As you know by now, Obama Administration has refused to grant religious organizations an exemption from purchasing health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, surgical sterilization, and contraception.

The Catholic bishops responded quickly, decrying the Administration’s decision for what it is—an egregious, dangerous violation of religious liberty.

And folks, we evangelicals must stand with them. While all of us may not share the Catholic view of contraception, all true Christians believe that the taking of human life in utero, whether surgically or by abortifacient drugs, violates the basic human right to life.

Many bishops have already declared that they will not obey this unjust law. The penalty for such a move would be severe. Catholic hospitals, universities, and other organizations would be force to pay punitive fines ($2,000 per employee) for refusing to purchase insurance that violates the teaching of their church.

But Catholic institutions aren’t the only ones affected by this mandate. Prison Fellowship, for example, which employs 180 people, could not morally purchase insurance for its employees that covers abortifacients. Nor could we afford the fines we would incur.

For some faith-based institutions, it would spell the end of their existence—and their far-reaching service to the public and to the needy. As Mike Gerson pointed out in his excellent Washington Post op-ed on Tuesday, it’s crazy that the government would drive charities like the Salvation Army and other Christian groups out of business. The government simply can’t afford to replace the services they provide–such as “homeless shelters, food banks, health care, welfare-to-work, prisoner re-entry programs” and much more.

Here is what I want you to do right now.

First, go to Manhattan Declaration.org and sign the petition to President Obama prepared by the Becket Fund, protesting this violation of our civil liberties.

Second, if you haven’t done so, sign the Manhattan Declaration. Join with 500,000 people who have committed to “fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

Third, pray that God would soften the hearts of the president and others in his administration that they would reverse course.

Fourth, be vigilant. The Administration may reverse itself here, but we are seeing an extremely dangerous pattern. The issue of religious liberty is not going to go away. Our freedoms are at stake.

For more on this grave threat to religious freedom, please go to ColsonCenter.org and watch my “Two-Minute Warning.”

Got that? Go to ManhattanDeclaraiton.org and sign the petition to the President and the Declaration itself. Then watch my “Two-Minute Warning” at ColsonCenter.org, and above all, my friends, be vigilant, and pray.

No doubt you’ve been watching the unfolding drama of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood — and then its stunning reversal.

What you saw last week was a concerted, intentional effort by an ideological minority — the radical pro-abortion forces — not just to make their case in public, but to destroy the opposition. Using incendiary language, accusing Komen of endangering the lives of women, they made no pretense to pursue civil discourse.

And it’s a tragedy that Komen for the Cure caved. Because all of the rational arguments were on their side.

First of all, Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms, its doctors simply provide breast cancer referrals. No wonder Komen for the Cure figured its money could be better spent on organizations that provide direct treatment.

And of course there’s the uncomfortable link between breast cancer and abortion. A 2009 study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center showed “a statistically significant 40% increased risk [of breast cancer] for women who have abortions.”

Second, Komen’s stated policy was not to contribute to organizations under investigation. Well, Planned Parenthood is under Congressional investigation for potentially misusing federal funds — funds that by law may not be used for abortions. In 2010, the organization received fully 46 percent of its funding — 487 million dollars — from government grants.

Yet according to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, the organization and its many affiliates performed more than 329,000 abortions in 2010 — or a full 91 percent of services rendered to pregnant women.

It sure sounds to me that they’re flouting the law.

Finally, this never was about the money. Komen’s grant was a drop in Planned Parenthood’s bucket. As Tim Stanley of the UK Telegraph pointed out, Komen for the Cure’s annual grant made up a mere .058 percent of Planned Parenthood’s budget!

So what is this all about? Look friends, Komen is the kind of respectable and mainstream partner that Planned Parenthood desperately needs to continue its charade that it is all about “women’s health.” And it and its friends will bully and shout down anybody who dares to disagree with them.

What happened to Komen is a perfect example of the despotism of the modern left. Disagree with them, they vilify you and seek to intimidate you into silence. Tragically, Komen caved.

As I’ve been saying on BreakPoint for the last three or four months, we must break the spiral of silence. That’s why it is so important to speak out, even now. Let Komen know that you appreciated what they did to de-fund Planned Parenthood — come to BreakPoint.org and we’ll link you to their website — and that you are horrified that they didn’t have the courage to stick to their convictions.

Here is the lesson for us in all of this: We must have the courage of our convictions. Remember, courage is the first of the cardinal virtues, the virtue on which all others depend. We must never cave when it comes to defending the Truth, no matter what comes our way.

Just remember, we have no choice but to stand for what is true and just and to oppose evil no matter what the cost.

Well, if that’s insanity, then most state officials are quite insane when it comes to gambling: for more than two decades, they have looked to casinos, lotteries, slot machines, and video poker as a way out of their budgetary woes.

In virtually every instance, actual revenues fell far short of expectations: There was no pot at the end of gambling rainbow. Whatever added revenue was gained came at the expense of social problems associated with gambling.

At this point, a sane person might conclude that it really wasn’t worth the trouble. But state officials seem intent on proving Einstein right.

Case in point: a recent New York Times story about states possibly legalizing online gambling. Specifically, the goal is to get a cut from the online poker industry. The thinking is that just as the states took the various numbers rackets and turned them into state-run lotteries, the states could do the same with online poker.

The states would sell licenses to websites and tax the game operators’ earnings. And thanks to a favorable ruling from the Obama Justice Department just before Christmas, states now have the green light to proceed.

As Einstein might have predicted, the case for government-licensed online poker is drearily familiar: industry trade groups are predicting billions in additional tax revenues, an enticement state legislators find hard to resist. As a California legislator put it, “Two hundred and fifty million dollars buys you a lot of teachers.”

Ah, the old “we’re doing it for the children” gambit. The same gambit was employed in Florida in support of casino gambling. It didn’t turn out that way. Casino money didn’t “fix education” as politicians promised. In fact, the state wound up spending less money on education after legalizing casino gambling than it did before.

Folks look, this whole thing is a political shell game.

Licensing and taxing gambling is an easy out for every lilly-livered politician who refuses to make tough political and budgetary decisions. And it perpetuates the illusion that you can get something for nothing.

Since support for state-sponsored gambling is a way to avoid hard truths, you are unlikely to hear this. Likewise, you are unlikely to hear that lottery revenues are the most regressive of taxes, since the poor spend a larger proportion of their income on gambling. You also won’t hear about the social and personal costs associated with gambling, including crime, family breakdown, and on and on — up to $10,000 a year for each compulsive gambler.

So let’s be honest: As Alan Mallach of the Brookings Institution put it, “every dollar dropped into a slot machine is a dollar not spent on something else.” It’s taking money away from things like groceries and child support.

None of these arguments are new: state-sponsored gambling has always been a sucker’s bet, which makes the newest rush to expand it, well, insanity.

Those are tough words, but regrettably, true words.

On December 9, 2009 in a major address entitled, “Human Rights Agenda for the 21^st Century,” Secretary of State Clinton said people “must be free to worship, associate, and to love in the way that they choose.”

Did you catch that? In one sentence, little noticed at the time, Mrs. Clinton showed the Administration’s true priorities. In one fell swoop, she changed our God-given right to freedom of religion, a public act, to a much more restricted “freedom of worship,” a private act, which any Chinese official could go along with. And at the same time, Mrs. Clinton, speaking for the administration, elevated the quote “right to love in the way they choose” as a fundamental human right.

Lest you think I’m overreacting to an isolated statement, the intervening years have amply borne out my concerns.

Freedom of worship has been substituted for freedom of religion in speech after speech by administration officials. Just last month, the Secretary told a gathering of diplomats that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” She also said the “most challenging issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens.” As I mentioned before on BreakPoint, this is a disastrous foreign policy. African nations are already up in arms, and it certainly isn’t going to help us with Muslim nations, who view U.S. advocacy for homosexuality as proof of Western decadence.

Not to be outdone, President Obama told a pro-gay-rights group, “Every single American—gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender—every single American deserves to be treated equally before the law.”

Does that include marriage? Well, the President’s secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, has just said that he “absolutely” supports same-sex marriage. The Administration has already refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. And before the EEOC, officials have said in a contest “between religious liberty and sexual liberty,” sexual liberty triumphs

Can you see where all this is headed?

But how, you might ask, does elevating so-called LGBT rights actually threaten religious rights? Well, as Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has said, framing homosexual marriage as a civil right equates those who oppose it with those who practice either “intentional or willfully ignorant racial discrimination.”

Dolan is predicting “a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions.” Friends, no one wants to oppress gays, but what happens to Christians’ right to practice our religion, which does not allow us to accept “gay marriage”?

That’s why I am urging you, and everyone you know, to sign the Manhattan Declaration, which takes a bold stand for religious freedom and traditional marriage. Do it today, ManhattanDeclaration.org.

Now the Administration has announced it will not expand exemptions for religiously affiliated organizations when it comes to insurance. So a Catholic hospital, for instance, will be forced to purchase insurance for its employees that would provide free contraception and sterilization services.

Now, in case you didn’t know, the Catholic Church teaches that using artificial contraception or undergoing sterilization are grave sins. The government has now said, “Tough.”

Even the liberal Washington Post sees this for what it is: a restriction of religious freedom. Its lead editorial called the Administration’s decision “wrong.”

Perhaps the Administration was feeling benevolent because it delayed the implementation of the insurance mandate for a year.

Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan wasn’t feeling the love. He rightly fumed: “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” Dolan said that “to force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. . . Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.”

Folks, I’ve been warning for more than a year now that the Administration is constricting religious liberty bit by bit. It has abandoned any defense of traditional marriage. It is promoting gay rights abroad at the expense of religious rights. And I’ve documented that the Administration, beginning with Secretary of State Clinton, has intentionally used the phrase “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion,” implying that one’s faith is a private matter — and that exercising that faith in public is not a protected right.

Well, if the Administration’s latest move isn’t proof of that, I don’t know what will be.

Now, to all my evangelical brethren who may be wondering why I’m making so much of this — after all, the vast majority of evangelicals don’t have a problem with contraception — I will say this: Which of our religious convictions will we be forced to abandon one day? Will our religiously affiliated groups be forced to hire people who oppose our faith? Will the government force a curriculum upon our schools and homeschoolers? Just a few years ago these possibilities seemed crazy. Now, they seem very real.

I’m reminded of the famous saying of German pastor Martin Niemoeller, referring to the horrors of Nazi Germany:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I
did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did
not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was
no one left to speak for me.”

Folks, all Christians speak out against this latest attack — and every attack — on religious liberty. Please, I plead with you, sign — and get your friends to sign — the Manhattan Declaration in support of religious liberty. Do it today at ManhattanDeclaration.org.

Because pretty soon no one will be left to speak out for us.

Just before Christmas, the National Institutes of Health made three more lines of embryonic stem cells eligible for federal funding.

Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that a month before, a major private company decided that there was no profit in embryonic stem cell research?

You see, in November, the drug company Geron announced that it would be abandoning its embryonic stem cell research program. Geron was a leader in the embryonic stem cell field, the first company to be approved to run trials with these stem cells.

Geron’s particular project — treating spinal cord injuries — was incredibly ambitious, and Geron’s willingness to spend money on it showed a seemingly unshakeable faith in the power of embryonic stem cells.

So why did Geron abandon the trial? I wish I could say that it was for ethical reasons, but that is not the case.

Its decision was due to the hard facts of economics: There’s no market for a product that doesn’t work! As you probably know, for years we’ve been told that the use of embryonic stem cells, which destroy human embryos — that is, people — will lead to miracle cures for all kinds of diseases and conditions. The problem for embryonic stem cell advocates is that they failed to produce a single cure.

Geron’s decision shows that private companies will not put funds into something which has no possibility of profit. Drug companies all the time spend billions because they know it will pay when they get the results. But the cold economic reality here was that Geron had to abandon embryonic stem cells research because it isn’t economically viable.

But economic reality is clearly no barrier to the federal government, which barely a month later decided to make more taxpayer funds available for this ethically barbaric and ultimately unprofitable line of research. Scientists want the money to do research whether there is any payoff at the end or not.

Never mind that adult stem cells, which are produced without the destruction of embryos, are continuing to show promise and are already being used to treat over 70 diseases and medical conditions. Just this year, a team of UCLA researchers showed they can be used to engineer blood cells that could attack skin cancer. They hope this discovery will lead to treatments of other types of cancer as well. And a firm in Israel has recently started using them to slow the progress of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

All of this goes to show that we can care for the sick and suffering and use the best science to help them without destroying other lives, as embryonic stem cell research does. Scientific advancement and the sacredness of human life don’t have to stand opposed to each other.

But when it looks like they do, we are right to stand for the sanctity of life.

Scientific knowledge can change, of course – in fact, it does so all the time. But the fact that human lives are precious and made in the image of God will never change. And when we ignore that, it seems like the science and even the economics don’t work out very well.

And for those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life, and the Imago Dei being implanted in every human being, these 39 years have been full of frustration and anguish in our so-far unsuccessful efforts to overturn Roe.

Adding insult to injury, the Obama administration is seeking to increase access to abortion through the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — otherwise known as ObamaCare. According to CitizenLink, “Under ObamaCare regulations, insurance policies would be required to cover free to women all contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and reproductive counseling methods that the Food and Drug Administration has approved.”

Knowing all this, it would be easy to get discouraged. But I’m not, and you shouldn’t be, either. First of all, as Christians we believe in the sovereignty of God. So despair is a sin! Never despair!

Secondly, the pro-lifer cause is gaining tremendous ground in the states. Let me list just some of the signs of progress. According to Americans United for Life (AUL) five states have reacted to ObamaCare by restricting insurance coverage of abortion: Florida, Idaho, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Good start.

In addition, more than 30 states have either introduced or are laying the groundwork to introduce an opt-out bill as soon as their legislative calendars allow. Many have already passed such legislation like Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi.

Meanwhile, AUL sees “an unprecedented level of pro-life activity in the states,” with 70 pro-life bills passed in 2011. In all, pro-lifers in 47 states got their legislators to consider 460 bills, and they’re keeping the pressure on daily.

In Kansas, pro-life lawmakers are seeking to bolster legal protections for doctors, pharmacists, and other health-care providers opposed to abortions or abortion-inducing drugs. These legislators hope to block even indirect taxpayer support for abortion.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich signed four bills into law last year that either put additional restrictions on abortion or benefited the pro-life movement. Says Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, “Never in the history of the pro-life movement have we had so many legislative measures enacted in one year.”

These Ohio laws prohibit public hospitals from performing abortions and ban abortion coverage in the insurance plans of local public employees. Pro-life college groups now cannot be denied use of school funds or facilities. Kasich also signed a law that makes it harder for minors to get abortions without parental consent. And the polls continue to show us gaining in public support.

Okay, folks, 2011 was a good year for the pro-life cause. And no, we haven’t overturned Roe v. Wade — yet. And we face entrenched interests that will fight us tooth and nail. But that’s because the tide is turning!

So even as we mark 39 years of abortion on demand, hang in there! And keep fighting the good fight.

During his Birmingham civil rights campaign, Dr. King required every participant to sign a pledge committing to do ten things. The first was to “meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.” Others included the expectation that all participants would “walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love;” and “pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.”

To truly understand Martin Luther King, students must learn about his Christian faith. It was at the heart of what he did.

This year, something else worth celebrating happens to fall on the same day as Martin Luther King Day, and it’s a perfect fit. Every year since 1993, the President proclaims January 16 to be Religious Freedom Day and asks the nation to celebrate its religious liberty. It is the anniversary of the passage in 1786 of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was drafted by Thomas Jefferson.

The men who drafted the Constitution leaned heavily on Jefferson’s statute in establishing the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. Today, it is more important than ever that we remind ourselves of that protection.

Since Martin Luther King Day and Religious Freedom Day fall on the same day this year, it is a perfect time for schools to help students connect the dots between Martin Luther King’s fight for civil rights and the freedom of religious expression in America. Dr. King’s call for justice was guided by his religious convictions and the liberty to act on those convictions.

You’ve heard me say often that religious freedom is coming under increasing assault in this country. It’s one reason I and others drafted and signed the Manhattan Declaration, which has been signed by half a million people. The Declaration specifically cites Dr. King’s magnificent “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” in which he taught that “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.” An unjust law, however, “is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law,” and therefore has no binding power over human conscience.

It’s vital that every church defend freedom of religion, the bulwark of all of our freedoms. Tell your church leaders about the Manhattan Declaration and about Religious Freedom Day. Ask them to talk to your congregation about the importance of religious liberty. In fact, devote a sermon to it!

You can also help clear up some of the confusion over religious liberty in our public schools. Students can pray in school. They can read the Bible.

Be sure your church celebrates Religious Freedom Day — there’s no better way to honor the legacy of Dr. King.

The lie was simply this: that the political parties have to choose between social issues and economic issues. This year, the media and the party machines are telling us ad nauseam that the only issue that matters is the economy.

So any candidate who wants to win the White House should just shut up about things like marriage, the sanctity of life, religious liberty, and those other annoying issues that distract us from focusing on jobs and the economy.

But that’s crazy! Doesn’t anybody get the connection between the social issues and economics issues?

One candidate who does, Rick Santorum, had the courage to link the two in a recent Iowa town hall meeting. (And before I go on, please, folks, I’m not endorsing him or anyone. I never do.)

Here’s what Senator Santorum said:

“Yes, [the election is] about growth and the economy, [but] it’s also about what is at the core of our country . . . faith and family. You can’t have a strong economy, you can’t have limited government if the family is breaking down and we don’t live good, moral, and decent lives.”

Precisely right. And what does he get for his remarks? Backhanded compliments for his showing in Iowa and a stern warning from, among others, the conservative National Review:

Here’s what the National Review wrote online: “In a general election…where the focus is almost certainly going to be on economic issues, it is questionable whether Santorum’s relentless focus on social issues will play well with independent voters, especially in the crucial suburbs.”

Hogwash. If the nation’s current economic crisis has taught us anything, it’s that a healthy economy cannot thrive in the midst of moral breakdown. Ethical failures on Wall Street, Main Street, and Capitol Hill put us into this mess we’re in today, as I’ve said many times before.

But how about some facts? Take incarceration rates: something Santorum has alluded to and I’ve seen with my own eyes: “Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families.” And “70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes.”

How about education? Seventy-one percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. And children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes.

I could go on and on.

Do you think that crime rates, incarceration, low educational achievement, out of wedlock births, affect the economy and government spending? Of course they do, and the statistics prove this!

If you want a healthy, thriving economy you’ve got to have a strong moral societal foundation. And any so-called “conservatives” who think otherwise are simply deluding themselves; the two issues simply can’t be separated

As Christians, we can’t buy into the lie that we can separate economic prosperity from moral behavior. And we can’t be afraid to hold the candidates’ feet to the fire on this, either.

And it happens every year. But even as we cringed watching the mayhem, we also found ourselves listening to news reports hoping that strong sales would boost our struggling economy.

Well, something I heard from my colleague John Stonestreet in his marvelous daily radio commentary, “The Point,” really made sense. According to John, “Measuring our economy based on what we buy is flawed, and here’s why: it doesn’t get to the core of what really makes us human.”

A proper economy, that leads to true human flourishing, must be based on a proper understanding of human beings, human happiness, and human behavior.

Misunderstanding what makes us human was the fatal flaw of communism. And it was the reason that it not only failed to bring its promised utopian society, but was so destructive to human life in the twentieth century and continues to be today.

Karl Marx saw human beings as nothing more than consumers of resources. And he saw human history as nothing more than the struggle over those resources between the haves and the have-nots.

But that’s not true, and while Americans don’t think of themselves as communists, our free market system has been corrupted by the same flawed fundamental premise.

What the annual Black Friday mayhem reveals is that we, too, think of ourselves primarily as consumers. In fact, our capitalism has somewhat degenerated into consumerism. We live to shop, and yet in a month, as John Stonestreet wrote in the Point, “the credit card bills will come, the boredom will set in, and the suicide rates will spike, just like this time last year.” Why? Because we think more stuff is what it’s all about, but we know it’s not.

A Biblical worldview begins with a different and better assumption about human beings. That we were designed in God’s image, the Imago Dei, and tasked to care for, steward, and cultivate the created order.

We certainly consume to survive. But, bearing His image, we were created to produce, to innovate and invest, to pour into others, to seek to improve things. That’s the free market at its best, but it requires that we form the character to desire creating above consuming, that we delay gratification and think of the welfare of future generations. And that character is in short supply these days.

An entitlement mentality has infected how we see our lives. We’ve seen the result: crushing personal and national debt, and a growing state to accommodate all of our demands.

It just doesn’t work folks. And it won’t make us happy. Because we were made in the Imago Dei, the Image of God, instead of asking, “What can we buy?” we need to ask, “What can we create?”