Tearing Down the Machine

Dismantling the Religious Machine

Author: Chip Brogden
Source: SermonIndex.org
Link: about.me/gideonsword


 Machines are used to do repetitive or difficult work more quickly and efficiently, giving people more leisure and free time to pursue something besides work.

Once upon a time a group of people saw that a machine was needed to make something hard and difficult more easily done. They put their heads together and came up with a handy little machine called “Religion.”

The Religion Machine would make life easier for everyone they said. With the Machine, we don’t have to waste precious time relating to a real God Who loves us. The machine would take these complex processes and break them down into a simple three-step process that anyone could follow, reducing God to a faceless, personless ideology of good works. The result would be a mass-production of religious people who all spoke, thought, acted, and believed the same way.

Things went very well for a while. The Religion Machine worked just like it was supposed to. Churches were built, movements were started, crusades were held, programs were implemented. The inventors congratulated themselves on making Religion so efficient.

But you and I know that machines require a lot of maintenance. Parts have to be replaced. People wanted the Religion Machine to be bigger, better, and faster each year. Research and development expense was incurred, testing expenses, raw materials and warehousing. The Religion Machine had to have qualified people to work on it, qualified people to run it, qualified people to supervise the people who run it, and so on.

With all the improvements and modifications to the original design, the Religion Machine got so big that they had to house it someplace; now they had factory overhead: the property, the specialized plant equipment, the electrical and water requirements, more work crews, the support staff, the management, still more parts, upgrades, routine maintenance, all the hidden costs associated with keeping the Machine running.

No one knew just how big the Religion Machine would get. The inventors would have never dreamed that their little invention would one day turn into a big business, but it did. People picked up their families and moved to live and work close to the Machine. There’s money there, a chance to get ahead, a chance to settle down, a nice place to raise their kids. The Machine is a boost to the local economy because it produces jobs and goods. It’s in everyone’s interest to keep the Machine running along.

The people took great pride in their work. Take a drive with them to any part of the country and they would point to the impressive array of expensive church buildings, sprawling seminaries, and mega-church outreach centers. “We helped put that one together,” they’d say. “Thank God for the Religion Machine! How did we get along without it before?”

But there’s another side to the story. Oh, the work is simple enough. “Do what you’re told. Push this button, pull that lever, flip that switch.” Keep producing, keep the Machine running. But there’s a human toll being exacted on the people who are running the Machine. Just another cog in the wheel, they begin to stop thinking for themselves; they depend on the supervisors to tell them what to do. They go home tired day after day (their busiest day is Sunday). They always work overtime and their family life is non-existent. Even when they’re home they think about work. Production is the name of the game; keep the Machine running no matter what; produce more with less.

People always get injured on the job. It’s hot, dirty work. And noisy. The Machine makes so much noise that all the workers eventually develop acute hearing loss. The light is so dim that the employees have become very narrow-eyed and squinty, not able to withstand bright light. But somehow the security that comes from getting paid each week is more important than the side-effects. So the work goes on.

Besides, where else could they go? What else could they do? Financial commitments based on that paycheck have been made: houses mortgaged, cars financed, durable goods charged. If the Machine stops running, the paychecks stop coming, and it means bankruptcy for the workers and the community. So on and on it goes.

Every once in awhile a pay raise comes. Some live long enough to retire, but most of the workers die young from stress, are injured on the job and permanently disabled, or have nervous breakdowns. But no matter what, the Machine kept running.

Then the unexpected happened.

The Religion Machine used a synthetic, man-made oil for fuel to keep it running.

The oil ran out. The Machine ground to a halt.

The workers were in a panic. No more fuel? How would the Machine run? What about their job? What about their paycheck? Who would take care of their families?

"What about natural oil?" someone asked. No that wouldn’t work. They tried that years ago. Genuine oil would not run the Religion Machine.

The supervisors cursed and swore. How could they get the Machine running again?

There was only one thing left to do.

The doors were locked, and the gates closed tight. Armed security gathered the workers together and had them form a line leading up to the top of the combustion chamber, the fiery inferno which fueled the Religion Machine.

One by one they were cast into the fuel tank. The Machine sparked and began to hum again.

"More people! We need more people over here!" Like lambs being led to the slaughter, the deaf, dumb, and blind workers were pushed over the precipice to be used as fuel for the Religion Machine. Next it was their wives, husbands, children, parents, brothers, sisters, all thrown alive and screaming into the Machine. The houses and cars, the clothing and jewelry, the furniture and possessions were all confiscated and dumped into to the Religion Machine to add more fuel for it to run.

At last everything that could be used for fuel had been used. It would not be enough, and it had all been in vain. Once again the Religion Machine ground to a halt, and no one was around to start it up again. The supervisors went out into the community to try and recruit new workers, but after hearing what had happened to the last shift no one would take the job.

Today those supervisors are dead and gone. The Religion Machine was dismantled by the townspeople, the parts scattered to the four winds, never to be assembled again.

The problem with the Religion Machine was that it started out as a neat invention designed to help people, but it wound up hurting them. The Machine was made for man, but soon man lived for the Machine and became dependent upon it.

Once upon a time another group of people saw that a machine was needed to make something hard and difficult more easily done and give them more leisure time. They were even more talented, technologically advanced, and affluent than the first group of inventors. So they put their heads together and came up with a handy little machine called “American Christianity”...

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Defending the Doctrine of the Trinity

Answering Common Objections

to the Doctrine of the Trinity

Author: Ben Rast
Source: Contender Ministries - August 23, 2005
Link: about.me/gideonsword


Though the doctrine of the Trinity is quite biblical, many Christians find themselves unable to adequately answer the attacks on this doctrine by other monotheistic religions such as Islam and Judaism, as well as polytheistic and henotheistic religions such as Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (henotheism is the belief in multiple gods, but the worship of only one).  Few Christian doctrines are attacked so viciously as the doctrine of the Trinity.  This aspect of the nature of God is awe-inspiring and wonderful.  As Christians, we should be prepared to explain it to unbelievers and to defend it against attacks.  As you will see, most arguments against the Trinity are weak and unable to stand up to biblical scrutiny or an appeal to logic.  If you witness to a Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, or a Muslim, some of these arguments are likely to come up, and it’s vitally important that you are able to give an answer (1 Peter 3:15), demolish these arguments (2 Corinthians 10:5), and contend for the faith (Jude 3,4).

I have covered the biblical supports for the triune nature of God in a previous article, “A Comprehensive Biblical Defense of the Trinity.”  If you have not read that article, I encourage you to do so before moving on to this one.  In it, I provide biblical proof for the following points:

1.      There is only one God

2.      The Father is God

3.     Jesus is God

4.     The Holy Spirit is God

5.      The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct Persons.

Before addressing the most common objections, it’s important to make sure that we are starting with an accurate definition of the Trinity.  Many who oppose the Trinity do so with a faulty understanding of the definition.  Simply put, the doctrine of the Trinity states that there is one true God, and within that God there are three co-equal and co-eternal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Each Person of the Trinity is distinct from the other, but all three comprise one God.  Various heresies arise when this definition is distorted, and I covered some of them in the previous article.  Now that we start from a common definition, let’s turn ourselves to some common objections.

1.  The word “Trinity” isn’t found anywhere in the Bible!

True enough, the word “Trinity” isn’t found in the Bible.  A similar argument is used by theological modernists who assert that the term “homosexual” is a modern word that didn’t exist at the time the Bible was written, therefore the Bible can’t condemn homosexuality.  I think most people will agree that the Bible STILL condemns homosexuality, even thought this particular English word wasn’t used in the Greek or Hebrew texts.  Interestingly, the word “pornography” is similarly absent from Scripture, but we are still able to view the biblical teachings on sexual morality, coupled with Jesus’ teaching that a man who looks at a woman with lust commits adultery with her in his heart to recognize that pornography is sinful.  The word “theocracy” is not found in the Bible, but the concept can be found there.  The absence of a word does not preclude its teaching in Scripture.

Critics also argue that no single verse of Scripture clearly teaches the doctrine of the Trinity.  While many single verses provide excellent evidence for the triune nature of God (see the previous article), it is true that this doctrine is not capsulated in a single verse or passage of Scripture.  The Bible is not titled, “Christian Doctrine for Dummies.”  It is sometimes necessary to look at the teachings of Scripture as a whole.  When we allow ourselves to do that, we can see that the Trinity is quite Scriptural.

2.  The Trinity doctrine is confusing, and God is not the author of confusion.

1 Corinthians 14:33 in the NIV states in part, “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.”  In the spurious New World Translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the verse similarly states, “For God is [a God], not of disorder, but of peace.”  Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons will frequently cite this verse when arguing against the Trinity.  After all, the concept of a triune God can be confusing.  They argue that such a confusing doctrine must come from Satan, since God is not a God of confusion or disorder.  Yet such an argument is illogical.  That humans cannot fully understand the nature of God simply means that we are finite created beings who do not possess the mind of God.  The Bible is clear that such confusions are to be expected:

-   “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.  ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” – Isaiah 55:8-9

-   “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” – Romans 11:33

-   “Now we see but a poor reflection; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” – 1 Corinthians 13:12

Many aspects of God’s nature are hard, if not impossible, for the human mind to comprehend.  For example, infinite concepts give me a headache.  If I try to comprehend the concept of an infinite sum, I get a headache.  If I try to really comprehend the eternal nature of God (without a beginning or an end), I get a headache.  My finite human mind simply cannot comprehend eternity beyond the vague concept.  I’m not alone in this either.  While Jehovah’s Witnesses will use the confusion argument against the Trinity, they contradict themselves in other areas.  In the Watchtower publication Reasoning from the Scriptures, they acknowledge this confusion after citing Psalm 90:2, referencing God’s eternal nature: “Is that reasonable? Our minds cannot fully comprehend it.  But that is not a sound reason for rejecting it.” ^[1]

As is so often the case in arguments by cultists and heretics, they have divorced 1 Corinthians 14:33 from its context to use it in the fashion they desire.  It is vital that we read Scripture in context to gain a proper understanding of it.  Let’s put this verse back in its appropriate context, including verses 26-33, 39-40:

“What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two--or at the most three--should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.  Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.  The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace….Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”

When placed in context, we can see that this passage is talking about how our worship should be orderly.  Paul is trying to put the gifts of tongues and prophecy into their proper usage and eliminate the confusion that can result in a service when these gifts are used improperly.  Just as there is no discord within God, so there should be no discord or confusion in our worship of God.  Putting Scripture in context allows us to read it the way the authors (and the Ultimate Author) intended us to do so.

3.  The Trinity is a pagan concept adopted by Christianity.

This is one of the most common arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity.  I’ve heard it expressed often by Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Usually, the person using this argument has no evidence to back up this assertion, but on rare occasions they do.  Unfortunately, it is equally rare that a Christian is prepared to “demolish” this argument.  It can be done easily by an appeal to facts and logic.

The argument typically is expressed that certain pagan cultures, such as the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, developed a Trinitarian belief in places far removed from the birthplace of Christianity and predating it by thousands of years.  Therefore, it’s logical to conclude that these pagan doctrines were introduced into Christianity hundreds of years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  However, this isn’t exactly true.

The Babylonians and Assyrians did NOT develop a Trinitarian theological dogma.  Rather, they believed in triads of gods who headed up a council of other gods.  In other words, whereas the doctrine of the Trinity teaches that ONE GOD is comprised of three co-equal and co-eternal persons, the Babylonians and Assyrians believed that three separate gods formed a leadership over other gods.  In this, their beliefs more closely resemble the polytheistic/henotheistic beliefs of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.  Mormon doctrine holds that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate gods in leadership over this world.  Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jehovah God created Jesus – a lesser god, and that the Holy Spirit is simply Jehovah’s active force in this world.  These beliefs are closer to the ancient pagan beliefs than is the Trinity doctrine, which is strictly monotheistic.  Moreover, the separation of early Christian development from these pagan beliefs with respect to time and geography make it highly unlikely that the pagan beliefs played any role in the Church’s clarification of the Trinity doctrine as found in the Athanasian Creed.  This creed reads, in part, “This is what the catholic faith teaches: we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity.  Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance.  For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit.  But the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one divinity, equal glory, and coeternal majesty.  What the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Spirit is.  The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated.  The Father is boundless, the Son is boundless, and the Holy Spirit is boundless. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Holy Spirit is eternal.  Nevertheless, there are not three eternal beings, but one eternal being.  So there are not three uncreated beings, nor three boundless beings, but one uncreated being and one boundless being.  Likewise, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent.  Yet there are not three omnipotent beings, but one omnipotent being.  Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.  However, there are not three gods, but one God.”  It should be noted that “catholic” in the early centuries was used to describe universal and orthodox Christianity long before the Roman Catholic Church existed as such.  The creed continues in this manner.  Athanasius did not fabricate this.  Rather, he summarized the teaching of Scripture. 

Association based on similarities is faulty logic.  Pagans (and indeed practically all ancient cultures on earth) have a legend concerning a global flood.  Does this negate the truthfulness of the global flood described in Genesis?  Does this mean the Genesis account was “borrowed”?  Of course not.  The ubiquity of the flood story actually buttresses its truthfulness, even though other cultures don’t have all the details correct.  Furthermore, some pagan cultures have a “messiah” legend that has similarities to the gospel.  However, there are also differences in these stories.  We can take joy in the fact that these legends haven’t the accuracy of the Bible as verified historically and archaeologically.  Similarities don’t impart guilt.  Therefore, similar pagan doctrines in triads of gods are not the same as the Trinitarian doctrine of Christianity, and it is baseless to assume that the Trinity was “borrowed” from paganism.  It’s simply not true.

4.  Jesus calls the Father, “the only true God,” therefore Jesus cannot be God.

This is an interesting argument often raised by Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.  This argument, as we will see, is self-defeating for them.  This argument refers to Jesus’ words to the Father in John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”  Critics argue that the Father cannot be the “only true God” if Jesus and the Holy Spirit can also claim to be God.  The thinking is illogical.  First, Jesus’ words do not exclude the Son and Holy Spirit from also being the only true God.  They DO exclude Jesus and the Holy Spirit from being separate gods.  In other words, if the Father is the only true God, then Jesus cannot also be a true God and the Holy Spirit cannot also be a true God (distinguishing them as separate gods rather than simply separate persons).  If we understand the true nature of the Trinity, we can acknowledge that the Son and Holy Spirit are co-equal and co-eternal persons that comprise the one true God, and John 17:3 does not counter that.  However, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons believe that Jesus is a separate god, and Mormons believe that the Holy Spirit is yet another god.  In the Mormon New World Translation, John 1:1 states, “In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god” (emphasis added).  Mormonism’s founding prophet taught, “In the beginning, the head of the gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people it.”^[2] Now if a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness wants to claim that this verse teaches that the Father alone is the only true God, then Jesus and the Holy Spirit must be false gods.  If that is true, the teachings of the LDS prophets and the New World Translation must be wrong. 

5.  Jesus prayed to God in the garden, so Jesus can’t be God.

This statement has needlessly stumped some Christians, though not for long.  It is a misleading generality to say, “Jesus prayed to God.”  To be more precise, we should say that Jesus (The Son) prayed to The Father in the garden.  While it is true that there is only one God, it is equally true that God exists as three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  During His earthly ministry and being subject to a mortal body, Jesus willingly endured the limitations of man.  As such, it should come as no surprise that He communicated with The Father through prayer!  This does nothing to diminish the deity of Jesus Christ or to contradict the monotheistic nature of God. 

6.  The Bible says that God is ONE!

This argument, which attempts to disprove the triune nature of God based on unity, is based largely on two verses:

-"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." – Deuteronomy 6:4   -"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one’.” – Mark 12:29

Deuteronomy 6:4 in the New World Translation says, “Listen, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.”  We’ve gone into detail in other articles about the fact that “Jehovah” is not a word that appears in the Bible, but is rather a modification of Yahweh.  One way to read the last phrase with some of the Hebrew intact is “Yahweh (Jehovah) our elohim is one Yahweh (Jehovah).  The Hebrew words themselves are “Yahweh elohim echad Yahweh.” The NIV footnote for this verse lists a few possible ways to translate this verse based on its grammatical construct.  Echad means “one” or “only”.  Because of the construct, this verse could be translated as it is above, or as “The LORD our God is one LORD,” “The LORD is our God, the LORD is one,” or “The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.”  I think the best of these translations can be assessed by observing the context of the passage.  In Deuteronomy 5, Moses had just presented the Israelites with the Ten Commandments.  One sin that marked these people was their habit of turning to idolatry (golden calf ring a bell?).  As we read down in chapter 6, we see that this is still the focus and concern at this point.  In verses 14-16 we read, “Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah.”  This is a very clear exhortation for the Israelites to abandon their worship of multiple “gods.”  Therefore, the most reasonable way of interpreting Deuteronomy 6:4 is “The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.”  This establishes that only Yahweh is the true God.  All other “gods” are false and must be rejected.  Deuteronomy 6:4 does not exclude God from being triune in nature.  Mark 12:29 is simply a recitation of Deuteronomy 6:4 with the intent of that verse intact – we have one and ONLY one God!

Yahweh is our elohim, Yahweh alone.  In my previous article on the Trinity, I established Scripturally that not only is the Father Yahweh, but Jesus is also Yahweh.  Similarly, the deity of the Holy Spirit reveals He is also Yahweh.  In this article and the previous one, I have addressed some of the most common objections to the doctrine of the Trinity.  The teaching of the Word of God is clear.  There is one God.  God exists in three co-equal and co-eternal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Each of these three are rightfully called God, yet each is distinct from the other.  The absence of one convenient summary of this truth in Scripture does not negate its truthfulness, nor does it mean this truth is not found in Scripture.  God has revealed this wonderful truth to us through His Word.  The question is, are we listening?

NOTES:

1. Reasoning from the Scriptures (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1989), p. 148.

2. Joseph Smith, Jr., The King Follett Discourse (Salt Lake City: Joseph Lyon & Associates, 1963), p. 9.

God's View on Divorce

God Hates Divorce

Author/Preacher: Carl Carmody
Source: SermonIndex.net
Link: about.me/gideonsword

Sermon Text: Malachi 2:10-16

The book of Malachi is a very sobering one because it deals with subject matter that is very close to our hearts. Chapter 2 verses 10-16 raises the spectre of divorce, but not in the secular world, where we expect it, and where it is glibly accepted as part of life, but in the church, amongst the faithful.

Not only is Malachi raising a very thorny issue in the church, but tragically he is pointing out that it is a major phenomenon within the leadership — the priests of Israel. These were the men who were supposed to be leading by example, but were treating their marriages as a disposal throwaway commodity. They were divorcing their wives without any concern for the effect on them or their children or the people they were allegedly serving, or indeed how it offended God. Marriage was being trivialised, as it is today.

This is illustrated for us in the humorous story told by Chuck Swindoll in his book “Growing deep in the Christian life”. A lady wanted to marry four different men in her lifetime. She saw each one would help her with four things she needed most. First she wanted to marry a banker. Second a movie star and then a clergyman and finally a funeral director.

When asked why she thought this was necessary she answered, “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go.”

As humorous as that is we can all bear testimony to the devastation of divorce in our families, as well as the enormous upheaval it has caused. Back in chapter one it began with the burden. Malachi was deeply troubled by what he saw happening amongst the priests and the people and their incredible indifference towards spiritual matters. The priests and the people had grown cold in their love of and devotion to God and as a direct result, this spiritual demise had a trickle down effect. First it was their love (attitude towards) of God. This was illustrated in their polluted offerings. Then it was their love of God’s word in the beginning of chapter 2. This in turn affects their love for each other and in particular their love for their wives.

Just recently I read an article relating to research done in churches in the USA. George Barna’s research discovered the depth of the acceptance of divorce in the Christian church when he came up with the amazing fact that the divorce rate in so called Christian churches in America was fractionally higher than the national average of 1 in 2.

Interestingly the same article carried a most encouraging statistic related by George Gallop, another Christian statistician that couples who pray together four times or more a week, have a divorce rate of 1 in 1052. In terms of the secular world this is a negligible result, but it clearly illustrates the impact of a right relationship with God on our marriages.

Sadly due to this lack of relationship many marriages are being torn apart by selfishness, self-centredness, egos run amuck, lack of responsibility and the notion that obedience to our wedding vows are only optional, instead of binding, except in the most dire of circumstances. Even then God ultimately is seeking healing of the relationship both to Him and each other.

These seven verses can be broken up into three key thoughts as to why God hates divorce. By the way, it is not often that God uses the word hate. It connotes a very strong dislike for divorce because:

1. Divorce is treachery, verses 10, 11, 14-16.

2. Divorce is a travesty verses 11-12 and

3. Divorce is a trauma.

1. Five times God uses the word treachery or similar. The Hebrew word is bagad and means to act covertly, fraudulently, secretly, deceptively, to cheat or betray to afflict to spoil or to offend. So you can see it is a very strong term.

Recently I was lying in bed with my wife Carolyn and we were chatting about our relationship. I can honestly say that I love my wife more today than ever, because Christian love is a dynamic. As I was chatting I was taken by the thought that Carolyn knew more about me than anyone else, except God of course. As we have grown in our love for each other it has been like a flower coming into full bloom.

Then as we continued our discussion I said to Carolyn that to open up to someone like her was a joy, but at the same time I became very aware that to do so meant making oneself incredibly vulnerable. You see I come from a family that has experienced enormous upheaval. Some 35 years ago my mum and dad split up thus laying down a subliminal pattern that was to have incredible consequences. Mum was married 3 times, then my eldest sister and younger sister married twice.

Once we deal treacherously with our wives/ husbands it has a far higher cost than we can even begin to imagine. To divorce is to profane the sanctity of the marriage institution. The word profane in the original Hebrew further illustrates just how deeply God feels when two Christians, who are described as one flesh in Genesis 2:24 are divorced. The Hebrew word is chalal, which means to defile, pollute, and prostitute to make common or to break. Ultimately it means a desecration of something which is holy, which is set apart for God’s glory. That is what marriage means to God.

2. However, the treachery of Israel deepens into travesty in verses 11-12 when they add to the sin of divorce the sin of intermarriage to pagan women, who worship what seems to be anything but the true and living God. God describes it as an abomination which has the primary meaning of doing something which is morally disgusting. This takes on incredible significance when Malachi declares that the marriage institution is something that was not only created by God, but also loved by God, verse 11. When divorce happens in the Christian church it can often be traced back to one or the other drifting from their spiritual moorings. Speaking to a pastor recently I asked him how many of the couples he councils for marriage problems had stopped reading their Bibles and praying? He estimated that 90-95% fitted that category. The depth of that spiritual drift can be clearly seen when the priests and the people saw nothing wrong with divorce and even worse nothing wrong with being unequally yoked. We have become so complacent in our reverence for God’s wonderful gift of marriage. It’s a bit like the unhappy spouse who said to the marriage counsellor:

”When I got married
I was looking for an ideal
Then it became an ordeal
Now I want a new deal”

Unfortunately for far too many Christians this new deal involves marrying non-Christians. It involves being unequally yoked. The New Testament passage on this is 2 Cor. 6:11-18. In the context of this passage the unequal yoke picture not only includes marriage, but business, wrong friendships, boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, syncretistic ecumenism etc.

Note however, the stark contrasts that Paul draws on. Firstly Paul draws from Deut 22:10 that an ox and a donkey should not plow together. Why? Because they differ in shape, size and mentality. Thus Paul strings 4 contrasts together to bring home to us the danger and futility of being unequally yoked. What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? One is motivated and lives by the power of God, whilst the other is motivated by the world, the flesh and the devil.

What communion has light with darkness? They are opposites just as righteousness and lawlessness are. Those unsaved prefer darkness to light. John 3:19, And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

And what accord has Christ with Belial? Answer -- none. Satan wants to usurp the authority of God in your life and mine. Often the way he does it is to get you unequally yoked in marriage, business or friendships.

The church that my wife and family and I are in membership is a good church and certainly committed to the Word of God. However, not long after we arrived we met a lady and her daughter. This lady was divorced, but had recently become a Christian. Not long after she met a man who was not a Christian. Soon she was very much involved with him. He apparently made some profession of faith. Soon after they were married. Problems arose when this man began to seek God for healing for a long-term ailment that he had had, but became somewhat upset when it didn’t happen on cue. He then sought healing in all sorts of inappropriate non-Christian ways and places.

Anger and frustration began to surface in this man’s life and he stopped going to church. It became apparent that his alleged commitment to Christ was not genuine. His wife continued to attend church intermittently, until she stopped altogether. That same scenario repeats itself again and again in churches all over the nation.

This so often happens when the Lord’s people doubt the love of God as Israel did in chapter 4. Once we begin to doubt the Lord it opens the way for all sorts of temptations from the devil.

What accord has a believer with an unbeliever? Once again motivation is important, but also desires come into it as well. If as a believer you are walking with God then your desire will be to please God in all that you do, say and think. For the unbeliever the opposite is true.

What agreement does the temple of God have with idols? The classic illustration of this is Solomon in 1 Kings 11. Verses 1-3 says But King Solomon loved many foreign women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites, from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. For surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love’.

Then in verse 4 we read the telling results of Solomon’s disobedience. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not loyal to the Lord, his God, as was the heart of his father David.

Note the consequences didn’t reveal themselves immediately. This has the effect of us thinking that what we have done is acceptable before God or indeed that we have managed to get off scot-free. Also note that when we compromise the Word of God we become the devil’s willing agents. Who would have thought this to be true of King Solomon? -- but it was.

Verse 6, Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David.

3. Thirdly we see the awful trauma of divorce in verses 13-16. The action of the priests wrongly, sinfully divorcing their wives rendered their worship unacceptable. Divorce not only separates us from our wives, but it separates us from God and our ability to effectively worship God. However, these priests saw no problem with divorcing their wives, but also saw no problem with the impact it had on their relationship with God.

There is a word of warning for those of us, who are leaders and how we conduct ourselves in our marriages and families. Leaders need to recognise that their congregation is a mirror image of their leadership. If leadership is weak, lacking in spiritual integrity, that is exactly what will be produced in your church. If you have leadership that models godliness, commitment to the Word of God, prayer, evangelism etc it will be clearly reflected in your church.

The priests of Israel were modelling totally unbiblical behaviour in divorcing their innocent wives. Tragically the people picked up their trivial lax attitude and ran with it. The men were betraying the wife of their youth. Betraying the love, commitment and companionship of their wives.

Obviously this raises the whole trauma of divorce and Malachi, and ultimately God is using key words to bring home to any person the enormous cost of divorce. Some years ago I read an article by Jerry B Jenkins in Moody Monthly magazine on the subjects of fidelity and divorce. One of the key points he raised was the issue of the cost of divorce to the individuals involved. One of the clear realities that came through to me was that most men or women do not count the cost.

Jenkins challenged men in particular to count the cost of infidelity and divorce. One of the costs was loss of companionship. Someone we have involved in and them in us over a number of years. Companionship speaks of intimacy.

Billy Rose told a story about a man who, after twenty years of marriage, decided to divorce his wife. In preparing for the financial settlement, he began to rummage through his old cheque butts. As he glanced through them, one after another stirred up memories of a long forgotten past. The cheque to the hotel where he and his wife had spent their honeymoon; the cheque for their first car, the cheque for the hospital bill for their first daughter’s birth, the cheque for the $2000 down payment on their first home.

As he continued looking, it all got a bit much for him, so he pushed all the paperwork aside and reached for the phone and rang his wife. He told her that they had invested too much in each other just to throw it all away. So he asked her if they could start afresh. Which they did, I’m assuming.

This man inadvertently began to count the cost of dissolving his marriage, and losing not only his wife but faithful companion. Jenkin’s article went on to list a number of other key areas of loss. For example divorce often meant loss of family, job, friends, church family and fellowship, finances, home, stability, health etc.

Verse 15 then brings up another vital concern of the Lord. He wants Christian parents to bring up godly offspring. Divorce can have a devastating impact on our children. Just recently a good friend of mine related to me the sad story of the breakdown of his son’s marriage. It has been a particularly acrimonious split on the wife’s behalf, but his son has wanted to reconcile.

As I spoke to him he related how the grandchildren had recently visited and when it came time to leave they hugged him and didn’t want to let go. It was clear they were very unhappy and feeling very sad and insecure.

One day my middle daughter Micah came home from school and asked me just out of the blue, “Dad are you and Mum going to be divorced?” I responded by saying ‘no’ and queried why she had asked me. She related that one of her friends at school had experienced her mum and dad break-up. It clearly concerned Micah.

Upon further discussion with my friend he went on to relate how his son’s two eldest children had gone off the rails because the familiar secure moorings of family and marriage had been ruptured and they were like a rudder-less boat out on a vast ocean.

Then In verse 16 the trauma of divorce is pictured for us in the words, For the Lord God of Israel says, that He hates divorce. Why? For it covers one’s garment with violence. Violence once again is a strong word. The Hebrew word is chamac, meaning oppression, wickedness, wrong, cruelty, false injustice, damage.

When I made this observation I inserted a list of things that experience violence as a result of divorce. God took me back first of all to Genesis 2:24, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Then we read in Matt. 19:5, 6 the words of Jesus, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate."

To separate two people that have become one flesh requires a severing, a cutting apart. Some time ago I remember coming across two pieces of pine joined together with liquid nails. I vaguely remember trying to separate them, however, it proved tougher than I had expected. Eventually I succeeded but I didn’t get them apart without damaging both pieces, such was the effect and quality of the glue. What God joins together takes some getting apart, but the tools of neglect, selfishness, greed, jealousy, competition, cruelty, abuse and arrogance, can do the job, but create enormous violence.

Other forms of violence are the betrayal of trust in a marriage, and in a family. This often goes hand in hand with deep emotional and physical trauma. When my eldest brother’s first marriage came to grief, he was deeply emotionally affected, and for weeks suffered physically dropping over a stone, oops, 6 kilos in weight.

It goes without saying that divorce is enacting a huge violence on the church with its associated impact on the church testimony. Divorce also enacts a huge violence on society. Family trees have become so distorted, and serve as a picture of the lives affected by divorce.

So God sounds the warning bell to Israel in verse 16. So take heed to your spirit…. He is sounding the warning bell to the church today, “take heed.” We are facing the consequences of diluting our biblical stance on divorce. Like Israel we are glibly accepting what God calls an abomination. Let’s not devalue what God calls a “holy institution”.

©2002-2015 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Genuine Biblical Revival

Population Control Agenda (Pt.1)

Link: about.me/gideonsword

Beyond Birth Control:
The Population Control Agenda (Part 1)

Author: Dr. Stan Monteith, M.D
Source: Koinonia House - 1997



Planned population control including genocide is a difficult concept for Americans to accept. Even though the U.S. government helps finance the Red Chinese program of forced abortion, sterilization and infanticide, and helps finance the United Nations "family planning program," most people find it impossible to believe that such programs are really part of a larger plan to kill off large segments of the world's population.

"How can you possibly believe that?" I am frequently asked. The answer is quite simple: I have read the writings of those who intend to depopulate large segments of the earth and I believe them. They have written of the necessity of reducing-by force if necessary-the world's population.


Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood

Our tax money finances Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by Margaret Sanger. In Planned Parenthood's 1985 Annual Report, its leaders proclaimed that they were, "Proud of our past, and planning for our future." (1)

How could anyone claim to be proud of an organization when history records that its founder wrote of the necessity of "the extermination of 'human weeds'...the 'cessation of charity'...the segregation of 'morons, misfits, and the maladjusted' and...the sterilization of 'genetically inferior races?'" (2)

During the 1930s Margaret Sanger published The Birth Control Review, in which she openly supported Nazi Germany's "infanticide program" in the 1930s, and publicly championed Adolf Hitler's goal of Aryan white supremacy. Prior to World War II she commissioned Nazi Ernst Rudin, director of the dreaded German medical experimentation programs, to serve as an advisor to her organization.

In Killer Angel, George Grant chronicled the life and writings of Margaret Sanger, including her plans for genetically engineering the human race. Margaret Sanger's The Pivot of Civilization called for "the elimination of human weeds," and the "cessation of charity" because it prolonged the lives of the unfit. She called for the segregation of the unfit and prohibiting them to reproduce.
In 1939, Margaret Sanger organized the Negro Project, designed to eliminate members of what she believed to be an "inferior race." She justified her proposal because "the masses of Negroes... particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit..." (3)
She then went on to reveal that she intended to "hire three or four colored ministers to travel to various black enclaves to propagandize for birth control...The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." (4)

As Margaret Sanger's organization grew, she wrote of the necessity of targeting religious groups for destruction as well, believing that the "dysgenic races" should include "fundamentalists and Catholics" in addition to "blacks, Hispanics, [and] American Indians." (5) As the years passed, Sanger became increasingly obsessed with occult beliefs and hostile to Christianity and the American precept of individual freedom. Her distaste for America is evident in her writings:
"Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity no less than Capitalism." (6)

Just like Adolf Hitler, Margaret Sanger was a disciple of Theosophy and its founder, Madame Blavatsky. Both Sanger and Hitler were involved in a religion that worshipped Lucifer and were energized by the same dark, spiritual forces.

Lucis Trust is a prominent modern day representative of Theosophy, an extension of the Lucifer Publishing Company, which is also a United Nations NGO. Lucis Trust was founded by Alice A. Bailey during the early 20th century. Bailey was a disciple of Madame Blavatsky and nominal leader of the Theosophical Society in the early 1900s.

Because the name "Lucifer" had such a bad connotation, Bailey changed the name of her organization from the Lucifer Publishing Company to Lucis Trust. The nature and beliefs of this organization, however, have always remained the same.

Lucis Trust is one of the major front groups through which Theosophy influences life in America. Publications from Lucis Trust regularly refer to "The Plan" for humanity that has been established by "The Hierarchy." Sanger's disciples are alive and functioning today, influencing national and international population control policy.

David Graber, a research biologist with the National Park Service, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times Book Review Section, October 22, 1989, as saying, "Human happiness and certainly human fecundity are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true...We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth...Until such time as homosapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the
right virus to come along." (7)

In The First Global Revolution, published by the Council of the Club of Rome, an international elitist organization, the authors note that, "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." (8)

On April 5, 1994 the Los Angeles Times quoted Cornell University Professor David Pimentel, speaking to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, saying that, "The total world population should be no more than 2 billion rather than the current 5.6 billion."

In the UNESCO Courier of November 1991, Jacques Cousteau wrote, "The damage people cause to the planet is a function of demographics-it is equal to the degree of development. One American burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes... This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it." (9)

In The Impact of Science on Society, Bertrand Russell said, "At present the population of the world is increasing...War so far has had no great effect on this increase... I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There are others...If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full...the state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-minded people are indifferent to suffering, especially that of others."

Negative Population Growth Inc. of Teaneck, New Jersey recently circulated a letter stating their long-range goal: "We believe that our goal for the United States should be no more than 150 million; our size in 1950. For the world, we believe our goal should be a population of not more than two billion, its size shortly after the turn of the century." (10)

This amount is impossible to achieve by means of normal attrition and birth control and there is sufficient evidence to indicate other plans are afoot.


More New Age Influence

Speaking at Gorbachev's State of the World Forum in San Francisco in 1996, New Age writer and philosopher Dr. Sam Keen stated that there was strong agreement that religious institutions have to take a primary responsibility for the population explosion.

He went on to say that, "We must speak far more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control the population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage."

Dr. Keen's remarks were met with applause from the assembled audience of New Age adherents, Socialists, Internationalists and occultists.

Next month, we'll explore some specific cases of covert as well as blatant population control, including the link between abortions and breast cancer and what really happened during the Rwanda massacres.

Endnotes

1. Killer Angel, George Grant, Reformer Press, p. 105, available from Radio Liberty, P.O. Box 13, Santa Cruz, CA, 95063.
2. Ibid, p. 65.
3. Woman's Body, Woman's Right, Linda Gordon, Penguin Press, New York, p. 332; see also Killer Angel, p. 73.
4. Killer Angel, p. 74: see also Woman's Body, Woman's Right, pp. 229-334.
5. Woman's Body, Woman's Right, pp.229-334; see also Killer Angel, p.73.
6. Killer Angel, p. 104.
7. Los Angeles Times, Book Review Section, October 22, 1989, p. 9.
8. The First Global Revolution: Club of Rome, Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, Pantheon Books, New York, 1991, p. 115.
9. "The Population Controllers," New American Magazine, 6/27/94, p. 7.
10. Material is available from Radio Liberty, P.O. Box 13, Santa Cruz, CA, 95063.

This article was originally published in the
September 1997 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

When Do Black Lives Matter???

NYC: More Black Babies Killed by Abortion Than Born



Author: Michael W. Chapman
Source: cnsnews.com - 02.20.2014
Link: about.me/gideonsword

(CNSNews.com) – In 2012, there were more black babies killed by abortion (31,328) in New York City than were born there (24,758), and the black children killed comprised 42.4% of the total number of abortions in the Big Apple, according to a report by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The report is entitled, Summary of Vital Statistics 2012 The City of New York, Pregnancy Outcomes, and was prepared by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Vital Statistics.
(See Pregnancy Outcomes NYC Health 2012.pdf)

Table 1 of the report presents the total number of live births, spontaneous terminations (miscarriages), and induced terminations (abortions) for women in different age brackets between 15 and 49 years of age. The table also breaks that data down by race – Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander, Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black – and also by borough of residence: Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island.

The numbers show that in 2012, there were 31,328 induced terminations (abortions) among non-Hispanic black women in New York City. That same year, there were 24,758 live births for non-Hispanic black women in New York City. There were 6,570 more abortions than live births of black children.

In total, there were 73,815 abortions, which means the 31,328 black babies aborted comprised 42.4% of the total abortions.

For Hispanic women, there were 22,917 abortions in New York City in 2012, which is 31% of the total abortions.

Black and Hispanic abortions combined, 54,245 babies, is 73% of the total abortions in the Big Apple in 2012.

The number of non-Hispanic white abortions was 9,704, and the number of Asian and Pacific Islander abortions was 4,493.

The total number of live births in New York City in 2012 for women ages 15-49 was 123,231. That is a rate of 14.8 live births per 1,000 women, which is the lowest rate since 1979, according to the report. In addition, the live birth rate (per 1,000 women) has declined 3.9% since 2003, when it was a 15.4 rate, states the report.
(See Pregnancy Outcomes NYC Health 2012.pdf)

In addition, while there were 73,815 abortions in New York City in 2012, the rate of abortions per 1,000 women is down 8.6% since 2011, according to the report.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have not published their abortion statistics for 2011 or 2012 yet, they do have data for 2010. (See Table 12.) In the CDC’s numbers, there were 38,574 black babies killed by abortion in New York City in 2010; Hispanic babies aborted, 27,112; white babies killed by abortion, 9,220; and “other” aborted, 5,368. The total abortions in New York City in 2010 “reported by known race/ethnicity” were 80,274, according to the CDC.

THE NEGRO PROJECT

If #BlackLivesMatter, then how come:

 "In 2012, there were more black babies killed by abortion (31,328) in New York City than were born there (24,758), and the black children killed comprised 42.4% of the total number of abortions in the Big Apple, according to a report by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene."[Source]

Is it because generations of blacks have been conditioned and programmed by both their own Elite (the Boule) and the white Elite/Illuminati families to believe the deceptions and lies? Could there be a spiritual blindness, a curse, upon an entire community which has caused them to become pawns in the Elitist global depopulation and eugenics agendas? Read on...

 

The Negro Project:

Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Plan for Black Americans

 

Author: Tanya L. Green
Source: Concerned Women for America 
 Link: about.me/gideonsword

See Also:
- The Spirit of Feminism
- Beyond Birth Control: Part One and Part Two
- (Black Genocide) The Truth About Margret Sanger

 

“... I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live."
—Deuteronomy 30:19 (NKJV)

Introduction
Malthusian Eugenics
The Harlem Clinic
Birth Control as a Solution
Web of Deceit
“Better Health for 13,000,000”
“Scientific Racism”
Sanger's Legacy
Untangling the Deceptive Web
End Notes


On the crisp, sunny, fall Columbus Day in 1999, organizers of the “Say So” march approached the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. The marchers, who were predominantly black pastors and lay persons, concluded their three-day protest at the site of two monumental cases: the school desegregation Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the pro-abortion Roe v. Wade (1973). The significance of each case—equal rights for all Americans in the former, and abortion “rights” in the latter—converged in the declaration of Rev. Johnny M. Hunter, the march's sponsor and national director of Life, Education and Resource Network (LEARN), the largest black pro-life organization.

“'Civil rights' doesn't mean anything without a right to life!” declared Hunter. He and the other marchers were protesting the disproportionately high number of abortions in the black community. The high number is no accident. Many Americans—black and white—are unaware of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's Negro Project. Sanger created this program in 1939, after the organization changed its name from the American Birth Control League (ABCL) to the Birth Control Federation of America (BCFA).[1]

The aim of the program was to restrict—many believe exterminate—the black population. Under the pretense of “better health” and “family planning,” Sanger cleverly implemented her plan. What's more shocking is Sanger's beguilement of black America's crème de la crème—those prominent, well educated and well-to-do—into executing her scheme. Some within the black elite saw birth control as a means to attain economic empowerment, elevate the race and garner the respect of whites.

The Negro Project has had lasting repercussions in the black community: “We have become victims of genocide by our own hands,” cried Hunter at the “Say So” march.


Malthusian Eugenics
Margaret Sanger aligned herself with the eugenicists whose ideology prevailed in the early 20th century. Eugenicists strongly espoused racial supremacy and “purity,” particularly of the “Aryan” race. Eugenicists hoped to purify the bloodlines and improve the race by encouraging the “fit” to reproduce and the “unfit” to restrict their reproduction. They sought to contain the “inferior” races through segregation, sterilization, birth control and abortion.

Margret Sanger

Sanger embraced Malthusian eugenics. Thomas Robert Malthus, a 19th-century cleric and professor of political economy, believed a population time bomb threatened the existence of the human race.[2] He viewed social problems such as poverty, deprivation and hunger as evidence of this “population crisis.” According to writer George Grant, Malthus condemned charities and other forms of benevolence, because he believed they only exacerbated the problems. His answer was to restrict population growth of certain groups of people.[3] His theories of population growth and economic stability became the basis for national and international social policy. Grant quotes from Malthus' magnum opus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in six editions from 1798 to 1826:
All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room is made for them by the deaths of grown persons. We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality.[4]

Malthus' disciples believed if Western civilization were to survive, the physically unfit, the materially poor, the spiritually diseased, the racially inferior, and the mentally incompetent had to be suppressed and isolated—or even, perhaps, eliminated. His disciples felt the subtler and more “scientific” approaches of education, contraception, sterilization and abortion were more “practical and acceptable ways” to ease the pressures of the alleged overpopulation.[5]

Critics of Malthusianism said the group “produced a new vocabulary of mumbo-jumbo. It was all hard-headed, scientific and relentless.” Further, historical facts have proved the Malthusian mathematical scheme regarding overpopulation to be inaccurate, though many still believe them.[6]

Despite the falsehoods of Malthus' overpopulation claims, Sanger nonetheless immersed herself in Malthusian eugenics. Grant wrote she argued for birth control using the “scientifically verified” threat of poverty, sickness, racial tension and overpopulation as its background. Sanger's publication, The Birth Control Review (founded in 1917) regularly published pro-eugenic articles from eugenicists, such as Ernst Rudin.[7] Although Sanger ceased editing The Birth Control Review in 1929, the ABCL continued to use it as a platform for eugenic ideas.

Sanger built the work of the ABCL, and, ultimately, Planned Parenthood, on the ideas and resources of the eugenics movement. Grant reported that “virtually all of the organization's board members were eugenicists.” Eugenicists financed the early projects, from the opening of birth control clinics to the publishing of “revolutionary” literature. Eugenicists comprised the speakers at conferences, authors of literature and the providers of services “almost without exception.” And Planned Parenthood's international work was originally housed in the offices of the Eugenics Society. The two organizations were intertwined for years.[8]
The ABCL became a legal entity on April 22, 1922, in New York. Before that, Sanger illegally operated a birth control clinic in October 1916, in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York, which eventually closed. The clinic serviced the poor immigrants who heavily populated the area—those deemed “unfit” to reproduce.[9]

Sanger's early writings clearly reflected Malthus' influence. She writes:

Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents.[10]

In another passage, she decries the burden of “human waste” on society:

It [charity] encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant [emphasis added].[11]

She concluded,

The most serious charge that can be brought against modern “benevolence” is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression.[12]

The Review printed an excerpt of an address Sanger gave in 1926. In it she said:

It now remains for the U.S. government to set a sensible example to the world by offering a bonus or yearly pension to all obviously unfit parents who allow themselves to be sterilized by harmless and scientific means. In this way the moron and the diseased would have no posterity to inherit their unhappy condition. The number of the feeble-minded would decrease and a heavy burden would be lifted from the shoulders of the fit.[13]

Sanger said a “bonus” would be “wise and profitable” and “the salvation of American civilization.”[14] She presented her ideas to Mr. C. Harold Smith (of the New York Evening World) on “the welfare committee” in New York City. She said, “people must be helped to help themselves.” Any plan or program that would make them “dependent upon doles and charities” is “paternalistic” and would not be “of any permanent value.” She included an essay (what she called a “program of public welfare,”) entitled “We Must Breed a Race of Thoroughbreds.”[15]

In it she argued that birth control clinics, or bureaus, should be established “in which men and women will be taught the science of parenthood and the science of breeding.” For this was the way “to breed out of the race the scourges of transmissible disease, mental defect, poverty, lawlessness, crime ... since these classes would be decreasing in number instead of breeding like weeds [emphasis added].”[16]

Her program called for women to receive birth control advice in various situations, including where:

- the woman or man had a “transmissible” disease such as insanity, feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, syphilis, etc.;
- the children already born were “subnormal or feeble-minded”;
- the father's wages were “inadequate ... to provide for more children.”

Sanger said “such a plan would ... reduce the birthrate among the diseased, the sickly, the poverty stricken and anti-social classes, elements unable to provide for themselves, and the burden of which we are all forced to carry.”[17]

Sanger had openly embraced Malthusian eugenics, and it shaped her actions in the ensuing years.


The Harlem Clinic
In 1929, 10 years before Sanger created the Negro Project, the ABCL laid the groundwork for a clinic in Harlem, a largely black section of New York City. It was the dawn of the Great Depression, and for blacks that meant double the misery. Blacks faced harsher conditions of desperation and privation because of widespread racial prejudice and discrimination. From the ABCL's perspective, Harlem was the ideal place for this “experimental clinic,” which officially opened on November 21, 1930. Many blacks looked to escape their adverse circumstances and therefore did not recognize the eugenic undercurrent of the clinic. The clinic relied on the generosity of private foundations to remain in business.[18] In addition to being thought of as “inferior” and disproportionately represented in the underclass, according to the clinic's own files used to justify its “work,” blacks in Harlem:

- were segregated in an over-populated area (224,760 of 330,000 of greater New York's black population lived in Harlem during the late 1920s and 1930s);
- comprised 12 percent of New York City's population, but accounted for 18.4 percent of New York City's unemployment;
- had an infant mortality rate of 101 per 1000 births, compared to 56 among whites;
- had a death rate from tuberculosis—237 per 100,000—that was highest in central Harlem, out of all of New York City.[19]

Although the clinic served whites as well as blacks, it “was established for the benefit of the colored people.” Sanger wrote this in a letter to Dr. W. E. Burghardt DuBois,[20] one of the day's most influential blacks. A sociologist and author, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 to improve the living conditions of black Americans.

That blacks endured extreme prejudice and discrimination, which contributed greatly to their plight, seemed to further justify restricting their numbers. Many believed the solution lay in reducing reproduction. Sanger suggested the answer to poverty and degradation lay in smaller numbers of blacks. She convinced black civic groups in Harlem of the “benefits” of birth control, under the cloak of “better health” (i.e., reduction of maternal and infant death; child spacing) and “family planning.” So with their cooperation, and the endorsement of The Amsterdam News (a prominent black newspaper), Sanger established the Harlem branch of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau.[21] The ABCL told the community birth control was the answer to their predicament.

Sanger’s Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
operated from this New York building
from 1930 to 1973.

Sanger shrewdly used the influence of prominent blacks to reach the masses with this message. She invited DuBois and a host of Harlem's leading blacks, including physicians, social workers, ministers and journalists, to form an advisory council to help direct the clinic “so that our work in birth control will be a constructive force in the community.”[22] She knew the importance of having black professionals on the advisory board and in the clinic; she knew blacks would instinctively suspect whites of wanting to decrease their numbers. She would later use this knowledge to implement the Negro Project.
Sanger convinced the community so well that Harlem's largest black church, the Abyssinian Baptist Church, held a mass meeting featuring Sanger as the speaker.[23] But that event received criticism. At least one “very prominent minister of a denomination other than Baptist” spoke out against Sanger. Dr. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of Abyssinian Baptist, “received adverse criticism” from the (unnamed) minister who was “surprised that he'd allow that awful woman in his church.”[24]

Grace Congregational Church hosted a debate on birth control. Proponents argued birth control was necessary to regulate births in proportion to the family's income; spacing births would help mothers recover physically and fathers financially; physically strong and mentally sound babies would result; and incidences of communicable diseases would decrease.

Opponents contended that as a minority group blacks needed to increase rather than decrease and that they needed an equal distribution of wealth to improve their status. In the end, the debate judges decided the proponents were more persuasive: Birth control would improve the status of blacks.[25] Still, there were others who equated birth control with abortion and therefore considered it immoral.

Eventually, the Urban League took control of the clinic,[26] an indication the black community had become ensnared in Sanger's labyrinth.


Birth Control as a Solution
The Harlem clinic and ensuing birth control debate opened dialogue among blacks about how best to improve their disadvantageous position. Some viewed birth control as a viable solution: High reproduction, they believed, meant prolonged poverty and degradation. Desperate for change, others began to accept the “rationale” of birth control. A few embraced eugenics. The June 1932 edition of The Birth Control Review, called “The Negro Number,” featured a series of articles written by blacks on the “virtues” of birth control.

The editorial posed this question: “Shall they go in for quantity or quality in children? Shall they bring children into the world to enrich the undertakers, the physicians and furnish work for social workers and jailers, or shall they produce children who are going to be an asset to the group and American society?” The answer: “Most [blacks], especially women, would choose quality ... if they only knew how.”[27]

DuBois, in his article “Black Folk and Birth Control,” noted the “inevitable clash of ideals between those Negroes who were striving to improve their economic position and those whose religious faith made the limitation of children a sin.”[28] He criticized the “mass of ignorant Negroes” who bred “carelessly and disastrously so that the increase among [them] ... is from that part of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly.”[29]

DuBois called for a “more liberal attitude” among black churches. He said they were open to “intelligent propaganda of any sort, and the American Birth Control League and other agencies ought to get their speakers before church congregations and their arguments in the Negro newspapers [emphasis added].”[30]
Charles S. Johnson, Fisk University's first black president, wrote “eugenic discrimination” was necessary for blacks.[31] He said the high maternal and infant mortality rates, along with diseases like tuberculosis, typhoid, malaria and venereal infection, made it difficult for large families to adequately sustain themselves.

Further, “the status of Negroes as marginal workers, their confinement to the lowest paid branches of industry, the necessity for the labors of mothers, as well as children, to balance meager budgets, are factors [that] emphasize the need for lessening the burden not only for themselves, but of society, which must provide the supplementary support in the form of relief.”[32] Johnson later served on the National Advisory Council to the BCFA, becoming integral to the Negro Project.

Writer Walter A. Terpenning described bringing a black child into a hostile world as “pathetic.” In his article “God's Chillun,” he wrote:

The birth of a colored child, even to parents who can give it adequate support, is pathetic in view of the unchristian and undemocratic treatment likely to be accorded it at the hands of a predominantly white community, and the denial of choice in propagation to this unfortunate class is nothing less than barbarous [emphasis added].[33]

Terpenning considered birth control for blacks as “the more humane provision” and “more eugenic” than among whites. He felt birth control information should have first been disseminated among blacks rather than the white upper crust.[34] He failed to look at the problematic attitudes and behavior of society and how they suppressed blacks. He offered no solutions to the injustice and vile racism that blacks endured.

Sadly, DuBois' words of black churches being “open to intelligent propaganda” proved prophetic. Black pastors invited Sanger to speak to their congregations. Black publications, like The Afro-American and The Chicago Defender, featured her writings. Rather than attacking the root causes of maternal and infant deaths, diseases, poverty, unemployment and a host of other social ills—not the least of which was racism—Sanger pushed birth control. To many, it was better for blacks not to be born rather than endure such a harsh existence.

Against this setting, Sanger charmed the black community's most distinguished leaders into accepting her plan, which was designed to their own detriment. She peddled her wares wrapped in pretty packages labeled “better health” and “family planning.” No one could deny the benefits of better health, being financially ready to raise children, or spacing one's children. However, the solution to the real issues affecting blacks did not lay in reducing their numbers. It lay in attacking the forces in society that hindered their progress. Most importantly, one had to discern Sanger's motive behind her push for birth control in the community. It was not an altruistic one.

Web of Deceit
Prior to 1939, Sanger's “outreach to the black community was largely limited to her Harlem clinic and speaking at black churches.”[35] Her vision for “the reproductive practices of black Americans” expanded after the January 1939 merger of the Clinical Research Bureau and the American Birth Control League to form the Birth Control Federation of America. She selected Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, of the soap-manufacturing company Procter and Gamble, to be the BCFA regional director of the South.
Gamble wrote a memorandum in November 1939 entitled “Suggestions for the Negro Project,” in which he recognized that “black leaders might regard birth control as an extermination plot.” He suggested black leaders be placed in positions where it would appear they were in charge.[36] Yet Sanger's reply reflects Gamble's ambivalence about having blacks in authoritative positions:

I note that you doubt it worthwhile to employ a full-time Negro physician. It seems to me from my experience ... that, while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors, they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table, which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts. They do not do this with white people and if we can train the Negro doctor at the clinic, he can go among them with enthusiasm and ... knowledge, which ... will have far-reaching results among the colored people.[37]

Another project director lamented:

I wonder if Southern Darkies can ever be entrusted with ... a clinic. Our experience causes us to doubt their ability to work except under white supervision.[38]

Sanger knew blacks were a religious people—and how useful ministers would be to her project. She wrote in the same letter:

The minister's work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members [emphasis added].[39]

Sanger's cohorts within the BCFA sought to attract black leadership. They succeeded. The list of black leaders who made up BCFA's National Advisory Council reads like a “who's who” among black Americans. To name a few:[40]

- Claude A. Barnett, director, Associated Negro Press, Chicago
- Michael J. Bent, M.D., Meharry Medical School, Nashville
- Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, president, National Council of Negro Women, Washington, D.C., special advisor to President Roosevelt on minority groups, and founder of Bethune-Cookman College, Daytona Beach
- Dr. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee, cum laude graduate of Tufts, president of Alpha Kappa Alpha (the nation's oldest black sorority), Washington, D.C.
- Charles S. Johnson, president, Fisk University, Nashville
- Eugene Kinckle Jones, executive secretary, National Urban League, New York
- Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., pastor, Abyssinian Baptist Church, New York
- Bishop David H. Sims, pastor, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia
- Arthur Spingarn, president, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Even with this impressive list, Sanger ran into resistance when she tried to present a birth control exhibit at the 1940 American Negro Exposition, a fair that traces the progress blacks have made since the Emancipation Proclamation, in Chicago. After inviting the BCFA to display its exhibit, the Exposition's board later cancelled, citing “last minute changes in floor space.”[41]

Sanger did not buy this and issued a statement urging public protest. “This has come as a complete surprise,” said Sanger, “since the Federation undertook preparation of the exhibit upon an express invitation from a member of the Exposition board.”[42] She said the cancellation resulted from “concerted action on the part of representatives of the Roman Catholic Church.” She even accused the church of threatening officials with the withholding of promised federal and state funds needed to hold the Exposition. [43]

Her statement mentioned BCFA prepared the exhibit in consultation with its National (Negro) Advisory Council, and it illustrated “the need for birth control as a public health measure.”[44] She said the objective was to demonstrate how birth control would “improve the welfare of the Negro population,” noting the maternal death rate among black mothers was nearly 50 percent higher, and the child death rate was more than one-third greater than the white community.[45]

At Sanger's urging, protesters of the cancellation sent letters to Attorney Wendall E. Green, vice chairman of the Afra-Merican Emancipation Exposition Commission (sponsor of the Exposition), requesting he investigate. Green denied there was any threat or pressure to withhold funds needed to finance the Exposition. Further, he said the Exposition commission (of Illinois) “unanimously passed a resolution,” which read in part: “That in the promotion, conduct and accomplishment of the objectives (of the Exposition) there must be an abiding spirit to create goodwill toward all people.”[46] He added that since the funds for the Exposition “came from citizens of all races and creeds, any exhibit in conflict with the known convictions of any religious group contravenes the spirit of the resolution,”[47] which seemed to support Catholic opposition. The commission upheld the ban on the exhibit.

“Better Health for 13,000,000”
The propaganda of the Negro Project was that birth control meant better health. So on this premise, the BCFA designed two southern Negro Project “demonstration programs” to show “how medically-supervised birth control integrated into existing public health services could improve the general welfare of Negroes, and to initiate a nationwide educational program.”[48]
The BCFA opened the first clinic at the Bethlehem Center in urban Nashville, Tennessee (where blacks constituted only 25 percent of the population), on February 13, 1940. They extended the work to the Social Services Center of Fisk University (a historically black college) on July 23, 1940. This location was especially significant because of its proximity to Meharry Medical School, which trained more than 50 percent of black physicians in the United States.[49]

An analysis of the income of the Nashville group revealed that “no family, regardless of size, had an income over $15 a week. The service obviously reached the income group for which it was designed,”[50] indicating the project's target. The report claimed to have brought “to light serious diseases and making possible their treatment, ... [and] that 55 percent [354 of the 638] of the patients prescribed birth control methods used it consistently and successfully.”[51] However, the report presented “no definite figures ... to demonstrate the extent of community improvement.”[52]

The BCFA opened the second clinic on May 1, 1940, in rural Berkeley County, South Carolina, under the supervision of Dr. Robert E. Seibels, chairman of the Committee on Maternal Welfare of the South Carolina Medical Association.[53] BCFA chose this site in part “because leaders in the state were particularly receptive to the experiment. South Carolina had been the second state to make child spacing a part of its state public health program after a survey of the state's maternal deaths showed that 25 percent occurred among mothers known to be physically unfit for pregnancy.”[54] Again, the message went out: Birth control—not better prenatal care—reduced maternal and infant mortality.

Although Berkeley County's population was 70 percent black, the clinic received criticism that members of this group were “overwhelmingly in the majority.”[55] Seibels assured Claude Barnett that this was not the case. “We have ... simply given our help to those who were willing to receive it, and these usually are Negroes,” he said.[56]

While religious convictions significantly influenced the Nashville patients' view of birth control, people in Berkeley County had “no religious prejudice against birth control. But the attitude that treatment of any disease was 'against nature' was in the air.”[57] Comparing the results of the two sites, “it is seen that the immediate receptivity to the demonstration was at the outset higher in the rural area.”[58] However, “the final total success was lower [in the rural area].” However, in Berkeley, “stark poverty was even more in evidence, and bad roads, bad weather and ignorance proved powerful counter forces [to the contraceptive programs].” After 18 months, the Berkeley program closed.[59]

The report indicated that, contrary to expectations, the lives of black patients serviced by the clinics did not improve dramatically from birth control. Two beliefs stood in the way: Some blacks likened birth control to abortion and others regarded it as “inherently immoral.”[60] However, “when thrown against the total pictures of the awareness on the part of Negro leaders of the improved conditions, ... and their opportunities to even better conditions under Planned Parenthood, ... the obstacles to the program are greatly outweighed,” said Dr. Dorothy Ferebee.[61]

A hint of eugenic flavor seasoned Ferebee's speech: “The future program [of Planned Parenthood] should center around more education in the field through the work of a professional Negro worker, because those of us who believe that the benefits of Planned Parenthood as a vital key to the elimination of human waste must reach the entire population [emphasis added].”[62] She peppered her speech with the importance of “Negro professionals, fully integrated into the staff, ... who could interpret the program and objectives to [other blacks] in the normal course of day-to-day contacts; could break down fallacious attitudes and beliefs and elements of distrust; could inspire the confidence of the group; and would not be suspect of the intent to eliminate the race [emphasis added].”[63]

Sanger even managed to lure the prominent—but hesitant—black minister J. T. Braun, editor in chief of the National Baptist Convention's Sunday School Publishing Board in Nashville, Tennessee, into her deceptive web. Braun confessed to Sanger that “the very idea of such a thing [birth control] has always held the greatest hatred and contempt in my mind. ... I am hesitant to give my full endorsement of this idea, until you send me, perhaps, some more convincing literature on the subject.”[64] Sanger happily complied. She sent Braun the Federal Council of Churches' Marriage and Home Committee pamphlet praised by Bishop Sims (another member of the National Advisory Council), assuring him that: “There are some people who believe that birth control is an attempt to dictate to families how many children to have. Nothing could be further from the truth.”[65]

Sanger's assistants gave Braun more pro-birth control literature and a copy of her autobiography, which he gave to his wife to read. Sanger's message of preventing maternal and infant mortality stirred Braun's wife. Now convinced of this need, Braun permitted a group of women to use his chapel for a birth-control talk.[66] “[I was] moved by the number of prominent [black] Christians backing the proposition,” Braun wrote in a letter to Sanger.[67] “At first glance I had a horrible shock to the proposition because it seemed to me to be allied to abortion, but after thought and prayer, I have concluded that especially among many women, it is necessary both to save the lives of mothers and children [emphasis added].”[68]

By 1949, Sanger had hoodwinked black America's best and brightest into believing birth control's “life-saving benefits.” In a monumental feat, she bewitched virtually an entire network of black social, professional and academic organizations[69] into endorsing Planned Parenthood's eugenic program.[70]

Sanger's successful duplicity does not in any way suggest blacks were gullible. They certainly wanted to decrease maternal and infant mortality and improve the community's overall health. They wholly accepted her message because it seemed to promise prosperity and social acceptance. Sanger used their vulnerabilities and their ignorance (of her deliberately hidden agenda) to her advantage. Aside from birth control, she offered no other medical or social solutions to their adversity. Surely, blacks would not have been such willing accomplices had they perceived her true intentions. Considering the role eugenics played in the early birth control movement—and Sanger's embracing of that ideology—the notion of birth control as seemingly the only solution to the problems that plagued blacks should have been much more closely scrutinized.

“Scientific Racism”
Planned Parenthood has gone to great lengths to repudiate the organization's eugenic origins.[71] It adamantly denies Sanger was a eugenicist or racist, despite evidence to the contrary. Because Sanger stopped editing The Birth Control Review in 1929, the organization tries to disassociate her from the eugenic and racist-oriented articles published after that date. However, a summary of an address Sanger gave in 1932, which appeared in the Review that year, revealed her continuing bent toward eugenics.
In “A Plan for Peace,” Sanger suggested Congress set up a special department to study population problems and appoint a “Parliament of Population.” One of the main objectives of the “Population Congress” would be “to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population.” This would be accomplished by applying a “stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation [in addition to tightening immigration laws] to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.”[72]

It's reasonable to conclude that as the leader of Planned Parenthood—even after 1929—Sanger would not allow publication of ideas she didn't support.

Sanger's defenders argue she only wanted to educate blacks about birth control's “health benefits.” However, she counted the very people she wanted to “educate” among the “unfit,” whose numbers needed to be restricted.

Grant presents other arguments Sanger's supporters use to refute her racist roots:[73]

- blacks, Jews, Hispanics and other minorities are well represented in the “upper echelons” of Planned Parenthood Federation of America;
- the former, high-profile president of the organization, Faye Wattleton, is a black woman;
- “aggressive” minority hiring practices have been standard procedure for more than two decades;
- the “vast majority of the nation's ethnic leadership solidly and actively supports the work” of the organization.

These justifications also fail because of what Grant calls “scientific racism.” This form of racism is based on genes, rather than skin color or language. “The issue is not 'color of skin' or 'dialect of tongue,'” Grant writes, “but 'quality of genes [emphasis added].'”[74] Therefore, “as long as blacks, Jews and Hispanics demonstrate 'a good quality gene pool'—as long as they 'act white and think white'—then they are esteemed equally with Aryans. As long as they are, as Margaret Sanger said, 'the best of their race,' then they can be [counted] as valuable citizens [emphasis added].” By the same token, “individual whites” who show “dysgenic traits” must also have their fertility “curbed right along with the other 'inferiors and undesirables.'”[75]

In short, writes Grant, “Scientific racism is an equal opportunity discriminator [emphasis added]. Anyone with a 'defective gene pool' is suspect. And anyone who shows promise may be admitted to the ranks of the elite.”[76]

The eugenic undertone is hard to miss. As Grant rightly comments, “The bottom line is that Planned Parenthood was self-consciously organized, in part, to promote and enforce White Supremacy. ... It has been from its inception implicitly and explicitly racist.”[77]

“There is no way to escape the implications,” argues William L. Davis, a black financial analyst Grant quotes. “When an organization has a history of racism, when its literature is openly racist, when its goals are self-consciously racial, and when its programs invariably revolve around race, it doesn't take an expert to realize that the organization is indeed racist.”[78]

Sanger's Legacy
It is impossible to sever Planned Parenthood's past from its present. Its legacy of lies and propaganda continues to infiltrate the black community. The poison is even more venomous because, in addition to birth control, Planned Parenthood touts abortion as a solution to the economic and social problems that plague the community. In its wake is the loss of more than 12 million lives within the black community alone. Planned Parenthood's own records reflect this. For example, a 1992 report revealed that 23.2 percent of women who obtained abortions at its affiliates were black [79]—although blacks represent no more than 13 percent of the total population. In 1996, Planned Parenthood's research arm reported: “Blacks, who make up 14 percent of all childbearing women, have 31 percent of all abortions and whites, who account for 81 percent of women of childbearing age, have 61 percent.”[80]
“Abortion is the number-one killer of blacks in America,” says Rev. Hunter of LEARN. “We're losing our people at the rate of 1,452 a day. That's just pure genocide. There's no other word for it. [Sanger's] influence and the whole mindset that Planned Parenthood has brought into the black community ... say it's okay to destroy your people. We bought into the lie; we bought into the propaganda.”[81]
- Prayer Requests for Richmond, VA

Some blacks have even made abortion “rights” synonymous with civil rights.

“We're destroying the destiny and purpose of others who should be here,” Hunter laments. “Who knows the musicians we've lost? Who knows the great leaders the black community has really lost? Who knows what great minds of economic power people have lost? What great teachers?” He recites an old African proverb: “No one knows whose womb holds the chief.”[82]

Hunter has personally observed the vestiges of Planned Parenthood's eugenic past in the black community today. “When I travel around the country ... I can only think of one abortion clinic [I've seen] in a predominantly white neighborhood. The majority of clinics are in black neighborhoods.”[83]

Hunter noted the controversy that occurred two years ago in Louisiana involving school-based health clinics. The racist undertone could not have been more evident. In the Baton Rouge district, officials were debating placing clinics in the high schools. Black state representative Sharon Weston Broome initially supported the idea. She later expressed concern about clinics providing contraceptives and abortion counseling. “Clinics should promote abstinence,” she said.[84] Upon learning officials wanted to put the clinics in black schools only, Hunter urged her to suggest they be placed in white schools as well. At Broome's suggestion, however, proposals for the school clinics were “dropped immediately,” reported Hunter.

Grant observed the same game plan 20 years ago. “During the 1980s when Planned Parenthood shifted its focus from community-based clinics to school-based clinics, it again targeted inner-city minority neighborhoods,” he writes.[85] “Of the more than 100 school-based clinics that have opened nationwide in the last decade [1980s], none has been at substantially all-white schools,” he adds. “None has been at suburban middle-class schools. All have been at black, minority or ethnic schools.”[86]

In 1987, a group of black ministers, parents and educators filed suit against the Chicago Board of Education. They charged the city's school-based clinics with not only violating the state's fornication laws, but also with discrimination against blacks. The clinics were a “calculated, pernicious effort to destroy the very fabric of family life [between] black parents and their children,” the suit alleged.[87]

One of the parents in the group was “shocked” when her daughter came home from school with Planned Parenthood material. “I never realized how racist those people were until I read the [information my daughter received] at the school clinic,” she said. “[They are worse than] the Klan ... because they're so slick and sophisticated. Their bigotry is all dolled up with statistics and surveys, but just beneath the surface it's as ugly as apartheid.”[88]

A more recent account uncovered a Planned Parenthood affiliate giving condoms to residents of a poor black neighborhood in Akron,Ohio.[89] The residents received a “promotional bag” containing, among other things: literature on sexually transmitted disease prevention, gynecology exams and contraception, a condom-case key chain containing a bright-green condom, and a coupon. The coupon was redeemable at three Ohio county clinics for a dozen condoms and a $5 McDonald's gift certificate. All the items were printed with Planned Parenthood phone numbers.

The affiliate might say they're targeting high-pregnancy areas, but their response presumes destructive behavior on the part of the targeted group. Planned Parenthood has always been reluctant to promote, or encourage, abstinence as the only safeguard against teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, calling it “unrealistic.”

Rev. Richard Welch, president of Human Life International in Front Royal, Virginia, “blasted” the affiliate for targeting low-income, minority neighborhoods with the bags. He said the incident revealed “the racism inherent in promoting abortion and contraception in primarily minority neighborhoods.”[90]

He then criticized Planned Parenthood:

“Having sprung from the racist dreams of a woman determined to apply abortion and contraception to eugenics and ethnic cleansing, Planned Parenthood remains true to the same strategy today.”[91]


Untangling the Deceptive Web
Black leaders have been silent about Margaret Sanger's evil machination against their community far too long. They've been silent about abortion's devastating effects in their community—despite their pro-life inclination. “The majority of [blacks] are more pro-life than anything else,” said Hunter.[92] “Blacks were never taught to destroy their children; even in slavery they tried to hold onto their children.”

“Blacks are not quiet about the issue because they do not care, but rather because the truth has been kept from them. The issue is ... to educate our people,” said former Planned Parenthood board member LaVerne Tolbert.[93]

Today, a growing number of black pro-lifers are untangling the deceptive web spun by Sanger. They are using truth to shed light on the lies. The “Say So” march is just one example of their burgeoning pro-life activism. As the marchers laid 1,452 roses at the courthouse steps—to commemorate the number of black babies aborted daily—spokesman Damon Owens said, “This calls national attention to the problem [of abortion]. This is an opportunity for blacks to speak to other blacks. This doesn't solve all of our problems. But we will not solve our other problems with abortion.”

Black pro-lifers are also linking arms with their white pro-life brethren. Black Americans for Life (BAL) is an outreach group of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), a Washington, D.C.-based grassroots organization. NRLC encourages networking between black and white pro-lifers. “Our goal is to bring people together—from all races, colors, and religions—to work on pro-life issues,” said NRLC Director of Outreach Ernest Ohlhoff.[94] “Black Americans for Life is not a parallel group; we want to help African-Americans integrate communicational and functionally into the pro-life movement.”

Mrs. Beverly LaHaye, founder and chairman of Concerned Women for America, echoes the sentiment. “Our mission is to protect the right to life of all members of the human race. CWA welcomes like-minded women and men, from all walks of life, to join us in this fight.”

Concerned Women for America has a long history of fighting Planned Parenthood's evil agenda. The Negro Project is an obscure angle, but one that must come to light. Margaret Sanger sold black Americans an illusion. Now with the veil of deception removed, they can “choose life ... that [their] descendants may live.”

End Notes:
1. The BCFA members voted unanimously at a special January 29, 1942, meeting to change the organization’s name to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. By then, BCFA had 34 state league affiliates. The state leagues followed suit in changing their name and bylaws. Particularly, the New York State Federation for Planned Parenthood’s old bylaws stipulated that the object was: “To develop and organize on sound eugenic, social and medical principles, interest in and knowledge of birth control throughout the State of New York as permitted by law [emphasis added].” The new bylaws replaced “birth control” with “planned parenthood.” “Eugenics” was dropped in 1943 because of its unpopular association with the German government’s race-improving eugenics theories. Robert G. Marshall and Charles A. Donovan, Blessed are the Barren: The Social Policy of Planned Parenthood (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 24-25.

2. For more information on population control you may call 800-458-8797.

3. George Grant, Killer Angel (Franklin, Tennessee: Ars Vitae Press, 1995), 50.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., 51-52.

6. Grant, rev., Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, 2nd ed. (Franklin, Tennessee: Adroit Press, 1992), 56.

7. Ibid., 95-96. Rudin worked as Adolf Hitler’s director of genetic sterilization and founded the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene.

8. Ibid., 95.

9. Marshall and Donovan, 8.

10. Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (New York: Brentano’s, 1922), 108.

11. Ibid., 116-117.

12. Ibid., 123.

13. Margaret Sanger, “The Function of Sterilization,” The Birth Control Review, October 1926, 299. Sanger delivered the address before the Institute of Euthenics at Vassar College on August 5, 1926. Sanger’s address sounds eerily familiar to the 1999 controversial Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (CRACK) program. The program offered to pay drug-addicted women $200 cash if they underwent sterilization or had long-term chemical birth control (which may actually cause abortion in the very early stages of pregnancy) inserted into their bodies. The billboard ads were placed in inner cities. See CWA’s January/February 2000 publication of Family Voice.

14. Ibid.

15. Letter to Smith, which included her essay, 7 May 1929, Margaret Sanger Collection, Library of Congress (MSCLC).

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Letter from Nathan W. Levin, comptroller for the Julius Rosenwald Fund, responding to Sanger’s request for funds, which opens with, “I am pleased to enclose our check in the amount of $2,500, representing the balance of our appropriation to the Harlem Birth Control Clinic for 1930.” 5 January 1931, MSCLC.

19. The Harlem Clinic 1929 file, MSCLC.

20. Letter from Sanger to Dr. W. E. Burghardt DuBois, 11 November 1930, New York, MSCLC. DuBois served as director of research for the NAACP and as the editor of its publication, The Crisis, until 1934.

21. Ibid.

22. Letter from Sanger to Dr. Peter Marshall Murray, asking for his sponsorship of the clinic, 2 December 1930, MSCLC.

23. Flier, 7 December 1932, MSCLC.

24. BCCRB memo, 3 February 1933, MSCLC. Both Powell and his son, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., were part of the black elite. The younger Powell established himself as an effective civil rights leader during the Depression years when he fought discrimination against black workers. He succeeded his father as pastor in 1936. He served on the National Advisory Council to the Birth Control Federation of America (BCFA) during the implementation of the Negro Project. He later served as an U.S. representative from 1945 until 1969.

25. Letter from Elizabeth G. Lautermilch, R.N., to Sanger, which included two (undated) newspaper clippings from leading black papers, 19 November 1932, MSCLC.

26. Letter from Sanger to Margaret Ensign, 17 April 1933, MSCLC.

27. George S. Schuyler, “Quantity or Quality,” The Birth Control Review, June 1932, 166.

28. DuBois, 166.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid., 167.

31. Charles S. Johnson, “A Question of Negro Health,” The Birth Control Review, June 1932, 167-169.

32. Ibid., 168.

33. Walter A. Terpenning, “God’s Chillun,” The Birth Control Review, June 1932, 172.

34. Ibid.

35. Marshall and Donovan, 17.

36. Ibid.

37. Letter from Sanger to Gamble, 10 December 1939, MSCLC.

38. Grant, 97.

39. Sanger to Gamble, 10 December 1939.

40. BCFA Division of Negro Service, stationery, 1940, MSCLC.

41. BCFA stationery, July 1940, MSCLC.

42. BCFA statement, 8 July 1940, MSCLC.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., 2.

45. Ibid., 3.

46. Letter from Green to Mrs. J. B. Vandever (same form letter sent to other protestors), 17 July 1940, Chicago, MSCLC.

47. Ibid.

48. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee, M.D., “Negro Project” report, BCFA Annual Meeting, 29 January 1942, 1, MSCLC.

49. Ibid., 3.

50. Charles S. Johnson, “Better Health for 13,000,000” report on Negro Project demonstration programs, 16 April 1943, 8, MSCLC.

51. Ibid., 10.

52. Ibid., 13.

53. Ferebee, 5.

54. Johnson, 15.

55. Letter from Seibels to Claude Barnett, 11 July 1940, 2, MSCLC.

56. Ibid.

57. Johnson, 14.

58. Ibid., 18.

59. Ibid., 18-19.

60. Ferebee, “Planned Parenthood as a Public Health For the Negro Race,” BCFA Annual Meeting, 29 January 1942, 3, MSCLC.

61. Ibid., 5.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid., 4-5. Ferebee was not the only black woman Planned Parenthood used to sing its praises. Faye Wattleton, also attractive, articulate and well educated, served as president from 1978 until 1992. She currently serves as president for the Center for Gender Equality in New York City.

64. Letter from J. T. Braun to Sanger, 8 December 1941, MSCLC.

65. Letter from Sanger to Braun, 22 December 1941, MSCLC.

66. Marshall and Donovan, 21.

67. Ibid.

68. Marshall and Donovan’s quote from the 18 May 1943 letter from Braun to Sanger, 21.

69. The list included: the NAACP, National Urban League, National Medical Association, National Association of Colored Nurses, Negro Newspapers Publishers Association and the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) memo to “State Legislatures and Local Committees from Field Service Department, Subject: Directory of National Negro Organizations with which the PPFA Has Developed Working Relationships,” 18 March 1949, MSCLC.

70. The National Council of Negro Women became the first national women’s organization to appoint a permanent national committee on Family Planning on October 18, 1941. Division of Negro Service, Birth Control Federation of America newsletter, Christmas 1941, 3, MSCLC.

71. Planned Parenthood, “Margaret Sanger,” October 2000. PPFA claims it has the “respect” of black leaders, like the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who compared the civil rights movement to the birth control movement. Dr. King was among the first recipients of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Margaret Sanger Award in 1966, the year of her death.

72. Margaret Sanger, “A Plan for Peace,” The Birth Control Review, April 1932, 107. Sanger gave this address before the New History Society on January 17, 1932, in New York City.

73. Grant, Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, 102.

74. Ibid.

75. Ibid., 103.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid., 96.

78. Ibid., 102.

79. Planned Parenthood Federation of America 1992 Service Report, “Characteristics of Abortion Patients,” 12.

80. “Who Has Abortions? Survey by the Alan Guttmacher Institute contradicts popular notions about the kinds of women who receive
abortions, ” U.S. News and World Report, 19 August 1996, 8. The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) December 2000 report shows that while the number of abortions dropped more than 30,000 from 1996 to 1997, a record 36 percent—up from 32 percent in 1990—of all abortions were performed on black women, even though blacks comprised just 12 percent of the population. The report notes that abortion rates are higher in urban areas “where access to abortion is easier” (“Abortions Decline,” USA Today, 11 January 2001, 14A).

81. Rev. Johnny M. Hunter, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 14 November 2000.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.

84. Sharon Weston Broome, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 16 November 2000.

85. Grand Illusions, 98.

86. Ibid. The latest figures show 63 percent of school-based clinics are located in urban areas. Source: National Survey of School-Based Health Centers, 1997-98, Making the Grade, Washington, D.C.: George Washington University. We have more information on school-based clinics.

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid.

89. Lisa Ing, “Condom Giveaway Based On Profiling, Pro-Lifers Contend,” The Washington Times, 31 July 2000, A2.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid.

92. “African-Americans for Life: Black Baptist pastor speaks at Catholic Interparish Council,” Gulf Coast Christian Newspaper, February 1996.

93. Michele Jackson, “Should Pro-Life Black Americans Work Separately or Join NRLC?” National Right to Life Committee News, March 1998. NRLC has 50 state affiliates and nearly 3,000 chapters. It encourages action at the state and local levels.

94. Ernest Ohlhoff, interview by author, Washington, D.C., 6 April 2001.

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