Pastor Steve On The Most Violent Century of Human History

I’ve never visited Pastor Steve before, so I know little about his site.

However, my attention was piqued by his recent posting entitled The Most Violent Century of Human History.

It was sobering. Here’s what he had to say.

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Humanity witnessed amazing progress in the 20th century. Advancements in science, medicine and technology were staggering! The benefits to humans have been incalculable. But do you realize that the 20th century was also the most violent century of human history? Over 100 million people were killed in two world wars. Many smaller wars claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. An estimated 170 million civilians were murdered by their own governments. Places like Afghanistan, Rwanda, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, along with others, experienced unimaginable violence and bloodshed. Words like holocaust, genocide, terrorism, abortion and mass suicide became well-known in the 20th century.

In America, the later portion of the 20th century witnessed a dramatic increase in violence. Most Americans do not realize that from 1960 to1993, violent crime increased by 560 percent. In 1987, the Department of Justice estimated that eight out of ten people will be victims of violent crimes at least once in their lives. Even more alarming, violent crimes committed by children ages 10 to 17 increased 400 percent since 1960.

The nature of violent crime in America also took some frightening turns. While violence from gangs, serial killers, city riots and drive-by shootings continued, large scale terrorist activities — most notably the bombings of the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City federal office building — became ominous examples of what many believe to be future patterns of violence. The nation was also shocked by extreme violence in schools like the Columbine High School.

Surveying the crimes of the 20th century, Angie Cannon wrote, “In looking back at the past 100 years, one thing stands out: Man’s capacity for cruelty seems fairly constant … As the millennium closes, it seems there are more and more random assaults on the anchors of American life: offices, schools, post offices. Some fear terrorism too, is the wave of the future — the targeting of American fortresses by crazed militia groups or by international madmen seeking redress with powerful bombs. Crime experts worry that someday we might see the frightening brand of overseas terrorism that has so far eluded us: suicidal fanatics bent on destruction” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 6, 1999).

Given the human pattern of violence and cruelty, one of our most significant concerns about the future should be the availability of nuclear weapons. Although we would rather not think about the potential of a nuclear holocaust, it is unrealistic to think that humans will not use that power for evil.

Another example of violence in our own nation must include the torture and killing of some 37 million unborn babies in the last 27 years of the twentieth century. There is no way to sanitize the hideous “surgical” procedure of poisoning or dismembering tiny human bodies and dumping them in the garbage or “donating” their parts in the name of fetal tissue research. This is a horrible type of violence that grieves the heart of God and should outrage us.

The violence of the past century compares with an earlier time in history — the days of Noah. During that period, “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence” (Genesis 6:11). “The Lord,” we are told, “was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind whom I have created from the face of the earth …” (Genesis 6:6-7).

Enter Jesus’ words: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the son of man” (Matthew 24:37). Orthodox Christianity has consistently taught us to expect the return of Jesus Christ. Considering the amount of violence that filled the earth in the last century and continues to this day, we could be moving closer to the Lord’s return. Are you ready to face your Creator? Although God must be deeply grieved when he observes this violence, his love and salvation are still available. The most well known verses of scripture remind us that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only son” (John 3:16, 18).

Please don’t misunderstand. I am not suggesting that we become escapist. We need to do everything possible to bring peace to a violent world. In scripture, we are commanded to pray for those in authority so that we can have peaceful lives. Jesus taught his followers to live by an ethic of nonviolence and to be peacemakers. Scripture also teaches that the God-ordained function of government is to punish evil doers so that we can have a more orderly and peaceful society.

The pattern of violence has continued in the 21st century. As we pursue peace, therefore, we should remain realistic about the potential for violence beyond what this world has ever witnessed. We must also be prepared to meet God. He has made a way for people to have peace with him (Romans 5:1). This is a peace that can never be taken away.

Killing The Unborn Is Destroying Our Respect For All Life

Tell me our society isn’t confused over the status of the most vulnerable of human beings. Blame that confusion in large part on legalized child-killing.

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
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Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants.
Mother Teresa

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Taken from just the last two days of pro-life news on the web

New Jersey Abortion Decision Reversed
Asbury Park Press
TRENTON -- A doctor does not have to tell a pregnant woman considering an abortion that what she is carrying is an "existing human being," the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The five-year court battle stems from a 1996 abortion undergone by Rosa Acuna, then 29 and six to eight weeks pregnant. She claimed that her physician, Perth Amboy-based Sheldon Turkish, recommended Acuna end the pregnancy because of her long-standing kidney disorder, but Turkish denies this statement. Acuna said when she asked if there was a baby inside of her, he replied it was only blood. Full story...

Federal Judge Deals Setback in Fetus Case
By Mark Morris / The Kansas City Star
A federal magistrate judge has questioned defense arguments that Lisa Montgomery should not be charged with kidnapping because the child she abducted was not a legal person. Montgomery is charged with kidnapping resulting in death in the December 2004 killing of Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Skidmore, Mo. Prosecutors have accused Montgomery of strangling Stinnett and using a kitchen knife to cut Stinnett’s baby from her womb. The baby survived. Full story...

18-Year-Old Pleads Guilty In Death of Pregnant Woman
MILWAUKEE -- An 18-year-old man has pleaded guilty to playing a part in the midday shooting death of a pregnant woman at a busy intersection in Milwaukee. Jarvis Duke, of St. Francis, had said he didn't fire the shots that killed Shaina Mersman, also 18, and her fetus on the city's south side in February. But today he pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree reckless homicide and one count of first-degree reckless endangerment of public safety, all as a party to a crime. Full story...

Teen Sitter Sentenced in Infant's Death
By Debra Dennis / The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH -- A baby sitter pleaded guilty to charges that she injured two infants, one fatally, after putting them in a closet, where they overheated. Jayne Lynne Stephans, 19, of Haltom City was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of reckless injury to a child. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Ms. Stephans was caring for seven children at her apartment in July 2006. The unlicensed child-care provider had placed the two babies in a closet to quiet them, the affidavit said. Full story...

Wall Street Exec Guilty of Killing Infant Son Given Cancer Leave
A former Wall Street executive who killed her infant son will be allowed to leave a mental facility where she is being held to visit a private oncologist to have her breast cancer evaluated, the Daily News has learned. Susan Mooney, 45, was given permission by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Richard Price to leave the Rockland County Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg for additional medical testing to determine the extent of her cancer, which has spread to her lungs and lymph nodes, authorities said. Mooney, who once held down a six-figure vice president position at the investment firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, was found not guilty of murder in the smothering death of her 7-month-old son, Mark Ryan Lizardi, by reason of mental disease or defect in November 2002. Full story...

Man Given 3 Years in Baby Daughter's Death
A Tucson man was sentenced to three years in prison for the death of his 5-month-old daughter. Pima County Superior Court Judge Nanette Warner on Tuesday imposed the maximum sentence allowed by a plea agreement signed by Jayson Matthew Thomas. Thomas, 32, admitted squeezing the head of his daughter, Anna Catalina Molina Thomas, on Nov. 23, 2005, because she wouldn't stop crying. However, the confession was not allowed in court because he wasn't properly notified of his rights when he was arrested, Warner ruled previously after extensive hearings. Full story...

Teenage Dad Accused of Killing Infant; Bail is $1M
By Kim Janssen / Chicago Daily Southtown
Bail was set at $1 million today for the 18-year-old father charged with murder in the death of his 9-week-old daughter. Brandon Wilds made a taped confession to shaking Lelani Wilds, prosecutors said in court this morning. The child was found unresponsive Thursday night in the Timber Ridge Mobile Home Park near Matteson. The child was later pronounced dead at St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields. An autopsy concluded the child died as a result of child abuse and her death was ruled a homicide. Full story...

Woman Gets Suspended Sentence for Selling Baby
A Louisville woman accused of attempting to sell her baby for $2,700 was sentenced Monday. Amber Nicole Tackett, 20, Lakeview Court, entered a best-interest guilty plea to a charge of illegal payments in connection with the placement of a child. She was ordered to serve a three-year suspended sentence and six years of supervised probation. Full story...

Newborn Found Dead Under Bed
A 22-year-old Delft woman is under police guard in hospital after the body of her newborn baby was found with stab wounds in a refuse bag under her bed. Spokesperson Billy Jones said the Delft police opened a murder case docket after the baby was found yesterday at a house in Delft. Full story...

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9-11 Tribute To Victims Of Violence

On this day six years ago, violent acts of evil men killed thousands in New York City. To them, and to all those whose lives and God-given purposes have been, and continue to be, thwarted and cut short by the violence of their fellow man, this video is dedicated.

This sort of video is the closest that most people get to seeing the horrors that can be inflicted by others on their fellow human beings.

h/t Jill Stanek

Leave The Real Killing To The Pros

This cartoon comes by way of Jill Stanek, US pro-life blogger extraordinaire, and appears on WorldNetDaily.

It's a great intro to a piece I wrote in April about the VT massacre.

Abortion's Hidden Violence

From Population Research Institute’s latest newsletter:

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Abortion's Hidden Violence

by Colin Mason

It was a chilly morning, at least for April in Washington, DC. A line of college students stood, huddled in coats and hats, rubbing the sleep out of our eyes. We stood on a sidewalk along the side of 16th Street in Washington, DC, in the chilly shadows of the great concrete buildings behind us. In front of us, on the other side of the street, stood an abortion clinic. We began to pray.

I can’t describe what it is like to pray in front of an abortion clinic and watch women and girls, some with the innocence of youth still in their faces, be ushered inside. Our sidewalk counselors would try to walk with them, to speak comfort to them, but there was only so much they could do before the "clinic escorts" got them.

These "escorts," their faces twisted with hate for us, would grab the women and propel them, often physically, through the doors of the clinic. Oftentimes I witnessed clinic escorts physically body-block our sidewalk counselors and snatch the girls away, practically throwing them through the doors of the clinic. An excellent account of the weekly confrontation between pro-lifer and pro-abort can be found here.

I challenge all who find this difficult to believe to travel to the clinic on 16th street and see it for themselves.

Abortion kills tens of millions of babies every year, and this is the worst violence it perpetrates. However, hidden behind this momentous fact, lies another, subtler truth that statistics have proven again and again. That truth is this: abortion breeds a culture of violence against women, the very violence that it purports to fight against. Beneath the veneer of "choice" and "reproductive freedom" lies a backward attitude toward children, a disdainful attitude toward women, and a fundamental disregard for the dignity of the human family. Visible in the sneering faces and physical aggression shown by abortion clinic escorts, abortion breeds an atmosphere of violence that is beginning to consume our culture.

The abortion culture leads to a culture of expediency that urges an objectification of women and a devaluation of motherhood. Women become defined by their willingness to make the killing choice, and all interaction with men becomes part of a primal struggle for dominance. "The question of whether or not to sell ourselves to men is a false one," says the new ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ organization. "The real question is how to sell ourselves in the way that is least destructive to ourselves and our sisters. Prostitutes don't need our condescension. What they need is our alliance. And we need theirs."

This cynical attitude purports to uphold womanhood almost exclusively, but in fact, it does just the opposite. It reduces a woman to a simple reproductive choice; an object whose sole purpose is to struggle against her destiny. Emerging studies now show that women, tired of constantly being marketed to by abortion providers, are rebelling against the stereotype that dictates that their highest priority is always, unwaveringly, reproductive health. Women are human beings, not baby-making machines. The pro-aborts should learn this.

The violence wrought by this ugly cycle is inhuman and deeply destructive. It brings men to a careless attitude about sexuality and the female psyche, and oftentimes leads to violence. It gives women feelings of incredible guilt and horror. Both of these often lead to domestic disruption and alienation of spouses, tearing the home apart and oftentimes turning husband against wife. According to David C. Reardon, in his article Abortion and Domestic Violence, there is "an important connection between violence in the womb and violence in the home." According to this scholarly report, "the evidence supporting a correlation between abortion and violence between women and men, at least for some couples, is so compelling that it is beyond dispute . . . Violence begets violence."

The UNFPA calls violence against women "the most pervasive yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world." We at PRI agree. However, we perceive organizations like the UNFPA and Planned Parenthood to be the perpetrators of this violence. We believe that abortion breeds a culture of contempt for women, contempt for the family, and contempt for the value of human life. The real violence lies there, and in the words of Mother Teresa, "any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want."

Colin Mason is the Director for Media Production at PRI.