– 43% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement  No. 7: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”
I suppose we at MCOI should have been surprised by these distressing figures, but we were not. Saddened but not surprised. The reason is fairly simple – in an effort to bring more people into the church, many churches have replaced sound biblical teaching with user-friendly messages. Large segments of the church today, though thankfully not all, are failing to faithfully teach the word of God and discipling their people. As a result, there has been a massive decline in congregational understanding of vital doctrine and even a misunderstanding of the very gospel itself.
Even for churches that are stalwartly teaching the Word of God, it is difficult for pastors and elders to protect their flock. The reason may be the easy access to books (even those sold by so-called “Christian” bookstores and sources) and high-sounding ideas that present an altered view of what Christianity should be and what the true gospel is. These alternative teachings may not deny the faith outright and even may use the name of Christ and sound “Christian” – while presenting “another Jesus” and “another gospel” altogether. “New” ideas can be very gratifying to the old nature still lurking in us. We have been culturally flattered with the idea that we can “trust our gut,” but in reality, our human gut can only be truly trusted to act up at the most inopportune times. Your gut does not know what is true – it’s just a gut – but the real truth is readily available to us in scripture. We need to believe the true thing, not the new thing.
Proverbs 14:12 reads:
There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.  
People also fall prey to popular culture, which is decidedly opposed to Christian beliefs and ideals. Most people develop their worldview through osmosis, often not paying close attention to what is being “taught” through popular music, movies, television, and best-selling books. People then often bring these unfiltered and unchallenged thoughts and ideas into the gathering of believers – perhaps without the knowledge of the Pastor and elders – and infect others. It’s like the spread of a virus, and it must be effectively treated before it reaches critical mass and sinks the Bismarck. Since youth are especially susceptible to cultural messages and peer pressure and are being heavily propagandized against the faith in public schools, we are losing the young. We must not lose the next generation to seductive lies. The “new thing” often sounds right and may even be partially true but leads to false conclusions and beliefs.
George Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, made an interesting observation on the nature of deception.
All propaganda is a lie, even when it’s telling the truth.
Unless there is a deliberate ongoing Church emphasis on combating the messages of the culture and giving sound refutation to its unbiblical ideas, the downward slide of the church will continue. This trend will persist and perhaps accelerate exponentially if we do not take steps to counter the erroneous ideas the young are being heavily indoctrinated with.
None of this is new. As we read the Hebrew Scriptures, we find a constant thread of God condemning false prophets, correcting false teaching, and calling out bad behavior in His people, Israel. Nearly all of the New Testament letters were written to correct bad behavior and warn the church about false prophets, false teachers, and false teaching.
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State governments, the Federal Government, and Supreme Court have been clear and consistent throughout U.S. history: Rights and Constitutional protections are not for allhumans; those protections are only for those legally recognized as persons—according to whatever subjective criteria the ruling elite are using at any given time. Focusing the argument on Human Rights protects innocent life on both ends of the mortal life continuum.

My daughter, Jennifer, tends to be a bit timid and shy. She has formed solid opinions but, unlike myself, doesn’t feel compelled to share them with everyone who walks by. In other words, she is not a fan of confrontation. She has had a quieter faith and has found less “in-your-face” ways to open the discussion. When she was in high school, she would wear a shirt that had a picture of a garbage can with the caption under it: “This is no place for a baby.” Jennifer was one of only perhaps two or three who were pro-life in her freshman class.
During that time, she had to compose a persuasive paper for her English class and wanted to write “Murder is Socially Acceptable” to compare slavery, the Holocaust, and abortion. Her teacher’s response was: The concept is interesting, but there is no evidence abortion is murder, and so she wouldn’t let her write the paper. Jennifer was not happy, and as the old saying goes: “When Jennifer ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Instead of giving up, she decided to reframe the argument and write a persuasive paper demonstrating that abortion is murder. As we thought about it and talked with a few teachers and college professors we know, we realized Jennifer’s teacher probably has one or two students each year who want to make a biblical case for a pro-life position. Jennifer and I decided the best approach would be to make a sound, compelling case, which would be consistent with biblical teaching, but not quote the Bible in the process. She gathered the scientific data on fetal development, talked about what is in the mother’s womb (a human rather than a plant, bird, fish, etc.), and Jennifer developed her persuasive argument. After reading it, her teacher changed her personal opinion from “pro-choice” to “pro-life.” In a later class assignment, she was to debate students who took a “pro-choice” position; and she went first. I suggested while giving her a positive “pro-life” case; she should refute the arguments the other students likely would use for the “pro-choice” position. After she finished, the students affirming the “pro-choice” side, really didn’t know what to do since their arguments had been destroyed before they even took the floor.
Reframing the Argument
The July 22, 2010, Washington Times article “Clinton pushes Vietnam on human rights progress” raised the issue of human rights in foreign lands (in this case Vietnam), and how much Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would focus on that in her discussions with the leaders of Vietnam. Some of the U.S. Congress thought this important as well:
“The government of Vietnam’s desire to reap the benefits of the global economy must be matched by efforts to respect comprehensive human rights,” a bipartisan group of 19 members of Congress wrote to Clinton on July 15.
As I read this and other articles since then, I thought back to Jennifer’s high school days, which seems another lifetime ago now that our grandchildren are getting close to their teen years themselves. A new idea or way to reframe the human rights argument began to crystallize. This is a subject I have been thinking about for a while, but there was something in that particular article; or perhaps, it was just the mood I was in while reading it, but I wondered: Do humans have rights based solely on being human, or is there some other criteria? If there are some other criteria, is it constant, or does it change from culture to culture and/or time to time in order to exclude certain humans from protection? Rather than simply developing a position and asserting my view is correct, I decided to put the question to an organization that specializes in addressing violations of human rights: Amnesty International. I e-mailed them and asked:
There seems to be some confusion when using the term “human rights.” Do you mean by this that humans have rights based solely on being human? If a nation decides that a human is not legally a person and, therefore, has no rights, for only persons have rights, is that something you affirm?
The question is fairly simple and straightforward. Do humans have rights because they are human, or are there some other criteria for deciding which humans are worthy of human-rights protections? Perhaps, a human has no inherent rights, and lawmakers or the ruling elite in various societies are free to use any arbitrary criteria they choose in defining which humans have rights and which ones do not. Currently, in the United States, only those who are legally deemed a “person” are members of the protected class. In this scenario, non-persons—human or not—do not have any legal rights and, therefore, are not deserving of protection. I received their response in less than 24 hours:
Thank you for your interest in Amnesty International and the work that we do.
I’m unaware of the confusion that you mention.
Human rights are those which all humans should be entitled to, regardless of legislation introduced by an individual country that may undermine any of these.
I do not understand your differentiation between people and humans, but I hope that this goes some way to answer your question.
I have spoken with others and asked this question and have watched as they, like Amnesty International, also short-circuited and changed the parameters of the question from “person” to “people.” There is an important distinction here. The word person is a legal designation and may be applied to a human or a corporation. It might be people or some other legal entity. On the other hand, the word people is used interchangeably with human. So, people are always human, but person may not be. I responded to Amnesty International:
Thank you for your timely response and clear answer. The confusion wasn’t between “people” and “human” but between “person” and “human.” For example, in the United States, when slavery was legal, no one denied that slaves were human. However, in the eyes of the law, they were not “persons.”1 Therefore, even though they were human but not persons, they had no rights or protections under the law. They were simply property and could be cared for and protected or beaten, sold, dismembered, and even killed without legal reprisal since they were not persons and had no rights. This classification was based on the arbitrary criteria of skin color.
Currently, preborn humans are legally classified as non-persons based on the arbitrary criteria of geography. They are living inside the womb vs. outside the womb. Based on these arbitrary criteria, state legislatures and the U.S. Supreme Court do not extend “personhood” and the attendant legal rights and protections afforded “persons” until a geographical change occurs from inside the womb to outside the womb. Even though human, they are property and can be cared for and nurtured until they make the geographical change; or they can be dismembered, burned to death with saline, or even have their brains vacuumed out a few centimeters away from a full geographical change, since they are property and not persons even though human. As long as this arbitrary classification stands, I am not really sure on what basis someone could say that slavery was wrong or, in the case of other nations, if they are abusing humans who have been legally classified as non-persons on what basis they could be charged with human rights violations? In the U.S., legally, persons have rights, humans do not.
It has been nearly two years, and so far, they have not responded. At this point, I doubt they will. I think I can safely assume it is probable they have chosen to ignore the question at this point. Why? Well, if they affirm the law can use any arbitrary criterion which excludes certain humans from protection to determine a legal definition of person, then there is really no “human rights” basis on which to say slavery was wrong. After all, slavery was legal. The ruling elite of that day determined the slaves legally were not fully counted as persons in the census (which determined state representation) even though they were human. It is wrong to own slaves in the United States today, but that is only because the criteria for human rights are arbitrary and changeable, and, consequently, the current law has changed and eliminated skin color as a criterion for being a person or non-person. It isn’t because today’s blacks are any more human than were their ancestors, but simply because the ruling elite currently has declared it to be so.
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Christians, take heart! Though we may be surrounded by darkness, Christians do not LIVE in darkness. By faith (belief) in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, we have been born again and are, in fact, indwelt by the Light of the World! We are children of God! Every year that passes brings us closer to the return of our King and true peace on Earth! May we all be blessed in our celebration of the day He entered this world and blessed us with His light.

For I’ve grown a little leaner,Grown a little colder,Grown a little sadder,Grown a little older,And I need a little angel,Sitting on my shoulder,Need a little Christmas now1
Here we are in the final days before the celebration of the incarnation. Our outside Christmas lights have been on each night at sundown since Thanksgiving evening. Just about every room inside the house has been dressed with decorations and lights, while various tart burners distribute fragrances throughout our home, adding to the festive atmosphere. Our home is also filled with the sound of carols. Inside our home, Christmas is here again – as long as the television news channel is not on.
Outside, wars and rumors of wars abound. We are often told that some conflict or other could spark WW3. Here in America, it seems that we are still locked in a cold war against each other. Fierce political battles are waged on the airwaves and on Facebook. Family members and lifetime friends are unfriending one another and parting company over issues, which, although important, will be forgotten in a few days in favor of fresh arguments, leaving mostly sadness, unresolved anger, and a little more darkness in their wake.
We want peace, but it seems there is no peace. In many ways, the stanza from “We Need a Little Christmas” is reflected back to us as we prepare for Christmas this year. Certainly, it isn’t a spiritual song, but many would agree that in this emotionally draining year, our culture has “grown a little colder, grown a little sadder, grown a little older.” We do need something to get us refocused and to bring peace back into our hearts.
Traditionally, at this time of year, we have sermons and articles telling the story of the birth of the Savior. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and tells her of her coming pregnancy: She will be blessed to conceive and carry the Son of the Most High! Joseph, naturally upset by Mary’s pregnancy, also receives a visit from an angel, who tells him that he should go ahead and marry her because the child she is carrying is from God.
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On one side is the religion of man. Man is the current pinnacle of evolution and can control the planet, even its weather. No God need apply. It seems almost like a modern-day replay of the tower of Babel, only this time the planet is the tower, which they have all intentions of “building back better.” On the other side is God and everything He has created. 

The heretics were never dishonest men; they were mistaken men. They should not be thought of as men who were deliberately setting out to go wrong and to teach something that is wrong; they have been some of the most sincere men that the Church has ever known. What was the matter with them? Their trouble was this: they evolved a theory and they were rather pleased with it; then they went back with this theory to the Bible, and they seemed to find it everywhere.—Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (as quoted by Marsha West)
A new religion – if in 2022 it can still rightly be called “new” – has established itself in Western culture and seems now to be the official religion of the Federal Government of the United States, and our mainstream media, along with Wiccan and pagan groups – and popular culture. Although its government adherents do not call it a religion, it certainly carries all the earmarks of one. It is now lavishly funded by taxpayer dollars and enjoys mandated obedience through the power of Federal legislation. The priests of this mandated religion are climate change activists. We do not doubt that many of them are well-intentioned, deeply believing in the rightness of their cause, regardless of how this religion places heavy burdens upon ordinary citizens, who may or may not believe in their religion and certainly do not wish to destroy their children and grandchildren’s futures over their apocalyptic fervor. They followed a similar route to those Martyn Lloyd-Jones described concerning former religious heretics, but with a slight twist. These new religionists “evolved a theory and were rather pleased with it: they went out and seemed indeed to find it everywhere.” They have turned their theory into an iron-fisted belief system and have managed to establish authoritarian rule over entire nations and cultures that would make old-fashioned religious cults like the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Scientology, and others jealous.
Mark J. Perry might call this new religion an eco-pocalyptic religion. Its apocalyptic vision is slightly different from those of the past. Instead of preaching about God bringing judgment on humans, human beings are seen as wantonly destroying the goddess of the climate change activists – Mother Earth. The core doctrine is that humans are the thermostat that controls the climate of the planet on which we live. This strikes us as odd. When we were younger, changes in climate were normal; they were called “seasons.” We had summer, fall, winter, and spring. Some summers would be warmer or rainier than others. Some winters were much colder or snowier than others. We could sometimes witness quite a few years in a row when the climate was cooler or warmer than in past years. It varied depending on what was happening within the planet’s interior and solar activity.
Unknown to some people, there was a Mini-Ice Age from the early 14th century through the mid-19th century when “mean annual temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere declined by 0.6 °C (1.1 °F).” Part of that period was “The Year Without Summer” in 1816:
The weather in 1816 was unprecedented. Spring arrived as usual. But then the seasons seemed to turn backward, as cold temperatures returned. In some places, the sky appeared permanently overcast. The lack of sunlight became so severe that farmers lost their crops and food shortages were reported in Ireland, France, England, and the United States.
What had human beings done to cause such a catastrophic event? Was it coal-fired plants, diesel, gasoline-powered vehicles, or flatulent cattle? No, the culprit seems to have been a natural planetary occurrence:
The dust from Mount Tambora, which had erupted in early April 1815, had shrouded the globe. And with sunlight blocked, 1816 did not have a normal summer.1
There were likely many such devastating eras of climate change throughout the countless centuries. Around the 1970s, or perhaps a bit earlier, a new belief was germinating in the minds of some climatologists. The habits of human beings cause climate change! We were personally exposed to their claims in the 1970s with dire warnings of a soon coming ice age that would cover the North American continent. Virtually everything North of Florida would be covered in ice! (Now, it should be noted that those of us who live in northern Illinois may occasionally feel as though winter will last forever, but evidentially, that is not what they meant at all.) In 1971 the Washington Post published “U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming,” predicting the New Ice Age would arrive by 2020 or 2030:
The world could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts. Dr. S. I. Rasool of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Columbia University says
Newsweek, April 28, 1975, published “The Cooling World” warning:
that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.
As it turns out, these are but two of what are many false prophecies concerning the climate. In “50 Years of Failed Doomsday, Eco-pocalyptic Predictions; the So-called ‘experts’ Are 0-50”2 Mark J Perry notes:
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Though individuals can and often do overcome broken homes and/or poor parenting, it certainly appears to us that our nation and culture may not be able to rise above the overall damage that has been done. The Bible speaks of woe for the nations that forget God. In order to “forget God,” these nations had to know Him at some point in time – and then very foolishly cast Him aside. Yet, as Christians, whatever may happen, we take great comfort in knowing that the Lord will not forsake us, his children. No matter what the future may hold, we know who holds our future.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)
Over twenty years ago, Joy and I came across a news story about an increase in “rogue elephants.” Okay, what is a “rogue elephant?” It turns out that when male elephants are raised without a father present, they are likely to act out with violence and extreme mayhem, causing much trouble in Elephant “society,” as well as other smaller animals that may cross paths with them. Who knew? We also watched a fascinating documentary on the horrendous problem of young male elephants that have been orphaned. “Orphan elephants go on the rampage” by Eddie Koch tells the reader the problem’s source in the first paragraph.
Like children, young elephants need discipline if they are to grow up as responsible members of society. Wildlife biologists say that orphan bull elephants in South Africa’s Pilanesberg Game Reserve have turned delinquent because they have never been taken in hand by their elders.
This came to mind as we discussed the recent opinion piece, “America’s crisis is a lack of fathers,” by  Rep. Burgess Owens, Rep. Byron Donalds, and Jack Brewer, which focuses on the issue of the importance of human fathers. They write:
There is little doubt that America is experiencing an unprecedented fatherless crisis. Approximately 80% of single-parent homes are led by single mothers; therefore leading to nearly 25% of our youth growing up without a father in the home.
They go on to note a seeming correlation:
85% of children and teens with behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes, and over 70% of all adolescent patients in drug and alcohol treatment centers originate from homes without fathers.
In addition:
data shows that children without a father in the home are five times more likely to live in poverty than a child in a two-parent household. Furthermore, research indicates that children without fathers at home are nine times more likely to drop out of school and represent 90% of all homeless and runaway children. We can no longer afford to ignore the debilitating impact that fatherless homes have on our youth and our country.
This situation has been a long while in the making. Until the last six decades, America lived under an essentially Judeo/Christian sense of morality and ethics. It isn’t that most Americans were Christian in the biblical sense. They weren’t. However, their general beliefs about right and wrong were informed and shaped by the Ten Commandments and New Testament ideas, encapsulated in “The Golden Rule,” for example. Americans had a strong sense of “fairness,” and most believed it was right to protect the weak, live honorable lives, and remain faithful to one’s spouse and children. This certainly does not mean that all individuals were fair, honest, or faithful to their marriage vows, etc., but people believed these things were right, even if they themselves violated them in practice. Peer pressure also tended to keep people “in line” to a certain extent. Television shows and movies also reflected a Judeo/Christian ethic and promoted solid “family values.” It was firmly held that the welfare of “the children” should be put before any selfish pursuits of either spouse. It was a different world.
The family was considered the building block of society. In that milieu, the importance and roles of the fathers and mothers were well understood. They both contributed to training their children. Through observation and imitation, the children learned about relationships, work ethic, the importance of education, and how to live in a complicated world. Not all families were healthy, and the children were often trained in those environments to mimic bad behavior. But there were usually other good role models that children could emulate. Often these alternative role models would be extended family members and neighborhood men and women. One’s friend’s parents could also strongly influence the path a child would ultimately take, as could adults at church and school. It is fair to say that most children treated all adults with a respect we do not see anymore. As the 1960s rang in, the nation gradually moved away from God, and Judeo/Christian values and families became increasingly fractured. This has deeply affected and changed communities of every stripe, but it hit first and especially hard in minority families.
A study of 1880 family structures in Philadelphia showed that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families, composed of two parents and children. Data from U.S. Census reports reveal that between 1880 and 1960, married households consisting of two-parent homes were the most widespread form of African-American family structures. Although the most popular, married households decreased over this time period. Single-parent homes, on the other hand, remained relatively stable until 1960; when they rose dramatically. (African-American family structure)
While 25% of children across all ethnicities are currently being raised without a father in the home, this statistic nearly triples among African-Americans:
In the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households had two parents.
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