Journalist and author Mark Judge is now teaming up with director Paul Moon to make a documentary about Chambers’ compelling and historic life.

“It’s a film that needs to be made for the same reasons that the works of Dante, St. Augustine and William F. Buckley (a friend of Chambers) need to be preserved,” Judge said. “America’s public schools and academia are certainly not interested in remembering the man who revealed Soviet espionage in the United States government.”

Judge and Moon’s project, “The Story of Whittaker Chambers,” is currently competing for recognition and support at Indiewire.com. Each day Indiewire picks a “Project of the Day” to feature, and every week readers vote for one project to consult with an independent film website like SnagFilms or IndieGoGo. These “Project of the Week” winners compete to be the “Project of the Month,” and the winner gets to consult with the Sundance Institute, which runs the esteemed Sundance Film Festival. Voting is today, and it’s free. To support “The Story of Whittaker Chambers,” visit http://apps.facebook.com/my-polls/pomzh4m to vote.

And here’s a poignant and applicable quote from Chambers that should resonate today: “Economics is not the central problem of this century. It is a relative problem which can be solved in relative ways. Faith is the central problem of this age.”

CMI fellow Erin Brown writes, “Even our ‘tolerant’ Federal government is playing the Grinch card this year. According to FoxNews.com, ‘A group of Christmas carolers was thrown out of a U.S. Post Office in Silver Spring, MD, after the post office manager told them they were not allowed to sing Christmas carols on government property.’”

Brown documents a long series of attacks over the last couple of years, as well as the reactions of numerous liberal media types that ignore or mock the war on Christmas.

“These days, the war on Christmas is fought by the Christian right … [Catholic League President] William Donahue and Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, traditional combatants in the war on Christmas, have trained their Yuletide guns on someone, not for railing out put the Christ back in Christmas, but for failing to worship Santa Claus,” Keith Olbermann accused on his old MSNBC show “Countdown” in November of last year.

If you’re not convinced that there’s a war on Christmas, check out the page, and a few of the attacks it documents:

“In upstate New York, one school district has declared that ‘Christmas and Hanukkah will no longer be celebrated in classrooms.’ According to FOX/WROC, The Batavia City School District will no longer allow decorations for either holiday to appear in classrooms as well as teachers are discouraged from writing or saying ‘Merry Christmas.’ In Fairfax County, Va., grade-schoolers are treated to ‘winter celebration.’ In Texas, another school district has declared war on Christmas – this time, classrooms are not allowed to celebrate Santa Claus or exchange gifts.”

Some attacks on Christmas are downright weird. The Huffington Post has the Skeleton Santa story, which Brown also documents in her article.

Thankfully, this hopeful time of year isn’t built on the backs of Christmas displays shimmering on lawns and in storefronts. It’s founded on the birth of hope: Christ Jesus our Lord.

One of the most daunting obstacles to adoption is its up-front cost, which can be as much as $40,000 per child. Although the federal adoption tax credit is very helpful, it does not cover what can be, for families of ordinary means, a great financial challenge.

It’s for that reason that the adoption ministry Lifesong (a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability) has set-up a program to help churches develop adoption funds. An adoption fund is a designated line-item in a church’s budget that helps church members pay for their adoption costs, either through a direct financial gift or low-or no-interest loan. As the beneficiaries of one such fund, my wife and I are eternally grateful for the generosity and selflessness of God’s people in helping us adopt our three children.

This creative ministry is designed to fulfill one of the greatest elements of the Gospel — to love those in need for the sake of, and in the power of, Jesus Christ. No one better fits that description than orphaned children who need a loving Christian home. Lifesong provides a great way of meeting a great need.

To learn more about adoption and related ministries, go to FRC’s www.RealCompassion.org, through which you can link to many organizations helping children at home and abroad.

The New Testament also claims that He was eternal God in the flesh, the Savior of the world Whose atoning death and justifying resurrection are the basis of the redemption of all who will trust in Him for forgiveness.

These propositions are striking enough without the other claims being made about Jesus in the political world, which are many.  Consider some recent headlines:

“Occupy London are true followers of Jesus, even if they despise religion”

“What Would Jesus Drive?”
“Best-selling socialist publication of all time remains the Bible”

“Jesus was a Communist” – new movie by Matthew Modine,

“From Jesus’ Socialism to Capitalist Christianity,”

“Marx, Capitalism, and Jesus”

“What Would Jesus Hack?”

“Was Jesus an Early Applied Economist?”

For the record: Jesus affirmed the right to own property and encouraged honest labor.  Several of the disciples were in a fishing business that included ownership of several boats, indicating that they were appropriately ambitious and hard-working (Luke 5:11).

Also, it is a tribute to Jesus’ enduring, penetrating, and inescapable power that political philosophers, economists, and even entertainers are so eager to nab Him for their agendas.

However, my point is not to get into a discussion about Jesus and His teachings concerning business, taxes, or economics generally.  Rather, it is this: Should we not summon the moral courage to deal with His overt and profound claims before we wander off into asking if He would drive a Prius, or if He would support budget reductions?  At what point do such musings become trivial, even irreverent?

It is wholly honorable to consider the implications of living a Christ-filled life in contemporary times.  Yet the effort to claim Jesus for an ideological agenda or to capture Him as some kind of pre-Marxian redistributionist is ludicrous in itself, and also keeps us from the main issue: Was He the God-Man, the Lord of all, filled with grace and truth, or, as one writer has put it, “just a carpenter gone bad?”

Shouldn’t we be asking the main questions first?  Remember, Jesus never said, “Follow Me, and become a socialist.”  Rather, His question was, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15).

What’s your answer?

Don’t Christians understand the Bible on this issue? According to a Gallup poll quoted by Relevant, 76% of Evangelicals have a clear Biblical understanding on this issue. Or, to reverse the data, 24% of Evangelicals are alright with premarital sex.

Is the data really shocking though? In a world where nothing is sacred, and where what used to be considered sacred is now fodder for ridicule via every form of entertainment and media, why should the sanctity of marriage be considered any different? Young adults have grown up in an “MTV” world, where sexuality is glorified in television shows like “Skins” and where one cannot buy groceries without being confronted by magazine covers taunting chastity.

One professor quoted by Relevant says that a major sociological difference that contributes to (but does not excuse) the growing statistic of pre-marital sex is the average age of marriage. He compares Biblical arranged marriages of early adolescents to the current average ages of 28.1 for men and 26.1 for women. I posit that this temptation is not a modern one: Paul addresses it in 1 Cor. 7:8-9. Instead, it can be argued that adults ages 18-29 have grown up in an “instant gratification” society, where patience is no longer a virtue. This is even understood and glorified by secular society, as exemplified by the Black Eyed Peas song “Now Generation” with lyrics like “I just can’t wait, I need it immediately.”

Merge the two contributing factors of an over-sexualized society, along with a generation craving instant gratification, and it is no surprise that young adults are engaging in pre-marital sex more than ever. What we need is an Evangelical culture that not only volitionally is against pre-marital sex, but practices what is preached. The church needs to restore that which is sacred, encourage young adults to stay pure, and exemplify purity to the secular world. Eighty percent of young Evangelicals is eighty percent too much.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks posits that it is the breakdown of the family and, even more fundamentally, a turning away from its Judeo-Christian faith, that has created a moral crisis in the West of which the London riots are a symptom.

I do not agree with everything he says (when he calls the rioters “victims” and says it’s “not their fault,” that is a bridge too far for me), but his broader argument for the moral reinvigoration that a return to religion can bring to society, and its necessity in bringing about a common good, is persuasive.

An interesting quote from the end of the piece:

One of our great British exports to America, Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, has a fascinating passage in his recent book “Civilization,” in which he asks whether the West can maintain its primacy on the world stage or if it is a civilization in decline.

He quotes a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tasked with finding out what gave the West its dominance. He said: At first we thought it was your guns. Then we thought it was your political system, democracy. Then we said it was your economic system, capitalism. But for the last 20 years, we have known that it was your religion.

The New Holy Wars proposes that at their cores, both environmentalism and Western economic theory are informed by Judeo-Christian beliefs. However, the theological underpinnings of these disciplines have been “remapped” to form secular versions of Christianity. Taking this a step further, Nelson argues that the clash of these two competing secular religions represents the “most important religious controversy” in America today. It is a startling proposition for which Nelson presents a convincing case. By framing the environmental debate in spiritual terms he makes sense of the intensity with which both sides promote their worldviews. At the same time The New Holy Wars digs beyond the rhetoric to unearth those presuppositions which are essential to understanding both sides of the debate.

Perhaps most intriguing is Nelson’s treatment of environmentalism. Nelson argues what few practitioners are willing to admit—the environmentalist worldview is very much a religious one.   With clarity and perception he explores the Protestant (specifically Calvinist) underpinnings of the movement. Pointing back to the writings of John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Jonathan Edwards, The New Holy Wars shows how key components of Calvinism have been transformed under the guise of environmentalism. Nelson illustrates how the movement’s jargon speaks volumes about its philosophical commitments. Steeped in the language of moral urgency, human depravity, individualism, and asceticism that marked much of the early reformed tradition, environmentalism is not unlike its more traditional religious counterparts. But Nelson is careful not to take the association too far. When Jonathan Edwards looked upon the Book of Nature he was awed by God’s glorious and omnipotent hand in creation. In marked contrasted, John Muir responded to the same beauty with transcendentalist adoration that bordered on pantheism. For Muir and the descendents of his preservationist movement, Nature became the ultimate recipient of their worship. And herein lies what Nelson recognizes to be a serious flaw in environmental theology: its failure to offer an adequate substitute for the “loving and redeeming Christian God” who had been lost.

While The New Holy Wars does not offer a solution to the economic-environmental debate, it does provide significant insight into the issue. Nelson’s stimulating case for the role religion plays in the economic and environmental philosophies dominating current public policy is bound to challenge his readers. Those seeking to equip themselves for today’s challenges should pay heed to Robert Nelson’s work.

According to the survey, the “G.I. Generation,” those ages 74 and older are more than 50% likely to go online to look up religious information among other things, like email or social networking.  Compared to the “G.I. Generation,” the other groups surveyed were less than 50% likely to go online for the same information.  This demographic did not change over time either.

On the other hand, donations to charity remain at less than 50% likelihood across the generations.  The statistics on giving were constant without any noticeable increases, and this can be attributed to the current economic climate.

Overall, the results from this survey are not surprising, since there is a generational shift towards social networking.

What was the teacher’s offense? Apparently, the teacher threatened a student with detention if she refused—as she repeatedly did—to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher sent the student to the counselor’s office for her refusal to stand.

The ACLU immediately invoked the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). That case is often cited as a hallmark of American civil liberties, especially remarkable because it was handed down while the United States was engaged in a world war to defend democracy.

But the Court in 1943 said that students cannot be required to salute the flag or recite the Pledge. That was quite right.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

The Court did not say that students could not be required to stand quietly while other students recited the Pledge of Allegiance. If we stop for a moment, we can all readily agree that it would be wrong to require, for instance, the children of legal resident aliens to pledge their allegiance to our flag. In the famed 1943 case, the parents of the children who declined to take part in the flag salute and pledge were Jehovah’s Witnesses. These people had a religious conviction that led them to regard pledging allegiance to the flag as a violation of the Commandment against making graven images. We should not force these students to violate their consciences.

We are constantly told by liberals that the purpose of education is to prepare young people to take part in today’s complex and multi-cultural society. Does it? Surely, anyone attending a baseball game at Baltimore’s Camden Yards between a Canadian team and the home team is familiar with the two national anthems that are played. O Canada and The Star-Spangled Banner are both sung. What are Americans expected to do during the playing of the Canadian national anthem? Just stand silently and to show respect. It’s the civil and neighborly thing to do.

There’s rich historical irony in this, too. For the words of United States’ national anthem were composed at nearby Ft. McHenry during the War of 1812. Those “rockets’ red glare” and “bombs bursting in air” were weapons of our British enemies. And the Canadians’ national anthem contains this line: “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.”

Against whom exactly were the Canadians standing guard? Hint: It wasn’t moose or polar bears. It was us. The Americans repeatedly had failed repeatedly to invade and conquer Canada when it was a British colony. But now, Americans and Canadians are the best of friends. We stand politely for each other’s national anthems, which may be the only two such anthems in the world that are actually written against each other.

Is the Montgomery County school case too trivial to merit national attention? No. It illustrates how classroom discipline and American patriotism are under constant assault by the ACLU. Our tax dollars are funding this radical outfit. Thomas Jefferson said “to require a man to provide contributions of money for the propagation of opinions he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” Surely, the fact that the ACLU uses our tax money against us is a gross violation of our rights.

Does it matter? John Walker Lindh is currently sitting in federal prison. He is the so-called American Taliban who was convicted of fighting against Americans in Afghanistan. Young Lindh was educated in Montgomery County Public Schools. Was he taught anything about why he should be loyal to his country? Why jihadism is a threat to all our rights? I seriously doubt it. By punishing a teacher who simply tried to give students the opportunity to express their patriotism and support for our country during a time of war, the Montgomery County public schools are doing nothing to avoid future American Talibans.

• “High Court Takes Up Case of Cross on Public Land,” Associated Press
• “Texas Battle on Gay Marriage Looms,” James C. McKinley, Jr., The New York Times
• “Gays and lesbians set to march on D.C. after months of Obama disappointment,” Lee-Anne Goodman, The Canadian Press
• “Md. university system devising policy on student displays of porn films,” Childs Walker, The Baltimore Sun
• “Pro-lifers want Calif. abortion mill investigated,” Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow
• “Campaign Launched to Protect Christians from U.N. Resolution,” Ethan Cole, The Christian Post
• “Russia Court Throws Out Lesbian Couple Marriage Request,” Reuters
• “Capitol Christmas tree controversy,” Marcia Segelstein, WORLD Magazine